What other TV shows do you watch?

[J.P.]

16 hours ago, Van Buren Supernova said:

We should and do know better

So much for "sapiens".

[Artemis]

I've been rewatching some of "Resident Alien", and this time around I'm starting to notice that Asta is essentially Harry's Watson: i.e. colleague, friend, and "Not good?" detector, lol.
 

 

[Artemis]

 

[Artemis]

 

[Van Buren Supernova]

On 4/12/2021 at 12:17 PM, Carol the Dabbler said:

From what I've read, rape is more often done out of hatred, and I suspect something similar may be true of predation.

Not sure about your source, but it's definitely different with mine.

On 4/2/2021 at 12:55 PM, Artemis said:

For context: Harry is an alien from a nonemotional species, stuck on Earth in a situation where he is experiencing unfamiliar feelings he doesn't understand, does not want, and struggles to express. 

I was pondering about this. Would you guys want to actually be 'converted' and know what feelings are if you are Harry? (I don't know anything about the series. Say you are Harry and someone explain to you very well about the 'consequences' of having all those feelings)

Human and feelings are full of pains and ugliness. One would debate the positives and beauties are worth that. But would we be better if we are nonemotional species?? I was thinking the other day that we have so, so many flaws. Gravity, age, emotions, pain, I know, I know, blah blah they make us human, but maybe, maybe we are too human??

[Carol the Dabbler]

11 hours ago, Van Buren Supernova said:

Human and feelings are full of pains and ugliness. One would debate the positives and beauties are worth that. But would we be better if we are nonemotional species?? I was thinking the other day that we have so, so many flaws. Gravity, age, emotions, pain, I know, I know, blah blah they make us human, but maybe, maybe we are too human??

I can't answer for our entire species, but for myself I would say it'd be nice to have an on/off button!  I have some allergies that make me feel panicky, and I could sure do without that, but the rest of the time I'd rather have my emotions.

Back when marijuana was only slightly illegal, I used it a few times.  Mostly it was grown by someone I knew and trusted, but the last time a friend had gotten some from an acquaintance of an acquaintance.  I don't know exactly what that stuff was, but I'd guess it was really poor grade MJ with some chemical drug added.  The only effect it had on me was to turn off my emotions, and I didn't like that at all.  I remember sitting there thinking "If I had any emotions right now, I'd be really pissed off."

As for turning off other people's emotions, that would also get rid of the positive emotions that lead people to take care of their families and help strangers in need, and all the other nice things that people do.  I suspect it wouldn't be any improvement, quite possibly even a net loss.

 

[J.P.]

I'm not sure. People could also care for each other because it makes sense/benefit everyone in the group and help strangers on principle. Because I don't think emotions are necessary for telling good from wrong. They may even be a hindrance.
What may go missing though is the reason for wanting to be alive.

[Carol the Dabbler]

2 hours ago, J.P. said:

People could also care for each other because it makes sense/benefit everyone in the group and help strangers on principle. Because I don't think emotions are necessary for telling good from wrong. They may even be a hindrance.
What may go missing though is the reason for wanting to be alive.

Those are all good questions, not easy to answer.  It would help to know whether empathy is an emotion.  I don't think it is, in the usual sense (with "emotion" meaning things like joy, sadness, love, loneliness).  But empathy isn't factual or scientific either, it's a feeling.  So maybe we should be talking about whether it's helpful to have feelings?

 

[Artemis]

On 4/18/2021 at 5:24 PM, J.P. said:

I'm not sure. People could also care for each other because it makes sense/benefit everyone in the group and help strangers on principle. Because I don't think emotions are necessary for telling good from wrong. They may even be a hindrance.
What may go missing though is the reason for wanting to be alive.

I was planning to respond with "curiosity", and then by coincidence I happened upon a little post on this topic on Tumblr that explained my thought better.  (I'm having some trouble putting words together lately.)

Quote

Since watching the Resident Alien pilot yesterday, I was thinking about the fact that Harry's people thought the human need for connection was a weakness.  It didn't make sense to me, because in my mind social nature is a prerequisite of a civilization.  It's what pushes communication to develop, enables cooperation, etc.  I could not imagine a non-social civilization.  I know this is fiction and comedy, but it bugged me as a gap in logic.
Then, today, I was scrolling the Resident Alien tag again, and there was this gif of Harry squatting near the dead body, saying "Awesome!", and it hit me!  CURIOSITY!  That could be a drive for non-social creatures to create communication and cooperation.  Not for common good, but to figure out things they couldn't on their own.  For now, this is my headcanon - his individualistic civilization is driven and held together by their common interest in seeking new knowledge, finding new good mystery to solve.

