Integrating Emotions and Reason for Effective Decision-Making

For the past five years I've been teaching a class at various rationality camps, workshops, conferences, etc. I’ve done it maybe 50 times in total, and I think I’ve only encountered a handful out of a few hundred teenagers and adults who really had a deep sense of what it means for emotions to “make sense.” Even people who have seen Inside Out, and internalized its message about the value of Sadness as an emotion, still think things like “I wish I never felt Jealousy,” or would have trouble answering “What's the point of Boredom?”

The point of the class was to give them not a simple answer for each emotion, but to internalize the model by which emotions, as a whole, are understood to be evolutionarily beneficial adaptations; adaptations that may not in fact all be well suited to the modern, developed world, but which can still help [...]

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Outline:

(01:00) Inside Out

(05:46) Pick an Emotion, Any Emotion

(07:05) Anxiety

(08:27) Jealousy/Envy

(11:13) Boredom/Frustration/Laziness

(15:31) Confusion

(17:35) Apathy and Ennui (aan-wee)

(21:23) Hatred/Panic/Depression

(28:33) What this Means for You

(29:20) Emotions as Chemicals

(30:51) Emotions as Motivators

(34:13) Final Thoughts

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First published:
August 3rd, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/PkRXkhsEHwcGqRJ9Z/emotions-make-sense

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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