What are the purpose of emotions?

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Skynet must've asked this question as well.

I think the term Skynet just came about because James Cameron heard about the internet but didn't know exactly what it was, so he thought it was some kind of malevolent AI. If this is true, Skynet has already happened and amounted to nothing.

 

[Mole]

I think the term Skynet just came about because James Cameron heard about the internet but didn't know exactly what it was, so he thought it was some kind of malevolent AI. If this is true, Skynet has already happened and amounted to nothing.

Skynet, also known as the internet, has cast a proscenium arch around the whole Earth and we are all now players on the global stage.

And Skynet had made the literate individual the content of the global internet, or we could say the literate individual is dead and is replaced by the electronic tribe in the global village.

And how extraordinary you can see nothing has happened.

 

[Justin of Flavia Neapolis]

I think the term Skynet just came about because James Cameron heard about the internet but didn't know exactly what it was, so he thought it was some kind of malevolent AI. If this is true, Skynet has already happened and amounted to nothing.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Skynet, also known as the internet, has cast a proscenium arch around the whole Earth and we are all now players on the global stage.

And Skynet had made the literate individual the content of the global internet, or we could say the literate individual is dead and is replaced by the electronic tribe in the global village.

And how extraordinary you can see nothing has happened.

Well, I meant nothing happened in the sense that it didn't cause the enslavement of humanity by machines.

 

[hav]

I think the primary function of emotions is to guide you morally. What I've noticed is that my wife who is a very emotional person also has a strong and natural sense of right and wrong, and I know I can trust her judgement in most cases. But I am more prone to rationalizing, and therefore I may lose my heart and humility in the process. One of the many flaws of human nature.

 

[Smilephantomhive]

I don't think there is a person on earth who has no emotions. I do think however there are different ranges that people can experience, and how big those ranges are, and where the median of those ranges sits varies wildly.

Even something as simple as going to get food, something that is an inevitability for everyone, has emotion behind it. Why do you pick what you do? Is it because it makes you happy? That's an emotion. Is it because you're trying to lose weight? There are emotions behind it. Having it so you can forget emotions of the day? That is driven by emotion. It's very easy to forget and not see the small emotional currents that are with us all the time, we just generally don't think of them that way because they usually don't offer a larger cognitive purpose.

I am an incredibly emotional person. Frustratingly so. I have also experienced (and still am) what it is like to have specific emotions shrivel up and more or less die. It's not fun. It makes life a very trying experience if you keep running into it. In the words of the great Allie Brosh, there is a difference between not giving a fuck, and not being able to give a fuck.

Not liking emotions has an emotional drive behind it lol.

 

[Tilt]

Agreed. At most they are part of the picture, a handful of data points among many others. They feed into the decision making process along with everything else, but should not drive it.

True. They do come from the primitive side of the brain, but without emotions, we wouldn't be able to decide things in a productive way.

Here's information on damage related to the brain areas responsible for regulating emotions. Hyper logical individuals tend to struggle a lot in life.

The Importance of Feelings - MIT Technology Review

 

[Coriolis]

I think the primary function of emotions is to guide you morally. What I've noticed is that my wife who is a very emotional person also has a strong and natural sense of right and wrong, and I know I can trust her judgement in most cases. But I am more prone to rationalizing, and therefore I may lose my heart and humility in the process. One of the many flaws of human nature.

I suppose it all comes down to your view of morality. Anger, fear, and jealousy are also emotions and often lead to behavior most people would consider immoral. As I see it, this is why we should not allow emotions to rule our decision making.

 

[hav]

I suppose it all comes down to your view of morality. Anger, fear, and jealousy are also emotions and often lead to behavior most people would consider immoral. As I see it, this is why we should not allow emotions to rule our decision making.

