Why must we FEEL?

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Originally Posted by dramasnot6

What is the point in emotion and feeling? why cant we all just be characters from 1984 or Brave New World with no love or feeling? Wouldnt the world be more efficient if we put all emotion aside and just concentrated on work?

Why must we feel?

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Yes, it would be more efficient if we put all emotions asides and just concertrated on work. Though I would assume it would be pretty boring.

Why must we feel? Well, we don't have a choice but to feel. It's in what we are and who we are. Everybody feels and it doesn't matter who you are. No matter how much of a "robot" you claim to be...(Unless you really are one...)...You'll always have feelings and emotions.

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Originally Posted by dramasnot6

Very good points Ranoo and Yelena. But to go a bit deeper here, what is it about us that makes us so dependent and obsessive about our feelings? Why do we so often prioritize them over more "practical" things?

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As I've said before, we cannot escape our feelings. Everything is connected with one another. Our feelings is the reason we get up every day of every week of every year. It is essential to continue going on doing the "practical" things and living life because of our feelings drives us to. If we have no feelings than we cannot do the "practical" things...We can try to do "practical" things without any feelings but it wouldn't last long...Suicide will kick in...Because that is the last resort of our feelings...There are two ways of suicide in this case...Take your own life...Or...Kill your emotions and continue living a meaningless existence...

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Originally Posted by dramasnot6

A very good reply it is :D I especially like your comparison of the psyche to machinery.
What i am curious about is how emotion is not only neccesary, but has such a strong hold and influence on people. How people can knowingly do something inconvenient or immoral because they are listening to their heart. Feelings that are too complex for basic decisions and too wild for everyday speech can drive us to the extremeties of our ability, but for what exactly? What do our emotions lead us to?

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Our emotions is the flames that fuels our soul and our spirit...For what purpose? To find meaning in our life, of course. Look around you...You see many different people doing many differents things...Waiter, construction worker, figthers, directors, actors, and so on...They may work in different situations but they all have one thing in common...They're looking for meaning and purpose...If they had not found it already...

So if our emotions are running high for doing certain things it must mean that we have a high regard for doing it. We are then, at that time, are able to excel in our ability past a certain extent of our normal capacity...

...Because that is how much it means to us...Whatever it may be...

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Originally Posted by Pendragon

You must understand there are a good number of emotions I would love to erase. Pain, sorrow, fear, feelings of rejection, etc. But then I wouldn't erase the joy, the love, the friendship, the imagination that I have that is fueled by my deep feelings. Pure logic but not ability to feel would be cold. Fact would be the only important thing. You might tell someone how their loved one met their end very precisely, but with no thought for their feelings, it would simply be a report of facts. Would that person chose emotion? In certain necessary jobs, perhaps emotion must be slightly distanced-- a doctor, policeman, fireman, paramedic, etc. If emotion gets to them every time they loose focus. So I cannot be an impartial judge. For me, emotion is necessary for my type of life. It may not be for everyone, but there will be a certain loss of humanity to my belief. Cheers.

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I agree with you Pen. Also on that note, i think there is no point to emotions like happiness in love if there areny ones like sadness to compare it too. What is pleasure if we do not know pain?

[QUOTE=Pendragon;309489]You must understand there are a good number of emotions I would love to erase. Pain, sorrow, fear, feelings of rejection, etc. But then I wouldn't erase the joy, the love, the friendship, the imagination that I have that is fueled by my deep feelings.


I would love to do the same thing but: How would we know what joy or love is, if we could not feel feelings of rejection and sorrow?

Drama and Yelena: We wouldn't know the difference if we had nothing to compare things to. Which is why I said emotions are necessary for my life, anyway. ;) :)

I don't think I would mind not knowing the difference, as long as I was joyful. If we all had the capacity to love all people as much as we can love a few, that would not diminish the worth of those few, it would just increase the worth of all the rest. etc.

