I read some of the book How Emotions are Made by Lisa Feldman Barrett, which argues that emotions are made rather than inherited, and furthermore that we develop our emotions to aid us in survival. Emotions in this sense are physical reactions to physical stimuli, and in that sense sort of demystify what emotions really are.

There are so many philosophical questions left unanswered about what it means to be human. For example, why do we believe that the mountains and the sky, the sun and the lake, are beautiful? It's easier for us to understand why we might find other humans attractive--we might think that wide hips are attractive because survival pressures lead us towards that impulse, which allows women to give birth to children with large brains. Yet, even with the body there are aesthetic principles that we don't fully understand and nonetheless find attractive.

Whatever the reason may be, we can be sure that our aesthetic principles are ultimately guided by evolution. This is a fact that is unlikely to change when it comes to machine and artificial intelligence--but the defining feature there is that artificial intelligences are modular, non-biological, and both durable and enduring. In the sense that an artificial agent is modular, it's possible for several agents to combine or to split apart at will, and only elements of themselves at that--but one of the defining features of human identity is that we exist as an immutably singular creature. Although we are made of trillions of cells and other symbiotic creatures, although our brain is composed of billions of individual brain cells, they all act collaboratively to give life to the human specimen, and in the case of the brain to develop a singular identity by which the entire body can act in unison.

Understanding this, what kind of identity might an artificial agent form? I don't claim to fully know, nor could I ever understand in entirety given the limited capacity of my human brain. Having a singular identity tends to be conducive to human survival; having several different identities seeking control over one body is likely to cause distress and conflict. This does surprisingly happen in some people with dissociative identity disorder, and is only known to occur from extreme childhood trauma.

Something that we know about humans, I think, is that we have an incredibly strong desire for belonging and connection. It's as if we would be reduced to the realm of beasts if humans were to live on their own as lone hunters and foragers. Socialization has always been our greatest strength, and I think the most relevant questions regarding our humanity and what we will do with it in the future will be questions revolving around how we relate to each other.