Emotions

[Gar]

Emotions. What are they? Why do we have them? Can specific conflicting emotions be identified logically? How do they effect our convictions and actions? Do conflicting emotions cause an analytic/synthetic dichotomy?  ALL people that I try to discuss this with have a negative emotional response to this topic. It's like am being rude. The attitude is" how dare you" or "this is boring or depressing" rather than " yes this is the CAUSE of all things that people do and now that we have identified the CAUSE we may be able to  anticipate  and change the EFFECT from adversarial to cooperative. 

 If this has been covered, please direct me to the appropriate presentation.  

                                                                                                              Your potential friend

                                                                                                               CB 

 

[fridolutin]

I agree that emotions are disturbing actions to the point they become inefficient. It is, I believe, the way our politicians and their financiers feed on the people of a nation as a  wolf on a sheep herd.  

[Wuzzums]

Emotions are shortcuts your subconscious shows your conscious self. If you see some rustling in some bush you could go "that is a bush, it moved, bushes don't move, there might be something in the bush" and then BOOM some predator jumps at you yet somehow you manage to escape it. Next time you're in the same context it could go exactly the same (i.e. go through all that long reasoning once more and risk getting caught) or you could feel fear, which is unpleasant, which will cause you to run. I see emotions as the lessons learned from previous experience.

 

They don't spring out of nowhere. If I feel affection for someone it's either because they have proven themselves worthy of affection (again, all about prior experience) or they're similar to someone else from my past which had proven themselves worthy of affection. In the latter case you could feel conflicting emotions. You've got the unwarranted emotion of affection combined with the emotion of suspicion towards unfamiliar people. Both emotions are useful if you understand their origin. But were you to choose one over the other based on which is more pleasurable then it's just another belief without evidence.

[Pepin]

Emotion are highly developed senses that developed through the process of evolution. They are involuntary in that you can't choose to not to have an emotion, you are more along for the ride. There are many evolutionary advantages provided, particularly in social groups.

 

Emotions are found to be in other animals and are most noticeable in mammals, likely because parental nurture and care taking is far more integral to survival.

 

Answering the question about conflicting emotions is a little difficult considering the complexities of modern life compared to the original evolutionary process. I'm not certain that people 50,000 years ago were having such a flurry of emotions over what girl to mate with due to the limited supply of women and the drive to pass off the genes. But to answer the question, conflicted emotions give a message to the conscious mind that the best action may be to not act at the moment and instead to do some thinking to resolve the conflict.

 

Emotions are for the most part great, but I hypothesize that it depends a lot on how you are raised and the self-work you do along with some genetic factors. The will of so many people is made up through emotional manipulation, which is quite obvious in the area of politics. This doesn't indicate that emotions are bad, just as manipulation through argument does not mean arguments are bad.

 

I'd make the claim that it is best to be curious about the emotions you are feeling and to be aware of psychological effects such as projection and transference to ensure their accuracy. I'm hesitant to say "trust your emotions" as they are not always accurate, but in general you should. I really didn't really ever feel emotion for most of my life due to some pretty serious repression and dissociation, and I've been working quite hard to fix this. I find it pretty incredible how predictive and helpful they can be.

[Guest darkskyabove]

@Wuzzums: Your definition of emotion is, actually, a definition of conditioning.

 

My attempt to simplify is as follows (though it is not all that simple):

 

The human brain has, essentially, two distinct processing environments: the analytical and the emotional. (There is a third, the involuntary systems, which have no bearing on the discussion at hand.)

 

Humans need to make choices to survive. You can choose to stand still as a predator rushes towards you, or, you can choose to run or attempt to defend yourself. That is a primitive example. Modern choice possibilities are much more numerous and complicated. But they amount to the same fundamental outcomes: success, or failure.

 

If you chose to stand still, you would cease to exist, therefore, nothing would be left to be said.

 

If you chose another option, you would, hopefully, survive. This would result in a positive emotional response. An accumulation of positive responses can be generalized to give a pseudo-statistical array of data to influence the analytical parts of the brain. Put simply, if something made you feel good, you are more likely to repeat similar behavior, even when the behavior is not identical, as would result from conditioning.

 

Negative emotional responses are designed to work in the opposite fashion. If a choice results in a negative outcome, you will feel bad, therefore, tend to refrain from similar action.

 

Notice the repetitive use of "choice" in this description. What part of the brain is involved in decision-making? It is the analytic part, not the emotional part. The emotional part can influence decision making, but does not have control of that process.

