i am an angst man. for no reason. i am not as noble as gordon or other ppl who are pissed all the time because of all the trouble that is bothering the world, or how unfair life had been to them. Gah. i know life had been great to me, has endowed me with what i can use to achieve what i like to have. i can think, and i like to think, i am truly grateful for that. i like to read, and i have many books and great seniors and teachers who like to share what they know with us. i am also grateful for that. however, i am still not happy. i know that i am supposed to be happy, but i can't feel happy. i suppose for this period of time my serotonin and endorphine level is too low. oh by the way i'm grateful to be a guy :-P

sometimes i wonder if there really is a reason to feel emotions. Consider a simple case, "My wallet got stolen, therefore i'm sad." is that so? or is it "I have less to exchange for the things i want, therefore i am sad." But why do you want the things you want? because if you acquire them you'll be happy? so it boils down to "I cannot be happy anymore, therefore i am sad." Sounds like a stupid comment, but i think that emotions indeed cannot be logically reasoned out, after plenty of reasoning you'll just end up with useless things like "i'm happy because i think i will be happy". hmm?

i have reasoned that emotion is a hardwired logical shortcut. somewhat like the L1 cache with BIOS. in some times one cannot decide what to do, and one turns to emotion. i know if i buy this i'll be happy, but i'm worried for my wallet, so what many would do is to follow their heart and take a logical shortcut. This logical shortcut is based on the emotions entangled into the consequences of past actions, if a choice more often leads to a happy ending than bad, then one would tend to feel like making another choice like that again. Hence i say that emotion is a logical shortcut.

But if there any reason why we ought to have emotions? indeed, an emotional outburst tends to be the best logical decision one can make in a very short amount of time. think about it, emotion links the present experience with the past experiences, compares the situation, compares the consequences, and finally deduce what was the decision made that made you happier. All these in a split second. amazing processing power that any numbskull can easily use to 0wn a NASA supercomputer. it probably can't even assess the situation given that amount of time.

But what causes emotions? we must not confuse consequence with cause. primary school teachers often like to say "you are given one mouth and two ears so you should listen more and talk less." WRONG. poor reasoning. "we are given one mouth and two ears therefore we cannot talk as much as we would like, and we are have to listen more than we would like." That is more logical. this fallacy arises because we can derive consequence from cause, but we CANNOT derive cause from consequence.

ok back to the topic. what causes emotions? is reasoning ability a prerequisite to emotion? is euphoria that arose from winning a competition the same as that from drugs? it is likely. there is no direct link from logic to emotion, it seems like another processing unit altogether. Emotions make us do things that are not sensible. Some say, "follow your emotions", for what? so that you can be happy? but isn't happiness an emotion itself? there is nothing wrong in doing things that make us feel good, but is life about anything other than feeling good? i'm afraid not. i hate to admit that life is all about proquring what makes us happy, but that seems to be the case. The book "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley is a great book that tells us what could happen if the world becomes overly engrossed with materialistic happiness. it is scary because there is no chance for people to experience the joy of achieving something that is hard to achieve. Apparently, if there were no differences between the happiness felt either by drugs or by achievement, there is no scienctific proof to say that this happiness is more noble or better than the other, since nobility is very much subjective. however, it feels wrong. i can't tell what is wong, but it just seems wrong. and that arises from emotion.

If not for emotions and hardwired conscience, man would not survived and prospered till today. The capitalist society depends on people's materialistic pursuits, rational thinking, and selfish behaviour to work. without conscience or emotion, man is a thinking machine.

Let me ask a question, what would you get if you ask a laptop computer to think? It would shut down after a while to save power, because that is what it was hardwired to do. What would you get if you ask a desktop computer to think? It would set the screensaver on, turn off the moniter, and eventually turn off the harddisks, because it was also hardwired to save power. What would you get if you ask a supercomputer to think? Nothing would happen, it was designed not to crash, to think for long hours, and thinking whatever a programmer comes along and tells it what to try to achieve.

So what would you get if you asked a person to think? A merchant would think of how to earn money, a scientist would think of how to solve his latest problem encountered, a lover would think of how to pursue his othe half. All in all, a processor left alone to think would be thinking of whatever it was designed to achieve. And humans are designed to be happy, to survive, and very importantly, not to break any of the moral codes of conduct. These codes of conduct are hardwired within us. sure, they hinder our goals, but if we ignore them we'll eventually be unhappy, so there is no point in achieve all the other goals. On the other hand, what is the point of sticking firming to moral codes of conduct if you could be happier had you not followed it?

Emotions are curious things that defy logic, they serve a purpose, they guide our lives, yet they are just so happen to be there. So are moral codes of conduct. If not for emotions and conscience, we would have no sense of direction. Cartoons and drama always have these two cute characters in the mind during a tough decision, the angel and the devil. In my opinion, emotion is the devil and concience in the angel. But let us not be mislead into thinking that the angel is in any way more noble than the devil, or that following the angel would certainly lead you to the correct path. In my opinion one should always think carefully, weigh all the possible outcomes, argue for and against boths sides and see who wins the tug of war. One did not "think" out a "logical" answer, the answer to any question always lies in the emotion and conscience, and ultimately, eventual happiness.

'Reason is and ought to be the slave of the passions'. ~ David Hume.