From: E. Shaun Russell (e_shaun@uniserve.com)
Date: Fri Jul 02 1999 - 08:20:33 MDT
Emotions are a fact of life, and in truth, when guided by reason,
they help to shape our lives and make them somewhat more enjoyable. One of
the reasons that most people enjoy being human (in some sense or another)
is the ability to feel a plethora of these emotions, yet still be able to
differentiate the factitious from the facts and have a core knowledge of
reality. However, it is all too easy for certain powerful emotions to
override the focus of even the most rational of people.
Drugs currently abound which can chemically enhance or repress some
of these powerful emotions, although they are by no means perfect. Side
effects are extremely common, and all too often the emotion such drugs were
intended to enhance or repress are simply transformed into another kind of
emotion.
Chances are, within most of our lifetimes, the technology will be
manifested to such a state in which we can select our emotions to a certain
extent. The question is this: which emotions would you like to retain, and
which would you like to dispose of? It would be easy to come up with
knee-jerk kind of answers such as "I would get rid of love" though I am
fairly certain that such a move would be highly irrational. Most of our
emotions have a purpose, and life could easily be less enjoyable without
many of them.
Personally, I would opt to exorcise any trace of fear or anxiety.
Though I'm not naturally inclined to feel these emotions very often, I know
that when exposed to them, it is difficult to remain rational. But some of
the more potentially painful ones such as loneliness, I would keep. The
problem I foresee with getting rid of too many of these "bad" emotions is that
in their absence, there could easily be a lack of ambition. For example,
if one didn't feel "unhappy" there would be less inclination for him to
progress to the point at where he would naturally feel happy. It is an
interesting thought. What do you think?
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E. Shaun Russell Musician, Extropian, ExI Member
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Kineticize your potential. http://www.extropy.com
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