Emotions are a sense like sight and hearing

Please read my opening post since it has a very brief summary.

I agree that emotions can be perceived as another sense that feels something. I would say that emotions are guides to choices that we make just as other senses. Possibly deeper in nature.

Quoting TranscendedRealms

Emotions are actually a sense like sight.

One fundamental difference is that given the same stimulus, like an apple, our sense of sight will always convey the same sensory information, whereas our emotional sense will not always convey the same emotional sense. If we're very hungry an apple will be desirable, valuable or generally 'good'. If we're full or sick an apple could be very unappealing, not valued or generally 'bad'. Nevertheless, we could override our emotional response to an apple and eat it anyway because we value its good qualities.

Your error is in essentialism.

Reply to praxis

It doesn't matter even if you thought that the apple was good to you during a negative emotional state; you still would not be able to actually see the good value that the apple has as long as you are not in a positive emotional state. Thoughts make us feel certain ways and it is these feelings that allow us to become aware of value (good or bad) in our lives.

Quoting TranscendedRealms

you still would not be able to actually see the good value that the apple has as long as you are not in a positive emotional state.

You know this isn't true. We do things all the time that we don't feel like doing yet we know that they're good things to do.

Reply to praxis

But that's only because of our wiring. We are wired to believe in this false version of value just like how religious people are wired to believe in their false gods such as Thor. So, the world has not been awakened yet to this emotional version of value I am talking about in my theory.

Quoting TranscendedRealms

No value judgment can allow this blind person to see just as how no value judgment or mindset can allow us to see the values in our lives.

Could you unravel the negatives in this sentence? I don't understand it.

Reply to mcdoodle

I'm not sure what you're not understanding. If a person judges himself as having the ability to see when he is blind, then he would still not be able to see. In that same sense, if we judge our lives as having good value to us in the absence of our positive emotions, then we would still not be able to actually see that good value.

Quoting TranscendedRealms

I'm not sure what you're not understanding. If a person judges himself as having the ability to see when he is blind, then he would still not be able to see. In that same sense, if we judge our lives as having good value to us in the absence of our positive emotions, then we would still not be able to actually see that good value.

OK. Personally I find this division between positive and negative emotions hopelessly simplistic. It's handy when psychologists want to do some counting up scores for experiments, but it doesn't mean much to me. Emotionality is nearly always a complex of more than one 'emotion': in grief I am angry, in despair I often keep hopeful, and so on. To place them on some binary scale feels trivial. We have complex ways with words that enable us to 'see' what we are talking about, though we may nto be able to simplify these complexities enough to satisfy people who want to judge psychology through multiple-choice questions.

Out of this welter of emotions we arrive at value. There is an interplay between our feelings and our thoughts, and hey presto: here I am, judging how to act, or how I would like to ask others to act. I appeal to their values, I advance my own values.

Reply to mcdoodle

Positive emotions, also referred to as "euphoria," are states of mind induced by the biochemicals in the brain (i.e. serotonin, dopamine, endorphins, and oxytocin). It could either be a calm and relaxed state of well being or it could be feelings of joy and excitement from a new movie or video game. It could also be a feeling of love we would get from an attractive soul mate. This is what I am saying gives us the perception of good values in our lives just like how sight allows us to see. Now, we can have mixed emotions. So, if you were euphoric, but felt a little bit of dysphoria at the same time, then your life would be half good and half bad depending on the degree of euphoria and dysphoria. If it is just a little bit of dysphoria and the rest is euphoria, then things, situations, and moments in your life would be something like 20% bad and 80% good to you.

Reply to TranscendedRealms Well, as I said, I just don't see emotions this way, I think they are too complex to be divided into positive and non-positive. You state these ideas as if they were facts but they are just a certain way of describing how we are, and indeed you use them in your last sentence to provide a supposed count of positivity/negativity. I don't do counting like that, although I can see it's useful if you want to compare people for some reason and think you can justify the counting-mechanism.

Emotions are certainly a major source of valuation and judgment, I agree. .

Reply to mcdoodle

But do you agree that emotions are the only way we can perceive value in our lives? That's where my theory was getting at. I'm also not sure why putting emotions into positive and negative categories would be the wrong thing to do. When we have what we normally call a positive emotion, this emotion feels entirely distinct from what we call a negative emotion. To make this distinction, we say that emotions are either positive or negative. You could also have a mix of positive and negative emotions as well which is what I've pointed out earlier.

So, what is going on in the depressed mind when one only feels gloomy and sad? Is it all a deficiency on some neurotransmitter level or maybe an excess of empathy and feeling?

Reply to TranscendedRealms You're basically describing affect.



It's not clear how you're relating affect to emotion and value concepts.

While I am always happy to have a cup of tea, I generally suppose that it is myself that is happy, and that the tea has little feeling for me. I perceive that I value tea, but the value itself is not a perceiving but an orienting towards tea.

Reply to praxis

According to this effect chart, negative expressions, thoughts, and tones reflect negative emotions while positive expressions, thoughts, and tones reflect positive emotions. Perceiving good value and worth in your life is a positive expression while perceiving bad value in your life is a negative expression. Therefore, positive emotions are the only things that can allow us to perceive good value and worth in our lives while negative emotions are the only things that can allow us to perceive bad value in our lives.

To have a reverse effect where people display negative tones and expressions while having nothing but positive emotions or if they were to display positive expressions while having nothing but negative emotions would either have to mean that there was at least some positive emotion or positive sensual quality mixed in with the negative emotion or a negative emotion/sensual quality mixed in with the positive emotion.

Otherwise, people would just be forcing tones, thoughts, and expressions that do not reflect their emotional state. It would be a contradiction no different than expressing the idea that your loved one is alive while he or she is really dead. This means that if a completely miserable person claimed to perceive his life as being good and worth living to him while having no positive emotions whatsoever, then that would not reflect his miserable state of mind. This would have to mean that this miserable person's claim would be false.

Perception works differently than our tones of voice and gestures. You can force a certain tone or gesture, but you cannot force a perception. It's no different than trying to force yourself to see when you are blind. It's just not going to work. So, even though people without any positive emotions whatsoever can force themselves to think that their lives have good value to them, they cannot force themselves to perceive their lives as having good value to them.

Our emotions are like intrinsically dark and light spiritual forces, if you will. People who have nothing but depressed moods with no positive emotions whatsoever are just resisting the dark force flowing through them and carrying on in their lives anyway. They are so used to this that they really think it is a good and worthwhile life to them when it's really not.

Quoting TranscendedRealms

Emotions are actually a sense like sight. They allow us to see the values that things and situations hold in our lives.

I can agree with this as a starting point but then is emotion really also an action? Sure, having a feeling of positivity or negativity is a state we can experience. We can call it a sensation. But at a deeper level, it is an orientation response - a call to action. It speaks to the broad assessment of whether to approach or avoid. Positivity draws us towards, negativity repels.

So yes, the emotional brain is fully part of every moment of perception. We can't see anything without a basic feeling of evaluation - even if the feeling is a disinterested "meh".

But to define emotion as a sensory modality - one to tally along with sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell - seems a miscategorisation as it is instead a generalised approach~avoidance kind of decision-making that applies across all these particular sensory modes.

Then as we dig deeper into this "emotional faculty", we can see that it has more complex structure. As well as strong feelings of approach vs avoidance, it has a still more general decision to make of relaxed vs aroused. Does the self need to crank for big action - like approaching or avoiding? Or can the self relax and conserve energy because there is nothing to react to - a feeling which itself can be either positive or negative, depending on whether that lack of stimulus is a relief or a matter of boredom.

Anyway, this basic action decision - crank up vs wind down - is a dichotomy wired into the body's nervous system as the contrasting sympathetic vs parasympathetic pathways. It is very real as a distinction built into the nervous system's design.

So of course the emotions exist to evaluate the world. But they have to get news of that world through the senses, or perceptual paths. A tiger has to be seen or heard before an evaluation - positive or negative - can happen. So emotion is general in then making sense of a sensation - pointing us quickly to the right kind of action. It really has a foot in both the traditional camps.

Quoting mcdoodle

Emotionality is nearly always a complex of more than one 'emotion': in grief I am angry, in despair I often keep hopeful, and so on. To place them on some binary scale feels trivial.

There is a good reason why binaries make sense. To understand the world in the most computationally efficient fashion, you want to break it into sharp-edged black and white. So a dichotomy - like approach and avoidance, or relaxed and aroused - is a way to see the world in its complementary extremes. It gives two precisely opposed points of view. And that then provides the clarity within which a spectrum of graded response can occur. Once the bounds of possibility have been anchored crisply by black vs white, then in-between you can have with equal definiteness every possible shade of grey.

So a dichotomy is a general processing principle. It fixes a decisive direction on the world. Then having broken the world towards two contrasting extremes, the third thing of a spectrum of intermediate reactions becomes possible. A glass can't be half full or half empty until there is a glass that is either completely full or completely empty.

The question then for the study of emotionality would be what is the fewest such dichotomies that you could get away with in modelling the brain's architecture.

Again, a most basic one would seem to be the sympathetic vs parasympathetic response - wind down or crank up.

But then there is a whole hierarchy of further more specific breaks. If we are negatively aroused, this may manifest as demanding a sharp decision of whether to fight or run. And even the flight response is dichotomised in the neural wiring of animals. A further escape strategem is a choice of whether to run or freeze. If a tiger appears before you in the jungle glade, there are two "best" instinctive options that evolution has built into the brain.

