Why must we FEEL?

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Originally Posted by Redzeppelin

We feel because we are ALIVE. Numbness is not a good thing. Emotions make life complicated - but isn't that half of the irony of life? The most rewarding things in life - marriage, children, love, success, wealth - can also bring us the greatest pain. So it is with emotion. Without emotions, we are cut-off from life itself.

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Nicely put.

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Originally Posted by Christian

Reason prevents us from doing everything outside of ourselves; emotion prevents us from doing nothing outside of ourselves


…perhaps :)

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What you said is so true ....... we would be nothing without our emotions, they are part of our identity..

There is a book written by a French contemporary author Michel Houllebeque, it is called Perhaps an island ...... I strongly recommend it, it is so beautifully written even if pretty sad. It is a parallel between life as we know it with people acting on instinct and emotions and life of our possible clones in the future, emotionless, leading a life without life ……

the whole concept of "feeling" implies the concept of "not feeling". its putting "feeling" into the realm of a concept that makes us think we could do without it. but feeling isnt a concept, its a feeling. feels can't be described, only felt.

i think ,without feelings or emotions we would merely react and are our lives would be run by instincts.feelings and emotions make us question, they are our judgements or assessments and choices. as humans we have evolved to feel so that we can survive. it grew out of necessity, it allows us to make correct decisions, and bad ones. humans are dominant because every step we took throughout history has made us the most effective at surviving.we have survived because we grew to feel and have emotions that sustain us.

Hm, good points...

But I have a related questions - why do we feel such large amount of pain? To an extent it is very neccesary, but what would be the point of feeling pain to such an extent where we can't move, or think properly?

Wouldn't it be healthier for us as a species to have a point where the pain would not get any worse? Because pain is, after all, not a tangible thing but a sensory response...

Don't think, feel!
--Bruce Lee

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Originally Posted by brainstrain

Hm, good points...

But I have a related questions - why do we feel such large amount of pain? To an extent it is very neccesary, but what would be the point of feeling pain to such an extent where we can't move, or think properly?

Wouldn't it be healthier for us as a species to have a point where the pain would not get any worse? Because pain is, after all, not a tangible thing but a sensory response...

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the more stimulus, the more pain. Our body determines the amount of stimulus it needs to fix in a feedback cycle, and the only way it can do that is by measuring how much pain the stimulus causes. The larger amount of pain, the more nerve impulses sent in a given time and the more knowledge the body has as to how to cure that pain.
Good question!

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Originally Posted by Netherbard

Don't think, feel!
--Bruce Lee

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:lol: I like it! Sometimes one impairs the other, though.

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Originally Posted by Netherbard

Don't think, feel!
--Bruce Lee

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WORD!!!

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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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Feeling is all that matters in life, for if one does not feel we would be simply rocks. Imagine when some one is hurt and crying in front of you with his limbs broken and bleeding and you can not feel at all and you stand fixedly like a rock. The perceived is suffereing a bodily pain an dthe perceiver is feeling no pain at all, and the state when we are in where we can not be sensitive at all we will be like inanimate things.

Feeling is what originates creation. Whther we beleive or not in God this universe with varied objects is a manifestation of spmething. Maybe of a higher kind. I am not philosophizing my statement but an inkling permeates thru me and I feel the whole universe is born of a feeling of someone. Maybe of nature. Nature sounds inanimate. This is an illusion of us. In fact we are also nature. For we are born of it, and part of it. Since we are part of it, originated from nature, and how can we, animate things originate from things that is inanimate. To me everything is animate, a stone, a river, a cloud floating in the sky, and there is a sensation going thru everything, and this sensation is something that has to do with feeling. I think without feeling creation is impossible. It is as simple as that if our parents have no feeling for each other, and there could be no union and without that we would not have physically or manifestly existed. What goes with us applies to the entire cosmos.

I do not know whether this answers why we must feel. This is sheer sharing .
Maybe the truth is something else.

