Emotions

[judas69]

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.

I'm not sure about anyone else, but for myself, just visualizing someone running their fingernails down a chalkboard will instantly fill my arms with goosebumps.

 

[Magrathean]

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.

Superego as in Freud's whole ego/superego/id thing? Hm, wouldn't the discussion then be taken into whether Freud was right or not?

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.

Interesting and true. Whom you're with often does affect your response to stimuli. More often than not, i think, we suppress (some) emotions (sometimes automatically, sometimes consciously) when we're in the company of others.

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.

But some bad feelings are unavoidable. Say you love somebody very much and they died, or say you were really looking forward to something and it didn't happen. You'd have to be an insensitive bastard (which you're obviously not, since you loved them very much / were really looking forward to it) not to feel awful about it.

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.

Because you can't just willingly condition yourself out of nothing to feel good about the sun rising, you'd have to consciously (at first, then i guess it would become automatic) associate good things with sunrise and then you would be feeling confident/focused/happy about the thing you associated it with and not about the sun rising. It's the same way with hope: you hope for things you wish would happen, regardless of how likely they are to happen; it's not something you can decide.

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.

Again, there are no decisions being taken in this scenario. Actually, a smart decision (could we make it) would be to associate the bad feeling with the teacher and not with the classroom, but, as you said, some people will associate it with the classroom automatically.

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.

Yet more proof that one doesn't choose the emotions one associates with things.

 

[Bird of prey]

ever try to imagine what life would be like if we had no emotions?

from what I've learned, psychopathy is diagnosed as a condition characterised by a lack of emotions (result being a lack of conscience). I wonder how does it feel - not to feel?



unpleasant emotions are just as needed as pleasant ones. one is not able to discern whether she's feeling good or bad without experiencing both ends of emotional spectrum (yin-yang balance), so there's no need for supressing the latter at all costs. I'm not writing that one should deliberately (continue to) feel bad about something, but simply that bad emotions should be "allowed" to exist about certain things - and one shouldn't feel frustrated about it, of course .
the point is in choosing what do we want to feel bad about.

 

[Seditious]

Yet more proof that one doesn't choose the emotions one associates with things.

unless you value that victim viewpoint, I highly recommend giving this a listen if reading NLP fundamentals is too boring for ya.
http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3440166/Dick_Sutphen_-_Self_Mastery





"Everything looks impossible for the people who never try anything."
- Jean-Louis Etienne

 

[Magrathean]

from what I've learned, psychopathy is diagnosed as a condition characterised by a lack of emotions (result being a lack of conscience). I wonder how does it feel - not to feel?

I think it would go hand-in-hand with not thinking. The only way i can imagine not-feeling would be is not-thinking either, being automatic like an animal. No sentience. And with not-thinking comes an inability to question why one does not feel / what feelings are. Alternatively, it could be like being blind from birth; one cannot even know what color is or feel any sorrow for not being able to see it. How do you explain color to a blind man?

unless you value that victim viewpoint, I highly recommend giving this a listen if reading NLP fundamentals is too boring for ya.
http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3440166/Dick_Sutphen_-_Self_Mastery

Yes, and if we were discussing psychoanalysis you would tell me to go read some Freud so i could convince myself that what that man said isn't complete bullshit. My point here is that reading or hearing something will not change my mind, i need to be able to debate with somebody and that somebody needs to be able to convince me that i am wrong with arguments that seem more logical than mine. A simple audio recording or a book won't do anything but add one element to my list of useless things out there. I'd much rather listen to you than to that.

 

[Korona]

I am also of the view that NLP and its associated disciplines are nothing more than pseudo-scientific psyco-babbel, and any arguement based off this type of thinking is no more founded than a history based off books of mythology.

The single great flaw in the view that beliefs CAUSE emotions is that the key part of the arguement that would validate belief in such a causal chain is missing. Doubtless emotions and beliefs are closely linked, however the example in post 14 about liking or disliking various nose sizes is a good case in point. The premises "it is good to have a big nose" and "I want other people to see my nose" are indeed associated with the positive emotional response to seeing ones nose. However, that it is a good thing to have a big nose is based on liking ones own big nose (and probably big noses on other people). Were I to believe that it was bad to have a big nose, then I agree that the emotional response to seeing my own big nose would be very different. BUT I would argue that it is seeing my nose and finding it attractive/ugly that gives a basis for statements like "I believe big noses are good/bad".

Untill it can be shown how a belief statement can illicit an emotional response (rather than vice-versa) I remain unconvinced.

