How May the Nature and Experience of Emotions Be Considered Philosophically?
The particular topic of this thread is aimed at looking at emotions as an aspect of psychology and philosophy. My own interest is the way in which emotions may arise, as aspects of physiology and ideas, is to what extent may they be reframed and worked upon? The dichotomy of this arises from ideas of physiology, neuroscience, cognitive behavioural therapy and neurolinguistic programming, which is based in psychology, but it goes back to the underlying ideas of mind and consciousness.
I have been reading on the philosophy of Stoicism and ideas of temperance in, 'Renaissance Wisdom: How to Flourish in the Modern Day', Shane Sorenson(2022). He looks at what extent emotions can be understood philosophically. He says,
'Our emotions can be a valuable tools. Given to us by nature, our emotions can alert us to danger, show us our attachments, and help focus on things that are important in life. But emotions, if allowed to run unchecked can lead to us to our own destruction. Pain can lead us to danger or loss, but it can also lead us to down the road to torment and despair. Love can set us free, but also lead to paranoia or anguish. Desire can awaken us to our potential, or it can lead to greed and obsession. Anger can spur us into action, but it can also lead us to death or destruction. Fear can show us obstacles and help us plan, or it can paralyze us into inaction. Emotions are good if they are useful or beneficial- after that the emotions are more of a distraction from happiness than anything else.'
Reading this passage has given me a lot to think about, especially how emotions are reflected upon. To what extent are they biologically based or upon ideas,or values? To what extent may they be understood psychologically and worked upon as ideas in philosophy? Such an approach may be seen in cognitive behavioural therapy and neurolinguistic programming.
Ideas of cognitive behavioural therapy draw upon ideas in philosophy, including Stoic philosophy. However, at this stage, I am wondering how the nature of emotions may be considered philosophically. It may lead to questions of phenomenology as well as the role of consciousness in thinking and its interpretation. I see this as an important area of philosophy, and for anyone else who sees its value, what do you think about emotion and its significance?
I have been reading on the philosophy of Stoicism and ideas of temperance in, 'Renaissance Wisdom: How to Flourish in the Modern Day', Shane Sorenson(2022). He looks at what extent emotions can be understood philosophically. He says,
'Our emotions can be a valuable tools. Given to us by nature, our emotions can alert us to danger, show us our attachments, and help focus on things that are important in life. But emotions, if allowed to run unchecked can lead to us to our own destruction. Pain can lead us to danger or loss, but it can also lead us to down the road to torment and despair. Love can set us free, but also lead to paranoia or anguish. Desire can awaken us to our potential, or it can lead to greed and obsession. Anger can spur us into action, but it can also lead us to death or destruction. Fear can show us obstacles and help us plan, or it can paralyze us into inaction. Emotions are good if they are useful or beneficial- after that the emotions are more of a distraction from happiness than anything else.'
Reading this passage has given me a lot to think about, especially how emotions are reflected upon. To what extent are they biologically based or upon ideas,or values? To what extent may they be understood psychologically and worked upon as ideas in philosophy? Such an approach may be seen in cognitive behavioural therapy and neurolinguistic programming.
Ideas of cognitive behavioural therapy draw upon ideas in philosophy, including Stoic philosophy. However, at this stage, I am wondering how the nature of emotions may be considered philosophically. It may lead to questions of phenomenology as well as the role of consciousness in thinking and its interpretation. I see this as an important area of philosophy, and for anyone else who sees its value, what do you think about emotion and its significance?
Comments (74)
Something I've noticed is that there is almost no reference to 'emotions' in classical texts, whereas there are very frequent references to 'the passions'. You will know if you read Stoic literature, that 'the passions' are something to be subdued, and that 'subduing the passions' is one of the marks of wisdom. I don't think they're praising callousness or mere indifference to suffering, but the ability to rise above feelings, emotions and moods. 'Constancy of temperament' was a highly prized virtue in the classics (reflected in the name 'Constance').
I wonder if what we call 'emotion' is in some way equivalent to what was meant by 'the passions' in those sources. I did learn, from practicing mindfulness meditation, that emotions always pass, and that's an important thing to learn. Because when you're feeling down, when you're possessed by negative emotions, which happens to all of us, it seems, in that state, that everything seems grey, in all directions. But once you learn that it is an emotion that will pass, it makes it easier to deal with.
I doubt this will come as novel but thats exactly how I read Hume.
Why is your in parentheses?
Errr. Okay lol.
Yes it is interesting that ancient texts refer to passions as opposed to emotions. It may be because the chemical basis was not fully understood. Even more recently, Robert Burton's 'The Anatomy of Melancholy' considered melancholy as connected with humors.
It was really in the twentieth century that knowledge of the brain, and the endocrine system as well as other chemicals were understood scientifically. This enabled advances in psychiatry, especially the development of antidepressants and mood stabilizers. Of course, it may be to the extent that antidepressants are prescribed by GPs. However, people react differently to them which may be partly about unique aspects of brain chemistry. But, it is not simply about literal chemicals as such or people would not seek talking therapies. Such therapies, including psychodynamic and cognitive behavioral therapies involve mental processing. It is likely that the thoughts about experiences bring changes on a chemical basis too.
People experience emotions so differently but with parallels. Most people can identify with basic aspects, such as sadness and joy. Nevertheless, there are such variations, such as some people who feel depressed all the time. Also, some people have more dramatic mood swings than others.
There is also the question of how much control do we have of our emotions and are we enslaved by them? We may try to suppress or repress them but it may not fully work. Even biological interventions don't work always. The basis of emotions are not fully separate from self-knowledge. It may be that the achievement of self-knowledge is equatable with understanding of one's emotions, through being able to name and articulate about mental states. Yet, even with awareness of these, it does not lead to self-mastery necessarily. I wonder about whether self-awareness and reflective consciousness is a basis for some kind of emotional freedom, such as through mindfulness. It may be that certain individuals are less victims of emotions and that the development of higher states of consciousness are based on integration of emotional experiences.
They aren't made of anything. In the sense that walking isn't made of legs.
You'd probably get a lot out of "How Emotions Are Made" by Lisa Feldman-Barrett.
Quoting Jack Cummins
In the above quote, emotion is considered as some kind of substance that is added to the mix of mentation and behavior, as though we could imagine functioning without it. Emotion does this and that, adds this and that, provides us with this and that. I want to offer this question:Is there any aspect of cognitive function that can be made sense of if we imagine removing the thing were calling emotion? What if, instead of artificially extracting from experiencing some mysterious entity we label emotion and then asking about its nature, we abolish the distinction we have been making between affect, will and cognition and instead see affect as an inseparable dimension or aspect of all human functioning?