Just because something has a function that does not mean people will always use it in the best way. I agree that fear and jealousy are unnecessary emotions, but 'holy anger' can be used to achieve something greater. Being able to relate to the idea of rejecting emotions, I still think it's problematic to reject emotions and their significance. There is nothing that says that emotions, in and of themselves, will lead to worse things than those of logical thought. The way I see it, too much logic or too much emotion either way is bad.

 

[Qlip]

I use my emotions to fuel my psychic firestarting powers.

 

[Coriolis]

Just because something has a function that does not mean people will always use it in the best way. I agree that fear and jealousy are unnecessary emotions, but 'holy anger' can be used to achieve something greater. Being able to relate to the idea of rejecting emotions, I still think it's problematic to reject emotions and their significance. There is nothing that says that emotions, in and of themselves, will lead to worse things than those of logical thought. The way I see it, too much logic or too much emotion either way is bad.

Who is advocating the rejection of emotions? There is a happy medium between rejecting them, and allowing them to govern decisions.

 

[Flâneuse]

From an evolutionary perspective, emotions have developed as important tools for survival (in both humans and other animals). Fear guides you away from situations that could be dangerous to your survival, anxiety can make you think twice instead of acting on your knee-jerk impulses, and comfort, satisfaction and pleasure result from having basic needs met and encourage us to seek out more. Happiness is a more complicated case because what makes one happy varies from person to person, but I think some of the most common things that lead to happiness are forming connections to others and feeling you're somehow contributing or making a mark, and for obvious reasons forming strong bonds with others rather than being totally solitary was important to survival before modern society. I've read an interesting theory that altruism among one's group/inner circle arose for this reason -- group members putting the needs of other members before their own ultimately helped make the group stronger and more cohesive, which led to a higher chance of survival for most individuals within the group. Unfortunately, I think the human tendency towards tribalism and forming in-groups is the flip side of this -- especially when resources were scarce, being willing to ignore the needs of, or even being willing to take from, others who aren't part of the group may have been necessary to the survival of one's own group.

And of course, aside from their evolutionary, utilitarian purpose, certain emotions can both in themselves greatly contribute to our higher sense of meaning (especially love and wonder) and serve as an important part of what guides us toward what is meaningful. Although I don't believe emotion is the sole thing that guides us or gives life meaning (in my opinion intellectual understanding is important in these regards too) life would be very dull and flat without it. (Of course, emotions can also be completely misguiding and maladaptive and cause us to act in ways in the short-term that will ultimately be harmful to self and/or others, but I won't get into that.)

 

[Agent Washington]

evolutionary 'purpose'

 

[Agent Washington]

From an evolutionary perspective, emotions have developed as important tools for survival (in both humans and other animals). Fear guides you away from situations that could be dangerous to your survival, anxiety can make you think twice instead of acting on your knee-jerk impulses, and comfort, satisfaction and pleasure result from having basic needs met and encourage us to seek out more. Happiness is a more complicated case because what makes one happy varies from person to person, but I think some of the most common things that lead to happiness are forming connections to others and feeling you're somehow contributing or making a mark, and for obvious reasons forming strong bonds with others rather than being totally solitary was important to survival before modern society. I've read an interesting theory that altruism among one's group/inner circle arose for this reason -- group members putting the needs of other members before their own ultimately helped make the group stronger and more cohesive, which led to a higher chance of survival for most individuals within the group. Unfortunately, I think the human tendency towards tribalism and forming in-groups is the flip side of this -- especially when resources were scarce, being willing to ignore the needs of, or even being willing to take from, others who aren't part of the group may have been necessary to the survival of one's own group.

yeah this. also observable in social animals

 

[LightSun]

I don't always believe emotions can be trusted, or are constructive; I try to never feel anything too strongly...

Via Gentleman Jack

(1) "I don't always believe emotions can be trusted, or are constructive; I try to never feel anything too strongly."

