I have a bit of a strange, but maybe fun and interesting, question that is somewhat based on psychology and somewhat based on philosophy. :crazy: I was marveling today about the amazing "full" array of emotions that human beings have the ability to feel. I began, in my mind, to make analogies between the spectrum of emotions we have in our programming to the spectrum of visible light. Isn't it incredible how every color imaginable is represented by the visible spectrum of light! Errrr, well, that is only because we lack the ability to imagine colors that we neither have never seen nor have the ability to see. We know that light can come in the form of infrared and ultraviolet, but that they fall outside of the range of light that our eyes can detect and upload to our brains. The light exists but, to us, forms no color. In similar vain, I wonder if the "full" array of emotions are only "full" because I lack the ability to imagine what any other emotion might feel like. Or, what conditions would trigger such an emotion. It's easy to imagine that we have all the emotions that we will ever need, since they cover every situation imaginable. Imagine... imaginable... there goes those words again. Could it be that something could ever happen to one of us, or all of us, that is so far outside of any of our imaginations that we would simply lack the emotion to react to it?
Personally I think it is possible but one additional question is "Must these be human emotions?" Other species may well have emotions that are not "human" and there may be emotions that our species may develop or discover someday based on the idea of human evolution. There was a news story recently in which a young man, who had been in a coma following an accident, awoke from the coma speaking perfect Mandarin. He had taken the course in high school and only received average grades. Still, all the infomation was in his brain and somehow he was able to access it at a level superior to that when he was actively studying the subject. You may be interested in reading this chapter by the Philosopher Thomas Nagel from his book Mortal Questions. The chapter is entitled "What is it like to be a bat?" http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/ahyvarin/teaching/niseminar4/Nagel_WhatIsItLikeToBeABat.pdf
Interestingly, people can see somewhat into the ultraviolet part of the spectrum, but it's filtered by our corneas. People with artificial corneas can see it.
It is believed that the lesser intelligent animals can't feel the same range of emotions as humans. At the same time, there are people who believe there are life forms on other planets that are far more evolved than humans. If you believe in extraterrestrial life, then I think it's easy to believe that humans are on the lower end of intelligent life given that we are a relatively new species. Maybe there are older intelligent life forms out there that have gotten past warring with each other and deliberately destroying their own planet.