Quoting fdrake
Feldman-Barretts alright, but predictive processing approaches are a bit behavioristically reductive for my taste. I find Matthew Ratcliffes work to be among the best of the current crop of writings on affectivity, mood and emotion. He combines the phenomenological work of Sartre, Husserl and Heidegger, the Pragmatism of James and Dewey and cognitive enactivist approaches like that of Evan Thompson.
Quoting Wayfarer
This take on the emotions seems to be the foil for Heideggers integrative approach to affect, feeling, mood and emotion:
It does seem to me that I discover my emotional condition from outside. When someone says "I feel angry", they might do so with sadness, or with surprise as often as they say it angrily. The tone of the discussion is thus far neutral to the point almost of indifference, as if emotion is too near, even for the most myopic self observer to bring into focus. Rather as one has to take off one's spectacles to see whether they are rose tinted or some other colour. As the old joke has it, when two psychologists meet on the the street one says to the other, "How am I?" - "You're fine, how am I?" That's not much of a bridge over troubled water, is it?
Is it even possible - and this is a heresy - but has philosophy any business to have a view at all? Might one not be just slightly inclined to tell Sophia to butt out of one's sensibilities and mind her own business?
:up:
You've made some 'empirical observations' but still have not yet raised a philosophical question as far as I can tell.
Quoting Wayfarer
Yes, this is what a modern such as Spinoza means by affects 'passions', or passive reaction which is the focus in two sections of his Ethics: III. Of the Origin and Nature of the Affects and IV. Of Human Bondage, or the Power of the Affects. No doubt he was influenced by the Stoics (as well as the Epicurus). Antonio Damasio's neuroscience research surveys and largely corroborates much of Spinoza's speculations on "emotions" in the book Looking for Spinoza (2003).
Haha great line!
(Im still internally debating the question it was answering but I appreciate a good turn of phrase).
Interesting! Thanks. :up: I hadnt heard of him. Any suggestions for a starting point in his writing?
This book looks like an interesting combo of philosophy and psychology.
(Couldnt find a Wikipedia page about him )
Interesting could you please explain more. I think you are perhaps referring to a persons judgement of their emotions? Thus diving deeper into their identity, worldview, ethics, etc
Or maybe the opposite: the feelings stand alone and speak for themselves?
Quoting unenlightened
More delightful turns of phrases!
Its like the whipped cream and sprinkles on top of the coffee! :grin: :ok:
(But Im not brave enough to tell Sophia to butt out! Shed clobber me! :sweat: )
I am surprised that you make a clear division between philosophy and psychology, especially as the two wre originally linked clearly until the twentieth century. It seems too binary, especially as ideas merge between disciplines, especially in connection with systems approaches..
Besides, I just googled the topic of philosophy of emotions and found that there are many books on it. It seems like you wish to take the psyche out of philosophy, which would be as restrictive taking art out of philosophy.
I'll be reading Rethinking Commonsense Psychology the next couple of months. I may rant about it at you.
Even if you see my outpost as confused it is still an area of philosophy. If I wasn't a little confused when I wrote it may be I wouldn't have needed to write it. I am sure that many outposts have areas of confusion and questions which are only on the periphery of philosophy. Asking a really good question can be a difficult art and it can be hard to always frame questions with clarity because there are fuzzy areas of thought, just like fuzzy emotions. It is even through discussion that the exact nature of the essential questions emerge.
For Emotions to be considered philosophically, you might need to use a more appropriate term, such as "Feelings". Emotions are typically construed as the "passions" that motivate people to behave irrationally : anger, hate, excitement, etc. Although closely related to Emotions, Feelings are viewed as less physical and more psychological : love, sentiment, notion, opinion. Hopefully, you can think of a better term for philosophical treatment, to emphasize the mental over the physical foundations. :smile:
PS__ Ironically, I have to agree with , that you need to express your philosophical question in terms of psychological concepts.
PPS__FWIW, I think 's post above may be the most appropriate & succinct philosophical answer you'll get.
Emotions are psychological states that include subjective, physiological, and behavioral elements.
The feeling is a conscious experience created after the physical sensation or emotional experience, whereas emotions are felt through emotional experience
Quoting fdrake
I look forward to your rant.
Feelings of Being is a good starting point, since it captures his fully developed notion of moods like grief and depression.
Yes, I am inclined to think that mastery of emotions can be learned but is a rare achievement, such as the consciousness of monks and for spiritual masters. For most of us, behaviour is hard enough to control fully, which may be due to emotions, and mastery of the actual emotions is so much more difficult.
If anything, I would like to be able to attain more mastery of emotions because I often get low in mood and anxious. I do some meditation but sometimes don't feel up to it, although I do meditate at times when I can't manage to sleep. Of course, those who master the emotions have probably extremely accomplished in the practice of meditation and it is also bound up with a whole lifestyle approach. Also, it may be a people think that it is about emotional detachment as opposed to a deeper state of awareness.
I did read a book on neurolinguistic programming and find the idea of reframing as a useful one for the nature of emotional processing. However, it is probably an approach which requires in depth training.
I definitely think that you have a point about the way feelings may have been a better term to consider. Probably, the reason why I used emotions is because feelings conjures up sentimentality. Also, maybe I was subconsciously writing in accordance with the male stereotype bias about against talking about feelings , while emotions sounds more rough and raw.
Anyway, I recommend reading Parts III & IV of Spinoza's Ethics for a philosophical examination on "emotions, feelings, passions" etc.
Actually, I wish to get hold of a copy of Damasio's 'Looking for Spinoza'. I have read about it and from what I remember of this was how embodiment is important. As far as I see, one important aspect of embodiment in relation to emotions is how it is distributed through the body through the nervous system as opposed to being located in the head/brain.
It makes sense to see the emotions as connected to the whole body and sensations, such as in the feeling of having 'a broken heart'. Also, when the body feels out of sorts the quality of the emotional life is impacted negatively. For the last couple of weeks I think I have had a virus and I have felt more depressed than usual. This is likely to being zapped of energy.
I have a copy of Spinoza's 'Ethics', which I have been crawling through for ages. So, I will have a look at it, even though I don't find his writing to be very inspirational..
:up:
What I'm getting at is that one looks at the world and oneself from the perspective of one's feeling. No one ever claims to look through rose tinted specs, they get accused of it by someone else. Necessarily so, because if one felt over-optimistic, one would automatically, in being aware of their optimism, make an adjustment to a more realistic attitude.
The same thing happens to me sometimes here on the forum, I write a response to a post and when I read it back, I discover that I am really pissed off with this idiot - and then I edit or delete, because as soon as I see my anger, it is over.
Having read your posts and some authors which you refer to, I looked at a collection of Sartre's writings which I have in my room and found a whole section on his writings on emotions. It looks extremely interesting so I will read it fully, especially as it discusses intentionality. The way intentionality comes into emotional experiences may be central to the nature of mindset. One way which emotion can be worked with consciously is the direction towards positivity, as choice. This is about framing and is like the perception of the picture often referred to in psychology, which can be seen as a case or 2 faces.
