Emotion in Motion

How does the function of emotion suit the motion of modern day life?

In my previous post The Notion of Emotion, I outlined the function of emotion, as basically triggers in the brain to influence a species to instinctually pursue or avoid a range of circumstances, based on what has been proven over generations, to be most beneficial for that species. Furthermore, emotion allows a more precise customization of reinforcement, relative to the individuals experiences, via subconscious (or potentially conscious) memory. This causes the individual to pursue or avoid more specific circumstances, based on the feedback which they received from emotions, during experiences throughout their life.

Whether these functions of emotion, are effective for modern day human life, is another question. The initial range of circumstances, of which emotions are instinctually intended to be feedback for, take many generations of natural selection to adapt to new environments of a species. Once humans developed the more advanced prefrontal cortex, allowing conscious thought to more accurately make decisions, and more rapidly develop technology and society, the rate of change of our environment sped up significantly. The speed of changing environments for humans, has likely surpassed the rate of change for emotions to adapt to more beneficial ranges of circumstances, in which to trigger humans to avoid or pursue those situations. For eg. we’ve rapidly developed technology and processing to allow easily available large quantities of sugary and fatty foods. Emotional feedback still triggers positive happiness from eating large quantities of these foods, as it was beneficial for survival when resources were scarce. But now, these resources are too readily available, meaning the positive reinforcement, causes eating beyond an effective amount, to the point of self harm.

Besides the rate of change of environment, human’s common environment is becoming more and more complex, with so much more information and factors (such as objects, tools, & substances) relevant to common societal life, as well as an increasingly complex network of interaction with other people. With a complex environment, involving a potentially exponential increase in variables and factors, comes much more complex circumstances for emotions to be triggered by. For eg. with the added variables of technology allowing long distance communication, someone is likely to receive negative emotional feedback, such as lower self esteem, from gaining selective knowledge of only the highlights of certain other’s lifestyles, which is unobtainable by the individual themselves. The more variables there are, the more probable the inaccuracy of result, of something which functions based on a generalized range of circumstances. If emotions function as a trigger of a basic range of factors in the present, then it's likely to be insufficiently accurate, and mistakenly triggered, by such complex combinations of such a multitude of variables.

Another potential disruption of the usefulness of the function of emotion, could be artificial selection, and artificial sustenance of life and reproduction. In natural selection, the ones who have the most beneficial genetic emotional feedback relative to the environment, are the ones to survive and reproduce. But with artificial selection, as a result of more complex conscious thought, people choose to reproduce with someone for more varying reasons (for eg. the other also play video games), besides the basics of survival and reproduction. Selection can be driven by much more complex thought processes, including the increase of factors, which influence that decision for reproduction. This reduces the likelihood of the people which have the most effective emotional feedback (related to the environment), to reproduce. Artificial sustenance of life, allows individuals with emotional reinforcement triggers, which are not beneficial to the environment, to survive and reproduce, whereas otherwise would not. If their genetic emotional triggers are not tailored to the environment, they are more likely to survive and reproduce, with the aid of artificial developments, such as medicine and technology.

The complexity of circumstances and variables within recent and modern day society, seems to by far, outreach and outrun the simplicity of emotional feedback. Ineffective, unbeneficial, and inaccurate emotional feedback, seems likely to occur much more often, by this point of development in today's society. It should be useful to take into consideration, the notion of the function of emotion, as well as the motion of emotions development, relative to the current complex environment of humanity. Understanding these concepts, should allow a more beneficial adjustment and control of emotion.