Would the world be a better place without emotions?

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ursaminor
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06 Feb 2010, 8:20 am

I think emotions only bring bad things to life, such as irrationality. Especially in justice this is worrying. Someone can make a human feel that a story is true, while it is an utter lie. This is also what makes sociopaths successful; they can play in on someone's emotions and can sometimes show emotions they do not have. They can tell a lie and people will believe it.



MONKEY
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06 Feb 2010, 8:23 am

No not at all. There needs to be emotions to carry on the human race, without them there will be no attraction so people wouldn't want to reproduce. Also they are important for mother/child bonds.


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ursaminor
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06 Feb 2010, 9:16 am

And then it would, because there would be no humans.



MONKEY
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06 Feb 2010, 9:41 am

ursaminor wrote:
And then it would, because there would be no humans.


But other animals have emotions aswell.


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DemonAbyss10
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06 Feb 2010, 9:55 am

ursaminor wrote:
And then it would, because there would be no humans.


Hey, im the resident Anti-humanist here! *slaps ursaminor silly*

emotions arent really needed for reproduction in all honesty. There is of course mating by force, with both acting people doing it just to simply carry on the human race, so yeah...


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Brandon-J
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06 Feb 2010, 11:29 am

NOOOO not at all. We need emotions to express how we feel.


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superboyian
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06 Feb 2010, 11:45 am

Are you being serious? It would mean that that earth we would live in is zombified and that would literally be scary and yet very boring so that's definitely a noooooooo.

I know that some of us would find it difficult to express our emotions so I do get your point there actually... But it would be harder for the person to actually read your feelings and that would also be such an frustrating world and yet would be very boring.


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pat2rome
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06 Feb 2010, 12:30 pm

No, otherwise natural selection would have driven them out.


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06 Feb 2010, 12:35 pm

ursaminor wrote:
And then it would, because there would be no humans.

That's cold... But on some level, I find myself agreeing with you.


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CockneyRebel
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06 Feb 2010, 2:17 pm

I think that we need emotions, in this world and I don't think that people should hide them, either.


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Janissy
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06 Feb 2010, 5:25 pm

It would be a better place for bugs. But I don't want to be an ant in an ant colony. I like being able to learn and to not have to run on a routine of just a few unchangeable subroutines. For this to be possible, emotion is mandatory. Emotion is how every creature that needs to learn does its learning. You may think that learning is a strictly logical, non-emotional process but it isn't. Our brains (all learning animal brains, not just ours) need "hooks" to hang information on. Emotion provides this hook and also gives an organizing principle that lets our brains prioritize information. It is no coincidence that animals that need to learn (even if they don't learn as much or as abstractly) also share our emotions. Having emotions is what makes it possible for a dog to learn and prioritize what must be thousands of scents. Emotions allow the dog to mentally organize those scents into a meaningful array. Same with us (although we tend to suck at scents). If not for emotion, our brains would have no idea what piece of information needed to be brought to the foreground at a particular time and we would have a hard time remembering things. The creatures that don't have what we recognize as emotions are the creatures that run on pre-programmed subroutines that don't require thought. Bugs.

source: the book "The Growth of the Mind" by Stanley Greenspan. He's the guy who came up with the "Floortime" model of teaching children with classic Kanner-style autism. "Floortime" is in opposition to the ABA model of teaching and it is getting down on the floor with a child and connecting with him (non-verbally). The theory is that learning that has an emotional hook is more flexible, adaptable and useful than the very rote model of ABA learning. I think he's right. And his book convinced me that emotion is mandatory for learning and that is why all learning animals have emotions.



marshall
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06 Feb 2010, 7:02 pm

Ummm... No. Hell no! Without emotions there would be no reason to do anything. Can you imagine life with no special interests, no hobbies, no love for other human beings, no hunger for knowledge, no joy at all - not even from the simple act of physically nourishing our bodies with food. We would all be vegetables. How depressing! Of course if I had no emotions I wouldn't even be able to be depressed about it - but in any case I can't imagine. Yuck.



Lecks
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06 Feb 2010, 7:03 pm

Who's to say. All we have are theories about how a truly emotionless human would behave. No such person has existed so far so we have no basis to go on.

All I can say is that the world would be different, perhaps better in some ways and worse in others, but not one or the other.


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tinky
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06 Feb 2010, 7:28 pm

this movie might answer your question:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0238380/


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ursaminor
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06 Feb 2010, 7:38 pm

marshall wrote:
Ummm... No. Hell no! Without emotions there would be no reason to do anything. Can you imagine life with no special interests, no hobbies, no love for other human beings, no hunger for knowledge, no joy at all - not even from the simple act of physically nourishing our bodies with food. We would all be vegetables. How depressing! Of course if I had no emotions I wouldn't even be able to be depressed about it - but in any case I can't imagine. Yuck.
It is indeed unimaginable. There would be many reasons to do things. Not all things are bound to emotional benefits.

The plot of the movie Equilibrium doesn't seem very enticing, as they try to overthrow the system.



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07 Feb 2010, 6:05 am

ursaminor wrote:
And then it would, because there would be no humans.


You're human. You go first.


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