I bet that whenever we are finally scientifically advanced enough to produce sentient life in the form of robots, that those sentient robots will be a little different than we expect.
We often think of robots that can think for themselves and know that they are alive as still being automatons and being completely emotionally void. Kind of like Robocop for the first part of his (re)existence. But as we all know, Robocop himself could not function without his emotions getting the better of him.
I sometimes think that people really do believe that the highest level of human functioning is devoid of emotion. And if not that, then they think that at least the normal mode of functioning is emotionless. We constantly try to stifle expression of our emotions, especially in public situations. I myself am guilty of this and tried for many years to be as stoic a man as I could be. That led me through some pretty terrible responses to things that had gone on in my life; and shifted me into the position of an uncaring boyfriend, brother, and son.
Two examples of emotional stifling that have come to my attention recently:
I ride on public transportation pretty frequently. If you never have, you should. Everyone sits facing one direction and shows no signs of what is going on in their lives. It’s a real blast! Sure, every now and then you get the guy who actually does open up a little, but most people just think he is crazy. I noticed this the most as I was in England last summer and traveling on some form of public transport almost every day. I would listen to some funny podcasts sometimes and felt embarrassed when I would randomly crack up because of something funny. I even went to lengths to try to hide those outbursts. We have simply made public spaces a haven for emotional restriction. But why? And at what cost?
I have noticed this trend here in Dallas as well on the DART. Everyone just sits and stares or listens to music or reads. I have no problem with that, but where is the joy or mourning that we experience? Why do we feel the need to suppress it?
I believe it was my sophomore year in college during marching band practice. It was a frustrating rehearsal and everyone was up-tight. After one move the band director called the drum line out on something (that most likely really wasn’t our fault), and Michael (our drum line captain at the time) stood up to him and forcefully asserted his stance. Soon, they were yelling at each other. Everyone immediately felt the tension and the first reactions of myself and the drum line instructor were to calm Michael down and stop the yelling. But why?
If you really think about it, Michael’s reaction probably expressed the feelings of just about every other band member who did not have the guts to express themselves (myself included). Also, Michael’s outburst shows that he actually cared about what was going on. He was not content to just sit back and let things continue to be sub-par. True, it was probably also brought about because of many other reasons including pride, but at least he felt something, at least he showed he cared about what we were doing. I’d say a worse reaction would be to just let things drift along while remaining totally removed from the situation.
I have often talked with friends about how much of a shame it is that our first reaction when a baby starts to cry is to get it to stop. This may have good foundations sometimes (i.e. the baby is probably crying because it is uncomfortable), but not so when we carry this mindset out through our lives and always try to comfort people as they cry and do whatever we can to get them to stop crying. Maybe crying is exactly what we need to do. I honestly think that one of my major faults is that I do not cry enough.
I do not mean to imply that we should exist at the whims of our emotions. True, a world in which everyone constantly expressed whatever emotion they were feeling would most likely be a wreck. But do we ever have an opportunity to share? Do we have the communities in place to be open in such a way? And, do we allow a suppression of our emotions to restrict our love of others and eat away at our hearts like termites? Perhaps as we are careful not to act at the whims of our emotions, we should simultaneously be careful to not censor what makes us, us. Both extremes tend to separate us from others, but in our individualistic world, I think the greater threat to true community and true love of others is our lack of transparency as we too cautiously and irrationally guard our hearts.
Take these observations as you will. I just don’t think that our sentient robots would be content without emotion and that they would proceed to find ways to invent emotion for themselves. And we all know where that eventually leads…
Another take on this...
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