SolitaryWalker
Tenured roisterer
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2007
- Messages
- 3,504
- MBTI Type
- INTP
- Enneagram
- 5w6
- Instinctual Variant
- so/sx
Feeling is defined as a cognitive faculty of emotive valuation. For example, when an animal gets a pleasant feeling, or an unpleasant feeling, it engages the faculty of feeling.
Obviously feeling is concerned with how we relate to the external environment, and not with how the external environment is. This cognitive faculty is subjective by definition.
Richard Dawkins, in the God Delusion has stated that we tend to have an instinct to antropomorphize entities around us, or personify them. In other words, we treat entities around us as if they were living things. As aforementioned, Feeling is a subjective attitude, it bestows an emotional reaction upon all things it is concerned with. When our reaction is emotionally oriented, it is easy to assume that all things around us have a personal quality.
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Why do we tend to assume that entities around us tend to have a personal quality. The easiest and most superficial answer one can concoct is that animals by nature are instinctive animals, and instinct is an essence of an animal. The question that follows next is, why specifically did we choose to bestow emotion on non-living things. Emotion is obviously most easily associated with living things and since living things generate the most positive emotion within us, we have preferred to attribute characteristics of living things to non-living entities. Or quite simply we saw non-living entities as living entities because doing so was a result of gratification for us.
The claim that our natural affinity with emotion or instinct leads us to anthropomorphize entities explains this phenomenon in terms of our intrinsic constitution or our nature. However, there is an additional component to this explanation, one that is more of a result of our interaction with the external environment than our intrinsic constitution.
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Animals from which we have evolved were forced to quickly recognize potential dangers. In order to survive they had to have had an instinct which enabled them to quickly perceive threats and defend themselves accordingly. Hence, an animal that did instinctually recognize the presence of a tiger was more likely to survive than an animal that did not. In most cases, an animal inhabited an area where many predators were to be taken in consideration. Hence, some of those predators were not frequently interacted with, therefore the animal could not have developed an instinct with regard to treatment of each animal individually. For example, an animal may have encountered many tigers, and therefore has developed an instinct for recognition of tigers, yet may have only seen an ocelot once in its lifetime. Thus, in time, the animals have developed an instinct for recognition as a threat of all entities that resembled a tiger or any particular predator. Obviously in most environments, many different kinds of predators existed. Many of those predators were very rarely experienced.
As a result, the animal was unable to develop a specific instinct with regard to each predator. Thus, the animals that have survived the most, and were most likely to survive were those who have developed the strongest instinct of self-defense. Those were the animals who have acquired an apprehensive attitude towards nearly all things were most likely to survive. That is the case because many predators existed, and one is most likely to survive if one avoided as many predators as possible. Hence, as a zoological principle of this inquiry, it should be established that an animal that excelled the most at avoiding predators is most likely to survive. The most effective strategy for avoiding predators is fleeing all potential dangers.
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As a result of this, most animals who have survived have developed such a firm instinct of self-preservation that they have regarded almost all non-living things, even those that were not dangerous to them as living things. They tended to regard non-living things as living things because they have developed the tendency to regard many things (non-living things among them) as dangerous, and they associated danger with a living thing, because a living predator represented the most clear danger in their mind. Thus, the idea of danger was inseparable from a living thing, and all the things that were regarded as dangerous were regarded as living things. In other words, they took a personal approach to nearly all things that surrounded them. This is merely a distinct form of feeling, or regarding all things as emotive, or personal in nature. In summary, feeling is the essence of our being, or the instinct. Yet because animals were forced to act upon instinct quickly and therefore exercise instinct frequently, the tendency towards relying on instinct has become more pronounced. In other words, our tendency to make instinctual or emotional decisions (Feeling) has become stronger as a result.
Obviously feeling is concerned with how we relate to the external environment, and not with how the external environment is. This cognitive faculty is subjective by definition.
Richard Dawkins, in the God Delusion has stated that we tend to have an instinct to antropomorphize entities around us, or personify them. In other words, we treat entities around us as if they were living things. As aforementioned, Feeling is a subjective attitude, it bestows an emotional reaction upon all things it is concerned with. When our reaction is emotionally oriented, it is easy to assume that all things around us have a personal quality.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Why do we tend to assume that entities around us tend to have a personal quality. The easiest and most superficial answer one can concoct is that animals by nature are instinctive animals, and instinct is an essence of an animal. The question that follows next is, why specifically did we choose to bestow emotion on non-living things. Emotion is obviously most easily associated with living things and since living things generate the most positive emotion within us, we have preferred to attribute characteristics of living things to non-living entities. Or quite simply we saw non-living entities as living entities because doing so was a result of gratification for us.
The claim that our natural affinity with emotion or instinct leads us to anthropomorphize entities explains this phenomenon in terms of our intrinsic constitution or our nature. However, there is an additional component to this explanation, one that is more of a result of our interaction with the external environment than our intrinsic constitution.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Animals from which we have evolved were forced to quickly recognize potential dangers. In order to survive they had to have had an instinct which enabled them to quickly perceive threats and defend themselves accordingly. Hence, an animal that did instinctually recognize the presence of a tiger was more likely to survive than an animal that did not. In most cases, an animal inhabited an area where many predators were to be taken in consideration. Hence, some of those predators were not frequently interacted with, therefore the animal could not have developed an instinct with regard to treatment of each animal individually. For example, an animal may have encountered many tigers, and therefore has developed an instinct for recognition of tigers, yet may have only seen an ocelot once in its lifetime. Thus, in time, the animals have developed an instinct for recognition as a threat of all entities that resembled a tiger or any particular predator. Obviously in most environments, many different kinds of predators existed. Many of those predators were very rarely experienced.
As a result, the animal was unable to develop a specific instinct with regard to each predator. Thus, the animals that have survived the most, and were most likely to survive were those who have developed the strongest instinct of self-defense. Those were the animals who have acquired an apprehensive attitude towards nearly all things were most likely to survive. That is the case because many predators existed, and one is most likely to survive if one avoided as many predators as possible. Hence, as a zoological principle of this inquiry, it should be established that an animal that excelled the most at avoiding predators is most likely to survive. The most effective strategy for avoiding predators is fleeing all potential dangers.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As a result of this, most animals who have survived have developed such a firm instinct of self-preservation that they have regarded almost all non-living things, even those that were not dangerous to them as living things. They tended to regard non-living things as living things because they have developed the tendency to regard many things (non-living things among them) as dangerous, and they associated danger with a living thing, because a living predator represented the most clear danger in their mind. Thus, the idea of danger was inseparable from a living thing, and all the things that were regarded as dangerous were regarded as living things. In other words, they took a personal approach to nearly all things that surrounded them. This is merely a distinct form of feeling, or regarding all things as emotive, or personal in nature. In summary, feeling is the essence of our being, or the instinct. Yet because animals were forced to act upon instinct quickly and therefore exercise instinct frequently, the tendency towards relying on instinct has become more pronounced. In other words, our tendency to make instinctual or emotional decisions (Feeling) has become stronger as a result.