Are emotions unnecessary now?
Disclaimer:-
This is a discussion about emotions and if do we really need them anymore.
Please note that this discussion talks about the 'need' of emotions on a survival basis and not the 'wants' of emotion.
Please respect everyone's answers.
Have fun.
Hello.
I have often thought about existential thoughts and meaning of life, .etc.
I believe that emotions have become unnecessary in this modern world, and that the future doesn't need it anymore.
Please feel free to discuss about it in an affirmative or negative point of view.
This is a discussion about emotions and if do we really need them anymore.
Please note that this discussion talks about the 'need' of emotions on a survival basis and not the 'wants' of emotion.
Please respect everyone's answers.
Have fun.
Hello.
I have often thought about existential thoughts and meaning of life, .etc.
I believe that emotions have become unnecessary in this modern world, and that the future doesn't need it anymore.
Please feel free to discuss about it in an affirmative or negative point of view.
Comments (285)
Desire and emotions are what we are. No getting round that.
Desire is vital to achievement.
Humans are not robots.
If we go to the root of all emotions and desires, we are not that different from robots.
I believe that emotions and desires don't define us, our intelligence does.
A murderer has reasons to do crime, he did it because of his desire to kill or emotion.
Whereas if he just used logic, he would have come to the conclusion of killing someone.
I can't possibly think what would happen if emotions were cast aside completely. Okay, we may need a certain mastery of emotions, rather than being under their control. But, to ignore them may be catastrophic because we are not machines and are sentient beings. You speak of survival, but emotions are a guide, as an interface between mind and matter, and, perhaps, nature's best guide. We may have been taught to conceal our emotions, but I believe that if we try to suppress or repress them we may land in all kinds of dangers individually, and as social groups.
Why seperate intelligence into emotion and logic?
They are inseparable.
So what's your plan to how to live without emotion?
Emotions aren't a survival tool that's why some people emotionally shut down or repress in order to navigate extreme stress. So, the question doesn't really make sense as emotions were never a matter of survival. However, not being necessary for survival is a poor measure for value.
As our emotions are the foundation of our moral principles, there would be no reason to refrain from causing others suffering, provided we can get away with it.
Whenever, I talk about this topic, I feel like I am an atheist trying to tell a believer that God doesn't exist.
That is why I am glad, that you atleast had some logic in your comment.
However saying, 'I can't possibly think what would happen if emotions were cast aside completely.', just seems like an excuse for not having a valid point against my statement.
Just like if an atheist says God doesn't exist, a believer can just say that he can't imagine a world without God, even though the atheist thinks that they are living in one.
I strongly disagree with the notion that humans are somehow makes us machines.
Humans are much more than just robot+emotions.
We have a consciousness, the ability to think from different standpoints, and much more.
Also, even if we consider for the sake of debate that humans without emotions would turn into machines, how is it bad?
I mean, i have never seen a machine choose to kill others unless its programmed to do so.
Whereas, a human on the other hand would do it if he is in a bad mood. (An extremely bad one)
Btw, I also disagree on your notion that emotions are a guide, an interface between mind and matter.
I think the better definition would be that emotions are a way to express physical conditions easier.
For exaple:- People will understand you fear of heights easier by seeing your shivering feet, rather than just looking at a still human. People will understand that you are hurt physically if you cry, rather than if you just stand still. Emotions exist long before languages. So, by my view, its basically just a language that predates spoken and written langauges.
Another thing to note is no one seems to compare a human with other animals, just robots.
There are plenty organisms apart from humans which don't show emotions and don't need a meaning in life.
Why can't we just be like them.
Last thing, I have noticed that you have diverged a bit from the topic.
The topic isn't about if we should supress or repress emotions or that we should practice anything mentioned here.
Its only about if it would be a logical and viable way.
I could ask you the same question.
Why think logic and emotion are inseperable?
I mean robots and computers can follow logic without having emotions, right?
Also, i don't understand your this statement -
"So what's your plan to how to live without emotion?"
The reason is same.
I could ask you the same question.
What was your plan to live with emotion?
There was none, right?
We just happened to be born with one, and we followed it, no questions asked.
This discussion isn't about how we will live a life like that anyways.
Its about if that life will be better than the current one.
So, answer this-
Would you rather live in a world with emotions, where sufferring is guaranteed with no guarantee of happiness?
or
Would you rather live in a world which is guaranteed to be peaceful as no one can feel emotions.
I have seen enough people suffering to choose the second option without thinking much.
I wonder if you are talking about transcending emotions, because you don't appear to be wishing for humanity to be reduced to a robotic consciousness. I think that it is a fine line, and how we can possibly wake up to a higher state of consciousness altogether. I don't wish to derail your topic, or send it off course at all, but your observations about murderers being compelled by desires, does make me wonder if you are thinking about human beings able to reach towards a greater stage of awareness and consciousness.
Computers and robots are not human.
Logic and emotion are inseperable.
You don't have an option.
Your hypothetical are meaningless.
Emotions are great!
We make our own happiness with emotions plus logic.
Remind me what EQ stands for again? You mentioned it.
I don't believe emotions have anything to do with rationalism.
If anything, if often goes against logic.
It's best shown in experiments like the Trolley experiment, where a human would rather save 1 person with whom he/she/they have emotional connection with rather than save 4 strangers, which far disobeys logic by simply not giving a damn about 4 lives over 1 life.
Also, I think you just contradicted yourself with this statement -
"there's no way someone would ever be rational if it hurt like hell.",
as if you meant it, you are just saying that its better for everyone in the world to die, if it means you can have peace and not be in pain.
I feel like thats an excuse for saying that you are weak and/or a coward.
We don't need to emotions to be rational anymore.
We have logic and other tools to help us do it.
"Biologically and evolutionarily, all “negative,” or distressing, emotions, like fear, disgust, or anxiety, can be thought of as “survival-mode” emotions: They signal to the body and brain that our survival and well-being may be at risk, and are specifically designed to motivate behaviors and bodily responses"
Source:- https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-embodied-mind/201209/emotions-survival-and-disconnection
I don't think i need to say anymore, but i might as well.
Emotions were created to help humans survive back when we had to fight animals like lions and mammoths.
Now that we don't have those happening everywhere, it seems like it is unnecessary to have emotions anymore.
Just like wisdom teeth and appendix, i feel like it has just become a vestgial part of humans.
Also, if anything being necessary for survival is an excellent measure for value.
A diamond jewellery is highly unnecessary for survival.
Thats why people dont buy it unless they have excess money.
Food and shelter on the other hand are highly necessary for survival.
Thats why no matter how poor you are, those are your prorities.
I believe people should just use this method to understand the difference between needs and wants.
Your statements is only seeing one side of the coin.
Just as there would be no reason to refrain from causing others suffering, provided we can get away with it, there wouldnt be a reason to just let others mind their own business.
Yes, emotions are *one of* the foundation of our moral principles, but so is logic.
And now in a world where we have better form of communication and survival is easier, logic and other stuff would be more than enough to shape our moral principles.
And logically speaking, it takes much less resources to not kill someone.
And the moral priciple would be to not kill anyone.
Other thing people seem to disregard is that, just because there are no emotions, it doesnt mean there are no rules either.
There would be police force finding criminals and punishing them.
The rules can be simple stuff like
1) No killing is allowed
2) No robbing is allowed, etc
And since many people are wrongly comparing emotionless humans to robots, i will use it too for the sake of debate.
If you tell a robot to choose between 2 choices while retaining most of its energy, it will choose the one that requires less energy. Because its based on logic.
The former emotions must be encouraged and enriched, but the latter must be controlled and calmed down? :)
I like your way of thinking.
I am sorry that I am not able to put what I mean into words in a easy to understand form.
I am still trying to uderstand myself and the world.
I have a simple hypothetical which might help in understanding what i am trying to say, maybe.
Consider you have 2 choices-
1) Make a world, in which people have emotions, and never be guaranteed if they will live a happy life or not.
2) Make a world, in which people don't have emotions, but be guaranteed that they will live a peacefull life. (peaceful, not happy)
I think my brother(not on this website) explained it better.
He wants a world where people use logic before emotions.
Save 4 people, instead of 1 person, even if that 1 person is emotionally attached to you.
So, i guess you are correct when you said that I want a world where humans have a greater stage of awareness and consciousness.
Also, just wanna make it clear, I am not against emotions. I like to feel happy and loved just as much as any other. But, its my dislike towards murder and other inhumane stuff thats forces me to believe that a world without any emotions would be better than a world with it, especially if it means people can be sad or angry.
It leads me to think of a track by Warren Zevon, called , 'Sentimental Hygiene'. I think it is a fine balance between emotion and going beyond it. As you are new to the site, you may not be aware that I have a current thread on balance in thinking. I also welcome you to the site.
One aspect which I am aware of issues arising in mindfulness meditation. I have some but not extensive experience of this practice, but I think that the role of the body, emotions and thinking come into play. We can become aware of them, but rather than being governed by any of the three, we can simply observe all of these aspects of ourselves.
Remember, the Trolley Problem is there to expose a dissonance between what utilitarianism demands that we do (kill 1 to save 4) and our intuition that there's something not quite right about that. It's possible that the moral intuition I referred to could be just our emotions in disguise, I'm not sure. Actually, it's not just some vague feeling that something's off as I initially thought. That 1 man utilitarianism requires us to slay is innocent and thus killing faer would be immoral. No, no emotions in the Trolley Problem, at least none that I can detect.
Quoting Kinglord1090
I merely meant to point out what you already know - emotions motivate and also demotivate. We engage in rationality for mainly two reasons: 1) we enjoy it and 2) it's tool that helps us achieve happiness and avoid suffering. Both reasons are emotional in character.
Regarding the issue of letting the world end if it means peace for me, well, it's a non sequitur. Nothing that I said implies that and moreover, I don't think anyone will ever be so unlucky to face such a dilemma: either suffer or the world is kaput.
Doing away with emotions would be tantamount to doing away with the body since they are one and the same. All you could do is dull them with narcotics, invasive and unethical surgeries, or abuse. In short, it’s not worth it.
Yes, computers and robots are not human.
But the inspiration for making them was taken from human brain.
Scientists tried to replicate the way a human brain works, and they ended up with computers.
Which is an undeniable proof that the way a computer works, that is, by logic, is an essential part of humans.
Your notion that logic and emotions are inseperable, without giving me any reason to why you think this is not appreciated.
You telling me that I have no option seems that you are trying to hide the fact that you dont have enough resources to prove it, so you are just bruteforcing it without giving any proof or explanation and hoping it works.
I am sorry, but it thats how you want to communicate, i would have to ask you to leave the post.
The point of hypotheticals are that they aren't real.
They are just mere tools to help us understand ourselves better.
Ao, if you think my hypotheticals are meaningless, so be it, I think they offered great insight and helped shed some light towards the often unethical seeming topic.
I agree that emotions are great. I like them. But I feel like i dont need them.
Also, not that the post clearly states that this discussion is about wherether we 'need' emotions and not about whether we 'want' them.
The question isnt about how happiness is created, its about whether we need them or not.
EQ stands for emotional quotient.
I feel like you don't understand what this discussion is about.
Yes, I believe EQ is an important part of human life, but i also think that it is not essential anymore.
I think that your point is important because we cannot simply put the idea of emotions into the realm of mind. There is so much discussion on this site about the relationship between mind and body, and I feel that emotions may be the missing link because they encompass both mind and matter in such an all encompassing way. I think that any true discussion of the emotions needs to recognise them on this level.
Trying to get rid of emotions is like trying to get rid of breathing or the sun shining.
Good luck in your delusions.
Yes.
Use good emotions more and bad emotions less.
And if its impossible, like happiness and sadness will always be equal kind of thing, just agree that a world void of emotions will be better.
This strikes a chord!
Hello. It is currently 12:41 am for me now.
But i will surely check the track tomorrow.
Thank you for welcoming me on this site, i feel much appreciated here, even if 99% of the comments are against my belief.
I will definitely check out your thread as well.
I apologize but i am not into meditation and stuff.
I believe that humans can think in a higher consciousness just the way they are, if they try.
But, i like and respect our view on it.
You’vegot a lot of catching up to do when it comes to the attitude of science , specifically cognitive science , regarding the role of affective with regard
to thinking.
According to current accounts, cognitive and affective processes are closely interdependent, with affect, emotion and sensation functioning in multiple ways and at multiple levels to situate or attune the context of our conceptual dealings with the world . According to
the newer thinking, affective tonality is never absent from cognition. As Ratcliffe(2002) puts it,“moods are no longer a subjective window-dressing on privileged theoretical perspectives but a background that constitutes the sense of all intentionalities, whether theoretical or practical”(p.290). In affecting reason, feeling affects itself.
I will let you go and carry on your discussion tomorrow. I frequently get myself into obscure discussions at all times, and have to choose to switch off. You may have entered a zone in which philosophy can become a 24 hour pursuit, but I believe that sleep plays a crucial role,so hope that you can switch off for tonight.
The inspiration for making them wasn’t the human brain initially. It was models derived from logic and mathematics. We then turned around and tried to model the brain on the calculative principles of our computers. That approach has recently been dumped because psychologists discovered that a brain doesn’t function like a calculating machine. It is intuitive, goal oriented, normative , wholistic, oriented rind what it cares about, what matters to it. These are all things that our computers lack, because we designed them with no concept of the role of afffectivity.
Did you know that individuals with damage to areas of the brain having to do with affect cannot function effectively, even though their intellectual capacities remain intact? This is because they cannot make any decisions. Nothing matters to them more than anything else so there is no basis for them to choose a path or form a goal.
Quoting Kinglord1090 Really, you spend 24hrs in a life and death situation?
Quoting Kinglord1090
Feel free to insert an overarching point any time. The argument seems to be 'my statements are incorrect' by arbitrary measure. Fascinating stuff.
Quoting Kinglord1090 Are you familiar with the concept of condescending discourse and how under appreciated it remains?
I should apologize as I should have mentioned that the trolley problem I was talking about was a modified version by some science show.
In it the host would go upto random people on the show and ask people about this dilemma.
There are 2 rail tracks connected to 1 rail track. There are 5 workers on one of the rail tracks, and just 1 person on the other track. A train is about to pass and you are standing by the lever which can change the track, the train will move onto.
If you decide to not do anything 5 people will die.
If you pull the lever only 1 person will die.
Some people answered that they will not pull the lever in this case, probably because of the reasons that you just said, that is, they didn't want to feel responsible for causing someone's death ,as if they hadn't done anything, the 5 people were destined to die anyways.
Some people decided to pull the lever to kill the 1 person, so that 5 people can survive.
No matter how you look at it, the second option is the most logical option.
Also, emotions are at play here because the reason people choose not to do anything is because they dont want to feel guilty. And guilt is an emotion.
The host then tells them the second stage of the problem.
What if the person that is alone is someone you know?
After hearing this, suddenly, a majority of people decide they want to save the 1 person, even if it meant 5 innocent deaths.
This sudden shift from using logic to not using it because higher emtions were involved is what i meant when i said that emotions often goes against logic.
I apologize if this isnt exactly how it went in the show, as it has been a while since i watched it, but i was intrigued by it, and i am pretty sure that ths is what had happened.
The two reasons you gave for rationality aren't correct.
for one, you just framed emotions into two words that is, fun and happiness and decided to present them as seperate.
If you think, that thinking rationally is only possible with emotions, you are just wrong.
Computers and even animals do it everyday, without having emotions at all.
Yes, I did go overboard with my hypothetical of you killing the entire world for your own peace, it was because there was a communication error between us.
I thought you were disregarding the trolley problem, but after your last message that has been rectified.
This is an older traditional notion of the relation between emotion and logic and it has been discarded by many psychologists today. Emotion was thought of as extraneous to thinking , a mere spice that was sprinkled on top of concepts, and usually disorganizing to thinking. The opposite is now thought to be the case.
Who says emotions and body are one and the same?
Do you have any scientific proof or sources to back your claims?
Animals were never born with emotions to begin with.
We go through surgeries to remove appendix and wisdom teeth as they are vestigial.
Why can't we do the same with emotions, then?
Also, we are talking about a hypothetical here.
Which means we don't have to think how it is done before we know if it will even be a good choice or not.
How can you say its not worth it?
A bit of pain for infinite peace.
Or would you like to see war and murders happening as long as you get to live without pain?
Like I have said before.
I don't believe in mind and body are same, or that the mind and body share some sort of spiritual connection.
But, thats just my view.
I personally see consciousness and 'mind' as just neurons firing in the brain and nothing more.
Well, animals and plants don't have emotions like humans do.
Are they any higher or lower of an entity than us? -No
If they can survive like this, why can't we?
A delusion would be believing in something with no proof.
I have proof and explanation.
You don't.
So, please leave this post.
Emotions are our body’s way of telling us how well we are coping with situations. But even without feedback from
the body we would still be affective beings. When a friend borrows your car , smashes it up and doesn’t tell you , you will feel anger because anger is your sense of disappointment combined with desire for retribution. When you have an upcoming root canal appointment you will feel anxiety because anxiety is out anticipating and preparing for a potentially negative unknown future. When you cheat on your wife you may feel guilt because guilt is just your sense of you letting yourself and others down.
