Would aliens have Emotions?

Famous Grey Aliens

Have you seen flying saucers till date? Did UFOs ever chase you in dark nights? Have greys have tried to contact you telepathically? Have you ever met with extraterrestrial aliens, face to face? Have aliens abducted you, your family members, friends, your town’s mayor or beloved dog?

Most of us may not be able to answer these questions due to lack of sightings of and direct encounters with the third kind. Whatever entire world knows, perceives or thinks about aliens is product of stories shared by those few thousand people who have witnessed, experienced or gone through sightings, contacts, visits, meetings, mind control experiments, under-skin implants and abductions.

Neither I’m an authoritative or an experienced figure of this extraordinary subject nor have any intentions to deny claims made or evidences produced by people. Since I’ve not encountered aliens till date, I think that it’s better not to comment anything about same over here. If it is so then why a long article should be written about them in the first place? What this article is all about?

Well! The sole purpose to write this article was to challenge our thought process, best knowledge and imagination to find answer some greatest questions i. e. Would aliens have emotions (like us)? If yes then how they might be expressing them? Exactly like we do or differently? Please let me clarify here that emotions only are or can be expressed through face or facial expressions is a grave misconception in the first place.

When we talk about aliens or extraterrestrials then two contrasting images of them come into our minds - one is of invading, aggressive, experimenting and exploiting creatures and second is of friendly, prophesizing, helping and warning beings. Science fiction movies, TV serials, novels, articles and witness interviews have added to both images on an equal scale I guess.

Still, it’s very important for all of us know that whether they are emotional beings like us or not. Emotions drive us and make to act because they are nothing but the proven survival strategies that evolved over the millions of years of evolution. Without having emotions and feelings, we would simply turn into mechanical robots and nothing else.

A few months ago, I saw a very interesting episode of the famous Through the Wormhole TV serial - How do aliens think?. In that episode, there was a small section entirely dedicated to emotions, their perception and expressions. According to one speculation made in it, aliens might be having emotions. It was very humorous to see mourning and boozing aliens..

Octopus: The closest creature to alien intelligence
Image Courtesy: The Gurdian

It was not really meant to be a serious statement or a claim about emotions in the extraterrestrial aliens but it was an attempt of giving a humorous touch to the very serious scientific lookout. Still, it’s a very thought provoking speculation and ultimately making some predictions about the possible outcome of interactions between us and the extraterrestrial aliens, if at all it happens in the near future.

We cannot prove about existance of emotions in aliens until we don’t observe their nonverbal behavior or body language systematically. If there are intelligent alien species out there in universe who might have evolved biologically on their home planets then they might have few traits, instincts and qualities that match with what earth bound creatures should have.

Even if those extraterrestrial beings might have evolved in entirely different ways or would have strange genetic blueprint then still emotions might have evolved into them - if not all seven basic emotions then at least few like fear and anger. I'm personally doubtful about emotions like happiness, disgust, sadness etc. being present alien biological species.

Fear is most ancient and a prevalent emotion which was evolved in all living creatures on earth and plants also might have similar kind of reflex. Fear is what make any creature to avoid getting harmed, injured, affected or eventually killed by predators, troubling creatures, adverse climate, diseases, competition, alienation, resource depletion etc.

Location of blood supply changes with emotions.

Why it might be a primary behavioral reflex because it served core purpose of survival and continuation of species? Don't you really think that technological advancement is also a positive product of fear? Fundamentally, all reflexes, emotions, adaptations, traits and qualities are and should be supportive to survival and proliferation of any species. If they are not then there is no benefit in having them in the first place.

Was fear sufficient for survival and continuation of species? Ancestral creatures had to shed fear and chase, pursue, attack, hunt, catch and kill somebody to survive by feeding on it. Hence anger or aggression must have been another powerful emotion in ancient natural world. Anger is exactly opposite to fear but still has physiological implications similar to that of fear.

Human or mammalian emotions like sadness, surprise, happiness, disgust and contempt might have evolved when our remote ancestors needed to develop them for overcoming different environmental, physical, climatic, dietary and social challenges. Some random genetic mutations or even viral infection might have led to the development the emotions in our remote ancestors.

So if any biological species has evolved and survived in its local environment over a significant amount of cosmological time then it must have something like all earth bound creatures do i. e. senses, reflexes, emotions, temperaments, traits and different kinds of defenses i. e. physical, mental, psychological and technological.

I personally think that if aliens are non-biological robots or purely spiritual entities then they shouldn’t (feel necessity to) leave their planets if they are running out of resources, facing extinction, caught it ecosystem collapse or having their planets on the verge of doom. Only if they want to survive, evolve and expand their horizons then they would venture into the outer space.

However, if any species wants to be more advanced (in comparison to others), it has to be able to monitor emotions consciously and remain composed for most of time so that physical, psychological and mental efficiency and capacities could be enhanced and multiplied beyond normal levels in comparison to the other species to be able to outdo them. Matter of fact is that controlling or dominating others technologically could be the sole purpose and goal.

Hence if any alien race is far more advanced, harmonious than us and essentially has succeeded in surviving from their own mistakes then members of that species might be able to control and suppress their negative emotions and corresponding bodily expressions consciously. This is exactly what Neocortex supposedly does inside our brain i. e. advanced and energy hungry brain circuits that monitor emotions and try to regulate them.

Let's hope that aliens turn out to be friendly.

What if alien creatures are neither fearful nor aggressive at all? What if they don't care about going extinct? What would motivate them to find planet Earth and make contact with us in the first place? I personally think that it should be curiosity, strong will of exploring, generosity, empathy and helpfulness only.

This is exactly what we all (would) want to look in the extraterrestrial aliens only for continuation of our own race, survival of biosphere and all other creatures that inhabit this unique planet in the entire known universe.

[Kind Request: If any extraterrestrial aliens could read and appreciate this article then I would kindly request them to leave their comments under the article, only in English or any internationally known language of humans living on planet Earth.]

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