Emotions

[judas69]

Emotions can distort reality. They can take your bland universe and make it magical and beautiful or repugnant and depressing. So many things effect your emotional state; depressants, stimulants, hallucinogens, a poem. They control many of us, they are the drive behind our obsessions and shape the world we live in unknowingly.

Sometimes emotions put reality into perspective. So often we lose track of what's important in our life, getting caught up in all the uselessness ..all the arguing and complaining until finally, we're hit once again with an understanding of what we should be doing despite what society or logic dictates.

Some might even say emotions relate a higher level of intellectual understanding. For example, if you're in the bush and you get this sudden unexplainable feeling that you're in danger; maybe it's just dark out and your mind is overactive (having watched all those horror movies as a child) or perhaps there is a subtle odor in the air and your unconscious really had no other way of relating urgency to you than through a simple, irrational feeling.

Have you ever known someone in your life that you can't forget? Someone that you felt an instant connection with and you've noticed they had aswell? Something that really didn't make any sense on the surface, but was there? I think if it all made sense, if it weren't so absolutely absurd and crazy, it would have lost all meaning. If you know and can relate to what I'm talking about, then you know how emotions can transcend all logic.

Sometimes I think reality needs a little distortion or a little light depending on your perspective. Sometimes we need to see what isn't there just to know where we are.

 

[Frank the tank]

brave new world - read it

yeah. interesting - i know what youre saying, but it makes sense in almost a paradoxical kind of way. ever try to imagine what life would be like if we had no emotions?

 

[judas69]

Equilibrium deals with that idea, an amazing movie.

Everyone has to take a pill to surpress their emotions entirely to rid the world of corruption and war, which of course has plagued mankind forever. In doing so, it later becomes clear to some that they've also lost the beauty of the world in the process.

 

[judas69]

You hear people say, like speed in so many words, I made him angry. I wonder if ones own emotions is entirely of their own making, or is the trigger and involuntary response thus unavoidable in some respects?

In otherwords, can anyone make you feel a certain way, or is it entirely up to you how you feel?

 

[Seditious]

You hear people say, like speed in so many words, I made him angry. I wonder if ones own emotions is entirely of their own making, or is the trigger and involuntary response thus unavoidable in some respects?

In otherwords, can anyone make you feel a certain way, or is it entirely up to you how you feel?

in the introduction to the song 'Our Life' by Necro and his brother and fellow rapper, Ill Bill, he even acknowledges this idea, saying, "don't make me flip on you. Actually, you can't make me do nothin', I might decide to."

but as the phrasing goes, if someone "knows what buttons to push" they can trigger emotions as if you're but a robot. but of course the important point is that we are to blame for the wiring, them doing the same thing doesn't cause the same response in all people, it is our contribution to their sense data (hearing their voice, etc) which causes the emotion. We are engineers of our own emotional system, able to change them through conscious effort at any time, so we inevitably have only ourselves to blame for what we allow to be the cause of our emotions, whether allowing minor things to bother us, or having complex rules of what must occur for us to feel happy and loved and excited which makes it rarer than necessary for us to feel such (As Anthony Robbins likes to mention)

 

[judas69]

I agree, our minds act very much like a feedback system, and although in the beginning we are predisposed to a certain pattern of thinking, feeling, that we've picked up via societal influence, we however, can make observations about how we feel and if we so choose, the necessary decision to reprogram.

No one says it's easy, but it's do able .. but like anything else, you have to want to change first.

 

[Magrathean]

In otherwords, can anyone make you feel a certain way, or is it entirely up to you how you feel?

I don't think we're really responsible for or in control of our emotions. Sure we can sometimes repress them partially or try to change them by intentionally bringing back certain memories or thinking about certain things, but in general our mood and emotions are "victims" of what happens to us (of course, all this is putting drugs aside; obviously we can take a pill in order to trigger certain feelings). Circumstance and genetics shape us as human beings, one providing the raw material and the other building upon it, so to speak. From there, depending on how we are, we react differently upon certain situations, but, since we can't control everything that happens in the world, we can't control our emotions. If we could control them completely, everybody would be happy all the time, don't you think? But couples fight, people are killed, Manchester United wins a football match, we finally turn 18 and reach drinking-age, we feel sick, we graduate, a friend breaks their leg.... and those things trigger different emotions on us whether we want to feel them or not.

