Instinct, mood, emotion and philosophy . . .

[encode_decode]

Hi Pandora,

Reminded me of this (I know, not quite on topic):

http://thoughtcatalog.com/brianna-wiest ... t-explain/

I'm sure there are a lot more of those kinds of vague sensations that we get which are hard to put into words, but perhaps could be relayed through poetry.

Funny you should say that, when I performed a Google search that is mostly/all what I found from memory - poetry.

Thanks for the link I will take a look and make a comment on it.



Very appreciated Pandora.

[Arcturus Descending]

ecmandu,

No, curiosity does not necessarily make you happy!!

This is true, ecmandu.

It would primarily depend on who the individual is who is indulging in curiosity and what the subject of that curiosity is.

There are emotions, besides happiness, which some might find to be more beneficial to our well being albeit happiness is important for our all-around survival. If we are following our curiosity ~~ for instance, intellectual curiosity ~~ that can give us a sense of wonderment and mystery which can be extremely fulfilling.

We all need to be careful of that "cat within" though which could lead us astray.

[Ecmandu]

Instead of words like happiness, intrigue and fascination....

I'd use the word "profundity"

[encode_decode]

James S Saint

It is going to take me a few days to get my head back in the game.

With Mood affecting Reasoning and vice versa. I am saying that first you have the brain with many parallel processes running to arrive at the linear moments of thought that we experience in the conscious mind. These moments are affected by two streams of mental states governed by Emotion and Logic that arrive at our conscious experience; that is Mood and Reasoning running in parallel to provide the singular Moment Of Perception. I am also saying that Reasoning is a mental state that biases logical response.

A) Why do you proclaim only "two" states?
B) I suspect that you define "reasoning" and "logical response" differently than I.

A) Here I only compare two states on purpose. It it easier to contrast two states than more. I am interested in other states that you might define - would you provide for me one or two more states? Please exclude substrate states; ie. the states within the brain.
B) I just want to remind you that I have often mixed these up. I accept the blame for the ambiguity I introduced - it is clear to me what you are saying.

1. You say: Mood is a mental state that biases emotional response.
2. I say: Reasoning is a mental state that biases logical response.

Reasoning is the logic itself that determines (not biases) a logical response. If the response is not the product of logic, then the reasoning type was not that of logical argument.

So reasoning is deterministic and mood is bias?



- - - Extra - - -

There is more than one level of programming:

1. The substrate code.
2. The natural language.
3. Logic Conclusion/Possible Corruption

Each sitting atop of each other. Confined to states internal and external to the substrate.


- - - logic working in all three layers - - -

Points -> i (affectance)

i ≡ inception ∨ recognition ∨ perception

helps us understand why we forget and remember things; helps us understand why ambiguity takes place.

∴ i can be thought of as always there because as you say: "Nothingness", is absolutely impossible.

i ≡ secondarily the potential for the unknown to become known. In other words the unknown is always there.

- - - Correction - - -

1. You say: Mood is a mental state that biases emotional response.
2. I now say: Reasoning is a mental state that determines logical response.

Better?

[James S Saint]

James S Saint

It is going to take me a few days to get my head back in the game.

I know the feeling.

So reasoning is deterministic and mood is bias?

I would say that reasoning is more logic bound (consistency of thought). Mood is inattentive to logic.

There is more than one level of programming:

1. The substrate code.
2. The natural language.
3. Logic Conclusion/Possible Corruption

Each sitting atop of each other. Confined to states internal and external to the substrate.

If by "natural language", you mean the natural language of thought, I would agree. There are also social languages and social education, each divergent from natural physiological construct.

Points -> i (affectance)

i ≡ inception ∨ recognition ∨ perception <<-- [inception v perception v recognition/consciousness] ?

1. You say: Mood is a mental state that biases emotional response.
2. I now say: Reasoning is a mental state that determines logical response.

Better?

I would call that state, "sanity" (cohesiveness of thought). Reasoning is a process, much like programming.

[encode_decode]

James

Extremely valuable input - thank you very, very much . . . It is becoming very clear to me how RM:AO affects my work - I endeavor to make it very clear to you if it isn't already. One step at a time as they say . . . I am very grateful to you . . .