...

On 4/18/2021 at 5:24 PM, J.P. said:

What may go missing though is the reason for wanting to be alive.

It can work the opposite way too.  Some days emotions are what have diminished my desire to be alive, and curiosity is all that has pulled me through.

Anyway, I don't think this is really a question I can answer.  Asking if I'd want to be entirely nonemotional is kind of like asking if I'd want a part of me lobotomized, and as I can't imagine what it might be like to lack an integral facet of my personhood, I can't determine whether it would be a loss or a gain.  On a social level, I think a lot of art, music, and other forms of creative expression would disappear.  I'm inclined to say no thanks, I'll keep my emotions, warts and all.

 

[Van Buren Supernova]

On 4/20/2021 at 1:04 PM, Artemis said:

Asking if I'd want to be entirely nonemotional is kind of like asking if I'd want a part of me lobotomized, and as I can't imagine what it might be like to lack an integral facet of my personhood, I can't determine whether it would be a loss or a gain. 

But my question is IF you are not what you are YET. But you have been told and understood clearly about the idea of emotion. 

I don't read your detailed posts as I plan to watch the series, I was assuming it'd be like the character of the series, when naturally he doesn't have emotion. If you were him, would you want to learn to have emotion?

For the reality of us, of course we are doomed, we don't have choice and that is the part of us, like you said, with the warts and all.

I'm just pondering would it be better if we are actually like that? No emotions, and like JP's, it doesn't mean we don't know right or wrong. I don't know my answer too, there are people and things that make emotions worth while, and there are little things that make me happy and giggle like little girl and a little bit or big outburst would bring up my energy or bad sides of me that makes me what I am. I'd say it gives meaning to life, but it's unstable. Take away couple of things that matter and it would be volatile and I don't like that.

 

[Arcadia]

Isn't curiosity an emotion?

[Artemis]

19 hours ago, Van Buren Supernova said:

I was assuming it'd be like the character of the series, when naturally he doesn't have emotion. If you were him, would you want to learn to have emotion?

No, I would want to be who I was naturally designed to be.

To elaborate, I don’t think we as humans would be better off without emotions, because we were built to have them.  Likewise, hypothetically speaking, I don’t think Harry’s people would be better off with emotions, because they were built to function without them.

Think of it like an ecosystem.  When you introduce a non-native species into a healthy, functioning ecosystem, or eliminate a native species from one, you run the risk of collapsing that system.  Most systems can adapt, but some will die; and even adaption is not necessarily an improvement on original design.

12 hours ago, Arcadia said:

Isn't curiosity an emotion?

I would call it a sense rather than an emotion.  Like duty, conscience, or empathy, to use Carol’s example.

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

4 hours ago, Artemis said:

I would call it a sense rather than an emotion.  Like duty, conscience, or empathy, to use Carol’s example.

You call it a "sense," I called it a "feeling," and I'm not sure either term is quite right.  We do use expressions like "sense of duty," but the word "sense" is more often used to mean physical perception, as in "sense of touch."  And I think the word "feeling" is often used for emotions.  So here we've got curiosity and empathy, which neither of us wants to lump in with the usual emotions, but there doesn't seem to be a standard word for that sort of thing.

In defense of your statement that curiosity is not an emotion, I refer you to Mr. Spock, who is openly curious about nearly everything, despite repressing his emotions nearly to the point of denying that they exist.  Then of course there's Data who (pre-emotion-chip) has no emotions whatsoever, yet is curious as all get-out.  Yes, they're both fictitious, but they're both very believable characters, meaning they make sense to their human audience, so there's apparently no big incongruity there.

 

[Artemis]

25 minutes ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

You call it a "sense," I called it a "feeling," and I'm not sure either term is quite right.

‘Sense’ or ‘feeling’, I’d consider either acceptable since, as you say, there’s no word to account for the nuance.  ‘Sense’ is just my preference.

 

[Van Buren Supernova]

On 4/23/2021 at 7:26 PM, Arcadia said:

Isn't curiosity an emotion?

Now, I am curious about whether curiosity is considered as emotion, because if someone asked me what is emotion? I'd think curiosity would not be my top 20 answer?

Looked up the definition, emotion is described as 'a natural instinctive state of mind deriving from one's circumstances, mood, or relationships with others'.

By that definition, curiosity fits a reaction from one's circumstances. 

I was thinking it could be categorized as instinct, which is also connected with intuition therefore is also part of emotion.

