Comment by Chiral2 on Humans in Funny Suits · 2008-07-31T05:04:07.000Z · LW · GW

On one hand I totally agree that assuming that aliens would necessarily have human emotions because they are intelligent is stupid. On the other hand, I think it would be possible to have some emotions in common with some species of alien. If the emotion operated in the brain the same way and arose in a similar way (e.g. anger at economic freeloaders), you might as well call it the same emotion, in the same way you could meaninfully translate words for colours in aliens with a similar visual system.

I wonder how large the spectrum of emotions and modes of thoughts for intelligent entities (that might evolve or be designed) is ? Does it dwarf the human experience ? Are there elements that are nearly universal ?