When I saw this title I face palmed.
Desire has always been and always will be the driver of humans,and our desires have a logic to them.
Its Just that some humans are more logical in desires than others.
Philosophy,rationality and science have peddled this total myth that logic is seperate or superior and detachable from desire and emotions.
All the delusional debates and hypothetical on this forum about logic,yet a prime basic axiomatic fundamental truth like desire being primary is still ignored or worse still denied!
I will say it again,without psychology and the axiom of desire,philosophy is sophistry and whistling in the wind.
Well, I dont know how to respond to your message.
Even a simple Google search comes up with this result.
"delusion - an idiosyncratic belief or impression maintained despite being contradicted by reality or rational argument, typically as a symptom of mental disorder."
I have been giving rational arguments to all the questions, so if anyone's being delusional it would be Mr. Protagoras.
Hope you get well soon. : )
It used to be commonly thought that animals don’t have emotions. Now we know that they are capable of a huge range of complex emotions, just like we are.
Animals don't have emotions!!!!!!!!
Have you never had a pet dog?
You have lost the plot monsieur.
Your evidence is nonsense.
I was referring to myself!
Actually, we are fundamentally different in several significant ways, at least we are now in the current state of AI/Robotics.
Your right. It's an attempt to escape reality by inventing illusions to make people feel safe and comfortable.
The irony is life is absolutely wonderful throwing away those illusions and embracing your emotions fully.
The "enlightenment" and all anti body religious scholars have a lot to answer for!
How descartes believed animals were machines is mind boggling delusion!
Like i said, the first question to tackle is if humans can survive without emotions.
You have merely stated the importance of it, but that doesnt prove its usefulness.
Alexithymia is a disease where people lose the ability to feel emotions, and the only problem they face is not being able to understand others, but if everyone were to lose emotions, this wont be a problem anymore as no one would need to understand other's emotions to form an effective communication.
Also, what you are stating would be meaningless in this scenario as my side of belief guarantees peace.
So, if its a trade between a part of intelligence for infinite peace, i am pretty sure you know which one people would choose.
I am glad that you are taking a scientific route on this discussion.
It's a good ponit of view.
Well, i am trying to reply to all messages before going to sleep, but people just keep replying.
Its 1:32 pm for me now, and I should better get sleeping soon.
Someone is seriously debating if we need emotions!
Like emotions are detachable like a pen top.
Why have legs when he have cars now!?
The level of bullshit is unreal!
You are Emotions! And that is what it is to be a human.
How do you think people came to know about logic and matheatics in the first place?
Everything human has built was an inspiration from nature, building planes to mimic birds, and computers that can mimic brains.
Yes they were inspired by maths and logic, but math and logic were inspired by the human brain in the first place.
We are a lot different than robots. And robots, remember, are a shabby imitation of ourselves, not the other way around.
The thing about emotions is that they are not a discrete function. They are integrated deeply into our thinking processes--so integrated that without emotion we wouldn't be doing much thinking. Emotion provides the motive power behind thinking. We engage in difficult problem solving because we have desires to solve problems, and find pleasure in doing so. Then there is fear driving us forward if we face a life-threatening problem.
Emotions become a problem when they are not regulated by reason. If something happens that "makes us angry" we can either allow anger to reckless rampage, or we can channel it into a socially tolerable form.
We can do without murderous road rage--absolutely.
And what inspired maths and logic?
Clue,inspired.
Inspiration is intuition an emotion a desire.
All logic is from motives. And motives are desires.
Are you not motivated to use logic? Then you Desire logic.
Emotion,motive,desire is unassailable.
You are just proving my point further.
I said emotions 'were' necessary for survival. They are not anymore. And thats why we should get rid of them.
So, i dont need it to assist me by telling me to move out of the way of a train now.
But i would have needed it back when lions and mammoths existed as i would have no other way to determine the seriousness of a situation.
Well, thanks for that actually. You just made it easier for me.
"The argument seems to be 'my statements are incorrect' by arbitrary measure."
Isn't that exactly what you are doing as well?
That is how debates/discussions work, so I dont see anything wrong in this.
Also, if anything, everyone else is using arbitrary measures.
I have been using measures from correct sources and objective truth.
Its you guys who are basing it on personal belief and thinking i am wrong for having a different opinion.
I dont diagree with the notion that emotions play an important part in human life.
What I am saying is that that important part isnt enough to compete with eternal peace.
Quoting Kinglord1090
Why is it logical to refrain from causing suffering, if we can get away with it?
Quoting Kinglord1090
What if it saved resources by killing someone (for example the disabled that cannot contribute)?
Any why is it logical to preserve resources?
I dont understand how this has anything to do with the discussion.
You are just stating what emotions are.
Not how we should deal with them.
We dont need emotions to tell us how we are coping with stuff anymore.
In a world void of emotions, if someone borrows a car, and smashes it, he woul pay the money to repair it.
And the person the car blengs to will accept the money and repair it.
Which would be the most logical thing to do.
In this case, there would be no unncessary hate against someone and everything would be peaceful.
Please just leave.
I dont want to reply to you anymore.
You arent even ready to listen to any argument even if i give you proof and explanation.
If you didnt come in here with an open mind, then why even bother?
My view is that what you are calling emotions is based in logic itself. Let me explain. Let’s say I am a scientist and I generate a theory to explain some aspect of the world. I have tested my theory and so have others and it does a pretty good job of describing, predicting and organizing the phenomena. But there is a rival theory. It also has been tested and does a pretty good job of describing things. But the two theories describe the same events in different ways. They both use airtight logic , because of course all logic is is a kind of window dressing to make sure that one’s theory is internally consistent. Logic can’t tell you which theory to choose because you can’t simply read that off of the world. The world is amenable to an infinite variety of interpretations. The generating of a theory isn’t a logical endeavor , it’s an intuitive creative endeavor. Logic only comes into play after we have created the model. The violence between people isnt a result of the failure of logic, of irrationality. Both theories I described in my example are rational , they just use different frames of rationality. Most violence is the result of clashing rationalities , and clashing logics. You cannot get rid of the basis of emotion in humans because it resides in the subjectivity of how we interpret our world.
No airtight logic will protect us from
frustration , hostility , anxiety , guilt and sadness. In fact , airtight logic’s can get us into trouble because they prevent us from adapting to logics that are foreign to us.
It is the nature of experience that it is constantly overturning logics. The only way to eliminate emotion is to eliminate experience.
Please read the statement properly again.
It doesnt state that animals dont have emotions.
It states that their emotions are on the same level as humans.
Also, some animals, especially micro-organisms, dont have emotions at all, and yet they live their life without a reason to live.
Are you getting emotional now!!!!
This whole thread is a self own. Ludicrous.
Your false choice between emotions and "world peace" is garbage,and ironically enough an appeal to Emotion!
Isnt that better tho?
Or would you rather live in a world with murder and crimes instead of choosing peace?
One could say that math and logic were generated in human brains , but that’s very different from saying that we understood how the brain works. The calculating machine model of the brain that you prefer can be very useful in physics , which is field that rose up
simultaneously with logic and math, but has proved to be much less useful in understanding biological and psychological phenomena.
So who the hell experiences this world peace?
@Kinglord1090
"Human minds are based on things like prediction and auto-associative memory."
AI and Predictive Analytics. The smartest AI technologies are, quite literally, prediction machines. They use algorithms to analyze large sets of data, in order to optimize towards a goal. As they optimize, they learn over time to improve their results.
Source:-https://www.marketingaiinstitute.com/blog/ai-for-predictive-analytics
"Human brains are part of a body that needs to regulate energy appropriate to circumstances."
So would an AI if you programme it that way.
"Human beings are a social species and emotion concepts are largely social constructs."
Exactly.
And this is exactly, what i think is unecessary now.
We dont need to be a social species anymore.
If you can just justify humans as just emotions, you are just a bad rep on humanity, my dude.
Humans are much more than just emotions and personal beliefs.
Quoting Kinglord1090
Quoting Kinglord1090
Generally, there is a singular point. You have at least two or three running at the moment.
1. Emotions were completely necessary for pre-history human survival.
2. Number 1 became false.
3. Reason 2 is a good reason to get rid of emotions.
I don't think you have actually proved 1 with sufficient evidence. There is no account for when or how 2. And lastly, 3 ignores the human experience as being desirable.
Do you want to narrow it down a bit?
We don’t get eternal peace by eliminating emotions , since they are not irrational. Instead we need to listen to what our emotions are telling us about the gap between our way of looking at the world and the way others do. The next time you feel anger or guilt or some
other emotion, rather than seeing it as illogical, try and see it as attempting to educate you that your frame of rationality needs to reconfigured. What you are doing f is blaming the messenger( emotion) for the message ( there is something in your world that you are failing to cope with )
It's wonderful to be human with desires,beliefs hope's,dreams,ambitions,emotions and Family and social relations.
You think you can eliminate those and stop man being a social species?
You are deluded!
You should get out more.
battery needs to be recharged
"They are integrated deeply into our thinking processes--so integrated that without emotion we wouldn't be doing much thinking."|
If we wouldnt think about some stuff without emotions, are those stuff important enough to begin with?
All robots are written in code.
All humans are also written in code, also known as DNA.
Robots take inputs, be it entered manually or giving it a camera to process information itself.
Humans do the same using their eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin, brain etc.
Both humans and robots then process this info and give some output.
I dont know if you know about coding, but all the choices humans make are basically if..then statements.
If hugry, then eat. I thirst, then drink.
We just happen to have a much more complex code with millions and billions of variables and inputs.
So, saying that humans and computers arent alike is weird.
Maybe the man is tired and overemotional.
That's a logical sign he should relax and maybe adjust his views.
See,emotions are logical!
What do you mean why is it logical to preserve resources?
The more resources we have, the better we will perform, and the btter we perform the better we will be able to help humanity.
Helping humanity has nothing to do with emotions, btw.
As humans, we only have 2 goals in life, and both goals are scientifically proven to be void of emotions.
You answeed your own question.
Its logical to refrain from doing so, because it would cost energy.
And no, in a world void of emotions, there would be no need for killing per say, disabled people.
Because they no one will be against them, nor with them.
If even after being diabled, they find a way to earn money, (without breaking any rules), people wouldnt care.
People wouldnt care what color you are, what caste you are, what gender you are, as long as you dont bother them.
The cause of such violence is not irrationality but rationality. That is to say , that there is only one correct version of the rational , the belief that the rational and the logical is not based on the subjective, that the order of the world has already been laid down for us as a perfect machine and all we have to
do is apprehend this perfect order. Because if that’s what you believe , then every time someone disagrees with your model, you will attribute their deviation as irrationality and emotionality.
I dont even understand what you are talking about anymore, so i will just give you 2 choices.
Would you rather -
1) Live in a world with emotions, where people suffer and commit murder.
2) Live in a world with eternal peace, but no way of being happy.
My choice is clearly the second world.
I dont want to see anyone suffer.
Funny you are saing that I am getting emotional as if you didnt think i was human.
Of course, i am human.
I have emotions and i know how bad they can get.
And how some people would just choose to die than live.
I am merely showing a better choice.
I haven't laughed this much at a thread ever i think.
So these are your folks who prize "logic" and science over everything else?!
This is as funny as that guy who said he fed 5000 with a few subways and surfed on the sea barefoot.
Next up,OP reveals he's jesus and turns members likes into wine and cryptocurrency.
Maybe you should check out the anti-natalism threads.
Oh,I know your human. Very human.
I don't share your false choices.
I love being human,I love my emotions.
What are you going to do with people like me?
And joy?
And pride?
And happiness?
And love?
Sure.
1) Here is more proof that emotions were built for survival.
"The popular answer is the evolutionary one — that emotions have helped us survive. When we lived in the wild — with monkeys and mastodons and tigers — we needed emotions in order to react quickly to dangerous stimuli. If faced with a tiger, it's better to be rocked with a fear so strong it triggers a rush of blood than to sit around and theorize about the threat. We developed an emotional system because it could induce quick responses to danger (for theorists on emotion and evolution, see Antonio Damasio, Joseph LeDoux, and Robert Trivers)."
Source:-https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-literary-mind/200911/why-do-we-have-emotions
2) Yes we stopped needing these emotions once we learned how to make weapons and fight back against these dangers.
3) Yes reason 2 is a good reason for it.
Of course, it alone isnt enough.
But getting ridding of emotions also means, getting rid of murders and crimes.
Its a win-win situtauion.
You said 3rd ignores human desire to experience life.
Ok, so i am asumming that you think some human is fine with living his whole life being tortured, simply because he/she/they get to experience it.
Ok, give me 1 reason on how a life without emotions wouldnt be peaceful, and if i am not able to solve it logically, i would accept that emotions are necessary.
Why do you think the word would be at peace without emotions ? Give me an example from
today’s politically polarized situation. Let’s say we remove
the emotional capacities from Trump supporters and Critical Race Theory supporters. How do you envision this to change their relationship and understanding of each other?
woahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
you cant just say that
do you want everyone to die?
there is covid outside dude.
kids stay inside and dont do drugs.
and pay attention to class
i need to recharge.
its 2:30 am.
I am going to sleep.
You are a great advert against the school system.
Because your reasoning is awful.
I ain't scared of no covid,or drugs.
Quoting Kinglord1090
It wouldn't be peaceful as people could still suffer?
If you're getting rid of suffering, it defeats my foregoing objections.
Without emotion as you are understanding it, every major political conflict on earth would remain exactly as it is today. Keep in mind that violence doesn’t just consist of temper tantrums There is institutionalized violence. The justice system dispenses violence in the form
of punishment , law, incarceration. These are not ‘emotional’ and yet they are violent. Many wars are decided on via rational calculation of what is is in one’s county’s economic interest.
All of these conflicts are over ideas , not emotions.
Quoting Kinglord1090
Quoting Cheshire Do you notice how your argument changed slightly in order for it to escape criticism. We do it naturally all the time to rationalize that we haven't made a mistake. The brain is full of so many little tricks. How about this as our number 1.
1. We can get rid of emotions without eliminating ourselves as a result. (I think it's agreeable)
2. Number 2 is no longer necessary because our ability to persist is covered in number 1.
3. There exist a human condition in which a person would choose to eliminate their capacity for emotion.
Do you see the revisions as an improvement in the right direction?
This thread is better than anything kants critique of pure reason could ever muster.
And those who henceforth still have faith in "logic" let them be considered religious and superstitious in their worship of aristotle,plato and hegel over good old beautiful trusty emotions.
Charles Darwin and William James said it, but I thought it was a matter of common sense. Emotions are an act of the body. It’s why our heart races when we fear something or our eyes tear up when we are sad. When we study emotion we study bodies. I can’t see what suffices as a better answer, to be honest.
I say “it’s not worth it” because the procedures to do so would cause more injury than it would eradicate. Psychological life is so intertwined that to remove one would hinder the other, as in lobotomy patients. They might not have felt emotion, or at least expressed it, but they were incontinent and unintelligent.
If you think about it, if I did not feel pain I might not be able to recognize an injury. If I did not feel anger I might not be able to recognize an injustice. If I did not feel fear I wouldn’t know which situations to avoid, or when to pay attention. Sure, our emotions can guide us astray, but they also let us know. Doing away with emotions would render us stupid, in my opinion. Maybe I just get weirded out when people seek to mess with things that took millions of years to evolve.
Good point! I'm so glad you pointed that out.
However, it doesn't seem to add up. It's like this:
1. To kill an innocent person is wrong [true]
2. If you pull the lever you save 5 people and kill an (innocent) person [obvious]
3. You pull the lever [assume you do]
4. You save 5 people and kill an (innocent) person [2, 3 MP]
5. You kill an (innocent) person [4 Simp]
6. To kill an innocent person is wrong and you kill an (innocent) person [by pulling the lever]
What should follow from 6? You've done something wrong and that's why you'll be guilt-ridden. The guilt serves as an indicator of your wrongdoing. It's absolutely ok to not want to pull the lever because you don't want to be burdened by guilt because what you really want is not to be immoral.
Another issue with utilitarianism is the following:
Suppose you pull the lever and save the 5 people by killing one. You're a good person, right? Now, imagine yourself as the lone person who must be killed to save 5 other persons. By your reckoning, you should be killed which basically means someone killed you, a good person.
Taking this one step further, imagine a bad man (say he threatens to kill 5 people) is the single person who must be killed to save the 5. According to you, this bad person too must be dispatched without the slightest hesitation.
Here's the deal. In utilitarianism, once the so-called greater good comes into play, there's no difference between a good person and a bad person. What kinda moral theory is that?
Like should be treated alike but then good and bad must be like each other. Preposterous!
