1.7 Emotion Cascades

Some habits are much more difficult to cure or change than others are. Hence a struggle may often be observed in animals between different instincts, or between an instinct and some habitual disposition; as when a dog rushes after a hare, is rebuked, pauses, hesitates, pursues again, or returns ashamed to his master; or as between the love of a female dog for her young puppies and for her master,—for she may be seen to slink away to them, as if half ashamed of not accompanying her master. —Charles Darwin, in The Descent of Man

This chapter has raised some questions about how people could change their states so much. When someone you know has fallen in love, it's almost as though a switch had been thrown, and a different program has started to run.

The Resource-Cloud image suggests that such a change could result when a certain “Selector” excites (or suppresses) a certain large set of resources. Thus Charles’s attraction to Celia becomes stronger when all his fault–finding Critics turn off.

• Psychologist: Indeed, infatuations sometimes strike suddenly. But other emotions may flow and ebb slowly—and usually, in our later years, our mood-shifts tend to become less abrupt. Thus an adult may be slow to take offense, but may then go on to brood for months on even a small or imagined affront.

Our twenty-year-old tabby-cat shows few signs of human maturity. At one moment she'll be affectionate, and seek out our companionship. But after a time, in the blink of an eye, she'll rise to her feet and walk away, without any sign of saying goodbye—whereas our twelve-year-old canine pet will rarely depart without looking back—as though he’s expressing a certain regret. The cat’s moods seem to show one at a time, but the dog’s dispositions seem more mixed, and less as though controlled by a switch.

In either case, any large change in one’s set of active resources will cause a large change in one’s mental state. One way this could happen would be for a certain resource to directly arouse many others:

In this way, the Selectors we mentioned in §1-5 could directly have substantial effects. Furthermore, if the set of newly aroused resources includes one or more other Selector resources, then this will cause a yet larger change, by activating yet more resources. Then these in turn may begin to arouse yet other resources that they need—and if each such change leads to yet several more, this spreading could escalate what we’ll call a large-scale “cascade.”

The further these activities spread, the more they will alter your Way to Think—and if your behavior then changes enough, then your friends might get the impression that you have turned into a different person.

• Critic: That would be an exaggeration, because Charles will still be the very same person. He will still speak the same language and use the same knowledge; he’ll just have some different attitudes.

Of course, those cascades won’t change everything. When Charles adopts a new Way to Think, in many respects he’ll still be the same—because not all his resources will have been replaced. He still will be able to see and hear—but now he’ll perceive things in different ways. And because he now represents them in different ways, he’ll get different ideas about what those things or events might “mean.”

Charles will also still know how to talk—but may now use different styles of speech, and choose different subjects to talk about because, although he still has access to the same knowledge, skills, and memories, now different ones will be retrieved. He still may maintain the same plans and goals—but now they’ll have different priorities. He may still get dressed and go to work—but in some of those states he won’t dress so well. And so far as Charles, himself is concerned, he still has the same identity.

To what extent, then, will Charles be aware of such changes in his mental condition? He sometimes won’t notice those changes at all—but at other times, he may find himself making remarks to himself like, " I am getting angry now." To do this, his brain must have ways to “reflect” on some of its recent activities (for example, by recognizing the spread of some large-scale cascades). Chapter §4 will discuss how such processes could lead to some aspects of what we call “consciousness.”