On 4/19/2021 at 9:24 AM, Carol the Dabbler said:

Those are all good questions, not easy to answer.  It would help to know whether empathy is an emotion.  I don't think it is, in the usual sense (with "emotion" meaning things like joy, sadness, love, loneliness).  But empathy isn't factual or scientific either, it's a feeling.  So maybe we should be talking about whether it's helpful to have feelings?

Now in my scrambled mind, I supposed there are 'reactive' and 'active' sub part of emotions? Does it make sense?

Those feelings that you mentioned is more like reactive, how something affects and triggesr a reaction from you, with you having much of ability to resist or contain it.

Something like curiosity, is more active? It causes you to actively try to find out more instead of just reacting, therefore you have more power here.

Forgive me, I'm actually not sure what I am smoking here. I have thoughts about wide variety of weird things lately, have many questions in my head that I don't have the ability to put into words to convey my points. One of them is why are we the way we are and is it beneficial if we have the ability to make us less.. bjberbgaey..we?? I haven't had my coffee today and my head is pounding.

Will try again sometimes. And this had gone off topic too, so pardon me.

 

P.S. I hate that the quote box in the beginning of post is too stubborn to be moved. So not to mess with overall of the post, I like your answer Artemis, it makes sense. I do have a lot and more questions regarding that. But again, maybe in better days when I am not having incoherent fifty mini useless thoughts.

 

[Artemis]

10 hours ago, Van Buren Supernova said:

Looked up the definition, emotion is described as 'a natural instinctive state of mind deriving from one's circumstances, mood, or relationships with others'.

By that definition, curiosity fits a reaction from one's circumstances. 

I was thinking it could be categorized as instinct, which is also connected with intuition therefore is also part of emotion.

See, I wouldn’t categorize intuition as emotion either.  In fact that was on my original list of “non-emotional feelings” along with a handful of other examples I deleted because I didn’t want to be overwhelming, lol.  Emotions can arise in reaction to intuition (e.g. I “feel” something is wrong but I don’t know what, and then I am afraid - fear is the emotion), but I wouldn’t call the “sixth sense” itself an emotion.  If I said “I have a feeling it’s going to be a busy day,” I wouldn’t say I’m experiencing an emotion.  If I felt dread as a result, that would be an emotion.  Sherlock’s “deductive reasoning” (since we are on the “Sherlock” forum, after all) is riddled with intuition, and I wouldn’t call that emotion.  Even lumped into some kind of subgroup of emotion like you suggested, I just don’t think that’s the right word.

Some feelings have emotional and non-emotional meanings, depending.  For instance, you could say “I’m exhausted,” and mean either that you are physically exhausted from bodily exertion, mentally exhausted from mental exertion, or emotionally exhausted for any number of reasons.  (Sometimes you can be all of them.)  Emotional exhaustion is also experienced physically, because emotion and physicality are tied together.  But physical feelings can be experienced independently from emotion.  In other words, all feelings are physical, but not all feelings are emotional.  My point being (I think?) that there is a massive gray area and a great deal of variation in what we call “feeling”, and not everything can be (or has to be) neatly categorized.

Now and then I have a bone to pick with the way the dictionary defines the human experience, and I guess this is one of those times.  I don’t have the energy to put into making my case though, lol.  Maybe later...

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

[Artemis just posted before I could hit Reply, so this is mostly a response to VBS]

I'm starting to think that curiosity and empathy may be personality traits.  It does seem that some people are more likely than others to exhibit them.  (Same with Artemis's other examples, duty and conscience, I suppose.)

I wonder whether it would be a fair test (of what's an emotion and what's not) to ask which of these things (including the traditional emotions such as joy and sadness) are disabled by a lobotomy.  A long-ago friend of mine worked with a nurse who had been so incapacitated by her overwhelming emotions that she had chosen to have a lobotomy.  My friend said she was still a very good nurse, but she was never happy or sad.  Now I'm wondering if she was still curious or empathic.

10 hours ago, Van Buren Supernova said:

Those feelings that you mentioned is more like reactive, how something affects and triggesr a reaction from you, with you having much of ability to resist or contain it.

Something like curiosity, is more active? It causes you to actively try to find out more instead of just reacting, therefore you have more power here.

There may be difference in degree, but I think all of the things we've mentioned are reactions to something outside ourselves.  For example, a person tends to exhibit curiosity due to noticing something that doesn't quite make sense to them, so that's a reaction.  And a traditional emotion such as joy can prompt a person to change their behavior.

10 hours ago, Van Buren Supernova said:

I hate that the quote box in the beginning of post is too stubborn to be moved.