As far as your question about what cognition would be like if emotions were removed is important because it raises the issue of artificial intelligence and robots. It is connected to the issue of sentience, because it is central to having an organic body. A computer doesn't cry, is not sensitive about what anyone says about it and doesn't experience sexual attraction.
Many people who favour artificial intelligence see the absence of emotions as an advantage, for making rational or clinical judgments. Nevertheless, the contrasting argument is how this may lead to an absence of empathy and the ability to feel compassion. I
f anything, people are almost being expected to compete with and perform against robots at work. This may explain why so many people are becoming unwell, because the sentient, animal aspects is being suppressed. Animals have emotions but these are sensations and instincts. They do appear to have attachment bonds. Human consciousness is different from that of many species of the animal kingdom, but emotions are central to human nature.
Quoting Jack Cummins
But then we have to ask what sense it makes to talk about what computers are, have or feel in themselves , as though
there were such a thing as a computer self or personality (even if zombie-like) independent of human interactions with it. What I am suggesting is that our machines are appendages of us, like a nest for a bird or a web for a spider. The concept of a computer is only intelligible in terms of what we design and use it for. Without our aims, goals and purposes , which are intrinsically affective, a computer is a meaningless collection of parts. We couldnt say that on its own it calculates, because calculation is always for a purpose.
I have a rather unique, and I imagine, quite pertinent perspective here.
For about seven years i suffered what was termed "Trauma-induced DiD(dissociative identity disorder (multiple personalities)). The over-all effect of this was that my personality became, on average, a sociopathic one. It took rather extreme experiences to alert me to the emotional reality I was inhabiting (i.e the emotions around me, informing those around me, and motivating their actions). I was, during this period, daily likened to Sherlock in the BBC series (in this aspect only).
During this time I found it extremely easy to do things like:
- Hold a conversation;
- Listen to a Podcast; and
- Overhear a conversation in the room
all at the same time, with coherence and attendance to all three activities, verified by the incredulity and accusations of being psychic from others. I can't do this now that I experience emotions the way I used to. I couldn't prior, either. I could, when i was younger, MAYBE grasp two conversations at once and stab at decent replies - but they would be muddled and i'd have to take moments to straighten myself out. The emotions get in the way of the smooth transition from one activity to another as I discern what i am 'to do' and try to justify my 'decision'. While sociopathic, it was already apparent what i was to do/reply/offer based on a sort of logical calculus, in any situation. Obviously, it's almost inevitable my calculus was at times way off, and at most times, a little off. However, my achievements in terms of productivity and expansion of my concepts at that time, i feel I will never come close to again. I prefer feeling - but I miss not wanting to care about things that came through my mind.
Incidentally, it was that period that initially sparked my interest in philosophy proper. I'd listen to someone like Daniel Dennett or Noam Chomsky and just think "What the absolute hell are you talking about?" and then realised what sophistry was LOL.
Thanks, that helps me understand. :up:
Feelings may fossilize over time into tendencies or biases.
Recently, I did an online survey to find out if I had any biases present in my thinking.
I was pleasantly surprised thought that there would be even more:
[hide]
Only 1,251 of them! Better than 2 years ago. :joke:
From Wikipedia:
Anchoring bias
Main article: Anchoring (cognitive bias)
The anchoring bias, or focalism, is the tendency to rely too heavilyto "anchor"on one trait or piece of information when making decisions (usually the first piece of information acquired on that subject).[11][12] Anchoring bias includes or involves the following:
Common source bias, the tendency to combine or compare research studies from the same source, or from sources that use the same methodologies or data.[13]
Conservatism bias, the tendency to insufficiently revise one's belief when presented with new evidence.[5][14][15]
Functional fixedness, a tendency limiting a person to using an object only in the way it is traditionally used.[16]
Law of the instrument, an over-reliance on a familiar tool or methods, ignoring or under-valuing alternative approaches. "If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."
Apophenia
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Main article: Apophenia
The tendency to perceive meaningful connections between unrelated things.[17] The following are types of apophenia:
Clustering illusion, the tendency to overestimate the importance of small runs, streaks, or clusters in large samples of random data (that is, seeing phantom patterns).[12]
Illusory correlation, a tendency to inaccurately perceive a relationship between two unrelated events.[18][19]
Pareidolia, a tendency to perceive a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) as significant, e.g., seeing images of animals or faces in clouds, the man in the Moon, and hearing non-existent hidden messages on records played in reverse.
Availability heuristic
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Main article: Availability heuristic
The availability heuristic (also known as the availability bias) is the tendency to overestimate the likelihood of events with greater "availability" in memory, which can be influenced by how recent the memories are or how unusual or emotionally charged they may be.[20] The availability heuristic includes or involves the following:
Anthropocentric thinking, the tendency to use human analogies as a basis for reasoning about other, less familiar, biological phenomena.[21]
Anthropomorphism or personification, the tendency to characterize animals, objects, and abstract concepts as possessing human-like traits, emotions, and intentions.[22] The opposite bias, of not attributing feelings or thoughts to another person, is dehumanised perception,[23] a type of objectification.
Attentional bias, the tendency of perception to be affected by recurring thoughts.[24]
Frequency illusion or BaaderMeinhof phenomenon. The frequency illusion is that once something has been noticed then every instance of that thing is noticed, leading to the belief it has a high frequency of occurrence (a form of selection bias).[25] The BaaderMeinhof phenomenon is the illusion where something that has recently come to one's attention suddenly seems to appear with improbable frequency shortly afterwards.[26][27] It was named after an incidence of frequency illusion in which the BaaderMeinhof Group was mentioned.[28]
Implicit association, where the speed with which people can match words depends on how closely they are associated.
Salience bias, the tendency to focus on items that are more prominent or emotionally striking and ignore those that are unremarkable, even though this difference is often irrelevant by objective standards. See also von Restorff effect.
Selection bias, which happens when the members of a statistical sample are not chosen completely at random, which leads to the sample not being representative of the population.
Survivorship bias, which is concentrating on the people or things that "survived" some process and inadvertently overlooking those that did not because of their lack of visibility.
Well travelled road effect, the tendency to underestimate the duration taken to traverse oft-travelled routes and overestimate the duration taken to traverse less familiar routes.
Cognitive dissonance
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Main article: Cognitive dissonance
Cognitive dissonance is the perception of contradictory information and the mental toll of it.
Normalcy bias, a form of cognitive dissonance, is the refusal to plan for, or react to, a disaster which has never happened before.
