Gender: Male Location: Alnilam, 2nd star in the Orion Belt
IMO,
there are only two emotions:
Love & fear.
All other emotions are just sub-categories of these two.
Love is the most powerful,
but usually requires patience in order to utilize it's strength.
Fear, while not as powerful as love, can seem so because utilized with the opposite of patience, impatience, can manifest itself more explosively & therefore , many times, seems to even surpass Love in it's strength.
Well fear is pretty strong, but you can learn to ignore it. Many fears are not real fears, imo. They are just fear of the unknown. There are fears that we place on ourselves. A real fear, imo is one that is more primitive and we need it to survive.
__________________ Deja Moo: The feeling that you've heard this bull before.
see, this is why the question is dumb, we need to actually define what an emotion is, and then understand how they are all expressed in the brain.
For instance, disgust has its own system. Fear/anxiety and disgust would be my best bets, but by no means do I think that is an accurate way of answering the question.
like, what features make one emotion stronger than another?
Certainly this must be the most deeply hard-wired, shared by every living thing (ie, those organisms which didn't know fear likely didn't flee and got et). But would this make it the "strongest" emotion? Hard to say since love can override fear.
I would go with fear and anger, as these are the two most deeply hard-wired. But again, does that necessarily mean they're the "strongest"?
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Shinier than a speeding bullet.
I'd definitely say that fear is the strongest emotion and most occurring for the majority of people. It's present from birth in its most primitive form and I think it'd be safe to say that it persists throughout life as a dominant emotion. I can't think of a stronger feeling than say, a fatally wounded soldier fearing certain death. That's just an example, but you guys can probably see what I'm getting at. I also agree with what chill said, it does vary from person to person.
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"Nothing is ever as good as you can imagine it."
Last edited by SnakeEyes on Sep 7th, 2008 at 06:00 PM
I would say both hate and love. Hate for the reason, as Shaky said, it cannot be controlled. It can fuel a person to do things they never thought they'd be able or willing to do. Love for the reason that it is unconditional if you truly love a person. When you love someone, nothing in the world could hinder that feeling. Also, quite similarly to hate, it can make a person do things they never imagined themselves doing.
I would think a fatally wounded soldier would not fear death but welcome it.
But I'm with inimalist, we need to define the boundaries between emotions, what an emotion is and what makes an emotion strong to have a meaningful answer.
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Graffiti outside Latin class.
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A juvenal prank.
You explore so you no long fear the unknown.
You form civilization to protect you from the people/things you fear.
You create weapons to fight off the things you fear.
You build governments because you fear chaos.
You work together because you fear being destroyed on your own.
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Graffiti outside Latin class.
Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
A juvenal prank.
Could be; I think it depends on the person. Me, being an atheist, would be scared as hell. Obviously I don't know this for sure, but if I were lying there in my own blood with my guts hanging out, I don't think I'd welcome my life being cut short.
Actually it's much easier to argue that most emotions are ways of dealing with fear.
You feel "love" so that you don't have to fear being alone.
You feel "anger" typically because of fear that you have lost control.
You feel "envy" because you fear you've fallen behind.
and so on
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Graffiti outside Latin class.
Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
A juvenal prank.
You fear because you feel rejected by love
You hate because you feel you were rejected by love.
You are angry because you feel rejected.
Hmm, I never said anything about envy, but to me envy is a kind of hate for what you lost or do not have...i.e. a lack of love to your own self or a happiness towards others.
Fear is a worthless view. It is self impossed...at least most times. It is a self worth view..
__________________ Deja Moo: The feeling that you've heard this bull before.
Also possible, but considering that love is a fundamentally more complex emotion it seems far less likely. Not to mention people will feel those emotions even when they have not yet been in love, so love cannot be the root cause.
Wanted a round three.
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Graffiti outside Latin class.
Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
A juvenal prank.