Instinct, mood, emotion and philosophy . . .

Arcturus Descending

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

:smiley:

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Too true . . .

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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:

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.

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? :laughing:

Arcturus Descending

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.

:smiley:

encode_decode

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.

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.

Arcturus Descending: 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.

encode_decode: Well thank you - I like your response. If the stone is going to the depths of the pond - I wonder what is in the depths of the mood. All this talk about mood and emotions requires one to dig deep.

From the section: 6 Getting Angry: The Jamesian Theory of Emotion in Anthropology (1984)

From the section: Emotions in Anthropology

There are also differences in people from the same culture - the adrenaline level in a person down the road might be different even under an identical circumstance. However the anthropological example in the quote is very worthy of further thought - obviously people from different cultures have different ways of perceiving things and their emotional reactions will in turn be different too.

From the section: The Variability of Emotions

Good point . . .

In section 6 Robert discusses the circumstance that leads to a specific emotion is different from place to place. For instance what is considered offensive in one country maybe not offensive in another country. So aggression has different causes depending on where you are - if then anger leads to aggression then anger is different from place to place and in turn each person. A little like the color red being experienced differently by different people I guess.

The brain scans mentioned in my previous notes would have to change to account for the variability of the person being scanned from another person being scanned - the scanner would have to somehow learn the individual’s cognitive systems so that it could determine what system is being looked at that is potentially out of order.

Obviously there is some truth to this - but I would no be so quick as to dismiss an overflow effect of some sort. There has to be a threshold that one reaches before they start crying - a complex set of emotional states that eventually fall in line with the state that precedes crying.

I can safely say that I agree with this - with one caveat in mind - here we are only talking about previous philosophies and Roberts own philosophy and we are not taking into account the potential for a culturally adaptive single model - as complex as it may be.

Robert also talks about the building blocks of emotions being a few basic emotions that all of the later emotions a made up of. I find the rather interesting. I do wonder however whether the emotions follow a more genetic chain of events whereby some people are more prone to different emotions than others. I also wonder whether indeed we do learn some emotions and our systems do come with some basic emotions built in.

Robert speaks of an Eskimo culture whereby the people within it do not get angry pointing out a significant difference in their emotional lives. However he goes on to say how the Anthropologist who wrote about the culture may have got it wrong due to a false sense from her empathy.

From the section: The Cognitive Theory of Emotions: Emotions as Cultural Artifacts

Not only ideas, but emotions too, are cultural artifacts. (Geertz 1973:81)
. . . complete rubbish. (Leach 1981)

And this I find total synergy with . . .

In the last part of the book(Part 5) it was quite intense reading albeit rather interesting. This Part of the book(Part 6) on the other hand is less intense and really interesting - it is insightful and easier to digest. I found myself glued to the book throughout this part. Not only was it a real mind opener but it was also very stimulating. To consider things from a sociological and cultural perspective is important when one is to contemplate what emotions are.

The references to this part of the book point to what I can only determine to be rather interesting reading.

Inspired Note: I am wondering whether there might be something akin to an emotional bypass - given that whens somebody gets angry it seems that there is a rational bypass. Somehow I was inspired from thoughts relating to overflow effect to consider a bypass effect - it could be nothing.

From the section: 7 On Emotions as Judgments (1988)

This is perhaps my favorite part of the book so far - it used a lot of terminology that I was familiar with but is still not too difficult for any person who has not been involved with emotions and philosophy of mind to grasp. I found it detailed where it needed to be and not where it didn’t need to be.

I make a contrast between emotions, rationality and existence with the following statement:

Mind is an ever changing dimension that is bound to reality, logic and emotion.
This is how I tend to define the mind - what is the reality component then? I view this as the external component to ourselves - in other words the information passed onto us from our surroundings. I believe emotions can help us to over produce that reality - giving it extra meaning - perhaps meta-information.

Philosophers often make contrasting examples of some component against another to help them make distinctions.

The first part of: On Emotions as Judgments - reads: “Philosophers have often contrasted “reason and the passions,” typically championing the former against the latter. Descartes and his compatriot Melebranch, for example, treated emotions as “animal spirits,” distinctively inferior parts of the psyche”.

Leibniz and Kant among others made their own contrasts.

[b]These contrasts serve a purpose and we all do it with everything - even when we are thinking emotionally . . .

