Picasso and His Model: Feelings

Let us see if the relation between Picasso/Painter and his Model can tell us something about the nature of consciousness, connecting to the previous post with a brain model of the exterior world as central concept (cf Nobel Prize in Medicine 2014).

We see Picasso looking at the Model to make a Painting or model of the Model on the canvas, which we can assume agrees more or less with some form of mental model in Picasso's brain. We see Picasso watching both the Model and the Painting to see if they agree and if not update the Painting. 

We see that Picasso is very aware about the whole situation with his mind switching between  (i) looking at the Model, (ii) looking at the Painting, (iii) making a comparison by projecting the Painting on the Model and (iv) deciding next brush.  

Here (i) and (ii) connect to direct perception, while (iii) seem to depend on some higher level evaluation and (iv) represents action after evaluation. 

More generally, we may think of watching a Landscape as making a model landscape in the brain which is projected on the Landscape and updated until fit, to make us experience the Landscape as something real outside us and not its brain model.

The brain model of your body is projected back onto the body, so that you experience the pain from a wound at its physical location and not in brain. This makes it possible to experience pain in a limb, even if the limb has been amputated, thus as a phantom limb.

Where does consciousness come in? Well, of course in the form of awareness as readiness to input from (i) and (ii) but also in the evaluation (iii) and action (iv). 

What is missing, as the so called hard problem of consciousness, is here Picasso's feelings for both Model and Painting. Picasso may be in love with Model (pleasure) but may not be happy yet with the Painting (pain) and this in not captured in (i)-(iv). 

Does it matter? Probably so, because this is gives Picasso motivation to decide to paint the Model and then actually do it under pain to eventually reach a state of pleasure with a finished Painting. 

Of course, motivation is central to get anything done and so may be an important aspect of consciousness as a goal and road to reach the goal. This seems to connect to self-consciousness offering a mental model where the capacities of the Self can be tested to set goals.

A robot painter with AI can be envisioned to carry out (i)-(iv) in a mechanical way and then without the burden of feelings, which often appear as bodily sensations even if not coming from the body, like love or fear felt in your breast. 

Ultimately, we may connect feelings to (early) sensory input of pleasure and pain, which would serve as basis for motivation to reach pleasure. This is something a robot would miss and so the goal for a robot would have to be set by some consciousness equipped with feelings setting the goals for the robot. 

Is it possible to equip a robot with feelings?