What is it like to have never felt an emotion?
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So far as lacking emotional response to major life events; there is so much going on during a wedding, and giving birth to babies, I don't imagine it's uncommon to not really feel joy in those moments; you're just to busy. Watching babies grow and transform into toddlers and big kids in front of your eyes, now that is joy of a lifetime, imo.
For instance, one day at school he was working with the student theatre.
All week he had been struggling to produce the right sound effects,
but it just wasn’t coming together. Eventually, his boss lost his cool
and started ripping into him. “My response was that something weird was
happening with my body,” he says. “I could feel a tension, like my heart
was racing, but my mind was distracted…
Who actually has no emotions whatsoever and stays alive? What about primitive things like e.g. the feeling of shock and terror as you are crossing the road and turn to see a bus bearing down on you. This is a basic animal survival response. If all you can say is "my heart was racing" that's not exactly being unemotional, but uncomprehending.
From talking to people who've had medical panic attack problems, it seems common for them to confuse how to name the bodily symptoms, so they show up in the ER confused why they're sweating bullets and feeling very confused and heart rate of 150 thinking they're having a heart attack or stroke instead of "just" an out of control emotional response.
Or it could be that their treatment plan for repressed emotions leading to panic attacks is a lifetime dose of a pill. Maybe that is the best treatment plan for them; none of my business, I guess, other than that specific example might have been a bad choice for the article because of confusing factors.
For anyone interested in the topic (and CBT in general) I can highly recomment [What You Can Change and What You Can't - The Complete Guide to Successful Self-Improvement](http://www.amazon.com/What-You-Change-Cant-Self-Improvement/...) by Martin Seligman.
As someone who has recently developed a bit of an obsession with mindfulness/zen/meditation, this book is a good example of the parallels between that and the field of psychology.
For example "All week he had been struggling to produce the right sound effects,"
How would you even know you hit the right sound effect? What is your judgement for good or bad on something that is subjective?
Such a person would make an astounding diplomat.
The reward mechanism would probably be in maximizing physical comfort in return for minimal physical effort.
But beyond that everything else is an emotion - happiness, sadness, anger, annoyance, loneliness. Beyond the most basic tasks everything requires emotions to drive you. Why do you study for an upcoming exam? Because you are anxious about getting a good grade? Why are you anxious? Because you may not want to upset your parents? Why does that bother you? You love them or fear their displeasure. Why do you fear your parent's displeasure? Ignoring corporal punishment (which could be an avoidance of pain/injury), other reasons include wanting to avoid stress, or being upset when they confront you about it. And so on. You cannot get through life except the most basic functions (like avoiding pain, eating, sleeping, etc) without emotions.
The article seems to equate the reduced perception of emotions to a total absence of them.
"Other people are getting married. I guess I should go on with the program (shrug). Hmm, this person took an interest in me (or my friends/mother/etc hooked me up with this person), I could marry them maybe.".
>Getting a job?
Hmm, I feel physical hunger. Maybe I need to get a job. Hmm, here's a sign for help wanted. Maybe I can apply there.
>Playing a game or watching a movie?
I'm physically tired. Maybe I'll sit in front of the TV for a little while. People do that.
>How would you even know you hit the right sound effect?
- Jack, we need thunderstorm sounds and dogs barking in the distance. - OK, I know what those sound like. I'll try to replicate them. Let me find some thunderstorm recordings etc.
(No emotions needed -- at best you just need to consider them "faithful reproductions" not to feel enthusiastic or whatever about them. Good, in this case, is quantifiable -- "sounds a lot like the real thing").
With regards to the thunderstorm thats not how it works. It's not the rational request thats the problem but the intuition around when it feels right. Emotions are fundamental to making any kind of creative decisions.
They don't. They just copy what other people do because it's the default thing to do (everyone does it), and because they want to stop that annoyance (annoyance like we feel annoyance from a crappy seat belt or uncomfortamble shows, not emotional misery) and distraction (the nagging from other people, etc). No emotion mostly means that they aren't enthusiastic about getting married, and they are not miserable because they are not married either. You can conform to something just by thinking about it, you don't have to have any emotions on the matter. Same way people used to have arranged marriages back in the day (and still in some cultures). They didn't necessarily have any affection to the other person, not they had any great urge to get married.
>With regards to the thunderstorm thats not how it works. It's not the rational request thats the problem but the intuition around when it feels right.
