What is an emotion?

waechter418

Such a large amount of information potentially contained within such a small post.

Sure, can you give me something to read that elaborates?

Time and space from my point of view is continuous . . . reflections to me are about looking back and projections are about looking forward and the two can be perhaps switched - confusing? Perhaps . . . motion is infinitely continuous even from a calculus standpoint but for me in both directions.

Emotion to be motion then the emotion is continuous, suggesting something similar but not exactly the same to what Wendy has suggested - why does this suggest externalism to me? Rhetoric implied . . .

You have whet my appetite now :smiley:

If you are asking if our particular reflections and musings can lead us into the flow of emotions, sure they can ~~ whether they are positive or negative emotions. The universe and everything around us is capable of affecting us. I am not sure if there is any time when we are not being affected - sometimes it may simply be subtle.

As for the projections, I think that the same goes. Certain outward things trigger our emotional life - projections I think come about from suppressed or repressed inner realities which we have not yet brought to the foreground ~~ they lay in our unconscious or semi-conscious minds.

encode_decode

Why confess? Is this not what philosophers ought to do ~~ explore a thing from different angles?
Nietzsche would be proud of you, Mr. List. :evilfun:

Now you know that it is not a good idea to tell the likes of me to NOT think too hard. Take that any way you desire.

Maybe you need to define what YOU mean by “outside of us”.

The way I look at it, at least for now, :mrgreen: our emotions are within. What may affect us can be from within and without - either things and emotions not properly dealt. I look up at the stars, they are without, but they cause different emotions to rise up within me.
Some wave of emotion might be triggered within me from perhaps a dream (within) which I may have due to not having resolved something or other from within.

As for the first part, I certainly hope so ~~ perhaps more often than *at times".
As for the second part, sure, considering that we can also look upon ourselves as being something (beings) who originated in the surrounding universe and still exist there.

Can something, in actuality, come from nothing? I think not and perhaps there is more in that so-called nothingness than we know of as of yet. What does physics now show? We’ll forget about that.

We are always being affected, even as we dream and even when we do not dream. A good sleep affects our mental and physical health.
Is there a moment when nothing actually affects us? :-k
Can we even, in actuality, say that when we are simply being, existing in or out of time, for instance, contemplating, depending how one considers it, that we are not being affected by something? I think not.
We are still observing even on a subs conscious level. What are our atoms attending to in those moments?

First a question here. Wouldn’t you say that an event which so affects us would also be within our consciousness, not outside of it?
lol You suggest all events. Do you mean to ask me to list all events? I am joking.
Yes, I would suggest that all events do have some effect on us. They are measured by degrees and by importance though.

Okay I will strip myself naked here. lol The one which has affected me the most took place when I was a wee bit of a girl when I thought that I had been abandoned, was being abandoned by my father, who, as it was, turned out NOT to be my actual father which has no bearing here since to me he was at the time, my Daddy.
For all extents and purposes, that little girl had been abandoned by her Daddy, both outside of and within her consciousness, at the same time.

No, not surface meaning. Way below surface meaning, where we live at our core. The deeper we go, the more the meaning, because there is where we get at the true cause.

I like to dive.
:evilfun:

Arcturus Descending

Your post has led me to some interesting thoughts . . .

Within what is my question to you - within the brain? within the mind? within the consciousness? within what?

I have more to comment on here but I would be interested in your separate answer on this . . .

The way I look at it, within all three, the brain, the mind and one’s consciousness. They are inter-dependent. They are all related and affect each other.
It is like a flow and an ebb to me. All three are affected by our emotions and our emotions are also affected by the state of all three of them.
Those three can also affect the functions of the body within. The healthier we are mentally, the healthier our brains are, our bodies can be. If our brains, minds, consciousness are negatively affected by our emotions, and vica versa, the more unhealthy we may be physically and mentally.
The more unhealthy we are within our bodies, the more affected our brains, minds and consciousness are capable of becoming.

As the saying goes: “As above, so below” and vica versa.

So, not so much within then but affecting what is within?