 

[Seditious]

I am also of the view that NLP and its associated disciplines are nothing more than pseudo-scientific psyco-babbel, and any arguement based off this type of thinking is no more founded than a history based off books of mythology.

I'm of the view that if you can't spell psychobabble you probably dont know well enough to say what is true and what isn't.

Untill it can be shown how a belief statement can illicit an emotional response (rather than vice-versa) I remain unconvinced.

I'm quite sure that was proven back in the ancient Greek times, as the old 'eat your grandparents' anecdote about the son being taught by the Sophists examples.

 

[Seditious]

I would argue that it is seeing my nose and finding it attractive/ugly that gives a basis for statements like "I believe big noses are good/bad".

what you've just said here is based on your aesthetic sense you have a belief, then from that belief you develop another belief, but you haven't said how emotion precedes all of this, showing it isn't dependent on all of this...

 

[Korona]

... ignoring the ad-hominum attacks

I don't know what you mean by the "eat your grandparents" anecdote, if you want to use it to do work in your arguement, it would help to at least paraphrase the points, or provide a url... I'll withhold judgement but I don't think it does the analytic work you would need it to, to give you a sound arguement.

As for your paraphrasing of my thought process in post #28... I totally reject that I think this way. It attributes your own position to me which is somewhat strage seeing as how I rejected such a position.
As for showing that emotion preceeds belief, well in the example I gave I thought it was self-evident. Here is how it works if you wish me to elaborate:

I see my nose
I find it aesthetically pleasing
*end of thought process*

now from this aesthetic appreciation from my nose I can go on to reason about appropriate belief states.

I find my nose aesthetically appealing
My nose is big
Aestheic appeal is good
ergo
It is good to have a big nose

This reasoning is dependant on my aesthetic appeciation of my nose.

You seem to suggest that I must preceed this aesthetic appreciation with some kind of belief statement "big noses are appealing"... But assides from the fact that this is simply begging the question, how would I know that big noses are appealing if I wasn't already aesthetically drawn to them?

I think the kind of counter example you have in mind would be something like the following:

Most German people in the 1920s were not anti-semitic, and did not find Jews repugnant.
The Nazis used propaganda to make people believe that Jews were dirty/smelly/greedy etc.
This made many (most) Germans find Jews repugnant
ergo
A change in the emotional reaction to an object was created by changing the subjects beliefs about them...

However this arguement is missing one final step if you want it to show that belief states have to preceede emotional states, and this is the step that goes from finding an instance of greed/bad smell/etc. repugnant (i.e. Jews) to actually altering the emotional response to the predicates themselves (greed etc.) simply through an altered belief.

It is not people's emotional reactions that are affected by the change in beliefs but rather how they percieve the world. In the example it was not that the German people were all of a sudden conditioned to find greed etc. repelling, but rather they were duped into believing they had found a new instance of it.

If you're point is simply that we can react differently to an event, depending on how we percieve it then I agree with you

 

[Silver Incubus]

... ignoring the ad-hominum attacks

I don't know what you mean by the "eat your grandparents" anecdote, if you want to use it to do work in your arguement, it would help to at least paraphrase the points, or provide a url... I'll withhold judgement but I don't think it does the analytic work you would need it to, to give you a sound arguement.

As for your paraphrasing of my thought process in post #28... I totally reject that I think this way. It attributes your own position to me which is somewhat strage seeing as how I rejected such a position.
As for showing that emotion preceeds belief, well in the example I gave I thought it was self-evident. Here is how it works if you wish me to elaborate:

I see my nose
I find it aesthetically pleasing
*end of thought process*

now from this aesthetic appreciation from my nose I can go on to reason about appropriate belief states.

I find my nose aesthetically appealing
My nose is big
Aestheic appeal is good
ergo
It is good to have a big nose

This reasoning is dependant on my aesthetic appeciation of my nose.

You seem to suggest that I must preceed this aesthetic appreciation with some kind of belief statement "big noses are appealing"... But assides from the fact that this is simply begging the question, how would I know that big noses are appealing if I wasn't already aesthetically drawn to them?

I think the kind of counter example you have in mind would be something like the following:

Most German people in the 1920s were not anti-semitic, and did not find Jews repugnant.
The Nazis used propaganda to make people believe that Jews were dirty/smelly/greedy etc.
This made many (most) Germans find Jews repugnant
ergo
A change in the emotional reaction to an object was created by changing the subjects beliefs about them...

