When you watch a movie, you will notice there are sounds, visuals, colors, a story line, plot, climax, and an ending to it. But there is something more in a movie as well which would be the atmosphere. If all the characters in the movie just played out the whole movie in a completely monotonous manner, then that would be a dull movie. There would be no joyful, beautiful, or horrible atmosphere at all to that movie. This is what our basic, lower emotions do.
They create the mental atmosphere for us in our lives whether that atmosphere be something joyful, beautiful, loving, disgusting, etc. Without that atmosphere, then our lives would have no value since it would be a dull, valueless atmosphere. Sure, people do act emotional through their intellect and morality as I pointed out earlier.
But, on the inside, these people would be like empty vessels and they would really be having no atmosphere at all in their lives without their basic, lower emotions. My basic, lower emotions create my entire atmosphere and this has been my own personal experience. My morality and intellect alone does not create any type of atmosphere whatsoever. All I am doing is just sharing to you my own personal experience.
There were many moments where I was happy, many moments where I was completely hopeless and miserable, and there were also many moments in my life where I was completely numb inside. All of these moments have given me great insight into these basic, lower emotions and just how vital they really are. Many people are led to believe that they aren't that important, that they are trivial, and that we just need to be tough and rule over them rather than allowing them to rule over us.
But I think they are absolutely vital and many people are in denial. I have pointed out earlier how people are already in denial when it comes to these basic, lower emotions since they are denying the fact that they are value judgments. However, I am open minded to the possibility that I am just allowing them to rule the atmosphere of my life. If I can somehow create my own atmosphere rather than my basic emotions doing that for me, then that would be great since I would be the one in charge of my life rather than my basic emotions. But I am not sure this is even possible.
One last thing here. Positive emotions are the reward wanting and liking as pointed out by this study. I will give the link to the study soon enough. If you were to conduct a survey and ask many people if their positive emotions are a form of wanting and liking, they would say "no." These people would instead tell you that it is their morality and intellect which allows them to want and like things. This also shows here that these people are in denial when it comes to their positive emotions because they deny the fact that they are a form of wanting and liking.
It is through our positive emotions that we want and like things such as if you felt excited about the idea of getting a new movie or video game. Since people are in denial, then why would you expect me to trust them when they make the claim that their morality and intellect is a real form of value and a real form of wanting and liking in their lives? I have only my own personal experience to go by and I cannot trust humanity no matter the things they say. With all of this being said, here is the study:
We have found a special hedonic hotspot that is crucial for reward 'liking' and 'wanting' (and codes reward learning too). The opioid hedonic hotspot is shown in red above. It works together with another hedonic hotspot in the more famous nucleus accumbens to generate pleasure 'liking'.
‘Liking’ and ‘wanting’ food rewards: Brain substrates and roles in eating disorders
Kent C. Berridge 2009 Mar 29.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2717031/