. . . making contrasts helps us to define our reality . . .

. . . these contrast further intensify the clarity in the mind when not over produced . . .

. . . over producing some parts of our reality can help to bring meaning to our existence.[/b]

In defense of the passions, “David Hume, most notably, insisted that”

“reason is and ought to be the slave of the passions.”
Just the same however, Hume also contrasted emotions against rationality.

Robert goes on to talk about Aristotle, Seneca and Stoic:

Contrary to the above quote: I myself have been working with two models: one of which treats logic first — and the other — treats emotion and logic as equals - I also make the distinction. I am now however leaning toward emotions as judgements as a potential. I have also allowed for the possibility that emotions are nonsensical paradoxes of the sensed - reason fighting passion for instance. Robert writes: Emotions, I suggest, are self-interested, desire-defined judgments.

Perhaps they are just more than just beliefs and desires as I said they could be nonsensical paradoxes of the sensed - and to reiterate: reason fighting passion for instance — or quite possibly as Robert wrote: Emotions, I suggest, are self-interested, desire-defined judgments.

Roberts theses on page 82 are very informative . . . it is nice to see things put into a list in that manner . . . and I did like his use of the following:

Saint Augustine: "Voluntas est quippe in omnibus . . . "—“For what are desire and joy but the will saying yes to the things we want, and what are fear and sorrow but the will saying no to things we don’t want?”

Robert writes “my claim that emotions were judgments was interpreted as the claim that emotions were essentially about information, a claim I have always vigorously rejected (which is not to say, of course, that emotions do not involve all sorts of information and information-processing)” — to which I assert that emotions are indeed about information processing - just that the information being processed is being calculated against outcomes from former states; so here I kind of disagree, for the time being anyway - I do still think emotions are a special type of information however - some of it is beautiful and some of it is ugly.

This model might not tell you exactly what emotion is in action but is does give us insight into the idea of a spectrum of emotions that I also apply to logic. Further I would suggest that the physiological effects of such intensity would come about through a specialized feedback loop between the peripheral nervous system and central nervous system. From that point biochemical effects take place to provide for how we feel physically - in turn information is fed back into the loop via receptors.

I can see this because I do believe desires are cognitive by their nature.

I truly enjoyed this snippet of writing by Robert: an emotion is initiated by a judgment (or a system of judgments) but then carried on by (a system of) beliefs, but this then fails to explain the experiential content of the ongoing emotion. A very different solution is to suggest that emotions—like God’s universe according to some theologians—require not just creation but an ongoing effort.

I would agree here and add that emotions are judgements that are attached and very interested instances about a world that deeply concerns us. We have to attempt to understand emotions in line with logic if we are to understand them at all so a distinction no matter how temporary must be made. As Robert states we have to view the mind as a whole and that includes emotions - by viewing our experience over time. I think emotions are incredibly exciting and probably one of the things we value the most about our mind whether we admit it or not.

Your welcome, encode_decode.

I think that might depend on what the pebble is in each case. What it is which draws us into those depths.

For me, it might be Puccini’s O mio babbino caro. So beautiful. I imagine that we have many different pebbles.

youtube.com/watch?v=RUENWpkPcQo

It is so difficult to name it. It’s like an experience of the eternal and the sacred way down deep where I really live. I am just there. It’s like a flowing river.
:blush:

Puccini is a god.

Arcturus Descending

I was reading on ScienceDaily that "Poetry is like music to the mind . . . "
. . . here are a few select snippets from that article:

And just for the sake of it - let us look at an excerpt.

A small snippet from PoetrySoup:

The above snippet is not from one of my poems - I was inspired by your response . . .

. . . it was also kind of poetic in a way - and it made me think about how music and poetry arouse emotion . . .

To your response:

Agreed - definitely we have many different pebbles. I believe there are emotions that we have not named yet - that there are feelings that we have not named yet.

It seems the depth of the human being is endless . . . especially when it comes to the human beings emotional depth . . .

- - - Life is a Rich Tapestry - - -

From the section: 8 Back to Basics: On the Very Idea of “Basic Emotions” (1993, Rev. 2001)

I have two emotional sets - the first is directed at the self and the second is directed at others.

