i get mine here:

http://internetbestsecrets.com/2008/03/gmail-chat-secret-emoticons.html

http://messenger.yahoo.com/features/hiddenemoticons

Emotions are our genes way of getting us to fulfill our genes goals. Every emotion we have is there for one of two reasons.

1. To help us survive long enough to find a suitable mate.
2. To help us select a suitable mate and replecate our genes.

They are evolution's gift to us.

You might find the work of Candace B. Pert interesting



"Molecules of Emotion: Why You Feel the Way You Feel", Candace B. Pert, PH.D.

ISBN 0-684-83187-2

So you're saying that it's just like a computer program, there are inherent aspects to the software, firewalls that are instinctual and inputs that result from triggers. I like it! I've often thought the brain was just another form of a computer.

Strange gift, indeed! But I see the point you're are making, it might just all boil down to that.

Thanks, artgurl! I'll definetly check it out and let you know my thoughts.

To be honest, I have yet to see a definition of "emotion" that wasn't either circular or so vague and ambiguous as to be completely useless in any scientific sense. So I wouldn't attempt to determine where they come from, since I don't even know what they are in this context.

(I'm such a party pooper! )

There do seem to be many opinions on the subject and your's is as welcome as any.

I still want to know "exactly" what they are and where they come form, the party is still ON!

Emotions come from your wallet, let me explain.

You are feeling ok and not happy or sad or anything... then you go out to get a new HDTV... You are in love with the TV, then the guy asks you to pay for it, now you have doubt, next you actually pay for it, now you have guilt... then you get home and show it to the wife, now you have fear, then you hook it up, and turn it on.. now you have Joy... there they are, all cuz you opened your wallet!

Well I’m stumped. My dictionary is pretty useless in that regard because it defines ‘emotion’ in terms of ‘feeling’ and then defines ‘feeling’ in terms of ‘emotion’.

I think Jeremy is probably closest to the mark with “they’re physiological”. Specifically, I would say that they are various states of endocrine balance and that they come about as responses to environmental stimulus.

The fact that the exact same environmental stimulus can produce widely differing responses in different people seems to indicate that they are in some way linked to an individual’s memory and/or experience.

That’s my best shot.

They are a result of chemical interactions in the brain which are autonomous responses to sense perception. While we can alter how we mentally process those reactions - by altering how we frame experience - and with practice this does physically affect the chemical reactions and the areas of the brain being used, we really have no say in the instantiation of those reactions.

Emotion is purely physiological in existence, yet we can - because we are self-aware - affect them.

Thank you creativesoul, another vote for the physiological!

Well said.

Its not that there is no scientific definition, its just does not satisfy the first person perspectives of affected experience.

From a third person perspective emotions are easily defined.


_____

This is a very interesting topic, the latest edition of Free Inquiry there is a bunch of independent articles around the topic of designer moods and how we manage our emotions in all kinds of social settings.

One sub article goes on to relate how stewardesses, stressful phone jobs ect can have a deep impact on the mental well fair of a person based on how they develop there emotional control strategies.

Some try to internalize the happy persona they have to put on as a front, and this causes early burnout due to the needed energy investment both physically and mentally. Some people try to just put on an act and mentally allow themselves to be cold, indifferent, or even imagine being rude back ect, they tend to become detached from the job.

Drats a call . . I will have to continue later . . (atwork)

Alright, I'll be waiting....

I’m having a tough time reconciling that view with the myriad of different emotions.

Apathy for instance.

I don’t see how that could possibly contribute in any way to mating/gene replication.

Unless you postulate that some emotions are aberrant – that there is some factor that can alter emotional response such that the result is counter to the mating/replication goal. In which case, wouldn’t the aberrative factor have to directly effect the genes?

Just trying to mix things up a little.

that reminds me of the experiment by Lazlow or Skinner or one of those guys

the took baby monkeys away from their mothers and put them in isolation. one set of monkeys had a stuffed monkey mom surrogate and they would cuddle with the stuffed monkey. the other set of baby monkeys just had an empty cage with no surrogate

the monkey with the stuffed monkey mom grew up semi adjusted and were able to co-exist socially with other monkeys

the ones with no surrogate monkey mom grew up to be anti social and could not co exist with the other monkeys. they were violent and abusive to the other monkeys

draw your own conclusions from that

We see this now. Social groups have certain behaviors that are restricted at certain times.

It would be inappropriate say to laugh at a funeral, and people would punish you with condemnation if you did.

This is just one such example they are everywhere and have direct correlations to social cohesion which has direct connections to survival which is what is (for the most part) being selected against.

There is also unnatural selection going on during the processes of finding a mate.

As you say, ‘social cohesion’ has a direct connection to survival. The better one ‘fits in with’ society, the higher one’s ‘survival potential’. I totally understand that.

What seems to be missing is any logical/reasonable explanation of why laughing at a funeral is contra-survival. Why/how did it become contra-survival in the first place? Isn’t ‘joy’ a much more pro-survival emotional state than ‘sadness’.

One idea is that it is simply ‘different’. That is, most people at a funeral are sad. And to encounter someone who is happy is anomalous. Thus, in that lightm it would seem that the most pro-survival thing to do is ‘conform’ – to be like everyone else.

But that doesn’t make a lot of sense to me because the emotion of ‘joy’ is much more pro survival than the emotion of grief. Happy chronically people survive much better – across the boards – than do chronically sad people.

I can think of no situation where the emotion of apathy would be considered pro-survival, either genetically, personally or socially.

And contrary to that whole idea of ‘confoirmity = survival’ is that all the greatest advancements in the history of man have been totally non-conformist. You could say that conformity leads to stagnation. And stagnation is definitely not an accurate description of man’s evolution.

This is why I believe there is an “aberrating factor” involved that causes people to manifest emotions that are ‘inapropriate’ – genetically, personally, socially, racially - whatever.

Not sure I understand that. I thought your world-view was based on a sort of "everything is natural" premise (defining 'natural' as "following the laws of physics".). What would be an example of "unnatural selection in the process of finding a mate"?