We are speaking of emotions here. So, are you asking if our emotions are not so much within, but affecting what is within?

I would say that our emotions are within and that they also affect what is within when an outside catalyst acts upon them - as I said before.

I personally do not see how one can separate the human from his/her emotions whether they are active, lying dormant, negative positive or otherwise.

If someone is watching a person being emotional and acting on that, that still does not mean that the emotions are outside ~~ just that we can see the results of these emotions.

Of course, there can be the impersonal non-judgmental observations of the human mind and self upon its emotions but still, in my book, these emotions, whether positive or negative, are still within.

Do trees, oceans, buildings, stars, paintings, sculptures, ad continuum carry emotions within? If you say yes, proof it to me.

Wendy,

Why do you say this?

Have you never had the experience of our emotions giving way to negative thoughts? Some may call them ANTS or Automatic Negative Thoughts.

In my book, emotions do amplify thoughts - it may happen in the now or these emotions may prey on thoughts to the tipping point where they (Ts) may rise up/surge, become unfortunately more powerful taking over the human being, where there is no Will or rational thought left but just the thought, so Loud, that nothing reasonable and normal can enter in.

They feed on one another and it is not a happy result. Look at the world.

That’s the order of conscious engagement I experience, my baseline is made up of emotions that are not always recognizable to me at any given time until a thought exposes them by trying to influence them. My emotions muddy my thoughts, not the other way around. I don’t deny that there is play between emotions and thoughts affecting one another, I’m simply stating that thoughts do not register without an emotional impetus whether we understand that impetus is another story. Often, when emotions pool under the surface of our daily experiences, we will not understand why we feel the way we do and our thoughts will at times be counter productive or moot in regards to figuring out the state we’re in, for those thoughts did not inspire our underlying feelings ie. the thoughts don’t jibe with our baseline emotions which may be called negatively angst or positively hopefulness.

Am I making sense here…at all?

Here is a model that I am working with where mind is a separate thing to brain, emotion and reality. The mind, in red, is bound to reality, logic and emotion. Logic is in what we commonly refer to as grey matter(even though it is more complicated than this). Our mind is connected to the brain through imagination and thinking. Most of the functions of the brain are memory based. Emotion seems to present a problem to memory based architecture.

We do not always feel the same set of emotions which tells me that while there is a problem with memory based emotion because of flow that the emotions are still outside of the mind. This is just for starters - there are all sorts of problems with the logic of emotions.

WendyDarling

I sense that we actually agree on a lot of things in an around about way - just that we have different ways of describing what it is that is in our respective heads.

Thoughts to me are a part of how the mind works - that is how the mind and the brain interface - a thought requires a memory state to function - this memory state is a complex state that is made up of many memories - imagination it seems is an ongoing process that can be interrupted by intention - in this case your baseline, I would imagine is made up of a complex memory state and your conscious state(which is ever changing). Now I have shortened the process here a little but if I were to expand then it would seem that each person is a universe unto their own.

Where emotions fit into this baseline is difficult to nail down because we don’t seem to remember the emotion as it was - we remember perhaps its essence of what it was for want of better words to help me explain. They are not recognizable because there is an energy build up based on states and some emotions are in the world with their own strategic agendas(perhaps going off track now). Emotions muddy your thoughts because you can release a new energy state into the mix based on old emotions.

I am glad to hear this and what you state is true it seems - but how do we explain it or elaborate on it - it being the emotional impetus. I do not believe we understand that impetus the way we would like to because it never matches our rational states or the states we would prefer to be in and these states are numerous.

It is funny how we keep thinking of an ideal state when if we were to be honest there are many states that we would choose from.

I am not sure whether it is the emotions that are pooling or it is the mood that pools - emotions are more like a stone being thrown into that pool that ripple the pools surface and sink to the bottom of that pool that we call mood. The combined set of emotions are perhaps the mood at any given moment and I think that more goes into the mood than just emotions alone. If you were to reword what you have to account for mood then I totally agree with what you are saying.

