yellowgowild I would agree with you in part, but I would also suggest, like others have done, that you have oversimplified.
Everything we do comes from following our emotions(^1). Our emotions are pretty damn complex...a lot more to them than mere pain avoidance.
All of our emotions stem from what our DNA "wants". Our DNA uses a stick and carrot approach in order for us to do its bidding. Sex is pleasurable because it is what our DNA wants us to do. Getting mauled by a lion is painful because it is not what our DNA wants us to do.
Sometimes our emotions will make us do things which are illogical from a "preservation of self" point of view. E.g. many parents would willingly put themselves in danger in order to save their children.
Pretty much all of our "emotions" stem from encouraging the survivability of our DNA. For the most part this is fairly obvious...we have a desire to look successful to a potential mate, we have a desire to reproduce, we have a desire to eat, we have a desire to raise children, etc etc.
For some emotions, this is less obvious, but is still explainable.
Take the urge to create.
Surely as
chavos claims, there is no inherent survivability to human creativity?
Of course there is! Without creativity, we would have no tools, no clothes, no agriculture, no nothing!
Admittedly in the modern sense of the word, most people would consider "true" creativity as only the creation of "useless" objects(^2)...art. This is a sad state of affairs. Creativity is what drives the sciences and engineering to this day. Certainly it is possible to have creativity in "isolation", and so create art, but this is not the full extent of creativity.
Or take the emotion of curiosity.
"Curiosity killed the cat", surely there is no survivability inherent in curiosity...the exact opposite seems correct?
Wrong! Take for instance lion cubs. Imagine two families. One family gives birth to "curious" lion cubs, the other gives rise to cubs with no curiosity.
The curious cubs will spend their youth exploring the territory. Looking around, trying to find out more about where they live. The other cubs won't. Now obviously the curious lion cubs are putting themselves at risk, by wandering from the den. The mother's protectiveness of her offspring will keep this in check, by not allowing them to wander too far. An equilibrium will be found between being overprotective, and being careless.
When the curious cubs grow up, and have to fend for themselves, they will already have the knowledge of the locality, which will become a major survival advantage, over the non-curious lion, who are, only now starting to explore their environment.
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(^1)By emotion I really mean that in the “extended” sense of the word. Not the narrow sense that we would often use.
(^2) Some might leap on this opportunity to declare me a philistine for claiming that art is useless. I mean useless in the “practical” sense of the word. You cannot eat a Da Vinci or use a Monet to go out hunting. Also, I use the word “art” to refer to the institutionalised art we have today. I mean art as meaning the art which you would find in a gallery. Personally I have a much broader interpretation of art, and the greatest “works of art” of all, could never be confined within the walls of a gallery.
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Here’s a related post that I made in the thread
Emotion: Man's Greatest Fault
Quote:
Originally posted by CSflim
I wouldn't say that emotion is man's greatest fault. But I do think that they are over-rated by our modern society. The idea of being logical is looked on as being "cold" and "inhumane". To me, emotions are just evolutionary mechanisms, which would have preceded rational thought and intelligence. Almost all of our emotions can be explained in evolutionary terms.
Take for instance fear. We will use the example of two primitive humans wandering the jungle, having come across a ferocious lion. The first human has the emotion of "fear", sees the roaring beast with massive teeth, and gets scared. He immediately turns around and runs for it. Our second human, decides to consider the consequences. To logically weigh up his options given the situation. He quickly comes to the conclusion, that if he doesn't run away he is going to be killed. Unfortunately for him, it is too late, as the lion has already pounced on him! 
Also, not only does the emotion of fear, encourage our first man to run away, it makes him run away faster. When we get scared, our heart starts beating faster, we start breathing large gulps of oxygen, and our body fills our bloodstream with endorphins and adrenaline, all of which is beneficial to us for running away. These endorphins can give us quite a "buzz" which is why we love to get "scared" by horror films and roller coasters and the like. We "logically" know that the horror film can't hurt us, but we don't emotionally know it, hence our body gets scared, and we feel excited and feel the "buzz" from the natural drugs in our blood.
It has also been suggested that the reason that you "shit yourself" when you get really scared is so as to make your body as light as possible, again to aid you in making your get away.
Or take what is commonly described as "our most powerful emotion", love. Well consider who it is, that our love is most strongest for: our sexual partner, and our children. Both of these people are vital, in order for you to achieve your ultimate purpose in life; pass on your genetic material. So in essence, you feel a very strong need to protect these people, and ensure no harm comes to them, so you "love" them.
Or take even the emotion of disgust. Again, we have two primitive humans. this time them come across a hunk of rotting meat. The first human sees this and "knows" that it is disgusting, so turns and walk away. The second "logical" human looks at the rotten meat. This meat doesn't look the best, but he's pretty hungry. He comes to the logical conclusion that old meat is better than no meat at all. He of course knows nothing about hygiene, or bacteria, and doesn't realise that eating this rotten meat will make him ill.
So emotion is a by-product of our evolution. Like ART said, its important to acknowledge that your emotion is there, but letting it rule your life, or letting it "over-ride" the logical part of your brain is not a good thing.
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