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Originally Posted by hbacharya

Feeling is all that matters in life, for if one does not feel we would be simply rocks. Imagine when some one is hurt and crying in front of you with his limbs broken and bleeding and you can not feel at all and you stand fixedly like a rock. The perceived is suffereing a bodily pain an dthe perceiver is feeling no pain at all, and the state when we are in where we can not be sensitive at all we will be like inanimate things.

Feeling is what originates creation. Whther we beleive or not in God this universe with varied objects is a manifestation of spmething. Maybe of a higher kind. I am not philosophizing my statement but an inkling permeates thru me and I feel the whole universe is born of a feeling of someone. Maybe of nature. Nature sounds inanimate. This is an illusion of us. In fact we are also nature. For we are born of it, and part of it. Since we are part of it, originated from nature, and how can we, animate things originate from things that is inanimate. To me everything is animate, a stone, a river, a cloud floating in the sky, and there is a sensation going thru everything, and this sensation is something that has to do with feeling. I think without feeling creation is impossible. It is as simple as that if our parents have no feeling for each other, and there could be no union and without that we would not have physically or manifestly existed. What goes with us applies to the entire cosmos.

I do not know whether this answers why we must feel. This is sheer sharing .
Maybe the truth is something else.

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I personally think you make a very interesting remark here concerning a person bleeding on the floor and that we by feeling feel compassion & help them. Maybe that's why we feel: to become a more complete race of beings. A mechanism that makes us help each other not just out of pain but also out of our mistakes. But then again, rage too is a feeling & it leads to many things. Things that are sometimes not so positive.

In my opinion, the reason why we feel is unknowable: I cannot imagine a world without feelings because I myself feel. (= The famous Perception told by Nietzsche among others) Maybe I'm wrong in this. Maybe in the future I will know the answer to the question. But at this time, I think this knowledge is unreachable for us.

(Excuse my bad English)

We feel because we think.

that's a nice bruce lee quote

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Originally Posted by dramasnot6

the more stimulus, the more pain. Our body determines the amount of stimulus it needs to fix in a feedback cycle, and the only way it can do that is by measuring how much pain the stimulus causes. The larger amount of pain, the more nerve impulses sent in a given time and the more knowledge the body has as to how to cure that pain.
Good question!

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ok, but we feel emotions as well. we call emotions feelings. i don't think that explaining nerve impulses is going to sum up what goes into our emotions.

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Originally Posted by hyperborean

We feel because we think.

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so is a "think" the same as a "feel?" maybe thinking isnt the cause of feeling, but rather it is feeling.

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Originally Posted by Jeroun

I personally think you make a very interesting remark here concerning a person bleeding on the floor and that we by feeling feel compassion & help them. Maybe that's why we feel: to become a more complete race of beings. A mechanism that makes us help each other not just out of pain but also out of our mistakes. But then again, rage too is a feeling & it leads to many things. Things that are sometimes not so positive.

In my opinion, the reason why we feel is unknowable: I cannot imagine a world without feelings because I myself feel. (= The famous Perception told by Nietzsche among others) Maybe I'm wrong in this. Maybe in the future I will know the answer to the question. But at this time, I think this knowledge is unreachable for us.

(Excuse my bad English)

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What you said is somethjing very inerestring and the fact that there are good feelings and bad ones confuses us so oftern. But let us look at creation. Every bad act with us may have a reverse effect somewhere around. The worst thing we see is death and it stirs the worst feeling. In fact death is necessary and it is a process of purgation. When we age we feel sad, for we have to shed youth. But ageing is required otherwise we will be too weary of youth.

In fact I have heard somewhere this world needs both sinners and saints, for they coexist or one does not exist without the other. Creation is not possible if there is such opposing forces.

Gibran, a great mystic said we cry when we lose someone and we cry when we join after a long separation. One is the offshoot of joys and the other of sorrows, but both feelings well up from the same resoirvoir. Does not this indicate that all feelings are one and the same at its source.

Feelings in its essence are processes of creation, a kind of stirring or sensation, a movement and nothing else. This existence and the feeling of it is one and the same. There is no duality.

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Originally Posted by billyjack

ok, but we feel emotions as well. we call emotions feelings. i don't think that explaining nerve impulses is going to sum up what goes into our emotions.



so is a "think" the same as a "feel?" maybe thinking isnt the cause of feeling, but rather it is feeling.