 

My personal analysis has led me to the conclusion that the optimal functioning of a human brain involves: Analysis of potential, followed by a decision, followed by an emotional reaction to the outcome of the decision, followed by the ability to modify analysis of future potential based on emotional reactions from the past.

 

Notice I said "optimal". It is possible, and based on empirical data, highly likely, for this system to be reversed. Where some brains have developed the habit of trying to use emotion in order to make decisions, bypassing the analytical structures. This is similar to an attempt to reverse cause and effect, and results in chaotic outcomes, the most notorious being: religion, statism, etc.

 

As I am not attempting to write a peer-reviewed research paper, I have declined to supply references. Anyone serious about this subject is advised to "google it". Please try to get your information from reputable sources, and not by asking for answers on a public forum. Thank you.

[Wuzzums]

@darkskyabove

I'm not sure I understood your definitions of positive/negative emotional responses.

 

 

 

 

If you chose another option, you would, hopefully, survive. This would result in a positive emotional response. (...) if something made you feel good, you are more likely to repeat similar behavior

So positive emotional responses make feel good, which will make you seek out that behavior, which in the example would mean that it would make you seek out predators to run away and survive from.And by chance alone this constant brush with danger will lead to a drastic decrease in life expectancy, which will give an evolutionary disadvantage to people that follow this pattern.

 

In the example wouldn't a negative emotion response be the one that will give rise to a positive outcome? If you'll develop a phobia of bushes wouldn't that raise your chances of survival? After all, the positive emotion of having survived only comes after the negative emotion of being in mortal danger.

 

I don't think emotions and reason/analysis are fundamentally different aspects of the brain. I think they're the same, one being faster than the other. Reason comes forth only when a new situation is present, emotion comes forth when a new situation is very similar to an old situation. It gives you a quick result without you having to waste time.

[RestoringGuy]

Most of the time, responses from a computer (click File Close,etc) are simple pre-programmed reactions meant to work faster, rather than the work of analytical decision algorithms involving deductive proofs.  So most of the time, computers are emotional?

[fridolutin]

Just today I witnessed this very reasonable guy becoming a perfect idiot when in presence of the girl he is secretly in love with. It is clearly, on a small scale, what happens to the mass when in the presence of their conditioned hopes where they seem to be fulfill able.

 

As we see these days, the job opportunities and the pretensions it can offer advancement will occult any righteous values with a heavy tarp while wrong actions will be advocated as OK. 

 

This because ordinary people have fallen in the debt pattern and feel they can loose everything if they put their long time values ahead.  Fear and anguish are very strong motors our governments use for mass control.

[Gar]

Most of the time, responses from a computer (click File Close,etc) are simple pre-programmed reactions meant to work faster, rather than the work of analytical decision algorithms involving deductive proofs.  So most of the time, computers are emotional?

Do computers have an emotional drive to reproduce themselves? Yeah, well reality is kinda what it is but only when it is convienient.

I agree that emotions are disturbing actions to the point they become inefficient. It is, I believe, the way our politicians and their financiers feed on the people of a nation as a  wolf on a sheep herd.  

Thx for the response. I'm certain that I know the answers to the questions that I asked in this post. It's intriguing to read other peoples opinions (convictions?)  P.S. And thank you to ALL of you for responding and stating your views.

[Wuzzums]

Most of the time, responses from a computer (click File Close,etc) are simple pre-programmed reactions meant to work faster, rather than the work of analytical decision algorithms involving deductive proofs.  So most of the time, computers are emotional?

 

The way a computer works is very similar to how the brain works. The major difference is that the brain has a constant feedback loop, which is very different from shortcuts which are a one-way street. You get an emotion i.e. the response you once had to a previous situation and the brain sort of goes like "listen, there's no need for you to waste time on this situation because you were already in it and here is how you responded last time, I'm not saying this new situation is exactly like the old situation, I'm just saying it has some similar aspects which you shouldn't ignore, if it's entirely different then I'm perfectly willing to store this new event as a new emotion then next time we won't be so quick to judge".

 

Computers don't learn by themselves...yet. Like for instance, let's say each time I turn on my PC I always open a web browser and check my e-mail, check my youtube account and open a music player and choose a certain track. This all takes quite some time but if a computer were to learn from previous experience it would know that if the power goes on then it means the web browser application will start and go to certain pages, and the music application will start and play a certain song. In order to save time it would make all these actions a priority, thus you won't have to wait extra time for background programs to load. Or how a firewall works, at first it knows nothing about anything, it blocks everything, so you have to teach it what to block and what not to block.

