Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watcgl!jwtlai
From: jwtlai@watcgl.waterloo.edu (Jim W Lai)
Subject: Re: Of sex and philosophy (was: emergent properties)
Message-ID: <1990Oct7.005440.23109@watcgl.waterloo.edu>
Keywords: pleasure, stoicism, self
Organization: University of Waterloo
References: <3499@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> <13197@cs.utexas.edu> <8@tdatirv.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 7 Oct 90 00:54:40 GMT
Lines: 28

In article <8@tdatirv.UUCP> sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) writes:
>The basic sex drive of the
>proto-mammalian pleasure center is a primary emotion.  It ensures that all
>humans have a fundamental drive to reproduce, however it is actually manifest
>in behavior.  [...]  However,
>the sexual desires and responses we are conscious of are much more complex
>then a simple reproductive urge.  I, for instance, am particularly responsive
>to the styles of clothing that were current just as I entered puberty in the
>mid 1960's [i.e. I like mini-skirts].  This is clearly a cognitive level
>response, since it is based on prior experience, and requires recognition of
>complex relationships (like what clothing is, and how it relates to sexual
>identity, and so on).

Would it not be more accurate to say the sex drive is a drive towards sex?
Reproduction does not necessarily follow, and the conscious realization that
sex is required for reproduction has not been universal in human societies.

>This kind of interection between cognition and primary emotions is nearly
>universal.  [...]  It also seems to me that this is the basis of
>what we call personality.  [...]
>Thus to deny emotions, and emotional responses is to deny individuality.

I agree that denial of emotional responses is in general a nonadaptive
behavior.  I believe human beings are incapable of true stoicism as we have
many emotional responses are "wired-in".  Whether or not mastery of one's
emotions is a virtue or not depends on one's belief system.  A lack of
emotional response is still a response, and still allows for individuality,
albeit in a very limited sense.