title: The Fifth Influence
creator: Cabanac, Michel
creator: Cabanac, Remi A.
creator: Hammel, Harold T.
subject: Behavioral Analysis
subject: Behavioral Neuroscience
subject: Animal Behavior
subject: Animal Cognition
subject: Behavioral Biology
subject: Ecology
subject: Ethology
subject: Evolution
subject: Biophysics
subject: Theoretical Biology
subject: Artificial Intelligence
subject: Complexity Theory
subject: Evolutionary Psychology
subject: Neuropsychology
subject: Perceptual Cognitive Psychology
subject: Decision Theory
subject: Philosophy of Mind
subject: Philosophy of Science
subject: Physiological Psychology
subject: Psychobiology
description: This article is a theoretical consideration on the role of sensory pleasure and mental joy as optimizers of behavior. It ends with an axiomatic proposal. When they compare the human body to its environment, Philosophers recognise the cosmos as the Large Infinite, and the atomic particles as the Small Infinite. The human brain reaches such a degree of complexity that it may be considered as a third infinite in the universe, a Complex Infinite. It follows that any force capable of moving such an infinite deserves a place among the forces of the universe. Physicists have recognized four forces, the gravitational, the electromagnetic, the weak, and the strong nuclear force. Forces are defined in four dimentions (reversible or not in time) and it is postulated that these forces are valid and applicable everywhere. Pleasure and displeasure, the affective axis of consciousness, can move the infinitely complex into action and no human brain can avoid the trend to maximize its pleasure. Therefore, we suggest, axiomatically, that the affective capability of consciousness operates in a way similar to the four forces of the Physics, i.e. influences the behavior of conscious agents in a way similar to the way the four forces influence masses and particles. However, since a mental phenomenon is dimensioneless we propose to call the affective capability of consciousness the fifth influence rather than the fifth force.
publisher: ISSS, CD-ROM
date: 1999
type: Conference Paper
type: NonPeerReviewed
format: application/postscript
identifier: http://cogprints.org/183/2/5th.ps
identifier:   Cabanac, Michel and Cabanac, Remi A. and Hammel, Harold T.  (1999) The Fifth Influence.  [Conference Paper]     
relation: http://cogprints.org/183/