You are making perfect sense by the way - I figured it would be a woman who would make sense of this and so far so good.

Emotion is one of the hardest things for a man to put into words - I think it has to do with culture more than anything though. I feel the man is also capable of expressing what emotion is just that he is tainted through some bullshit cultural components that we could all do without.

Am I making sense here…at all?

I will begin with your question - yes, Wendy, you are making sense.

Unless I am not comprehending your deeper meaning here, it would appear to me that you are agreeing with me that emotions affect thought just as much as thoughts affect emotion…well, perhaps not just as much. That might depend on the individual. That would be my human experience. Emotions do have a way of fogging up our so-called lenses of perception.

I kind of look at the dynamic between thought and emotion as a teeter totter. When all is well and still, the teeter totter is in balance, equilibrium has been achieved. Otherwise, one rules the other - depending on your perspective. Higher or lower could be both more negative or more positive - if that made sense.

I think that there is a guide here. It is somewhere below the conscious level where that little Buddha (I will call it) sits by the river in stillness until it sees and hears the river’s agitation and churning.
It is capable of making itself known through intuition or in this case through sensing and observing things which we are not quite aware of or deeply aware of in our conscious level. I think that it comes to people who are more aware and pay closer attention on that level. It is capable of whispering to us “Be Still”. It stands between thought and emotion, soothingly whispering “Shhhhhhh”.

Perhaps if we can often imagine and place ourselves as the little Buddhas deep within who are sitting by that river unaffected or unprovoked by that which lies above or around, we can even without commanding it to, affect the river’s movement back to stillness.

Listen to the Buddha’s Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

I wonder just how much that answered the question - what is an emotion? lol

Arcturus Descending

It is always fun talking to you - I will make the usual suggestion that you take what I have to say lightly and mess around with it a bit.

We are indeed speaking of emotions here - we are trying to get to the bottom of what they are - I am saying that the emotions are external to the mind and not necessarily to brain - for me there is a huge difference. I was asking you whether emotions affect what is within. What is within you may ask? The mind.

I am assuming you mean emotions are within the mind so lets go with that, at least for now. It is like there are two personalities the way you describe it - interesting, a rational personality and an emotional personality - I can imagine the conflict going on under these circumstances.

I don’t believe you can separate a human from his/her emotions.

I don’t know what to say :laughing:

I can easily work with the way you view emotions - I only need to remember that it is you that I am talking to and how could I forget that :wink:

Hmm . . . everything is connected somehow . . . we can not separate ourselves from that which surrounds us. What would be interesting for me, would be if somebody could prove(absolutely that is) that these objects(I assume you look at them that way) do not carry emotions.

What I can say with a fair amount of certainty is that there are things that work well and things that do not work so well and it took us(humans that is) a long time to work out what does work well and that the mind explosion has slowed quite considerably in recent times and now we are left dealing with mistakes that go back a couple of centuries or more - which leads me to the question . . . do we really know how to do things super well?

You might be interested in the following on neural correlates:

This might help you understand my standpoint a little clearer.

:smiley:

An emotion is a specific neurological response to a given situation. That situation could be an internal mental state or an external physical state
Emotions are very important because they cannot be switched off. And this is why I think negative ones should be contained as much as possible
A neutral emotional state however is preferable to a positive one as it is easier to maintain and is probably more beneficial from a psychological
perspective. For the mind like the body needs to be healthy in order to function and emotional neutrality would seem to be the most ideal state
I have found that containing both negative and positive emotions so allowing neither to dominate is the optimum state for my own mind to be in

There is a valid distinction between an instinctive response and an emotional response. The instinctive responses are more fundamental and initiate the more complex emotive responses. Emotions are more within the “mental realm”/“software” than the more physiological instincts, “hardware and firmware”. It is merely a categorical issue.

Where does motivation fit into all of this? Is it an instinctive drive or an emotional drive or both? Surely motivation is a categorical issue too. I mean we cant get too chaotic when defining categories and you yourself have been minimal in your description and yet it makes sense to me. The problem I see is that some of these “things” fit into multiple categories.

