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Life without feelings...

Night

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Interesting points everywhere; impressive.

On the subject of love, I have some thoughts:

I understand "love" as strength; a curious personal comfort in vulnerability. To openly love is to lead a lifestyle of tremendous courage and risk.


Obviously there are variations in how profoundly one can express/feel love both as an ideal and in practice. Even within the philosophy of "love", we find barriers both in (unavoidable) acts of self-service and false positives within our perception of how others "love" us. Within the interpretation, we derive a system of governing ethics that serve to define love contemporarily and for generations yet unborn.


Our awareness (and personal capacity) for love is likely determined by a complex network of stimuli ranging from the simple (what we observe in ourselves v. what we observe in others); the instinctual ("love" as a zone of comfort reducing obstacles toward reproductive efficiency and ultimate security of our species) to the profound (the interplay of culture; sense of personal fulfillment; historical viewpoints - both from an educative (institutional) and parental (domestic) standpoint.)

The sophisticated flexibility of this mythos permeates expressions of love into a million windows that guideline our behaviors with impossible complexity.



Love is evolution.
 

matmos

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Person without emotions or feelings is not a healthy one.
Feelings and emotions make us what we are.

Many terrible decisions is made based on emotion. When something "feels right":hug: it may or may not be - F is seldom a good guide to a good choice. Even finding a partner! Witness the high instances of divorce.

You may experience a gamut of emotions but are you any better off for it?

This seems foolish and *suboptimal* - why not strive for the joy without the associated pain? Perhaps the happiness would never seem as accute without the lows...

As too Alcearos point about not "healthy"... This confuses me:sadbanana: I don't have any absolute notion of what *healthy* is any more than I could tell you what is *normal*...

My tip - don't go too high nor too low. I like my emotions with X&Y but no Z. Nice and 2D. It's a good job I like it like that because I didn't get a choice! Is this unhealthy? Doubt it.:doh:
 

skip

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I would never want a life without emotions but I disagree that a life without emotions would be a life without a reason for living. There's always logic (apologies for bringing Star Trek into the discussion but Vulcans were the first thing I thought of when I read the OP. It is at least theoretically possible to have a culture without feelings).

The car accident example is interesting, why do you have to have emotions to pull over and help? It could simply be logical to help others because groups of people function better when that's an underlying principle in interaction.
 

Night

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Many terrible decisions is made based on emotion. When something "feels right":hug: it may or may not be - F is seldom a good guide to a good choice. Even finding a partner! Witness the high instances of divorce.

You may experience a gamut of emotions but are you any better off for it?

Emotion and thought are indivisible cooperations.

Their symbiosis is self-sustaining.



Fear is an emotion. Fear is an instinctual response to a perceived threat. We feel afraid because we want to avoid harm.

To avoid harm, we logically construct reasonable methods to respond to our perceived threat.

How do we decide which method to choose?

Binary logic as to increase probability of survival.



Thus, emotion is logic. Logic, emotion.

This seems foolish and *suboptimal* - why not strive for the joy without the associated pain?

Without hashing too much armchair philosophy, how can one rationally appreciate joy without pain?

Inversion is empirical context.
 

elfinchilde

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Emotion and thought are indivisible cooperations.

Their symbiosis is self-sustaining.



Fear is an emotion. Fear is an instinctual response to a perceived threat. We feel afraid because we want to avoid harm.

To avoid harm, we logically construct reasonable methods to respond to our perceived threat.

How do we decide which method to choose?

Binary logic as to increase probability of survival.

Thus, emotion is logic. Logic, emotion.

Without hashing too much armchair philosophy, how can one rationally appreciate joy without pain?

Inversion is empirical context.

The bolded assumes though, that people behave logically. More often than not, people in the sway of emotions would behave instinctively, or emotionally. Not logically.

It requires one who understands emotions, to then use logic to derive a path of action. ie, emotions are the driving forces of life--negative emotions push us ("I am afraid of this/I do not want to be this"), while positive emotions pull us ("I want so much to be this/This makes me happy therefore i will pursue it"). Upon the forces of push and pull, humanity finds its place: logic then determines what paths may be best taken.

If one feels nothing, there would be no progress in life. Then, as life always evolves (the Red Queen Hypothesis), even if you are in a steady niche, you'd slowly fall behind.