If by "natural language", you mean the natural language of thought, I would agree. There are also social languages and social education, each divergent from natural physiological construct.

That is exactly what I mean. There are two of them - one is English in our case and the other is hidden/silent(you don't need English to think). The same rules apply for social language.

I am going to go out on a limb here. To get my point across I must play with words a little.

► Everything known was once unknown.

► Everything there is still to know already exists, it is just undiscovered, un-evolved an un-configured.

► Everything can be expressed as information.

► Discovery is just the unknown configured into formation.

► Inception is formation.

► Unknown in-formation is known.

∴ i(inception) ≡ unknown/known(both quantifiable - even if random; randomness is then just un-evolved and un-configured)

∴ i can be thought of as always there because as you say: "Nothingness", is absolutely impossible.

∴ i ≡ secondarily the potential for the unknown to become known.

With a twist of lemon: The known is always there - even if undiscovered.

Now for some cerebral flatulence:
If this holds for logic then I suspect it works for emotion - therefore I do not think all emotions are instinctual but rather some emotions are manufactured once we become self-aware - self-awareness is potentially a product of logic. Instinct is a product of logic that is formed in the substrate. The substrate is formed prior to birth. All things are recursively repeating - substrate is formed from matter - matter is formed from affectance. The skipped steps in this paragraph are arbitrary to the gist. Energy and matter are the same thing. Logic and emotion stem from the same place. The universe is alive and intelligent(I don't know how) and can be thought of as a huge brain - like the brain some parts are undiscovered, un-evolved and un-configured.

- - - back to regular viewing - - -

I would say that reasoning is more logic bound (consistency of thought). Mood is inattentive to logic.

Oh I agree - I am still keeping the two separate - just that they stem from the same place and inevitably affect each other.

There is a hint however that reasoning is deterministic - even if only partially - delta.

I would call that state, "sanity" (cohesiveness of thought). Reasoning is a process, much like programming.

I feel sanity is a convergence of the mood and logic. Correct me if I am wrong - we might debate it a little though - just fyi.

Points -> i(affectance)

i ≡ inception ∨ recognition ∨ perception <<-- [inception v perception v recognition/consciousness] ?

I stand corrected.

They are inclusive so:

i ≡ inception ∨ perception ∨ recognition ∨ consciousness

??? Emotion and mood seem to be more autonomous ???



FINAL NOTES: i ≡ inception ∨ perception ∨ recognition ∨ consciousness is confined as follows:

Confinement[space ∨ scope ∨ time](i ≡ inception ∨ perception ∨ recognition ∨ consciousness)

or more elegantly:

► Confinement(i)

or even better:

► C(i)

I call this Rational Confinement(RC) . . . Motion bounds space and time to each person but that is a story for another day . . .

So to refine the terminology:

► RC(i)

or more simply:

► R(i)

The is a hint of the emotional process and Emotional Confinement in this post.

To re-iterate a subsection of Rational Confinement(R):

Logical deduction, when answering a question, is limited by:


1. cognitive limitations
2. time available to answer the question
3. openness to influence from the social norm
4. availability of accurate information

∴ Plugging this subsection of R gives us a/one potential confinement to our consciousness.

or:

► R(i)

So hopefully the dots are easier enough to join here . . .

[James S Saint]

To re-iterate a subsection of Rational Confinement(R):

Logical deduction, when answering a question, is limited by:


1. cognitive limitations
2. time available to answer the question
3. openness to influence from the social norm
4. availability of accurate information

∴ Plugging this subsection of R gives us a/one potential confinement to our consciousness.

or:

► R(i)

So hopefully the dots are easier enough to join here . . .

To where is all of this leading?

[WendyDarling]

Hopefully, on topic,

encode wrote

∴ i(inception) ≡ unknown/known(both quantifiable - even if random; randomness is then just un-evolved and un-configured)

Is randomness an actuality or does it only (seem to) exist due to our limited perspectives...unscaled? If it is undiscovered (un-evolved/un-configured) to us, then only order exists?

[encode_decode]

James

To where is all of this leading?

To answer your question it might pay for me to ask you a question - forgive me if I am wrong. I often introduce ambiguity - so your question is confusing me and it is probably because of something I have done(affectance); clarify - verify etc.

My question is:

Something bother you about it?