I think motivation is a mental process which has to exist to make any goals achievable which is a physical process
So therefore without sufficient motivation no goals can be achieved and so one is definitely a driver of the other

Much like PtA vs Affect, Potential Energy vs Energy, and Hope vs Joy, Motivation refers to a situation that brings about emotion and/or action. The motivation is not the emotion itself.

And always keep in mind that throughout the language, commonly used categories for things are often not well defined. Then because of that and the lack of detailed education, concept category boundaries can drift from generation to generation. So when looking to get things extremely well organized, one might have to examine very closely or perhaps even declare more exact concept distinctions than what is commonly used. Ontology is a choice.

James

I find your answers to be most rational and have only found one thing that I would change to fit my perspective and that could be classed as a categorical concern. I separate the mind from the brain for study and I do this on purpose. This of course would lead to me needing to provide a definition of mind as I see it - which at this point I see as unnecessary to achieve a fulfilling conversation with you.

I like you do believe that instinctive response and emotional response are two different things. I would however say that emotions affect the mental realm(that being of the mind) and are logically placed in the brain as an input and output system. I agree that it could merely be a categorical issue.

Moving along and to quote myself:

To which you responded with:

Unlike PtA, Motivation is not bound to the conceptual realm as it pertains to common knowledge, yet still I can see what you mean and perhaps it is a better way to present it(the way you have). You present a great example of poorly defined categories. I will lastly add that motivation must have correlates in the physical realm.

In essence I am agreeing with you.

encode_decode,

Getting to the bottom? Does that mean to you completely understanding them?

I could probably say that the emotions are internal to the brain - it is the brain which manufacturers them.

External to the mind? I may be wrong here but I think that that is just a matter of perspective - how people will view things.

The mind to me proceeds from the brain - one is material and the other is immaterial - kind of like how the scent of the rose proceeds from the rose.
It is counter-intuitive to me to say that the emotions are external to the mind.
If what you mean to say is that we can observe the play of the mind on the emotions through our behavior ~~ then yes, I can see what you mean by the emotions being external to the mind but I would not say it like that.

Then again, perhaps there does not actually have to be that separation of brain and mind.

Yes, the mind is within. But our emotions also affect our body functions and organs.
The way i look at it, they are all inter-dependent on one another ~~ brain, mind organs, bodily functions and affect each other.
Yes, emotions affect what is within even our deepest repressed memories and human experiences which we have not yet come to terms with. The patterns which have become etched and embedded within our minds and continue to are not that easily erased.

Never assume, encode_decode. :evilfun:
If one really wants to think out of the box, one may say that the emotions are actually flowing like a river throughout more than just the mind so I am going with more than just the mind - as i said previously.

No, I personally wouldn’t use the word personalities here. There is one mind with perhaps thoughts and emotions being in conflict. There is a rational part of us and an emotional part to us and it just depends on what part of the brain we call forth to control the other.

You have just said it! I still stand by the idea that the emotions are within and what we see are the results of them in our behavior. Just as we see the results of what is within or beneath the river by its movements. I think that the problem lies with language.

Oh, I might just disagree with you here. Better to forget who you are having this discussion with and remain as impartial as you can.

True. At the same time, time and observation does prove us wrong.

For instance? Give me an example or two of those mistakes?

Let us not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Yes, for some and no for others, is my response to you.
Humans are not perfect and we do not have all of the answers but at some time into the future more answers and more reality comes to us.
So, based on what we had to work with in the past, I could say yes in a sense we know how to do things super well, based on what we knew then.
It all just depends on whether we view our glass as being half full or half empty.
We are not perfect creatures but at times we strive for perfection.

You might be interested in the following on neural correlates:

If you try to put this in lay-persons’ terms, I might be able to respond to it.
Have you forgotten how important language is, encode_decode?
I have enough intellectual humility to admit that this might more or less be like Greek to me.

But I fully appreciate your attempt to shine your light on something by dimming those lights. :evilfun: