GOT AWE?

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Glorious Day My Precious Fellow Traveler -

As part of the AI revolution, scientists are creating robots that emote like us humans. Their bet - a very sensible, profitable one - is that we’ll be more likely to purchase such robots as companions and caregivers than ones that are emotionless and mechanical.

This monumental AI undertaking naturally raises the question of how many different emotions the average human is capable of expressing. According to most psychologists, the long answer is twenty-seven, the short answer is seven.

Emotions

We experience emotions automatically - we don’t willingly choose to have them - and express them primarily through facial expressions and body language. Also, emotions disrupt our physiology - heart rate, blood pressure, hormone levels, etc. - but usually for no longer than an hour. Prolonged emotions become moods.

We typically experience emotions in reaction to recalled memories or outside stimuli - for example, smelling rotting meat or finding ourselves in the direct path of a charging rhino.

And finally, according to modern evolutionary biology, emotions evolved to help individuals, families, and close-knit societies survive and procreate. This view is, of course, entirely in line with evolutionary biology’s central, utilitarian dogma, namely: Everything about living organisms, not just humans, evolved in order to help them live, fight, and multiply another day.

The late American psychologist Paul Ekman is credited with the modern version of what’s called the Basic Emotions Theory. According to this theory, humans of every sex, culture, creed, and upbringing are capable of expressing seven core emotions.

Very briefly, here they are, together with the putative reasons they evolved:

1. Anger

This emotion supposedly evolved to help individuals scare away potential threats to themselves, their resources, their families, and their societies.

2. Contempt

This emotion supposedly evolved to help families and societies maintain law and order. Showing contempt helps discipline rebels, loafers, malcontents, incompetents, criminals, and other perceived threats to their lives, resources, cohesion, hierarchies, and standards of behavior.

3. Disgust

This emotion supposedly evolved to protect individuals from ingesting dangerous foods and drinks. Experiencing disgust also helps keep us away from diseased individuals and environments that might do us harm.

4. Enjoyment

This emotion supposedly evolved as a reward for jobs well done, for good behavior, and for any and all other efforts that enhance an individual’s ability to survive and procreate. Feeling joyful, in other words, is a strong form of positive reinforcement that encourages us to succeed in life.

5. Fear

This emotion supposedly evolved to discourage individuals from behaving recklessly and, thus, to maximize their chances of surviving in the face of danger. When we’re faced with a threat, fear instantly heightens our five senses, prepares our muscles for action, and energizes our body chemistry - for example, by triggering an adrenalin rush.

6. Sadness

This emotion supposedly evolved to console individuals and communities who are suffering. When we express sadness it’s like flashing a Bat Signal: it mobilizes those around us to come to our aid and comfort, thereby boosting our chances of making it safely through the crisis.

7. Surprise

This emotion - like fear - supposedly evolved to help us respond quickly and with heightened abilities to sudden, unexpected events. When we’re surprised, our eyes widen and our attention is instantly laser-focused on the cause of the surprise - an invaluable reaction to events that might very well spell the difference between life and death.

More Emotions

Ekman’s Basic Emotions Theory is by no means science’s last word on the subject. Fact is, there are countless competing theories over which biologists and psychologists squabble endlessly. These educated guesses go by names such as Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions and Russell’s Circumplex Model of Affect.

One theory that has gotten a great deal of attention belongs to a pair of psychologists at the University of California, Berkeley: Alan S. Cowen and Dacher Keltner. According to them there are 27 identifiable human emotions:

• Admiration

• Adoration

• Aesthetic appreciation

• Amusement

• Anxiety

• Awe

• Awkwardness

• Boredom

• Calmness

• Confusion

• Craving

• Disgust

• Empathetic pain

• Entrancement

• Envy

• Excitement

• Fear

• Horror

• Interest

• Joy

• Nostalgia

• Romance

• Sadness

• Satisfaction

• Sexual desire

• Sympathy

• Triumph

Awe

The one emotion on the list I find most intriguing and that science has the hardest time explaining is awe. In the words of a Psychology Today article dedicated to this singular emotion: “Awe is still in some ways mysterious, and the study of it is still relatively new.”

Awe is the emotion that overcomes us when we have an experience that’s bigger than life. That transcends the ordinary. That defies description. That beggars the imagination.

An awesome experience takes our breath away and fills us with a profound sense of wonder. I experienced awe when: