Ideas on the function of emotion

This post expresses hypothesis not based on any scientific theories that I know of. It is a theory about how emotion emerges in an evolutionary manner.
I believe that emotion is a kind of subconscious thought combined with biochemical activity in body and mind. It is in my opinion an automated thought pattern that through its hardwired and subconscious nature is performed in extreme velocity in order to cope with frequently experienced situations. For example let's consider fear that is a relatively simple emotion. Fear is the result of a subconsious assessment of a situation that is potentially harmful for the person that experiences it or for a very close (in emotional terms ) person. In many persons the physical result of fear is an improvement in thought ability and in corporal response through a biochemical procedure. In a way the subconsious calculates the situation's risk and creates a reponse that allows the person to take action to solve the crisis. So the input coming from the outside world, the conscious thought and the unconscious thought are processed by the emotion pattern detection path and create the emotional state of the person. Under the influence of the specific emotional state the person tends to instinctively (subconsciously) or by conscious thought take action to the direction that solves the problem. According to the previous ideas we can consider first the instinctive part of emotion that does the assessment of a situation. This part takes its input from externall world but also other thought sources in the brain. It finds the emotional state modification that suits the input and changes the emotional state. Another part of this path induces the hormonic response that makes the emotion so intensely felt. I believe emotion is a completely subconscious brain activity that surfaces to the conscious mind. This is the reason that many times we cannot identify in a conscious level the source of an emotional state in which we are.
From the evolutionary viewpoint this theory suggests that by the development of emotion the responses of the animal or human become better suited to the situation and faster since there is no need for conscious assessment that is very slow. But I don't suggest that the development of emotion happened after the development of conscious thought. In fact because of its simplicity emotion can have emerged from the more machine like neural networks of primitive species. I can't speculate about that. Yet it is sure that both abilities evolve together for millions of years.
This evolution has created emotions and emotional states more complicated and not perfectly matching to viewpoint presented. Also the interaction of emotions creates even more complicated patterns. That can result in emotional responses that seem irrational yet even these can be explained in the frame of reference of the interaction with society. The first form of emotion had to do with self-preservation and the preservation of the subject's children. But with the emerge of society even in animal populations the goals changed and the emotions followed and adapted to the new thought patterns and the new needs.
Closing this post I want to state that I refer to both animals and humans here since emotion precedes the development of the humans and in animals may be more close to my hypothesis, but I believe that neurologically humans have the same emotional mechanisms but in a more developed state.

About Collective Intelligence

Today I want to write about the intellectual power of groups of people. That is what I call here collective intelligence. We believe that the intelligence of the human brain comes from the interconnection of the basic processing units, the neurons. They are interconnected in many complicated ways and give a parallel processing capability to the brain. I believe that the brain can follow at the same time and in a subconscious level many thought paths in order to extract a result. These different thought patterns create different results but the combination of the results that is created tends to be an acceptable choice. I suspect that the brain uses a very refined technique for mutual exclusion between the results smoothing them to match.
These multimethod way of thinking elevates intelligence adjusting the way of thinking to the specific problem by a fuzzy process and not a completely rational one. That way techniques that are new to a field may subconsciously or consciously (where personality creates the tendency to specific ways of thinking) be applied to it and give better results and this is how innovation works.
Even though I cannot be sure about the previous theory in a neurological basis I strongly believe that the element of multimethod approach exists in both conscious and subconscious level boosting our intelligence. Collective intelligence works exactly the same way. In my opinion the collective intelligence of a group of people is more than the sum of the individual intelligences. The way this is achieved is that the intelligence of a person can be enhanced by the interaction with the different personalities and ways of thought in a group. In simple words the person can adopt the way of thinking of the others and adapt it to its specific thought pattern creating an evolved thought path. It is like the "your words gave me an idea " situation. This evolution happens to all the members of the team collectively raising the intelligence in terms of creativity and productivity. This process is continoous and the constant cooperation of people gives better result than the case where after a time of cooperation the team is broken to individual units working alone. Moreover the ideas can be partially formulated by a member of the group and then refined by the other in a way that both thoughts are absolutely necessary, and in that way the communication itself is an intelligence elevating element.
Many ways of thought merging but not completely as it happens to a person that is just influenced by a way of thought but existing at the same time and colliding too to formulate innovative ideas. This is the meaning and power of collective intelligence, the struggle between cooperation and individuallity that creates great ideas and great creations. In conclusion I believe that the way to fully exploiting collective intelligence is the balance between cooperative and individual or even selfish spirit in a manner where the person asseses the other points of view but also defends his own so there is little possibility that the effective one will be lost.