Effort justification is a person's tendency to attribute greater value to an outcome if they had to put effort into achieving it. This can result in more value being applied to an outcome than it actually has. An example of this is the IKEA effect, the tendency for people to place a disproportionately high value on objects that they partially assembled themselves, such as furniture from IKEA, regardless of the quality of the end product.[29]
Ben Franklin effect, where a person who has performed a favor for someone is more likely to do another favor for that person than they would be if they had received a favor from that person.[30]
Confirmation bias
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Main article: Confirmation bias
Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, focus on and remember information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions.[31] There are multiple other cognitive biases which involve or are types of confirmation bias:
Backfire effect, a tendency to react to disconfirming evidence by strengthening one's previous beliefs.[32]
Congruence bias, the tendency to test hypotheses exclusively through direct testing, instead of testing possible alternative hypotheses.[12]
Experimenter's or expectation bias, the tendency for experimenters to believe, certify, and publish data that agree with their expectations for the outcome of an experiment, and to disbelieve, discard, or downgrade the corresponding weightings for data that appear to conflict with those expectations.[33]
Observer-expectancy effect, when a researcher expects a given result and therefore unconsciously manipulates an experiment or misinterprets data in order to find it (see also subject-expectancy effect).
Selective perception, the tendency for expectations to affect perception.
Semmelweis reflex, the tendency to reject new evidence that contradicts a paradigm.[15]
Egocentric bias
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Main article: Egocentric bias
Egocentric bias is the tendency to rely too heavily on one's own perspective and/or have a different perception of oneself relative to others.[34] The following are forms of egocentric bias:
Bias blind spot, the tendency to see oneself as less biased than other people, or to be able to identify more cognitive biases in others than in oneself.[35]
False consensus effect, the tendency for people to overestimate the degree to which others agree with them.[36]
False uniqueness bias, the tendency of people to see their projects and themselves as more singular than they actually are.[37]
Forer effect or Barnum effect, the tendency for individuals to give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically for them, but are in fact vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people. This effect can provide a partial explanation for the widespread acceptance of some beliefs and practices, such as astrology, fortune telling, graphology, and some types of personality tests.[38]
Illusion of asymmetric insight, where people perceive their knowledge of their peers to surpass their peers' knowledge of them.[39]
Illusion of control, the tendency to overestimate one's degree of influence over other external events.[40]
Illusion of transparency, the tendency for people to overestimate the degree to which their personal mental state is known by others, and to overestimate how well they understand others' personal mental states.
Illusion of validity, the tendency to overestimate the accuracy of one's judgments, especially when available information is consistent or inter-correlated.[41]
Illusory superiority, the tendency to overestimate one's desirable qualities, and underestimate undesirable qualities, relative to other people. (Also known as "Lake Wobegon effect", "better-than-average effect", or "superiority bias".)[42]
Naïve cynicism, expecting more egocentric bias in others than in oneself.
Naïve realism, the belief that we see reality as it really isobjectively and without bias; that the facts are plain for all to see; that rational people will agree with us; and that those who do not are either uninformed, lazy, irrational, or biased.
Overconfidence effect, a tendency to have excessive confidence in one's own answers to questions. For example, for certain types of questions, answers that people rate as "99% certain" turn out to be wrong 40% of the time.[5][43][44][45]
Planning fallacy, the tendency for people to underestimate the time it will take them to complete a given task.[46]
Restraint bias, the tendency to overestimate one's ability to show restraint in the face of temptation.
Trait ascription bias, the tendency for people to view themselves as relatively variable in terms of personality, behavior, and mood while viewing others as much more predictable.
Third-person effect, a tendency to believe that mass-communicated media messages have a greater effect on others than on themselves.
Extension neglect
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Main article: Extension neglect
The following are forms of extension neglect:
Base rate fallacy or base rate neglect, the tendency to ignore general information and focus on information only pertaining to the specific case, even when the general information is more important.[47]
Compassion fade, the tendency to behave more compassionately towards a small number of identifiable victims than to a large number of anonymous ones.[48]
Conjunction fallacy, the tendency to assume that specific conditions are more probable than a more general version of those same conditions.[49]
Duration neglect, the neglect of the duration of an episode in determining its value.[50]
Hyperbolic discounting, where discounting is the tendency for people to have a stronger preference for more immediate payoffs relative to later payoffs. Hyperbolic discounting leads to choices that are inconsistent over timepeople make choices today that their future selves would prefer not to have made, despite using the same reasoning.[51] Also known as current moment bias or present bias, and related to Dynamic inconsistency. A good example of this is a study showed that when making food choices for the coming week, 74% of participants chose fruit, whereas when the food choice was for the current day, 70% chose chocolate.
Insensitivity to sample size, the tendency to under-expect variation in small samples.
Less-is-better effect, the tendency to prefer a smaller set to a larger set judged separately, but not jointly.
Neglect of probability, the tendency to completely disregard probability when making a decision under uncertainty.[52]
Scope neglect or scope insensitivity, the tendency to be insensitive to the size of a problem when evaluating it. For example, being willing to pay as much to save 2,000 children or 20,000 children.
Zero-risk bias, the preference for reducing a small risk to zero over a greater reduction in a larger risk.
False priors
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Learn more
This section needs expansion with: more of its biases. You can help by adding to it. (July 2023)
False priors are initial beliefs and knowledge which interfere with the unbiased evaluation of factual evidence and lead to incorrect conclusions. Biases based on false priors include:
Agent detection bias, the inclination to presume the purposeful intervention of a sentient or intelligent agent.
Automation bias, the tendency to depend excessively on automated systems which can lead to erroneous automated information overriding correct decisions.[53]
Gender bias, a widespread[54] set of implicit biases that discriminate against a gender. For example, the assumption that women are less suited to jobs requiring high intellectual ability.[55][failed verification] Or the assumption that people or animals are male in the absence of any indicators of gender.[56]
Sexual overperception bias, the tendency to overestimate sexual interest of another person in oneself, and sexual underperception bias, the tendency to underestimate it.
Stereotyping, expecting a member of a group to have certain characteristics without having actual information about that individual.
Framing effect
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Main article: Framing effect (psychology)
The framing effect is the tendency to draw different conclusions from the same information, depending on how that information is presented. Forms of the framing effect include:
Contrast effect, the enhancement or reduction of a certain stimulus's perception when compared with a recently observed, contrasting object.[57]
Decoy effect, where preferences for either option A or B change in favor of option B when option C is presented, which is completely dominated by option B (inferior in all respects) and partially dominated by option A.[58]
Default effect, the tendency to favor the default option when given a choice between several options.[59]
Denomination effect, the tendency to spend more money when it is denominated in small amounts (e.g., coins) rather than large amounts (e.g., bills).[60]
Distinction bias, the tendency to view two options as more dissimilar when evaluating them simultaneously than when evaluating them separately.[61]
Domain neglect bias, the tendency to neglect relevant domain knowledge while solving interdisciplinary problems.[62]
Logical fallacy
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Main article: Fallacy
Berkson's paradox, the tendency to misinterpret statistical experiments involving conditional probabilities.[63]
Escalation of commitment, irrational escalation, or sunk cost fallacy, where people justify increased investment in a decision, based on the cumulative prior investment, despite new evidence suggesting that the decision was probably wrong.