If you acquaint yourself with the philosophical zombie argument, you will see that without emotion, there would be no experience, and so there would be no consciousness. Experience = Consciousness. You cannot have one without the other. Every moment of consciousness has its corresponding feeling / emotion. A being without emotions / feelings has no impetus to act, since they are indifferent to everything - whether they live or die or anything in between is all the same to them.
This is not what I wanted.
Maybe its because of my lack of ability to make you guys understand what I am talking about.
So, I will try again.
I am trying to discuss about how a world without emotions will exist and if that world would be better or worse than this current one.
Unfortunately, I would have to put on some rules, since you guys aren't helping the discussion anymore and are just targeting to make me feel bad.
1) I know that emotions are good. I know their importance. Yes, I made some dubious points to try to say otherwise, and I apologize about that. So, stop saying how important they are and start talking about how getting rid of them will make a difference.
2) I am not saying humans=robot, thats just a wrong fact. I am saying that the making of the brain, and the principles it stands on is similar, and one day in the future, maybe science will be able to make a proper humanoid A.I. even with emotions.
3) Stop assuming that emotions are deeply connected with consciousness. There are people who suffer from Alexithymia, which causes theem to not have emotions. And they still have perfectly good logic and consciousness. Or would you guys go as far as calling them robots/animals, and say that they aren't humans?
4) Stop thinking about how we will get rid of emotions. That is not the point of interest of this discussion.
This post should only discuss about how a world without emotions would function.
I think we will have to do this all over again.
Also, before someone says - "Oh, but your post question says 'Are emotions unnecessary now', clearly stating that we should talk about the necessity of emotions first.", like i said, i wasn't able to frame my question properly, and i agree that that was due to the lack of my ability.
I will the first points of discussion now-
1) In a world without emotions, there will be no negative emotions such as greed, jealousy, sadness, etc.
So, we can guarantee that no one will those emotions. Meaning, world is already a better place.
2) There would be no positive emotions either. No one would help each other, unless it profits them directly. (which is the same case as a world with emotions, as well)
3) There will be no violence in such a world, as violence requires emotions as well as energy. In a world without emotions, energy would become a large decider, and people won't waste their energy on something that doesn't matter to them.
4) Even if we consider that violence is possible without emotions, we still have ways to work with it. Just as we have a police force in our world, there would be a police force in a world void of emotions. There will be certain rules that descibe that any sort of killing or harming other is strictly not allowed.
5) This discussion is a hypothetical with the rule being humans wont have emotions. So please dont make arguments like humans would magically start to have emotions out of thin air.
6) I hope you guys will help me make this a better discussion where we can talk about the correct thing. If anyone here has any problems with how I want this discussion to go, please kindly leave.
Edit:- Just wanted to add that emotional pain and physical pain are 2 different types of pain. So, even in a world void of emotions, people would feel physical pain.
Your list of rules and regulations just shows you are contriving and rigging your argument and any trying to stop dissent or counter views.
Your not wanting a discussion your wanting to preach that you have some magic solution for your own personal anxieties.
You haven't thought through your position at all.
Your post is as ludicrous as saying "we can Eliminate suffering and have world peace if we just eliminate humans,prove me wrong".
This whole thread is about your anxiety,your problems with your emotions.
How about you work on yourself rather than "fixing" the entire planet?
Bruhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
I literally said in the message that people should point out how an emotionless world will not be able to function properly.
Either you didn't read it, or you just want to act like you are smart by throwing random accusation at me.
Oh, so we are using 70 year old movies made for the purpose of 'entertainment' as our sources now?
How can you sink so low?
And I literally said you are framing the question in an attempt to justify your argument.
Read my post bruuuuuuuuih!
I don't need to throw shade,your digging your own contradictions and displaying your idealistic claptrap extremely well.
By the way,interesting choice of username.
Delusions of grandeur!
:rofl:
I don't understand.
I framed the questions in a way, that i could still be opposed.
Also, like i said before, if you dont wanna be here, just leave.
Oh, and what would perhaps your username mean?
Identity Theft, thats what it would mean.
My username is the name of the greatest Greek philosopher you ignorant dumbass. Wiki is your friend!
Look at my reply, you beautiful man.
You framed the question with a ludicrous impossible assumption.
Can you guess what the assumption was?
That you are capable of reason?
No. Try again.
By the way,you calling me beautiful is the first thing you have got right this thread.
I am gonna guess that you will say that the impossible assumption is that emotions and logic can be seperated.
And I already gave the answer for that.
There are people who suffer from Alexithymia who dont have emotions, yet are as humans as any one of us.
I called you beautiful because i didnt wanna swear.
Take a hint.
Even a person like you who believes so much in the power of emotion can't understand sarcasm.
Correctomundo! Look at the emotions on kinglord!!
Now,it's a misnomer that people with alexithymia don't have emotions. So your whole argument is gone.
Your sarcasm is shit!
"Alexithymia is a personality trait characterized by the subclinical inability to identify and describe emotions experienced by one's self. The core characteristic of alexithymia is marked dysfunction in emotional awareness, social attachment, and interpersonal relation. Furthermore, people with high levels of alexithymia can have difficulty distinguishing and appreciating the emotions of others, which is thought to lead to unempathic and ineffective emotional responses."
Source:- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexithymia
Ok, so you are just saying science is wrong?
That years of medical research and development is false?
Or the wikipedia and all websites are just full of lies?
First of all, comedy is subjective, so i get it if you didn't like it.
But that doesnt mean that my sarcasm was bad.
It just means your understanding of humor is flawed.
Read the article.
The emotions are still experienced,but not processed as well as normal.
It's impossible to not have emotions.
I dont think you are understanding what the article states.
The reason they said it like this - "emotions experienced by one's self.", isnt because they actually experience it, its because it is how they have to try to communicate with other people.
In layman terms, they are being forced to try to experience it even though they cannot.
Nope. They have trouble with processing emotions,not that they don't have any.
Have your worked in clinical settings?
Because you might understand if you had.
Well, seems like we reached an impasse.
Seems like clearly, you never had any hardships in your life since you cleary dont care about other humans.
I wont be replying to here anymore.
Before I leave this post, I would like to say one last thing to everyone.
Thank you for taking your time to share your opinions on this discussion.
And, Mr Protagoras, get a life, mate.
You wont get anywhere in life if you dont care about others.
There's no impasse. You never even got off the ground.
There was no discussion. You rolled in with a dogma and preached it,then got slapped down gracefully.
Now you posts are getting emotional. So don't recommend shit you can't do yourself.
And I'm happy in my life,with all I want. Comes from being
real,and taking responsibility for my Emotions.
If only you knew how wrong your comment about hardship is...
You really need to get out more,and stop living in your own head.
By the way you running off through logic or emotion?!
Or both...
So, neither happiness nor suffering. Well, with these two things gone, utilitarianism goes out the window. Kantian ethics would still apply though - it basically ignores the consequences of actions (happiness/sorrow). In fact, since we're talking about ethics vis-à-vis rationality, Kant's wish to render morality an extension of logic seems to be fit like a glove - Kant was of the opinion that immorality was a violation of the law of noncontradiction. Assuming Kant's ethics are put into effect, a world sans emotions would be good.
Too, virtue ethics would also find a niche in a feelingless world for the simple reason that the highest virtue is reason - Kant would've approved. If virtue ethics differs from Kantian ethics, it's only in the sense that in the former, the feelings of affected parties in a moral issue might need to be given proper weightage. However, with emotions out of the equation, both virtue ethics and Kantian ethics will converge on rationality/reason as the cornerstone of morality.
Interestingly, we must be extra cautious with Christianity - it's a marriage between emotions (hedonic heaven & hell) and rationality (Kantian duty ethics - the decalogue). We can separate the two, keep one and throw the other out.
Voila! We have a world devoid of all emotions and good to boot. I'll end with a question, "would a world of sentient AIs that can't emote be a moral world?" It looks like Kant (deontology) and Socrates (virtue ethics) though separated by nearly one-and-a-half thousand years were laying down the groundwork for a world populated by AI (artificial intelligence) units, each one of which would have, in Hermione Granger's view, "the emotional range of a teaspoon." We're basically developing machine-apt ethical models. :chin:
But as we age and the brain develops more, a person is able to gain mastery over their emotions. Just because we are angry and want to hit someone, doesn't mean that we do. Emotions become more of a digest, and a guide. If I feel angry at a situation, instead of just reacting, I think about it.
But what about the case in which there is no time to think about it? If you have no foreknowledge of a situation you're about to be in? If you have to act right then, or disaster will strike? When you cannot take the time or effort to think, emotion is the digest of the situation that lets you act when thinking would leave you paralyzed.
So do we need emotion? As we age and learn, perhaps we don't as much. I have suffered from medical depression, where all of my emotions disappear. Yet, I still "know" what I need to do when I wake up in the morning. Its not "exciting" when those days happen, but I still function. I also pretend to have emotions when speaking with others on those days, because emotions are a social lubricant.
Would there still be violence? Yes. One can conclude that another human being does not deserve to live. Violence is still an effective tool for getting things that you need. I don't think a lack of emotions would necessarily make the human race better. I think it would severely hinder development from a child to an adult. I think it would make social interactions slower and more muted. And finally, I think it would hinder our ability to react quickly to new situations, making us weak as a species to things that require the split second judgement that emotions provide.
Would this imply the non-existence of empathy?
Really nice view on this discussion.
I will try to answer your question.
"would a world of sentient AIs that can't emote be a moral world?"
If we consider that morals stem from emotions, then in a world void of emotions, morals wouldnt exist.
Of course, morals aren't based off of only emotions.
I am going to take example from life that existed before us, ones which existed without emotions, namely micro-organisms.
Ever since they are created, they only have 2 goals, these goals are the 2 most fundamental goals of life which can also be intepreted as the only logical meaning to life.
These 2 goals are- (can also be intepreted as 3)
1) Collect information and knowledge about the world.
2) Reproduce and pass on this information to the offsprings.
The reason these goals exist is because of mortality.
If living things didnt die, these goals wouldnt exist, or atleast reproducing would be unnecessary as well as harmful as the more population there is, the more space and resources it will take.
Now, you might be thinking why i am talking about this instead of answering the question.
The reason is that, I want to show some perspectives that might defeat the purpose of the question in the first place.
So, I ask you (rhetorically) -
Would a world of micro-organisms be a moral world?
See?
Now it has become a difficult answer once we know that micro-organisms are the same living things we evolved from.
They don't have emotions.
But they aren't mindless robots either.
So, then, if we cant differentiate micro-organisms with robots, yet know that something is different, how can people easily assume that a human without emotions would become a mindless robot?
So, my answer to your question is,
If we use the above 2 fundamentals to be the morals of such a world, then yes, such a world would be moral.
I will reply to your comment line by line.
Well, our world does have emotion, and me, as well as others on this discussion being humans, have emotion, and it would be practically impossible that no one brings there emotions to the table at some point. And I am fine with that, as long as people dont refuse to listen to logic because of it.
Personally, I do believe that emotions are instinctual responses to stimulus that help us survive as a species, and as a social group.
"Emotions become more of a digest, and a guide. If I feel angry at a situation, instead of just reacting, I think about it."
Well said.
However, you didnt pay attention to your own words.
You are telling us how grown ups can make rational decision by controlling/reducing emotions and how young people often can't.
Isn't that proof that if emotions didn't exist, then even the younger population would give some thought towards a situation without jumping to a wrong conclusion and do something horrible because of their emotions?
Why should we use emotions to guide us towards logical conclusions, if we can just use logic to do so?
I often discuss stuff with my brother who is a bit younger than me, but still makes excellent points and is very smart.
He made the same point about reflexes, and so, I already have answer to your point.
You and him assumed that reflexes, i.e. the ability of doing something without thinking was developed only because of emotions.
And i tell you, that it is a misconception.
He gave me the example of this query, and so, i will use it here as well.
Imagine a car is moving at a very high speed and is about to hit you, you only have enough time to either move away instantly and be safe or think about the situation and be lead to death.
He used this example thinking reflexes can only be developed in a situation where emotions exist.
I 100% agree that in our world, reflexes where in fact developed because of emotions.
However, assuming that logic can't make its own version of reflexes isn't a good assumption.
It is logical that death is not preferrable in most conditions.
As a result, in a world void of emotions, reflexes will be created.
Another point to note is that, accidents are often a case of people not obeying traffic rules, which is in itself an illogical thing to do, so in a world void of emotions, accidents would be atleast 99% more unlikely to happen.
If you are familiar with any sort of creative work, like video and photo editing, or programming ,or 2d and 3d designing, you will know that there are multiple ways to get the same result.
Reflexes are such a case.
Existence of emotions isnt the only way for reflexes to exist.
Now, talking about depression.
You say that even after having depression, you know that some days, you just gotta persevere through.
Some days, its just about existing and not about being happy or sad at every little thing. And as someone who has had experience in this situation, I know what it feels like, even though maybe what I have been through or what someone I care has been through wouldnt have been as bad as your or someone else's situation
But i presume, you will agree, that when you were facing this situation, you must have thought about doing anything, no matter how bad, to get rid of it. Some people do it by commiting suicide, but some like us, dont have the courage do it and hope that somehow it sorts out itself.
So, if I were to ask you this same question back then, i can guarantee or atleast make a good guess, that you will have agreed with me, and wanted a world without pain and suffering, even if it meant that you cant be happy either. Anything to ease the pain going through your heart, stabbing it a million times over and over.
Also, you yourself are stating that, some days are not exciting or happy to live through, yet you do.
So, why cant you do the same in a world void of emotions? Live it just because you have to as the only other choice is death.
Now, lets talk about violence.
This paragraph is simply just wrong, as you are only talking about one side of the coin.
You talked about how one emotion-less person can conclude that another emotion-less person doesnt not deserve to live.
But you didnt specify how it would happen, i.e. how someone will conclude such a thing.
If we look at it logically, in a world void of emotions, there would be no preferences.
No one would have a favourite color or a favourite taste or any sort of favouritism towards anything.
Meaning, everyone would share the same likes, same dislikes and uniqueness would cease to become a factor.
If there is no uniqueness and people are practically the same person, there would be nothing to disagree about and thus, nothing to conclude if someone is worth living or not, as by doing it they aren't just concluding such a thing about one person, but about the entire population.
So, with these in mind, we can assume that your statement has been proven wrong or atleast will not be considered as an absolute right, not unless my side of the statement can be proved otherwise.
Now, towards the next statement.
You say that violence is a good way to get things you need.
And there are already a lot of things disproving this statement.
For one, violence often requires more energy and time than just talking it out and using logic.
In a world void of emotions, people wouldnt do stuff that can decrease their energy and time unless its worth it.
Now for the seconds point, i would like to state what you said again, 'Violence is still an effective tool for getting things that you need.'
The only things someone would need in a world void of emotions is knowledge.
So, there would be no violence for land, money or any other sort of control of power, and there would be no reason for someone to keep knowledge for themselves and not share it, as it is a sign of greed.
So, I guess this statement has been disproved as well.
Now lets look at this - "I think it would severely hinder development from a child to an adult."
Like i have metioned before, if anything, it would help children to mature faster and spend more time gaining practical knowledge instead of learning how to control emotions and often supress them.
Also, from my message where i pointed out some topics of disccussion, i would like to bring out the 4th point again, as you might have missed that.
"4) Even if we consider that violence is possible without emotions, we still have ways to work with it. Just as we have a police force in our world, there would be a police force in a world void of emotions. There will be certain rules that descibe that any sort of killing or harming other is strictly not allowed."
So, we can be certain, that in a world void of emotions, there would still be law or atleast that there would be no need for one as there will be a guarantee that the rules will never be broken.
I know that you are trying to formulate arguments in a serious way, but I am puzzled about how you think we could ever reach the point of a world without emotions. I do believe that rationality is important, but I don't see how people going beyond emotions would work because they are based in the body itself. My own view is the best possibility is for people to have a fuller understanding of emotions.
Unfortunately, yes.
As beautiful as empathy is, it often requires a person to do something illogical.
So, it wouldn't exist in such a world.
Also, it wouldnt be requires either.
For example:- You see a person who is homeless, so you buy him food for a day.
This is a very kind act, and in the real life, i would certainly tell others to do the same.
However, in a world void of emotions, a person would try his/her/theirs best to earn money utilizing any skill they have, and wouldnt become homeless in the first place, or atleast wont be for a long time.
And suppose they become homeless and not have food for some time because of bad luck, they will nfortunately, just have to die.
Its not like this is a new thing though, as luck is as equal a factor in the real life as well.
Sometimes, people just get so unlucky that nothing can help them.
Both worlds have different ways to face bad luck,
In real life, people will help each other persevere, but also create a lot of situations where people will become homeless such as corruption.
In a world void of emotions, people will face it by not having such emotion-related things like corruption, and also, work together to find out how to reduce it, as the more people go homeless, the more bad it will be for existence of humanity as a whole.
That is where you understood me wrong sir.
I do not believe we could ever reach the point of a world without emotions.
I do not believe there will ever be a time, where people would be 100% happy or satisfied or peaceful with their lives.
I am just a mere human who tries to hide the pain of this world through a medium.