So yes, there is plenty of evolved complexity when it comes to our emotional responses. But also there is a single logic to all brain processing. The first job in making sense of the world is to break it apart as thesis and antithesis - frame it clearly as a black and white choice. Impose a clear directionality that makes a choice actually meaningful. Doing one thing becomes definitely not doing its opposite. And in that way, the whole of what it would be possible to do becomes contained within the spectrum of positions thus created.

Complexity can then arise because having made a first most general black and white decision, a whole lot more more particular black and white decisions can be piled on top. Once the brain can decide to relax or crank up, it can decide whether to crank up in terms of approach or avoidance. And if the decision is avoid, that could be flight or freeze as a more particular black and white choice.

As you say, when you get to the level of really complex (and culturally informed) emotions - like despair - the dichotomy is contained within the very concept. If despair is defined as a lack of hope, then despair is always going to make you think of hope - its antithesis. You can't actually have one without the thought of the other. Whiteness is really the sublimated idea that blackness happens to be maximally absent.

Quoting TranscendedRealms

Emotions are actually a sense like sight. They allow us to see the values that things and situations hold in our lives. It is only our positive emotions that allow us to see the positive qualities of life (i.e. the good values) while it is only our negative emotions that allow us to see the negative qualities of life (i.e. the bad values).

Even if you accept this as truth, what are the implications of such a view? What difference would it make to how someone lives?

Reply to CasKev

Who would want to live a life that has no actual perceived good value and worth? That would be a no quality standard of living since there would be no perceived quality of good value and worth in a person's life.

@TranscendedRealms But to whom is this relevant? Everyone has emotions.

Reply to CasKev

Some people do not have their positive emotions due to mental health conditions such as anhedonia, depression, etc.

And what can they do about it based on your theory?

Reply to CasKev

All they can do is just wait and try things to help them recover their positive emotions even though doing said things cannot be perceived as having any real good value to them. Personally, if I were in such a position, I would do the same. However, if I could not recover my positive emotions within a reasonable time frame, then I would give up on life entirely.

I think emotions are learned, not that feelings are not there from the beginning, but that we learn how to associate feelings with named emotions from others in learning. We learn to associate feelings with emotions in language learning [and as an aside, we learn to play roles associated with certain emotions].

I agree that there are positive and negative emotions, but there is also lust which I think is very different, neither positive or negative perhaps part of our initial sex drive, certainly a strong emotion. Research I've read suggest the positive and negative emotions have their own neural signatures, but that lust has a completely different and dominant neural pattern.

Interesting 7 minute video from Carnegie Mellon U: https://youtu.be/dIclRSpCnHY

Quoting TranscendedRealms

According to that effect chart, negative expressions and tones reflect negative emotions while positive expressions and tones reflect positive emotions.

The chart shows an affective circumplex. It does not chart emotions or expressions of emotions.

Interoception or affect is part of what makes an instance of emotion. We also need emotion concepts like trepidation or cheeriness to distinguish instances of affect. Abstract things that we might value, like truth, bravery, or life, are also concepts. Emotion concepts, value concepts, affect, and external stimuli are all variable and not fixed. We might love life one day and hate it the next. We might have an experience that changes our concept of bravery. An apple could be delicious or disgusting depending on our affect. Being well rested and fed our affect could pleasant and calm.

There are only instances of emotion and value, so it should be no surprise that they may sometimes appear to disagree.

Quoting apokrisis

The question then for the study of emotionality would be what is the fewest such dichotomies that you could get away with in modelling the brain's architecture.

I did a lot of reading about emotions earlier in the year. I was particularly struck by work done by Roddy Cowie et al for the HUMAINE project - trying to create a basis for modelling emotion in relation to computing and artificial intelligence. They began their project thinking they could get a framework of ideas up and running quickly and then get on with the detail: they ended up debating the framework very long and hard. Or so I understand it.

Broadly the findings were that emotionality colours - at the least - all of human lives - but that the usual terminology and categorisation (from psychology and philosophy) is not easy to match to open-minded empirical findings, i.e. it's probably wrong or partial. Our old models tend to be static when emotion is dynamic, depend on lists of categories when it seems these categories may be 'landmarks' in our emotional life rather than good moment-to-moment descriptions, and over-assume that one person's fear/desire/hope is like another's.

Quoting TranscendedRealms

But do you agree that emotions are the only way we can perceive value in our lives? That's where my theory was getting at. I'm also not sure why putting emotions into positive and negative categories would be the wrong thing to do. When we have what we normally call a positive emotion, this emotion feels entirely distinct from what we call a negative emotion. To make this distinction, we say that emotions are either positive or negative. You could also have a mix of positive and negative emotions as well which is what I've pointed out earlier.

Well, I think a more complicated model like the one praxis quotes for 'affect' is clearly better than a simple positive/negative one. But such models are static, and emotion is a dynamic force, for instance feedback including feedback generated by emotion is integral to the whole shebang. In this dynamism what we call 'emotion' is surely interacting with 'rationality' or whatever you want to call our regular thinking. In valuing love for a fellow human being, for instance, I remind myself rationally that this is a long-term feeling and commitment I have, every time I'm tempted to disagree about a short-term problem because of an emotional reaction. Human beings are constantly double-checking themselves, so I don't see how you can isolate 'emotion' as the sole source of value.

Quoting mcdoodle

I was particularly struck by work done by Roddy Cowie et al for the HUMAINE project

I read one of his literature reviews and thought it presented a very confused picture. For me, nothing about emotion makes sense until you can clearly distinguish between a neurobiological level of evaluation - what all animal brains are set up to do - and the socially-constructed emotionality of humans, which is a cultural framing of experience.

The best source on social emotion was the group led by Oxford philosopher Rom Harre in the 1980s. It took the anthropological route of showing how different such constructs are across different cultures. And it tied in with the rediscovery of Vygotsky, the development of discursive psychology, at the same time. Harre did two good collections of essays.

So the two levels of emotionality have to be understood in separate ways.

The biological emotions are basic affective responses. The brain needs to be able to sense the body's physiological state - we are hungry, tired, etc - and also interpret the world in terms of its dangers, its rewards. It constantly needs to orientate in ways that match our physiology to the demands that are imminently expected. If we see a tiger, we need to start feeling the adrenaline that primes us for whatever decision we are going to take. That level of emotionality is simply what it feels like to be changing gear metabolically in a way that fits the particular challenge or opportunity of the moment.

Then the social emotions are not about our own metabolic/physiological needs but about socially appropriate behaviour.

There is also a biological basis as we are creatures highly evolved for social living. We naturally feel empathy or dominance or whatever. We can point to specific neurotransmitters and hormones, like oxytocin and testosterone, which subserve specific brain pathways.

But language means that feelings and ideas can be woven together as social scripts. We know how we are supposed to behave when we are being "in love", or "brave", or "ashamed". These "higher emotions", or Platonic passions, stand as cultural ideals we are meant to do our best to live up to. And how we act rather than how we truly feel is what really matters.

As I say, once you check the cross-cultural anthropological evidence, this becomes very obvious. But Western culture - with its particular stress on the rationality vs emotionality dichotomy - actually cuts across people's ability to believe it as a fact. The Western script - reaching its height of development through the dialectic of the Enlightenment and Romanticism - means that human emotionality can't be understood in simple pragmatic fashion as the learning of appropriate social habits. Reason and feeling must be dualistically divided, each somehow at war with the other for ownership of the individual psyche.

That is the irony. Much of the energy of even science or philosophy goes into perpetuating a Western cultural mythology. And that is why emotionality seems such a confused and self-contradictory subject. People think they know the answer - its reason vs feeling, rationality vs irrationality, stupid - and so bend all their arguments to steer to that outcome.

But also, it is a very successful social script, which is why it persists. By creating an exalted image of the individual human - always in a battle to conquer his/her base self by applying either higher reason, or higher feeling - then society is able to exert the maximum constraint on individual behaviour. We all become controlled by these learnt abstractions that are at the bottom of the West's creative, driving, growth-obsessed, mindset.

I think that part of becoming emotionally mature is not being too swayed by emotion. They're an obvious part of the human condition, but I think part of the process of growing up, is being able to see through them. In classical philosophy, emotions (or 'the passions') were something to be overcome. They were generally associated with weakness of will, intemperance, lack of self-control and impetuosity.

I suppose this attitude conveys the impression of the proverbial Mr Spock - the cool rationalist, for whom emotion is a peculiar human trait, but who on that account misses something vital about being human. But, I think what this caricature doesn't see, is that one can rise above emotions while still being compassionate. Compassion or empathy might be different from 'emotions' in the sense of moods or passions.

Quoting Wayfarer

In classical philosophy, emotions (or 'the passions') were something to be overcome.

Plato's chariot allegory - a tripartite division of reason, higher moral feeling and base animal emotion would be the influential basis of the Western view.

Plato paints the picture of a Charioteer driving a chariot pulled by two winged horses...

The Charioteer represents intellect, reason, or the part of the soul that must guide the soul to truth; one horse represents rational or moral impulse or the positive part of passionate nature (e.g., righteous indignation); while the other represents the soul's irrational passions, appetites, or concupiscent nature. The Charioteer directs the entire chariot/soul, trying to stop the horses from going different ways, and to proceed towards enlightenment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chariot_Allegory

Quoting Wayfarer

I suppose this attitude conveys the impression of the proverbial Mr Spock - the cool rationalist, for whom emotion is a peculiar human trait, but who on that account misses something vital about being human.