G. I. Joe fallacy, the tendency to think that knowing about cognitive bias is enough to overcome it.[64]
Gambler's fallacy, the tendency to think that future probabilities are altered by past events, when in reality they are unchanged. The fallacy arises from an erroneous conceptualization of the law of large numbers. For example, "I've flipped heads with this coin five times consecutively, so the chance of tails coming out on the sixth flip is much greater than heads."[65]
Hot-hand fallacy (also known as "hot hand phenomenon" or "hot hand"), the belief that a person who has experienced success with a random event has a greater chance of further success in additional attempts.
Plan continuation bias, failure to recognize that the original plan of action is no longer appropriate for a changing situation or for a situation that is different from anticipated.[66]
Subadditivity effect, the tendency to judge the probability of the whole to be less than the probabilities of the parts.[67]
Time-saving bias, a tendency to underestimate the time that could be saved (or lost) when increasing (or decreasing) from a relatively low speed, and to overestimate the time that could be saved (or lost) when increasing (or decreasing) from a relatively high speed.
Zero-sum bias, where a situation is incorrectly perceived to be like a zero-sum game (i.e., one person gains at the expense of another).
Prospect theory
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Main article: Prospect theory
The following relate to prospect theory:
Ambiguity effect, the tendency to avoid options for which the probability of a favorable outcome is unknown.[68]
Disposition effect, the tendency to sell an asset that has accumulated in value and resist selling an asset that has declined in value.
Dread aversion, just as losses yield double the emotional impact of gains, dread yields double the emotional impact of savouring.[69][70]
Endowment effect, the tendency for people to demand much more to give up an object than they would be willing to pay to acquire it.[71]
Loss aversion, where the perceived disutility of giving up an object is greater than the utility associated with acquiring it.[72] (see also Sunk cost fallacy)
Pseudocertainty effect, the tendency to make risk-averse choices if the expected outcome is positive, but make risk-seeking choices to avoid negative outcomes.[73]
Status quo bias, the tendency to prefer things to stay relatively the same.[74][75]
System justification, the tendency to defend and bolster the status quo. Existing social, economic, and political arrangements tend to be preferred, and alternatives disparaged, sometimes even at the expense of individual and collective self-interest.
Self-assessment
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DunningKruger effect, the tendency for unskilled individuals to overestimate their own ability and the tendency for experts to underestimate their own ability.[76]
Hot-cold empathy gap, the tendency to underestimate the influence of visceral drives on one's attitudes, preferences, and behaviors.[77]
Hardeasy effect, the tendency to overestimate one's ability to accomplish hard tasks, and underestimate one's ability to accomplish easy tasks.[5][78][79][80]
Illusion of explanatory depth, the tendency to believe that one understands a topic much better than one actually does.[81][82] The effect is strongest for explanatory knowledge, whereas people tend to be better at self-assessments for procedural, narrative, or factual knowledge.[82][83]
Impostor Syndrome, a psychological occurrence in which an individual doubts their skills, talents, or accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a fraud. Also known as impostor phenomenon.[84]
Objectivity illusion, the phenomena where people tend to believe that they are more objective and unbiased than others. This bias can apply to itself where people are able to see when others are affected by the objectivity illusion, but unable to see it in themselves. See also bias blind spot.[85]
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Your experience is interesting and it is surprising what traumatic experiences can do the brain and emotions. There are some theories and research linking autism with childhood attachment, although it is mixed, with some pointing to physical and genetic issues. Autism is particularly important in relation to emotions, especially due to connections with 'other minds' and issues of ability to feel empathy.
There is also Jung's idea of the four functions: rationality, feeling, sensation and intuition. People vary in which is developed most strongly and which is weakest. I wonder whether those who are drawn to philosophy may include many whose most dominant function is rationality.
It is true that computers are reflections of those who created them. My phone seems like an extra part of me, but it does not have emotions other than those which I project onto it. Machines are dependent on those who program them. Even if a computer or robot is stimulated to produce tears it would not feel suffering unless it had some degree of sentience. The point where it may matter is where machines have so much of a dominant role and that is already happening.
I'm not sure, (because what the fuck was all that?), but I think I am going in the opposite direction. I want to be biased - in favour of kindness in favour of care, and small birds, and this and that, tasty food, good music. I want to be angry when children die needlessly, I want to cry at all the terrible things humans do, and cry again for joy at all the beautiful things they do. I don't want to be some super chat robot.
:up: Its difficult to go against our training to be machines, warriors, consumers, patriots etc, and actually think, feel and act like the higher primate mammals called homo sapiens.
Sometimes I forget who we are and what we are supposed to be doing, despite efforts to the contrary.
Maybe all of this is aeons-long learning process; even so were behind the learning curve.
I am concerned that human beings are being expected to behave and perform more like machines and robots. It as if George Orwell's '1984' has become a reality. I am not denying some positives of online technology, as each of us here benefits from global discussion of philosophy.
However, the downside of this may be an increasing level of isolation, of being alone in a room, which may be contrary to emotional needs. Of course, some have supportive relationships, and some don't. The danger may be if emotional needs become subordinate in a techno machine driven virtual reality.
Personally I view emotions as akin to the other senses. In my count, there are 7 senses: the 5 traditional senses, the bodily sensations (pain, pleasure, heat, thirst, etc), and emotions. Notice that each is a phenomenal dimension orthogonal to all the others: content in one is incommunicable in terms of content in another.
All the senses fundamentally tell you information. The 5 about the world, and bodily about the state of your bod. Emotions serve to inform you, the forebrain decision maker, of the instinctive state of your own brain. Your (the forebrain) job is to integrate all the information provided by all the senses, weight it appropriately, and act to your overall best interest.
Are these not just modes of touch? The sensations are all physically derived. If not, how do you separate 'touch' from these?
I can definitely see how you might be tempted to think that. But I think there is a strong distinction: touch informs about the external world, while bodily sensations inform about the internal body state.
Since we are so sight oriented, its easy to overlook how sophisticated touch is, and how integral it is. Try closing your eyes and feeling whatever object is at hand. It's remarkable how much touch can actually tell us about our environment.
While, the body sense lacks this sophistication. Your body feels good here, it is hot there, the stomach feels queasy. That's about the extent of its precision. Because, the precise state of our body just isn't all that important.
Yes, they both ultimately arise from changes in body state, but so does every sense.
From what i gather, the distinction is that these are internal feelings of ostensibly, touch?
No sixth sense as traditionally named? AKA, ESP (extra-sensory perception)?