Paranoia . . . that's me . . .

[James S Saint]

Something bother you about it?

Only that without a goal in mind, it seems like a lot of vague or loose ends. It's hard to make decisions concerning what is important or not until a purpose or priority is establied.

[encode_decode]

James

To where is all of this leading?

OK I understand the question now.

Something bother you about it?

Only that without a goal in mind, it seems like a lot of vague or loose ends. It's hard to make decisions concerning what is important or not until a purpose or priority is established.

My goal was stated at the top of the original post as follows:

This thread is about instinct, mood and emotion and a philosophical discussion about the three.

In saying that however - I have never minded getting a little off topic especially when it illustrates analogous thinking - no matter how distant it might seem.

So to restate my original goal a different way - it was simply to have a philosophical discussion about instinct, mood and emotion. The most general question would be: what are they? But it need not answer that.

At the end of the original post I stated:

In other posts I will initiate the topics of instinct and emotion but I wanted to start with mood given how hard it is to get a grip on.

So you could say the goal of the thread is to get a grip on instinct, mood and emotion in a philosophical setting. Not necessarily everyone's cup of tea but I thought I would throw it out there.

Now to your original question:

To where is all of this leading?

Just to an enhanced understanding of instinct, mood and emotion.



Hopefully that clears things up.

[encode_decode]

fuse

I finally got around to starting the book you suggested: Not Passion's Slave: Emotions and Choice by Robert C. Solomon.

I like how the preface opens:

For the idea which I have never ceased to develop is that in the end one is always responsible for what is made of one. Even if one can do nothing else besides assume this responsibility. For I believe that a man can always make something out of what is made of him. This is the limit I would today accord to freedom: the small movement which makes of a totally conditioned social being someone who does not render back completely what his conditioning has given him.

I particularly like the following from the preface:

Two themes run through all of my work, and I have not backed down on either of them.

The first is the responsibility thesis, "emotions and choice," the idea that we are (at least sometimes, to some extent) responsible for our emotions and our emotional responses.

The second is that emotions are "cognitive" in nature, which means that they are something more than mere feelings or sensations and something more than physiological reactions (although I have never denied that both feelings and physiology are pervasive ingredients in emotion).

I admit to not having put much thought into the first and have spent most of my time on the second - I can certainly see how choice can affect emotions and how emotions can drive choice. I can see that this book is going to be very interesting for me to read.

[Arcturus Descending]

Ecmandu wrote:
Do you want a demon to possess you to cut off your own dick with your own arms???

encode_decode responded: Not too sure about the dick stuff .

.

encode_decode,


You are not TOO SURE about that?
I suppose you DO value your mind over all things but isn't that getting just a bit too carried away here?

[Arcturus Descending]

Emotions are like the parents.
Moods are their children.

[encode_decode]

Getting much further into the book recommended by fuse: Not Passion's Slave: Emotions and Choice by Robert C. Solomon.

It is really starting to get quite interesting.

Another few cool passages from further on into the book:

there is an anthropological response to the idea that emotions are irrational in a society that places taboos on emotional behavior—condemns it in men and belittles it in women—it is only to be expected that emotions will be counter to ambitions

If emotions are judgments or actions, we can be held responsible for them. We cannot simply have an emotion or stop having an emotion, but we can open ourselves to argument, persuasion, and evidence. We can force ourselves to be self-reflective, to make just those judgments regarding the causes and purposes of our emotions, and also to make the judgment that we are all the while choosing our emotions, which will "defuse" our emotions.

I repeatedly insist that emotions essentially involve desires, expectations, purposes, and attitudes. Emotions are motivated by desires, sometimes distinguished by desires, and in virtually every case some desire is essential to an emotion.

Here I am noticing some correlations to my other thread: Why do people have the desire to talk?

From this section: 3 The Rationality of the Emotions (1977):

"I didn't mean it; I didn't know what I was doing. I acted without thinking; I acted irrationally. I was emotionally upset." How often we hear that! And, without attempting a refutation, we sense its falsity, the hollow desperation that accompanies a feeble and halfhearted excuse. "I was emotionally upset"; that is the touchstone of a cop-out plea of momentary insanity. But we know better; not only did you "mean it," but that single ephemeral "lapse," as you call it, was more full of meaning than the years of labored inhibition that preceded it. You knew exactly what you were doing. You seized the precise moment, and you went straight for the most vulnerable spot. You knew exactly where to cut deepest, how to manage the most, and you knew exactly what the consequences would be.

