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I appreciate the contribution, but thats been covered in depth already in this thread.Primates evolved social traits long ago; a basic level of collectivity and/or mutual aid allowed them to thrive without being physically powerful. When our ancestors moved into the savannas 7 million years ago, the presence of more adept predators and prey on this open landscape pushed these social traits towards complex communications, planning, and cooperative bonding.
Who says monkeys don't have feelings? Not nearly as complicated as out own perhaps, but they do care for one another to some degree.
Okay, then if I "feel" it is right to kill homosexuals, you can say you don't like that, but you've no standing to say I'm "wrong".
My feeling that homosexuality should be eliminated from society is on exactly the same level as your feeling that you like chocolate ice cream (or whatever it is you like).
I appreciate the contribution, but thats been covered in depth already in this thread.
I've conceded the point monkeys have feelings, yes.So you've already conceded this point then?
I'm still kind of wondering where emotions fit in with intellect.
It would seem emotions have been posited as a instinctual way of guaranteeing and giving favors to build trust and social networks.
Our intellect has, however, improved, so could not the functions of emotions that compel us to behave a certain way could be handled entirely by the intellect?
Are emotions still essential, or are they like the appendix of the social development?
Are emotions still essential, or are they like the appendix of the social development?
I don't think autism is a lack of just emotion; autistic people have emotion. It's something else, something more fundamental, and we don't, as of now, know exactly what.I wouldn't say they're essential but they're still very useful and it's hard to get along without them.
You could google for information fully functional autistics, who through their disorder lack any kind of social instincts. Some are actually smart enough to figure it all out through intellect but there's a lot of things they don't "get".
Here's a wiki article on a highly functional autistic that might be useful http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Grandin . She describes herself as "an anthropologist on mars".
He could be taught, perhaps? Rather than making decisions base don his own emotional digression, he would mimic the activity he sees his parents do(which babies already do to a large extent). Such things as crying to tell of pain or discomfort are also not necessarily linked to emotion; more instinct. Also, a baby learns fro itself through play; at least play involving the senses, not really emotion. Although I suppose you could argue a baby would not play unless he got the feeling of happiness from it, although he might if the parents show him to.One hypothesis is that social emotions, even if less needed later in life, are extremely useful for learning earlier in life. It's possible to imagine an adult with a full range of life experiences getting along with no emotions and only reason, but how would a child manage it? He wouldn't have enough of a worldview yet to make any rational decisions, so without emotional decisionmaking he would be lost.
Alrighty, if you say so. but what do you mean by most animals?edit: i also don't think we're quite to the point where we can discard emotion entirely and let intellect take care of everything. People are smarter than most animals but not that smart, in my opinion.
So, will we lose them, given enough time? Or will they stick with as an appendix-like item(I forget what the evolutionary term is for an unneeded organ or bone that throws back to ancestors)?Perhaps they are not essential.
However, we have them, inessential or otherwise.
I've conceded the point monkeys have feelings, yes.
No, I don't see why they imply humans being able to survive by mutual aid. Humans are intellectual creatures; they could reason they needed to help each other to survive. Other animals, being a rung lower on the intellectual scale, are a different matter, and may indeed require emotion to get them to group together(not, perhaps, necessarily). So is emotion a thing we need? Humans seek to pervert, twist, or destroy it, and are often successful. So would not intellect supercede a need for emotion, at least if you believe emotions we experience evolved, or were enhanced, between monkey and man.No... have you conceeded that our instincts of compassion and empathy, the basic elements of such also being present in our closest relatives, are positive evolutionary developments that have allowed human beings to survive by way of mutual aid?
To have a discussion.What are you trying to accomplish here?
I don't think autism is a lack of just emotion; autistic people have emotion. It's something else, something more fundamental, and we don't, as of now, know exactly what.
I don't see why you need to go out of your way to show that emotion is unnecessary. It seems to me to be a useful evolutionary construct for decision making and even if it isn't strictly perfect or necessary it was definately useful in the past, it's useful now, and it is apparently still fit because it still exists in wide variety.He could be taught, perhaps? Rather than making decisions base don his own emotional digression, he would mimic the activity he sees his parents do(which babies already do to a large extent). Such things as crying to tell of pain or discomfort are also not necessarily linked to emotion; more instinct. Also, a baby learns fro itself through play; at least play involving the senses, not really emotion. Although I suppose you could argue a baby would not play unless he got the feeling of happiness from it, although he might if the parents show him to.
I really don't think it could.Theoretically, a baby could get along fine without emotion.
I meant absolutely nothing by "most" animals. not even sure why i said that.Alrighty, if you say so. but what do you mean by most animals?
All right, thats fair enough, I don't know why, but IMHO, from a purely evolutionary standpoint, emotions seems antiquated by intellect.you're may be right.
I don't see why you need to go out of your way to show that emotion is unnecessary. It seems to me to be a useful evolutionary construct for decision making and even if it isn't strictly perfect or necessary it was definately useful in the past, it's useful now, and it is apparently still fit because it still exists in wide variety.
I really don't think it could.
