Emotions

(said by one that sometimes wrestles with her own)

DOWNLOADING EMOTIONS. HAPPY: COMPLETE. ANGRY: COMPLETE. SAD: COMPLETE...FEAR:....cannot connect to server no SQL library 23.5 contact the adminstrator...

*clang wrzrz brrkrkrkrk*

I dunno, are you emotional? Do you display your emotions? Heart on your sleeve??

otm, oops, wayyyy otm

i have a lot of emotions this morning, they're like spilling over

Histrionic display of emotion is cool when you're alone, walking down the street or sitting in a cafe. Get them out of your system that way so when you finally speak with others you can look tear-stained and sound hoarse while acting like a robot.
-- dave q, Monday, October 25, 2004 6:00 PM (3 years ago) Bookmark Link

wow

EMOTIONS DON'T MEAN SHIT.

Arrgh!

There's such a lack of good information about emotions and what they're good for that it isn't surprising that there's also a huge amount of confusion on the subject. I should write a short treatise, except no one would read it unless it was broken into posts of ten words each.

Break 'em into 10 word posts then Aimless!

Why'd I post that in 2004? Talk about tempting fate.

OK. I'll make a brief stab.

The take-home message: emotions are the source of all motivation, because they are the foundation of and only basis for sorting the desirable from the undesirable.

Reason, foresight and imagination can add considerable subtlety to this process of sorting, by revealing the tangential or remote consequences of particular courses of action, but without emotions this would be a sterile exercise, since none of those subtle consequences would 'mean' anything unless they were attached to an emotion or a desire. If you didn't know how you felt about those consequences, you wouldn't care about them.

So, saying "emotions don't mean shit" is precisely the opposite of the truth. Nothing 'means' shit without emotions. They would just be, as a series of semi-predictable, but ultimately empty, events.

yeah

emotion poll?

emotions

o yes
o no

'Nother take (this is not exactly a well-ordered argument):

Emotions are often derided and devalued.

There are probably a variety of reasons for this. For example, unlike some of the 'higher' brain functions (such as judgement or logic), and very much like assholes, everyone has them. Therefore, emotions cannot be used to distinguish yourself from your neighbors, from random imbeciles, or from your pets.

Whatever is free and universal, like air, is seldom valued... until you are deprived of it.

The primary reason why emotions are devalued, is that they are so rudimentary and crude. Or they certainly can be. Gusts of emotion can be strong enough to blot out all those higher functions and narrow your conciousness to nothing but bare, powerful urges.

Since bare, powerful urges can often lead to disasterous consequences, this is a sensible reason to be wary of emotions. Crimes of passion are not just fairy tales. Emotions can be very dangerous. Very dangerous.

Emotions can also be very refined, almost civilized. Apart from the Big Four primary emotions (fear, joy, sadness, anger) there are some very interesting secondary and tertiary emotions: curiosity, pride, awe, love, reverance, shame.

I am sure someone somewhere has drawn up an evolutionary chart showing the relationship between all these major and minor emotions and how one grows from the other, but the main point is that emotions are not just to be respected as frightening and powerful, but as beneficial, too.

If nothing else, our lives are made much richer by all this constant emotional fluxion. The trick is to understand it, integrate it, use it rather than be used by it.

ok so you went to school for psych then?

Since emotions can't be chosen, can't be shut off without doing oneself harm, and since they are always with us, always shifting and always coloring our perceptions, how do you ever get a handle on them?

Good question.

It is a process. It has to start somewhere and a good place to start is to recognize Rule Number One: emotions do not tell you the truth about the world and people around you, except haphazardly, left-handedly, coincidentally; rather, emotions always tell you the truth about how you feel and nothing more.

This simple rule takes a long time to grasp fully. It requires developing a mindfulness that few achieve. It is well worth the effort.

xp - surmounter, I never studied psych (except reading some William James). I studied poetry. I studied buddhism. I studied myself. Mostly myself. Learning one's own mind is a very tricky process.

it is, that's why i studied psych.

(cont. after a brief interruption by a visitor)

I've had the same laboratory as anyone else: living my life.

I will cop to one very unusual circumstance in my life that required me to apply myself to these problems with more than normal vigor. My daughter was born with grave and permanent health problems, and the past two decades of my life have been spent in the company of constant grief and frequent crisis.

It is rather like living in a zone where earthquakes occur on a monthly basis. You learn how to build for it, by studying every part of the structure like your life depends on it.

anyone ever seen an emoticon of two smiley faces having sex?

Waht could they use as a sexual apparatus?

I think emotions suck when they prevent you from reaching your goals like a robot. I would be getting up early, working out, dieting, etc... but noooo, emotions have to come in. Furthermore, relationships and being alone would be easier without frustration. So for the most part, emotions have a heavy influence on our lives leaning towards the negative direction, but there are ways around it being negative.