Interesting, I somewhat agree.

Still I am not yet ready to dispute my logic first approach - although I am working on another approach whereby logic and emotions are equal which this book kind of points at from what I can determine thus far - Robert states somewhere before Section 3 that emotions are rational if I remember correctly.

In any case I am getting plenty of food for thought. It may well be the case that I have to read it again to fully absorb it.

Back to reading . . .

[encode_decode]

Very insightful . . .

From: Not Passion's Slave: Emotions and Choice by Robert C. Solomon.

Where the ostensive manifestations of an emotion may seem irrational or foolish, the goals of the emotion may be subjectivity successful to an enormous degree (the self-indulgence of guilt, the self-righteousness of resentment).

My defense of the rationality of emotions is not a defense of these particular emotions, I hasten to add, but a plea for a philosophical-logical analysis of them—and all other emotions.

They have been denied this in the past, swept out of court with the uncritical, blanket objections of "irrationality."

But if emotions are indeed rational (in our first sense), then their structural analysis is just about to begin.

I am too tired to make a comment - I have finished up to chapter four. Let the structural analysis begin . . . After a sleep . . .

[encode_decode]

From the section: 4 Nothing to Be Proud of (1980)

This book is thoroughly stimulating for all the right and all the wrong reasons - that is - reasons contained within my mind.

Emotions, according to David Hume, are "simple and uniform impressions", "internal" impressions which are related to other impressions according to an empirically demonstrable set of "laws of association." The notion that an emotion is "simple" and a mere "impression" accounts for the relatively little attention the topic of "the passions" has received in modern philosophy, at least until very recently.

I still find Hume's impressions inspiring - they inspired in me the idea that: what if the emotions are contained within a system, an emotional system. The emotional system in my head is based on pattern differentiation and integration of past and present patterns that form future patterns of complex emotional states. I think it is narrow minded to look at emotions individually and stop there - sure there are benefits to identifying each emotion but I think that knowing the state of the emotional system is of far greater benefit.

I grow as I learn but in the preceding paragraph I was at a stage whereby the complex emotional state forms the mood over time through changing associations of each impression through a feedback loop. Still I think that looking at things from a more abstract level of passions has its merit. Perhaps passions do "form a complete chain of reasoning by themselves".

insofar as it is Hume's final word on the subject, it is also a misleading oversimplification of a theory that is anything but simple or uniform. Emotions are complex phenomena, and Hume is well aware of that.

Which makes me wonder whether Hume was in fact satisfied with his work - I doubt he was able to write down everything that he had in mind just as I doubt whether he was actually fully satisfied with his output. The value of Hume's work still persists; and why is important to take into consideration. I am not saying that Robert has not taken this into account just that we should not dismiss valuable texts entirely because of a hunch. An unnecessarily complicated theory to me is in the eye of the beholder and as Robert says: no doubt one could pursue a number of different interpretations of Hume's work.

Why can we not rely on purely causal connections when it comes to emotions?

A causal connection is itself the logical essence of "being a parent." So, too, one can say that the Humean impression of pride, in order to be pride (rather than just some pleasant impression or other), must cause an idea of a certain kind as well as be caused by ideas of a certain kind.

And look at how complex the situation that precedes being a parent is, yet it could still be explained with causal connections.

Davidson cautiously warns us, "I do not pretend that this is what Hume meant; it is what he should have meant, and did inspire" (744). He attacks Hume's critics as having "gone wrong . . . in rejecting the causal aspect of Hume's doctrine as if it were inseparable from the atomistic psychology" ibid.).

Exactly. I myself have a useful interpretation even if it is somewhat flawed, but whose interpretation of Hume is not flawed?

As Robert C. Solomon writes: What is a proposition, other than a semantic construction of philosophers?

Davidson at one point asserts, as I have argued at length elsewhere, 16 that there is a "judgment that is identical with pride" (751). "A judgment" makes it much too simple. Every emotion is composed of a system of judgments and beliefs, not as causes but as components, and this accounts (among other things) for the "cognitive" features of emotion that Davidson and others have emphasized . . .