I like to group my emotional sets in to two basic groups:

► Negative Emotions

► Positive Emotions
From here other emotions are built over time via two more sets of emotions - evolutionary emotions and configuration emotions - by evolutionary I mean that I will attempt to at the very least account for hereditary characteristics, personal evolution is something I am taking into account separate from configuration - by configuration I mean such things as personal, family, social, love, cultural local, cultural national, cultural global and many others.
[b]
Evolutionary emotions are those that happen seemingly by themselves . . .

. . . and . . .

. . . configuration emotions happen with the influence of the conscious mind or external sources . . .[/b]

Section 8 starts out talking about basic emotions and the building blocks of emotions.

It is a familiar topic to me but I will explore it anyway even if only because I find it kind of interesting how others come to group things.

Robert starts out this section talking about a battle that happened years ago on campus, using a metaphor about the atoms of emotional chemistry to describe basic emotions in the department of psychology - he also talks about how typically the psychology department and the philosophy department tend to keep a distance from each other but nonetheless the battle was still philosophical in nature.

The section then moves into what could be considered basic emotions and the building blocks of emotions.

Somewhat akin to the periodic table an analogy to an atom is made for each basic emotion - that the emotions each in their basic form are a fundamental and non reducible unit of emotional life. If we were to then take any arbitrary number of these basic building blocks - if it were - we could combine them to form new emotions. Emotional molecules so to speak.

However . . .

As plausible as it is I think we are going to find that there is a difference between the mind and the body.

You see, I fall between these two categories in my theories - that we have instinct - on top of instinct is a blank slate more or less - emotions are quickly learned - then there are the higher functioning emotions - the more abstract - we could probably go on inventing emotions forever - hence I like the idea of a spectrum.

But as Robert points out, we need to proceed with caution; that we don’t look at emotions in too confined a manner. Still anyone’s guess . . .

. . . we should also be careful that we are not heading in the wrong direction altogether . . .

But then there is the topic of facial expressions . . . emotive expressions contained within the confines of the face . . . can these be learned too?

Robert writes: But to what extent are facial expressions of emotion biologically determined, and to what extent are they learned, perhaps even taught, within a culture? <<< To which I would reply: There is some evidence to believe that some emotions are biologically determined . . . but that also makes me wonder whether they can still be called emotions. If so then we have at least two sets of emotions.

With some evidence pointing at biologically determined emotions - basic ones at that - we are moving into the territory of instinct, my model also has connections with the neurologically hardwired with a small difference - for me we are in fact a template of sorts when we are born - a kind of blank slate if you will - there is enough biological configuration to get us started - to effect emotions and logic - but this is a process that takes time to build the functionality of more complex emotions. I am not against changing my mind on the matter just that this is in fact where I am at this stage - mapping the mind and mapping the body(brain).

So is the neurological process and the emotion one and the same? I don’t believe so - I believe there is a hidden language - a language hidden within the neural networks that is unique to each individual and is being translated into mind, emotion, logic, inner reality and eventually the spoken language as well as anything else I may have missed here.

Psychology is perhaps missing out on an important opportunity here by ignoring what is hidden away - by knowing that each individual has a unique neural language less reliance on text book psychology and more reliance on good old fashioned legwork - brain-work - might come back into psychology. How can one rely on descriptions of behaviors when the behavior is going to have different starting lines for each individual? I suggest we can not and this is why a lot of misdiagnosis is going on and people are placing themselves in harms way as guinea pigs as is the case with psychiatry.

Do we even have to be aware of an emotion to perceive it - I would say not because if we are directly perceiving it then we are feeling it - this feeling is another way to be aware. What is so significant about this comment? We will get to see that later.

Robert goes on to say that the face is our primary means of “display” toward other beings. A smile indicates safety and acceptance; a frown or a scowl, danger or disapproval. That we display these facial reactions possibly before birth but definitely onward in most cases indicates a degree of autonomy. Facial expressions then are obviously hardwired from our genetics. The language of the body especially the face was the language that preceded written and spoken language - but even growls and grunts could be considered utterances. These languages come with emotion for better or for worse - we can not remove them even when we think we have.

I am inspired at this point to ask the question: Does one actually have to look happy on the outside to actually be happy on the inside? I still find the very notion of a “basic emotion” to be deeply problematic - at least without emergence and configuration that is - pattern building in the mental systems.