You don't need to feel emotion-based intuition for when it "feels right". "Feels" is just a word we use to describe our selection process but it doesn't mean there have to be "feelings" involved.
You just need to check that your sound effect sound as you remember those things to sound. No need to be dissapointed when they don't, or feel creative or elated when they do.
Of course you need to build up intuition when you create things that doesn't have a matemathical formula. Thats exactly what intuition is a combination of rational understand, experience and emotional awareness of what decision is right and which one is wrong to you. Without it you would have a hard time making any decisions at all.
There is a reason why humans have developed emotions.
The point is that I don't believe this person is completely without emotions whatever biochemical function it boils down to.
For another weird concept look at humanities universal habit of rationalizing irrational decisions. For no good reason I did XYZ, now listen to my detailed rationalization based on emotions or Vulcan-level logic, which doesn't really matter because I really have no idea why I asked ABC out on a date or decided to buy that car or eat that second piece of birthday cake, although in detailed post-rationalization I can dream up all kinds of sand castles in the sky explaining elaborate logical reasons or stark emotions that I supposedly experienced before I made a random decision. This adds an annoying second level of analysis, why do some people do random things just like everyone else, but their societal or cultural failure is rationalizing it as logic or admitting it was just random, whereas "everyone knows" we must, at least in public, declare it to be the result of emotion.
I agree with your empathy description. In fact a lot of people think empathy primarily is about the ability to feel other peoples pain but it's much wider than that. But thats another discussion.
I think you conflate emotions with any kind of functioning at all. You can still function, think, try to avoid tension and people being angry or annoyed at you, without feeling any emotions.
If you discover that something you do makes someone unconfortable for example, you can decide to stop it, despite not feeling bad about doing it.
"Hmm, this guy says this thing I do makes him feel bad. I'm told that feeling bad is something people don't like. I should stop it, so that he doesn't feel bad, so that I'm like normal people or so I wont get into trouble for what I do".
Motivation for going with the flow doesn't gave to be "oh, I'll be miserable if I wont". It can be mere rational reasoning -- "I better not make waves" or things like "last time I did that they punched me and it hurt. I'd want to avoid being punched again".
The have an extra-rational pull towards doing one thing rather than some other thing. There's no real way to "carve reality at the joints" in a way that excludes what this person is feeling/doing vs someone with "real" emotions.
On one had you're right those are genuine issues, there's little motivation to do anything really. I guess it is a spectrum but I still feel that if someone asks me to do something that I'm being a nice person if I do it, I guess others might be devoid of that. So if invited to do something I normally go, but I only originate plans if I feel I'm doing it for others e.g. if someone is visiting I'll setup a dinner for us all. At the end of a week when I've been busy I cab be annoyed at how much of my life is spent doing things for others, but I do know that's because I don't do anything at all for myself.
I'm married and I wouldn't say I am because it's something expected of me. I think I want to be healthy mentally later in life and I know I can put the work in to give my wife a happy life, also that I didn't hide the way I am from her. If I didn't do these things it would be equivalent to just kind of giving up and I guess I haven't done that so I do these kind of things for future me who I want to be in a good place. I do love, I don't think it's quite the feeling love is to others but love/loss are recognisable.
I work to succeed and for financial security basically, I can't fathom a job I "enjoy" but in my mind besides paying bills it's like a game and I win if I'm successful. A good way to think about it is when a big project finishes it's a bit weird for me because I don't really get happiness or pleasure or a sense of achievement from it, it's kind of like a vaccum. The day a system goes live is no different from day 1 on the project. Within the vaccum I just get hyper-critical of my performance I think my brain is thinking it's important to improve for next time and just immediately focusses on what it needs to do to make that happen.
I do watch films/games, although not that much, but I like being distracted and having something to do. I watch twitch and sport where I do find it easy to support teams. I would never be upset after a result in sport or anything, I don't get nervous before or excited after a win but I like the pattern, which players are good/bad, analysing tactics, following the story etc.
Reward mechanism - I don't think there's anything in my life like that I could google it but not sure what it means. I don't do anything to reward myself at all.
So for example picking a colour for a carpet or pick a new pair of shoes is a nightmare and I put that kind of thing off because ultimately I have no way in my brain to pick beyond that I want something plain so it's quite uncomfortable.
