You see this is what happens when two or more minds roundtable an idea, one creates a greater perspective.

Emotion is reaction to stimuli. Emotions are the result of imbalanced thoughts stored within consciousness.

If a child gets 2 chocolate chip cookies every week as a reward for doing his chores, after awhile he is going to bias chocolate chip cookies very positively and when someone mentions them, he will have a strong positive association. He/she may grow up to buy chocolate chip cookies regularly, still using them as a subconscious reward for dealing with lifes problems.

The emotions triggered by someone with such experiences will be wholly different than someone who almost choked to death on a half-burnt chocolate chip cookie once when they were 5 and now has a strong negative reaction to them, and in fact is convinced he/she hates all cookies.

Both are real "emotional" responses to a neutral object - a cookie. Both are the byproduct of imbalances.

The emotional response is not an end in itself. It is a stage of learning and a tool humanity uses to further develop its intellect and abilities.

Some folks would be nonplussed about folks having hang-ups about cookies and would see them as messed up. However, their experiences each have put their respective evolutionary positions.

This was more than a little disturbing, even repugnant:

"In the Middle East we see the howls of sympathy for the dead. Much like watching wolves howl when one of their pack dies."

You're quite clearly saying that people in the Middle East are not human, and comparing them to dumb beasts. That is absolutely despicable...and is powerful evidence that your ability to model other minds through a theory of mind is deeply flawed and perhaps nonexistent. You lack empathy, and I have to say, that a deficiency in this most crucial strength of the human mind suggests that it might well be you who could be judged less than human.

No, my point was to point out evolutionary development again. Humans are evolved from animals. Each human, like it or not, has these animal responses which they are evolving away from. When many Sudanese demand death for a teacher who names a Teddy Bear Mohammed or many Palestinian women pull out their hair in grief and howl publicly for a suicide bomber, which they encouraged to blow himself up, we are seeing folks who are less developed than many of their western and eastern counterparts throughout the world. Like it or not, there are indeed different levels of human development. All humans are not born equal, nor are all global environments equal in achieving maximum intellectual potential. In truth, some humans live very little different than do the animals they have evolved from. This has been known for centuries and only today is it politically incorrect to point out savagery and call it for what it is - savagery.

These people's hate or sadness emotional extremes, just like the chocolate chip cookie kids, are the byproduct of limited data sets and limited experience.

Tearing hair and howling does nothing for the dead. In fact, it spurs more kids who watch or participate in this "pack grieving" to become suicide bombers, and so is actually harming more children because it is a reaction based on the lowest levels of human intelligence. It does not spur intellectual reasoning which avoids future deaths, just as the calls for the British woman's death do nothing for Islam - but they are not developed enough to realize these things, because they are all too often still merely clothed savages - capable of killing with barely any thought and grieving without any intellect.

You have it exactly opposite. I have so much empathy that I can transpose myself seamlessly into the minds of many varied peoples and because of my own evolutionary position I can often see where they are lacking crucial data & experience which would negate these violent emotional outbursts, cancelling them out before they started.

No, emotions are the undoing of intellect. They are the cause of wars, murder, fear and depression. Only constructive emotions, which by their nature are the byproduct of many more refined thoughts and experiences are desirable. Emotions such as love, concern, happiness and contentment.

The rest, we are all evolving away from. It is easier seen in perspective to realize our intellect evolves and emerges from our emotion predecessors.

A man/woman without hate, without fear, without sadness, without depression - is the future of humanity. They can react to death with even more concern than the hair pullers and yet not shed a single tear - because they have evolved past the productivity of such tears.

A man/woman who can be insulted to the very core of their being and not feel an ounce of hatred, a desire to lash out or destroy that which insults them, and who do not feel threatened by the views of others - because they have evolved to the point where they realize such reactions are self-destructive.

The Spock bit is not accurate. Emotions evolve and become reason. Emotions are impossible to ban or repress. The goal is not to deny emotional responses, but rather to immediately add to them as they appear with more input, intellect and to balance them. An intelligent person realizes that their emotions are the byproduct of stored views and the sum of their knowledge.

Of course this can only be done at that point when one realizes these violent emotional outbursts are actually counterproductive to one's evolutionary development and are only valuable inasmuch as they guide one to more refined states of expression.

Yes, the future of humanity will be nearly violence free. They will be joyful but not frantically overjoyed. They will never be depressed, but will always be able to respond to lows in consciousness with a surefire antidote - progressive, constructive action. Sadness will also disappear, replaced with understanding of all things.

Sadness is the result of incomplete understanding. Folks are sad when people die because they do not understand death or even much of life. They do not see any continuity and so grieve - for themselves. It does the dead person no good at all to have their former family and friends in tears and in the throes of sadness & depression.

So these tears are tears of selfishness - of loss.

That is why I am not one to grieve for the dead. It is because it is selfishness that spurs such grief. Most of humanity has not reached such self-awareness in regards to such emotions yet and that is fine. They will arrive at such points in some future lifetimes - after grieving long enough and not seeing any constructive results, and awakening to the destructive aspects of such grief.

I've done my time grieving. I know all to well the traps of viewing the universe solely as it relates to oneself. Most emotions are still central to this self-centric outlook and most folks are still just now becoming aware that selfishness isn't necessarily good.

Selfishness was fine for the animal. All it knows and wants is food,shelter and survival and cares absolutely nothing for others. Animals evolve, their instincts are formed and in turn develop working relationships with groups, but still largely from a self-centered perspective. Because the pack, herd or whatever best facilitates these needs of food, shelter and survival.

Humanity is in a different boat. It is the first animal that can reason and feel, because it has an infinitely more complex intellectual capacity than does the animal. A human can care for others not just because of selfish reasons but because a human understands things better and feels empathy based upon their own stored experiences.

I've gone on and on here...but I have to break off somewhere. I hope I've made my perspective just a little bit clearer. And I hope both you and Eri can see why some emotions must be abandoned for humanity to continue to evolve.

;-)