And this just happens to be my poison. (Poison meaning choice)
I just happen to love hypotheticals, no matter how impossible they seem, and make the most of it using logic.
If we were to logically think about how to improve real-life, i 99% agree with you.
(1% being my own personal beliefs)
I do believe if we want to make our current world a better place, which would still have suffering here and there still, would be to not eradicate or supress emotions, but to learn to understand them.
Learn to love yourself and others for what they are, not what you want them to be.
Learn to help others and teach them to help more.
We can form strength as unity but this strength will never be enough to 100% get rid of suffering.
I love this life (and also sometimes hate it), and I am thankful for it.
But, if i ever were given a choice, i wouldnt hesitate to ask for a world void of suffering, even if it is meant to be a world void of emotions.
Without empathy, people would be largely indifferent to suffering, so there isn't a reason why they would work together to reduce it.
Suppose you still like the idea of eliminating emotions, because you stated it relieves suffering. Your idea wouldn't exist in the world it would create.
We are not here to talk about the best case scenario.
We are here to talk about one of the worst, if not the absolute worst case scenario.
emotions facilitate cooperation.
this is their evolutionary purpose.
without them cooperation will not be as full, which will ultimately harm reproduction and survival
"Without empathy, people would be largely indifferent to suffering,"
Yes, that makes sense.
"so there isn't a reason why they would work together to reduce it."
This does not make sense.
You arent putting 2 and 2 together here, to get 4.
You are putting 2 and 1 together and assuming it makes 4.
You are assuming that empathy alone is/could be the reason for working together to reduce suffering.
I believe this to be incorrect.
Suffering leads to slowed development.
In a world void of emotions, development and research is everything.
So, in order to maximize development, suffering will have to be reduced.
I talked about this before in a different reply, so i will put the necessary words here, however, feel free to read the complete comment for more info.
"These 2 goals are- (can also be intepreted as 3)
1) Collect information and knowledge about the world.
2) Reproduce and pass on this information to the offsprings."
These 2 are the main goals for any living creature.
As a result, anything that can cause a block in this will be taken care of, even without emotions.
This has often been done with the help of evolution in real-life, as creatures before did not have emotions or logic which was as high level as of a human's.
For example:- Creatures used to live in water, however as living on land had more chances to gain knowledge and also reproduction, with the help of evolution, they stepped onto land, not because of curiosity, or because they were suffering, but because their life goals were more important to them.
With this info in mind, i guess its safe to say that even in a world void of emotions, it will be necessary to keep suffering as reduced as possible.
But, i like cold harsh truth and hypotheticals.
So, lets assume a different world, where people dont care about other people.
Emotions can still be a thing, exceot empathy, and logic can reside as well.
However, if there was to be a world where people dont care about other people, the cold harsh truth is that, people would not care about other's suffering, just as a lion doesnt care if a deer has to die for it to eat, and just as most humans in real-life dont care how animals feel as long as they taste great.
Please, note that this paragraph contains a hypothetical different from the current discussion and the words and opinions i stated in this, shouldnt be taken to justify something else for the actual discussion.
Again, like i said before,
Please do not assume stuff based on half truth.
Emotions aren't the only thing that facilitate co-operaion.
There are other factors at play as well.
Also, assuming that co-operation is required for survival (right now) is also an incorrect assumption.
Yes, it was highly necessary for survival in our past.
But, that was because humanity had no way of fighting lion and mammoths alone.
If we hadnt co-operated then, humanity could have had become extinct as a whole.
That doesnt justify that co-operation is still required.
The facts are that -
Co-operation is often required to fight a common enemy.
As long as there is a common enemy, there will be co-operation.
Emotions only play the role to facilitate them faster.
For example:-
There are 3 kingdoms.
Kingdom A and B are small kingdoms and have been fighting for land from each other.
Kingdom C is a fairly big kingdom which has a lot of military force, and can easily defeat the kingdoms one at a time, but not together.
Kingdom C announces to fight against both the kingdoms one by one, not realising that it cant defeat them if they work together.
Kingdom A and B have been enemies for centuries, and if emotions were the only factor for co-operation, then they would never agree to co-operate.
And this is not just a baseless assumption.
We can see that in history, this is how many countries lost.
Even now, (I am from India), India would never agree to work along with Pakistan no matter how big the problem gets. (The open minded, like myself will. But India, is full of people who care more about their so-called 'patriotism' then survival)
However, if we look at it through logic, we can easily assume that co-operation will happen.
And that Kingdoms A and B will be fight C together, and then continue their personal fights at a later time, if still deemed necessary.
This example beautifully shows how logic can facilitate co-operation when emotions say otherwise.
i never said emotions are needed for cooperation, or that cooperation is needed for survival.
i said they help facilitate it and without them cooperation wont be as full
you dont need cooperation to survive. you can go on welfare and pirate media all day like me. but the only reason someone can live like a parasite is because of the higher cooperation of others creating enough abundance to allow that to happen
Quoting Kinglord1090
So, your position is that even though emotional interest in suffering is greatly reduced; the drive to optimize will motivate people to relieve it. I'm not sure I agree, but it is a coherent idea. Predicting the effect of altering major variables in a macro structure is uncertain in principle. Consider that evolution itself is a process of optimization. If emotions were not in our interest, then shouldn't they simply fade on their own? It's arguable people might lose the capacity for dialectic thought if emotions are eliminated.
We are composed of basically two minds that argue. One handles the survival emotions and the other the connection to the world emotions. Eliminating emotions would nullify half of the nervous system and seemingly undermine the conflict that drives human intelligence.
Well, if you are just saying that emotions help facilitate co-operation in real-life, you are absolutely correct.
But that doesnt justify your claim that without them co-operation wont be as full.
Like, I have said or meant to say before, emotions are an incomplete version of logic itself.
As a result, they can help people develop faster.
However, this comes at a price.
Emotions also leads to stoppage or decrease development in many cases.
This is why even most people here agree that emotions should be controlled and that people should have logic as well along with emotions.
So that, humanity can have the speed of development gained with emotions as well as accuracy gained from logic.
My argument on this is that, if we get rid of emotions, we might not have development at such a great speed, but we will have good accuracy of what should happen.
For your last argument, i cant really say something against it, as you are already doing that for yourself.
You are literally just saying that you can pirate something, i.e. break rules just because others allow you to do that.
I am pretty sure that no one wants a world where there are no rules or where breaking is ok.
By your logic, its ok to kill someone as long as no one tried their best protecting them.
Thats just not an argument anymore.
emotions are more important than logic
and power is more important then emotions
if you have power you dont need anything else. you dont need truth, logic, morality, friends, nothing. you can use your power to get everything. nothing is more important than power.
second comes emotions. an idiot with close foamily and friends will succeed better then a genius without.
Yes, that is my position.
It is ok if you don't agree with it.
This is just a hypothetical, and it's fine if we have different opinions on something.
I am fine as long as you agree that it is logical, as thinking about it logically is all i care about.
I am not here to change someone's views and opinions, only to listen to them and share mine.
Quoting Cheshire
But isn't that the point of hypotheticals?
Imagining a situatuion and altering major variables with its macro structure and then trying to predict/imagine the effect using logic and moral explanations.
Quoting Cheshire
Evolutions is a process of optimization, for it werent we would still have un-opposoble thumbs and tails.
Emotions are not in our interest, and thus it is reducing and fading away.
We have proof for it.
https://religionnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Religiosity-Graph1.png
Sure, you can make the argument that religion and emotions aren't the same, but you cant disagree that religion consists 99% of emotions.
Fear of death, fear of not being cared about, guilt, faith, all these are related to religion.
So, if religion isn't taking care of them, what is?
Simple answer, logic.
Humans used to believe all natural occurences like thunder, volcanic eruptions, rain, seasons, stars, moon, etc were made and/or controlled by God or a similar higher being because they didn't have logic or more precisely, knowledge of these things.
As soon as science and logic began to explain these phenomenons, these emotions of fear against them decreased and in turn, religiousness and belief in God reduced within the people.
So, we do have evidence for emotions fading away as we don't require it anymore.
Quoting Cheshire
Yes, that is a good point.
However, like I said before, I believe, for the capacity of dialectic thought that humanity will lose, it will also gain accuracy so as to not need so much capacity.
Quoting Cheshire
Wouldn't nullifying half of the nervous system mean there would be more space for logic itself.
For example, if we had a hard disk which contained 50gb of emotions and 50gb of logic, and we deleted emotions, we will now have 50gb more space for more logic to be added.
Also, again, like I have said above, I believe for every type of emotional stuff we decrease within the human mind, we will be able to get more accurate solutions to problems using logic.
I am sorry, but if you cant show evidence or explain your claims, it cant mean anything to people who respect philosophy.
Quoting MikeListeral
So, we should just mindlessly go around killing people and not use logic?
Since, clearly thats what you are trying to say.
Quoting MikeListeral
Ok, so, if I come to kill you and take your money, its ok to do so?
Since, power is the most important, shouldn't me and everyone else try to kill each other in order to be the most powerful and end up dooming humanity?Quoting MikeListeral
Quoting MikeListeral
Oh yes, of course, the power of friendship is stronger than an atomic bomb.
Power cant mean anything unless logic and/or emotions deem them to be.
If people stop caring about money, the richest person in the world would be equal to a homeless person.
I have enjoyed a lot and learned a lot from these discussions.
Many of the replies here have opened my eyes and helped shape some of my views on certain topics, those topics being related to real-life philosophy and not this hypothetical.
I still strongly believe that a world void of emotions would be pretty peaceful and that emotions are unnecessary to achieve the same goals as the ones in this hypothetical.
Feel free to continue on this discussion, or not, if you dont want to.
Its completely fine if you choose either.
If no comments are posted for a few days, I will un-officially end this discussion by giving it a conclusion.
However, anyone interested will still be able to comment and clear any doubts/queries they might have.
This discussion has been on the top page of the website ever since it was created, that is, for a duration of 3 days, because it has been getting a lot of traction, probably because of it being kind of a sensitive topic as well as sounding illogical (ironically) at first.
It has gained 135 comments + 1 (This one) in just 3 days.
It is really an amazing feat, and I am very impressed by myself as well as everyone here.
So, good job everyone.
Keep doing what you do, and who knows, maybe I will come up with an even more illogical sounding logical argument in the future, and i hope most of you will be there to witness it.
you dont need money if you have power
you can just take whatever you want
So, you are not gonna deny the other claims that it is ok to kill someone for power?
Like i said before, power isnt something that exists as one thing.
Power refers to either money, political power, strength, or some such attribute.
If people stop believing or needing the attribute, the power will dissolve as well.
This is why democracy exists.
If every person in the country is given the same amount of control over the government, then a higher power cannot exist, and thus, no dictatorship shall prevail.
This is literally just a fact, so if you try to talk your way against it, you would be talking your way out of reason.
if killing someone brings me more power in the short and long term then i will do it
because power is the most important thing
i will sacrifice emotions and logic both for power
and it wont matter if its ok or not ok. because i will have more power.
this is the importance of power.
Ok, and by the same logic, if anyone wants to kill you for power, its totally fine.
happens everyday and everywhere in this entire universe
so get used to it.
Ok.
You can have your belief and I can have mine.
sounds like a typical statement a powerless person makes to appease a more powerful person
haha
too scared to fight
now you see the omnipotence of power
and omni-importance
Well, since you aren't helping with the discussion, I guess I don't need to reply to your messages anymore.
go wrestle a grizzly bear and u will quickly find out that power is more important then intelligence
covid is stupid and it killed millions of intelligent beings
There is a psychologist who argues that humans are motivated by knowledge. That is, we strive to make sense of our world, that each of us is like a naive scientist, and we are constantly devising hypothesizes and putting those hypotheses to the test. Let me bring this back to our hypothetical of a world
without emotions. I think we can agree that in this hypothetical people would still possess all the other mental capabilities: memory and learning , perceptual and cognitive abilities , and as you said, the sense of physical pain. We also would be goal-oriented, but we would be motives toward knowledge goals rather than emotions ones. Let me now elaborate on this model: as part our our desire to know, to predict events in our world and anticipate what will happen next, we would be driven toward friendship and social relations, because the world is a more interesting , intellectually challenging place when we interact with others , share information and ideas with others.
Now, since we would find others to be valuable to us in furthering our goals of understanding our world , we would be motivated to protect our friendships. We would als suffer from the loss of those friendships. Of course , it wouldn’t be an ‘emotional’ loss , but it would still be the experience of loss. So we would have all sorts and varieties of experiences of loss and gain of access to knowledge. This psychologist describes a few of these scenarios. For instance , he describes the anticipation of events that lie outside the range our our construct system He also describes the experience of being dislodged from ones core role. That is , we always have an understanding of what role we play with respect to other people in our lives , and there are times when our ideas and understanding change enough that our role changes with respect to these persons. We may become confused about where we stand , or disappointed that we aren’t fulfilling our obligations to them. Then there is the scenario where someone lets us down, falls short of our expectations of them and we react by trying to get them to do what we believe they should have done in the first place.
The reason I’m describing these scenarios to you is that these are the psychologist’s definitions of emotion. The three scenarios depict anxiety, guilt and hostility. He radically rethinks the usual definition of emotion as some sort of juice or energy. Instead, emotion to him is simply the scenarios that we find ourselves in where our access to knowledge is threatened, where we find ourselves in chaotic and puzzling circumstances that don’t make sense to us. I think you would probably want to argue that emotion as you see it is this juice or energy that comes over us and interferes with our ability to achieve understanding, but this psychologist’s view is that striving rationally to achieve gain of knowledge and prevent loss of understanding , and anticipation of situations that may pose a threat to such goals , is precisely what emotion is.
Dear ole Pascal correctly noted, "The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of... We know the truth not only by the reason, but by the heart", which is supported by science (for all ya science worshipers).
I agree it's logical. You've placed optimization as a reason for ending suffering in an world without human emotions. One could debate the matter. Quoting Kinglord1090 Actually not so much in this context; hypotheticals are used to illustrate a type of thing one might actually come across. By selecting one of such a massive scale there are plenty of directions that could be imagined, but ultimately it will be difficult to maintain a point of view with any justified confidence. It's the right idea just a very broad application in a semantically sensitive environment. Quoting Kinglord1090 In actuality theology employs the same logical process but starts with some major assumptions. I don't think it's entirely accurate to portray religion as an activity of pure emotion. Drug addiction, perhaps.
Quoting Kinglord1090 Let me think about it.
Quoting Kinglord1090
It is our emotions that compel us to help humanity. Why would it be logical for us to help humanity as opposed to just our self in a post emotion world?
Quoting Kinglord1090
Would we leave the disabled that cannot work to die, or give them financial assistance? If the latter, what logical reason is there for doing so?
With a gun built from intelligence, the bear can be killed easily.
With a vaccine made from intelligence, soon covid is also going to be wiped.
So, your points were incorrect.
But, please, I ask you to stay on topic, for if not, I wouldnt reply to your messages.
You made a very point point till the part you said that humans in such a world would still develop emotions.
I have said this before in a different reply, but for this hypothetical to work, we have to assume that emotions never existed, and never will.
That they never will be created even if it is preferrable in some cases.
Even if we assume that emotions can exist, my believe would be that 1 of 2 of these possibilities take place.
1) They will try to think logically if having emotions would be a good idea, and as we have discussed before, it can also lead to under-development, which isnt ideal for them. So, they will not develop emotions, as they will deem it to be a risky move which provides little to no knowledge towards their goal.
2) They will accept emotions, and start living as us humans in teh real-life do, however, since they were born without emotions, as soon as they see emotions causing under-development, they will stop using it.
In both these cases, it is not preferrable for them to choose emotions, as even if they can gain knowledge from it faster, it also risks heavy under-development.
The only reason humans with emotions find that emotions make the world a better place, is because we have emotions, as thinking about it logically tells us that it also makes the world a worse place.
If we look at it from a co-operation point of view, like we have done before, we can see that every human in a world void of emotions will be friends, i.e. co-operative as they all share the same goals.
This friendship doesnt mean they have to feel sad about each other's death, as they can understand that humans do in-fact die, and that it is unevitable.
Even, in real-life many people dont cry at funerals, simply because they know to accept the truth and that crying isnt gonna bring the dead back, yes they do get sad, but thats simply because they dont have so much control over their emotions, so they cannot.
Like, I said, no one in a world void of emotions can 'let someone down' or 'dissappoint' them, because for one, these are emotions, and for two, disappointment only comes if there was something to be expected.
For ex:- A parent gets dissapointed at their kid's grade, as they were expecting more from them.
Quoting Joshs
Yes, I would argue that emotions as I see it is juice or energy.
The reason for it is simple, thats how we have been told it is.
99% of people who arent interested in philosophy would give this same answer if asked.
Because thats what we have defined emotions to be.
If we were to ignore this definition, and use the psychologist’s definition instead, then we would have never had this problem.
As his definition clearly states that emotions are tools to eliminate things which stop development.