 

[judas69]

I guess the question is, short of a successful lobotomy, can we reprogram ourselves enough to overcome feeling a certain way about things, even though we are puppets in so many ways as you correctly point out. Maybe, we must have that potential there in the first place?

Can logic, especially during a one hour episode of the Dr. Phil Show for example, as convincing as he is, really change someone emotionally? I think with the majority of cases, probably not, which is why I think this approach is flawed. The problem I think here is that the logical side of who we are, cannot quite relate to the emotional side ..and although logically we understand what Dr. Phil is saying, and how we're destroying our lives, our emotions aren't responsive (unless of course the emotional aspect of being there with the mighty Dr. Phil has an effect) as they are entirely different centers. Emotions also, may be much stronger than logic, which is why a lot of time is required to rehabilitate a person who has went through a deep, emotional event.

Somehow they meet, but I think as you rightly point out, it goes far beyond observation and change, especially in later years when the old dog is pretty much set in his ways, and unless there was that potential for change there in the first place, there may not exist enough flexibility.

 

[Magrathean]

I guess the question is, short of a successful lobotomy, can we reprogram ourselves enough to overcome feeling a certain way about things, even though we are puppets in so many ways as you correctly point out. Maybe, we must have that potential there in the first place?

Probably, but why would anybody want to do that? That would be some sort of Equilibrium situation, only instead of abolishing all emotions we would only be abolishing the negative ones. "Life is measured by the moments that take your breath away", but to appreciate something to its fullest we first need to have seen both beauty and horror, bliss and pain. Without having suffered, we cannot appreciate something beautiful, not only because we would have no point of comparison but also because we wouldn't be prepared (we wouldn't have the necessary experience and criterium) to take in all the beauty of the situation or thing and truly be able to say that it is beautiful.

To give a concrete example: I wouldn't appreciate or love my girlfriend the way i do if i hadn't had bad experiences with relationships before. Seeing how horrible people can be to each-other, how fragile relationships can be and how much it hurts to have one's heart broken, i can now appreciate better the trust my girlfriend inspires in me, the safety she makes me feel, the strength of our relationship, the happiness she gives me and my knowledge that we will never be apart and she will never betray me. Likewise, all the fights we've had have only reinforced the feeling that we're inseparable, made me appreciate her more and kept me from taking her for granted.

I would much rather suffer greatly and realize how beautiful my life is than live an empty life without true feelings.

 

[Seditious]

Can logic, especially during a one hour episode of the Dr. Phil Show for example, as convincing as he is, really change someone emotionally?

it can, but not instantaneously. what you learn to accept on the intellectual level still takes a while to go about unlearning emotional responses.

The problem I think here is that the logical side of who we are, cannot quite relate to the emotional side.

I think if you do a little reading on the basic premise of NLP you'll see how emotions exactly relate to logic.

 

[judas69]

Well, emotions have a logic ..no doubt about that, but whether or not an emotional person can be swayed by logic, is the question. Take a religious person, try and convince them out of their beliefs by logic, assuming they aren't aware of any logical basis for their own belief. You just can't.

NLP is still an open-ended area of study so, I wouldn't use this as a strong basis for your point.

 

[Seditious]

Well, emotions have a logic ..no doubt about that, but whether or not an emotional person can be swayed by logic, is the question.

whether or not an emotional persons emotions can be dealt with during the emotion is a question which Daniel Goleman addresses in Emotional Intelligence, and whether or not they can be dealt with before or after so that the person can become 'less emotional' so to speak, is unquestionably possible.

Take a religious person, try and convince them out of their beliefs by logic, assuming they aren't aware of any logical basis for their own belief. You just can't.

refusing to engage in a logical process doesn't mean at all that you're unable (lacking the capacity or facility) to deal to your beliefs by logic, rather it absolutely proves it is possible because that act of refusing the challenge is the expression of one's desire to protect the beliefs which they inherently know are fragile to that weapon, for otherwise they would not know to protect themselves from such a challenge.

NLP is still an open-ended area of study so, I wouldn't use this as a strong basis for your point.