This is what I mean about the power of cultural imagery to teach appropriate attitudes. Mr Spock speaks for the cool reason of the Enlightenment. Capt Kirk speaks for the Romantic repost that humanity is ultimately defined by its heart.

Meanwhile the whole show teaches impressionable youngsters that the American Dream of individual freedom and free enterprise should be imposed on all alien cultures encountered. Even bug-eyed monsters should be given the supreme gift of human independently-minded feeling.

Oh the irony of the fact that it is social constraints that give shape to human freedoms, pointing us in a clear direction and leaving us to do our best to meet those goals.

Emotionality is a clay to be sculpted. And the goals are made so lofty, so abstract, they become unrealistic to achieve.

Quoting apokrisis

And the goals are made so lofty, so abstract, they become unrealistic to achieve.

The only goal of Western liberalism is economic growth - that's the engine that fuels prosperity. But now the Western worldview is underwritten by evolution, the only goal of which is propagation, and which is essentially a meaningless physical process. So the 'truth' spoken of by Platonic wisdom has to all intents been abandoned, there is nothing higher to aspire to than the 'four Fs'. Which is why, if you overcome emotion, in the Western eyes, you will only succeed in becoming nihilist. You see plenty of that here, don't you?

Reply to apokrisis

From your post, we can gather that the one horse with the rational and moral impulse would be what we call the higher emotions. The second horse would be living its life according to the lower emotions. I am now going to reverse this whole quote to make my point:

Plato paints the picture of a Charioteer (Greek: ???????) driving a chariot pulled by two winged horses:

"First the charioteer of the human soul drives a pair, and secondly one of the horses is noble and of noble breed, but the other quite the opposite in breed and character. Therefore in our case the driving is necessarily difficult and troublesome."

The Charioteer represents intellect, reason, or the part of the soul that must guide the soul to truth; one horse represents rational or moral impulse or the neutral/dead part of passionate nature (e.g., righteous indignation); while the other represents the soul's sacred/life-giving passions, appetites, or divine nature. The Charioteer directs the entire chariot/soul, trying to stop the horses from going different ways, and to proceed towards hedonistic enlightenment.

So, what I am basically saying here is that these "lower emotions" are actually the higher emotions while these "higher emotions" are nothing at all. These lower emotions are actually divine, so to speak, and many people don't realize this. They think that non hedonistic endeavors (i.e. endeavors that don't involve these divine positive emotions) are the way to enlightenment and the true path to finding good value and worth in one's life. I think this is all a deluded lie. Likewise, people would think that all the emotional trauma that I've been through in my life was nothing more than a matter of me feeling awful.

They are dismissing the emotional hell I've been through as nothing more than trivial, insignificant, or petty emotions. What people don't realize is that these "lower emotions" are actually the true heaven and hell to a person's life. Of course, we do need to use reason and intellect (the higher impulse) to, for example, save our lives, make wise decisions, and save the lives of others. But the higher impulse alone does not give our lives any real perceived value and worth. It is not our higher impulse that is the prominent guider in our lives. Rather, it is these "lower emotions" which guide the higher impulse since they are what make any endeavor that relies upon these higher impulses of good value to us in the first place.

Reply to Wayfarer Yeah, there is a lot of nihilism, existentalism and ant-natalism expressed around these parts. It is a natural reaction to being asked to jump so high as a "self-actualising being" in the modern individualistic world.

So while you finger the rational side of the equation - Scientism - I see that as merely the other half of the same essential duo. It is the romantic belief in human transcendence that was also fixed by Plato right at the birth of the Socratic Western ideal of the self-made person answering to a call from beyond his or her actual (biologically and socially constrained) world.

That would be why the values of other cultures - like Buddhism - might appeal to you. They speak to a traditional, non-technological, lifestyle that perforce is more communal and ecological, less directed at growth and advance.

But what happens when Westerners start picking and choosing the bits they think they best like from other cultures? You start to get the new agers and transhumanists. You get a romanticised version of the Eastern wisdom where again it becomes all about personal ascendancy - tapping into spiritual power so as to become super-human.

Quoting TranscendedRealms

It is not our higher impulse that is the prominent guider in our lives. Rather, it is these "lower emotions" which guide the higher impulse since they are what make any endeavor that relies upon these higher impulses of good value to us in the first place.

I don't want to dispute your personal experience, but the general theoretical response would be that the game does require us to be a player. We have to accept society makes us who we are - it becomes the cause of our grief, to the degree that it is not some biological issue. And so, it is also rational to take responsibility for manufacturing the social conditions under which we might best hope to flourish. As selves, we have to make it a two-way street.

And this indeed is the basic understanding that has emerged in modern positive psychology. It understands emotionality correctly as an internalisation of cultural mores that can then be disinterred and responded to rationally.

In therapy, a person might realise that they have been beating themselves up for years over the way their parents in particular might have framed their existence. "You need to be a man." "You have to win at life." "Oh you're the shy type." Discovering these are constructs that can be challenged or put sensibly into context means that the social expectations that shape an individual become individually negotiable. A new state of relations with the social world can be established.

Of course this doesn't make life perfectable. But then a belief in perfection (or nothing) is the reason why people set themselves up to fail. Or becomes the excuse for not even engaging in the business of the social co-creation of the individualised self.

Reply to apokrisis

I will add one last thing here. From there, I will present a logical argument that attempts to support my view. Let me know when you are ready to read it. But first, I will just say this:

The reason why these "higher emotions" aren't actual emotions would be due to the fact that there is no actual quality of emotions there. Remember, there is a big difference between terms and qualities. You can define or judge an apple to be an orange, but that will not change the qualities of the apple and make it into an orange. Therefore, these "higher emotions" are nothing more than a person's will to carry on in life in the absence of his "lower positive emotions." This will to carry on does not give this person a real perception of good value in his life regardless of what he thinks and believes otherwise.

Quoting TranscendedRealms

The reason why these "higher emotions" aren't actual emotions would be due to the fact that there is no actual quality of emotions there.

If I say I am in love, or I am being brave, there is always some affect - and even a lack of affect counts as an empty kind of feeling I could report.

So the issue for socially-constructed emotions is that they are bound by being a script. They are associated with a set of acceptable actions more than any single quality of feeling. They are complexes and not simplicities.

And this applies even to biological level emotionality. Does feeling scared vs feeling angry really feel much more than being in an adrenalised aroused state - just in one case you are primed for advancing, the other for retreating. So the experience is of that high arousal plus the behavioural direction that ensued.

Emotion theorists often say that the actual physiological "feelings" we can report are much simpler than we in fact think. Perhaps just those two dimensions of I am feeling aroused vs I am feeling relaxed, I am feeling pain vs I am feeling pleasure?

The OP wrote...

...Thoughts make us feel certain ways...

Emotions are then... caused by thoughts. Physiological sensory perception is not.

Reply to apokrisis

But my theory is that these higher emotions you are talking about do not give a person's life any real perception of value. I have a logical argument to support this. Let me know when you are ready to hear it.

Reply to creativesoul

The thoughts themselves can't be any emotions for us. They send emotional signals which make us feel emotions.

What is the criterion, which when met, counts as being an emotional signal?

Reply to creativesoul

For example, when you feel excited over a new video game or movie, that is a state of euphoria caused by a certain thought. That thought was, again, the idea of you getting that new game or movie.

You claim that emotions are a sense, like sight. You then acknowledge that thought causes emotions. If thought causes emotions, but not physiological sensory perception, then emotions are not equal to physiological sensory perception(sight).

I asked you to set out a criterion, which when met, counts as being an emotional signal. Your example failed to do that, and rather re-affirmed the above... which is a big problem for your position here.

Reply to creativesoul

But I think emotions would still be a sense even though it is a different mechanism than sight. So, just because thoughts make us feel certain emotions while thoughts do not make us see or hear, this does not negate the idea of emotions being a sense.

If physiological sensory perception is not caused by thought and emotion is, then it only follows that emotion is not physiological sensory perception.

Reply to creativesoul

I actually have a logical argument that supports the idea that emotions are a sense. Let me know when you are ready to read it.

Quoting TranscendedRealms

I actually have a logical argument that supports the idea that emotions are a sense.

Go on, then.

Reply to Wayfarer

When you, for example, look at nature, then all the information of the trees, rivers, etc. is flowing through your brain. The moment you get a positive emotion from nature, then that naturalistic information in the brain gets combined with that positive emotional state. Thus, producing a positive emotion that literally contains a naturalistic quality to it. The same thing would apply if you got a positive emotion from looking at something artificial such as a lit flashlight. The positive emotion would take on the artificial tone of that flashlight. So, instead of seeing the flashlight and all its qualities, you are actually feeling all of its qualities. It would be no different than tasting a sweet piece of candy.

You could either look at the piece of candy and all its sweet and delicious attributes, or you can taste them. In a way, I guess you could consider our positive emotions to be the taste we get from life itself. This means that, as I explain later on here, emotions are a sense like taste, sight, hearing, etc. Now, here's where things get interesting. I established earlier that our positive emotions are like the sense of taste in the very beginning of my logical argument. This means that if we have a good value judgment that makes us feel a positive emotion, then we are sensing something good in our lives. Therefore, our positive emotions are a sense like sight and hearing.

Physiological sensory perception is not caused by thought.
Emotion is caused by thought.
Emotion is not physiological sensory perception.

Quoting creativesoul

Physiological sensory perception is not caused by thought.
Emotion is caused by thought.
Emotion is not physiological sensory perception.

Citations?

Citations?