. . . Every emotion also has its component desires, expectations, and hopes, which give judgments their motivational force. Without them, emotion isn't emotion.

Some food for thought later on down the track. I do like the way it is stated later in the book: neither is it the case that ideas and beliefs are merely the
causes or the cognitive presuppositions of our emotions --- and --- "Intentionality" is a concise but hardly precise way of characterizing the fact that
emotions are always "about" something --- from the section: Taking Emotions Seriously: Beyond Intentionality.

[encode_decode]

Arcturus Descending

Ecmandu wrote:
Do you want a demon to possess you to cut off your own dick with your own arms???

encode_decode responded: Not too sure about the dick stuff .

.

encode_decode,


You are not TOO SURE about that?
I suppose you DO value your mind over all things but isn't that getting just a bit too carried away here?

I don't know. Do you think I was getting just a bit too carried away? Do I really value my mind over other things?

I am still not too sure about the demon possession thing. If I had to answer the question:

Do you want a demon to possess you to cut off your own dick with your own arms?

I would say: No

Should I have answered the question?

So no: I am not TOO SURE about that.

How would you have approached the whole ordeal? Provided you had a dick.

[encode_decode]

Arcturus Descending

Emotions are like the parents.
Moods are their children.

Why do you say that? Are you sure you have that in the right order?

[encode_decode]

Notes: The cause of any given emotional state is going to be a complex set of events to be sure. If there is a pattern to be discerned, then this is how we would analyze the multiple causes leading to an emotional state. There would definitely have to be a simple way to do it and a difficult way to do it. Finding the simple way is paradoxically more difficult than to find the difficult way - we have perhaps already worked out much of the difficult approach.

I am thinking that instinct, mood and emotion are all part of a complex set of overall patterns that have many feedback loops and that is why it is so hard to work out moods and emotions - perhaps it is easier for us to understand instincts, perhaps not. It is fairly safe to say that there is logic of some sort underlying all three of these mechanisms and the difficulty lay in two areas - how complex the underlying logic is and how far up the abstraction tree we tend to look at emotions and moods. This might help explain the mind/body problem somewhat.

If as James says: Socially an "emotion" is an emoting, an urging, or instigation for motion --- and --- personally an emotion is the subconscious urging conscious cooperation toward particular directions then the patterns are subconscious. If on the other hand: emotions are more rational than we give them credit for then the patterns are conscious. It would make sense to me then that if the patterns are conscious then they are flowing at such a high speed that we are unaware of them and perhaps that is a clue into the subconscious. The subconscious is thought of as a sub-process to our conscious which is the main process.

If the emotion is the starting point for motion then I am thinking that the input to the emotional system is fed through from the main process. The emotion system provides feedback as input to the main process(system) --- once the main process has processed the input then the motion is initiated and the emotional system is updated. If there is a mood system/process then that system/process is potentially updated too. Whether the main system is the core logic or there is another system for that is another possibility - the main system may well be a referee system to all the other systems.

Correlating any of the mentioned systems with brain activity via scanning should be easy - it would only require speed and precision to do so and isolating the systems involved and the events within those systems. I am thinking that groups of patterns make up these systems and I am also thinking of the possibility of corresponding and concurrent systems taking place in the brain. We are talking multitudes of operations taking place at any given moment but we are also talking about different groups of operations being grouped into systems that can be fed through for pattern analysis.

If the systems are corresponding and concurrent then it is just a matter of splitting the patterns up into their respective groups to be analyzed as a system.

Whether the systems are always taking place in the same part of the brain(which seems unlikely) or the systems are distributed(more likely) is still yet to be seen.

[encode_decode]

From the section: 5 Emotions' Mysterious Objects (1984)

From the section entitled: B. The Cause of an Emotion—And Its Object:

The cause of an emotion is whatever event, state of affairs, thing, or person incites the emotion, whether or not this has anything to do with what the emotion is about. Thus the cause of an emotion might be a physiological disturbance or state, an incident which "jogs one's memory" and sets off a sequence of associations, one which has emotional import, a situation which evokes a certain emotional response (whether or not the emotion is about that situation).

