Topic: Maybe we're not just "emotional"

I'm not entirely sure what your point is here, but emotions are definitely real things. They are linked to distinct patterns of brain activity, chemical/hormone releases, and the one thing we do have, physical reactions. They also perform important evolutionary roles in terms of binding groups of people together as units.

But in terms of understanding, I completely agree that there's far less to them than most believe. Most people pour effort into "understanding" their emotions because they are a dominating force in their lives and it's human nature to inject meaning into the things that are important to us. We're fortunate to focus on tangible, practical things instead. It's a useful skill in this modern world, and a very marketable one! :-)

Yes, we have emotions, we just can't "name" it.

You feel "something" but cannot put a "name" to it.

I've heard there are 21 emotions; that's ridiculous. Some emotions are a result of evolution; e.g., if babies make a mother happy, then she is more likely to take good care of her babies. Those babies have inherited their mother's happiness gene(s), and since they were well cared for they can live long enough to propagate this gene(s). Mothers who lack this emotion won't take as much care of their babies; the kids don't live long enough to pass on their genes. If somebody starts classifying emotions that don't have any obvious ability to help the species as a whole, then they are probably doing what you suggested, N.

Wouldn't it be nice to be VULCAN and we can be logical and not have to deal with this?

I'm autistic and I recently made this post on an autism forum in a thread about emotions, before I'd even heard of Alexithymia.

I've been accused of being emotionless on a number of occasions, sometimes it's simply that I don't express my emotions, I don't put them on public display, but to be perfectly honest most of the time it's because I am rather emotionless compared with other people who I see around me. I can get quite emotional listening to music or when watching movies, sometimes photographs or paintings can arouse an emotional response from me too but real living people? No. I've had close relatives die, and had to deal with the aftermath, and I've been in bed with people, after having intercourse, who've told me that they loved me, but neither situation has provoked any emotional response from me. Much as seeing footage of natural disasters and man made bloodbaths on TV elicits no emotional response from me either. I am emotional but my emotions appear to be triggered by entirely different things from those that the majority of people react to.

Jute,
you gave "natural disasters" and "man made bloodbaths" as examples of events that elicit an emotional response from you, but they don't. So what? You know these are bad things, and can react in a correct way to them. Your reactions are not only correct, but people observing them will say you have a good moral compass, but are a stoic person. I look at it like a subroutine in a computer program; you are getting the right type of output, so it doesn't matter what the code is in the subroutine - it works.

Dave

I'm not sure that you read my post correctly. I wrote "Much as seeing footage of natural disasters and man made bloodbaths on TV elicits no emotional response from me either." I don't respond emotionally to those events. I know on an intellectual level that those occurrences are bad for the people involved but I'm not involved so they mean absolutely nothing to me personally. .

Jute,
I left out the "should" before "elicit"; not too bad for my typing after 1 AM. I stand by everything else I wrote. Since you realize that "bad" stuff happened, it shouldn't bother you too much that you can't feel it. What matters is that you can tell good from bad (I'm being pragmatic. It doesn't do any good to to feel bad about lacking certain emotional responses. ...so you just have to determine what the best way is to live out your life the way you are.).

Dave

I have no problems at all with the way or feel, or don't feel, about things. It's just the way I am. Everyone is different and this is how I am. I simply completed the questionnaire because I'd previously never even heard of the term Alexithymia and had always assumed that my emotional responses were a direct result of my autism.

I can agree. The reality is emotionless.