However this arguement is missing one final step if you want it to show that belief states have to preceede emotional states, and this is the step that goes from finding an instance of greed/bad smell/etc. repugnant (i.e. Jews) to actually altering the emotional response to the predicates themselves (greed etc.) simply through an altered belief.

It is not people's emotional reactions that are affected by the change in beliefs but rather how they percieve the world. In the example it was not that the German people were all of a sudden conditioned to find greed etc. repelling, but rather they were duped into believing they had found a new instance of it.

If you're point is simply that we can react differently to an event, depending on how we percieve it then I agree with you

In both your examples, you forgot to state why one would like big noses, and that is where the emotion comes from. Either a family motto of big noses mean better people, or a very attrative person(to you at least) says they like big noses and yours especially. Emotions don't just happen. they are based on associations to other similar stimilus and tend to happen depending on your context of a situation or frame mind/experience. These are based off of your beliefs. If you beleive abortion is wrong, then you might get upset at someone who is going to do it, but if you think it is a choice for the woman, then your reaction and emotions would be totally different. That is why belief causes emotions.

belief x causes y
x is caused by any stimilus or repeated stimilus that causes y.

belief (all snakes are deadly and will bite you) causes (fear)
(all snakes are deadly and will bite you) caused by seeing a snake biting and killing another person, animal, or even being told about snakes by someone whom you trust[like a parent, teacher, scientist, religious teacher etc].
Children tend to not be afraid of things until their parents drill it in to them that they are dangerous, scary, or out to harm them or people they love. It should be pretty obvious by now that emotions don't just happen.

 

[Seditious]

Emotions don't just happen. they are based on associations to other similar stimilus and tend to happen depending on your context of a situation or frame mind/experience. These are based off of your beliefs.

*nods* I don't know how many ways it can be restated for someone to understand but I've given up.

 

[Seditious]

... ignoring the ad-hominum attacks

I don't know what you mean by the "eat your grandparents" anecdote, if you want to use it to do work in your arguement, it would help to at least paraphrase the points, or provide a url... I'll withhold judgement but I don't think it does the analytic work you would need it to, to give you a sound arguement.

it's a quite well known example of relativism, showing beliefs are key to emotions/ethics

less than 2 minutes long...
http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=82D88B752A4FEB0C

It is not people's emotional reactions that are affected by the change in beliefs but rather how they percieve the world.

so, you just said beliefs change perception, and later said how we perceive an event changes our emotion reaction... so you've already proven my argument, in your own choice of words. you perceive the world differently because you changed your beliefs and so you've controlled your emotions via your belief system. (god knows what all this posting was about if you understood that)

In the example it was not that the German people were all of a sudden conditioned to find greed etc. repelling, but rather they were duped into believing they had found a new instance of it.

very good. let me find you a gold sticker.

belief about the jews (that jews were rapists or killers or greedy or whatever) meant they would react emotionally differently to the jews... it was the belief that changed their reaction...
if Hitler convinced them to believe jews were gentle and thrifty their emotional response would have been different again... I can't believe you think you refuted my argument when you just reworded it.

 

[Korona]

In both your examples, you forgot to state why one would like big noses, and that is where the emotion comes from.
...
Emotions don't just happen... etc... etc... It should be pretty obvious by now that emotions don't just happen.

hahaha I didn't "forget". The reason why you find it appealing is because you like the shape, you find it aesthtically pleasing in the context of your face, but that is pretty much a re-iteration of what I said...
Granted, we need a picture of the world to have emotions about, and beliefs can play a role in forming this picture (sometimes), but you are doing something in your reasoning I don't like or agree with.

Firstly you are couching statements about the world in "belief" terms which is an ad-hoc solution. For example you can say that knowing snakes to be dangerous is a "belief that snakes are dangerous", but couldn't that also be called a fact? And wouldn't that be a more reasonable way of describing it, at least in a majority of cases? Snakes ARE dangerous, this isn't something we normally would assert a "belief" over. "I believe snakes are dangerous", rather than "I know snakes are dangerous.
For example a child can be told that traffic is dangerous, perhaps they were ignorant of the danger before, but surely the fear they experience simply comes from "seeing the situation aright" rather than any kind of indoctrination by their parents.
The crux of this point is that there are plenty of things that we have emotions about, that simply are not open to "belief". For example I can see a clear blue sky and feel good. That isn't dependant on some belief state about the weather or whatever.
What I mean is, in what cases would it make sense to look up at a blue sky and say "I believe the sky is blue"? Surely you can see that this would be a bit weird, and for the most part even a sympathetic response would be "well of course it is!". An assertion of belief is only possible when there is ambiguity, and plenty of emotional situations contain no ambiguity what so ever.