Quoting Jack Cummins
Quoting 180 Proof
I think that the issue here is a lot more complex than one might think.
To begin with, we now have one word, "emotion" which may be used to refer to either positive or negative, meaning good or bad, "feelings". I believe that most cultures in the ancient days would not have had the words or concepts which would allow them categorize good and bad in the same category.
It was Plato who worked this out by demonstrating that pleasure and pain could not be properly opposed to each other. This allowed for another category, "good", which both pleasure and pain could partake of. So neither pleasure nor pain could be said to be unconditionally, or necessarily good. That provided for the separation between pleasure and good. Plato's discussions allowed that both pleasure and pain, as well as other feelings which he investigated, could be either good or bad depending on the context of occurrence. But I believe that this was very advanced psychology for the day, and not indicative of how the common people spoke, or the way they commonly thought in those days.
I think it is evident that people in that ancient time tended to place what we put in one category (emotions) into two distinct categories, good and bad. There was no such category as "the emotions", and all the different types of feelings which we would class as "emotions" were classed some as good and some as bad. Feelings associated with love and pleasure were judged as good, while pain and suffering were bad. We can see in The Old Testament that God was said to be a jealous God, so jealousy being related to love was also judged as a good. And the ancient terms now translated as "passion" may involve a lot of ambiguity, but this word was generally tied to emotional pain, suffering, so it was judged as bad. Passion was associated with anger and hate. I do not believe that "passion" was associated with love, as we find today. The turn around perhaps can be found in the concept of "The passion of Jesus". Jesus sacrificed himself, suffered on the cross, for his love of others, and the meaning of "passion" took a turn for the better.
In any case, we ought to consider that the way we talk about emotions, and also the way we actually feel emotions, is most likely not static, but evolving. And if it is evolving this implies necessarily that there is variance between individuals.
I recommend you might want to look at books by Lisa Feldman Barrett. She has a good modern take on emotions.
While the difference of experience of the emotions may be seen as an aspect of qualia, speaking of emotions may affect the experience. For example, value judgments of what is acceptable may affect the experience, such as if one believes that anger is not acceptable it may lead to interconnected feelings of guilt about the experience. In this way the experience of emotions overlap and the careful articulation of the meanings may alter the way in which they are experienced and expressed. Social taboos may be an aspect and the cultural ideas about the nature of emotions may come into play.
Do you wish to say anything about Lisa Feldman Barrett. I don't mean that as a way of me avoiding following it up. I know it has been mentioned in a few posts as significant, so I just thought that it may be worth you saying more about it and your thoughts on it.
I wonder however if this thinking is putting the cart before the horse. What if some people dont control their emotions but rather they understand the world in such a way that conventional emotionality no longer fits with their experience?
A small taste of this might be the classic presupposition, people are disturbed not by things, but by the views they take of them. There are ways of apprehending or thinking about the world and our experience that dissolves emotional responses.
I am aware that a main principle within cognitive behavioural therapy is that a person is not disturbed by experiences but by the thoughts of the experience. I have wondered about this a lot and find it useful for going beyond blaming others. It is so easy, with upsetting experiences to blame another rather than recognising the seat of experience in terms of one's own sensitivity.
Nevertheless, the big philosophical debate between the frameworks of CBT and the psychodynamic approach may be the understanding of emotions. The CBT approach emphasises automatic thoughts and I am sure that is important but what thought is may be complex. It includes ruminations but it is not simply about verbalised thoughts but other aspects of sensory processing, including images. It is possible to become more aware of such aspects, such as within art therapy. However, there is so much which is subliminal, involving the body at a primal level. This may explain why something emotional reactions a person experiences after an experience may be different from the way a person imagines they would feel.
This may be where emotions are a particularly complex area and may be difficult to be translated into words in some cases. This is an area where there needs to be more dialogue between cognitive behavioral and psychodynamic thinking. One concept which I have found interesting in psychoanalytic theory is that of the 'nameless dread'. Also, Bion's understanding speaks of different layers of mental processing.
Another example might be the metaphor of enlightenment. From the perspective of an enlightened person, it might no longer be possible to feel sadness or grief. Such feelings might be connected to specific forms of attachment that an enlightened person no longer shares.
We tend to see emotions as needing to be controlled. But it might be our perception of reality is what need to be altered, as emotionality seems to be a consequence of how we comprehend experince and what we understand to be significant.
I definitely think that CBT points to the way in which presuppositions involve sense making. Concepts play a significan role and this is where emotions are different in animals than in humans, especially with language as a basis for reflection upon emotions. Values are significant here and ethics may be as much emotionally based as rational, or a dialogue between the two. There is the case of the 'monkey mind' and after rationalism people may strive for rationality. However, emotions as in early conditioned values, which may go back before an adult vocabulary has been achieved. Even amongst adults, the nature of articulating beliefs into language.
With the notion of enlightenment, or insight, it may be a transcendent state which goes beyond both emotion and rationality, with intuition being a potential bridge. It may go beyond control of emotions to the way of transformation of awareness, such as expressed in the 'dark night of the soul' preceding higher states. It may be about integration and wisdom in living with various emotional possibilities.
As far as I know, I think she just gives the best kind of modern account of emotions in psychology and neuroscience. Its probably better I just link examples of papers, where you can see the abstracts / introductions, to get a feel of what kind of things she says:
https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=WF5c0_8AAAAJ&citation_for_view=WF5c0_8AAAAJ:HoB7MX3m0LUC
https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=WF5c0_8AAAAJ&citation_for_view=WF5c0_8AAAAJ:ZHo1McVdvXMC
https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=WF5c0_8AAAAJ&citation_for_view=WF5c0_8AAAAJ:fPk4N6BV_jEC
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1934613/
But the emphasis is about moving away from having some fixed repertoire of emotions that have a self-contained existence. Seeing them thid way, emotions seem kind of mysterious ontologically. She's morr about breaking them down into more primitive and tangible components and interactions.
:100:
Postmodern philosophy has ended up realizing that we cannot talk about truth, reality, objectivity as if they were free from the relativization coming from subjectivity, that is present whenever we think and talk.
It looks like analytical philosophy didnt like this final result, because it attacks radically our human pride of being able to get in control of everything. As a result, analytical philosophers decided to reveal (I am saying this intentionally: they decided what to reveal before finding what would have been revealed) that whatever we think is managed by language, including whatever we think about subjectivity. This way they have felt like they recovered philosophy to its pride of being in control of everything.
On the other side, postmoderns can still object that, while studying language, analytical philosophers cannot avoid to do this from inside it, so that the philosophical study of language cannot make any claim of being objective. To the degree that it is objective, it is not philosophy, it is just science. In all aspects where it is not objective, it falls, despite its intentions, into the category of postmodernism, that is, subjectivity.