Or picking a holiday destination is awkward, I live in Europe but I don't care whether I next go to Berlin, Paris or Rome. Even if I've been there before versus not I just don't care at all beyond if I consider it stressful being out of comfort zone or something in which case some places can be ruled out.
I suppose that's the trivial things, the bigger life decisions where I can't make a decision I guess ultimately my wife makes for us.
I don't think that's specific to this condition, I've read elsewhere that lots of people have a similar scientific approach to decision making.
Since for it to be something you'd have to feel an emotion regarding your condition, it's nothing (neutral).
There are narcissists and sociopaths who have tried it as a therapy. Unfortunately the only result seems to be increased love for themselves, or feelings of God like superiority over others.
A1. You say you don't experience emotions.
A2. What you call emotions is what you see others do when they say they are acting emotionally. You don't think you are this way.
A3. Your doctor says you're right.
Or:
B1. You say you experience emotions.
B2. Others say you are wrong.
How can anyone really know whether what they experience in their black box is the same as what another person experiences?
Evidence of enthusiastically communicating an experience isn't the same as being able to prove that you actually experienced it.
Likewise, not communicating an experience doesn't mean that it wasn't experienced.
The only way to really get outside this kind of introverted bubble is to ask people or confide in them. This leads to conversations like whether an emotion like happiness is an actual thing or not that they can identify and actually feel. In the sense that they are actually sitting there and willing to state "I feel happy", it's different from yesterday. Most people are hence why I diagnose myself in line with this article.
Or, another way is people generally have an answer to the "Tell me about a time you were very happy"... a lot of people can reel something off really easily here. Sometimes it's like a wedding and you think "you could be saying that because it's accepted as a good answer" but other people say a certain day at the beach where something really specific happens and that lends credence to the idea they feel this emotion and I don't.
I do wish I could change states at will, but historically it has always been a result of some sort of external influence.
It reminds me of my inquiry into the mystery of why everyone "likes alcoholic drinks" but I don't. Eventually I broke it down into specific questions:
- Do you enjoy the feeling of alcoholic drinks passing through your mouth?
- Do you require the drink to be loaded down with non-alcohol flavors for it to be bearable?
- On taste alone, would you prefer a milkshake?
- Do you enjoy the feeling the drink produces on your mind? Does that matter to you more than the taste?
... and it turned out, I had the exact same answers to these questions as people who said they do like alcohol; it's just that they characterized that state as "liking alcohol", and I didn't.
If people similarly broke this issue down into specific questions on observables, I suspect a lot of the differences would vanish, and it would make more sense to characterize it as "different emotional response" rather than "no emotions" -- though a big part of the problem is the arbitrariness of the labels!
One of the "this would be funny if it weren't so morbid" truths about psychology is that much of our understanding of the brain springs from cases in which normally-functioning people have parts of their brains physically destroyed in accidents.
The most famous example is Phineas Gage, who experienced some specific personality changes (go figure, right?) after a railroad spike pierced his head but left him otherwise unharmed. His mishap provided visceral proof that the brain wasn't just an undifferentiated lump; it showed us that specific areas of the brain perform specific tasks including emotional and behavioral issues.
Alexithymia can sometimes be the result of a brain injury. A person with "normal" emotional responses can, after a brain injury, find themselves with alexithymia.
I'm not sure of a definitive source to link to; apologies for the Google search results link: https://www.google.com/search?q=traumatic+brain+injury+and+a...
For starters, I would like to know about his sense of humor, and about his taste in music and art, and how he would describe his preferences.
I don't think my sense of humour is much different from anyone else's, I laugh at something I think is funny. My general mood is very flat a lot of the time but other than that I think funny is just funny. I wouldn't necessarily bother going to see a comedian I knew I would laugh at though, if that makes sense. i.e. I don't seek out situations I think will make me laugh and I wouldn't say I enjoyed a night I laughed for 2 hours more than one I watched a documentary or something. I do think I laugh at comedians a lot less than when I was younger, which is one way I think I'm becoming less rather than more emotional if that makes sense.
Music/Art again I don't think are really affected. I listen to some music and subscribe to spotify but I don't use it a huge amount. Clearly I couldn't tell you a song I found uplifting, that's two concepts that I just don't see as related. When people say that my gut reaction is that they're just saying it because they like how it makes them look, I'm not sure if I believe it's an actual feeling as such. I'm not into art but I like things that are nice to look at. I have no appreciation of abstract art at all but I don't think that's uncommon
Also, there has never been a thing called an emotion detected in or on the body of a human. I think the leading theory is that 'emotion' is a rationalization of the current state of one's sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. It's a self-application of theory theory.
https://blogs.plos.org/neuro/2015/01/28/fmri-under-the-micro...
http://scienceblogs.com/purepedantry/2008/06/27/must-read-pa...