That is to say, if emotions themselves posed a threat to these goals, by definition, we will have to use our emotions to destroy the emotions.
Which can be seen as a contradiction and thus, the definition can be dis-approved.
I dont know where the part of science came in as, science know that the heart, in fact doesnt have consciousness or the ability to think.
If we take heart as a metaphor for emotions, then science still doesnt agree that emotions are required to find truth.
Please read the quote carefully.
Quoting skyblack
Pascal used the words very carefully by saying, 'We know the truth not only by reason, but by the heart.'
It does not say that, in order to find truth, emotions are necessary, only that it has been useful in achieving it, so far.
He doesnt state that emotions are required to find out the truth, only that it is a viable tool in doing so, an alternate way, if you will.
Pascal once said, "The understanding and the feelings are moulded by intercourse; the understanding and feelings are corrupted by intercourse. Thus good or bad society improves or corrupts them. It is, then, all-important to know how to choose in order to improve and not to corrupt them; and we cannot make this choice, if they be not already improved and not corrupted. Thus a circle is formed, and those are fortunate who escape it."
Meaning, if somehow everything doesn't go right, tht is if violence still continues to be a thing, it would from an unbreakable circle, and the only one fortunate enough to break out of it would make the choice to die rather than live in such a world.
and so you see there is advantages and disadvantages to simplicity and complexity
this is the real war in reality
they will always go back and forth eternally like ying and yang
nothing else exists
The part on science was intended for the worshipers of science, not at you. Unless you are such an worshiper, are you? Maybe this post of yours:
Quoting Kinglord1090
indicates you are one but I am not sure of it.
Yes, I do not buy the authority of science in these matters, so I will let you blindly accept what science says or doesn’t. You are welcome to a be a faithful follower of an ever-changing god called science.
That being said, common sense tells me the heart is just as much conscious and intelligent as the brain, if not more so. Common sense/common knowledge tells me, the heart’s intricate pathways and responses (to and fro) to electrical impulses/messages from the rest of the body is still being investigated. The consciousness of the brain, which you are pointing to in your very first statement, with the seeming authority of a faithful believer of science, is a petty expression of consciousness as whole. It is a superficial consciousness of thought/thinking, and you have said so (ability to think). However the consciousness of the heart goes much deeper than linguistic/thought. Truth be told it doesn’t give a rats ass to your linguistic/thought capacity. It’s consciousness is finely tuned to the core of life, and it’s function over a span of approx. 80 years is a testament to it’s intelligence and fine crafting, unparalleled by anything created by the god of science. If this “thought consciousness”/ you/ we weren’t this stupid then it could run for 100 years without ‘missing a beat’. You feel that? In fact your pinkie might have more consciousness and intelligence than your “thinking ability”. Because, we have ruined our thinking ability. I could go on but let me stop here and go to something else. TBC:
If you are a faithful follower of science then you ought to know, biology has quite clearly established that emotions are the foundation for behavior. It's much quicker than your so called "thinking ability". In fact according to the science of biology you do NOT have any free will. You have NO choice to pick and chose, or to stop your emotions. It's silly to think you can control emotions. It doesn't even match our everyday reality.
So before you give out advice such as "Please read the quote carefully", it might be best to understand that your comprehension is limited by your thought. I am not being mean here. Just stating a fact.
I have always looked at hypotheticals, as something where we can assume the wildest of things, yet with reason still find an answer.
If you are saying that it is not the correct definition of a hypothetical, i would gladly back off.
I am not experienced enough in English or Philosophy to be confident in saying that my definition is correct, so I appreciate you teaching me about it.
However, it also means that there is a word that describes my definition, and as such, it was my lack of ability that caused me to regard it as a hypothetical and not as the question? query? (i dont know what to call it)'s fault.
Quoting Cheshire
I apologize if I sounded like I meant religion wasnt based on logic.
I am one of the few atheists who dont mind religious people who are happy with what they do. (Given they dont do immoral things)
I am only stating that the logic that its based on is often flawed or unnecessary.
What i was showing by my statement there was that, any emotions that were related to religious beliefs have started to decline over time.
And those emotions are simply vanishing away, with logic and reason taking their place instead.
Quoting Down The Rabbit Hole
This topic has already been discussed in this post, and thus, i will just post the few necessary points here.
Feel free to peruse the entire thing, if you want to.
Helping humanity leads to faster development.
The more people can work in development the better.
In a world void of emotions, development becomes an important factor for life.
As a result, anything that can block development will be removed and anything that can help development will be appreciated.
Quoting Down The Rabbit Hole
Unfortunately, the cold harsh truth is that, they will have to die, if they cannot work.
As this is the most logical choice.
Before, you say that it is harsh and immoral, do not forget that the very reason humans are the apex species is because of this reality.
The species that couldnt survive in a harsh world by evolving were simply lead to extinction, and those who survived by evolving flourished.
The same logic and fate will follow such a world.
Quoting skyblack
I wouldnt mind if you dont believe in science or dont share the same opinions as me.
However, saying science is ever-changing seems contradictory, as science believes there to be a single non-changing answer for everything.
Apart from that, I guess we have reached an impasse, as I cant simply let all evidences collected by millions of years of research by scientists go to waste.
No one is asking you to. Go with what your gods of biology have proved so far. Stay with the evidence. Don't make up your own BS.
Quoting skyblack
I completely agree with all of your claims here.
I never disagreed with any of them since the beginning.
The only thing you are getting wrong is that you are assuming that i am telling humans to stop emotions.
I am not doing that at all.
This discussion is only about what would happen in such a case where it does happen.
This is not a discussion about how we can make it happen.
I have said this multiple times in this discussion already.
If you think its useless to talk about a scenario which might never happen, feel free to leave and not post here anymore.
Quoting skyblack
Bruh, if anything, I am on the side which isnt using emotions to form my thoughts.
Meaning my comprehension are less limited as I am not letting emotions bias my thoughts.
Of course, you arent being mean here, and even if you were, i am ok with a bit of criticism, but talking about a quote and then denying/ignoring the true meaning of it by saying my comprehension is limited, just looks like you are saying it because you yourself dont have comprehension of something and are trying to find a way to succeed in the debate without reason.
That is just straight up false.
For it were true, science would be contradicting itself.
I am not making anything up.
That is the difference.
All my replies so far have been either based on logic and reason or been educated guesses.
If biology says humans dont have free will, then i agree that humans dont have free-will, because there is research and proof for the case.
This is again just straight up false.
Science doesnt say that we dont have control over our emotions.
It was a byproduct of evolution which was trying a way to teach organisms logic faster.
Once evolution reached a state where logic could easily be understood by brain, the need for emotions stopped.
It is a vestigial part of as, just like an appendix or wisdom teeth.
Yes, that's the point, You are guessing. While i am talking about your so called scientific facts.Not sure if there are any biologists in this forum, but if there are then perhaps they can educate you on the evidence that comes from biology. Actually you can start by watching some videos of Robert Sapolsky called the Stanford classes, if you wish.
As to "succeeding" in debate...well, what can i say, other than to point to my posting history. This is about the longest i have engaged with anyone. That kind of thing (succeeding) may be important to you but has as much value as TP for me. I think i have had enough for now. Carry on my friend.
This is something I have wanted to discuss with you all, which might or might not be related to the question, but i find to be very interesting.
I have a bit of interest in artificial intelligence and how scientists and researchers programme it to be efficient and sometimes even surpass what a human could do. Some of these examples will be Alpha-Zero by DeepMind, Google, which is a chess engine whom not even the World Champion Magnus Carlsen can defeat. Chess has over 120+ million possible move configurations just after the 3rd move! That is such a high number that not even a computer can process and store all possible configurations, meaning the AI doesnt know which move is the absolute best move against any given situation. (Unless its mate in 1, or something like that).
Now, the interesting part isnt here. DeepMind by Google also made an A.I. model named 'Deep Reinforcement Learning' during 2013-2015 which learned how to play games by watching YouTube! (The learning by watching YouTube part only came around 2018)
Yep, you read it right, it learned how to play games by watching tutorials and speedruns done by humans and was even able to surpass them.
The biggest problem faced by A.I.s so far was that they dont know if they are good at a game or not if they dont have any indication. (Scoreboard showing how well the player is doing)
As humans have a very complex brain, we don't need such indications for adventure and action based games like, Assassin's Creed or GTA, as the entertainment value is more than enough for us.
So, the way the scientists worked around it is by adding a piece of code which imitates curiosity.
With this code in place, the A.I. no longer needed an indication to motivate it, the concept of being able to gain knowledge itself became its motivation.
The first thing the A.I. did after being programmed like this, watching T.V., yep it just stopped playing the game and started watching T.V. (T.V. inside of the video game)
It would refuse to even move from its spot as the T.V. was fulfilling it's curiosity.
The scientists then had to re-programme it in a way, such that, it would still have curiosity but it would prioritize logic over curiosity.
Note:- When the A.I. watched the video, the only input it gets it the video itself. It isn't supplied with info such as which button was pressed when to achieve something. It had to figure it out on its own.
The reason why I am mentioning this is because, first of all, its very interesting, and second of all, it shows how even giving fake emotions can sometimes lead to unwanted things. If we consider the A.I.'s curiosity to be an emotion, we can also make the assumption that emotions are coded in the same way in humans like it has been done in A.I.'s.
In both cases, emotions play a very important role and help facilitate logic faster, however it either needs some correction or we have to lose accuracy/efficiency.
I guess soon enough the question will arise, 'Are emotion-based A.I. and humans same, if the only thing that makes human different from robots is the emotions that they have?'
What a time to be alive!
Source:-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjfDO2pWpys
Quoting Kinglord1090
Well, I appreciate your honesty.
Outside of your hypothetical post emotion world, if a referendum were held today, would you vote to stop all payments to the disabled that cannot work?
If they resort to stealing, housing them in prison would be a waste of resources. Wouldn't execution be logical to preserve society's resources?
Quoting Kinglord1090
We are only motivated to help ourselves and others by our emotions (given to us by evolution). There is no logical reason for us to do anything as an end in itself.
If they are capable of stealing then they would also be capable of performing a level of work, therefore are not working by choice, ergo, execution would be an acceptable recourse.
Death is a fairly strong motivator to engage in life. If one refuses to engage, knowing the result to be death, that, to me, is essentially suicide. Who am I to argue with that choice?
Science doesn't beg to differ. Emotions play a huge role in what we do and how we experience. Determinism says nothing about emotions. If that's what you mean. Even if our emotions are determined, they still play a huge role in us.
Seriously, this is confused in a number of ways
1) Science cannot believe. Scientists can.
2) Please show that scientists believe there is a single non-changing answer for everything. IOW show us the relevvant research. In fact one the strengths of science is that it is open to revision. And has changed on specific issues and paradigmatically over time.
Quoting Book273
Here in the UK the official rate of people claiming unemployment benefit is around 5%. The actual rate will be a lot higher as they are fiddling the figures.
Unemployment benefit is for non-disabled people, as there is a separate benefit for those that have a limited capability for work, and those that are unable to work.
How can the disabled people be expected to get a job if there are over 5% able-bodied that can't get work (not even counting those not claiming).
You would be issuing those poor people a death sentence.
I didn’t say that humans in such a world would still develop emotions. I said that according to this psychologist , to be motivated purely by logic, that is, by the need to understand the world, to predict events and avoid loss of understanding , is to behave in all the ways that you call emotion , even though the only
motive is rationality. For instance, the characters Spock and Data on Star Trek are supposed to
operate purely on the basis of logic, it notice how they actually behave. They strive for outcomes and are disappointed if they don’t achieve those outcomes. I would also a argue that they behave in ways that are similar to guilt, anger and anxiety. The only difference between the way they that approach the world and people with ‘emotion’ approach the world is that their attitudes and desires are displayed coolly , subtlety. You’ll never see an ‘outburst’ of rage or weeping from them, but you’ll see the same processes of thinking that lead to rage and weeping in people with emotion. Basically, they are typical people on tranquilizers. Or one could say they act the way that autistic people do , claiming they don’t understand emotional behavior. But what we know about autistics is that they have feelings. Their difficulty is that they cannot process complex social interactions In other words, their difficulties in processing rapidly changing complex social logic is the cause of their inability to understand ‘emotion’.
This is why your dream world without emotion is merely a world of people on tranquilizers or a world of autistic people. It retains all of the changes in logical
processing that we are used to calling ‘emotion’, the only difference being they would occur more slowly, subtly.
Quoting Kinglord1090
I think you’re wrong that we would never have had this problem. We would have just about all of the problems that we do have now, for the reasons I stated above.
Let’s take guilt , for instance. You think it is a juice or energy?
Let me ask you this. You and I agree that if the only thing that motivates a person is logic, they will still be motivated to form friendships and social bonds. They will still want and need people in their life because we learn from each other , and the world makes more sense when we share ideas with each other. In order to maintain. the closet possible bond with another person (I’m not talking about emotional ‘love’, but an intellectual bond based on rationality) , we need to know how they see us, what role we play in their lives, how they see us helping them to understand their world better. In other words, we need to know where we stand with them. If I know that they ‘like’ me , what I am knowing is that they find me intellectually valuable to them.
So what happens when I meet someone new and discover that they are even more interesting than the person I had been bonding with previously? Will I feel an obligation toward that previous friendship? Or would I just continue to pursue my new bond and not concern my self with the previous one? You might think that if logic were my only motivation, I would simply not concern myself with the changed status of my previous relationship. But is this really true? What guarantees that I would understand fully why I found myself
preferring the second bond over the first? What guarantees that I would not feel ambivalent and confused? I am not talking here of ambivalence and confusion as ‘emotions’ . I am talking about them as logical, rational assessments of my relationships. When one relies solely on logic and rationality, there are many situations that one encounters that don’t seem to fit the logic one tries to apply to them because they require learning , a modification of one’s scheme of understanding. Until one can successfully update one’s understanding, one wil experience confusion, ambivalence, ambiguity , uncertainty , chaos. Again, I’m not talking about ‘emotions’ but features of the limits of rational processing. So I could very well be rationally confused about my responsibilities toward my previous bond. One could say that I was rationally torn between the old and then new relationship. Should I tell my old friend about the new one? Would the old friend rationally understand or would their logic be insufficiently flexible to glimpse why I abandoned them for my new friend? How are all these thoughts different from the ‘fluid energy’ of guilt? Because logical confusion, ambivalence and ambiguity doesn’t involve a feeling of suffering? But doesn’t it involve an awareness of confusion and loss? Isn’t that a ‘logical’ suffering’?
How does one deal rationally , logically with another person who hits me for no reason that I can see? It may be logical for me to assume or suspect that they knew better to attack me but they decided to do it anyway. Would it then be logical for me want to teach them a lesson, to make them mend their ways? What’s the difference between my desire to punish the other and the emotion of anger ? That anger is a fluid, an energy, and my ‘calm’ desire to punish the other is rational, logical ? But would a rationalperson act calmly if the other person is actively, immediately threatening them? Wouldnt it be logical to act aggressively, forcefully? Is this behavior still different from the emotion of anger? You would say yes, anger overcome sis and blinds us , but rational aggression and attack is logical.
What if I find out later that the person who attacked me mistook me for some one else , or beloved that I was the one who has wrong ed them first, and they were simply trying to ‘rationally’ punish me?
There could be an endless cycle of attack and counter attack, with each side believing that they were in the right. We could call this righteous anger , except that you would want to to eliminate the word ‘anger’ and substitute the term ‘logical indignation’, or ‘rational condemnation’.
At any rate , it seem to me that just about all of the situations in this world that keep it from being peaceful consist of two parties both believing they are in the right , and desiring to punish the other party, to show them a lesson, to get themto mend their ways. And all this violence , it seems to me, stems from people attempting to think as rationally and logically as they can about why the other person or persons could possibly do what they did and think what they think. All of this without the need to bring ‘emotion’ into the picture.
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I find it odd that after millions of years of evolution which led to a brain with a variety of problem solving and motivational tools, or programs as you might call them, you think it is better if we have fewer, those based on emotion. This seems extremely irrational to me.
Without the limbic system people have incredible trouble making decisions. IOW emotions are part of how we make decisions.
Quoting Kinglord1090
You seem to be forgetting one thing. We can talk about coding for logic and coding fro curiosity-emotion as two entirely separate things. But we don’t have any way of knowing what a machine is doing when it is programmed solely for logic except by interpreting the machine’s behavior in relation to what we want it to do, and what we want it to do is framed by our own goals. Goals, aims, desires and needs are built into our understanding of what our machines are. They are just an intent heap of parts without a purpose that they serve for us. What they do cannot be simply separated from why we want them to do what they do.
It’s the same thing with our understanding of a logical proposition. The logic is driven by the axioms , but the axioms themselves are framed by more encompassing axioms and principles It s a hall of mirrors, an infinite regress of meanings defines by more encompassing meanings.
Quoting Corvus
I do not believe this claim to be true as humans have been able to read brain waves which are caused by logic as well as emotions, for quite some time now.