I'm sure the practice and method of NLP is, but I specifically said the premise, which is the same as for CBT and all such modern understandings of cognitive workings.

The problem I think here is that the logical side of who we are, cannot quite relate to the emotional side.

To explain what I meant in response to this earlier...

When something means something to us, we feel it in our bodies. We experience these meanings as our emotions. Mentally, we think about these meanings as our values, ideas, beliefs, understandings, etc. "We must be very careful of the meanings we attach to things," warns Anthony Robbins, "Because those meanings basically determine the quality of how we feel in our lives." A great example given by Dick Sutphen says that, "The word fuck is just four letters. It has no power but what you give it. It isn’t what someone says to you that affects you, it’s what you think about what they say that affects you."

This is the logic of emotion. If I said 'you have a nice nose' and you had a nose you hated, you might feel angry, as if I was being snide, or feel ashamed, not wanting it pointed out for people to focus on, but if you believed me, you might feel complimented, shy, but not sad about it---the external situation hasn't changed, your nose need not even be different, it is only what you believe about your nose, and what you believe about the facts about your nose which matter. John R. Searle explains this nicely, "There's no way you can be ashamed of something without having beliefs and desires about the thing you are ashamed of. If you're proud of the size of your nose -- you got a really big nose and you're really proud of it -- then you've got to believe you've got a big nose, you've got to find it desirable to have a big nose, and you've got to want other people to know about it. If you're ashamed of your big nose, then similarly, you've got to believe that you've got a big nose . . . you've got to find it undesirable that you have a big nose, and you've got to want to conseal it from other people. " Shame is a catagory of emotion, no emotion can be caused without a logical process of belief.

There is a direct connection of emotion and logic, for through logic we can address the beliefs, which are the powercords to the emotion. So if you do this, when someone says 'big nose,' you've heard it, it's a cognition, so a switch goes off like hearing anyhting else, but it's no longer wired to any emotion any longer so no emotion is activated when you hear it. Daniel Condron says concisely, "Emotions are a re-action to your thought. Your thoughts are the cause of your emotions." The 'thought' of course is our consciousness in the moment say where someone says 'hey big nose,' from which we are made aware of our unconscious beliefs about insults, our nose, etc, and thus our response is determined on the belief network, which can be addressed logically (such as, even if you have a big nose, that is a fact, but (Hume's Guillotine) ...need you attach value to it?---plug in a value so when the switch goes off you've powered up an emotion. need you attach negative value to it? need you think that even if a big nose isn't good, that it is important or worth feeling bad about simply because it isn't desirable? etc.).

Most people can rarely reason with the emotional state, generally because they're resisting what they feel, or thinking they should change it because they shouldn't feel that way. rather than leaving the emotion be, and challenging the beliefs which cause it, which are the foundation which fuel it. This is also the most difficult time to address emotion, when we're already biased negatively by our altered mood.

As obscure as emotions are, they can always be sourced back to the belief which caused them. Beliefs may be biased or unfounded---not strictly 'logical' but we can see that they are justified and are not separate to logic, for there is a logic of emotion, emotion is not caused randomly, we can systematically go about changing emotional responses by changing beliefs---they can be addressed by logic as much as anything else can. It is only from this logical 'side of us' that the emotional qualities emerge, they're a consequence of it, not a separate opposition to it (not another 'side' of us).

 

[Magrathean]

refusing to engage in a logical process doesn't mean at all that you're unable (lacking the capacity or facility) to deal to your beliefs by logic, rather it absolutely proves it is possible because that act of refusing the challenge is the expression of one's desire to protect the beliefs which they inherently know are fragile to that weapon, for otherwise they would not know to protect themselves from such a challenge.

But wasn't judas's question whether one can logically ('rationally' would be a better word, in my opinion) control one's emotions and go against them? The example of the religious person refusing to engage in a logical process is an example of consciously going in favor of and reinforcing one's beliefs, not one of choosing reason over emotions and forcing oneself to act in a different way than how one would act if one let oneself be carried away by emotions. The latter requires much more willpower, so i believe that the question "is is possible?" can't be answered as easily and lightheartedly as you just tried to.

