>What is your motivation for getting married?

"Other people are getting married. I guess I should go on with the program (shrug). Hmm, this person took an interest in me (or my friends/mother/etc hooked me up with this person), I could marry them maybe.".

>Getting a job?

Hmm, I feel physical hunger. Maybe I need to get a job. Hmm, here's a sign for help wanted. Maybe I can apply there.

>Playing a game or watching a movie?

I'm physically tired. Maybe I'll sit in front of the TV for a little while. People do that.

>How would you even know you hit the right sound effect?

- Jack, we need thunderstorm sounds and dogs barking in the distance. - OK, I know what those sound like. I'll try to replicate them. Let me find some thunderstorm recordings etc.

(No emotions needed -- at best you just need to consider them "faithful reproductions" not to feel enthusiastic or whatever about them. Good, in this case, is quantifiable -- "sounds a lot like the real thing").

Other people getting married is not something you would care about since you have not emotions.

With regards to the thunderstorm thats not how it works. It's not the rational request thats the problem but the intuition around when it feels right. Emotions are fundamental to making any kind of creative decisions.

>Other people getting married is not something you would care about since you have not emotions.

They don't. They just copy what other people do because it's the default thing to do (everyone does it), and because they want to stop that annoyance (annoyance like we feel annoyance from a crappy seat belt or uncomfortamble shows, not emotional misery) and distraction (the nagging from other people, etc). No emotion mostly means that they aren't enthusiastic about getting married, and they are not miserable because they are not married either. You can conform to something just by thinking about it, you don't have to have any emotions on the matter. Same way people used to have arranged marriages back in the day (and still in some cultures). They didn't necessarily have any affection to the other person, not they had any great urge to get married.

>With regards to the thunderstorm thats not how it works. It's not the rational request thats the problem but the intuition around when it feels right.

You don't need to feel emotion-based intuition for when it "feels right". "Feels" is just a word we use to describe our selection process but it doesn't mean there have to be "feelings" involved.

You just need to check that your sound effect sound as you remember those things to sound. No need to be dissapointed when they don't, or feel creative or elated when they do.

If they don't have any emotions they don't care what other people do or that they nag them. Nothings annoys them, nothing excites them. You getting the order wrong.

Of course you need to build up intuition when you create things that doesn't have a matemathical formula. Thats exactly what intuition is a combination of rational understand, experience and emotional awareness of what decision is right and which one is wrong to you. Without it you would have a hard time making any decisions at all.

There is a reason why humans have developed emotions.

The point is that I don't believe this person is completely without emotions whatever biochemical function it boils down to.

I think you're basically arguing that herd behavior or swarm behavior can't emerge without self conscious higher level adult emotions; I'm thinking that's a big stretch based on natural examples. I'm not even sure "monkey see monkey do" even is an emotion, if it is, which is it? Possession of empathy isn't possessing the observed emotion, its just observing it.

For another weird concept look at humanities universal habit of rationalizing irrational decisions. For no good reason I did XYZ, now listen to my detailed rationalization based on emotions or Vulcan-level logic, which doesn't really matter because I really have no idea why I asked ABC out on a date or decided to buy that car or eat that second piece of birthday cake, although in detailed post-rationalization I can dream up all kinds of sand castles in the sky explaining elaborate logical reasons or stark emotions that I supposedly experienced before I made a random decision. This adds an annoying second level of analysis, why do some people do random things just like everyone else, but their societal or cultural failure is rationalizing it as logic or admitting it was just random, whereas "everyone knows" we must, at least in public, declare it to be the result of emotion.

Marriage is a cultural institution NOT a biological one. There is a big and important difference between the two IMO.

I agree with your empathy description. In fact a lot of people think empathy primarily is about the ability to feel other peoples pain but it's much wider than that. But thats another discussion.

>If they don't have any emotions they don't care what other people do or that they nag them. Nothings annoys them, nothing excites them.

I think you conflate emotions with any kind of functioning at all. You can still function, think, try to avoid tension and people being angry or annoyed at you, without feeling any emotions.

If you discover that something you do makes someone unconfortable for example, you can decide to stop it, despite not feeling bad about doing it.

"Hmm, this guy says this thing I do makes him feel bad. I'm told that feeling bad is something people don't like. I should stop it, so that he doesn't feel bad, so that I'm like normal people or so I wont get into trouble for what I do".

Motivation for going with the flow doesn't gave to be "oh, I'll be miserable if I wont". It can be mere rational reasoning -- "I better not make waves" or things like "last time I did that they punched me and it hurt. I'd want to avoid being punched again".

No I am actually trying to take Parent seriously in his claims. I am simply taking their argument as the base for my own.

That still sounds like "lack of specific emotions" and "acting mainly on response to irritation or loneliness", not "lack of emotional altogether".

The have an extra-rational pull towards doing one thing rather than some other thing. There's no real way to "carve reality at the joints" in a way that excludes what this person is feeling/doing vs someone with "real" emotions.

I think the english language conflates intuition with emotion, referring to two separate actions (intuiting and emotionally responding to) with the same word: "feel".

And I think I know you are wrong about this. Speaking as a former musician and now designer.

