Emotion and Cognition, seriously.

Steve Witham (sw@tiac.net)
Wed, 29 Jan 1997 04:07:12 -0500


Anybody seriously interested in the relation of emotion to thought
might look into the work of the cognition-affect people at the
University of Birmingham (UK). Check their various web and ftp
areas (clues below). Probably the right message to
cognition_affect-request@cs.bham.ac.uk will get you announcements
like the following (which confirms my basic prejudices on the issue:
money = resource allocation = value = emotion). Another recent title that
I loved was, "Towards a Computational Libidinal Economy." --Steve

>Date: Mon, 13 Jan 97 15:47:20 GMT
>From: I.P.Wright@cs.bham.ac.uk
>To: cognition_affect@cs.bham.ac.uk
>Subject: new technical report
>
>A new Cognition and Affect technical report is available.
>
>Title: The society of mind requires an economy of mind
>Author(s): Ian Wright and Michel Aube
>Cognitive Science Research Report CSRP-97-6, School of Computer Science,
>University of Birmingham.
>Abstract:
>
>A society of mind will require an economy of mind, that is multi-agent systems
>(MAS) that meet a requirement for the adaptive allocation and reallocation of
>scarce resources will need to use a quantitative universal representation of
>value that mirrors the flow of agent products, much as money is used in simple
>commodity economies. The money-commodity is shown to be an emergent exchange
>convention that serves both to constrain and allow the formation of
>commitments by functioning as an ability to buy processing power. MAS with
>both currency flow and minimally economic agents can adaptively allocate and
>reallocate control relations and scarce resources, in particular labour or
>processing power. The implications of these views are outlined for MAS
>research and cognitive science.
>
>A compressed postscript version may be accessed by anonymous
>ftp from:
>
> ftp://ftp.cs.bham.ac.uk/pub/groups/cog_affect/Wright_Aube_eom.ps.Z
>
>Or via a www browser from:
>
> http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~ipw/mywork.html
>
> (This page also contains a html version.)
>
>Any comments appreciated.
>
>-----------------------------------------------------------------
>Ian Wright email: ipw@cs.bham.ac.uk
>School of Computer Science www: http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~ipw
>University of Birmingham Tel: +44 (0) 121 4143734
>Edgbaston Fax: +44 (0) 121 4144281
>Birmingham B12 2TT, UK

--
sw@tiac.net           Steve Witham            http://www.tiac.net/users/sw
"...the Vild, where the manifold was as dangerous and deranged as a
 Scutari shahzadix in heat." --David Zindell