1. The Value of Man

Originally posted by echecero
Emotions.
1.) Psychologists have shown in numerous studies that emotions are primarily a physical response interpreted by our brain. For example, certain stimuli result in a heightened response state (adrenaline, rapid heart rate, etc.). After this heightened state is reached, an emotional response will be assigned based on other environmental cues.
Soci ...[text shortened]... paper on the evolutionary view of emotions: http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/emotion.html

"primarily" - important word. When it comes to instinct (sexual desire, fear, etc) you can explain these "emotions" with simply bio-chemical reactions.

However, when it comes to moral decisions and non-instinct-based emotions, it gets a little more complicated. If this was a science and could be observed and documented, then human response in every hypothetical situation could be predicted. This is not so. You cannot predict if a man will risk his life for another in peril. You cannot use science to match-make.

The experiment you pose is quite an interesting one, however, what you have here is a case of psychology (all of which still can't be called empirical science) with a short-term reading. Will this love be long-lasting, or would it be classified as "being smitten"? Just to consider: one cannot predict the outcome of any marriage by what the couple go through in the first week, month or even year. What happens when one is found sterile or becomes fat and ugly? How would evolution-based psychology explain undying love between an old, sterile man and a sickly girl dying of cancer?

Thanks for the link, I'll take a look-see...

Originally posted by RatX
Just to consider: one cannot predict the outcome of any marriage by what the couple go through in the first week, month or even year.

The interesting thing is that the length and quality of a marriage has nothing to do with love. It has to do with loyalty and the individuals' beliefs concerning what marriage is and should be. Any number of people who love each other divorce or are never married. Any number of people who do not feel love, and sometimes have negative emotions towards one another, remain in marriages. If people's actions were determined by their emotions, then this comment would mean something.

Originally posted by dj2becker
No one is forcing you to take part in the forums.

Besides, if these threads are so meaningless then why do you waste your time on them?

Why do you waste people's time asking them why they waste their time?

Originally posted by echecero
The interesting thing is that the length and quality of a marriage has nothing to do with love. It has to do with loyalty and the individuals' beliefs concerning what marriage is and should be. Any number of people who love each other divorce or are never married. Any number of people who do not feel love, and sometimes have negative emotions towards one a ...[text shortened]... If people's actions were determined by their emotions, then this comment would mean something.

Well this is also quite true...

But I'll say that many, many people's actions are determined by their emotions - from murder to marriage. How else does one explain the often ridiculously short Vegas marriages?

Originally posted by RatX

How else does one explain the often ridiculously short Vegas marriages?[/b]

The amount of alcohol consumed!! lol

Originally posted by DarkCastle
The amount of alcohol consumed!! lol

Yes 😉 And if one's a niave Britney Spears high on things science and metaphysics can never explain...

Originally posted by RatX
Well this is also quite true...

But I'll say that many, many people's actions are determined by their emotions - from murder to marriage. How else does one explain the often ridiculously short Vegas marriages?

Or, just as easily, their emotions are determined by their actions: "Why did I do this? I must be in love..." Where the emotion their were feeling was just nervousness or excitement...

Originally posted by echecero
Or, just as easily, their emotions are determined by their actions: "Why did I do this? I must be in love..." Where the emotion their were feeling was just nervousness or excitement...

Interesting... let's deviate from the bliss of marriage and look at crime. If a person commits what is defined as "a crime of passion" - eg. murder in a fit of rage - were his actions (the murder) a result of his emotions (rage) or the other way around? This might either become a big circle of emotion-action-emotion ad nauseam, or probably putting the cart in front of the horse...