The bad things are not there just so that we can appreciate the good. They are there because our adversary the devil goes about like a raoring lion seeking whom he may devour, or whatever other such explanation you prefer.

But in answer to the original question, I think Larkin expresses it best - "Why should I let the toad, Work, squat on my life?"

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Originally Posted by Whifflingpin

I don't think I would mind not knowing the difference, as long as I was joyful. If we all had the capacity to love all people as much as we can love a few, that would not diminish the worth of those few, it would just increase the worth of all the rest. etc.

The bad things are not there just so that we can appreciate the good. They are there because our adversary the devil goes about like a raoring lion seeking whom he may devour, or whatever other such explanation you prefer.

But in answer to the original question, I think Larkin expresses it best - "Why should I let the toad, Work, squat on my life?"

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I have to use that one next time i have homework....:p

It may be worth considering, before questioning the purpose of emotion or feeling, how things might work without them? Take, for example, human reproduction - this requires 'desire' or 'lust' which is an extremely strong emotion. Without this would humans simply die out, or, in order to survive, would 'desire' be replaced by something else, and how would we distinguish this from that which we currently describe as 'emotion'. What would you work for? Existence? Is existence in itself enough? What would prevent you from putting yourself in danger if you didn't have 'fear'? Would you build for the future if you didn't 'love' your children?

Emotion is so intrinsically linked with human nature it is practically impossible to imagine what life would be like without it; and whilst negative emotions in all their various forms are one's we would all like to avoid, for practical reasons they often serve a purpose, and we feel them so strongly because that purpose centres around survival.

"Man is born with a mind in tranquility, which comes only innately. The mind stirs upon perceiving the world, which is innately driven by desires…the interaction of man and woman as they are the fundamental realization of the principles of nature. Later its extension expanded to the interaction of a mind with the external world so that the spirit of the world can be felt and conceived."
And another thing as we have felt, beauty, is essential to life.

Would you like to attribute that quote, w?

Here's one that was the title of a Lydia Lunch album:

'The agony is the ecstasy.'

;- P It's the translation I did! The original text is written by Zhu Xi (a Chinese scholar from Song Dynasty) when he interpreted The Book of Odes (Shi Jing), the oldest classic Chinese scripture. And that 'interaction' of man and woman is firstly explained in I-Ching.

Very accurate, the title, reminds me of a poem:
I like a look of Agony,
Because I know it's true --
Men do not sham Convulsion,
Nor simulate, a Throe --

:p And who wrote that then?

PS good translation - though there might be a few ways to improve it.

Feelings have sprouted from our ancestry. (E.g. Anger or hatred when someone steals your piece of mammoth, then you go off to kill that savage who stole you hunk of blubber to take it back to your cave to survive.) Would'nt the world be perfect without emotions? I think it would be, but it would be as said earlier: boring; but we wouldn't know the difference.

The whole "emotions before logic" is really annoying. It is part of human fallacy, and can't be ignored. One way to treat this malady is education, and most maldadies are treated with, and should be.

As irritating as they are, emotions also create all kinds of art, like musick, paintings, so on the whole I'm happy they exist.

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Originally Posted by blp

:p And who wrote that then?

PS good translation - though there might be a few ways to improve it.

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Emily Dickinson.

"Why must we FEEL?" Two thousands years ago, archaic oriental people expressed their wonder through a symbolic way, which I found very interesting:
Look at the rat, it has its skin; a man without manners-a man without manners, why does he not die?
Look at the rat, it has its teeth; a man without demeanour-a man without demeanour, why does he tarry to die?
Look at the rat, it has its limbs; a man without decorum-a man without decorum, why does he not quickly die?
--The Book of Odes
Bernhard Karlgren trans.
It seems that manners (closely related to feelings) to man is like skins to rats, essential to life, and here, man's life is differentiated from that of a rat.

Rats feel too :)

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Originally Posted by dramasnot6

Rats feel too

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Interesting, drama! ;)

But still different from us, I guess? They feel only by instinct, and we have consciousness, and free will.