X-)

Hah. You need a bibliography here? Footnotes and all...

Reply to creativesoul

I understand your point of view. But feel free to fully read my logical argument I just made above and give your response.

Reply to creativesoul No. You need it. If you are going to make these bald, unsubstantiated, assertions.

That's not a logical argument.

Break it down for me. That is, condense that post into argumentative form. I'd be glad to review it then. At first blush, a few falsehoods seem to be at work, but I didn't give it all of my attention either.

Reply to apokrisis

What are you talking about apo?

Bald unsubstantiated assertions...

What are those?

Really really bald ones?

>:O

Reply to creativesoul

Never mind then. I will just wait for someone else to fully read and respond to it. This logical argument fully explains the concepts I am presenting. By breaking it down, I would only be leaving plenty of room for objections to my logical argument. Therefore, by fully explaining my logical argument in such a long winded manner, I would have thoroughly addressed any objections to it.

Ok TranscendedRealms...

Listen. There are several false statements at work in that post. What would it take for you to acknowledge that? I mean, could you? If so, what would it take for you to admit that much of it is based upon falsehood?

That's not a logical argument.

Reply to creativesoul

Yes, I would take into consideration into whatever these falsehoods are. However, I am currently unaware of these falsehoods. Therefore, feel free to point them out and discuss them.

Cool. Give me a minute...

Reply to creativesoul

If it's too long for you to read, then I can present each individual paragraph I make and we could discuss them one by one.

Nevermind...

Do you really believe that stuff?

Quoting TranscendedRealms

Thoughts and emotions are very spiritual and profound things unlike sight and hearing. They are at the very core of our human existence. Sensing something good or bad would be a spiritual sense according to my spiritual analogy.

Basically you're saying, 'pleasure is good, pain is bad, and pleasant thoughts and emotions are spiritual and profound'. Tell me if I missed anything.

Reply to creativesoul

Yes, it is my worldview. It is something I have learned from my own personal experience.

Some folk find eating other people to be the most desirable thing that they can think of. The notion excites these weirdos. And yet...

According to your definition, those are positive thoughts, good thoughts...

Nah. You've gone horribly wrong here...

Quoting creativesoul

Bald unsubstantiated assertions...

What are those?

Really really bald ones?

Not just unsubstantiated assertions, but bare-facedly so.

Anyway, it is amusing how you now seek to socially-frame this conversation with an emoticon response. You are telling me you felt nothing - "physiologically sensory perception" speaking. There was no heart rate acceleration, no defensive contraction of the pupils, no measurable sweating of the palms. You put on a smiling face to the world and that thought became the only detectable emotion inside your head.

Yeah, right. ;) And I would still appreciate you referencing your claims. Surely you have put some research effort into all this thought/belief jargon you've adopted?

Reply to creativesoul

It would be a good thought the person is having. But, from our perspective, it would be a bad thought. We would have bad thoughts about this person's good thought even though this person was having a good thought from his/her own perspective.

That which is good is so in and of itself. Kant had one thing right. The categorical imperative. However, I tend to understand it as a way to measure goodness.

Now you're ending in contradiction...

Reply to creativesoul

Sure, there might be things in the world that are objectively good or bad. But it is up to us whether we have good or bad thoughts in regards to these things.

Reply to Wayfarer

That's not the full insight. I established earlier that our positive emotions are like the sense of taste in the very beginning of my logical argument. This means that if we have a good value judgment that makes us feel a positive emotion, then we are sensing something good in our lives. Therefore, our positive emotions are a sense like sight and hearing.

Reply to creativesoul

Go ahead and reread that post where I posted that logical argument. I have now made it much shorter into a very brief argument.

Reply to TranscendedRealms thank you, I see your point.

Reply to Wayfarer

I'm glad you finally understand my worldview. If this worldview is true, then it could change the world because most people currently believe that it is only our value judgments themselves that allow us to perceive value in our lives. But I am saying that our emotions are like the sense of sight and that they are the only things that can allow us to see the value in our lives.

Reply to apokrisis

It's all quite nuanced. Interesting to me though, how you are well aware that I've adopted nothing as far as thought/belief 'jargon' goes. That's mine. Feel free to steal it. It works much better than Pierce or Pattee...

Quoting apokrisis

Anyway, it is amusing how you [creativesoul] now seek to socially-frame this conversation with an emoticon response. You are telling me you felt nothing - "physiologically sensory perception" speaking. There was no heart rate acceleration, no defensive contraction of the pupils, no measurable sweating of the palms. You put on a smiling face to the world and that thought became the only detectable emotion inside your head.

Ironically this indicates that you don't understand or appreciate the theory that you espouse. According to the theory of constructed emotion, there's no universal fingerprint (or emoticon) for an instance of emotion. Creativesoul's emotional response, in person, may well be expressed as a smile. My impression is that it would be. In any case, he's not telling you that he felt nothing. Using the emoticon is literally signifying that he felt something.

The gist of creativesoul's comments, as I interpret them, is an argument against the notion that 'emotions are a sense like sight and hearing'. For some reason you didn't see this, or perhaps you deliberately chose a different response, a response that might lead to amusing yourself.

Rather than a sense, from what I understand emotions are more like a filter for our senses, shaping and distorting our mental simulations according to its predictions and the immediate needs of our mind/body.

Reply to creativesoul Yeah. A random dude on the internet who makes shit up is always going to trump the experts. Happens all the time.

If you can't place your arguments within any wider context of scholarship, then it just ain't scholarly.

Quoting praxis

According to the theory of constructed emotion...

Whose theory is this exactly? I remember you were reading some book but can't recall the author.

Quoting praxis

Using the emoticon is literally signifying that he felt something.

And you think he literally felt smug hilarity? You don't think the emoticon represented what he hoped I would think he felt, rather than what he actually felt?

So sure, he obviously felt something. And he also just as obviously reached for the standard social mask.

No harm in that. But it illustrates my argument.

Quoting praxis

The gist of creativesoul's comments, as I interpret them, is an argument against the notion that 'emotions are a sense like sight and hearing'. For some reason you didn't see this,

Alternatively, I asked him for references that might make sense of wherever he thinks he is coming from on this. I have never understood his own words.

Quoting praxis

Rather than a sense, from what I understand emotions are more like a filter for our senses, shaping and distorting our mental simulations according to its predictions and the immediate needs of our mind/body.

That too is as clear as mud when you try to parse it. Perhaps you can expand, or copy and paste some of this constructed emotion theory you have in mind?

You could always ask him...

Reply to apokrisis

I'm not sure what you're going on about. I like making shit up. I'm pretty good at it too. I'm not the only one. It's the quality of shit that matters. Not all people who make shit up are to be frowned upon. Not all made up shit is to be either.

Ya know, it's as I've always said apo...

You're more than welcome to show me where I go wrong. I would be more than happy to debate you in the proper forum... in the scholarly way. I'll argue in the affirmative that the attribution of meaning and the presupposition of correspondence to fact/reality are both prior to language. You've had time to prepare.

By the way...

To clear up the confusion. My reply regarding citations was driven, in part, by the recognition that apo had not been following the exchange between the OP and myself. Why ought I offer citations for an argument derived from this very thread?

That puts apo's engagement into perspective.

Reply to creativesoul If you want to be taken seriously - which is what you say - then my reply is still that you have to supply references that can give context to your claims. You are making no sense to me because you are essentially speaking your own private language. Until you can point to something outside your bubble, who can really know what you are on about.

Reply to creativesoul So are we pretending now that these citations exist?

Interesting projection("pretending") from one who is feigning ignorance...

Quoting apokrisis

Whose theory [constructed emotion] is this exactly?

I don't know.

Quoting apokrisis

I remember you were reading some book but can't recall the author.

Lisa Feldman Barrett

Quoting apokrisis

And you think he literally felt smug hilarity?

I imagine he may have felt somewhat irritated. Isn't that the general direction you were aiming for?

Quoting apokrisis

You don't think the emoticon represented what he hoped I would think he felt, rather than what he actually felt?

You appear to be suggesting that what he felt, assuming it was irritation, is always expressed as a something like this :( ? Really?

Quoting apokrisis

So sure, he obviously felt something. And he also just as obviously reached for the standard social mask.

It's really not obvious. Perhaps you should go back and look at it again to refresh your memory. You have to admit your one-word response of "Citations?" could be seen as a bit silly under the circumstances.

Quoting apokrisis

That too is as clear as mud when you try to parse it. Perhaps you can expand, or copy and paste some of this constructed emotion theory you have in mind?

My interest is to better understand the theory. I've found that discussing things that I don't understand in forums like this sometimes helps. Sometimes it's just ego games.

Quoting apokrisis

read one of his literature reviews and thought it presented a very confused picture. For me, nothing about emotion makes sense until you can clearly distinguish between a neurobiological level of evaluation - what all animal brains are set up to do - and the socially-constructed emotionality of humans, which is a cultural framing of experience.

Well, my memory of Cowie's stuff is he too was grappling with a similar distinction. For him, in trying to re-imagine emotion to talk computer language about it to computers and computer people, the gulf lay between contemporary human psychological talk about emotion, and how emotionality actually happens.

The hard part - to my mind - in analysing psychological talk is separating the wheat from the chaff. There is quite a lot of chaff in this field: alternative lists of emotions, differing claims about 'basic' emotions, specious little bits of research that mistake the countable for the insightful. All that.

As for the wider issues, I quite agree (before reading pages 3,4, and 5 of this thread after your post) that the Western reason/emotion distinction is part of the problem. But it is a problem for any of us as it's still twisted around inside our language and psyches.