When something means something to us, we feel it in our bodies. We experience these meanings as our emotions. Mentally, we think about these meanings as our values, ideas, beliefs, understandings, etc. "We must be very careful of the meanings we attach to things," warns Anthony Robbins, "Because those meanings basically determine the quality of how we feel in our lives." A great example given by Dick Sutphen says that, "The word fuck is just four letters. It has no power but what you give it. It isn’t what someone says to you that affects you, it’s what you think about what they say that affects you."

But that sounds like we can choose the meaning we attach to things, which is not always true. As i mentioned before, we don't always have the power to choose our emotions or how me feel / what we think about something; it depends to a vast extent on our experience, the way we were brought up, etc.

NLP/CBT

Full names, please?

 

[Seditious]

The example of the religious person refusing to engage in a logical process is an example of consciously going in favor of and reinforcing one's beliefs, not one of choosing reason over emotions.

I know. it was a sidebar and I thought it was worth addressing as such, even if not strictly on topic.

But wasn't judas's question whether one can 'rationally' control one's emotions and go against them?

choosing reason over emotions and forcing oneself to act in a different way than how one would act if one let oneself be carried away by emotions. The latter requires much more willpower.

that's exactly what I noted earlier---"Most people can rarely reason with the emotional state, generally because they're resisting what they feel rather than leaving the emotion be, and challenging the beliefs which cause i." It's not a matter of willpower---desire versus desire, it is about taking the wind out of the sails, pulling the plug on the emotion, not rivalling it with an equal opposite emotion.

i believe that the question "is is possible?".

The answer is yes it is possible, and this absolutely the freshman basic foundation of modern cognitive therapies.

But that sounds like we can choose the meaning we attach to things, which is not always true. As i mentioned before, we don't always have the power to choose our emotions or how me feel / what we think about something; it depends to a vast extent on our experience, the way we were brought up, etc.

you always have the power to change what you have attached to something. like i said, doing things in the moment is the most difficult, but in observing something is destructive you can dismantle its foundation then.

Full names, please?

Neurolinguistic Programming (or newer, also NeuroSemantics)
and
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

 

[Magrathean]

that's exactly what I noted earlier---"Most people can rarely reason with the emotional state, generally because they're resisting what they feel rather than leaving the emotion be, and challenging the beliefs which cause i." It's not a matter of willpower---desire versus desire, it is about taking the wind out of the sails, pulling the plug on the emotion, not rivalling it with an equal opposite emotion.

We're talking about different things. You're talking about using logic/reason to support an emotion and let it grow and be expressed, whereas i was talking about (and i think judas69 was referring to) using logic/reason to control one's emotions and even suppress them (with the ultimate objective of being able to decide what one feels at any given point in time, i suppose).

you always have the power to change what you have attached to something. like i said, doing things in the moment is the most difficult, but in observing something is destructive you can dismantle its foundation then.

Not always, i believe, especially after years and years of being used to one particular feeling you've attached to something. It's never as easy as saying "i want to feel this". Imagine that you're an atheist who one day realizes that people who believe in a god tend to be happier because they have something to hold on to during hard times; you can't just go "i want to believe" and start believing that same moment; there's a reason you don't believe, and that's probably that the idea of a god doesn't make sense to you, and you can't change the way you think just because you want to (maybe you can, but it's not easy or immediate, and i don't believe it's possible to voluntarily change one's mind about everything, only about some things).

 

[judas69]

On the flipside, there must too be individuals who need to be persuaded logically before they can accept emotionally, which is to say, they are looking for the intellectual stimulation first as a justification for an emotional response.

Aside from a physical explanation (ie, they're probably more left brained) it is conceivable to me that some of these individuals may also have a greater superego of which, is the blocking mechanism.

In otherwords, group accepability may in some cases become the greatest determining factor in how open they are in general, intellectually and emotionally. To make an example of speed again, he clearly places a large value (like I'm sure many do ..it's certainly more common than not) on the perception of the group over those of his own, enough of which to potentially skew forthright interpretation in every relating sense. The interesting part of this is that the superego is an emotional conditioning that effects the intellectual, which in turn effects ones emotional openness.

 

[Seditious]

whereas i was talking about (and i think judas69 was referring to) using logic/reason to control one's emotions and even suppress them (with the ultimate objective of being able to decide what one feels at any given point in time, i suppose).

well if you still don't understand that controlling one's emotions means controlling the cause of emotions not merely forcing them out of mind with willpower then I'm not going to discuss it anymore and just again suggest you'd benefit from reading Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence.