As I pointed out above, the reason you have personal goals (rather than having goals which are arbitrarily imposed upon you, which would be true if you were a robot) is because of those troublesome emotions. Don't blame them; they are wired into your brain.

But you can (and should) use other, calmer and more rational parts of your brain to develop a more symbiotic relationship with your emotions. A psychologist might identify this as "developing a well-integrated personality", but that is just a jargon description for a difficult, often painful, always messy process that the psychologist probably can't help you with, unless they've been there and done it on their own.

Aimless, I'm very sorry to read above about your family's health issue.

I have a now 7-year old daughter, so hearing about things like that strikes a chord with me. I hope all works out well.

FWIW -- and dragging things back on topic -- I'm plenty emotional. Too much, I think, despite being in a profession where a cool/dispassionate demeanor is probably a preferred character trait.

I sometimes thing it would be very, very practical and probably very interesting and maybe slightly even awesome: to have no emotions.

We had to write a paper about our "hero" in sixth grade. I wrote mine about Data from Star Trek. It was around 16 pages long, and most of it was comparing him to Q, why Data was good because he had no emotions (and how that would be nice to have), his views of what are emotions and what are not (do you need emotions to understand humor?), and contrasting him with the passionate & fickle Q.

My teacher gave me a bad grade because it was too long.

My teacher gave me a bad grade because it was too long.

That's too bad. You should've gotten points for being that into it, at the least.

Aren't teachers weird sometimes? The one who made me realize I was really going to be a writer was totally great, but frowned on parentheses.

your teacher sucks.
i would love to read 16 pages about why data is better than Q.

data is so much better than q, q is such a boner. Any teacher who can think it is conscionable to consider a paper written in sixth grade "too long" really is a wrong'un.

for sure. lazy teachers promote lazy students.

Any teacher who can think it is conscionable to consider a paper written in sixth grade "too long" really is a wrong'un.

^^^^^ this

If Data had existed in complete isolation from emotions, for example if he lived in a society populated exclusively by other Datas, then Data would not have had any reason to take action, and no one to give him orders or direction. His value in the series is as an observor and interogator, who sheds light on the actions and motives of others by asking naive questions, or as an object of pathos.

Which isn't to say he wasn't valuable, given his situation as described in the series. Only that, in an emotion-free context he would have been boring, inert and useless.

Aimless, you and those emotions.

i accidentally declared 2009 the Year of Feelings

in an emotion-free context he would have been boring, inert and useless.

If he has no emotions, I'm not sure why he would behave differently depending on whether or not those around him did. However I think your train of thought is similar to the one I have always had regarding Data (and Spock too) - is it even possible for an intelligent being to exist without emotions? Are they a natural byproduct of intelligence? Data must be curious about his environment or he certainly would be inert and useless. Is curiousity an emotion? He is concerned about his own survival and that of his fellow crewmembers - this is presumably explained as a pre-programmed mental state or belief, and his subsequent actions are merely natural consequences of this belief + circumstances + rationality. How does this differ from our own 'emotional' desire for survival?

(cont. for 16 pages)

Spock is half human, and even if he were completely Vulcan, he would still have emotions. The whole "Vulcans are emotionless" thing is plainly a myth if you observe them even for a short time. They are hiding their emotions, which is more dangerous, because you end up with some nutter like Sybok...

(continue stoned ramblings until weed runs out and/or craving for Doritos kicks in...)

http://www.earfuzz.com/images/emotions/emotions.jpg

emotions are so last year

Are they a natural byproduct of intelligence?

I identify them more as a precursor to intelligence.
Is curiousity an emotion?

I would say most definitely yes.

How does this differ from our own 'emotional' desire for survival?

It does not. What differs is the source, which is derivative rather than primal.

Data's programmed desire to live is a mere extension of his programmer's desire that Data should live, which is a reflection upon the fact that Data is designed to assist his maker's survival. His program therefore serves the same purpose as our emotion and has its ultimate roots in that emotion.

I identify them more as a precursor to intelligence.

Ok yes that is absolutely true in the case of humans. But for an unevolved machine, something with no animal roots, something that could supposedly live up to the ideal of an emotionless, purely rational intelligence... I just ain't sure it's possible. Whether they are a byproduct of that level of complexity or intelligence, or whether they are designed in, I'm not sure how something could function without emotions, without curiousity, without desires.

About a decade ago I did quite a bit of programming in pursuit of artificial intelligence - not paid work; it was a personal interest. 'Pure' rationality is capable of measuring and comparing data, but that activity is pointless without a heirarchy of weights and values attached to goals or desires.

After quite a lot of design work, I concluded that no artificial intelligence could ever replicate human intelligence without the programmer imposing some analog to emotions onto the program. I also concluded that 'pure' and 'emotionless' rationality would be extremely sterile in and of itself and could gain meaning or purpose only when brought back into a context of values and desires - i.e. emotionally based goals.