Quoting praxis

Lisa Feldman Barrett

Thanks for that. Were you thinking she was saying something different to me?

I like the way she puts it in this interview - https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/10/15245690/how-emotions-are-made-neuroscience-lisa-feldman-barrett

Your brain is always regulating and it’s always predicting what the sensations from your body are to try to figure out how much energy to expend. When those sensations are very intense, we typically use emotion concepts to make sense of those sensory inputs. We construct emotions.

So she says biologically there are bodily sensations - what it feels like to be aroused or otherwise moved physiologically in preparation for anticipated action. And then emotion language is how we make sense of what is going on in a socially accepted fashion.

When you known an emotion concept, you can feel that emotion. In our culture we have “sadness,” in Tahitian culture they don’t have that. Instead they have a word whose closest translation would be “the kind of fatigue you feel when you have the flu.” It’s not the equivalent of sadness, that’s what they feel in situations where we would feel sad.

Here’s an example: you probably had experienced schadenfreude without knowing the word, but your brain would have to work really hard to construct those concepts and make those emotions. You would take a long time to describe it. But if you know the word, if you hear the word often, then it becomes much more automatic, just like driving a car. It gets triggered more easily and you can feel it more easily. And in fact that’s how schadenfreude feels to most Americans because they have a word they’ve used a lot. It can be conjured up very quickly.

Learning new emotions words is good because you can learn to feel more subtle emotions, and that makes you better at regulating your emotions. For example, you can learn to distinguish between distress and discomfort.

Quoting mcdoodle

Well, my memory of Cowie's stuff is he too was grappling with a similar distinction.

In this review paper, it only gets a quick mention at the end. So I didn't get the impression he was grappling with it.

In contrast to evolutionists, social constructivists emphasise the role of culture
in giving emotions their meaning and coherence (e.g. Averill, 1980; Harre, 1986).

Emotion: Concepts and Definitions, Roddy Cowie, Naomi Sussman, and Aaron Ben-Ze’ev, 2011

Quoting TranscendedRealms

Perceiving value in your life is not a thought form of perception (awareness) at all. Rather, it is an emotional awareness. In other words, our emotions do not have some sort of mind control effect on us where they force us to perceive, through our thinking, our lives being good or bad to us. It is purely the emotions themselves that allow us to see values in our lives. Emotions are actually a sense like sight. They allow us to see the values that things and situations hold in our lives. It is only our positive emotions that allow us to see the positive qualities of life (i.e. the good values) while it is only our negative emotions that allow us to see the negative qualities of life (i.e. the bad values). Having neither positive nor negative emotions would be no different than a blind person. No value judgment can allow this blind person to see just as how no value judgment or mindset can allow us to see the values in our lives.

It seems to me that our emotions are the result of what we already value in our lives. To value something is to love that thing and I can only love it after it proves its value to me. I can only be angry AFTER someone has cheated me out of something I value. So it seems more that emotions are responses to things we value.

I think a more interesting question is how are we aware of our emotions. What sense do we use to be aware of them? Emotions seem to more like a tactile sensation, which explains why we use the term, "feeling" in referring to them.

Quoting apokrisis

So she says biologically there are bodily sensations - what it feels like to be aroused or otherwise moved physiologically in preparation for anticipated action. And then emotion language is how we make sense of what is going on in a socially accepted fashion.

I don't know what to make of your phrasing it this way, that emotion language is how we make sense of what is going on in a socially accepted fashion.

I've understood that emotions are, generally speaking, like conditioned responses that help regulate what Barrett refers to as the 'body budget', conserving (parasympathetic) energy as conditions warrant and providing more (sympathetic) energy in other circumstances, via the endocrine system or whatever.

When you say "emotion language" it's not clear if you mean an emotion concept or the expression of it. We both know the concept of an automobile, for instance, so I can intentionally communicate the concept by vocalizing or writing the word pretty reliably. That's a clear use of language. I can also intentionally communicate an emotion concept like fear using words. If I feel fear and express it bodily in the normally recognizable way I wouldn't be doing it intentionally. So even though it may be useful communication is it correct to think of it as a use of language in the absence of intent? I also don't understand the dimension of social acceptability as it relates to emotion concepts and their expression.

Quoting TranscendedRealms

But I am saying that our emotions are like the sense of sight and that they are the only things that can allow us to see the value in our lives.

Emotions are not a 'sense' - they are reactions to stimulus. I can perceive value in something in the absence of a corresponding positive emotion. For example, sometimes I feel great joy when I look at my son, and other times, the feeling can be quite neutral. There has been no change in the value of my son to my life, yet my emotional reaction can be substantially different. It is dependent on a number of factors, including the circumstances surrounding the encounter, and my emotional state preceding the encounter.

Quoting praxis

I don't know what to make of your phrasing it this way, that emotion language is how we make sense of what is going on in a socially accepted fashion

Unconvincing. What's not to get about her examples of Tahitian sadness or learning how to know the feeling labeled schadenfreude?

Reply to apokrisis Unconvincing that I don't know what to make of your phrasing? Well, I convinced myself, for what that's worth.

Perhaps I may have at least convinced you of my interest in better understanding what you wrote.

Reply to praxis You just seem very hostile. If you want to understand something, try to pin-point the difficulty you are having a little more crisply. Put your emotions aside.

If you accept emotion is constructed, then the question is constructed by who? The individual might eventually learn to construct the experience for themselves, but only after being suitably taught. Who does the teaching and so whose purposes are being ultimately expressed? Society. Culture. The community that ultimately owns the language.

So what's not to get?

Quoting apokrisis

If you want to understand something, try to pin-point the difficulty you are having a little more crisply.

It's not like I didn't put effort into doing just that with the following quote.

Quoting praxis

I've understood that emotions are, generally speaking, like conditioned responses that help regulate what Barrett refers to as the 'body budget', conserving (parasympathetic) energy as conditions warrant and providing more (sympathetic) energy in other circumstances, via the endocrine system or whatever.

When you say "emotion language" it's not clear if you mean an emotion concept or the expression of it. We both know the concept of an automobile, for instance, so I can intentionally communicate the concept by vocalizing or writing the word pretty reliably. That's a clear use of language. I can also intentionally communicate an emotion concept like fear using words. If I feel fear and express it bodily in the normally recognizable way I wouldn't be doing it intentionally. So even though it may be useful communication is it correct to think of it as a use of language in the absence of intent? I also don't understand the dimension of social acceptability as it relates to emotion concepts and their expression.

You're free to ignore this of course.

Quoting apokrisis

If you accept emotion is constructed, then the question is constructed by who? The individual might eventually learn to construct the experience for themselves, but only after being suitably taught. Who does the teaching and so whose purposes are being ultimately expressed? Society. Culture. The community that ultimately owns the language.

I believe it could be, but it's not my understanding that emotion concepts are deliberately or consciously taught.

If you're suggesting that societies intentionally and purposefully teach these concepts, what is the purpose in doing so?

Reply to CasKev

Actually, please read my opening post again because it clears this objection up you are having. I have now modified my opening post to fully convey my theory that is both brief and gets my point across.

Reply to Harry Hindu

Actually, please read my opening post again because it clears this objection up you are having. I have now modified my opening post to fully convey my theory that is both brief and gets my point across.

@TranscendedRealms

What do you think of the idea that, rather than a sense, emotions are more like a filter for our senses, shaping and distorting our mental simulations according to its predictions and the immediate needs of our mind/body?

Quoting praxis

I believe it could be, but it's not my understanding that emotion concepts are deliberately or consciously taught.

It is you who introduced these further distinctions of "deliberate" and "conscious". Why do you think they are necessary qualifications?

Quoting praxis

If you're suggesting that societies intentionally and purposefully teach these concepts, what is the purpose in doing so?

As I've said, the purpose is adaptive. It is the way societies create the kind of self-regulating individuals that can then perpetuate that particular collective social style.

Really, you seem to be doing your best not to understand. You said you were enthusiastic about the constructivist point of view, and yet you don't appear to get the first thing about it.

Quoting apokrisis

It is the way societies create the kind of self-regulating individuals that can then perpetuate that particular collective social style.

Like for example a culture that one might say is 'fear based', as opposed to a culture that has more of a compassionate style?

Quoting apokrisis

You said you were enthusiastic about the constructivist point of view, and yet you don't appear to get the first thing about it.

This actually made me chuckle a bit. It's fine if this sort of thing amuses you. I would advise that you try to be more subtle though.

Quoting praxis

Like for example a culture that one might say is 'fear based', as opposed to a culture that has more of a compassionate style?

Yep. It is pretty obvious that there are many cultural styles around the world. There are crib sheets for business travellers to help them understand the cultures they might want to engage with. So differences can be boiled down to a bullet point list of social values like...

New Zealand: ingenious, fair, restrained, modest, earthy and informal.
USA: self-reliance, speed, control, equality, speaking up, law and order, and capitalism.
China: face, family, relationships, hierarchy, prosperity, harmony and nationalism.
Switzerland: follow the plan, slow but sure, Swiss-made, consensus and order.

So there is an emotional style that speaks to a set of shared values and serves as the expected way to behave. If you can't show these virtues in your "feelings" - in the way you feel you want to act - then you can expect social consequences meant to correct that state of affairs.

In the US, you've got to speak up. In China, you've got to pipe down. As the general rule. And you can see how each emotional style relates to a social history. The qualities that best suit a pioneer settler community would be quite different from those that help perpetuate a feudal agrarian society.