@ Seditious. my point is not that the German's reaction was changed. Rather I wanted to draw attention to exactly what it was they changed their response to. They thought they had found a new instance of Greed. It's not true to say that their emotional response to greed was altered.
You are right about the grandparents example, it does ring a bell. However the conclusion is wrong. They want to say "canibalism isn't right or wrong"... however the correct conclusion would be that "canibalism is BOTH right AND wrong", in so far as it would be wrong for a Greek to eat their grandparents, but in certain circumstances a Persian would be right to eat them.
The emotional response is the same in both circumstances though - shock at defying a cultural taboo...

There are two arguements that can be made:

1 - that in certain cases a change in beliefs will alter how we percieve something, and illicit a change in our emotional response to it.
I agree to this, it seems fairly self-evident

2 - that we REQUIRE a belief state about something before we can have an emotional response to it.
I reject this -

- firstly because there are so many examples of cases where we are unintitled to "belief states" about things.
- secondly because appreciation of aestheic form is such a clear counter example.
- thirdly because a baby is also a clear counter example (plenty of emotion, but a total inability to formulate belief statements).

 

[Seditious]

You are right about the grandparents example, it does ring a bell. However the conclusion is wrong. They want to say "canibalism isn't right or wrong"... however the correct conclusion would be that "canibalism is BOTH right AND wrong",

lol I don't even know why you bother with the sematic distinctions when you obviously accept the premise itself, you aren't talking about paradox here, so your rewording achieves nothing.

 

[Korona]

It denies moral relativism which is a pretty significant move, and as this is the premise of the passage I disagree with it. I agree that I'm not talking about a paradox though... was I meant to?

Anyway I am far more interested to know what you think of the points I made, and if you find my argument (belief states are not neccessary for emotions) compelling or not, and if not, why not!
(btw it's spelt semantic* )

 

[Seditious]

It denies moral relativism which is a pretty significant move, and as this is the premise of the passage I disagree with it.

If you think saying 'it's both right and wrong' isn't exactly what moral relativism is about then I have no idea what you think you're talking about.

I agree that I'm not talking about a paradox though... was I meant to?

You would have at least been saying something original rather than rewording that which you thought you disagreed with if you had.

(btw it's spelt semantic* )

Thanks for spotting my typo, I didn't bother to proof read.

BTW, acronyms formed of first letters are capitalized (e.g., BTW standing for 'by the way')

 

[Korona]

The Sophist's beleive that they are entitled to moral relativism. By "rephrasing" (i.e. correcting) the conclusion I wanted to show that they are at best entitled to moral pluralism.
The existence of difference doesn't show that there is no limit to difference, or that there isnt the possiblilty of a definite response when it comes to the question "should I eat my grandparents?".

However I am far more interested in what you think of the issue at hand, which is emotion. Is my arguement that beliefs are not neseccary for emotions compelling? If not why not?

 

[judas69]

However I am far more interested in what you think of the issue at hand, which is emotion. Is my arguement that beliefs are not neseccary for emotions compelling? If not why not?

It makes sense to me ..in the same way the word follows the thought. The assumption of course is that belief and emotion are directly relatable.

In otherwords, though emotion might follow belief in certain situations (ie., I believe death is final, and so I cry at a funeral) our emotional facilities create and influence the framework for belief and thought (ie., because I feel bad about the death of a relative, as that which I've experienced, I am more inclined to formulate and accept a belief around it), ab ovo. In the same way, if I thought up a belief about something, I would not necessarily know how to react to it emotionally, for belief, like theory, is often uncertain to anyone including the individual, if not first experienced in some way.

From a different angle, it's easier for me to accept that if I did not feel, I could not have "beliefs" than, If I did not believe, I could not have emotion. Emotion is something primative and less "intellectual" (you can argue what this means) by definition, and it's usually the strongest mechanism by which we create or accept our beliefs, unless you have a differing opinion about belief and how it's all related.

Thus, I think it's safe to say emotions came first (or at the very least evolve independantly with belief at the onset) .. but that aside, both cases are completely accurate, specifically "emotions -> belief" and "belief -> emotions".

 

[Seditious]

Emotion is something primative and less "intellectual"

its not more primitive than obsevation and belief

if you believe you see someone pull out a gun when you observe someone in a dark alley you're more likely to have that 'primitive' emotional response, but that doesn't mean emotions are stupid and preintellectual at all.

