Purpose of Emotions

[pukingRainbows]

What do you think is the purpose of human beings having emotions?

Is it just the byproduct of our complex nervous system?

Do they provide an advantage from an evolutionary perspective?

Any thoughts?

[Dragline]

Yes, emotions are an innate and evolved trait that serve many purposes. For example, infants would probably not survive if their parents were not emotionally attached to them. More complex and varied emotions allow for cooperation in groups and organized competition with other groups and species.

Mimetic desire or envy drives people to compete for better and more desirable resources. Its a fundamental primate behavior that is also shared with other mammals. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL45pVdsRvE

Also suggest you read Frans de Waal's classic "Chimpanzee Politics" if you have never read it: http://www.amazon.com/Chimpanzee-Politi ... 0801886562

There is a rich body of science, literature and philosophy on this subject that has plowed this ground many times over and come to similar conclusions for the most part.

[Ego]

Yes, emotions are an innate ......

Question assumptions.

viewtopic.php?f=26&t=7551

We sound different from our ancestors. We wear different clothes, observe different philosophies, follow different ideas. Could certain ways of feeling have vanished along with Mother Bailey’s Quieting Syrup and Capstan Filters, yielding to fresh moods and senses? A new generation of scholars working on the history of the emotions believes passionately that this is the case, and wants us to see our feelings not simply as what happens when a neurological circuit lights up in our brains, but as the products of bigger cultural and historical processes. Their first contention: the very idea of the emotions is a surprisingly young one.

[Dragline]

Ah, but the very next paragraph of that article reveals that the issue raised there is not one of novelty, but of simple labelling and attribution of causation:

“The concept arrived from France in the early 19th century as a way of thinking about the body as a thing of reflexes and twitches, tears and shivers and trembles, that supplanted an older, more theological way of thinking,” says Tiffany Watt Smith, once a director at the Royal Court Theatre, now a researcher at the Centre for the History of the Emotions at Queen Mary University of London. Before the discourse of the emotions took hold, she argues, people spoke of other phenomena – “passions”, “moral sentiments”, “accidents of the soul” – that were not always located within the human body. Ill winds blew no good upon the ancient Greeks, carrying flurries of unhappiness through the atmosphere. Fourth-century Christian hermits were plagued by acedia, a form of religious despair spread by demons that patrolled the desert between 11am and 4pm. Non-human organisms could also be afflicted by passions: in the Renaissance, palm trees became lovesick and horticulturists brokered arboreal marriages by entwining the leaves of proximate specimens."


More comprehensively, from Jonathan Haidt's "Righteous Mind":

f you look for links between evolutionary theory and anthropological observations, you can take some educated guesses about what was in the universal first draft of human nature. I tried to make (and justify) five such guesses:

• The Care/ harm foundation evolved in response to the adaptive challenge of caring for vulnerable children. It makes us sensitive to signs of suffering and need; it makes us despise cruelty and want to care for those who are suffering.

• The Fairness/ cheating foundation evolved in response to the adaptive challenge of reaping the rewards of cooperation without getting exploited. It makes us sensitive to indications that another person is likely to be a good (or bad) partner for collaboration and reciprocal altruism. It makes us want to shun or punish cheaters.

• The Loyalty/ betrayal foundation evolved in response to the adaptive challenge of forming and maintaining coalitions. It makes us sensitive to signs that another person is (or is not) a team player. It makes us trust and reward such people, and it makes us want to hurt, ostracize, or even kill those who betray us or our group.

• The Authority/ subversion foundation evolved in response to the adaptive challenge of forging relationships that will benefit us within social hierarchies. It makes us sensitive to signs of rank or status, and to signs that other people are (or are not) behaving properly, given their position.

• The Sanctity/ degradation foundation evolved initially in response to the adaptive challenge of the omnivore’s dilemma, and then to the broader challenge of living in a world of pathogens and parasites. It includes the behavioral immune system, which can make us wary of a diverse array of symbolic objects and threats. It makes it possible for people to invest objects with irrational and extreme values— both positive and negative— which are important for binding groups together.

Haidt, Jonathan (2012-03-13). The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion (pp. 178-179). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Other than the last one, all of these traits are also exhibited in other primates and mammals per de Waal's research.

[Ego]

Ah, I agree that Haidt's foundations are the basis or drivers for emotions. Here's the thing... the emotional reactions themselves, it seems, are learned.

Take disgust for instance. We all experience disgust. Our emotional reaction to disgust is cultural. And it is changing fast. Haidt and Hersh from 2001, pdf

This hit me when we were in Africa. It may sound unbelievable but African babies don't cry. I'm not talking about the kids who are suffering horrible malnutrition. I'm talking about regular kids with good parents.

I admit it, I find this idea attractive. If we learned our emotional reactions then we can re-learn them.

[pukingRainbows]

@Dragline - I love the disdain with which that monkey throws away his cucumber.

I never thought of emotion as so fundamental a structure in the building of human society. Thanks for the insights. Also, "Chimpanzee Politics" is now on my reading list.

@Ego - I definitely agree that reactions, emotional and otherwise, are learned and formed from a cultural context. I didn't manage to get through that pdf though. It was a little too heavy for me at this time of night.

[Dragline]

Ah, I agree that Haidt's foundations are the basis or drivers for emotions. Here's the thing... the emotional reactions themselves, it seems, are learned.

. . .

I admit it, I find this idea attractive. If we learned our emotional reactions then we can re-learn them.

I tend to agree, for the most part. Most of our reactions are learned by simple mimetics, like the monkeys, but at a level of greater abstraction, leading to more complex cultures. See things that other people have/find desirable, and you want them, too. See them express disgust about certain things and you do, too. This is why the consumerism/celebrity culture is such a powerful force -- it taps into primitive emotions.

[Ego]

Sapolsky on the freakish power metaphors play in our emotions with regard to disgust.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/metaphors-t ... 1459350163