do you think emotions?

Question

are a natural evolution of our once very basic instincts...or do you think that they always existed as a separate entity...???

latif 195...i am not asking this in relation to a romantic entanglement...i am purely interested in human behaviour but thank you anyways,lol ;0)

aliassotu...i did not infer anywhere that our basic instinct to survive was emotion...read carefully...i asked if you think that emotions have evolved from our instincts into the emotions that we have, or did we always have the same emotions as now as a separate entity to our instincts...;0)

Answer 1

They are the aberrant and counter productive evolution of our natural fight/flight and reproductive urges.

Answer 2

I question if the emotional body has evolved at all.

Our thoughts have become complex our thinking self centred.

Our understanding of feelings which swell up inside Is based on labels we give, fear, rage, hurt,pain etc.

Seperate entity?
Seperate to what?
To the entity that says they are seperate?
The 'Me'?
Which is what? A seperate entity.

Surely our basic instincts to survive would not be emotion.

Otherwise we would have a distorted view and not very helpful for survival.

Answer 3

If you believe in human evolution and not in the act of creation in a biblical sense, then you cannot fit emotional self into a very initial human mind. The proof is that animals don’t have them – free a bird and it will never come back to thank you. We can say that we did not have emotions right from the outset. And exactly when they became part of our mind we might never know. They evolved naturally to communicate our otherwise primitive instincts signals to our newly evolved rational mind. Our emotions lie in the middle of our rational mind and instinctual self. Yes, I think that emotions are naturally evolved from our instincts.

Our instincts are there to ensure the fulfilment of our most necessary and basic needs of living: our need for food, shelter and procreation. Our instincts are truly rooted in our earthly existence as opposed to our intuition and our yearning for spiritual fulfilment and excellence in life. We sacrifice our lover level of needs for the fulfilment of higher needs at a higher level. This attitude requires highest level of emotional development and conscious awareness.

Emotions generate elaborate thoughts and considerations making us human being as are. We all have instinctual needs all right, and at times they become urgent but we do not go out like animals flowing our instinctual urges to have them fulfilled. We reserve thoughts for this. We plan, anticipate look around and then take some rationally and socially acceptable actions to meet our needs. The world around us and we are protected by an emotional interface between what we instinctually want and how we are supposed to get what we need. If this were not the case we would not have been able to evolve as human being.

Answer 4

instinct, the unintentional, automatic, biological drive that causes us to act, also cause us to feel emotionally. We don't "choose to be happy" -- instinct moves us, processes beyond our control: neurotransmitters, synapses, all that jazz. Why do you think drugs exist? The biological process determines just how much "moving" emotion you will receive when pushed to various limits. We are unaware of most of the billions of decisions happening within the body-- for a reason -- so we may coordinate the system to act for the entire organism. And it is emotion that provides feedback for the body, surely we'd die without them, be immobile, passionless, and extinguish before an action could be fathomed.

If you want to categorize love, hate etc complex social emotions over basic hunger pangs, searing pain, and mirth then we must talk about social roles and not just individuals but worlds constituted by them...

Answer 5

That's a good question. In college we spent weeks in an honors philosophy class reading a book by Robert C. Solomon about that. Apparently there are emotions which trigger much faster than others, and we have the right to decide which emotional responses we have in the face of other events. It has been my experience that the more I work on intellectual or altruistic pursuits, the more likely I am to control my emotions during waking hours. Also, prayer and meditation are important to control emotional responses as well. As a Mormon I believe that our spirits have existed for a very long time, but we already went through one spiritual childhood before coming to earth, and we are re-developing on a physical level what we used to be in another realm. I don't believe in evolution the way it has been talked about by non-believers, but I think we are maturing spiritually the closer we get to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. That is not to say there were not other spiritually mature people in other eras - just that as a whole the earth seems to be moving toward more enlightened ways of thinking. I believe that our emotions are similar to what our earthly parents and other relatives have, and we are growing in the same pattern that our Heavenly Parents also have.

Answer 6

Emotions are the trigger for instinctive behaviours, the bit that makes animals get up and act. Instinct is the set of instructions, emotions are the spur to action.
You feel hungry, you eat; someone tries to take your dinner you feel angry and guard it.
Instinct tells us to breed, emotions make us care for our young and live in pairs. They are linked.
Emotions are the result of hormones and enzymes; instinctive behaviour is a memory of a behaviour that we are born with.
It would be like being born knowing where the gearstick on your car is, and automatically putting your hand down there when you first drive and need to change gear.

Answer 7

Emotions or feelings are our natural reactions to what happens around us and, for us humans, what we think about what happens. We give them lots of different names like fear, anger, love, guilt, hate and so on but they are really pretty basic. You see a tiger and you feel fear which gets the adrenaline going so you can run or fight. If it's fighting you want, you feel anger, which is a normal response to fear and you would probably actually feel something similar if you ran away, but you wouldn't call it anger.

Luckily for us we can also think about events and change the way that we think about them. This can change the emotions that we have.

"If I miss the bus I will be late and I must not be late so I feel anxious".

"If miss the bus I will be late. That is unfortunate but not catastrophic and people do miss buses, get late, get reprimanded, lose their jobs and usually survive OK. I am not so anxious as that other guy who must catch the bus but I would still prefer to catch it"

Answer 8

they are a separate entity in a sense, and a basic instinct in another,
you can love some one, or some thing once the reason for that is available,
But you can still love some one or something even if the reasons for that are not there if you choose to do so,
I believe emotions are creatures of some type that are different from that of our material bodies,
you can only feel their existence in us, but can not see or touch them,
you can feel you are full of anger, love, or any other emotions.
some other time you can feel your anger is no longer there, and it has gone,
the same with love and other emotions,
the existence of those emotions in us is subject to some laws just like the laws governing our physical bodies,
so you can work to make some emotions live in your heart, or just leave your heart,
this is exactly what is meant when you hear some body say: fill your heart with love
you have to work to make that happen,
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Let me give you some examples:
the feeling of anger: once you start feeling angry, you can either make it grow, or demolish,
if you react with the situation, the anger will grow,
if you try to ignore it by saying some thing good, or go and wash your face, or start counting from 1 to 10, or do any similar thing, you will notice your anger is demolished and gone low
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another example:
you can make some one love you by several acts you do like,
1) starting greating him every time you see him,
2) give him some gifts on any occation,
3) visiting him,
4) caring about his problems,
5) speaking good about him in front of some one you think will tell him about it (with out asking this person to tell him,
6) love for him what you would love for yourself,
7) if there is one apportunity that either you or him can take, then allowing him to take it,
and similar acts,
I'm quite sure you are creating love for you in his heart
if you do the opposite of those you are certain you are creating hateradge (I mean he will hate you) in his heart for you

Answer 9

I think its a natural evolution from our original basic instincts because mankind has only moved on because of our emotions and our passions to forever change things or make things better.

Answer 10

no think emotions have evolved .....before it was just basic instincts survival of the fittest but we hopefully have moved on from that basic animal instinct and have evolved hopefully but sometimes I wonder ...but think emotions are truly important in our genetic evolution good or bad hopefully for the good

Answer 11

Yes,Possibly an instinctive process that we have less control over than actual thought processes. We can relate it to things that we learn through consciousness and unconsciousness.