Simulating Senses in a VR

For the purpose of illustration, i will use SeSAm simulation free-ware to discuss a serious issue
relating to simulating conscious agents. There are 16 simulations provided with SeSAm and one
of them is titled: Emergent Observation. In regards to my previous papers on simulation, this is
most relevant. A description provided follows:
"This model shows a monitoring scenario based on emergent information propagation:
1) Targets move from one side towards the opposite side
2) MovableAgents (Hunters -displayed as black squares) try to catch them.
The sensor range of MovableAgents is limited to a small area around them.
3) To improve the process of catching agents, a third type of agent
(StationaryAgent, displayed as a lighthouse) is placed on fixed locations
in the world. They create information objects whenever a target appears in
their sensor range to lead MovableAgents to the target.
4) These information objects are called "pheromones" according to the biological
inspired implicit communication used in the model. They are drawn as blue
circles (with darker color depending on the strength of the "pheromone")."
(please see attached image)

The 'senses' in this simulation are not really senses as we know them. They are simulated senses
and that means - the Hunter agents do not really perceive the Target agents. In the lower-right
quadrant, one of the Hunters is about to kill/eat one of the Targets. The reason it can kill/eat the
Target is because of the 'pheromones' it released due to proximity to the Lighthouse. So, the
Target got too close to the Lighthouse, it released pheromones, the Hunter 'smelled' it, then
moved in for the kill. But if you look at the code structure for the simulation, you realize there is
no sense of smell there. There are only conditional logic statements that allow/deny a Hunter to
move in for the kill. This creates a serious problem for simulating conscious agents.

Previously, i declared the importance of cross-verifying senses relating to consciousness. Then

for the sake of expediency, i suggested we simulate senses. But if we do not provide our agents
with some resemblance to real human senses, we are effectively creating deaf and blind agents -
expecting them all to miraculously self-awaken themselves like Hellen Keller. She was obviously
a gifted individual who overcame her handicaps with those gifts and determination. So what i'm
saying is that it's unrealistic to expect artificial minds with no given intuition nor inspiration to
overcome any handicaps we might give them from 'birth'. We must provide more realistic senses
to any proto-conscious agents.

Our senses have enormous information throughput capacity - especially our eyes. The sheer
density and volume of the data is boggling. Of course, we can tune-out that information by
simply closing our eyes or falling asleep. So our filtering methods can be simple to quite
sophisticated. These two aspects: capacity and filters - define our senses and how they relate to
consciousness. The key word here is attend. We can widen or narrow the focus of our attention at
will and most times - we do this unconsciously. We tune out: noise, distractions, disturbances,
annoyances,.. and focus on what we care about. Our minds are self-regulating in the sense we
attend to things that matter to us and ignore things that don't.
The real question becomes - how do we reasonably allocate global resources to agents so that
they have some attributes resembling human senses? Do we attempt to give them touch and
hearing because they're simpler than sight? Admittedly, many blind-only humans live self-
sufficient productive lives. (Here, we're ignoring smell and taste as irrelevant to the discussion.)
If we watch the movie Zatoichi or Ichi (both wonderful stories about a blind samurai), we realize
blindness can not only be a handicap - it can sometimes be a gift in the proper situation. Sight
sometimes distracts from the truth of the situation. ;) So .. what should be our expedient course
of action?

There's a serious issue that comes to light at this point. It relates to the information capacity of
our senses. Our ears can 'pick up' noises, sounds, and words. Those words are translated in the
'wet wiring' of our brains into meaningful symbols - into our consciousness. Our agents must
have the capacity, if we give them hearing, to communicate with nearby agents - and - perceive
sounds in the VR: a bucket dropped, a sheep sacrificed, a sheep born,.. Our ears largely verify
what our eyes perceive. This is why i previously insisted that any Acoma fabricated be given at
least two cross-verifying senses .. We're still at the point of trying to find the most expedient set
of senses (those that require the minimum of global resources) while still giving each agent the
minimal capacity we humans enjoy.

i lean against defining this a flexible parameter. If we make the structure of each agent's mind
(the registers and connections) flexible (as suggested in previous papers), we build-in enormous
flexibility into the simulation. Making flexible senses will introduce variety into the simulation
overall, but i suggest we try to create a minimal set mentioned above - for the sake of validity and
feasibility.

One approach to agent vision is the following. Each agent has a prehensile eye. That eye
perceives a subset of the VR. The subset is basically an instantaneous map of a portion of the
VR. That map resides in the agent - as information wholly accessible by that agent.

One approach to agent hearing follows. Each agent has a 'radius of perception' that allows them
to register activity nearby: a bucket dropped, a sheep sacrificed, a sheep born,.. In addition, each
agent must have the capacity to receive/send text messages from/to nearby agents.

The reasoning for making vision limited is because we humans don't have eyes in the back of our
heads. We know that when we turn around full circle, we'll see basically the same scene. So this
is a rule each agent can put into its rule-base: after turning my eye full-circle, i see basically the
same scene.

The reasoning for making both senses limited (vision a subset of the VR and hearing local) is
two-fold: we humans have limited senses - we cannot see 'forever' and hear 'to infinity' - and - i
believe those limits actually help the perceptive process. If we could see and hear into infinity,
that amount of information would be detrimentally distracting to our minds. We may not even
have been able to evolve on this planet with those extended senses. The 'information overload'
may have been prohibitive to our species development. This is clearly speculation on my part but
has some justification in science.. The physical limits imposed on a human infant actually help
that infant develop socially as a human. We learn we cannot perceive and do everything we
desire - we all have limitations. This realization is a critical stage in individual human
development.

i believe we have arrived at a temporary solution to the problem of defining agent senses in a
virtual reality .. i actually remember when i turned around full-circle first time and realized "hey,
it's the same!" ;) No matter how many times i completed the turn, i faced the same reality. Of
course like Buddha, i questioned the validity of my eyes' perceptions: was the reality i faced
actually the same as before? If we discounted the slight bug-movements accrued during the
turning-time, was it really the same reality? Had anything changed but me? The plants
infinitesimally grew/died.. The bugs moved slightly.. i aged/grew very slightly.. What had
actually changed? In mathematics, any function that returns multiple values is actually not a valid
function. So inverse trigonometric functions are actually not strictly functions. This mimics my
dilemma described above .. The question of 'what is time?' resided in my mind since then.. Very
practically speaking, time is 'what is required for events to occur' .. But that answer is extremely
unsatisfactory for conventional physicists. They speculate that time may be invertible so that
almost all physical processes can be reversed. My take on time is that it is the summary
characteristic which explains: matter, gravitation, the nuclear strong force, relativistic time
dilation, and gravitational time dilation. i propose that matter is actually little bits of 'frozen time',
gravitation is distributed temporal curvature, same for nuclear strong force, and that time dilation
is directly related to speeding craft and strong gravity because those are enhanced temporal
curvature.. Sorry for 'wasting your time' to talk about time.. The essence of time has been a
fascination of mine for about 40 years.

Perhaps we can ask the question: "what is time?" of some particular agent we have 'grown' in a
VR then selected for 'release' into our 'real' world.. If our world is truly a simulation for studying
human consciousness/spirituality, the agent might respond: "it is what is required for you to
grow". ;)