I have not studied psychology nor philosophy. However I believe that the hardships of life force us to think like a philosopher and imagine things which can never be true but can always elude us momentarily from the real world. Today I was traveling by auto rickshaw to office. Considering the traffic in Mumbai, one can always expect a snail move faster than vehicles during peak office hours. My rick stopped at a traffic signal. I saw a boy, in tattered clothes being beaten up by someone for stealing food. I knew it was not the crime which was pivotal to the incident but it was the sympathy that he was attracting from the onlookers. For the person who was beating that guy, it was a moment of revenge and belligerence. He had a couple of emotions backing his actions. The display of power over the public heroism was the primary intent. On the other hand it was the little chap who might have been going through a bagful of emotions right from pain and anguish to despair, helplessness and embarrassment. If there would have been a role reversal in these human emotions and again back to that state, then both would have understood each other little better.
Hence, an idea struck my mind. Can ’emotions’ be interchanged. Suppose we simulate a machine which will help us go through the state of mind of the other person. As a result we will simply interchange emotions momentarily and come back to our own state. If this thing becomes possible in the near future then lot of interesting things might crop up.
Misunderstandings might get reduced-between lovers, between husband and wife, between siblings, between friends, between relatives, between countries, between religions and the list goes on. A man might unravel all the secrets of the woman and vice versa. This will help in removing disparity of thoughts, divorces, breakups, etc. Nuclear families might once again become joint families and there can also be equitable distribution of wealth since rich will feel the pangs of poverty.Most importantly the supply demand chain might get affected drastically and hence price of products and services will not follow the laws of economics because needs wont be affected by emotions any more.
However, transposition of emotions will offend the basic theory of values and ethics, wherein after transposition of one’s current state of emotions into another person, he / she will primarily judge the same based on his/ her value system, nature of living and ethical background. Besides removal of parity and discreteness from this world will lead us to a state of nowhere where people will stop reciprocating and exchanging and the ultimate goal of such transpositions will be a static world.
we all know that it is because of darkness, we value light. Water flows only when there is elevation and we relish meat only after belting down an innocent creature. Somehow this is the rule of the nature and ’emotions’ play a part in creating this imbalance so that the world sustains it’s balance of life.