Would we be better of without EMOTIONS?

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Originally Posted by Bii

What is the difference between emotion and rationality?

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Emotion: I feel 2+2 = 5

Rationality= 2+2 = 4

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Is emotion the instinctive reaction which rationality seeks to override?

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Primal Emotions are instinctive. Others can be consciously evoked eg. compassion.

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What would happen to morals?

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Morality based on pure emotions is not good idea. Morality kept in check by rationality is best bet.

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Rationally it may be acceptable to murder a person because their needs conflict with your own.

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Really? Is it that simple?

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Take out emotions and morality ceases to exist.

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Really?

So if I give you an injection that knocks your ability to feel anything.
Would you still murder?

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Originally Posted by Lote-Tree

Emotion: I feel 2+2 = 5

Rationality= 2+2 = 4

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So, emotions are wrong, and rationality is right?

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Originally Posted by Lote-Tree

Morality based on pure emotions is not good idea. Morality kept in check by rationality is best bet.

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So, you accept that morals have a basis in emotions.

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Originally Posted by Lote-Tree

So if I give you an injection that knocks your ability to feel anything.
Would you still murder?

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Absolutely, if it served a rational purpose. Mainly I don't murder people because I'm squeamish (emotional), I don't like the thought of causing someone pain (emotional), I wouldn't want someone to murder me (emotional), I wouldn't want to permanently extinguish someones existence, because I assume that the person experiences consciousness the way I do (emotion - a very wordy way of saying empathy). Would it be murder if there was no emotional angle? Isn't the concept of murder, in itself, an emotional concept? If I had no emotions to hold me back then what would stop me? Edit - sorry, forgot to mention fear of getting caught (emotional!).

Without emotion life is valueless, because value in these terms is an emotional concept (value, as opposed to quantum).

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Originally Posted by Bii

So, emotions are wrong, and rationality is right?

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Rationality is objective. Emotions subjective. And we can only agree on objective truths...

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So, you accept that morals have a basis in emotions.

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I believe that is how it evolved. But should we base our morality on emotions? I say perhaps not. We should strive for an objective standard.

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Mainly I don't murder people because I'm squeamish (emotional), I don't like the thought of causing someone pain (emotional), I wouldn't want someone to murder me (emotional), I wouldn't want to permanently extinguish someones existence, because I assume that the person experiences consciousness the way I do (emotion - a very wordy way of saying empathy).

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I find that little disturbing. That if your emotions fails you, you can murder. I would have thought one would have arrived at intellecutally that murder may be wrong. I believe that many people at some point in their life go through a period where they feel nothing, do they turn murderers?

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Would it be murder if there was no emotional angle?

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Yes. We can class one individual taking the life of another individual - murder. There need not be any emotions involved.

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If I had no emotions to hold me back then what would stop me?

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Your intellect - which goes beyond your emotions?

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Without emotion life is valueless, because value in these terms is an emotional concept (value, as opposed to quantum).

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Really? Is life of a tree valueless? Is all life apart from human's valueless because we have decided valueless? How arrogant of us is it not to state that?

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Originally Posted by Lote-Tree

Rationality is objective. Emotions subjective. And we can only agree on objective truths...

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but what do you mean by objective? something eveyryone in the world actually agrees to? then you would have to ask everyone's opinion, which isn't possible.

something everyone could agree? In this case you'd be speaking for others and you can't really be sure they would agree if they were allowed to speak for themselves.

or is it something from the outside that was given to humanity by a god or alien:alien:?

how do you apply it to a concrete situations? especially when there are people with a different power statues involved?
let's say there is a rich plantation owner who exploits his workers. Now his workers demand higher wages and better treatment. But the plantation owner doesn't grant them. For him it is rational not to pay higher wages because that way he would make less money himself. For the Minister of Economy of this imaginary country, the plantation owner's decision is rational because it is good for the economy of the country in some way.
So what are the workers supposed to do?

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Originally Posted by SleepyWitch

but what do you mean by objective?
something eveyryone in the world actually agrees to?