So imagine the "feeling" of just sitting in a chair in an empty room. Now imagine "feeling" that way all through a roller coaster. No excitement, fear, enjoyment, etc...
:-)
Oh please, journalism .
Wordless about emotions? Maybe. Not knowing the words for emotions? Maybe. Emotionless? Ha. Spend time with any group of people with autistic spectrum disorders & tell me 50% are emotionless. Confusing words with the phenomena & further contributing to the barriers they have to express their inner life, not on.
To say it matter of factly like this in science journalism with no sense of the controversy to popular perception or those who have relationships with neurodiverse people, or motivating <with references> the point of view behind a scientist, but instead, reporting as fact. This view is surely contravertial in the scientific community, let alone with the public in contact with autistic people - and the worse thing is, if you tell an autistic person, they could believe it.
The only basis I have for saying "this is surely controversial in the scientific community" is 1. my faith in that community 2. my experience of the emotional lives of people on the autistic spectrum. 1 says they'd find out about 2 because it's a real thing.
They have empathy & emotions - like colonization - the one's trying to 'help' can sometimes be the cause of the most harm.
I spend a lot of time with people on the spectrum and my experience tends to match yours, however that's all anecdotal.
It would be interesting to know where that number came from. Have you asked the author for a citation?
Nothing.
“It may be hard to believe, but it is possible for someone to be cut off completely from the emotions and imagination that are such a big part of what makes us humans,” he says. “And that a person can be cut off from emotions without being heartless, or a psychopath.”
All other behaviors need either a faith in some God or man-given morality, ethics, or emotions like love, mercy etc (which, as emotions, are not logical).
Of course one can logically come to the conclusion that behaving moraly instead of like a psychopath is better for humanity. But even in that case, giving a damn for what's better for humanity (instead of what maximizes your benefits in your lifespan) is illogical.
In most actual real life situations you can get far ahead by behaving as a sociopath.
>Of course, selfishness works at the expense of an altruistic majority, but that's why people don't like to associate with psychopaths
The thing is that as a sociopath you don't even have to show that you are that to people. You can still pretend to be altruistic (to your advantage) and still push your personal agenda whenever possible covertly.
People aren't stupid.
Logic concerns itself with the validity of reasoning: Given X and Y, you can validly infer Z - it doesn't concern itself with the goals. So, unless there's an underlying axiom that supports the assertion that you should promote your interests above others', it's not "more logical" to do so than to dedicate your life to others.
Because you ARE yourself, and the obvious thing is to maximize your strength.
And because caring for others implies "love", "affection", "altruism" (emotions, not rational calculations) and even sacrificing your interests for others, whereas helping yourself is immediately advantageous for you and is in your default interest.
So what? Why is it logical to do the most obvious thing?
And because caring for others implies "love", "affection", "altruism" (emotions, not rational calculations) and even sacrificing your interests for others, whereas helping yourself is immediately advantageous for you and is in your default interest.
Even if there is a "default interest", you don't arrive to it by logical reasoning - it's no more logical than an emotion.
Because that's how logic works. We are not discussing Logic the mathematical formalism (A=A, A=C, A!=B => B!=C) here.
Logical thinking is reasoning; just doing something because it feels obvious doesn't sound like application of reasoning. Many obvious things are reveled to be inadvisable when carefully considered.
Also, I don't believe that taking care of yourself is obvious if you remove emotions. Self-preservation is an emotional instinct, not some logical axiom.
Reasoning is not abstract. Logical thinking has foundations and axioms -- and among those the idea that beings primarily try to help/save/advance/spread/enjoy/take-care-of themselves is paramount.
No it isn't, it's basically suicidal. We wouldn't evolve to be mostly altruistic if being altruistic was bad for our survival.
Evolving concerns the species (and its survival) not the individual and its survival.
It literally has nothing to do with your individual survival (except depending on you surviving long enough to make offspring).
Heck, awful as it is, if you raped 2000 women and gave progeny to 2000 kids it would be considered great from an evolutionary aspect -- far more than "being altruistic".
