To avoid misunderstandings, I first give a simple description of how I understand and use some key concepts.
The Value Drive Theory explains human emotions which is the most important part of our motivation. It also explains emotions in mammals. It also explains how AGI, Artificial General Intelligence, can be created.
By motivation is meant what drives a person’s thoughts, feelings and actions. This can be a number of factors that work both indirectly and directly. It is not the purpose of this blog to describe them. I’m thinking of hunger, sexual feelings, thirst, temperature, use of muscles, rest, sleep and so on. These are so-called sensations.
By emotions I mean love, hate, aggression, nervousness, joy, grief and so on. This is what my blog is about. How these are made. There are lots of different emotions and I’ll explain every one.
The word feelings is very vague so I try to avoid it. I use it sometimes to mean sensation.
Drive is another word for motivation. Something that causes thoughts and actions.
Logic is a tool of the brain. Logic doesn’t control us or mean anything to motivation. Logic isn’t the reason we do anything. We want that cookie. Logic helps us get to it the best way we can figure out.
Emo-labels. The human brain is a labeling machine that uses the value drive to connect information with emotional labels and store that as what I call “emo-labels”. It uses those emo-labels to help us feel our way through life.
The Value Drive Theory 