Having said that tho: if peace is not considered to be an emotion, then, having no emotions would mean that one is able to let go of everything, and finally be at peace with oneself and the world. That would not be a bad thing, to be free of desire, yet hold empathy and compassion.
 

substitute

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If you were given the option to have a life without having emotions, would you choose it? Would you be willing to throw out happiness if it meant getting rid of sadness? Why or why not?


Yes, absolutely I would. But only if everyone else did as well, otherwise you'd have all the problems that Vulcans have when dealing with other species who are emotional.

Then again, it would be nice to be able to just learn about other people's feelings intellectually and learn how to deal with them, without all the frustration and embarrassment (when you get it wrong) and guilt and stuff that you get normally when learning these things... and without the hassle of having to simultaneously deal with trying to understand your own feelings.
 

matmos

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Fear is an emotion. Fear is an instinctual response to a perceived threat. We feel afraid because we want to avoid harm.

To avoid harm, we logically construct reasonable methods to respond to our perceived threat.

Thus, emotion is logic. Logic, emotion.

Fear of the dark, say, is pretty real. It's also irrational. Emotions have logic (to the beholder) but are not necessarily logical or rational when observed from the outside.

It's interesting you should should give fear as an example. This little leftover from our days as apes!

This is cognitive bias and appears real because you feel it. If you don't feel it the ghosts vanish - and you may enjoy your moonlight walk that much better...
 

raindancing

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It seems like no emotions would cause the human race to be stagnant...
 

The Ü™

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Is it really necessary for mankind to advance?
 

JustDave

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Advancement is an arbitrary goal that many us want to achieve and certianly is not necessary. In fact a good argument could be made that mankind's best period was the mid 1900's. After that we became soft and undisciplined.
 

Night

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Fear of the dark, say, is pretty real. It's also irrational. Emotions have logic (to the beholder) but are not necessarily logical or rational when observed from the outside.

It's interesting you should should give fear as an example. This little leftover from our days as apes!

This is cognitive bias and appears real because you feel it. If you don't feel it the ghosts vanish - and you may enjoy your moonlight walk that much better...

;)

Observer bias was precisely the intellectual artifact I was referring to.


And no: it isn't possible to eliminate it. Curiously, the more education one has, the greater the likelihood that his movements spiral from systems of logical bias.


Fortunately, as knowledge deepens, the opacity of this constant grows weak.

Patterns emerge where once only chaos stood.


Ours is a shared fundamental identity.
 

elfinchilde

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^ question: how shared is shared when people do not believe so? And act in manners to divide rather than to unite? "That my opinion is right because i feel so, therefore, you are wrong, because you are against me. And that gives me the right to strike against you."

same thing as how, perhaps, because society emphasises on a life with feelings, that it's great, wonderful, it makes you human etc: what if i were to say, that we all want to feel because we are unconsiously obeying socio-biological rules merely?

Plato: Rationality is the highest form of the soul.

(note: the above may not necessarily represent my own view. i am throwing out another perspective for thought, that's all.)

edit: to add in to JustDave's post: wasn't it the periods of logic which were periods of advancement in human society? The golden age of Islam, for instance, was when they focused on scientific knowledge and thinking, and openness. Instead of the fundamentalists whom we have now: all earlier results of global efforts to divide. (Terrorism, as we know it today, was born from the US-Soviet conflict in Afghanistan in the 50s-70s, when the CIA trained the mujahideen to fight against the Soviet, because US did not want to lose its own men there. That is how Islamic terrorists have all these guerilla tactics to use against the West: they came, ironically, from the covert black books of the CIA/US itself.)
 

raindancing

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Is it really necessary for mankind to advance?

I was only making an observation, no judgment meant.

(Although personally I wouldn't want to be without my feelings... possibly would rather die first. My feelings are me.)
 

Night

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^ question: how shared is shared when people do not believe so? And act in manners to divide rather than to unite? "That my opinion is right because i feel so, therefore, you are wrong, because you are against me. And that gives me the right to strike against you."


same thing as how, perhaps, because society emphasises on a life with feelings, that it's great, wonderful, it makes you human etc: what if i were to say, that we all want to feel because we are unconsiously obeying socio-biological rules merely?

Plato: Rationality is the highest form of the soul.

(note: the above may not necessarily represent my own view. i am throwing out another perspective for thought, that's all.)

This is a tightly-worded question, elfinchilde, replete with booby-traps, I think! ;)

To answer your (subtle) question: No - my opinion is not absolute; in fact, it is a best-guess from a mind guilty of abhorrent ignorance. I'm nothing, if not a poor manifestation of western academia; economic privilege and inflated self-worth. Ultimately, my sentiments should not be trusted, as they're born of impossible cerebral inferiority.