Yes, we aren't able to do it quite well, but as Dr. Karoly Zsolnai Feher says, according to the theory of papers, if we go 2 more papers down the line, the amount of development would be astounding.
Neuralink, which is a company created by Elon Musk is already showing amazing progress in this field.
Quoting Down The Rabbit Hole
Of course not.
Quoting Down The Rabbit Hole
Yes, it would be logical, but in a world with emotions, i.e. real life, emotions often precede logic.
We can take Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame as an example, of course using movie logic isnt a good thing, but i am pretty sure that the logic and emotions part of it can be applied as a valid example.
Thanos wanted to kill 50% of all population is a painless way, so that the other 50% could thrive.
As logical as it sounds, people would never agree to something like this.
Quoting Down The Rabbit Hole
I think we have reached an impasse here, as by my reasoning and evidence, I cant see how co-operation cant lead to success, and how success wouldnt be preferred.
True.
I agree with your notion.
Quoting Book273
I see what you are saying here, but we have already discussed this before, and I have made the argument that in a world void of emotions, no one would commit crimes.
The simplest way I can put it is that, one themselves will understand that living a life without gaining knowledge and leeching off of resources is wrong, and they themselves would either not do it, or if they are incapable of work, accept death.
No one here said anything about emotions not playing a huge role in what we do and how we experience them.
The only thing being said here is that, those emotions, no matter how important part they play, if removed, could make world a more peaceful place.
Also, we have discussed this before, but emotions are basically like an alpha build of logic.
Meaning, emotions and logic arent so different from each other.
And because of this, there are many similarities to the way a human thinks and to the way a robot thinks.
These similarities can be used to make the educated assumption that on the most basic level, human mind isnt that different from robotic mind.
"The best reason for believing that robots might some day become conscious is that we human beings are conscious, and we are a sort of robot ourselves. That is, we are extraordinarily complex self-controlling, self-sustaining physical mechanisms, designed over the eons by natural selection, and operating according to the same well-understood principles that govern all the other physical processes in living things: digestive and metabolic processes, self-repair and reproductive processes, for instance. It may be wildly over-ambitious to suppose that human artificers can repeat Nature's triumph, with variations in material, form, and design process, but this is not a deep objection. It is not as if a conscious machine contradicted any fundamental laws of nature, the way a perpetual motion machine does."
Source:-https://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/dennett/papers/concrobt.htm
So you think that criminality equals emotionality? That the motivation for theft is the satisfaction of an emotion rather than the pursuit of a rational purpose? You can’t think of any situation in which someone would decide that it is necessary from a rational point of view to commit a theft?
Is it possible that you are failing to understand the logic that someone else is using from their point of view?
My favorite psychologist calls this hostility, the attempt to force someone else’s thinking into your logical categories because you can’t understand their own logic. They are ‘emotional’ and ‘irrational’ in your mind because their form of rationality. is at odds with what you are familiar with. I think the issue here is you believe that there is a one-size-fits-all logic to the world and any. eh wipe that deviates from this single frame is illogical to you.
Its not non-sensical to think about evolution in this way at all.
There are thousands of years of research put into this by scientists from all over the world.
I am pretty sure that the name Darwin would a ring a bell in everyone's ears.
He theorized 'The Theory of Evolution' and his theory has been used for more than a century now.
So, saying that these attributes are wrong would be saying that all scientists and the research formed for over a century is also wrong.
Nothing about it is incorrect. It is what would be called a unique or novel approach to 'doing' philosophy. Feel free to engage however you like within the rules I have never bothered to read.Quoting Kinglord1090
No apology needed; and much of religion is an intuitive emotive response. I was countering a possible oversimplification.
In response to the question as I understand it. So much of capitalism is centered around optimization that believing it would increase and compensate for the loss of empathy is difficult to support. It seems you may be trying to define a "perfect world" which was the goal 60 or 70 years ago, but it's been understood to be a flawed notion. But, in this case; suppose it worked. Removing emotions lead to a peaceful and productive society; who could truly enjoy it?
I think my words completely went over your head here.
By 'science', i obviously meant people who follow 'science' or reason.
And I completely agree that science is open to revision. I never said it wasnt.
I said that it is believed that even if we keep revising, we would still get one answer that will no longer need to be revised.
For example, chameleons were thought to change color magically at first, then thought to change color by chemical reactions that happen inside its body, and now it is thought to be because chameleons can change the cellular structure of their outer skin, which change how light reflects/absorbs off of it, thus changing their color. This last explanation could or could not be the absolute truth and the final explanation we need. And science is all about finding this answer, i.e. the absolute truth.
I am pretty sure everyone else here understood that this is what I meant.
You are not looking at the subject of matter here.
The simple and cold truthful answer is that, in a world void of emotions, people who are able-bodied will work till death, and the non-able-bodied will accept death.
They wont feel bad about it, as they dont have emotions.
You have made such a long topic discussing about everything, yet you still didnt follow the most important rule of the post.
Stop thinking about it in an emotional point of view.
We are here to discuss only on a world void of emotions, where the emotions are happiness, guilt sadness, etc and not the one defined by the psychologist you mention of.
So, for this discussion i ask you to not use different definitions of emotion, as it can create a lot of confusion and stay at the topic in hand.
And also, dont make imaginary situations where emotional thinking would be a must, as in a world void of emotions such situatuions cant exist, because there are no emotions, you understand what i mean?
For example:- If we think about a universe where Jupiter doesnt exist, you can bring up an imaginary situation where Jupiter is required for your situation to work. That just doesnt make sense.
I have said this multiple times already, and I am honestly just getting bored now.
Stop assuming stuff i dont say.
I never said emotions arent a part of how we make decisions, I only said that they arent required anymore.
Emotions were built as a way to learn logic faster, but it had a drawback, and that was accuracy.
Giving up speed for accuracy seems like a perfectly logical choice to me.
Describe for me what the experience of being motivated is like in the absence of emotions. To be motivated is to make distinctions on the basis of which to make a decision or choice between two or more options. Whichever choice we make , we make it because we prefer it over the alternative. What is this experience of preferring like without emotions? One would presumably always prefer one option over another because one finds it more rational, more logical. You could say one is impelled toward the logical over the illogical. We look in one direction and see a fog of chaos and disorder. We look in another direction and see predictability , order and harmony. It’s not much of a choice really. We simply can’t continue, can’t function according to our goals in a fog of chaos and disorder. So we don’t really even choose order and log over the alternative. We fall into it. The world is only recognizable to the extent that it is predictable. So we really have no choice but to make the world more recognizable , ordered, predictable lest we lose the world and ourselves entirely. Notice that I haven’t mentioned ‘feeling ‘ at all here. But we are talking about conscious awareness of experience. We are talking about meanings when we talk about order and disorder , chaos and predictability.
Question ; how much does it add to our experience to say that we ‘feel’ chaos and disorder as opposed to having a rational awareness of it ?
I guess I forgot to mention that that comment wasnt actually meant as a point of discussion for this post, rather it was just something I found interesting.
But, since you already replied to the comment, i guess we can talk a look anyways.
First of all, I just want to apologize as I cant understand what you are trying to say half of the time.
So, I am just gonna make an assumption and debate according to it, and you can just tell me if i intepreted your comment correctly or not later.
I am assuming that you are trying to say that robots dont have 'free will' or the power of 'choice' like humans do, for which I only have one answer.
The answer is that humans dont have these either.
All of our decisions are based on some factor or the other.
You and others might be pulling at a different feather of the same bird.
Lol, no.
The reason i summed up so short there is because I already talked about it in detail in a different comment.
I am not saying that all criminal acts are done because of emotions, rather, I am saying that without emotions to cloud logic, logic can prevail, and criminal acts would never have a solid ground against pure logic.
In a way, i guess i am saying that somehow emotions even if not directly causing it have some part in every criminal act.
Robbery? Done because of greed
Murder? Done because of anger, etc
Of course, we can try to justify them with logic, like, 'Oh, the person robbed the house because doing so would mean he doesnt have to worry about his medical bills anymore., but note that such logic is still based on emotions. Why is the person robbing instead of earning money? You could say because it is easier, but logic would say that it is because he/she/they are lazy. And laziness is an emotion.
Quoting Cheshire
No one.
But no one will hate it either.
And that in its own way is beautiful.
Just as a world (real-life) where some people enjoy the world while some people hate it, a world opposite to it would also be just as beautiful.
Quick edit:- There could be an argument made that capitalism wouldnt exist in a world void of emotions either, as greed and/or profits often seem to be the cause of it.
I am not thinking about it in an emotional point of view, I am thinking it in a logical , rational point of view.
I think the issue here is, before you are ready to talk about the difference between logic and emotion, you have to get straight what logic is.
I think your notion of logic is an old , outdated one. Are you aware of Godel’s work on logical proof , or Wittgenstein , Putnam, Quine and Sellar’a claim that logic has to be understood as an aspect of language?
Basically , they’re pointing out the frame problem in A.I. That any logical scheme that a machine uses must be interpreted by a human , and that interpretation will get its sense by reference to a larger scheme, or frame. Think of how words in a dictionary are defined by reference to all the other words in the dictionary. A logical scheme that we program into a computer is like a word in a dictionary. The computer doesn’t ‘know’ the meaning of its scheme , only we do, because it’s meaning is defined by us in relation to a whole network of purposes.
When you say there would be peace and no suffering in a world without emotions , you’re saying it would be like a single logical scheme. We would all tap into and live on the basis is of that single universal
scheme. The problem with that idea is that , just like the xomuter doesnt ‘know’ the meaning of its logic , if all of humanity were running what would essentially be a single universal logical program to live our lives , there would be no meaning to be aware of. We would not in fact be alive , but only the program itself would remain to function automatically.
But the world of experience never doubles back on itself. No momwnt of experience ever duplicates the content of a previous moment. Humans have to devise constructs with a very different kind of logic than a computer uses. The logic of living systems like us requires that we device schemes that anticipate patterns and regularities in the world , but also constantly adapt to the changing logic of that world. Every time we construct a pattern to apply to the world, the very successful of our pattern changes our relation to the world. This means that we have to make our logical schemes so that they are not hermetically sealed. The rules of the game are always shifting , and successful human rationality means the rules of our schemes must adjust to these changes in the world. We will always have to prepare for periods of time when we are plunged into the darkness and fog of incoherent understanding, of a failure of our logical scheme of the moment. This ever present risk of breakdown and inadequacy in our construing of the world is what leads to violence , discord , wars and injustice, not ‘emotions’. When you call other people emotional, illogical, irrational , you are expressing a breakdown in your own logical schemes , their failure to adapt to the differences in others ways of thinking rationally.
Again, your words just seem mumbo--jumbo to me, but that's just because i am not smart enough to ingest so much info at once, so i would really appreciate if you try to make your words concise.
Lets just focus on the motivation part here.
In the previous comments it has been clearly stated that there are 2 goals to any living being and that motivation for it isnt required.
And before you think without motivation, goals cant be met, just listen to my example.
But before that, lets just summarize the 2 goals again.
Goals-
1) Gain knowledge.
2) Reproduce and pass on knowledge to the offspring.
Now for the example,
Micro-organism.
Done.
What?
Ok, I will explain it in more detail.
Micro-oganism gained knowledge and passd it onto thier offsprings without needing motivations.
Only because of their such action were we able to evolve from them to humans.
This proves that motivations arent required for achieving something.
Please note that, in these few discussions, we are ignoring death to be a factor of motivation as every living being will have that.
If we were to make discussions where considering death as an important factor of motivation is necessary, then we can conclude that the only motivation required for humans in a world void of emotions is death, and that death is what motivates them to achieve their goals.
Quoting Kinglord1090
This idea drove a lot of the movements that serve to explain how the world is currently set up. I think it's interesting because it is at the same time from a place of goodness and somehow very dangerous in practice.
Quoting Kinglord1090
I think your correct, but without capitalism we lose a tremendous known reason for optimization. Which is an opposition to your positions expected outcome. Without profits driving production or empathy to remove suffering where does the motivation come from; an intuitive idea of what society ought look like? But, does it remain intuitive?
Again, please be concise. i cant understand anything you are saying.
I think whats happening here is just mis-communication.
I am trying to tell you something with my definition of logic and emotions, and you are trying to do it in your own way.
Since this is my discussion, i assume its only fair that you try to understand it from my level, meaning from the same definitions that I am using.
For example:- You wouldnt go upto an Amish person and ask them if they have seen a cybertruck nearby would you? You would ask them if they have seen a weird metallic car which looks like a kid's drawing.
Yes, but are you thinking that the world is one gigantic deterministic causal machine, and these are the factors you are talking about? Do you believe the idea that Stephen Hawking believed in, that if and when we finally arrive at a theory of everything in physics we could in principle merely run the world off a computer program?
The alternative to this way of thinking comes from
biology and the idea that time is irreversible. The living world only moves in one direction , toward the creation of novel possibilities that can’t be deduced from a deterministic formula. Life is truly creative , bringing forth patterns that never existed before and can’t be predicted on the basis of any prior scheme. Human rationality is like that too.
micro-organisms do have motivation. They have bodily goals and aims, and interact with their environment in such a way as to maximize the attainment of those aims. A single called animal will be motivated to move toward the light , for example, because it maximizes the organism’s functioning. This isnt a simple reflex , because the animal can adjust and adapt this behavior to changes in the environment. All living creatures are self-organizing. That means they don’t just respond to their environment reflexively, machine -like. They change their environment to suit their needs, They are motivated. Human emotions and logic originate in these functions of learning and motivation in the simplest animals
Quoting Cheshire
Thank you for the recommendations.
I would definitely check out Fahrenheit 451, but i dont know about the other one as i am not really into old timey movies. (I was born in 2004)
Quoting Cheshire
For the motivation, I would say that death itself is a motivation good enough to cause people to live.
It has been said before, in one of the comments, that the person who wrote the comment was going through a tough time in thier life and the only thing that motivated them to wake up the next day wwas their fear of death.
So, i guess if death can be a motivation for a person whose emotions and logic told him to stop living, it can be for someone who only uses logic as well.
As for the connection between capitalism and optimization, you made a brilliant point, it does seem like capitalization will occur in such a world, but i guess it wouldnt the same way we think it is in the real-life.
In real-life, capitalization often occurs for profit and monopoly whereas I think the reason for capitalization in a world void of emotions will be because of the lack of preference that people there possess.
For example:- Since people wouldnt have a preference over what food they consume, the company that creates food will become a monopoly.
And maybe because everyone wants to achieve their goals, the companies will turn over all the profits to the government or to R&D.
Thus creating something which is halfway between capitalism and communism.
Where it is about monopoly, but not about profit, and also not about giving money to people but to humanity as a whole.
You have just hit on the key skill that is needed to produce peace in the world, being able to see the world from the other’s way of thinking, and being able to see the logic in it from their point of view. It is not emotions that prevent people from being able to do this , it is the fact that it is the most difficult breaks there is, and most people fail badly at it. You can eliminate every ounce of emotion in the world and it won’t make a dent in miscommunications and breakdowns in understanding. It wont change the fact that people will still accuse
others of ‘laziness’ and irrationality when they have difficulty living up to our expectations of them.
I would personally believe in the same way you described Stephen Hawking believes.
That if we collect all pieces of a puzzle, we will be able to solve it as well.
I am also one who mildly believes in the Many World Intepretations theory.
This theory basically states that for every choice that has been made, a new parallel version of it will exist.
So, i guess one could summarize my way of thinking to be similar to Stephen Hawking's.
Of course, i am in no way even near to his intelligence level.
But, maybe we might be very similar in the way we think.
You are looking at the broader idea rather than focusing on the fundamental one.
Why do micro-organisms do all the things you just mentioned, i.e. move towards light or maximize their functioning?
The answer is that they do it because - 1) they want to gain knowledge and 2) they want to reproduce and pass on this knowledge.
And both of these are so, because organisms arent immortal, and the only way to immortality seems to be to know how to become immortal.
Well, as thought out as that seems, i still dont think its enough evidence for your claim.
I can only assume at this point that your belief is that proper communication can bring peace and mine is that ridding of emotions can bring peace.
And i am fine with it as long as they are just opinions.
More fundamental than 1) and 2), they do these things before what an organism is is an interaction with its environment. It is in the nature of self-organizing systems to continue to maintain their style
of interaction with their environment , and in order to continue to function as the organism
they are, they must be able to modify and adapt their style of functioning to the novelties of their environment. Otherwise they disintegrate and die. So the organism’s aim isn’t merely to survive, it’s aim is to maintain it’s particular style of interactions. It is driven to protect and preserve its kind of order throughout all the changes and adaptations it must make in a changing environment.
Also, such a ridiculous situatuion probably shouldnt have been imagined in the first place anyways.
Thank you to everyone who participated and shared their thoughts.
I would ask everyone to love thy neighbour and have a good day.
Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk. (not an actual Ted Talk)
Again, maybe that is how you perceived it, and you might be right.
But my perception could also be right.
We wont know unless a God or a creator tells us about it, i guess.