Your absolutely right. Negative emotions unless one is experiencing actual physical pain have at their root cognitive distortions of reasoning. It is precisely one who looks within through insight that this an opportunity for growth. This is possible if one acts with balanced reason and takes the higher road with not giving in to base negative emotion. In my path in life I walk a balance between Agape love and the use of critical reasoning. it has served me well. lightsun

 

[LightSun]

Well this is a religious perspective mind you,

but if we were never sad, or angry, or downtrodden, we would never understand what it is to feel happy. Without emotions we cannot find pleasure in things.

So in essence, emotions exist so we can feel pleasure in life.

I believe we can experience pleasure without having to experience negative and adverse emotions. You are right about emotions adding to our experience of life and giving meaning.

 

[LightSun]

You see emotion as the only meaning in the world - everything else is meaningless? That dismisses quite a bit of the human experience.

Emotion is not the only meaning Coriolis. It does give texture and meaning for to be bereft of emotional pleasure and satisfaction would not be human or life.

 

[LightSun]

I do think that emotions are a good servant but bad master.

I equate negative emotions as the warning lights of your car engine. It signifies something is wrong internally and you've been triggered. This remains true provided one is not experiencing actual physical pain as the source of the emotion. It is with this handy tool that one can learn and modify one's behaviors and actions in acting with reason, not giving in to the base primitive emotions and acting out negatively and irrationally. So our emotions are a necessary tool for our growth and make life worth living for without emotion everything would pale into meaninglessness.

Every opportunity for enlightenment comes when we feel triggered by the externals of this world. Point must be taken looking within for that which is missing in us or why we feel a certain way and perhaps let reason be overridden by the emotional part in ourselves. It’s at times such as this where we have a chance growing. This or let ourselves be fooled and blame externals for a problem that may lie within. The particular problem is of course it may be our blind spot being a victim of an emotion and as well our triggered hidden deficiencies.”

 

[Coriolis]

I equate negative emotions as the warning lights of your car engine. It signifies something is wrong internally and you've been triggered. This remains true provided one is not experiencing actual physical pain as the source of the emotion. It is with this handy tool that one can learn and modify one's behaviors and actions in acting with reason, not giving in to the base primitive emotions and acting out negatively and irrationally. So our emotions are a necessary tool for our growth and make life worth living for without emotion everything would pale into meaninglessness.

That is how I see emotions as well - as a sort of sensory input. They are fed into the decision making process along with other inputs, like facts, observations, experiences, and values. As such they are important, but should no more drive the outcome than any other inputs.

 

[Lark]

I equate negative emotions as the warning lights of your car engine. It signifies something is wrong internally and you've been triggered. This remains true provided one is not experiencing actual physical pain as the source of the emotion. It is with this handy tool that one can learn and modify one's behaviors and actions in acting with reason, not giving in to the base primitive emotions and acting out negatively and irrationally. So our emotions are a necessary tool for our growth and make life worth living for without emotion everything would pale into meaninglessness.

Every opportunity for enlightenment comes when we feel triggered by the externals of this world. Point must be taken looking within for that which is missing in us or why we feel a certain way and perhaps let reason be overridden by the emotional part in ourselves. It’s at times such as this where we have a chance growing. This or let ourselves be fooled and blame externals for a problem that may lie within. The particular problem is of course it may be our blind spot being a victim of an emotion and as well our triggered hidden deficiencies.”

The thing about these kinds of observations is that they are, in the main, observations wedded closely to what I would consider normal circumstances, specifically the normal circumstances of the individuals who produced the insights which get handed around, I'm not quite sure that you could say the same of someone who has experienced gaslighting, manipulation, emotional abuse or neglect for a long enough time for it to become patterned on brain and behaviour.

Even if it is not a case of being different as a consequence of life course development, delayed development and maturational crisis, even for a fully functioning, average individual, experiences of adversity, repeated and unrelenting, will have their consequences. All of the old fashioned rubes about "toughing up" or even some of more recent ones about "building resilience" are not really valid unless there have been periods of respite or other majorly mitigating factors.