Despite my weaknesses, I can say with confidence that the desire for objectivity (as a strategy to evolve our understanding of ourselves) is wreathed with the scientific method of analysis - an orthodoxy designed to reduce subjectivity as to better understand the identifiable pieces of ourselves in a controlled setting - and while it is certainly not invulnerable to human bias, it offers a setting ideally removed from the quibblings between competing ideological viewpoints.


We are matter.
Matter is information with mass that takes up space.
Information is energy.

Therefore, the finality of our consciousness is likely best understood as heterogeneous energy sources engaging in self-analysis.

Thus, differences in exotic human philosophical perspectives are likely without authentic credibility and might serve as evidence of creative environmental adaptation, versus legitimate testimony overturning the interconnectedness and diversity of our universe.
 

elfinchilde

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This is a tightly-worded question, elfinchilde, replete with booby-traps, I think! ;)

To answer your (subtle) question: No - my opinion is not absolute; in fact, it is a best-guess from a mind guilty of abhorrent ignorance. I'm nothing, if not a poor manifestation of western academia; economic privilege and inflated self-worth. Ultimately, my sentiments should not be trusted, as they're born of impossible cerebral inferiority.

Despite my weaknesses, I can say with confidence that the desire for objectivity (as a strategy to evolve our understanding of ourselves) is wreathed with the scientific method of analysis - an orthodoxy designed to reduce subjectivity as to better understand the identifiable pieces of ourselves in a controlled setting - and while it is certainly not invulnerable to human bias, it offers a setting ideally removed from the quibblings between competing ideological viewpoints.


We are matter.
Matter is information with mass that takes up space.
Information is energy.

Therefore, the finality of our consciousness is likely best understood as heterogeneous energy sources engaging in self-analysis.

Thus, differences in exotic human philosophical perspectives are likely without authentic credibility and serve as evidence of creative environmental adaptation, versus legitimate testimony overturning the interconnectedness and diversity of our universe.

if there were booby traps :whistling: then, they have been successfully evaded, Night. :happy0065:

In short (correct me if i'm wrong):

that because humans are emotive, hence there is a certain instinct for logic so as to quantify, qualify and order what we are feeling.

And once this is in place, the self is superseded in view of the whole.

Hence comes about the unity between disparate beings.

:huh:
 

matmos

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;)

Observer bias was precisely the intellectual artifact I was referring to.

And no: it isn't possible to eliminate it. Curiously, the more education one has, the greater the likelihood that his movements spiral from systems of logical bias.

How very true. I'll have what you're drinking and buy you another!
 

FallsPioneer

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It's also emotion that leads to destruction.

I'm not so jaded or afraid of pain to choose a life without emotion. I'll take emotion.

Oh, and I think mankind has a natural instinct to advance. Maturity is an example of that, but even on a "bigger scale," the same principle applies.
 

white

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There are times and days like these, where I wish all emotions and memory could be taken away from me.

In that whiteness of a hollowed self, perhaps there is peace.

I know suffering is optional, but I cannot help clinging on.

"The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind"

True that the experience brings growth. etc. Humility too.

But the price it exacts is a heavy one.

I am not sure what else more of me, I can pay.
 

ygolo

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If you were given the option to have a life without having emotions, would you choose it? Would you be willing to throw out happiness if it meant getting rid of sadness? Why or why not?

Coming in late to the thread, but I have a hard time deciding.

I know people have asked "what would be the point?" and such, but mine is more a question of what would give us motivation even to do little things like getting up in the morning, etc. Would it all be out of habit/genetics?

When it makes rational sense to change our habits, would we simply train ourselves to change our ways? no emotional resistance, etc.?

Also, what about dealing with others, would they not have emotions to read, take into account, as well?

If the above is true in your hypothetical then I would lean towards "yes."

I am someone who experiences mostly negative emotion (anxiety, fear, sadness, etc.), so I am not fond of them. I would prefer to have those emotions disappear, and I wouldn't be giving up much by not experiencing happiness.

With that said, I know a real person cannot function without emotion, since emotions are the source of motivation. Emotions are what give us the motivation to do something different from our habits. It allows us to change, or continue with life when our routine is no longer possible.

Emotions also, allow us to interact with others more effectively, since we can empathize or sympathize based on them.

Emotions are so basic to being human, that they cannot be given up.
 
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