I dont want to overwhelm thephilosophyforum's servers.
I just want my future self to look at this discussion and realise how their perception has changed/not changed over time.
I think that will be good way to pass some time. (Not being disrespectful to anyone)
Conclusion:-
Are emotions unnecessary now?
Not at all.
Can removing emotions from life lead to a peaceful life?
Maybe, with a little hint towards yes.
Do we love Shrek?
Wait this wasnt supposed to be here.
What is the meaning of life, the universe and everything?
42.
Is everyone, (except some) who posted their opinions here beautiful and amazing people?
Yes.
Will this conclusion ever end?
I hope so.
I, Kinglord1090, with the power vested in me by no one, hereby judge this discussion as closed/concluded.
You may now kiss the bride. (Or anyone close to you, you friend, your wife, your boss's wiife, your parents, your child. Just share love, ok?)
Surely the waves they see on the screen are not emotions. That would be an unacceptable reduction. It is like saying, the hot weather during the summer time is the temperature readings on the thermometer. Or the voltage readings on the voltmeter are identical to electricity.
I think emotions are the private mental states in the brain, which are only perceivable by the owner of the state. Others can only read it via the behaviours, linguistic and facial expressions of the individual.
For example, I would only know that you are happy by hearing that your say that you are happy, your facial expression looking happy, and you are jumping up and down making some happyish noise ...etc. There is no other way, that I would know you are happy. Of course, those scientists may look at the brain waves coming out on the device screen connected to your head, and tell ah this is the happy wave it looks like, but that is not the actual happy emotion itself they are looking at, no matter how accurate the device might be, they are just seeing some symbolic quantified representation of the mental states, rather than the emotion as entity itself.
Well, the way our body understands emotions is through chemicals and hormones.
So, it would necessarily be impossible for a device wired directly to the brain to pick up on atleast some of them.
Sure, maybe they wont be able to read exact emotions but only vague ones intepreted from actions, but like Dr. Karoly Zsolnai Feher says, 2 more papers down the line, the amount of development would be amazing.
I would suggest you watch this:- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKe53bcyBQY
Its only 8 mins long and very informative.
Its 1:51 am for me now, so unfortuantely i wont have time to refer to it again, but i will make sure to reply to your comment by tomorrow.
I would guess the readings are accurate for the emotions, because they must have gone through many tests, and verified the results. But I still feel that the waves are not identical to the emotions in the brain. :)
I am concerned that the lack of empathy will lead to more non-emotional suffering. If you get rid of the non-emotional suffering in your hypothetical world (which may be possible with gene editing) it will get my vote over this world.
Quoting Kinglord1090
There is no reason we would prefer it - goals are not self-justifying.
I don't know what your idea of success is but say it is financial growth, or technological progress, why are these goals any less arbitrary than the goals of having as many parties and making as many banana sandwiches as possible?
They arent.
Both of these goals are equally important.
That is to say, for people who have these goals.
Since, people without emotions are likely to only have the 2 fundamental goals, they wouldnt work towards anything else.
Sounds like someone did their homework and educated themselves on some biology. Good for ya.
So your decision to "close" the thread, is well-timed. It's time you saw the absurdity of what you were proposing in the OP, and in your subsequent posts.
Now perhaps you weren't really thinking of what words you were using, but you are talking about emotions being intended for something. But that is confused. Emotions arose, if one is thinking within evolutionation theory, through natural selection and mutation, etc.
And sentences like....
means nothing in context. It comes off as an attempt to put me in my place somehow. If I say something, correct I would add, that evolution in evolutionary theory is not teleological, this actually means I have heard of Darwin and understand something your wording implies - but does not necessarily entail - you are confused about.
If you think evolution is teleological you could have said that.
If you agree it is not, then you could have mentioned that.
All this posturing on your part is not a response.
Not only that, you guys just keep saying the same things over and over again, even though I did give appropriate replies already.
I have got what I wanted, which is atleast 1 person who thinks that my thought is correct.
I just want to talk about one topic, which I guess people still can't seem to understand.
Are emotionless humans really humans?
My answer is yes, they are still humans.
I have said this over and over and over again, emotions and logic arent the only things that make humans different from robots and/or other organisms.
Thus, getting rid of emotions, only removes a part of what makes a human, human.
You could argue that this part is a big part, and I wouldnt oppose that opinion.
However, I believe that by getting rid of that part, we can open up space for a new part or maybe just let logic or other parts take over, which seems like a reasonable choice.
Now, let us consider, that emotionless humans will not be humans, but rather robot-like creatures who have no sense of consciousness or anything.
What is wrong with that?
There are a load of organisms that live on this planet who arent even capable of having thought or consciousness, yet their lives arent exactly 'useless', as if they never had existed, we would never have been able to even have this discussion.
Hitler has killed many people, many kings of old eras have done unthinkable things to humans, people believed the earth is flat, and even if you argue that they were inhumane in their behaviours, you cant argue that they were not humans.
So, please stop saying things which has already been discussed in the post.
This post is closed.
You are free to discuss with one another, but I wont be able to reply.
So, keep discussing if you feel so, but dont target me specifically.
I know its difficult, since I seem like the only one who is taking this side of the debate, but thats just how the world runs, I wont have enough time and energy to devote to this one thought I believe in.
I cant live my life, by only focusing in one thing forever, because of these emotions, which as lovely as they are, I dont deem them to be necessary.
And those replies led to criticism also. Which is, of course, fine. But your sense that your replies were appropriate might be biased. That's what discussions like this try to work out.Quoting Kinglord1090I weighed in on that issue, so I clearly understood it was on the table. As social mammals with limbic systems humans are emotional. Just as much as our females have teats (giving us the category mammal, if not more so, since both sexes have emotions.)Quoting Kinglord1090Interestingly however mammals with their limbic systems tend to be the apex predators and also have, in human primates, developed the most incredible adaptions. It seems like we would need some extraordinary evidence to convince us that eliminate a part of us is a good idea.Quoting Kinglord1090I don't think that if we eliminate we would have no consciousness. Perhaps someone else argued that. However I think having no sene of consciousness would be a loss. That would be something like dreamless sleep.Quoting Kinglord1090
It is very unlikely that any animal lacks consciousness.
If you keep posting it is likely you will get responses to your posts. If you want that to stop or at least your experience of it to stop, I would suggest simply not looking at the thread anymore.
I think this paper is really interesting on that POV: http://faculty.umb.edu/gary_zabel/Courses/Spinoza/Texts/Human%20Emotions-Universal%20or%20Culture-Specific.pdf . If emotions are unnecessary I don’t think we could call our selves human
Quoting Bylaw
"Researchers have argued that consciousness in mammals arises in the neocortex, and therefore cannot arise in animals which lack a neocortex. For example, Rose argued in 2002 that the "fishes have nervous systems that mediate effective escape and avoidance responses to noxious stimuli, but, these responses must occur without a concurrent, human-like awareness of pain, suffering or distress, which depend on separately evolved neocortex.""
Source:- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_consciousness
Almost as if people are dodging basic evidence to try to prove me wrong, then still debate that they were right.
Some people also mentioned how not having emotions would also lead to people not understanding physical pain, which is just incorrect, but they wont stop saying it, even if i give evidence.
Quoting Bylaw
Isn't that just proving my point more?
No evidence can convince you guys.
Cause you are just not ready to listen.
You just want to prove me wrong in any basis possible.
If i tell you to stop commenting, would you? Probably not, even if it meant i can have peace.
Quoting Oppyfan
A theist can say that people who dont believe in Gods arent humans.
An atheist can say that people who blindly follow a non-existing figure arent humans.
A satanist can say that people who dont worship the devil arent humans.
The point is, we can look at what a human is in 2 ways, subjectively and objectively.
One of the main points atheists bring up in their debates against theists is that, if Gods is true, they must be true in all cases, which as we can see, isnt true. Some people believe God is Jesus(or his father, i am not christian), some believe Allah is God, some believe Shiva is God and some dont believe in it. If God were true in all cases, such diversity shouldnt have existed.
Meaning, objectively, God doesnt exist.
So, if we look at what a human is subjectively, by many people's beliefs its a person with emotions, while from some people's beliefs its a person with reason.
As a result, we would have to look at it objectively.
What is a human? A human is a homo-sapien.
Would an emotionless homo-sapien be human?
Yes- Then its solved. A emotionless human is still human.
No- Then it would be the next step of evolution with a new name like, no-homo-sapien.
I think that the question of whether an emotionless human being would still be human is an interesting question. It is interconnected with that of what it means to be human? We live in a life of the physical and ideas, and, perhaps emotions form the middle ground in this. I do believe that your emphasis on reason is important, because emotions often are based on the lower aspects of human nature. But, if we were cut off from the emotions entirely, we may become unbalanced in seeing everything in logical terms, which may leave us floundering as beings of mind, body and spirit. However, I am aware that all of these categories are arbitrary, but I do believe that emotions are are a useful aspect of guidance.
These just seem to be positions no one holds. My point was being human would entail emomedia cause what are we without empathy? Simply conscious robots.
Well, is being a conscious robot wrong?
And like I said already, if its not wrong, then wouldnt it be better, since humans with emotions will/can do bad things, while a 'conscious robot' wouldnt do so?
From your own link:
Quoting Kinglord1090
And look at this, mindreading. You are claiming to have knowledge of our internal mental states. All of us.
And that last bit:
are you really claiming that I, for example, can keep you from having peace?
All you have to do is stop reading replies to your posts here. You are in control of your peace as far as our replies. You are in control.
Bruh, you literally are taking that quote out of context from my source.
I never said animals dont have consciousness, I said 'some' 'organisms' dont.
Quoting Bylaw
I am not making a claim about anything.
I am only making an obvious observation.
You are the one claiming that I have knowledge of everyone's internal mental states by supposedly reading my internal mental state.
Such a hypocrite.
Quoting Bylaw
And all you have to do is not reply anymore.
But you dont seem to be doing that either, are you?
Because you dont care how others feel as long as you can feel accomplished, or so I would assume from what is obvious already.
Since, you have said it, and no one seems to be discussing about this topic anyways, i will stop replying.
The only reason I was replying so far was because I get emails that someone mentioned me, and so I end up checking the website and reading the comment anyways.
And I dont want to stop those emails from coming in case that someone actually interested in the discussion wants to talk.
I just want to make a clear statement here, since clearly you might try to comment again, that I still believe that a world void of emotions can be peaceful and function atleast better than real-life if not perfectly and that I have provided enough evidence and arguments to atleast show that what I am talking about is not complete garbage.
can't get work or won't accept what they can get? I have never met anyone that could not find work of some sort. I have met a great number that refused to accept the work they could get. "Can't work" is very very rare. "I won't do that" is far more common, and deserves no remorse as it is very quickly followed by some version of "take care of me". No chance: take care of yourself.
If that means 5% die, oh bloody well. Seriously, there are enough people. 5% less won't make me lose any sleep.
Quoting Book273
Officially around 5% of people claim unemployment benefit, and to be eligible you must take reasonable steps to find work. The government are in fact even stricter than this, considering around 70% of appeals to a judge against their decisions to terminate benefits are successful.
Don't know where you are from, but if you're in favour of stopping benefits, you'll love the British government.
Where I am from the government assistance programs will only support you if you can prove that you have made no attempt to improve your situation on your own. Once you prove you are useless they are all over supporting you, however, if you ask for a hand up to become self sufficient...not a chance. Never understood that, just baffles me.
I agree entirely. We should start with Jeff Bezos, I think, might as well start with the biggest drain first. The benefits he receives in terms of all the infrastructure the government have built on which he bases his business, plus the legal protection he benefits from, the interest payments, government incentives and lobbied deals... If someone on a few hundred a week in benefits has to work 35hrs to earn it, poor Jeff's going to have to work 24/7 for the government to pay off even a fraction of his benefits. Still...fair's fair.
Please explain non-emotional suffering. Is that like...physical pain? Otherwise, it's all emotional.
I know. Hence my corrective. Those who refuse to sweep the sidewalk are of no different a type. Everyone tries to do as little unpleasant work as possible for the maximum return the current legal system will allow. All the way from your broom-averse benefit scrounger to Jeff Bezos. Maximum return legally possible, minimum investment of undesirable work.
Why focus on the small fry?
I am talking the willful dead weight. Those that feel the world owes them "their piece of the pie" but are too entitled to work for it. Be it physical work or intellectual investment. The ones that love the line "you're so lucky to have that good job."
Yeah right, because I pulled my education and training out of a cracker jacket box while I was high on meth. And I still have a job because I am lucky. Actually going to work, working, and being moderately good at my job have nothing to do with continued employment. It's all just luck.
So do benefit recipients. The government pays them to keep themselves alive and available for work. They do so.
Quoting Book273
So do benefit recipients. They successfully lobby (and vote for) governments who pay them to keep themselves alive and available for work.
What level of apathy? Are you suggesting that there's some objective relationship between work and remuneration? If Jeff Bezos works, lets be generous, a 40hr week to earn his $1.7milion at $800/hr your average benefit recipient would have to work for just 5 minutes a day. Are you suggesting they don't even do five minutes of work? If you're happy for Jeff Bezos to get $800/hr for the work he does, why not benefit recipients? Why shouldn't they earn $800/hr for the five minutes of work they do (attending the Job Centre, for example)?
Quoting Book273
The government consider that a healthy workforce available for work have a purpose. Are you sufficiently qualified in economics to override their judgement?
Ah, bullshit then. Thought so.
Funny thing eh, it isn't a single direction thing. I support people's right to be self determining, for better and for worse. Somebody wants to work hard, get educated, develop a skill, and make a little money. Cool. I'll support that. Someone else wants to not work, do drugs and maybe die in the street. Not my personal choice, but I recognize that it's theirs and I support their right to do that too. Notice I won't stop either one eh. That's actual non-biased support.
Not that "I'll only support you if you do what I want you to" crap most people shovel lately.
It's your definition of 'work hard' that's bullshit. You're just including in that definition everything that's done under standard western capitalism and excluding stuff you don't like. There's nothing honest, down-to-earth, hard working about most corporate goings on, they do as little as possible for the maximum return. I'm asking you for clear distinction between that and a benefit recipient who's doing as little as possible (attending the benefits office) for the maximum return (benefits payment).
I am not donating to your cause.
Quoting Book273
5% of the British population (plus unemployed not claiming unemployment benefit) are taking reasonable steps to find work. They are not choosing to remain unemployed, and neither are the disabled, deemed unfit for work by a doctor, plus an assessor for the government.
It will be the same around the world, not everyone can find or do work, and it will only get worse and worse with automation.
Quoting Book273
Yes physical pain. Reduction of suffering is my ethical priority, and I am worried that a world void of emotions, while good for the lack of emotional suffering, would lead to more physical pain.
Affections and emotions, according to Neuroscience and the latest Theory on Consciousness by the founder of Neuropsychoanalysis Mark Solms, are the "driving force" behind the content of our conscious states. They are what force our conscious attention to focus on specific stimuli and how "meaning" is induced in our emergent interpretations of them, known as "feelings".
Feelings are the result we get when we try to reason and understand our emotions.
So in my opinion, the opening statement should ask whether feelings are unnecessary and the obvious answer is of course they are.
Now we should also distinguish the practice of managing our feelings(a valuable practice) from rejecting them completely. That would be like trying to ignore our attempt to understand our emotions thus remove "meaning" from our thoughts and behavior.
Since this is my first post in this platform, I don't know if references are allowed as links.
-"Predictive processing approaches are quite popular these days. What I think is most valuable in them is their understanding of feeling in terms of prediction of events."
-I don't really understand what that means. Are you talking from a Psychiatric perspective?
-"Howver, I don’t think the claim to distinguish between emotion, affect and feeling in terms of distinct functional systems will hold up."
-Well that a scientific description that describes the evolution of an organic stimuli from an affect to a full blown concept that offers meaning to a thinking agent who acts on meaning.
So not only it hold ups its an essential framework in the role of emotions in the content of our conscious states.
-"They are all instead inseparably interconnected. "
I never said they weren't connected under the same system.
Interconnection says nothing about those three evolutionary phases of a stimuli "inflicting" an affect, producing an emotion, where our symbolic thinking reasons it in to feelings.
You must know numerous cases where people realize a "feeling". " I realized I don't really hate you", " I am more disappointed than mad". In order to distinguish those really thin lines that separate every fuzzy and undefined emotion....we NEED to introduce "theory"...to reason in order to find meaning in what we feel and inform our mental model and then our actions.
i.e. "social rejection" or "insecurity" are complex feelings that includes many emotions. Only through our "theory" we can produce this final concept of a feeling.
Are you familiar with Lisa Barrett’s work on affect and emotion? This is what I’m mainly drawing from. Quoting Nickolasgaspar
I am comparing one scientific framework (representational, computational realism) with another (embodied enactivism). Both offer theories of affect, feeling and emotion, but the enactivist approach rejects representationalism and predictive processing’s arbitrary separation of brain from body and body from environment.