From the section: 8 Back to Basics: On the Very Idea of “Basic Emotions” (1993, Rev. 2001)

That state left over when you believe that you are void of emotion I am certain is still an emotional state and you are in fact deluding yourself to believe that you could ever be void of emotion and still remain as you were meant to be - this could be argued - but what would you be arguing the case of? Perhaps your desire to be a robot - perhaps a much more complex form of life than a single celled organism devoid of emotion. Ask yourself then what is your life without emotion - without fear - without happiness - do you honestly think that emotion is not an advanced form of stimulus? You have to dig deep for the answers - not rely on what you have learnt but add to it.

Now can it be said that the origins of language were to be found in the need to express our emotions? This is what Jean-Jacques Rousseau believed to be: yes.

Mind itself is multidimensional and ever changing so each dimension listed is going to change as well.

I will now quote basic lists of emotions contained within the book:

If it is difficult to see the problem here then you are not digging deep enough - believe me - later I will prove this to be the case.

We must also be careful what we are classing as an emotion before we proceed to enumerate a list of any sort. You should be able to determine from the above enumerations the problems faced in the classification of emotions - that hardly anyone agrees what basic emotions are. From this then we can only conclude that emotions are not as they seem - but potentially something different than we have ever imagined. We can at least say that there is a degree of probability that where the lists overlap - this overlap is hinting at partial or full truths. The degree changes as the availability of evidence changes - the accuracy of the evidence - using this chain of reasoning it should be possible to follow the path from its source and analyze each evidential increment to determine correlations that point at truths.

Returning to anger . . .

I would class anger as one of the sense paradoxes too . . . Providing there is truth to Aristotle’s interest then I would be interested in moral paradox . . .

I am perhaps one of those theorists but despite this I still find some affinity with Robert’s work. The temptation to reductionism is valid and that is why the temptation is actually there - reductionism has its limits and it would be foolish to think that raw science can solve everything without the help of philosophy. We can break cognitions and judgements down into logically simple parts - doing this however will not lead to the simple parts giving rise to names and descriptions for the cognitions and judgements. Each judgement will communicate like neurons to form increasingly complex emotions - you could call this the judgement network if you wanted. In any case you are not going to be able to remove an obvious connection between the mind and body.

I have to totally agree with this statement - and probably on the basis for having different ideas. Cognition itself is cultured(configured) and evolves(after emergence) so obviously once you subtract cognition and culture from an emotion there is nothing left - at least not an identifiable emotion.

In another thread I talk about the primordial template of consciousness - the emergence of awareness from our biological core - after this emergence we personally evolve to the point where we are able to consciously configure our selves - it seems to be the nature of the universe anyhow.

From the section: 8 Back to Basics: On the Very Idea of “Basic Emotions” (1993, Rev. 2001)

Now with an uncertain amount of potential emotions and a potentially infinite amount of spectral emotional states we continue our inquiry. This matrix that Robert speaks of is something similar to what I have developed to test learning abilities - I am interested in what he is saying here because I have suspected for a little while that the same model I have could be applied to emotional choice.

I was saying this earlier on that we could go on inventing emotions forever. The emotional spectrum is infinite. What is important for us to understand emotions however is to have some sort of list containing description - we may never be able to capture every state - but what does that matter. We only need enough information to get the job done otherwise we are just placing the situation in an unnecessary state of convolution.

Now how could one argue with this?

We have to be very careful with this type of thinking . . . a compound or molecule could be considered a network . . . on a matrix there could and probably would be many networks - since the brain is not so neatly quantified.

I totally agree that folk psychology has taken an undeserved amount of abuse - if it was not for regular people like you and I where would academic psychology be from the first place until now. When people communicate to each other, they increase the resolution of emotional states because as Robert states, “folks” have been distinguishing emotions for thousands of years - and in much more fine-grained ways - perhaps talking and communication in general between the masses is the way forward to identifying potentially many thousands of emotions.

Psychologists seek to reduce things down only because if they did not then the field of the practicing psychologist would probably take several lifetimes to learn. There is little we can do for modern psychology except to keep updating it with more efficient methods in the hopes that a psychologist can cover more ground. As I said reductionism has limits and it would be foolish to think that raw science can explain everything without the help of philosophy - philosophy would not be able to explain everything without people. I am saying that philosophy, science, psychology and people are required to solve the emotional dilemma through effective communication.