 

[Magrathean]

stimilus

I'm of the view that if you can't spell 'stimulus' then you probably don't know enough to talk about it.


All of you are using 'emotion' and 'belief' as two different things. Seeing as both things happen in the brain, i could argue that both are different "parts" of the same phenomenon, so to speak. Neurons fire electrochemical signals to other neurons in such a way that they create certain thoughts/ideas/emotions/beliefs; a brain's neurons are networked in a specific way that "stores" or "holds" all the emotions, beliefs, ideas and thoughts (among other things) of a person; thus, all of those are the same thing; they're all our interpretation (thanks to what i'd call 'sentience') of signals that are in the form of neurotransmitters and electricity. So whether beliefs cause emotions or emotions cause beliefs is somewhat of a futile question, in my opinion; emotions and beliefs are at the base the same thing (we can make a sort of distinction between emotions and thoughts because emotions are temporary and (in the moment they happen) stronger, but we could look at them as temporary ideas or view ideas as more-or-less-permanent emotions; ultimately, both are states of being / states of mind, nothing else), and so you're basically debating whether A causes A or A is caused by A.

so, you just said beliefs change perception, and later said how we perceive an event changes our emotion reaction

No. What we believe/feel (whether it's permanent or temporary) strongly influences how we perceive the world as well. It goes both ways (in case it's not clear, i'm saying that in some circumstances perception is the cause of a state of mind and in other cases it's the other way around).

Examples:

Say you're convinced that everything happens for a scientific/logical reason (it's just the way you think, what makes sense to you, no "feelings" involved in the process of acquiring that "belief"). Whenever you see something (say, a butterfly's wings producing certain colors in certain patterns) you'll look at it from a scientific perspective and try to find the reason for the phenomenon (the wings of the butterfly are composed of molecules whose microscopical arrangement reflects light in certain ways which cause that particular color and that particular pattern to appear).

No say you suddenly witness a close friend die at a hospital because the doctor who attended them was incompetent. From this input ("perception") your "beliefs"/"feelings" about doctors might change into negative ones.

For example you can say that knowing snakes to be dangerous is a "belief that snakes are dangerous", but couldn't that also be called a fact? And wouldn't that be a more reasonable way of describing it, at least in a majority of cases? Snakes ARE dangerous, this isn't something we normally would assert a "belief" over. "I believe snakes are dangerous", rather than "I know snakes are dangerous.

No. It is a belief. A fact would be that (some) snakes secrete a powerful poison from their fangs or that some snakes can exert an incredible amount of pressure by wrapping around their prey tighter and tighter. That snakes are dangerous is a consequence of most humans' inability to know what to do when one is near. A dog's bite can cause a lot of damage to a person, but do we consider dogs dangerous? I'm sure a mouse or a cat does, but we don't because we've spent literally thousands of years living with dogs and keeping them as pets and so we know how to treat them (yes, the domestication/devolution process has something to do with it, but not everything). But people aren't used to keeping snakes as pets, so they don't know how to treat them or what to do when they encounter one and often they act in stupid ways that end up in the snake biting them.

What I mean is, in what cases would it make sense to look up at a blue sky and say "I believe the sky is blue"? (...) An assertion of belief is only possible when there is ambiguity

In no case. It looks blue to you because light with a wavelength of around 400 nanometers is reflecting from Earth's atmosphere and getting to your eyes, but a person several hundred kilometers to the east or west sees the sky red or orange because light with a different wavelength is reaching their eyes. That the sky is blue isn't a fact; that the sky looks blue from a finite area at a particular time because blue light reflects from Earth's atmosphere in that direction is a fact.

They thought they had found a new instance of Greed.

Just to set it straight, not because it has anything to do with anything said on this thread: it was more in the lines of "jews are evil because they have taken up all the job opportunities in Germany and run the country's economy even though not all of them are german" than "jews are greedy".

BTW, acronyms formed of first letters are capitalized (e.g., BTW standing for 'by the way')

Why? They're not proper names. Only proper names should be capitalized, and maybe the first word in every sentence (but i don't really see the point of that). And if we're going to discuss grammar and spelling then from the way you all write i could say that you've all already lost.

if you believe you see someone pull out a gun when you observe someone in a dark alley you're more likely to have that 'primitive' emotional response, but that doesn't mean emotions are stupid and preintellectual at all.

'Primitive' doesn't mean "preintellectual" or "stupid", it means "from an early stage" or "basic". just thought i'd point that out.