I meant absolutely nothing by "most" animals. not even sure why i said that.
anyway i'm about done with this thread, i think i've said about everything i'm going to say about this and i don't feel like repeating myself. If you post something else, just pretend like i responded by reposting something i've already posted somewhere in the last several pages.
Alternatively, you could just answer your own questions yourself because by now you should have a good idea of how i think.
What I can do, by the way, is try to show you that your position is internally inconsistent. Suppose you think that killing is wrong.
Then I can say to you that you are being hypocritical if you think that killing homosexuals is right. Of course, I can't make you care either about homosexuals or about being consistent in your views, but we can still have a reasonable discussion if we share at least some common goals (such as, for example, the desire for a healthy, happy society, or the desire to have internally consistent views).
Well, not really, because I'd imagine that such a view is much more deeply held and psychologically significant to you than someone's preference for a particular flavour of frozen dessert.
You are attempting to make my position look absurd by trivialising "moral" feelings. However, they are not trivial feelings. They are at the very heart of human discourse.
The fact that we do not have an external standard by which to judge them doesn't change their importance.
The love that I feel for my parents is a much more significant feeling to me than my fondness for my beautiful new iPod. Likewise, my feeling that killing homosexuals is horrible is much more significant to me than my enjoyment of chocolatey goodness.
No, I don't see why they imply humans being able to survive by mutual aid. Humans are intellectual creatures; they could reason they needed to help each other to survive.
Other animals, being a rung lower on the intellectual scale, are a different matter, and may indeed require emotion to get them to group together(not, perhaps, necessarily). So is emotion a thing we need? Humans seek to pervert, twist, or destroy it, and are often successful. So would not intellect supercede a need for emotion, at least if you believe emotions we experience evolved, or were enhanced, between monkey and man.
To have a discussion.
Does every post have to have a skewed agenda behind it?
I think it entirely removes any importance.
So, will we lose them, given enough time? Or will they stick with as an appendix-like item(I forget what the evolutionary term is for an unneeded organ or bone that throws back to ancestors)?
Humans are intellectual creatures; they could reason they needed to help each other to survive. Other animals, being a rung lower on the intellectual scale, are a different matter, and may indeed require emotion to get them to group together(not, perhaps, necessarily). So is emotion a thing we need? Humans seek to pervert, twist, or destroy it, and are often successful. So would not intellect supercede a need for emotion, at least if you believe emotions we experience evolved, or were enhanced, between monkey and man.
No, you can’t do that; you’ve already precluded the idea of “wrong”, right? According to you we both can only like or dislike a killing. And since you can’t reason a person into liking or disliking something, I think your course of action is limited to hoping that I dislike killing.
All the words and ideas you use above – “hypocritical, inconsistent, consistent, wrong, right, reasonable” – none of them apply to subjective feelings. Again, you can hope, or maybe attempt the absurd - ask me to mentally/biologically produce the same feelings that you do.
But then why would you even want me to do that? If you don’t believe your goal of a “happy, healthy society” is “right” according to some external standard, then why is it necessary that I share that goal? Why should your preferences be superior to my preferences? Because a majority shares your preference? Again, you’re limited to hoping - that I like democracy.
And before we get to the question of why you’d want me to accept your subjective preference, why should you accept your subjective preference? If that’s all it is, you could just as easily have the opposite preference. Why aren’t you a serial killer? You’re a determinist, so obviously it’s not your fault/credit that you’re not a killer. It’s another fluky, psychological accident. Meaningless accidents belong in a trash can, not on a pedestal serving as a universal standard.
Why would you imagine that? Because it feels that way to you?
That’s not what I’m trying because I don’t think your position is absurd; I think it’s untrue, but I don’t think it’s absurd. If it were true, it would be rational, but then my complaint would be that you don’t think it through to its logical conclusion – that in a Godless universe, a small wisp of cigarette smoke has more meaning and substance than the greatest love or hate you’ve ever known.
If you’re going to posit a purely material universe, I’ll hold you to it: I don’t say your feelings are trivial; I say they’re nothing. They’re illusory, ephemeral, electro-chemical nothings.
I think it entirely removes any importance.
In order for one feeling to be more significant than another feeling, feelings have to have some significance at all.
I said all of that in my post. I guess if you like repeating what people have already said, but in sarkier language, then go right ahead.
I can only persuade you if it turns out that we do share some feelings about things. If you and I agree that we don't like it when people are hurt, we can discuss the use of torture in interrogation. If you and I agree that we would like (for aesthetic, or intellectual, or whatever reasons) our feelings to be consistent with one another, then we can have a discussion about that, too. If we disagree, we can't, and that's all.
I want you to agree with me because I feel that a healthy, happy society would be a pleasant place for me to live. Also, I find that I care about other people; I want them to be healthy and happy too. So if I can get you on board then we have one more person trying to achieve my goal, and that's something that I desire.
I want you to agree with me about killing because if killing doesn't make you feel bad or uncomfortable, you might kill me or my family, and I don't want you to. In fact, I don't want you to kill anyone, because people dying makes me sad. That's why. It has nothing to do with the majority.
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