Pleasure and Pain

  • In encouraging organisms to pursue adaptive goals, the brain has assembled a system of rewards and punishments.

  • Emotions are motivational amplifiers (Tomkins, 1980).

  • The only emotions we experience are emotions that have been designed by natural selection as adaptations that enhance survival:

    jealousy, embarrassment, hunger, disgust, suspicion, sympathy, itchiness, love -- all are adaptations

  • There are no non-adaptive emotions.


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