RetroAdventurer

Do you think that every organism that responds to stimuli is capable of thinking?

There is a reflexive response, ie. placing your hand on a hot stove & pulling it away. That’s not an emotion. A simple organism may respond like that. Then there’s seeing a dog (stimuli) & being scared, happy, curious, or indifferent (emotions) based on what you think of dogs.

The instant you touch something and have a reflexive response you can have an emotion e.g. anger. Or something can be so beautiful it takes your breath away. Thinking about why it is beautiful comes after.

Pain is not an emotion and feeling pain doesn’t always result in anger. Instead, you might feel relief that you didn’t get killed. Also, beauty is not an emotion. Between seeing and feeling “your breath taken away” is a thought, however brief, interpreting what you’re seeing.

You believe there is always a thought in-between. I would really do some observation to see emotion in action. I agree beauty and pain are not emotions; if you feel relief at not being killed, that will also be faster than thought.

Before feeling relieved that you weren’t killed, you have to realize you could have been killed and weren’t. That realization is a thought.

That argument is logical, that every emotion is based on some mental inference - but they're not always, many emotions are not logical at all.

Yes, every emotion is based on a mental inference. That doesn’t mean the inference is correct or logical or that the emotion is appropriate. For example, you may think a stimuli is dangerous and thus feel fear, but in reality the stimuli is actually harmless.