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Something that is Verifiable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

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For him it is rational not to pay higher wages because that way he would make less money himself.

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But that way he will not get happy workers and happy workers mean better workers - hence more productivity and quality - see Robert Owen (?) Experiments of 18th Century.

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Originally Posted by Lote-Tree

I believe that is how it evolved. But should we base our morality on emotions? I say perhaps not. We should strive for an objective standard.

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I agree, morality should be based on a balance between emotion and an objective/rational judgement.

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Originally Posted by Lote-Tree

i find that little disturbing. That if your emotions fails you, you can murder. I would have thought one would have arrived at intellecutally that murder may be wrong.

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But right and wrong are emotional judgements. Without emotion you have this or that and either choice is an option depending on what is expedient/efficient/necessary. To quote your own example:

"Computers already do this judging for us. When you drive your car the car airbags makes non-emotional decision to keep you safe in an event of accident."

With one slight alteration, car airbags don't 'decide' to keep you safe, they function or they don't. Either way it's a non-emotional issue. Take your computer example, say you have a computer which is designed to launch nuclear missiles in the event of certain pre-set criteria being met. One day those criteria are met so the missiles are launched. Does the computer 'care' if 100,000 people are killed? Is the computer a murderer? Of course not, but it's human 'emotional' intervention that would prevent it.

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Originally Posted by Lote-Tree

Really? Is life of a tree valueless? Is all life apart from human's valueless because we have decided valueless? How arrogant of us is it not to state that?

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I was, of course, speaking of human life. That being said, the way we treat trees I'd argue that we must believe their 'lives' to be valueless. Otherwise we wouldn't chop them down and burn them, or shread and pulp them.

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Originally Posted by Bii

But right and wrong are emotional judgements.

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How so?

2+2=4 This right.

2+2=5 This is wrong.

You can choose the right answer without emotions. But if you say that your emotions dictates that the answer should be 2+2=5 then you are not interested in right or wrong but just how you feel.

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With one slight alteration, car airbags don't 'decide' to keep you safe, they function or they don't. Either way it's a non-emotional issue.

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Yes. That decision is a non-emotional issue but it is a decision nevertheless based on your current speed at the time of your crash.

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Take your computer example, say you have a computer which is designed to launch nuclear missiles in the event of certain pre-set criteria being met. One day those criteria are met so the missiles are launched. Does the computer 'care' if 100,000 people are killed? Is the computer a murderer? Of course not, but it's human 'emotional' intervention that would prevent it.

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Or you could enlarge the criteria where it is says Death of thousands to be avoided.

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I was, of course, speaking of human life. That being said, the way we treat trees I'd argue that we must believe their 'lives' to be valueless.

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But we also treat human lives as valueless that's why we have wars and kill many millions. So even with our emotions we still find human life valueless. So it's not a surprise that we treat other life as valueless. But trees themselves - are they valueless themselves? I think not...

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Originally Posted by Lote-Tree

How so?

2+2=4 This right.

2+2=5 This is wrong.

You can choose the right answer without emotions. But if you say that your emotions dictates that the answer should be 2+2=5 then you are not interested in right or wrong but just how you feel.

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I think the use of the term 'right' or 'wrong' is inappropriate here, as these terms imply a moral angle. And using maths is a poor comparison as the 'answers' in maths are absolute, i.e. they are correct/true, or incorrect/ false. Generally when dealing with issues of logic you would work with true or false.

Take a different example, and perhaps a more appropriate one. You are walking down a path and it comes to a junction. It forks left and right. Both paths are the same length and arrive at the same location. In this scenario your choice is left or right. Either choice is possible. Neither is right or wrong.

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Originally Posted by Lote-Tree

Or you could enlarge the criteria where it is says Death of thousands to be avoided.