And this I could not agree more with . . . I find total synergy with this quote . . . it is again illustrating how complex the situation actually is when it comes to the topic of emotions. Emotions too are very much a part of our individual defining core and as I stated before, unique to each individual.

:-k

From the section: 8 Back to Basics: On the Very Idea of “Basic Emotions” (1993, Rev. 2001)

I will let Robert start this part: “It is sometimes said—but, I suspect, much more often thought—that the distinction between basic and nonbasic emotions is in fact a crude distinction based on the structural complexity of emotion. Or else, why is fear a basic emotion while jealousy is not? Fear is a relatively simple emotion, almost no more than a negative desire.”

Let us now take a look at a micro-analysis Robert makes on fear and jealousy:

“Thus an affect program might well account for all of the immediate reactions of fear, leaving aside the complicated behavior that might follow fear or the complications of long-term fear.”

“Jealousy, by contrast, involves not just a single “object” but a complex dynamic involving one’s engagement with both another person and a rival (in romantic jealousy, for instance). There is no way that an affect program could possibly account for such interpersonal dynamics.”
“Fear has often been described as a “component” of jealousy, and indeed, fear and jealousy share something in common—the awareness that one is or might be in danger. But this constitutes all of the fear but only one small part of the jealousy. Thus fear is said to be basic and jealousy is not.”

My thoughts: Fear and anger seem like cousins to me - jealously I do believe is an ugly and complex beast. There seems to me to be a combination of fear and anger involved in jealousy - even an inverse ratio involved between the levels of fear and anger - I would go as far to say that fear and anger can be amplified or more precisely their inverse ratio can be amplified. This gives me thoughts of an emotional energy pool whereby energy is diverted into prominent emotions in the moment allowing for the amplification of a state to occur whilst other emotions are deferred in the energy distribution. When all the energy is used up then the emotional state becomes flat - not neutral as such but reaching a floor as opposed to a ceiling.

From the section entitled: Basic Emotions as Basic to a Society

My thoughts: Is jealousy universal? Probably not if I am correct about each individual having there own hidden language. The configuration of the individuals hidden language mixed with the energy pool previously described is going to make jealously complex to analyze. Note: Each person experiences jealously differently.

Regarding Anger, Robert goes on to say a little bit further into the book; it is, in the terms of the distinguished psychoanalyst-turned-anthropologist Robert Levi, “hypercognized.” Anger is often talked about, greatly feared, and rarely experienced. It is, one might therefore argue, a basic emotion, even if it is rarely displayed and negatively valued. It does not matter whether the emotion or its expression is hardwired or universal.

He further states even further on; Insofar as “basic” means “fundamental” (as significance) and not just “foundational” (in the building block sense), it might well be the case that those emotions as defined by (and limited to) affect programs are too limited, too stereotyped, too uncomprehending, too socially insensitive to count as basic emotion. Rejecting the affect program interpretation of basic emotions and my overly egalitarian matrix theory as well, what remains?

My thoughts: I would at the very least say that fear and anger are universal - I can see it in many creatures and I would guess that they are two basic emotions. Can I say the same thing about happiness? I believe I would have to analyze this more before I could - I will say however that it seems that calm is a basic state to many creatures and that happiness might stem from this into a more complex state. I will be however exercising caution and going with the subjective degree of belief changing with the availability of evidence - I can intuit that fear, anger and calm are basic and I can see evidence for these being affect programs - I will cautiously explore these possibilities and write the philosophy appropriately to fit these probabilities.

“Could envy, even if it is not associated with any affect program, be a basic emotion? I think that the answer is yes, if it plays a dominant role in a culture.”
[size=85]Robert C. Solomon[/size]

My final thoughts on this section is that there is most certainly a lot to take into consideration involving emotions. We seem to place such a high value on rationality that we forget how important and potentially how much more complex emotions are. From days of old until now it seems that emotions have been pushed to one side and we have tried to slowly strip our spirit away to end up in a robotic utopia forgetting that even the engineer has to use his imagination to solve a problem. In engineering it seems we spend a lot of time developing methods to dodge the use of imagination and I would say that it the reason why we have ended up in a rehash society of sorts - we have removed our substance from our selves - removed our ability to move forward through the use of imagination to creativity via the emotional logic. I for one am glad to see the concept of emotional intelligence getting around the countryside these days.