Quoting apokrisis

So there is an emotional style that speaks to a set of shared values and serves as the expected way to behave.

Good point. Heidegger, it is sometimes argued, was saying this in his writing on the phenomenon of being-in. Just as an individual person has its mood, so does the broader society.


I think it's pretty obvious that the dominant mood of the USA right now is anger. I won't elaborate on why, but I am sure you can figure it out!

This is an important notice to everyone here. I have now modified my post to not only make my theory more coherent, but to also make it better. Therefore, go ahead and reread my opening post again one last time.

Quoting Brian

I think it's pretty obvious that the dominant mood of the USA right now is anger. I won't elaborate on why, but I am sure you can figure it out!

It's also currently deeply polarized in sets of values, liberal vs conservative, yet none contest the shared indentity of Americans. Well, with minor exceptions, like the birther thing.

Quoting TranscendedRealms

These value judgments (thoughts) instead make us feel positive or negative emotions and it is through these emotions that we either see good value (positive emotions) or bad value (negative emotions) in regards to certain things or situations.

Doesn't this statement go against your argument that emotions are a sense independent of thought?

Reply to CasKev

I said that emotions are a sense dependent upon thought. When you have a thought (value judgment), then we could consider this to be nothing more than just a word/phrase going through your mind. It would just be an idea such as that the sunset is something beautiful to you. However, once this thought makes you feel a positive emotion, then this value judgment has taken on a form that is beyond any idea or words to make that sunset something beautiful to you beyond words. That value judgment is now an actual emotional state. It is like turning the word "good" into some divine life force or energy that is literally good. This divine energy will take on different forms (feel different). For example, if you felt a positive emotion from the idea of a sunset being beautiful to you versus the idea of going on a vacation, then these feelings will be different. So, you would be perceiving different qualities of goodness. Objects themselves do not possess intrinsic goodness or badness. Rather, we perceive good and bad value towards objects through our emotions.

Knowing the differences between different communities' values requires isolating and recognizing the shared values in each of the different communities and then comparing the community sets to each other.

A bullet point list of values for any given community of people presupposes either that each community member values each bullet point, or community values do not require being shared by community members. The latter is absurd, nonsensical, and renders the notion of community value utterly meaningless.

If we have a bullet point list claiming to highlight the differences in different communities' values, it had better well be grounded upon isolating and recognizing the values remaining extant within each community after all the individual particulars are removed.

The purported list of bullet points heretofore does not accomplish the aforementioned task, and thus does not have the justificatory ground to warrant it's assertion, let alone assent to the belief that it is true.

Just some random dude's opinion...

X-)

No citation necessary for those capable of critically thinking.

Quoting creativesoul

The purported list of bullet points heretofore does not accomplish the aforementioned task, and thus does not have the justificatory ground to warrant it's assertion, let alone assent to the belief that it is true.

Sounding like a drunk lawyer here. Is it a joke?

Quoting TranscendedRealms

[...] This means that our emotions do not have some sort of mind control effect on us and make us perceive, through our thinking, our lives having value to us. It is purely the emotions themselves that allow us to see the value in our lives. [...]

[...] So, continuing on here. Most people would tell me that feelings are nothing more than just feelings and that it is our thoughts (value judgments) that make our lives valuable to us. I am actually reversing this. I am saying that thoughts are nothing more than just thoughts and that it is instead our emotions that make our lives valuable to us.

Howdy.

Wanted to express two positions related to the title of this thread.

First, emotions come in different forms. We linguistically often express this difference by affirming either a) “I feel […; e.g., giddy]” or b) “I am […; e.g., giddy]”. Giddiness either way is an emotion. But, in instance (a) it is apprehended by the “I” in question as present within its own mind as one apprehends—via analogy—the tactile touch of a surface that is nevertheless other than that which apprehends (or perceives, in the broad sense of the word). Whereas in instance (b) the emotion is no longer something apprehended by the “I” in question but is instead one momentarily inseparable property of the respective “I”. [I’m using the term “I” to try to avoid the vagueness of the term consciousness.]

Point being one form of emotions consists of emotions felt/perceived by that which is aware of these emotions and that another form of emotions consists of emotions that are an enactively present component of that which is aware—via which apprehensions of other (including form “a” emotions) are made. Of course there’s overlap between forms (a) and (b) of emotions, but the disparity still exists.
With the former form (a), just because one feels emotion X does not then necessarily entail that one is in any way X; for instance, I could feel pangs of envy but immediately shun these creeping up emotions, myself as awareness/”I” at this juncture not being envious but, rather, antithetical to experiencing envy (though I will at such juncture indeed sense envy as one brewing—and, in this scenario, hopeful soon obliterated—emotion within my total being of mind). It would not be till I emotively deem envy an appropriate response to the here unaddressed stimuli that I would become envious, thereby now being a momentarily envious person in my intentions and outlooks.

I agree that it’s a very complex issue (as well as are issues of self when addressing the ever-changing "I" in conjunction with its total mind and body from which the "I" can well be stated to emerge). Nevertheless, my basic observation here is that there is a difference between “perceiving” one’s own emotions and enactively being momentarily undifferentiable from, or fully unified with, the emotion(s) in question.

Secondly, I for one strongly uphold that emotions consist of (mostly unconscious) reasoning. Enactive emotions—take your pick: love, anger, attraction, repulsion, etc.—entail that so doing x, y, and z, (be these general or specific) will result in some conclusion that you desire to obtain (typically for some reason). Here we have inference that is actively lived: premises accepted as true, one or more general goals/conclusions pursued, and the means by which one moves from these premises to the given conclusion—not in abstract theory but in concrete practice. Perceived emotions—or form (a) of emotions aforementioned—hold the same reasoning to them, but they emerge from fully un/subconscious portions of one’s mind in manners that you are not yet fully converged with, holding premises and conclusions you are not yet fully aware of consciously.

Conscious reasoning is driven by desire; desire is of itself an emotion (not an inference). So thought, when defined as conscious reasoning alone, is itself a tool through which we seek to actualize our enactive emotions (emotions we’re momentarily undifferentiable from … the “I am curious” type of emotion; and not the “I feel some tangential curiosity but am far more interested in doing something else (due to a conflicting emotion which I currently am one with)” type of emotion).

For the record, David Hume was the first to my knowledge to express this position of all abstract thought being governed by (often enough competing) emotive drives.

Don’t know if this will help out in better clarifying your outlook as offered in the OP. But, in summation of this post, imo there is no sharp threshold between emotion and thought. What we may think of as pure emotion is unconscious thought—either goading us as total beings or, else, with which we become fully converged with in our actions and outlooks—and what we may think of as pure thought is always itself a vehicle driven by some emotive state’s purpose.

Still, at the end of the day, for the record, I agree with you that emotions (specifically type “b” emotions) are primary and conscious reasoning secondary—such as in obtaining value judgments. This, though, is not to say that conscious reasoning is not often crucial in helping us discern what is from what isn’t … as well as what ought to be from what ought not to be. Nor am I suggesting that emotions and thoughts are not mutually entwined.

Reply to apokrisis You demonstrate poor emotional grainularity or EQ, apo, failing to recognize satire pointed directly at you.

Reply to praxis You seem upset about something.

Reply to apokrisis I feel alright. A little hungry and depleted at the moment but that will be remedied shortly. How do you feel? Are you unmove by public ridicule?

Reply to praxis So are you agreeing with creative's argument? Or is that what you are labelling a satire. :)

Creative says we can't extract traits from population samples. Which would be news to most folk. Is that a position you also mean to defend here?

Denial... interesting.

Reply to praxis It was a simple question and you don't seem to want to answer.

Why don't you just come out and explain what is bugging you so much. I mean in terms of the philosophical positions being taken. Your personal neuroses count for nothing. But I am asking you directly what argument you mean to defend here - or pick a fight about.

I'm not sure what you're talking about. I'm a bit drunk and was just messing with you.

Reply to praxis Yeah sure. That's totally believable.

But I am asking you directly to make it clear what you might think be our essential point of difference in this thread. Time to put up or shut up.

Reply to apokrisis Alright, I'll try to piece something together.

Earlier you wrote...
Quoting apokrisis

So there is an emotional style that speaks to a set of shared values and serves as the expected way to behave. If you can't show these virtues in your "feelings" - in the way you feel you want to act - then you can expect social consequences meant to correct that state of affairs.

In regard to creativesoul's creative post, we don't know if you felt appropriately. I suppose we may be able to tell in future behavior?

Quoting praxis

Alright, I'll try to piece something together.

Cool.

There is an objective form of wanting. It would be our positive emotions. Here, I will quote something that points that out:

We have found a special hedonic hotspot that is crucial for reward 'liking' and 'wanting' (and codes reward learning too). The opioid hedonic hotspot is shown in red above. It works together with another hedonic hotspot in the more famous nucleus accumbens to generate pleasure 'liking'.

In order for my theory to hold true, then I will first need to establish that thoughts of wanting things can only be thoughts of things being good to us (i.e. good value judgments). Once I have done that, then I can say that, since there is an objective form of wanting (our positive emotions), then they are an objective source of seeing the good value in our lives. So, I will now begin. A good value judgment can only be a thought of something being desirable and cherishable to us. For example, if you said that you did not want to go to work today and that you had to go to work anyway since going to work had good value to you, then you would be wanting to go to work. Here is another example. Even if you had a sinister desire and you judged that desiring thought to be bad, then this sinister desire would still be a good value judgment while you would be having a different thought (a bad value judgment).