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Yes, but that would take an 'emotional' programmer to make that choice. Also begs the question whether the missiles would fire at all, after all, isn't the point of a nuclear attack to kill? My point is that without the emotional interjection, the logic tree would go through it's selections of true and false and, arriving at true it would fire, without the necessity to consider whether it was right or wrong. It would consider whether it was true - have the criteria been met? If so it would fire, if not it wouldn't. Humans without emotions would be just the same - it's just hard to conceive of it because our emotions are so intrinsic to our being.

I suppose what you are arguing for is more 'emotional rationality' rather than an absence of emotion entirely.

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Originally Posted by Lote-Tree

How so?

2+2=4 This right.

2+2=5 This is wrong.

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nope, it's not right or wrong. it's defined to be right or wrong. mathematicians use numbers as a tool/ language to describe the world.
they have agreed to treat 2+2=4 as a truth so they don't need to question or revise this assumption every single time they want to calculate something.
it's working assumption that happens to be accepted by many mathematicians. it's a kind of convention. just like we use the word "cat" when we want to refer to a cat. it's a kind of terminology. they agree not to question or redefine it, so they have a basis to work on.

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Originally Posted by Bii

I think the use of the term 'right' or 'wrong' is inappropriate here, as these terms imply a moral angle. And using maths is a poor comparison as the 'answers' in maths are absolute, i.e. they are correct/true, or incorrect/ false. Generally when dealing with issues of logic you would work with true or false.

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But the thread is about getting rid of emotions. So when you get rid of emotions - we can only use logic for decisions?

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Take a different example, and perhaps a more appropriate one. You are walking down a path and it comes to a junction. It forks left and right. Both paths are the same length and arrive at the same location. In this scenario your choice is left or right. Either choice is possible. Neither is right or wrong.

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Then logically it is irrelevant as to which way you go is there?

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Yes, but that would take an 'emotional' programmer to make that choice.

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Not really. It is illogical to wipe out species of animals for example. So logical thing would be to minimise deaths?

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Humans without emotions would be just the same - it's just hard to conceive of it because our emotions are so intrinsic to our being.

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But we can think intellectually without emotions involved?
It is the intellect that frees us from the emotional bondage?

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I suppose what you are arguing for is more 'emotional rationality' rather than an absence of emotion entirely.

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On serious note - yes. Emotions needs to be controlled by Rationality and guided to mutally beneficial ends... :-)

I guess we will have to wait for consciouss androids to see if an emotiona-less existence is feasible. I guess it will be but perhaps intelligent machines too will develop emotions in time.

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Originally Posted by Lote-Tree

Not really. It is illogical to wipe out species of animals for example. So logical thing would be to minimise deaths?

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Not if that species was a threat, then it would be logical to wipe them out. Same goes for humans. Threat = true = kill.

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Originally Posted by Lote-Tree

But we can think intellectually without emotions involved?
It is the intellect that frees us from the emotional bondage?

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I'm not sure it's that easy. I'm not sure it's really possible to draw a line between emotions and intellect as one probably (I say probably!) relies on the other.

Can you have rational, without irrational?
Can you have objective without subjective?

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Originally Posted by Lote-Tree

On serious note - yes. Emotions needs to be controlled by Rationality and guided to mutally beneficial ends... :-)

I guess we will have to wait for consciouss androids to see if an emotiona-less existence is feasible. I guess it will be but perhaps intelligent machines too will develop emotions in time.

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Absolutely, and what a dilemma that would create :)

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Originally Posted by Bii

Not if that species was a threat, then it would be logical to wipe them out. Same goes for humans. Threat = true = kill.

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Not necessarily. The threat could be easily contained?

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Can you have rational, without irrational?

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hum...I don't know...need to think on that.

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Can you have objective without subjective?

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Yes. Scientific Method.

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Originally Posted by Lote-Tree

Yes. Scientific Method.

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Please explain?...

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Originally Posted by Bii

Please explain?...

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Scientific Method is the way to establish objectivity.

That doesn't really tell me anymore than the last comment. What is Scientific method (precisely), how does this method establish objectivity?

I'm not being pedantic here, I genuinely am not sure what you mean by this :)