It is likely that we have unfairly devalued the concept of emotion to a dangerous degree . . .

It is stated in the book that envy is a basic emotion of capitalist society - I will also say that envy spreads like a disease if this is the case into other societies.

From the conclusion:

The phenomenological side of emotions is something that interests me greatly - it is not something that should be given up on as Roberts agrees, plus he also adds that it can not stand alone. There is for certain much exciting research being performed in the case of neurology and psychopharmacology - these two fields should work alongside phenomenology to produce synergy. There is also a type of new knowledge emerging among all of the disciplines that we have invented and it is this new knowledge that is probably the most exciting knowledge of all. Just when we thought we had discovered everything, figuratively speaking of course, it seems that we have only begun to discover ourselves and the true value of the emotional state, as it pertains to us and other creatures.

As Robert suggests there is also exciting information in the social sciences too. I think with the availability of the internet folk psychology and folk philosophy are becoming big players in the field of emotions as well. It is perhaps through social endeavors that we will discover the most about human beings and the human mind. So whether it be neurology or psychopharmacology, phenomenology or one of the social sciences, a folk discipline or part of the new derivative knowledge that is coming from pattern matching and statistics or a promised other new knowledge of sorts - we are truly discovering the power and role of the emotional intelligence as it relates to our lives.

I have been greatly enjoying this book so far - I am past the half way mark up to this point. The book has enabled me to assimilate knowledge, contrast and reflect on what is written in it through my reading record - which I guess is more like a journal of sorts. Some highlights that I will mention are as follows:

From the preface:

I can now say that I have been able to think about how we might be responsible for our emotional states - not in great depth as of yet - but enough to get me started on some serious thought about the idea . . . I have also found myself engrossed in the social aspects of emotion.

Further into the book:

This inspires in me a dimension(an imaginary culture) whereby every occupant of this dimension is responsible for their emotional state - it is an ongoing maintenance for the citizens(occupants) of the dimension as each state is built upon by the next - they have to maintain their own calm for the benefit of others.

From section three:

Hmm . . . I think there are a few cases in history when the person was legitimately insane - but if one were to maintain their own sanity would this ever happen?

From section four:

Nonetheless - using ones own imagination allows for a small leap into applying emotions into impressions. This would be a feedback loop.

I will add highlights from sections five to eight in my next set of notes . . .

The next section is called The Politics of Emotion - one must push on and leave no stone unturned - especially it seems in the case of emotions.

A brief note on responsibility . . .

If one were to maintain their own sanity by keeping their emotions in check then surely this would enable one to be more responsible. If one were to maintain a mood that is built upon a responsible set of emotions then it should make it easier to maintain ones level of responsibility.

A small note on instinct - it seems to me that we have justice built into us as instinct - controversial I know but surely you can feel it?

And we probably should be held responsible for them - this is a complex issue however and I have seen this between a man and a woman whereby the man purposely antagonizes a woman until she breaks and then he says that she is being irrational . . . but what really just happened?

Not only do I think we are responsible for our emotional state and maintaining it - I think it is rational to be responsible - I also think the need for emotional calm is built into each and everyone of us. With this in mind, we are able to think of the negative emotions that drive us to piss people off . . .

. . . and hopefully avoid doing that.

Emotions can be self serving and drive a self serving individual to rationally plan out their self serving interests . . .

Is it really so responsible to be so self serving?

From the section: 9 The Politics of Emotion (1998)

From the section entitled: The Purpose(s) of Emotions

Let us begin to work on the forerunner to The Politics of Emotion . . .

As is mentioned in the book Grief, for example, is an emotion with no such conditions, except per impossible, the resurrection of the lost loved one.

The question here is do such emotions as Grief have a purpose? It seems as though the answer to this would be yes. I would suggest as a temporary fill-in for loss. The purpose of such an emotion as grief could be to use up the energy distribution that is associated with such loss. An individual who is grieving or a group of individuals who are grieving for the same reason would need the experience the emotion of Grief to flat-line the emotional state back to normal . . . it would also seem to be apparent that such an emotion might have a dependence that needs to be filled. The sudden loss of something or someone that another person was dependent on for any arbitrary reason would be the condition that needs to be satisfied - that is to say that the dependency would need to be replaced - the dependency could easily be love or something else. Either way it is still debatable whether Grief is an open-ended emotion with no purpose.

