Hi Rahvin. Thanks for your response. I'm sorry, this reply was long overdue...work kept me very busy this week.
Human emotional responses all carry specific evolutionary advantages in a social species like ours. Even some of the urges that we look down on today (immediate rejection and suspicion of the unfamiliar, which leads to xenophobia, racism, etc) would have been beneficial when the survival of our species was still in question.
You can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I can name a few human emotions that perhaps have nothing to do with the whole "survival of the fittest" idea. Peace is one. Guilt could be another possibility.... Awe. Boredom. Embarrassment.
Why should we assume that emotions imply the existence of the supernatural? Is that an acceptable response to any question you personally cannot immediately ascertain an answer to? Do you have any evidence that emotions are not the result of purely natural processes?
I'm arguing from logic, Rahvin. I have evidence, but that-- you would not accept since you don't believe in the supernatural.
When I feel love, or anger, or joy, or sadness, I don't see anything magical or supernatural. I see electrochemical reactions in my brain that are the inherited cumulative result of the same evolutionary processes that led to the rest of my brain's development. I see the end result as an emergent reaction in my awareness that, taken from a broader picture, helps hold society together and makes our species' existence as social animals possible. Our concern and caring for others in our social groups, our anger when we or those we care about are hurt, are all reactions that allow us to work together and thus share knowledge and experience and defend ourselves against predators and nature. Despite the aberrant mental short-circuits we see in te mentally ill or those who "snap," I see emotion as absolutely necessary for the "big picture" to work.
I understand the bolded to be the evolutionary definition of an emotion. Correct me if I'm wrong.
So, according to you, emotion is an emergent property. And they're indispensable to survival (kinda?) Nothing abstract about them. Its all within genes and proteins, correct?
So, they're chemical, inheritable, and advantageous in some form or shape to organisms that exhibit them. And you seem to stress their benefit to species or communities as a unit, as opposed to individual organisms.
How is it that the same emotions you mention like anger, love, concern etc, cause intra-specific struggles? You say they are a benefit to the entire community of said species as a whole (necessary for the big picture). But we see that the same emotions are a evolutionary means of eliminating the "unfit" within species. How does your theory accommodate this? How can emotions be both beneficial and not-beneficial to a species survival? If more monkeys carried the "angry" gene, there would be lesser monkeys over time, but that also means they are better able to protect themselves from predators..which means more monkeys over time? They either are a benefit or a dis-benefit.
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