Talking my language now . . . I agree mostly with the above - I would add that if a person is angry(or experiencing some other emotion) at something at a particular location and that same person had the opportunity to experience the same emotion at that same thing at a different location that the emotion would be different. If there is a further component to the location such as a certain individual present then that is also a causal factor to the person experiencing the emotion. This presents merely three possible factors among potentially hundreds if not thousands of potential factors that go into the type of anger(or some other emotion) being experienced by the person in question. Things can get quite complex quite quick.

One might add that there is probably never a single "cause" as such but rather many elements in a complex "causal story," one of which is singled out in an explanatory context, the other causal factors being presumed.

I totally love it . . . it is a little prettier than the way I would have put it . . . but looking back at my addition to the last quote is does make sense.

One might also add that what justifies a causal explanation and, consequently, what is implied by it, is a regular law-like connection between the occurrence of the cause (with appropriate qualifications and given certain standing conditions included in the total causal story) and the occurrence of the emotion.

Oh yeah . . . and to the outside observer . . . they might not get a clear enough picture to read the person who is experiencing the emotion . . . leading to confusion.

The scope of such laws is controversial, but this is a controversy concerning causal explanation in general, and it is no less problematic in the explanation of the boiling of this pot of water than that of my getting angry because I had too much coffee this morning.

And don't we all know it . . . Controversial maybe but it does point out several things . . . one of which is we should not be too quick to judge or assume anything . . . another is if it is ourselves who are experiencing the emotion then it is also possible that we ourselves might not have a clear picture especially at first instance when we are experiencing the state that we are in . . . I will leave it up to you to imagine what else could be pointed out.

Where the cause of emotion is a belief, perception, or other psychological state or occurrence (including other emotions), it may be that the person must, in some sense, know it, but just because it is psychological, not because it is the cause of the emotion.

I prefer to think of it as the prime cause(or the primer) - I still think the overall emotional state has a lot to answer for id est it is a measure of the recent history of patterns within the system - patterns which possibly taper off as one goes back in time.

The causes of emotion are not all psychological; they may be physiological or, for that matter, astrological. When the cause of an emotion is psychological (a Freudian wish or an impulse, for example), it need not be explicit in the experience. And when the cause of an emotion is in fact an experience (for example, a trauma), that experience need not be what the emotion itself is about.

Too true . . .


From the section entitled: C. Objects of Emotion and Objects of Belief

When beliefs, perceptions, or other psychological states or occurrences are the causes of emotion, the systematic ambiguity between descriptions of causes and descriptions of objects becomes even more complex. Beliefs, for example, often have built into them a "way of seeing" a situation.

Because people have different beliefs they see the same situation differently and have a different emotional state that results . . .

[encode_decode]

From the section: 5 Emotions' Mysterious Objects (1984)

From the section entitled: D. The Existence of Objects: Actual and Possible

The object of an emotion is a situation, thing, person, etc., as viewed in a certain way. In a complete account, it will be necessary to specify, for each emotion as well as for emotions in general, what this "certain way" is. In pride, for example, the "certain way" is, as Hume rightly argued, seeing the object as signifying one's own virtue.

Hume rightly argued, seeing the object as signifying one's own virtue --- this is plainly not the whole picture though - lets face it - the mood comes into play - the complex pattern that the overall emotional state forms which feeds back through other systems is likely if you were to take my model into consideration.

Furthermore, Wilson's position becomes patently absurd for emotions directed toward the future (or past). It becomes logically impossible to hope for anything; indeed, in one sense, it would be impossible even to be afraid (since the event feared, as distinct from the being that will cause that event, is in the future). The objects of emotion clearly need not be "items existing in the world." Nevertheless, it is nonsense to suppose that, in most cases, the objects of emotion are anything else.

The object of emotion can be imaginary - the thought can be directed at the future. People do experience emotions with non physical objects and in turn experience physiological responses. In the case of a mortgage a person can spend a lot of time in their life experiencing stress that is physiologically affective.

The objects of emotion may be the objects of imagination, memory, and contemplation as well as those of perception.