You can see that this story, behind the external line, is a story of emotions: the human desire to get in control, get power, understanding, knowing what we are doing. Another side of emotions, instead, likes to dive into them, not to get in control, but to listen and enjoy them; this swimming inside can reveal to us what we are, much more than the method of gaining control can.
We might say that the whole history of philosophy is an emotional history. When we discuss if reality exists, what being is, whatever line we follow, our decision about our choice on the direction to follow is largely dictated by our emotions. Afterwards, we make all efforts to tell others and ourselves that our choices are a product of logic and reasoning, because admitting that they come just from emotions and desire would make them weak in a debate.
That said, I think that today a good philosophical way of appreciating emotions is to cultivate the awareness that, whatever we talk about, we are always under its influence, we talk from inside it. Even if I talk about a tree in the forest, I am talking from inside it, because, as soon as I start thinking about it, my emotions and my thoughts are already influenced by it.
Facing this awareness, we can decide if we want to enjoy the pleasure of swimming inside what we are talking about, welcoming the awareness of our weakness as human beings, or if we still want to behave like immature children, who want control, power, domination. Science is, to a certain degree, on this side, but science does this from inside its well limited framework, science doesnt make claims of ultimate and universal understanding, that is instead what has made and makes a lot of philosophy childish, immature, psychopathic: wanting total power, universal power.
Philosophy can dialogue with science, but, if it wants to be philosophy, rather than an immature child who pretends to make science behind the mask of a philosopher, I think it should explore this experience of swimming inside emotions, concepts, logics, reasonings and openly admit it.
Those monks and so called spiritual masters who cultivate control of emotions do it always from inside a specific understanding of what emotions are, what the world is, what we are, otherwise they wouldnt have any reason why they should control emotions. At the end, they are still inside this immature will of power, that is raised in our emotional world whenever we try to build metaphysics. It is clear that, according to what they do, they consider emotions as something negative, that needs to be put under control. But how can you know yourself if you embrace the road of metaphysics, framing your mind inside a castle of ideas, wanting to master and to understand, rejecting the way of listening, of weakness, of diving in, swimming, admitting your subjectivity, enjoying your humanity from the inside where you already are?
These are the ways I see about philosophy and emotions:
1) lets leave to science any work that is inspired by control, maths, measurement, power;
2) lets be philosophers and do philosophy with the essential awareness of being inside our humanity, weakness, subjectivity; there is a lot, an infinite world to explore from this perspective, because it involves our entire existence;
3) lets cultivate a dialogue with science without pretending to go beyond its limits by trying to build confuse, ambiguous, not so honest mixtures of science and metaphysics.
-Vaskane
You may be highly interested in Daniel Kahneman's book "Thinking, Fast and Slow" He talks about how the two systems of thinking (fast and slow) work with each other, he mentions emotions are a part of the fast thinking and talks about emotions affecting and controlling slow thinking, which is reasoning and building up conceptual thoughts etc etc doing math.
Ibe been a practicing Buddhist since this summer, and can justify the fast/slow rate of the practice of chanting the mantra.
This corroborates the chemical- electrical basis of the ages old practice, as advanced adepts modulate the sutra, as if such method of practice dialectically foresaw the later Brito-logical tie in.
As far as I feel it , control of passions toward a progressive aim of achieving wisdom is again underscored by a universal adoption of various yantras, yogic methods which work in tandem with the mantras,
Well put.
This involves different area of understanding of emotions and living with them in life experience. In thinking of adepts, I wonder to what extent can the ideas of emotion, including its variable expression and suppression, may be intrinsic aspects of the ongoing evolutionary processes, for human beings in particular. The critical philosophy issues here is the possible ways in which emotions, going back to the basic routes of sensory experiences are based on gut reactions or ideas of emotions, as desirable or undesirable aspects of the inner experiences of human consciousness?
Based on your reading of Feldman Barrett, I wonder about the reductive aspects of emotions. They may be broken down to the physiological basics or related to aspects of motivational ideas and goals. This tension is an underlying aspect of the nature of emotional experience, raising questions about the dichotomy of values, as aspects which go beyond conceptual ideas.
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It could be asked, what are senses exactly? They may be the physiological aspects of emotion and may go beyond the basic five senses of perception. I wonder to what extent does emotion occur as arising from sensory experiences or preceding it.Here, it may involve feedback loops, which demonstrate the complexity of physicalism and valued ideas. The generation of values may be a critical aspect the core development of emotions.
The discrepancies in values between sensory experiences in its many forms, in contrast to ideas and ideals may be an ongoing development of philosophical understanding.
However, this is a focus on the inner aspects of experience of emotions, which may be a little different from emotional expression. Human beings may edit emotions into what is acceptable. That may be fine in some ways, but challengable when emotions deviate from the norm. One aspect of this, especially in relation to the formation of values, may involve an underlying judgmental understanding of emotions. This may problematic when emotions are cultivated according to ideals.
I think that one of the reasons why I have raised the topic is about the potential for control of the passions. Nevertheless, it may be complicated in the sense of the interplay between the expression of emotion and control. This may be where it becomes a hard problem, relating to the hard problem of consciousness, especially the chemical-electrical processes. In relation to yogic practices, one important area may be to what extent does will , as an aspect of motivation, guide the processes of emotion?
This involves different area of understanding of emotions and living with them in life experience. In thinking of adepts, I wonder to what extent can the ideas of emotion, including its variable expression and suppression, may be intrinsic aspects of the ongoing evolutionary processes, for human beings in particular. The critical philosophy issues here is the possible ways in which emotions, going back to the basic routes of sensory experiences are based on gut reactions or ideas of emotions, as desirable or undesirable aspects of the inner experiences of human consciousness?
-Jack Cummins
The
The thought of the differences between the ontic and ontological , description which is sought after, as an algorithmic sign by as far as control emotions goes, axiomatically reactive to the way conscious derivations of structural changes evolve alongside the progression of conscious development from in its utilized self toward its outer archaic expression of the original participation mystique (Levi Strauss) .
As consciousness returns to the original integration into itself, the above mentioned left side of the brain is akin to yogic meditations use of the integrated continuum
As far as the boundary with eastern philosophy goes, the right side of the brain does link with the left through the neurons, that inter penetration is I believe variably pushed toward the more indiscriminate content, so that the masculine(right side) develop more powered regulation over the more indiscernible left (feminine side of the brain.
That such will-fullness, over the more chaotic indiscernible left hemisphere, is a function of the content that is, the ability to gain power to will, through the presence of the visualized plan to act as if through a directorial, , assumption of a masculine role taken.
