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by otabdeveloper4 980 days ago
Wikipedia is wrong.

Feelings aren't instinct. (Feeling disgusted or sexually aroused or aggressive isn't an instinct.)

Instincts, by definition, are complex behavior. (Think birds building nests; nobody teaches them to do that, they are born with that knowledge.)
2 comments
mhaberl 980 days ago
Encyclopedia Britannica [1] also doesn't agree with you. > ...it is taken to include the possibility that humans too can be governed by instinct

But that's far from being the only source that defines 'instinct' in a way that doesn't align with what you're proposing.

Humans do have instincts.

[1] https://www.britannica.com/topic/instinct/Instinct-as-behavi...

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otabdeveloper4 979 days ago
Yes, many things can be "taken to include the possibility".

Including the possibility that Gandalf and Harry Potter fly in on a Raelian flying saucer and solve climate change for us.

In reality, however, no instinctual behavior has yet been found in humans.

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HenryBemis 980 days ago
Sexual arousal is part of the procreation mechanism, and thus I (not a psychologist) will classify it as instinct. I can think of many different feelings as instinct. When I see my gf crying, I don't 'think' to hug her, I instinctively hug her. When your friend walks two steps ahead of you and falls down, you don't stop to think and feel, you instinctively grab them.
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otabdeveloper4 980 days ago
An instinct is complex, unlearned behavior.

Sexual arousal is neither complex nor behavior. It is a simple hormonal state.

You're using a colloqual meaning of "instinctive" that is unscientific and wrong.

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