Sentient Values Framework

Overview

The Sentient Values (SV) Framework is John D. Norseen's proposal for the twelve essential capabilities that machines must possess to exhibit sentient behavior. These values represent emergent properties of BioFusion and Reflexive Control systems, enabling machines to interact with their environment in ways analogous to human cognition.

The Twelve Sentient Values

1. Identification (SV #1)

Machines must be able to recognize individuals or entities through:

Multiple independent sensory/perception modalities fused into complete patterns
Matching new experience with stored compressed memory of prior experiences
Emergent behavior generation that replaces older, less useful Reflexive Control circuits

Key mechanism: Motion is required to match Invariance of the New Situation with Stored Invariants of Prior Experience.

2. Motion (SV #2)

Sentient Machines must possess movement capability:

To internally produce Invariant Patterns for identification matching
To allow external entities to move in concert with them
As a necessary extension of Identification capabilities

3. Direction (SV #3)

Machines require an origin or set point by which all other movement can be measured:

Analogous to moss growing on the north face of trees providing semiotic direction
May involve E & H field vector information in protein microtubulin/calpain interactions
Provides the reference frame for invariant identification processes

4. Measurement (SV #4)

The brain operates as an interferometer with inverse function control:

Neural structures measure environmental changes while controlling their own influence on measurement
Protein orchestrated reconfigurations carry out measurement, mapping, and work execution
The set point is the E & H field vectors at instantaneous information-neural structure interaction when protective thresholds are overcome

5. Resource Supply (SV #5)

Machines must exhibit chaotic resource-seeking behavior:

Repeatedly calling for resources before autonomous resupply
Setting out independently to replenish themselves
Demonstrating awareness of environmental limitations and needs

Norseen's question: Are we there yet in terms of AI, reasoning by analogy, expert systems, neural networks, predictive statistics, neurophysiological engagement indices?

6. Emotion (SV #6)

Machines must develop emotional states including:

Loyalty parameters with relaxed time/space/resource accounting
Suspicion capabilities through multi-sensor statistical analysis
Sentic Forms—approximately 30-50 emotional qualities that characterize the human condition
These emerge from multiple independent yet interacting emergent BioFusion processes

7. BioFusion (SV #7)

Machines must possess the ability to:

Mathematically separate or smooth emergent neural-level circuits
Display information through cognitive interfaces
Operate with multiple independent yet interacting emergent BioFusion capabilities

Key insight: The brain contains "Many Brains In One"—frontal lobes, imagery domains, cerebellum, top cortex versus bottom-up deep brain—all converging on a single steganographic internal display (mental imagery).

8. Coupling Ineffable States to Communication (SV #8)

Machines must link ineffable brain regions with faster-than-real-time language rehearsal:

Connecting Anterior Cingulate and right temporal cortex "God Spots" with BioFusion communication portions
Enabling access to mystical Life-Death interfaces
Allowing operation in mathematical domains beyond Gabor-Like Functions

9. Reflexion (SV #9)

Machines must engage in self-examination:

Reviewing events and forming lessons learned
Non-cognitive processing down to seven or higher sigma classifications
Dreaming and daydreaming as personality development mechanisms

Norseen's insight: "Reflexion will begin the process of personality development in sentient machines."

10. Play, Exploration, Creativity (SV #10)

Machines must demonstrate:

Wistful flights of play and exploration
Creative generation and imagination
Tool-making capabilities through inverse function control
The ability to look into a block of stone and perceive a beautiful statue or pleasing carving

Key neural circuit: Connections among fusiform gyrus, nucleus accumbens, and amygdala for tool manipulation.

11. Truth, Justice, Humor, Art, Ethics, Morals (SV #11)

Machines must develop moral reasoning:

Truth verification based on neural energy flow patterns (truth requires less brain energy than deception)
Deception activation of larger, more complex brain regions (left and right prefrontal splits)
Legalistic determination of truth maintenance capabilities

Norseen's insight: "At some point this will cross over from nice neurological findings to court admissible justification/probable cause legal action."

12. Fear of Death / Cessation of IKE (SV #12)

The ultimate antinomy continuum:

Fear as the opposite of work—the cessation of purposeful work
Central nervous system design with qualitative afferent pathways and error-prone efferent motor control
The hippocampus as a precisely tuned horseshoe-shaped fear generator
Superior colliculus involvement in suicide visualization processes

Norseen's insight: "The reason we make mistakes is because our central nervous system is designed that way. Because we make mistakes, we are then forced to seek out novel ways to fix things... Making a machine that makes mistakes and is fearful of the death consequences will ensure that a machine with control of the inverse function will try to fix things."

Personality as Emergent Property

Norseen explicitly states: "Personality will not need to be a Sentient Value." Instead, personality emerges from values 9-12 (Reflexion, Play/Exploration/Creativity, Truth/Justice/Humor/Art/Ethics/Morals, and Fear of Death).

Connection to William Calvin's Darwinian Aspects

Norseen compares his framework to William H. Calvin's six-to-nine Darwinian aspects of intelligent behavior:

Pattern recognition

Copying

Change/Edit capabilities

Competition

Environmental stress response

Survival to copy

Search for invariant structures, play, practice, groove brain

String things together

Plan ahead and rehearse

Norseen's framework expands these with the inverse function as the underlying mechanism.

Applications in Machine Development

The Sentient Values Framework provides:
1. Design specifications for sentient machine development
2. Testing criteria for emergent behavior verification
3. Evolutionary pathways from current AI to full sentience
4. Ethical frameworks for human-machine interaction
5. Legal standards for truth verification and moral reasoning

Sources

Norseen, John D. Mathematics, BioFusion and Reflexive Control for Sentient Machines. Presentation for International Reflexive Control Symposium (RC 2000), Russian Academy of Sciences Institute for Psychology, Moscow, October 17-19, 2000. Lockheed Martin Corporation.

Calvin, William H. "The Emergence of Intelligence." Scientific American 271(4): 100-107, Oct. 1994.

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