 

Power on would illicit a fast response from the intelligent computer, that fast response I assume is analogous to an emotion. If I were to open a video application instead of a music application it would rub the computer the wrong way. Next time the power goes on it won't be so "keen" on switching resources to the music application and in this instance you can say it's showing reason. It's trying to predict future events. It has a choice between switching resources to the music application, to the video application or do nothing and wait.

 

This is how I see reason and emotion, they're different sides of the same coin.

[RestoringGuy]

Computers don't learn by themselves...yet. Like for instance, let's say each time I turn on my PC I always open a web browser and check my e-mail, check my youtube account and open a music player and choose a certain track. This all takes quite some time but if a computer were to learn from previous experience it would know that if the power goes on then it means the web browser application will start and go to certain pages, and the music application will start and play a certain song. In order to save time it would make all these actions a priority, thus you won't have to wait extra time for background programs to load. Or how a firewall works, at first it knows nothing about anything, it blocks everything, so you have to teach it what to block and what not to block.

 

Power on would illicit a fast response from the intelligent computer, that fast response I assume is analogous to an emotion. If I were to open a video application instead of a music application it would rub the computer the wrong way. Next time the power goes on it won't be so "keen" on switching resources to the music application and in this instance you can say it's showing reason. It's trying to predict future events. It has a choice between switching resources to the music application, to the video application or do nothing and wait.

But Save As and storing bookmarks and so forth provide evidence the computer has learned from previous sensory input (clicks, etc.).  The key factor I would include here is probability or fuzzy thinking.  If a human learns to react in a quick and surefire way to an input (by swinging a fist in their face or whatever), that seems more like training and conditioning like telling a computer to save a bookmark or to optimize its disk cache.  If a human has an unsure response, and is slightly puzzled about the optimal action to take, that is what I would classify as emotional.  The analogy would be a computer trying random numbers to choose an encryption key, to balance workload on a flash drive, or to carry out some process such as OCR that gives unreliable results.  That is how I see emotions, as a being highly fallible rather than something learned.  Reason seems less fallible because there is less worry about failure.

 

I do not know what it means to learn by yourself in an emotional sense of learning.  It is all based on stimuli.  The computer does not learn by itself any new conditioned responses, but neither do I.  Perhaps you can say I come to a new emotional realization while dreaming, but on the surface how is that different than a computer working differently after running overnight defragmentation?  It would seem there are maybe two dimensions to this discussion.

[Lians]

Reason seems less fallible because there is less worry about failure.

 

If emotions are so fallible, why have they evolved to be such an important driver behind our decision making?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotions_in_decision-making

http://bigthink.com/experts-corner/decisions-are-emotional-not-logical-the-neuroscience-behind-decision-making

http://hss.caltech.edu/~steve/bechara.pdf

 

The logic behind this shouldn't be too difficult to understand. There's no objective criteria that can be applied to the vast majority of decisions we have to make in our lives. So, how do you reason in the face of subjectivity? You don't. Modern day economics should be a good example of what happens when you try that.

 

To answer OP's question, I think the price mechanism is a good analogy that can be used to understand emotions. The complexity that goes in the process of determining the price of a simple pencil is absolutely staggering. Price is a feedback mechanism generated by the whole of human economic activity. If you're mathematically inclined, you can think of it as a 7-billion-dimensional, tightly-coupled system. Good luck computing that when you don't even have the equations. It's quite easy to go to your local store and find out the price of a pen. You don't have to perform an impossible amount of computations. This observation was at the core of Mises' criticism of central planning.

 

I look at emotions through a similar lens. We all know that the computational capacity of a single brain is enormous. It's hard to even compile a list of everything the brain does (this list will also be incomplete given our current knowledge). How does such a complex structure operate as a unit? I think emotions are the "currency" our brain uses. They determine the best course of action we can take as a product of the brain's collective work. Where reasoning is possible, the brain has facilities to handle that.

 

You can make general observations about the brain's functions, but you can't say much about particular details. Science has made great progress in penetrating the peripheral functionality of the brain, but much is still unknown about its inner workings. I suspect that this is why it's been so hard to understand how the human mind works. Neuroscientists are looking for a centrally planned state, while dealing with free market anarchy.

 

All of this is, of course, pure conjecture. Ultimately, nobody knows what emotions are or how they work. However, some conjectures better account for the existing evidence than others. Equating emotions to caching states operating on fuzzy logic or anything resembling computer programs is counter productive. Ignoring emergent properties in sufficiently complex systems can be catastrophic. Be mindful of that.