When you try to harm something or somebody for your own benefit, there are two possibilities:
Either such behavior is common enough and the target has a defense mechanism against it and in that case you will fail and you may even get hurt.
Or, it has never been too common and in that case you may succeed temporarily. However, the fact that the weakness is being exploited creates a pressure on the potential targets to find ways, or even evolve, to get rid of it. You may succesfully exploit it, but your descendants will find it harder and harder to live that way, and they may even die out.
On the other hand, when an individual is beneficial to other idividuals, it encourages them to support it, or over time even evolve traits that will allow them to better keep those of its kind alive and it will be easier and easier over time for it and its descendants to survive and have offspring of their own.
It's basically the real life equivalent of karma. Altruism evolved because individuals and species breed each other to be good.
It is of course also possible to rationally emulate such behavior, as well as emulate emotions, but it may not be easy, and might come at a substantial cognitive cost.
In addition, I would imagine that being able to feel certain emotions yourself must be of great help in predicting behavior of people who do feel those emotions. For example, I am still not sure what can or cannot trigger jealousy, having never felt it myself -- there is a learned list of things that can do it, but by construction it is never complete; it would have been nice to have some sort of an intuitive understanding. And it extends much further, e.g. I've seen studies demonstrating how people with good emotional intelligence tend to be better stock traders.
In the particular case of Vulcans, you can definitely have huge, raging arguments about what exactly those base assumptions are, again, given that they were written by dozens of writers, many of whom really weren't trying.
Today you can see the real-life equivalent in the Rationalist movement, which while it certainly permits a certain amount of variance in the base assumptions, does tend to come with a basic set of axioms at the bottom as well.
It would go beyond the scope of what fits in an HN message to actually explain those. (Plus I have some serious philosophical criticisms, which would make it even longer, and also means perhaps I'm not the best person to even try.) My point is merely that when discussing this sort of "logic" it is very important to separate strict mathematical "logic" from the vague set of quasi-religion/philosophical "Logics" that do in fact come with enough base presuppositions to make it possible to debate things like whether enlightened self-interest is or is not "better" than, say, some degree of deliberately self-negating altruism. Upper-case Logic and mathematical lower-case logic are two different words. (And Logic is a family, too, not one well-defined thing.)
Buddhism, Stoicism, Cyncism, Epicureanism, Stoicism, and Neopythagoreanism.
All schools of thought that actively advocate against self desire and state that it is something that you must first purge yourself of before you can achieve happiness.
A lot of pure logical schools advocate that want and desire is the root of all suffering. The difference between these schools and say Randianism is they reject one can suffer of the soul.
You do not desire an end of suffering, but you desire an end of desire.
> sociopath: a person with a psychopathic personality whose behavior is antisocial, often criminal, and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.
Nothing in not feeling emotions means that one would lack a moral responsibility or social conscience, or is antisocial and often criminal.
But still: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexithymia
> Individuals high on the alexithymia spectrum also report less distress at seeing others in pain and behave less altruistically toward others.
Which doesn't surprise me, really; at least for me, for how I operate, there is a clear distinction between acting to avoid punishment or to seek reward, and a conscience; the latter is always connected to emotions, for me.
Here's another admittedly random tidbit from Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilt_%28emotion%29
> As a highly social animal living in large groups that are relatively stable, we need ways to deal with conflicts and events in which we inadvertently or purposefully harm others. If someone causes harm to another, and then feels guilt and demonstrates regret and sorrow, the person harmed is likely to forgive. Thus, guilt makes it possible to forgive, and helps hold the social group together.
and
> When we see another person suffering, it can also cause us pain. This constitutes our powerful system of empathy, which leads to our thinking that we should do something to relieve the suffering of others. If we cannot help another, or fail in our efforts, we experience feelings of guilt.
Don't get me wrong. I absolutely agree with the impulse to reject any sort of "witch hunt" or even "just" looking down on people. It's not the fault of people who can't feel remorse that they can't feel remorse, especially since "harder variants" like NPD are very often the result of abuse and trauma (and in so far they are genetic, there's no fault either), and since all of this is on a spectrum, and most of us likely are on it, they also must not serve as scapegoats. But it's fascinating and important, and while the person this story is about is probably a decent guy, it can also be a very unsettling and sinister topic, yet still important - I'd even say we shy away from it at our own risk.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201305/confessions-...