Why Do We Have To Have Emotions

Someone asked the big question "why do emotions exist"? So i answered, but i thought it was worth sharing my answer here too.

When we look from a survival perspective and look at how the brain developed through levels within various species we can understand.

All living beings, down to bacteria, have basic "seek/avoid", seek things that promote life, avoid things that put life at risk or cause harm. This isn't thinking, learning, or feeling, just survival. So we this would be to "be alive".

Then we have the next step up, non-social beings, some called this the "reptile brain" but thats a vague over generalization. This is seek/avoid as well as fear and rage/anger. This means not only do they seek things that are good and avoid things that are bad, they also learn, they learn what is bad and learn to fear it. They also have the ability to spike all the body's functions to fight in life-threatening situations. It actually prepares the body to handle an extreme situation and put up the best fight possible. Increasing the blood pressure, heart rate, respiration, even dulling pain with endorphins, so we can survive. This also includes being born knowing how to do basic life necessities like breathing, walking/flying, some even born knowing vocalization patterns. This is "basic instincts", creatures born knowing how to be themselves.

Its only in the higher species, with nervous systems, that we see the social emotions take places. This includes emotions that trigger us to care for our young, form social bonds to protect us from danger and allow us to work in groups to accomplish a goal. As well as emotions that make us feel bad when we aren't functioning well in our society, shame, guilt, anxiety... to let us know we are not doing our best for survival. We also have a play, young, jovial, learning part of our emotions which allows us to enjoy problem solving for the sake of it, because its fun, not just for seek/avoid, and to build stronger social bonds and better learning. This is the "social/emotional"

Then one higher would be cognitive/reasoning. Problem solving, understanding, conceptualizing, being able to see what could be, not just what is.

I actually go into this in depth in the neuroscience section of my book, but mostly in the book i discuss the application of the science and what it teaches us about horses, not humans. Though we are extremely similar.