Originally posted by hopscotchI take it this is rather an emotional topic?
I didn't evens know what this emotions thing is about, so I looked it up on the wikipedie.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emotions
My favourite part was where the title says "List of emotions" and thens it says "This is a list of emotions." That made me have an emotions right there.
There are too many lists on emotions, I can't deal with this.
The post that was quoted here has been removedYes, that's what I said.
The point was that evolution is a poor argument because nothing guarantees the chosen emotion is not vestigial. Our habitat and life is completely different from when we were hunter-gatherers yet our genetic composition has barely changed (the time-frame is simply too short).
What emotions are "necessary" for survival today? Very few. One may argue that quite a lot more for reproduction, but still the case can be made that there are many negative ones that do more harm than good in that.
I also think the original argument was more about "quality of life" than "survival/reproduction", so again evolution plays a lesser role.
Originally posted by PalynkaEnvy as an encouragement to achieve?
I can't think of any for envy, spite or many others.
Spite as an indicator of internalised problems?
I'm not suggesting either of them are good on their own, but perhaps there are ways in which they can be focused towards personal improvement or be used to encourage a change in behaviour. Without them, there could be situations in which criteria remain unrealised or unaltered?
Originally posted by StarrmanBut are these "appropriate", like Kewpie said, or just poor replacements for the appropriate responses?
Envy as an encouragement to achieve?
Spite as an indicator of internalised problems?
I'm not suggesting either of them are good on their own, but perhaps there are ways in which they can be focused towards personal improvement or be used to encourage a change in behaviour. Without them, there could be situations in which criteria remain unrealised or unaltered?
I see your point, and it's a very valid one, but I think that if you take a stand on usefulness as symptoms (especially if there are other symptoms that could provide the same information) as enough to decry it as appropriate, it destroys the meaningfulness of the concept. But it's true that it's a question of where the line is drawn and that looks to me as a question of preference.
The post that was quoted here has been removedErr...nope. One is about staying alive, the other is about having babies.
That they can "drive" staff is a sales division of an American corporation is not very relevant. A whip can also be a great "drive", but I think we can all agree it's not very appropriate.