These two thoughts have different characteristics. One is wanting and the other is unwanting. Therefore, that is why they are distinct from one another. Since I have established that good value judgments are wanting thoughts and bad value judgments are unwanting thoughts, I will now say from here that good value judgments always make us feel positive emotions such as feelings of joy and excitement while bad value judgments always make us feel negative emotions such as anger and despair. The only exception would be if you had some mental health condition such as anhedonia which doesn't allow you to have positive or negative emotions. But like I was saying, it would follow from here that positive emotions are an objective source of seeing good value towards stimuli while negative emotions would be an objective source of seeing bad value towards stimuli.

I am going to present to you an experiment that can prove that things that are good to us can only be things that we want. If you were to set up an experiment where you had an item that a person said that he did not want, but had to obtain anyway since obtaining it had much good value to him, then how would this person respond once you take that item away from him? I am quite sure he would want that item. Since that item was something very important (good) to him, then he wouldn't just have utter indifference towards the situation of that item being taken away from him.

It's also quite possibly a copy of this one @Michael

Reply to apokrisis

You wrote:

Creative says we can't extract traits from population samples. Which would be news to most folk. Is that a position you also mean to defend here?

It's always easiest for an author to avoid facing the consequences stemming from a clear refutation of their position by misattributing meaning. Creative did not say that, nor did what creative say lead to that.

Rather, what creative clearly set out is what it would take for an author to know what they're talking about when comparing different societal/community values. That portion of creative's post has been left sorely neglected in lieu of ad hominem. A common tactic and clear sign that one's argument/position lacks substance.

If we look towards the purported list of social/community values while actually considering the members(what a novel idea), we'll quickly find that there are folk from one community or other who share values of another community but do not share the values claimed to be ones belonging to their own community.

Given all that, what creative was pointing out was that that list was/is based upon an ill-conceived notion of community/social values, which is to say that the conceptual/linguistic framework itself is found sorely lacking... begging... for it's own correspondence to fact/reality.

So, in conclusion, if we claim there is an emotional style of a society/community that speaks to a set of shared values of the members therein, and we want to be taken seriously, we had damned well better put forth values shared by each community/society member, otherwise the notion of shared valued doesn't require shared value.

What's next?

I suppose if it's ok to say that shared community values need not be shared by community members, then neither does the emotional style.

Again...

No citation necessary.

Reply to Agustino Thanks, done.

I want to say that the aforementioned (Western)distinction between reason and emotion is indeed fraught. However, I do not find that it is the problem, but rather it is a symptom thereof. The problem is the historical failure to draw and maintain the meaningful distinction between thought/belief and thinking about thought/belief.

Reply to creativesoul No words. You are saying the Dutch can't be a tall as a national characteristic because some happen to be short? You just reject ordinary statistical concepts?

I do not reject statistics. Rather, I place them in proper perspective, particularly when one uses them to make claims that fall prey to a gross overgeneralization fallacy. This is philosophy, is it not?

I have tremendous respect for your intellect apo, and over the years hopefully I've given you enough reasons to reciprocate.

Reply to TranscendedRealms I would argue that your five senses lead you to feel a certain emotion, not necessarily that they are one. My evidence being that when I hear something or touch something that reminds me of an emotion, it reminds me of an emotion, I don't suddenly have a new unique emotion due to my senses.
Furthermore, your emotional brain and your physical one are different and are also located in different parts of your brain.

Reply to Anonymys

I am going to present to you an experiment that can prove that things that are good to us can only be things that we want. If you were to set up an experiment where you had an item that a person said that he did not want, but had to obtain anyway since obtaining it had much good value to him, then how would this person respond once you take that item away from him? I am quite sure he would want that item. Since that item was something very important (good) to him, then he wouldn't just have utter indifference towards the situation of that item being taken away from him.

Let me actually clarify something here before I move on. There is the difference between conceptual values and our value judgments. For example, if there was a mother who was feeding vegetables to a little child and the mother said that these vegetables were good for him, but the child said he hated them, then these vegetables would be good and would be good for him. However, the child would not be seeing them as anything good since he hated them. This means that the vegetables would be good from a purely conceptual point of view while the child's value judgment would be a bad value judgment since he thought of them as being something bad. In order for this child to see these vegetables as being something good to him, then he would want to eat them or have them. The child cannot simply acknowledge the vegetables as having good value. He needs to actually want these vegetables in order to see them as something good.

You can't have a subjective when there is an objective. That all goes back to what I said before. There is an objective form of sight which is the real sight that allows us to see objects. Therefore, you cannot have a subjective form of sight since this form of sight will not allow you to see objects. Thinking you can see when you are blind will not allow you to see objects. In that same sense, you cannot have a subjective form of wanting and liking when there is already an objective form (the positive emotions). It is only the positive emotions that can allow you to want and like things (see good value in things).

Here is the objective wanting and liking:

We have found a special hedonic hotspot that is crucial for reward 'liking' and 'wanting' (and codes reward learning too). The opioid hedonic hotspot is shown in red above. It works together with another hedonic hotspot in the more famous nucleus accumbens to generate pleasure 'liking'.

Quoting TranscendedRealms

The child cannot simply acknowledge the vegetables as having good value. He needs to actually want these vegetables in order to see them as something good.

The child may not have the capacity to see the value of vegetables in terms of nutrition but he could certainly appreciate simpler forms of abstract value. The mother could create a social construct like money such that eating 5 carrots equals something that the child does value, like some sort of healthy treat or perhaps a toy. Her child eating nutritious food is valuable to the mother and a toy, or whatever, is valuable to the child. The child would then want to eat carrots because he could 'see' that that activity would result in acquiring something that he did value.

Quoting TranscendedRealms

You can't have a subjective when there is an objective. That all goes back to what I said before. There is an objective form of sight which is the real sight that allows us to see objects.

What you may not appreciate is that emotions are social constructs. Constructs that are fundamentally that same as the construct the mother created in the value-added vegetable scenario above.

Reply to praxis

Well, my theory is just pointing out here that, without wanting, then nothing can be of any good value to you. That is, nothing can matter to you in a positive way. You need your positive emotions in order to want and, therefore, make things of good value to you. When I said that logical and rational thought processes alone (value judgments) do not allow us to see value in our lives, I am saying that the only thing that can allow us to see value is a force/energy, if you will. It is like a divine force that is literally intrinsic goodness itself. That force would be our positive emotions.

Without this sacred life force in my life, then all value judgments (words alone) are completely dead and, thus, cannot allow me to see any real good value in my life. Words alone hold no power to my life and are a no quality standard of living. Having this divine life force is the only real good quality standard of living. People haven't been awakened to this standard and my theory is trying to make it a known truth to the world. I was trying to establish this as an objective fact by pinning up our thoughts (good value judgments) with our positive emotions.

Since positive emotions are an objective form of wanting and since I have established earlier that good value judgments are always thoughts of us wanting things, then it would have to follow from here that our positive emotions are an objective form of seeing good value in our lives. Establishing this objective goodness would, therefore, establish the idea that a divine life force (our positive emotions) really are needed in our lives to allow us to perceive the positive qualities of life.

Quoting TranscendedRealms

When I said that logical and rational thought processes alone (value judgments) do not allow us to see value in our lives, I am saying that the only thing that can allow us to see value is a force/energy, if you will. It is like a divine force that is literally intrinsic goodness itself. That force would be our positive emotions.

There are many avenues to meaning, and perhaps none better than pain and suffering.

Preach it, Viktor!

Reply to praxis

By saying that, then you would be agreeing with my theory. According to my theory, pain would be our negative emotions and pleasure would be our positive emotions. You can't have pain and pleasure without these emotions. Sure, you could have physical pain and pleasant smells such as the smell of a rose, but these types of sensations do not allow you to perceive any sufficient quality of good or bad value in your life at all. I could be in the worst emotional state of my life and I could smell the most intense pleasant smell. But as long as I am still in that horrible miserable state, then that scent would not give me much awareness of good value in my life at all. It would only give me an awareness (perception) that is very slim.

Your language is difficult to interpret but what you seem to be saying is that sensations themselves, whether good or bad, do not add sufficient meaning to our lives. You write: "sensations do not allow you to perceive any sufficient quality of good or bad value in your life at all". When you say "value in your life," you essentially mean meaning, right?

Most would agree that modernity has shifted the world towards a more materialistic mindset, that we're currently trapped in the iron cage of rationalization, and there's something of a cultural void when it comes to meaning in our lives. So we may be on the same page so far. There's a need that you attempt to address.

You go on to say that being in a "horrible miserable state, then that scent [of a rose] would not give me much awareness of good value in my life at all. It would only give me an awareness (perception) that is very slim." So the question is how do we get out of this miserable state. We know that pleasant sensation is too slim. I think even the illustrious pioneer in meaning Viktor Frankl would agree with this assessment so far.

From your previous comments, I glean your proposal to be that developing positive emotions is a way out of this miserable state and even go so far as to suggest that these positive emotions are objective perception, and then go even further by adding a quasi-spiritual quality to these positive emotions.

I can see some truth to this in that we can take an active part in how we experience emotion, and perhaps change them, with good result. For example, it's been suggested by researchers that reframing 'nervousness' to 'excitement' can change a potentially unpleasant and poor performing experience to a pleasant and high performing experience. Regarding whatever induced the arousal as a challenge rather than a threat changes the way our body prepares itself. If our mind predicts injury it will prepare for injury, sacrificing performance. If our mind predicts a need for heightened performance our body will prepare for that and our performance will be enhanced.