And I was saying . . . The psychological impending doom that one imposes upon oneself as in the case of the mortgage for example happens when the person in question keeps thinking about a foreclosure. Not limited to the case of the mortgage either - in effect our fight and flight response were made for us to flee or fight in short bursts rather than the long drawn out emotional turmoil that can also raise the adrenaline but over longer periods leading to a rise in cortisol which can affect the immune system - being the effect caused by the stress of an imagined impending doom. In this case a lot of other factors clearly come into play if the person has no reason to be imagining the impending doom in the first place.

From the section entitled: F. Emotions, Descriptions, and Objects: Beyond Atomism

In our preceding discussions, we have left unchallenged one major assumption, shared by virtually every author on the subject—namely, the assumption that an emotion and its object are distinct entities, however each of them is to be analyzed. Thus Hume sharply distinguished the impression that is the emotion from the ideas which are its cause and object. Kenny sharply distinguishes the emotion, which is a "feeling," from the object, the thing, event, or state of affairs to which this feeling has a "special non-causal" relationship. Wilson, flatly rejecting Kenny's analysis in general, still begins his analysis with the same flat-footed distinction: "If I am afraid of a dog, the dog and my fear are distinct items in any sense of the word."

I do question this somewhat - is it actually necessary to be so focused on the emotion and its object - I do not deny that both are important to consider just that once the event or object has already taken place in the world it becomes a task for the mind/body(brain) to take care of. This seems to me to be an over production of reality. Even though we are bound to reality - once we have sensed it the object becomes the domain of the mind.

The traditional conceptions of emotions have been attacked often and convincingly, but what has rarely been offered is an alternative. I would argue that emotions can be understood as systems of judgments, which constitute a particular kind of world view.

I would argue the same thing here - just that I would probably use a different word than judgment - I might however warm up to the word. Just the same it is quite apparent that we are dealing with some sort of whole system made up of subsystems by virtue of the fact that we - humans - structure our information on these topics as such - there is more than one way of doing the same thing.

From the Conclusion:

The concept of "intentionality" captures an essential but misleading property of emotions. It points to the fact that emotions are not merely "feelings" but ways of seeing, ways of directing one's experience of the world. But the concept of intentionality also suggests some too extravagant ontological projections, and it suggests, too, that an emotion and its object are two distinct phenomena, with a problematic if not downright "mysterious" connection between them.

For me the object once it has become the domain of the mind is an "impression", only it is a complex impression, as in a pattern. The emotion related to this pattern is a process that was already in a positive or negative state of progress - akin to weighting - much like an action potential but on a grander scale. The process increments a state of analysis on the pattern - once the process has performed many states of analysis and updated the emotional system the perception comes into light - so to speak.

The main difference I notice between imagined "objects" and real "objects" is the mind does work with both separately and in a different way - there is a time factor involved and usually the person doing the imagining is experiencing the lag that the event/object has not taken place yet in reality - this correlates well with lower levels of adrenaline over longer periods for an imagined impending doom. Another thought is that when something happens in reality that there are in fact two objects to the emotion - the real object and the object as it is assimilated by the mind.

[Arcturus Descending]

Arcturus Descending

Emotions are like the parents.
Moods are their children.

Why do you say that? Are you sure you have that in the right order?

No, I am not sure of anything. This was my thought at first glance though.
Emotions can become quite heightened where to me moods might appear to be less affected.


Is it possible that there are instances where the former beget the latter and the latter beget the former?
In other words, it is not just one way or the other?

Again, what can I know for certain?

[encode_decode]

Arcturus Descending

Emotions can become quite heightened where to me moods might appear to be less affected.

Is it possible that there are instances where the former beget the latter and the latter beget the former?
In other words, it is not just one way or the other?

Again, what can I know for certain?

You are in good company - what can anyone know for certain?

I agree with you that emotions can become quite heightened where as moods might appear to be less affected. I am absolutely certain that it works both ways whereby emotions affect mood and mood affect emotions. I like to think of it in terms of the mood being a pond and the emotion being a stone that is thrown into the pond eventually the ripples make it back to the edge of the pond.

[Arcturus Descending]

encode_decode

I like to think of it in terms of the mood being a pond and the emotion being a stone that is thrown into the pond eventually the ripples make it back to the edge of the pond.

I liked that analogy. I have often thrown pebbles into a pond and watched the interplay between that pond, pebble and ripples. It is quite beautiful to see and it points out the effect which one single action can have on everything which surrounds us.