What is the purpose of emotions?

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Philosophy Explorer
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What is the purpose of emotions?

Post by Philosophy Explorer »

I can't even make any suggestions for an answer as this is a very complicated situation.

🇺🇸PhilX🇺🇸
Last edited by Philosophy Explorer on Tue Jul 03, 2018 10:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Judaka
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Re: What is the purpose of emotions?

Post by Judaka »

Whether emotions have a purpose or not is a subjective distinction and a more interesting question might be about the utility of emotions. Even if we say emotions have a clear-cut reason for existing in an evolutionary sense, I don't think would invalidate any ideas about the purpose of their emotions that an individual might have.
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QuantumT
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Re: What is the purpose of emotions?

Post by QuantumT »

Emotion and purpose:

Love - Helps us reproduce
Fear - Gets us out of harms way
Anger - Helps us defend what we possess
Envy - Helps even distribution of resources
Greed - Helps ensure future resources
And so on...

They have a purpose. They are signals that help sustain the individual life and future prosperity.
gaffo
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Re: What is the purpose of emotions?

Post by gaffo »

Philosophy Explorer wrote: Tue Jul 03, 2018 6:25 pm I can't even make any suggestions for an answer as this is a very complicated situation.

🇺🇸PhilX🇺🇸
social instinct, to promote the survival of the social animal - man - via group cohesion.
Nick_A
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Re: What is the purpose of emotions?

Post by Nick_A »

Philosophy Explorer wrote: Tue Jul 03, 2018 6:25 pm I can't even make any suggestions for an answer as this is a very complicated situation.

🇺🇸PhilX🇺🇸
Sensation is what makes the act of living by reactions possible. All the unique forms of life we know on the earth are creatures living by reaction to sensory stimulis. The higher forms of animal life like dogs for example are also capable of emotion. Emotion is what brings the experience of value to reactions. A dog loves but a clam doesn't.

It is easy to confuse sensing with feeling. For example to sense cold is one thing and to feel cold is another. Often a person will say I feel cold when they mean they sense cold or they may say they sense cold while they are really feeling cold.

To sense cold is to experience its sensation while to feel cold is an expression of its value - if you like or dislike it.

Animal emotions as I understand it, are really rudimentary expressions of higher emotions associated with consciousness and the potential for Man on earth. A dog's love is selective. It may unconditionally love its master but doesn't love other dogs. Higher love is the love of life itself and to feel its purpose within our universe. Higher emotion is the means for Man to experience objective meaning and purpose through "conscience"
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Greta
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Re: What is the purpose of emotions?

Post by Greta »

Emotions are effectively evolved "subroutines" that aids survival. Each emotion triggers a suite of body responses - circulation and breathing intensity and rates, the type and amount of hormones released, changes to the way brain stores information and so forth. It's basically an extension on simpler automatic reactions such as hunger, thirst and wriggle responses.

Emotions are also critical for the experience of consciousness, including the neglected micro-emotions, without which you simply would not be motivated to get out of bed in the morning. There would be no reason to do so.

The fundamental familiar emotions that appeared in nature would be fear, anger and contentment, which are common in many animals. Love probably evolved with the dinosaurs, the ancestors of birds that cared for their young. More complex emotions would have emerged in intelligent social animals. The humans have refined emotion as a tool for maintaining social order, their emotional sensitivity allowing for behavioural controls without resorting to destructive force.
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Re: What is the purpose of emotions?

Post by duszek »

An e-motion puts us in motion.

Does contentment put anyone in motion ?

As far as I am concerned, it prevents motion and causes us to relax.

Ergo: contentment is not an emotion.

Feelings that make us relax are not emotions, I suppose.
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bahman
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Re: What is the purpose of emotions?

Post by bahman »

To make sure that life keeps going.
Nick_A
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Re: What is the purpose of emotions?

Post by Nick_A »

As an experiment, listen to the following and try and put what you feel into words. If you are like me you will admit how inadequate both words and thought are to express the depth of what can be felt from this truly extraordinary instrument.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3wUQhBjejk


Emotion can lead not only to a personal awakening experience but as a means of communication between people impossible for either thought or sensation.
Belinda
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Re: What is the purpose of emotions?

Post by Belinda »

Emotions, like waves in the sea, don't purpose anything.
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Re: What is the purpose of emotions?

Post by Dalek Prime »

So people can be drama queens.

:D comedy
:( tragedy
Nick_A
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Re: What is the purpose of emotions?

Post by Nick_A »

Dalek Prime wrote: Thu Jul 12, 2018 6:09 pm So people can be drama queens.

:D comedy
:( tragedy
Quite true. Most only indulge in emoting. Yet some are capable of "feeling." They are willing to sacrifice the joys from emoting for the sake of experiencing "feelings?" What would it take for you to risk abandoning emoting for the sake of experiencing "feelings?"
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Re: What is the purpose of emotions?

Post by Dalek Prime »

Nick_A wrote: Thu Jul 12, 2018 6:27 pm
Dalek Prime wrote: Thu Jul 12, 2018 6:09 pm So people can be drama queens.

:D comedy
:( tragedy
Quite true. Most only indulge in emoting. Yet some are capable of "feeling." They are willing to sacrifice the joys from emoting for the sake of experiencing "feelings?" What would it take for you to risk abandoning emoting for the sake of experiencing "feelings?"
Good question. Personally, and honestly, I try to remain detached. Not always easy, but I try. Humour helps, though.
Nick_A
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Re: What is the purpose of emotions?

Post by Nick_A »

Dalek Prime wrote: Thu Jul 12, 2018 6:31 pm
Nick_A wrote: Thu Jul 12, 2018 6:27 pm
Dalek Prime wrote: Thu Jul 12, 2018 6:09 pm So people can be drama queens.

:D comedy
:( tragedy
Quite true. Most only indulge in emoting. Yet some are capable of "feeling." They are willing to sacrifice the joys from emoting for the sake of experiencing "feelings?" What would it take for you to risk abandoning emoting for the sake of experiencing "feelings?"


Good question. Personally, and honestly, I try to remain detached. Not always easy, but I try. Humour helps, though.
What do you believe is the goal of emotional detachment? Suppose a person comes to experience that life is meaningless as described in Ecclesiastes 1:
Everything Is Meaningless
1 The words of the Teacher,[a] son of David, king in Jerusalem:

2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”

3 What do people gain from all their labors
at which they toil under the sun?
4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
7 All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.
8 All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
11 No one remembers the former generations,
and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow them.
Suppose while experimenting with emotional detachment from acquired meaning supported through through the expressions of negative emotions the person begins to experience that all this emoting is just a mask, a means for covering over a feeling of meaningless emptiness? Now what? Plato described Man as a being in search of meaning yet the need for meaning is somehow denied. Emotional detachment leads to accepting the superficiality of our normal emoting but IYO what can replace it?
Belinda
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Re: What is the purpose of emotions?

Post by Belinda »

Nick wrote:
Emotional detachment leads to accepting the superficiality of our normal emoting but IYO what can replace it?

There is little danger of our en masse detaching ourselves from emotions. Extreme emotional detachment is morbid and sometimes caused by actual physical lesion of the thyroid gland.

What can replace emotional reactiveness is reason and knowledge of facts. Reason and knowledge of facts refine and enhance emotions. Emotions which are refined and enhanced by reason and knowledge of facts lead to moral good such as forgiveness and peace.

Emotions which are refined and enhanced by reason and knowledge of facts are often called 'feelings'.
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