How do emotions change the way our decisions are made?
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ELI5: emotions are why we make decisions in the first place. Just think about a decision you made, and keep asking “why?” until you can’t answer the question, and you’ve arrived at emotions (or at least some intrinsic human behavior).
What would it mean if we didn’t have emotions? Would we even do anything? Your wants, likes, fears, and so on don’t merely factor into your decisions, but are what drive you to consider them in the first place. Even a psychopathic serial killer is at the end of the day is driven by emotion. What else would would their motives for killing be? Even if they stood to gain something by it, that’s still an emotion providing the impetus (greed).
An interesting counterpoint is to consider an emotionless AI that has the goal of, say, producing as many paper clips as possible. Presumably the AI is able to work towards its goal without any emotions. But how did the goal get there in the first place? Its intrinsic goal of paperclip production it part of its “biology” in some sense. Perhaps some things are like this for humans as well, where we somehow have ingrained “default” behaviors, but I would argue that such a behavior is definitionally emotional in nature (though this depends, I suppose, on how exactly you define “emotion”).
It helps to think of emotions as one layer in a stack of creature control systems. At the basic level we have autonomous processes. Cells respirate and divide, controlled by internal states and external substances. Big changes are run by hormones, which can make lots of cells change behavior.
At the next level we have reflexes. Drop the hot thing, blink if your eyes are threatened, swallow, sweat, shiver. You can’t control them.
The we have instincts. They’re much more complex, and reside in the brain. Eat, sleep, mate, drink and so on. As intelligent creatures we can choose how we implement them, and sometimes override them, but the need to follow them is very powerful.
Then we have emotions. We need those in order to form useful bonds. Why do I like my kid better than that other kid? Because I’ve bonded closely with my kid. Emotions compel us to help, nurture, love and protect. They can also make us avoid, hate or destroy that which threatens our bonds. All flock animals have emotions. Emotions are compelling but vague.
Then we have intelligence. It aids us in learning and problem solving, and let’s us develop language and culture. Knowledge is now accumulated and passed on between generations, no longer limited by the speed of evolution.
Curiosity and creativity are icing on the cake. They’re arguably instinctual in nature, but they work with our intelligence, compelling us to seek out, create and enjoy new things.
Sapience ties the whole package together, allowing us to be aware of this amazing jumbled layer cake that we call the human condition.
What makes humans do things? *All* of the above, to varying degrees. We’re complicated.
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