[LOCKSUIT]

Hi Mike, thanks for responding.

Survival is a drive and the bonding you refer too has Dependency as an underlying motivation for the instantiation of the relationship. I would agree that dependency often exists in bonded relationships, but it doesn't have to be and those that are can be fragile and that violates the durability factor.

Everything we do is based on a reward and frequency (sees it lots) and other pattern holders (like frequency) that cause it to be likely you will be doing X. Yes seeing someone open a door using their toes will cause you to do it if seen enough! Very evident if 4 years old and not much competing memories! So, using a laser beam pen, or a hammer, or being with a partner and hugging them up is all based and stimulated on those; reward/ frequency...based on those yes. Even the things like hammering nails and video games, it is yes. Reward and frequency etc is exactly how AIs predict correctly, and also how they survive. Frequency itself is a repetition - it 'means' survival and causes it. So does reward like food and breeding. If I write my message enough you will pass it on like a virus even.

A simple way to see AI work by frequency is this: If the word 'down' comes often after 'walking' instead of 'away' then AI will predict it more often walking>down and less often will predict walking>away. That's a very basic starter idea how GPT-3 works.

[DaltonG]

Bonding as a Preference

On the subject of bonding, I was surprised to discover that this intelligent ai groups understanding of bonding differed in significant ways from mine. It's been a while since I posted on this subject and I've had time to ponder the topic for quite a while (unconsciously). I now realize that bonding is a product of Preferences and it is my opinion that preferences stem from genetic predispositions (in that we don't seem to consciously chose to prefer one thing over another). Preferences seem to come fully formed as innate biases. Those members of this forum who responded to my previous posts equated Bonding as an affect level within the core emotion Love. If I'm right about Bonding being kin to preference, then the experience of love related to it is more a byproduct of bonding than an actual affect.

As a preference, bonding will have a genetic foundation which can be translated into physical mechanisms that instantiate, perpetuate, and express the relationship with a corresponding target. As the result of this perspective on the subject, I can now see how the potential can exist at the Iconic feature collection level as dormant bias connections awaiting a trigger to activate it (oxytosin). I can see how evolutionary constrains what can be and applies forces that conspire to perpetuate certain phenotypical traits and eliminate those traits that are less successful in providing survival. As usual, evolution works its magic through survival and reproduction in a hostile environment.

Preferences are expressed through attraction and repulsion, and they may exist in hierarchies among related members. In the case of bonding, we are talking about relationships between individuals. If we are predisposed to be attracted to certain feature sets and that attraction occurs automatically at unconscious levels, then there has to be perception of phenotypical signals at the subliminal level. Enter Symmetry! Symmetry offers a perceptual yard stick that takes advantage of the bilateral structure of human physiology equating the degree of symmetry with survival.

Symmetrical signals/traits can be found in most all modalities, not just visual elements. As I said, detection of symmetry is for the most part automatic and unconscious, a product of comparison between bilateral sensory inputs. As the result, detection is made at the highest resolution supported by the sensorium. As input signals are propagated through to comparison buffers, pattern matching between the bilateral inputs serves to provide a high level of discrimination. Differences can stand out as errors, summed to test against a threshold, and propagate an appropriate behavioral response (attraction/avoidance). 

Such feature collections are internalized, broadcasted to cortical resources (priming) devoted to the modalities being attended and in focus. If a pair of feature collectors representing a given preference wins the competition (winner-takes-all), and the interaction between itself and the source results in a positive response, a short term oxytosin flow may activate the dormant synaptic connections to instantiate a bonded relationship for that particular feature collector cell. Instantiaion from this point on follows the conventional activation of resources in both the Indexical and Symbolic levels of LTMs. Further positive interactions between self and target may solidify/crystallize bonding with associative links.

Failure to experience a positive response between self and qualifying target reduces the experience to a simple transitory episodic memory (no oxytosin).

Getting back to preferences and their genetic foundations, there are a lot of symmetrical feature sets that differ, but still possess enough qualities to enable survival. The gene pool is huge and includes (as an imperative) a diversity of predispositions that vary preferences within a population.