Just an afterthought
Personal perspective, when one is considering the emotions of organisms, one needs to realize that all organisms are reactive creatures. The physical world and the cosmos are causes to all organisms. The reactions of those organisms is in turn cause to the physical world, and the cosmos. It's all one system. Emotions more than thought, hardwire in the organism's measures and meanings of all things relative to the given organism. Our emotions are about the physical world relative to our security and well-being. Thoughts and feelings alter continuously the chemistries of our body relative to the organisms experiences. Organism is the source of all meanings through experience and projection applies its meanings and emotions to what it then calls its apparent reality. Psychology wants to treat the thoughts and feelings of the individual, focusing entirely on the organism's thoughts and feelings, and little to nothing about how the physical world plays the organism like a violin. The tunes it plays can be life supporting or negative, undermining the vitality of life. Perhaps, just perhaps one could be mentally ill in one environmental context, and healthy within an entirely different environmental context, depending on the tune being played by the given environment. As the individual matures it becomes the tune that particular environment has been playing upon it, and becomes a one-trick pony, repetition repetition, and a life story is heard, and heard only by the individual organism. The old saying context defines could not be truer, one's innate nature is shaped, nurtured or destroyed by context, or possibly misshaping it into a monstrosity unfit for survival. Listen to the music of the world, the total context of an adaptive/reactive organism, perhaps it needs re-tuning.
Being a damaged person is unattractive so it is important we seek healing. For many, a church is the answer. Knowing how thoughts work, it is easy to see how God works, but unfortunately, the mythology that goes with that God is not acceptable to everyone. However, when we understand the power of thought we can apply it and move ourselves in the direction of healing. We can seek out people who are joyful and uplifting. We can get information from books, but it is better when it is a positive personal experience because emotions are a physical reaction, not just cerebral.
Regarding the quote, it immediately reminded me of Greek philosophy and debates. They talked about how being moral is a balance, not extremes that lead to problems as the quote explains. Hebrews and Greeks used stories to teach virtues, ethics, and morality. Ancient civilizations created gods to raise the consciousness of newly discovered concepts.
My journey to healing began with Greek gods and philosophy when I had to become my own hero, so I think there is much to talk about in your thread.
Yes, will is important as there is a source of motivation and this includes emotion and intuition. Freud spoke of the life and death instincts, as Eros and Thanatos and such a perspective is bound up with emotions and the complex dynamics of mental processes, including both conscious and subconscious aspects. Will may be unconscious and related to the basics of bodily functioning, such as in the psychosomatic nature of illness and health.
I agree that emotions are hardwired and have a determining aspect. It does relate to issues of free will, although I am inclined to think that humans can achieve some autonomy of not being completely dictated by emotions. But it is tricky and most of the time we controlled by emotions, and being able to break through the hardwiring may be rare exceptions. It may be about higher emotions overriding the lower ones.
:up: Well said.
Reminds me mostly of the ataraxia teachings of Epicureans and Stoics (which, no doubt, influenced Montaigne, Spinoza, et al).
:up: :up:
Yes, I call this homuncular psychology "The Cartesian Fallacy". In contrast, Nietzsche (& Merleau-Ponty), for instance, focus on the interplay of the body and culture.
It's good to interact with you again. It definitely seems that emotions have immense power. I know that I get fairly instant reactions to life events. They seem to determine the quality and nature of experience itself. I even find that I see differently and hear differently according to mood. Music seems to sound differently if I am sad or happy.
Childhood experiences probably play an extremely significant role in forming the core frames of emotions. There does appear to be a link between childhood trauma and mental illness, including PTSD and many other issues. Stress at all times is a major trigger for becoming mental ill, but the first years may be at the core of emotional life and defense mechanisms. It is likely to be linked to the plasticity of the brain.
With healing, there are so many approaches. Some people found it in religion and this may go back to the shamanic aspects of the origins of religion. So much was projected outside onto the gods. In secular society, so much understanding is based on understanding of biochemistry. Of course, the neurochemical aspects are important, such as Serotonin, but, often, chemical treatment alone is often one dimensional. It can be complimented by the talking therapies and the creative arts. The arts therapies make this connection and the arts may involve a form of transformation. Shamanism and religious experiences were a means of this for the ancient people. A lot of people who are not religious transform emotional suffering into healing for oneself and others, like the role of the shaman, often understood as the 'wounded healer. '
Thanks for that. :up:
Sometimes I wonder if (core aspects of) our society are just insane (meaning unfit and unhealthy for humans, to be simple and blunt).
As an analogy, in a dishware factory a broken mold for making cups will produce only broken cups.
This is opposed to the usual view that society has its flaws, but an individual must conform to society as much as possible, learn the game, compete, and win.
Then success / happiness follow.
Some may call it sour grapes but even if thats somewhat true, sour grapes make good wine. :yum:
That is line with what Plato said is important about education. Education for technology lacks the wisdom of liberal education that has been passed down since Plato's time until the atomic bomb and throwing out liberal education in favor of a focus on technology.
Zeus was afraid that once we had the technology of fire we would discover all technologies and rival the gods. In his great wisdom, he gave Pandora a box full of miseries to slow down our development and delay that day when think we no longer need the gods. Plato explains the importance of music and taking care of our emotions because only when we feel good do we have good judgment. It is true for everyone, our feelings strongly influence our judgment and our health! We are unwise to focus on technology instead of our soul and the essence of being human. That leads to bad judgment and destruction.
Plato said that music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.
Quoting Jack Cummins
I am sure that is true and that is why I object to Neitzsche's notion of examining ourselves. Socrates said, The unexamined life is not worth living. And that has value if it goes with being a philosophy student and filling the mind with those things worth thinking about and logical thinking is learned. However, without that training, well we have all heard, "garbage in garbage out". If our childhoods are terrible there ain't going to be anything good about self-examination. WE ARE NOT WHO WE THINK WE ARE WHEN OUR CHILDHOOD IS OPPRESSIVE AND DESTRUCTIVE. We are born with potential and although events can leave us badly damaged, as you said, we can be redeemed and set free by philosophy, music, the arts. I am saying every one of us is potentially a wonderful human being, but the damage we experience can make that hard to believe. However, I think there are brain disorders that may prevent some from doing well. I want to clearly separate emotional problems from organic ones.
I can see religious mythology is very helpful for some people and it does not take the work that philosophy takes. Religion is not based on truth if one reads their holy literally instead of abstractly. Therefore religion can be very problematic, so it is not the choice I wish for everyone. But being secular and not training the young for life is the worst thing! That is worse than religion.
This is Joseph Campbell's wisdom. "Myths are the guidebooks for life itself, with all its beauty and mystery. They reflect the concept of transcending duality (because while things do come in pairs and everything has its opposite, there can be no good without evil). Myths are the keys to understanding the whole of human experience."
Hi Jack,
You are quite right, the best way to overcome an emotion is with a stronger and opposite emotion. Free will is an absurd concept. When one considers the historical cause and effect/reaction lost in obscurity, and the complexity of human biology and its history. That fact is, we are all reactive creators, and it can be no other way, as our reactions then become causal to the world at large.