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There are certain facts about our feelings and emotions we need to unearth. Everybody wants good feelings, joys and no one wants sorrows, and moreover, people thing good feelings are what we must have always and bad ones are unncessary.

What i want to conclude is pains are bodily needs, and as it is already stated above it is the body that crerates pains to purgate itself, and the fact without pains it can not balance its ecstasies. Both feelings, pains and joys are like two sides of the same coin and one can not exist without the other.

It is like a process of contraction and expansion and sometimes joys rise their level and sometimes sorrows, and two go side by side.

Impulses are what raise emotions, but impulses seem crude and emotions seem subtle and refined, and impulses are everywhere in our bodies and in nature. The original impulse is what gave birth to this planet earth, an impulse running thru nerves of the sun, a quaver or shivver that needed to be excreted from the sun or it needed to expurgate itself.

We are born of parents, and this was a consequence of an impulse stirring withing them, and they conjugated.

What I really put forth is impulses, feelings and emotions are all different shapes and forms of the same thing. A sensation. I beleive this creation is nothiong but a sensation crudified. And I also think that joys and sorrows, pains and relaxions have welled up from the same source and end up at the same origin from where they originated. This is an intricate issue, but is is interesting to unearth the mystery of it.

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Originally Posted by hbacharya

There are certain facts about our feelings and emotions we need to unearth. Everybody wants good feelings, joys and no one wants sorrows, and moreover, people thing good feelings are what we must have always and bad ones are unncessary.

What i want to conclude is pains are bodily needs, and as it is already stated above it is the body that crerates pains to purgate itself, and the fact without pains it can not balance its ecstasies. Both feelings, pains and joys are like two sides of the same coin and one can not exist without the other.

It is like a process of contraction and expansion and sometimes joys rise their level and sometimes sorrows, and two go side by side.

Impulses are what raise emotions, but impulses seem crude and emotions seem subtle and refined, and impulses are everywhere in our bodies and in nature. The original impulse is what gave birth to this planet earth, an impulse running thru nerves of the sun, a quaver or shivver that needed to be excreted from the sun or it needed to expurgate itself.

We are born of parents, and this was a consequence of an impulse stirring withing them, and they conjugated.

What I really put forth is impulses, feelings and emotions are all different shapes and forms of the same thing. A sensation. I beleive this creation is nothiong but a sensation crudified. And I also think that joys and sorrows, pains and relaxions have welled up from the same source and end up at the same origin from where they originated. This is an intricate issue, but is is interesting to unearth the mystery of it.

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that sounds pretty, pretty, pretty good to me. you could also call impulses vibrations. and all of our sensing is the detection of vibrations happening around us. but from this view, the arbitrary line between us and not-us is a little sketchy, making us..."it."

the creation part sounds a lot like the "eternal recurrance", the feeding on of excriments that makes "it"-- the universe--self sufficient.

Maybe the creator craved excitement in this barren, content world. And also we would keep creating ourselves. However, it also brought evil along with it since the world had to be balanced. In order to love, we must hate.

Maybe, we weren't created.
If a devine being had the ability to make us devoid of harmful emotions, that set us back surely they would have?
I suggest that we evolved, and with that evolution came emotion, a further extension of instinct perhaps. It seems that the more we develop the more confused we get :) wonderful, isn't it?

Sorry if this opinion has been stated before and I overlooked it, but why are you so down on thinking? If you didn't like to think you wouldn't have joined this forum in the first place, right? :p

It's crucial to think if we want to be happy. Can irrational animals be said to be happy? Poetically, sure, it's always a nice touch. But, I mean, deep down you know that ignorance is NOT bliss, and if it is, it's the worth of a stone's bliss.

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Originally Posted by billyjack

so is a "think" the same as a "feel?" maybe thinking isnt the cause of feeling, but rather it is feeling.

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In a way, I think both views are correct: if we didn't think, we wouldn't be aware of feelings; in that sense, we wouldn't feel. And thoughts do lead on to feelings, so sure, thinking can also be feeling.