Concerning the emotional development of intelligent children and teenagers

After reading the post in http://tiabuilder.blogspot.com/2007/03/why-intelligent-people-tend-to-be.html by Bill Allin about the tendency of intelligent people to sadness I want to write about a subject that I have been thinking some time. It is the emotional needs of intelligent children and teenagers.
Intelligent persons tend to think over practically everything. They may think about a physics problem but also the characteristics of behavior of people around or their character. They analyze things from a very early age and tend to be quiet and not very energetic. This behavior gradually inhibits the spontaneous child behavior with the result of slower action initiative but also the gradual developing of distance between the person and the peer group that acts in a different manner more conventional. The child or teenager is then practicallly expelled from the peer group as a misfit or someone too different to hang out with. The rejection (continoous usually) at the preadult ages is devastating on an emotional level. Usually that person cannot understand the cause of this. There is also the tendency in people to think in the way if someone is quiet and reserved let him be and this most times is done by the parents too. And this is not acceptable of course. It is reasonable that parents that are not of the same intellectual level as their children will have problems understanding them but they are the ones that are most needed in order the intelligent young person to mature emotionally and be able to face the hostility that many times the human environment has against such persons.
The first and most important factor is the attention in the family. The child or teen needs to know and feel that the parents care and try to help him when it is needed.Even if the parents cannot understand the child due to his difference they must show that they try to be there and it might be good to express this difficulty so the child/teen can understand that their possible failure to understand him is not because of indifference. They must make the child/teen understand that despite his different way of thought they do what they can for him. I believe that it is more important for the young person to feel that the parents care and try to help than the actual success of their help and understanding.
The second factor is love. Simply love. A child or teen however smart or not needs to be loved. The fact that this person is an excellent thinker has nothing to do with how child he is. Every child and teen needs love that is expressed. Some parents tend to take it as a fact that the child feels their love but do nothing about expressing their love either verbaly or physically by a hug or something. Many parents believe that because on the intellectual level the child thinks as a grown up that it also feels as one but that is not true as the emotional maturing is very rarely connected to the intellectual one.
The third factor is the way parents try to develop the child's/teenager's self-confidence and that is very important since such persons tend to be expelled by their peer groups and this destroys self confidence. First the parents must encourage their children to do things that are feasible for their age but also for their abilities. They must encourage them to take initiative but also to make their own decision in subjects that are not too crucial to come into the parents responsibility but important enouph to help children make decisions and make the right ones at least as often is possible. If a person reaches adulthood without even having made one choice by himself how can he make his decisions later? It will be extremely difficult especially for intelligent people that tend to analyze and see the aspects over and over usually not finding the 100% right choice. What they have not learned is that most times there is no such thing as absolutely right choice. Except for that parents are the ones that must teach children that failure is inevitable many times and that what they must do is find the mistake and try again. The children must be encouraged to do so and not be labeled worthless and incapable. Moreover the parents need to show that they trust their children of course within the boundaries that are acceptable.
By all I have said previously I don't suggest that parents should let children do whatever they want. Rules are very crucial in order the child and teenager to develop the structured personality that can cope with society and be a succesful part of it. And I believe that one of the greatest lessons for a child is to learn when it must break a rule and face the concequences in the rare situations that the rule is not appropriate. Because that is the way life and society is.
One last thing is that parents should not try to force their children do what they think normal because every person is different and especially intelligent ones. However children can be encouraged to involve these more conventional antivities in their style of life since they help them interact better with other people andso reach maturity and happiness.