The scent of a rose may be too slim an experience to add meaning to our lives, but seeing the world through rose colored glasses may be too slim as well. Emotions are not a sense, they're only the tint of our lenses.

I feel emotions are becoming more and more unnecessary in today's world due to the rising popularity of social media and devices. Philosophy is becoming less important.

Reply to praxis

Actually, let me present to you a logical argument that should make my point clear. I will first start out with introducing what I have to say and I will then present the argument to you along with an experiment below:

We currently believe that it is our value judgments and outlooks alone that allow us to see the value in our lives. I think this is a false myth. Many people wish to dismiss emotions as nothing more than emotions and say that it is instead the thought that counts. I think it is the other way around. I think it is instead the emotion that counts. This is a theory that I have learned from struggling with much emotional trauma, hopelessness, and misery in my life.

This is a world changing philosophy/theory of mine that would awaken humanity to their higher component (their emotions) and would encourage others to find cures for depression and other illnesses that take away our positive emotions. I am just saying it is a world changing theory just to get readers interested. It doesn't mean that it actually is. But who knows. It could be. You never know. I am going to present to you a logical argument that basically summarizes my whole theory. It is a logical argument that advocates hedonism as the only way to see value in our lives. Hedonism is the idea that pain=bad while pleasure=good.

My Hedonistic Logical Argument

1.) Wanting or liking something is the only way to see the good value and worth in said thing. Wanting or liking something such as an exciting new video game or movie is the only way to see good value in that movie or game. Having no wanting and liking towards it would mean that it wouldn't matter to you and, thus, you wouldn't be seeing any good value in it. Or, according to premise #2, you would be seeing bad value in it.

2.) Not wanting and liking something is the only way to see bad value in it. It would be a negative reaction such as not wanting anymore people around you. It would be a situation that would matter to you in a negative way and, thus, you would see bad value in it.

3.) Being in a completely apathetic state where you neither wanted, liked, nor did not want anything is the only way to see no value and worth in things. Nothing would matter to you at all and, thus, you would see no value in anything.

4.) Simply acknowledging that things have good and bad value in your life is not actually seeing the good and bad value that these things hold. If you were completely apathetic where nothing mattered to you at all and you just said something such as: "Meh, this is really good," then you wouldn't be seeing any good value in said thing. You would just be blurting out a thought in your mind or some spoken words.

5.) There is an objective form of wanting and liking. It would be our positive emotions. Here, I will quote this out to you:

We have found a special hedonic hotspot that is crucial for reward 'liking' and 'wanting' (and codes reward learning too). The opioid hedonic hotspot is shown in red above. It works together with another hedonic hotspot in the more famous nucleus accumbens to generate pleasure 'liking'.

6.) It would follow from premise #5 that our negative emotions would be an objective form of not wanting things (a negative response) while having neither positive nor negative emotions would be an objective form of things not mattering to you at all (a neutral response).

7.) Your level of wanting, liking, not wanting, and neither wanting nor not wanting dictates the level of good, bad, or neutral value you see. If you really wanted something, then you would be seeing much good value in said stimulus. If you really did not want something, then you would be seeing much bad value in said stimulus. If you were very apathetic and nothing mattered to you at all, then you would be seeing much neutral value in said stimulus.

8.) Moments where you want, like, not want, and are indifferent are moments where you see good value, bad value, or neutral value in certain stimuli.

9.) You can have mixed wanting and not wanting. For example, if you claimed that something you wanted you saw bad value in, then there would have to be an unwanting thought there. So, you would see both good and bad value in that thing. (Note: I talk more about this when I discuss the concept of mixed emotions very soon).

Even though thoughts of us wanting things make us feel positive emotions while unwanting thoughts make us feel negative emotions, if you did not feel mixed emotions during that scenario I have given of you seeing bad value in wanting something, then you could still be having mixed wanting and unwanting thoughts.

This is because when you have a wanting thought that makes you feel a positive emotion, the unwanting thought does not always make you feel a negative emotion to mix in with that positive emotion. You could, for example, have an angry thought at a friend that makes you feel angry which would be an unwanting thought. But, at the same time, you could still want that friend in your life. That is, you could have the thought that a certain attribute of this friend is bad and another thought of him/her being a good person anyway.

Therefore,

Conclusion: It is only our positive moods/emotions that allow us to see the positive qualities of life such as good value, worth, joy, love, beauty, etc., our negative moods/emotions that allow us to see the negative qualities of life such as bad value, suffering, misery, hate, torment, etc. Having neither positive nor negative moods/emotions would be a state of mind where nothing mattered to you at all and, thus, you would not be seeing any good or bad value in your life. Your level of positive and negative emotions dictates the level of good or bad value you see in your life. From this, I can gather that our emotions are like the sense of sight. They allow us to see the good and bad value in things just as how our sight allows us to see objects.

Having no sight would mean that no way of thinking or value judgment can allow you to see objects just as how no way of thinking, belief, outlook, or value judgment can allow us to see any good or bad value in our lives without our emotions. Therefore, seeing the value in our lives is not a matter of value judgment at all since it is not a thought form of awareness (perception) at all. It is instead purely an emotional awareness. This means that our emotions do not have some sort of mind control effect and make us perceive, through our thinking, the value in our lives. It is purely the emotions themselves that make us perceive value in our lives. Our positive emotions are like a divine and sacred sense. They are like a divine light energy or force that is intrinsic goodness itself flowing through our very conscious being.

Our negative emotions would be like a horrible and negative spiritual dark energy flowing through our conscious being.Since I have presented to you this logical argument, it has now become quite obvious that we absolutely need our positive emotions to make our entire lives and atmosphere something perceived as profoundly beautiful, joyful, and good. Our positive emotions are like the divine and sacred light energy and water for a sacred plant. The plant needs this light energy and water to grow and thrive. Without them, then the plant will only wither away. In that same sense, we are like these sacred plants and we need the sacred light and water (our positive moods/emotions) for our conscious perception of good values and qualities to grow and thrive. Our positive emotions are simply a transcending and profoundly beautiful source of energy and growth for our consciousness.

Lastly, depressed and miserable inspirational figures such as Abraham Lincoln weren't really seeing any good value and worth in their lives at all if they had no positive emotions. If they had a little bit of positive emotions, then they would only be perceiving a slim amount of good value in their lives. Therefore, these inspirational figures are conveying a false message when they say things such as that depression and misery are good, they inspire us, allow us to see greater good value in our lives, etc. Inspiration is a positive quality and can only be perceived by our positive emotions.

So, it is not the depression and misery itself that allows us to see greater good value in our lives. It is instead the positive emotions that inspire us and make us see greater good values in our lives. These inspirational figures are, in a way, blind fools who think they see the truth when they can't. I am the only one who knows the real truth and it could change the world. So many people drag their lives on and on in unhappy lifestyles and this needs to be changed. People need to be awakened to the fact that an unhappy lifestyle is nothing at all. It is a no quality standard of living and people need to be awakened to the real good quality standard of living that my theory has proven.

I don't care how offensive and insulting my theory is. The truth needs to be shared to the world regardless of how offensive it is. I am fed up with those types of people who only throw out and dismiss my positive emotions as trivial things that only a spoiled child would crave and all the emotional trauma I've been through as no form of real suffering in my life. This only serves to dismiss all the real suffering I've been through as being "all in my head" since, according to these people, it is nothing more than our value judgments and ways of thinking that either allow us to be in a state of joy or suffering. I think that is complete nonsense.

Experiment

Now that I have presented this logical argument to you, I will now present to you the experiment that can be performed to prove that wanting things is the only way we can see the good value in things. Take note that I am leaving out liking to make things easier, more convenient, and just for the sake of this experiment. If there were an item that a person said he did not want, but had to obtain anyway since he saw much good value in it, then how would this person respond once you take that item away from him? I am quite sure he would want that item. There is just no way he would be completely indifferent towards the situation of that item being taken away from him.

As long as he is seeing much good value in that item, then this means the item is very important to him and, thus, he would want the item if you were to take it away from him. This experiment should discover evidence for my theory and make my theory known to the world. Here is another experiment. Take, for example, someone who says he doesn't want to go to work, but that he has to since it is important. This person would be seeing much good value in going to work. If you were to block his path, then I bet this person would become frustrated. He really wants to go to work and you would be in his way.

Disscusions like this one often devolve into the different parts arguing about definitions. So before we get to that point, what is your definition of sense?

Reply to TranscendedRealms I always equate emotions with hormones: slower acting, longer lasting. As opposed to those sharp cognitive pulses that arrive in a milisecond and evaporate soon after.

I think that the neural reactions arose from those deeper hormonal emotions. Because they are slow and considered, they tend to be right more times than wrong - at least compared to your cognitive ones that make you go off half-cocked.

I agree that in the heirachy of things emotions should dictate to the cognitive mind and not the other way around. I heard a good expression once, something like the order should be

Body obeys mind obeys heart obeys (god - the spiritual world), - words to that effect.

Have you seen the Vikings on TV? I think they say at one point "Who ever told you life was meant to be about happiness?"

You realise of course that trees don't have a nervous system, and people commonly assume that means they don't have a sentience (although the root tip is coming under scrutiny). And the reason they don't have a nervous system is that it would be useless to them. We have it to navigate our world. A tree would see a truck coming at it from a mile away and think "Oh shit, here comes a truck" Then it would hear a chainsaw and think "Oh shit, I'm about to be cut down."

It still has hormones though and uses them for communication.