I wasn't saying the two were exclusive, merely that the use of the word "feels" conflates the two. "This (design|note|architecture decision|etc.) 'feels' right" could be taking from both column a and b (how much of each column would surely be dependent on the subject matter).

I think most of those examples have a rational basis and the non-emotional person could probably make better decisions than the rest of us e.g. choosing a job offer on the basis of benefits and prospects rather than because the office looked cool.

Such a person would make an astounding diplomat.

The reward mechanism would probably be in maximizing physical comfort in return for minimal physical effort.

Without emotions, what would cause a person to prefer physical comfort over physical discomfort?

This is one of those times that I'd remind everybody that words are labels that have no power on their own. "No emotions" does not necessarily mean "never experiences anything that could possibly be covered by any of the senses of the English word 'emotion'". When it really gets down to it, we don't have a great ability to distinguish between "comfort", "happiness", "satisfaction", or any of a dozen other related concepts in our own mental lives, let alone start getting really precise about analyzing somebody else's, let alone doing so to someone whose mental qualia appear to be substantially different than ours.

Comfort and discomfort aren't emotions. Pain isn't an emotion, and the absence of pain is desirable by people who don't have emotions.

Pain, hunger, sexual urges, etc. can't be classified by emotions. Maybe we can include fear of injury or death in this as well. Even a baby can feel these things (except of course sexual urges).

But beyond that everything else is an emotion - happiness, sadness, anger, annoyance, loneliness. Beyond the most basic tasks everything requires emotions to drive you. Why do you study for an upcoming exam? Because you are anxious about getting a good grade? Why are you anxious? Because you may not want to upset your parents? Why does that bother you? You love them or fear their displeasure. Why do you fear your parent's displeasure? Ignoring corporal punishment (which could be an avoidance of pain/injury), other reasons include wanting to avoid stress, or being upset when they confront you about it. And so on. You cannot get through life except the most basic functions (like avoiding pain, eating, sleeping, etc) without emotions.

The article seems to equate the reduced perception of emotions to a total absence of them.

No, I study for an exam so I can get a degree so I can get a good job so I'll find it easier to have a more comfortable life. It's a purely rational choice.

One can still appreciate things on an intellectual level. A lot of people with depression experience something similar during depressive episodes. It's like someone dialed down a knob on the intensity of the world. In the absolute worst case you decide life isn't worth living and follow through on that, it happens hundreds of thousands of times a year around the world. In better cases you don't give up and you do the best with the muted world you've been given to live in and you try to figure out ways to dial it back up (through CBT, exercise, drugs (legal and not), etc.)

Punishment and reward are very limited mechanisms for learning behavior. Mimicry is one of the others and is much more powerful.

It is really weird to be honest, I wouldn't say the other replies on this comment at the moment cover it so thought I would try and add something.

On one had you're right those are genuine issues, there's little motivation to do anything really. I guess it is a spectrum but I still feel that if someone asks me to do something that I'm being a nice person if I do it, I guess others might be devoid of that. So if invited to do something I normally go, but I only originate plans if I feel I'm doing it for others e.g. if someone is visiting I'll setup a dinner for us all. At the end of a week when I've been busy I cab be annoyed at how much of my life is spent doing things for others, but I do know that's because I don't do anything at all for myself.

I'm married and I wouldn't say I am because it's something expected of me. I think I want to be healthy mentally later in life and I know I can put the work in to give my wife a happy life, also that I didn't hide the way I am from her. If I didn't do these things it would be equivalent to just kind of giving up and I guess I haven't done that so I do these kind of things for future me who I want to be in a good place. I do love, I don't think it's quite the feeling love is to others but love/loss are recognisable.

I work to succeed and for financial security basically, I can't fathom a job I "enjoy" but in my mind besides paying bills it's like a game and I win if I'm successful. A good way to think about it is when a big project finishes it's a bit weird for me because I don't really get happiness or pleasure or a sense of achievement from it, it's kind of like a vaccum. The day a system goes live is no different from day 1 on the project. Within the vaccum I just get hyper-critical of my performance I think my brain is thinking it's important to improve for next time and just immediately focusses on what it needs to do to make that happen.

I do watch films/games, although not that much, but I like being distracted and having something to do. I watch twitch and sport where I do find it easy to support teams. I would never be upset after a result in sport or anything, I don't get nervous before or excited after a win but I like the pattern, which players are good/bad, analysing tactics, following the story etc.

Reward mechanism - I don't think there's anything in my life like that I could google it but not sure what it means. I don't do anything to reward myself at all.

Are there decisions you have trouble making?

Yeah, making decisions is like a big pros and cons list. If there's no real way to split the two it's hard if it's something I care on some level about.

So for example picking a colour for a carpet or pick a new pair of shoes is a nightmare and I put that kind of thing off because ultimately I have no way in my brain to pick beyond that I want something plain so it's quite uncomfortable.

Or picking a holiday destination is awkward, I live in Europe but I don't care whether I next go to Berlin, Paris or Rome. Even if I've been there before versus not I just don't care at all beyond if I consider it stressful being out of comfort zone or something in which case some places can be ruled out.

I suppose that's the trivial things, the bigger life decisions where I can't make a decision I guess ultimately my wife makes for us.

I don't think that's specific to this condition, I've read elsewhere that lots of people have a similar scientific approach to decision making.