 

[Magrathean]

well if you still don't understand that controlling one's emotions means controlling the cause of emotions not merely forcing them out of mind with willpower then I'm not going to discuss it anymore and just again suggest you'd benefit from reading Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence.

And where in the fragment you quoted did i even mention the procedure used to control one's emotions? I didn't say or imply that the way to do so wasn't controlling the source, i never even touched that point.

On the flipside, there must too be individuals who need to be persuaded logically before they can accept emotionally, which is to say, they are looking for the intellectual stimulation first as a justification for an emotional response.

Aside from a physical explanation (ie, they're probably more left brained) it is conceivable to me that some of these individuals may also have a greater superego of which, is the blocking mechanism.

In otherwords, group accepability may in some cases become the greatest determining factor in how open they are in general, intellectually and emotionally. To make an example of speed again, he clearly places a large value (like I'm sure many do ..it's certainly more common than not) on the perception of the group over those of his own, enough of which to potentially skew forthright interpretation in every relating sense. The interesting part of this is that the superego is an emotional conditioning that effects the intellectual, which in turn effects ones emotional openness.

[reminder to reply to this post tomorrow]

Good night.

 

[fah-q]

You hear people say, like speed in so many words, I made him angry. I wonder if ones own emotions is entirely of their own making, or is the trigger and involuntary response thus unavoidable in some respects?

In otherwords, can anyone make you feel a certain way, or is it entirely up to you how you feel?

I think that someone you are familiar with can illicit certain emotional responses from an individual. If you have a history of getting along particularly well with someone, just seeing them may trigger a positive feeling. More or less a learned behavior or operant behavior.

 

[Silver Incubus]

I certainly don't think you need to repress your emotions, just like seditious said about Neuro Linguistic Programming and Cognitive sciences. You body is very much like a machine and your brain creates any chemical based on what you input into your thoughts and belief systems. If you are thinking of things that make you sad, angry, anxious, scared, then your physiology will reflect those states. The thing about perceived reality, or the way in which we remember moments in our life, creates the emotions and chemicals that go with that feeling. Its the fact that people unknowingly associated bad feelings with things that get in the way of living.

So instead of having hope in god like religion, why not associate hope with something you know will happen, therefore creating a good response that will happen always. So you could say that every time the sun rises you will become confident, focused on your goals, and be able to feel the same happiness that you had at any time in your life.

A classroom is another great example of this. Have you ever been fully active and awake going to a class only to have that energy drained once you walk through the door, or even possibly when your really bad and boring toned voice of your teacher begins to drone on. Some people become conditioned to a sleepy state to the room or the situation, when it is most likely the teacher that is creating the negative effects. This in turn could cause the person to become associated with a subject, place, or situation and make it so they don't stay awake or feel tired while in any class.

If you constantly believe one thing or a set of believes they actually effect your life. So for instance, if you think the world is scary, chaotic, cold and mean, then you will experience that even when through another's experience the same situation may be thrilling, exciting, and pleasurable.
When the world is scary, your thoughts and images you create in your head cause the chemicals to give you appropriate responses. Your nerves fire off in a cycle that is like a feedback loop. Panic definitely moves through your body if you have ever experienced it. It starts usually in the chest and moves out through the arms or to the legs or even to the head. You feel sweaty and sick because that feeling and thoughts are cycling over and over because of the thoughts which bring on the feeling. Such is why phobics can even think of the thing that causes fear and they instantly have tightness in the muscles, constricted skin tone, and other evidences of a panic reaction, even when they are not actually exposed to the stimulus that causes the panic.

Its all really about the context of the subjectivity of the experiencer. If there is a negative context instilled in their beliefs, then they will experience things negatively. Change the context of the memory, and a few other things, and you change how the stimulus effects you.

Test this yourself. Ask someone about a fear they have, watch their skin tone, muscle tone, and look at where their eyes go, and where they 'stare' at the picture in their mind. I am sure you will find that if you ask them an interrupting question like "how old is your dad?" then ask them about the fear again, you will see the same response as before.