I hate it when that happens!  If you happen to think of it ahead of time, you can put something at the beginning of your reply box (even some little thing like a dot) and then put the quote.  This will enable you to position the cursor ahead of the quote box later on, if you want.  But if you're like me, you don't tend to think of putting the dot there unless it turns out that you didn't need it after all.  You can erase everything inside the box if you like (and maybe put something like

Oh, Lordy, this is extra weird.  The very next thing I typed. right after the above, was this:

{quote postponed}

(only in square brackets), followed immediately by the first line in the partial quote box below, then I addressed Artemis, as below.  There was no quote box intended, and my closing square bracket did not immediately follow the word "quote" (as it supposedly needs to do in BBCode) -- in fact, there was a whole 'nother word in between!  I'm not even gonna try to fix it!

Quote

) then put what you meant to say first, then do the quote for real.

@Artemis -- I agree with a lot of what you said.

 

[Artemis]

6 minutes ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

I'm starting to think that curiosity and empathy may be personality traits.  It does seem that some people are more likely than others to exhibit them.

I consider them traits and feelings.  Many personality traits are not feelings at all.

 

[J.P.]

Not sure if curiosity is an emotion or not (I think it rather is),
but this actually is spot on about my reasons for social interactions, and that's why I feel like Internet is a good place to be. Oh, I always knew, I was an alien…

Quote

Then, today, I was scrolling the Resident Alien tag again, and there was this gif of Harry squatting near the dead body, saying “Awesome!”, and it hit me! CURIOSITY! That could be a drive for a non-social creatures to create communication and cooperation. Not for common good, but to figure out things they couldn’t on their own. For now, this is my headcannon - his individualistic civilization is driven and held together by their common interest in seeking new knowledge, finding new good mystery to solve.

 

[J.P.]

Ok… kay. Twelve Monkeys.
Timey wimey… time travel. 4 Seasons of loops and loops and mind bending. Could be maybe two season shorter, but it's so complicated you don't notice the continuity errors, if there are some. Got over the disappointment of it being not like the movie and actually learned to like it.
It's a wild ride, something a bit over the top, but also some terrific little elements from an obvious TV-nerd among the makers.
Aaaand what really stands out from the most of the shows I've seen lately - it seemed to be written as one story and it has a satisfying end.

[Arcadia]

14 hours ago, J.P. said:

Ok… kay. Twelve Monkeys.
Timey wimey… time travel. 4 Seasons of loops and loops and mind bending. Could be maybe two season shorter, but it's so complicated you don't notice the continuity errors, if there are some. Got over the disappointment of it being not like the movie and actually learned to like it.
It's a wild ride, something a bit over the top, but also some terrific little elements from an obvious TV-nerd among the makers.
Aaaand what really stands out from the most of the shows I've seen lately - it seemed to be written as one story and it has a satisfying end.

Oooo, sounds like my kind of show! And I don't remember much about the film (except that I rather liked it) so that wouldn't bother me. Available on DVD, one hopes? Or is it one of those streaming things?

[J.P.]

Amazon.
It's crazier than the movie. And you shouldn't be too strickt when it comes to believability of the "science". Still it has not THAT many of cringeworthy moments.

[J.P.]

And yes, it has quite bad ratings.

[Arcadia]

7 hours ago, J.P. said:

And yes, it has quite bad ratings.

Oh well, so do some of my favorite albums. 

[J.P.]

Lucifer runs again on TV, so I decided to give it a second chance, because I wasn't that impressed by the story the first time.
Well, if you watch something from the beginning it definitely makes more sense, so I ended binging all of it on Amazon.

Very mixed emotions about this one. It's like a LOT of trivial, silly  to stupid things mixed with occassionally strike of funny, profound, heartbreaking and food for thought, that makes you keep watching. It definitely suffers from all series too-long-to-be-good syndrom, but what made me crazy is the inconsequent writing. It's like watching 6 Thatchers for at least 3 seasons. Looks like nobody really knows, who their characters are, or each writer wants them to be someone else. Characters suffer from the dementia and seem not to remember what developement they went trough an episode ago.

What makes me watch it is probably Tom Ellis and some other amazing actors that I enjoy watching - except the leading actress Lauren German, who I find extremely annoying and lacking chemistry with her on screen partner.

In the whole this reminds me a bit of Sherlock - a story about a chosen family that grows around a self centered, annoying brat with some special skills.

Aaand IMO it could end with S5. Because with all the ridicoulous, over the top stuff that happens at the finale at the end - it was a rare case of a story saved by the last line.

Maybe that's why I think if could end here, even if it was a bit unsatisfying with its rushed storrytelling. But - because I'm not really attached to it emotionally, I don't fear watching S6.

PS: wasn't Lucifer a case of a show saved by the fans, when the producers wanted to drop it?