You are certainly well read, and I think you are on the right track with your idea, but lets not call emotions "strategies." Emotions, I suggest, are innate appetites or needs that operate homeostatically and independently, like a thermostat. If the level of some vital survival need falls below a critical threshold, we experience pain, like hunger, which is nature's signal to take action to fix the problem. When the desired resource level is reacquired, we are back to the set-point (homeostatic equilibrium) and feel good again. The rational mind's job, as I see it, is to figure out strategies to keep human nature's 10 survival thermostats comfortably at their set-points. This is the basic idea behind Antonio Damasio's work on emotions (David Brooks refers to Damasio in his TED talk). It is also the basic idea behind my book, Primal Management.
I think human beings have the following social/technological appetites that compliment the biologic appetites to create a comprehensive bio/social survival system: 1) An appetite to innovate and develop technologies (innovation appetite), 2) an appetite to master the survival technology of our tribe (competency appetite), 3) an appetite use the tribe's survival technologies to achieve day-to-day goals (achievement appetite), 4) an appetite to deploy the tribe's shared survival technology as a coordinated and collaborative unit (cooperation appetite), and 5) an appetite protect oneself and one's tribe from physical and psychological harm (self-protection appetite). In Primal Management I show where these social thermostats exist in the brain, which neurotransmitters regulate them, and how human beings go haywire if any of these vital survival systems are damaged by disease or injury.
What do you think of this homeostatic idea (emotional system separate from, but intertwined with, the conscious strategy-management system)?
Best,
Paul Herr
Author of Primal Management
http://primalmanagement.com
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A comment on Conversation: emotions are a power strategy that change our character (physically through neuroplasticity)
You are certainly well read, and I think you are on the right track with your idea, but lets not call emotions "strategies." Emotions, I suggest, are innate appetites or needs that operate homeostatically and independently, like a thermostat. If the level of some vital survival need falls below a critical threshold, we experience pain, like hunger, which is nature's signal to take action to fix the problem. When the desired resource level is reacquired, we are back to the set-point (homeostatic equilibrium) and feel good again. The rational mind's job, as I see it, is to figure out strategies to keep human nature's 10 survival thermostats comfortably at their set-points. This is the basic idea behind Antonio Damasio's work on emotions (David Brooks refers to Damasio in his TED talk). It is also the basic idea behind my book, Primal Management.
I think human beings have the following social/technological appetites that compliment the biologic appetites to create a comprehensive bio/social survival system: 1) An appetite to innovate and develop technologies (innovation appetite), 2) an appetite to master the survival technology of our tribe (competency appetite), 3) an appetite use the tribe's survival technologies to achieve day-to-day goals (achievement appetite), 4) an appetite to deploy the tribe's shared survival technology as a coordinated and collaborative unit (cooperation appetite), and 5) an appetite protect oneself and one's tribe from physical and psychological harm (self-protection appetite). In Primal Management I show where these social thermostats exist in the brain, which neurotransmitters regulate them, and how human beings go haywire if any of these vital survival systems are damaged by disease or injury.
What do you think of this homeostatic idea (emotional system separate from, but intertwined with, the conscious strategy-management system)?
Best,
Paul Herr
Author of Primal Management
http://primalmanagement.com