Grief could easily have a political agenda . . .

I should be careful what I say here however because as Nietzsche famously noted, we always prefer bad explanations to no explanation at all.

As is also pointed out emotions were, for so many years, coupled as a poor cousin to “motivation” in psychology textbooks. No one knew where else to put them.

We are soon to find out however that there is more to the picture, and that emotion is also tied to the expression of meaning, and meaning itself can be tied to an expression of emotion. I further suggest that meaning comes out of logic in the most usual sense so if emotion is an expression of meaning then that emotion is likely an expression of logic. Does this work in reverse? Lets try it: emotion is expressed which means something and the receiver logically deduces what the emotion is about.

Mentioned in the book is the idea that emotions are also tied to action . . . So if emotions are tied to meaning, action and are a poor cousin to motivation, then what else can we say about them? Aside from what we have discovered so far, we could potentially say thousands of times as much. One thing that is clear is that emotions are not just biological - how could they be? Let us not worry about this for now and press on . . . I will leave you with meaning as a driver to emotion; I am saying that you are not born with meaning in the sense that you have it now - it is all around you and emotes you - not biological but learned and stored - see how the phenomenon is useful to help us reduce to some conclusion - still lets be careful. Apply similar thought to action and motivation.

And this is the forerunner to The Politics of Emotion . . .

- Purpose -

The emotion is “in the world,” not in the mind, the psyche, or the soul.
[size=85]Robert C. Solomon (1998)[/size]

Multi Dimensional Reduction - August - 9 - 2017

Seven Dimensional Cross Spectral Abstract

WARNING - THIS MODEL IS NOT CONFINED

Basic States(∆): flight - calm - fight

:diamonds: Startle might stem from calm and lead to fight or flight - with a tendency to calm bias - resolution

:diamonds: flight would be a self - this could cause anger

:diamonds: calm would be self and other - it is possible that calculated anger could be placed here

:diamonds: fight would be an other - anger of course could be here

► Self(∆) - For Each Emotion(Evo∫Conf - Cross Spectral Integration) - Negative or Positive(Spectral Weights)

► Other(∆) - For Each Emotion(Evo∫Conf - Cross Spectral Integration) - Negative or Positive(Spectral Weights)

Self and Other are containers to the Basics States(∆). Self and Other also lay on the same spectrum.

Weights and Integrations directed at self or other are just the coordination of processes in the mind - they are pattern processes that are “superimposed” on neural networks - each emotion is either an Evo(Evolution) or Conf(Configuration) or Cross Spectral Integration that is weighted in terms that can be thought of as Negative or Positive.

The Negative and Positive is purely figurative and is in fact a second spectrum. I am contemplating the Spectral Weights for their validity - this is a reduction so I am concerned that I have possibly reduced it too much and possibly removed needed complexity.

The complete emotional state is a complex set of subtleties built upon a logical framework. Each emotion shows itself more defined at different times and that is why we find commonality and are able to give them names - but the reality is that no emotion can be named truthfully because each persons pattern processes are different and each qualia is not the same as the next persons each qualia. Colors for instance remain the same in the electromagnetic spectrum but differ in the persons Cross Spectral Integration.

What can I say about this reduction: I can say that is elegant yet abstract - I can say that there are discrepancies in the fight, calm and flight versus self and other. It is yet to be considered the idea of internal/external fear, calm and conflict - that fight is not an other and fear is not a self. I can also say that what this reduction expands into is incredibly complex and that might be difficult to ascertain from the abstract. Finally I can say that it is not clear how negative and positive should be represented; my intuition tells me not as negative and positive but more as something like beneficial and non-beneficial; I was also hoping to leave the binary representation behind but it seems to be inescapable.

NOTES: All emotions that we could name may live within these seven dimensions. There are possibly eight dimensions here instead of seven - I would have to scrutinize it more carefully. One thing this model shows is the filtering out of dimensions to an imaginary singular dimension or quite possibly a binomial dimension when a single emotion becomes apparent. This model is also not bounded because I rushed the thoughts into writing - so it only serves as a basis for further ideas. Hopefully I am counting the dimensions correctly in the first place - egg on my face if not.