[MD] Emotions' place?

[ml]

Greetings Bo,

I was intrigued by the attitudes that seemed to 
flow from the discussion of emotions.  They 
are a bit over humanized in contradiction to
biology.

<snip>
B
> IMO emotion is the social "expression" (Sensation the biological and 
> Reason the intellectual). Animals wouldn't survive if they had 
> emotions. When an antelope has escaped a lion it continues to graze 
> as if nothing has happened. If it had been afraid in the emotional 
> sense it would never have dared venture out in the open again and 
> quickly succumbed. 
<snip>

m
As the functional physiology of the brain is described, the seat
of emotions is in the "reptile brain," the older portions of the brain
deeper within than the crenellated mass we are most fascinated 
with most of the time: cerebral cortex.  Since the emotional center 
is deeper in the brain and part of an older structure we share with 
all mammals, there must be a functional reason for it.  After all it 
did not suddenly evolve.

Your statement:  "Animals wouldn't survive if they had emotions."
is, I believe exactly backwards.  Animals survive because they have 
emotions. You can see this in their behavior from the rearing of
their young to their 'social' behaviors, to how they meet their demise.

Animals possessing older forms, pre-emotional forms of 
central nervous systems have a survival strategy of casting
high numbers of young out into the world and letting them fend
for themselves.  The nurturing behaviors are more generally 
found in animals with the emotional centers.  Their young, as 
individuals have a higher survival rate in an environment that
requires more complexity of behavior.

Emotions, far from being a paralyzing force are a motivating
force for the survival of not just the individual creature but the 
herd.  The aggression of ungulates towards predators is
not fueled by some bio-chemical instinct, but by emotion
and a clear orientation to protect as far as possible what 
is important--what the buffalo/yak/elephant cares about,
the young.

The difference in your example is that the antelope after it
has escaped the lion has nothing to worry about that is
any more important than feeding and surviving.  Lions are 
busy feeding on a kill that no longer is a part of the herd.

Humans, due to their own peculiar, extreme sense of 
self-awareness, invent a horror by replaying the emotion
and perseverating on the original  action, hence developing
phobias, post-traumatic stress, etc.

Some people in traumatic events, say a plane crash, just 
'slide' past the emotional part as easily as the antelope 
its near encounter with a lion.  Other times people from
the same crash are devastated and never recover.

Watch the way dogs try to manipulate people.  They 
don't use reasoned debate, they use something older,
and more direct, something they understand--emotion.

As a small child I had a dog.  In my teen years the beast 
was half-blind and largely deaf, but physically active.  If
the dog wanted inside, even on a warm day, he would 
shiver and yelp and make a show of how pitiful he was.
But if he didn't see or hear anyone in the house he'd simply 
sit at the backdoor patiently waiting.  Once he knew you 
were there he gave all the physical signs of great distress.

Dogs know emotions well.

Another of my dogs would meet me at the door and as soon
as we stepped inside we knew if she had done something 
she knew we disapproved of.  If, the moment after greeting us 
her head dropped and tail went between her legs we knew
9 out of 10 times she'd been in the garbage can.  She
telegraphed her feeling of guilt.  

Extrapolating from that action, she knew enough about us to
know how we would feel about her rooting in the trash.  That
is a pretty sophisticated modeling of human behavior by a dog,
when you think about it.  She anticipated our reaction and her
communication was largely emotionally driven.
  

Any way, something to consider.

thanks--mel
.