I am disputing the idea that an emotion prior to an interpretive construal is a coherent notion.
-So you agree with me that an emotion needs to be processed in order for us to interpret and define an "upset" under a specific feeling ?
No I haven't followed Barrett's work on Affective science, but it sounds interesting and in agreement with how Neuropsychoanalysis approach.
-"What I think is most valuable in them is their understanding of feeling in terms of prediction of events."
-So I think it is in line with our understanding of the brain that predictive machine?(Anil Seth).
Now unfortunately I am allergic to "isms" so I will skip that part. That has nothing to do with you but I scientific descriptions than philosophical interpretations.
I would put it this way. Rather than assuming an unformed pattern of sensations ( negative or positive) arising out of core physiological bodily maintenance processes that only later undergoes higher perceptual processing and is turned into a feeling through our interpretation of it, emotion , affect and feeling are indissociable aspects of an integral organizational feature of cognitive-affective systems. That is to say, the cognitive system is normatively driven toward goal-directed aims. Affectivity arises out of that integral process. Experience is always relevant and significant to us moment to moment in relation to our goals , and feeling always accompanies that experience as the expression of the particular ways in which the world is significant to us.
Cognition is a separate mind property responsible for the interpretation of affects and emotions. This is what connects the dots and interprets our emotions.
i.e. You may have a serious misunderstanding with two ndividuals but just because you know one of them has different mental capacity your emotional expressions are dumb down in his case.
Using the similar names to interpret different experiences i.e. feeling disgust when dealing with a really dirty public W.C or a dishonest lying interlocutor, shows the overarching role of cognition in the interpretation of our emotions.
When were they necessary and to whom and for what purpose and according to what values?
as a random spotcheck...
from the Guardian
2. I love reason.
3. I love emotions.
4. I hate reason.
5. I love both emotions and reason.
6. I hate both emotions and reason.
7. I neither love nor hate emotions.
8. I neither love nor hate reason.
Can you see the paradox? I can't! :confused: :sad:
How different are "I think x is not reasonable" and "I dislike x" and "I hate x." Similalry, how distinct are "I think y is reasonable" and "I like y" and "I love y"???
I wont be able to reply to all of these.
And I see, me saying we should end the discussion, since its not really going anywhere, didnt really work.
I will try to put some of my thoughts here, however, dont expect me to reply to all. (I apologize for that in advance)
I will try to translate this better, for once. I am translating this by how I understood it, so if its wrong, feel free to correct me.
@Book273 is trying to say that financially there are 3 types of people. Rich, middle-class and poor. The rich have worked at some point in tie to earn money. (Be it ethical or not). Middle-class people have to work constantly and work to earn money. And poor people have to work even harder. So, the government trying to help just the poor people (Poor including people who cant or refuse to work), is kinda unfair. Either everyone should be equally helped, or like Book273 said, no one should be helped at all.
I kinda agree with it. The meaning of equality is kind of subjective. So, giving a poor person chance to earn money is a way for equality to someone, while to someone else, helping just poor people is inequality.
Now, I would like to reply to some of @Nickolasgaspar's messages, because I liked their perspective.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Ok. Understandable. I have nothing against this at all.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
No, the opening statement should be are 'emotions' necessary. You just explained what feelings are. Feelings are results or answer or conclusion. Emotions are the source. I was asking if that source is necessary.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
I agree with half of this statement.
Yes, it is like trying to ignoring the attempt to understand emotions.
And I am all for that. I dont want to know about emotions, and I dont see how they will help, since we are talking about a world without emotions..... A world without 'emotions', wont have 'emotions'. So, there is nothing to understand about them. Since, they dont exist. Do you understand?
Now for the part which I disagree with,
Acoording to you doing so removes 'meaning' from our thoughts and behaviour.
First of all, this assumes that you know the meaning to thoughts and behaviour and life and basically everything. So, either you think you are God, or you didnt give a second to think about what you typed.
Secondly, 'meaning' of thoughts and behaviour, as well as of life, is subjective. If for you, removing emotions removes meaning, then for me, not working towards removing emotions removes meaning. So, that statement doesnt hold up.
Thirdly, even if we take your subjective meaning of 'meaning', i totally disagree that removing emotions will remove meaning, as you are assuming that emotions are the only part of human thought. Reasoning, personality, deduction, etc. are all as equal part of human thought as emotions. If anything they are a bigger part, as they existed longer and in more quantity than emotions.
So, no, removing emotions wont remove 'meaning'.
Now, some extra things,
@Joshs, you know that you agree with Mr. Nick, but your ego isnt allowing you to accept. You think that somehow, your answer has to be better than Nick's answer. If you here to just disagree with anything and everything you can see, I would suggest looking elsewhere.
Finally,
To @Bylaw,
You were literally the one who said to stop replying to this discussion, yet here you are rpelying to my message expecting me to answer.
As I said, if I get an email, I am likely to check it, and ending up coming here. For 2 months, I didnt receive any, and I genuinely thought no one was interested anymore.
But today, I received mails regarding to you replying to my messages, and I ended up coming here.
So, at the very least, please follow your own principles.
Quoting Bylaw
There's literally liike atleast 20 messages explaining all of this, and I honestly tired of saying the same thing over and over again. I will reply to it one last time here.
*According to me, emotions are unnecessary to everyone, and people without emotions, have the same values as humans with emotions had, which werent related to their emotions.(Saying humans without emotions have no value, is like saying, orange juice without sugar doesnt have value and should be free of cost). If anything they have more value, as they wont do unethical stuff. Emotions were necessary for survival as they helped in rapid progress of humanity in a short amount of time. (They dont do anymore as we dont face existence threatening issues as much anymore).
Nicely said.
According to you, emotions are below conscience.
According to me, emotions are below the line of necessary.
So, they are unnecessary. (According to my reasoning that is)
-"No, the opening statement should be are 'emotions' necessary. You just explained what feelings are. Feelings are results or answer or conclusion. Emotions are the source. I was asking if that source is necessary."
-I don't think that we have a choice.....They come with the biological body we rock..lol
This is why I took the liberty and changed "emotion" with "feelings" because although we can not switch our reasoning of emotions completely of, we know that humans can be tried to either ignore them or dumb them down.
i.e. solders through training and combat can do things that emotionally would be impossible for many others. Also we see western women mourning the death of their only child for the rest of their lives while women in third world countries, lose a child and they keep on with their lives.
At least its the only question I find applicable to a real world scenario....since we can not have mental function without emotions.
-"Yes, it is like trying to ignoring the attempt to understand emotions.
And I am all for that. I dont want to know about emotions, and I dont see how they will help, since we are talking about a world without emotions..... A world without 'emotions', wont have 'emotions'. So, there is nothing to understand about them. Since, they dont exist. Do you understand"
-I guess you are making a "what if" hypothetical question...right?
Since emotions are currently accepted as fundamental for triggering any conscious state we have, I guess the answer to your initial question is no. Emotions are necessary in our mental functions as humans (and in animals). We even discovered primitive "emotions" in flies guiding their behavior.
-"According to you doing so removes 'meaning' from our thoughts and behaviour.
First of all, this assumes that you know the meaning to thoughts and behaviour and life and basically everything."
-No I didn't use that word in that specific meaning!. What I was saying is , we feel an emotion and we reasoning it in to a feeling. i.e. We are thirsty. So we find meaning in going out and buying a soda!
an other example. We feel an attraction to a person. Our behavior to approach and "win" her affection makes sense to us(is meaningful) if our goal is to satisfy that initial emotion(attraction). So "meaning" is what we "scan" our emotions for and "meaning" is what we see in our acts to satisfy it.
I.e. its not meaningful to eat when we are thirsty because the emotion will still be there after having a lunch.
This is the huge difference between AI and Biological intelligence. The first is guided by algorithms that are updated( try and error) with the intention to reach the defined goals set by the code, while the second guides an organism to select a behavior that makes senses(meaning) in relation to satisfying a specific emotion.
-"Thirdly, even if we take your subjective meaning of 'meaning', i totally disagree that removing emotions will remove meaning, as you are assuming that emotions are the only part of human thought. "
-Emotions trigger human conscious thought, they are not the only part of human thought. They are foundational (according to Neuropsychoanalysis) . Without emotions we won't have organisms trying to understand what it means to feel that way and what he/she should do to address that emotion.
Almost all of our thoughts that pop in our brains an emotional underlying cause. From how we did last night at the bar, to being hungry, bored tired, nostalgic, happy, sad, anxious, responsible for a problem...etc etc.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
I guess you didnt read the entire discussion word by word properly, cuz we are assuming that a world without emotions exists. And the discussion is about how it will be better or worse than reality.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Duh.
Do you think there is a way to make humans stop showing emotions, peacefully?
As long as emotions exist, logic can be cast away. As long as logic can be cast away, peace cant be true.
The only exception is if every human only showcases good emotions only.
But we both know that wont happen.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
This statement is just factually incorrect. Emotions arent necessary in our mental functions as humans.
I wrote a lot here, but it got deleted and I am bored, so I will shorten it.
Computers can do stuff better than us without emotions.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Since emotions dont exists in our 'hypothetical', we have nothing to scan.
So, basically, you are saying that most of what you said was not related to the discussion.
Weird flex, but ok.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
My brain left the chat while reading this.
I dont know where you learned about AI from, but its literally about re-creating biological intelligence.
Both work on the same principles.
What you call 'algorithms' for computers, is what exists inside our brain as well.
What you call 'defined goals' is also taken from humans. As organisms, our brain doesnt work to satisy our emotions, it works to reach a defined goal. I feel weird that me(an organism), has to tell you(also an organism), about why we exist. Or rather, why we dont just go extinct. Its because we are meant to do 3 things. Collect info, breed, and pass on that info. All that to gain immortality. Before you think i am talking about some pseudo-science or some religious stuff, let me assure you that I am not.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Bruh, did you even read this before sending?
Starts with - "Without emotions", Ends with - "Address that emotion"
Where did emotion come from?
You were supposed to assume they dont exist.
If there is no emotions, they is nothing to address, thus, nothing to understand about them.
Also, I have already said this before that this discussion has been closed.
Please look for another discussion or open one of your own if you want to further discuss it with people.
-"I guess you didnt read the entire discussion word by word properly, cuz we are assuming that a world without emotions exists. And the discussion is about how it will be better or worse than reality."
-In order to evaluate whether that "world" would be better or worse without emotions....you need to use your feelings to see why it would be better or worse than this reality. And if such a reality existed, you wouldn't be unable to make any evaluation on how that world appears to you.
I am saying that the question is non sequitur.
Again, emotions arent the only thing humans have. Using logic also works. And i dont know about you, but humans for centuries have used logic to evaluate situations. So, no, emotions arent necessary for evaluation.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Wouldnt, unable.
2 negatives, meaning you do agree that evaluation can be made.
But i know thats not what you meant.
Also, we arent evaluating it from the inside perspective anyways, as a world without emotions wouldnt have a reference of emotions to evaluate it from that perspective.
Do you think there is a way to make humans stop showing emotions, peacefully?
As long as emotions exist, logic can be cast away. As long as logic can be cast away, peace cant be true.The only exception is if every human only showcases good emotions only.
But we both know that wont happen."[/i]
-I don't even know a way to remove emotions and still have human beings.
You can not have human reasoning without emotion because after a day or two you won't have any humans left. This is the foundation behind human conscious states where reasoning "lives".
How humans will survive from dehydration if they don't have the ability of producing the homeostatic emotion of thirst????
I can see your argument making some sense if you were referring to feelings but not with emotions.
-"This statement is just factually incorrect. Emotions arent necessary in our mental functions as humans.
I wrote a lot here, but it got deleted and I am bored, so I will shorten it.
Computers can do stuff better than us without emotions."
-Emotions are the driving force for our conscious states. This is what science tells today.
Try listening to Mark Solms lectures on the new Theory of Consciousness and what mechanisms are responsible for the flow of thoughts in human brain.
Mark Solms is the founder of Neuropsychoanalysis and the author of a groundbreaking paper on understanding the mechanism of dreams.
-"Since emotions don't exists in our 'hypothetical', we have nothing to scan."
-Correct without emotions, you won't be able to know that your environment doesn't provide food and shelter for you and you would die on the spot. So Again this hypothetical is scientific ignorant and useless. In fact you are talking about a reality without sentient beings....and without sentient thinking beings evaluation judgments do not exist. So my objection is on your hypothetical. Its pseudo philosophical in my opinion.
-"My brain left the chat while reading this.
I dont know where you learned about AI from, but its literally about re-creating biological intelligence.
Both work on the same principles."
-Yes I have heard that arrogant claim before. The principles are the "same", the way we make reason and make decisions is different. We assign meaning to everything, while algorithms are executed based on the set goals.
-"What you call 'algorithms' for computers, is what exists inside our brain as well."
-Sure I can agree with that, the different though is on how you make decisions...through meaning.
-"What you call 'defined goals' is also taken from humans. As organisms, our brain doesnt work to satisy our emotions, it works to reach a defined goal."
-Yes this is what Homeostasis and Thirst(emotion) do. But then you have reasoning telling "I will have a coffee, but it is late and the caffeine will keep me up all night, but Annie will be here this evening and se loves that brand of coffee...." and in human reasoning things "bubble" really easy and most if not all are fueled by reasoning our emotions and finding meaning in our actions.
-" Without emotions we won't have organisms trying to understand what it means to feel that way and what he/she should do to address that emotion. — Nickolasgaspar
Bruh, did you even read this before sending?
Starts with - "Without emotions", Ends with - "Address that emotion""
-I really don't know why this is so difficult for you ! Stimuli(organic or environmental) produce Emotions. Emotions are addressed by the center of symbolic thinking and reasoning where concepts emerge and we make sense of the stimuli through our mental models(memory, pattern recognition etc) that we have been constructing since we were infants and as thinking agents we decide how to address that stimuli/emotion....usually irrationally, by trying to find a quick fix.
-"Where did emotion come from?
You were supposed to assume they dont exist."
-They do exist and we can not get rid off them. This is why I believe this hypothetical is scientifically ignorant on the role of emotions as foundation for human cognition...so we are just practicing pseudo philosophy by talking about it.
-"If there is no emotions, they is nothing to address, thus, nothing to understand about them."
-...and without emotions we wouldn't be alive since we wouldn't be able to address our essential needs! lol So I can not see the value of making a scenario of a sentient beings without emotions and talk about reasonable behavior. If we really want to see a world without emotions...just look at the moon!
-"Also, I have already said this before that this discussion has been closed.
Please look for another discussion or open one of your own if you want to further discuss it with people. "
-What do you mean "I have already said that this discussion has been closed". what does it MEAN?
Is this thread under North Korean type of rules? What happen to our democratic western societies?
Is this a general rule of this platform that when the guy who opens the thread call it off everybody should stop posting their opinions?
I really don't get the "meaning" of your statement sir. Pls educate me if this is indeed a rule of this platform and I will unsubscribe at once!
-"Again, emotions arent the only thing humans have."
-I agree and this is why I never said that!
-"Using logic also works. And i dont know about you, but humans for centuries have used logic to evaluate situations. So, no, emotions arent necessary for evaluation."
-Again without emotions informing us for our basic needs and drives we would have been extinct.
I think you are confusing "sensationalized feelings" with the foundational role of emotions in human survival.
And if such a reality existed, you wouldn't be unable to make any evaluation on how that world appears to you. — Nickolasgaspar
"Wouldnt, unable.
2 negatives, meaning you do agree that evaluation can be made.
But i know thats not what you meant."
-So you reason and find a meaning to what I said. Try that in an algorithm...lol!
"Also, we arent evaluating it from the inside perspective anyways, as a world without emotions wouldnt have a reference of emotions to evaluate it from that perspective."
-Well you literally wrote , I quote "And the discussion is about how it will be better or worse than reality."
So you are trying to make an evaluation from a different perspective......and what perspective would that be? I think this is the more important point we can discuss....define and analyze that perspective!
I am not interested in discussion with someone who cant give proper reasoning behind their statements.
So, I am out.
Also, by saying the discussion is closed, I mean, I am not going to be replying to any messages anymore, so even if you want to talk in this discussion dont tag me.
Tell me, which world do you prefer,
A world with emotions that exists with pain and suffering as well as happiness.
Or
A world without emotions that exists with eternal peace.
No arguments here, just a choice.
We were never meant to exist. The probability of all of what is happening right now is lower than 1%. We are nothing in comparison to the universe. If to have life, is to have suffering, then i dont want it.
No it doesn't.
Unsubstantiated claims are just that.
What you believe is not evidence of anything.
There are many possible logical reasons for killing people. Have you heard of psychopaths and their regard for other human beings? They have no regard for them.
I would recommend reading up on Antonio Damasio and his contributions to the cognitive neurosciences. In fact, you're probably good reading ANY scientist invoplved in the cognitive sciences to come to the understanding that 'emotions' and 'logic' are NOT mutually exclusive items.
Have fun :)
The nihilistic tendencies of youth ;)