[Gar]

 

 

If emotions are so fallible, why have they evolved to be such an important driver behind our decision making?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotions_in_decision-making

http://bigthink.com/experts-corner/decisions-are-emotional-not-logical-the-neuroscience-behind-decision-making

http://hss.caltech.edu/~steve/bechara.pdf

 

The logic behind this shouldn't be too difficult to understand. There's no objective criteria that can be applied to the vast majority of decisions we have to make in our lives. So, how do you reason in the face of subjectivity? You don't. Modern day economics should be a good example of what happens when you try that.

 

To answer OP's question, I think the price mechanism is a good analogy that can be used to understand emotions. The complexity that goes in the process of determining the price of a simple pencil is absolutely staggering. Price is a feedback mechanism generated by the whole of human economic activity. If you're mathematically inclined, you can think of it as a 7-billion-dimensional, tightly-coupled system. Good luck computing that when you don't even have the equations. It's quite easy to go to your local store and find out the price of a pen. You don't have to perform an impossible amount of computations. This observation was at the core of Mises' criticism of central planning.

 

I look at emotions through a similar lens. We all know that the computational capacity of a single brain is enormous. It's hard to even compile a list of everything the brain does (this list will also be incomplete given our current knowledge). How does such a complex structure operate as a unit? I think emotions are the "currency" our brain uses. They determine the best course of action we can take as a product of the brain's collective work. Where reasoning is possible, the brain has facilities to handle that.

 

You can make general observations about the brain's functions, but you can't say much about particular details. Science has made great progress in penetrating the peripheral functionality of the brain, but much is still unknown about its inner workings. I suspect that this is why it's been so hard to understand how the human mind works. Neuroscientists are looking for a centrally planned state, while dealing with free market anarchy.

 

All of this is, of course, pure conjecture. Ultimately, nobody knows what emotions are or how they work. However, some conjectures better account for the existing evidence than others. Equating emotions to caching states operating on fuzzy logic or anything resembling computer programs is counter productive. Ignoring emergent properties in sufficiently complex systems can be catastrophic. Be mindful of that.

 

Have you read The Virtue of Selfishness by Ayn Rand?

[RestoringGuy]

All of this is, of course, pure conjecture. Ultimately, nobody knows what emotions are or how they work. However, some conjectures better account for the existing evidence than others. Equating emotions to caching states operating on fuzzy logic or anything resembling computer programs is counter productive. Ignoring emergent properties in sufficiently complex systems can be catastrophic. Be mindful of that.

It seems a little bit like stargazing.  A person could look at a group of stars, say you know that's a bear.  How did that bear constellation get up there in the sky?  What does the bear eat, and what kind of emergence gave us a bear made of stars?

 

But of course somebody else does not call it a bear.  It's some other animal, or nothing at all, depending on what is useful to them.  I say this because, to compile a list of the brain's functions is a bit like stargazing. There a neuron here and a neuron there, and if it seems to be a combination that is useful enough, we call it a "function" instead of a constellation.  Emergence may influence things, and give us some brain activity that is helpful (emotions), but ultimately all those little reactions are pieced together subjectively, we call it a name and put it on the list.  It is not just that nobody know what emotions are, but perhaps nobody can know.  Like constellations, we discuss a imaginary collective of real things, and it's only the collective that is made up to begin with.  A computer program could work the same way, although in practice I suppose it is frowned upon to purposely design computers that get depressed or go crazy.

[llstanfield]

 

Emotions. What are they? Why do we have them? Can specific conflicting emotions be identified logically? How do they effect our convictions and actions? Do conflicting emotions cause an analytic/synthetic dichotomy?  ALL people that I try to discuss this with have a negative emotional response to this topic. It's like am being rude. The attitude is" how dare you" or "this is boring or depressing" rather than " yes this is the CAUSE of all things that people do and now that we have identified the CAUSE we may be able to  anticipate  and change the EFFECT from adversarial to cooperative. 

 If this has been covered, please direct me to the appropriate presentation.  

                                                                                                              Your potential friend

                                                                                                               CB 

 

First, I'll start by saying that the previous responses are excellent, and are probably better than the one I'm about to post regarding your questions. I'm going to piggyback off of Rand's perspective on emotion by describing it in my own way, because in my opinion (regarding her views on emotion, I thought she was accurate):

 

Emotions, in my opinion, are physiological responses to any event, person, image or object valued by the subject experiencing the succeeding feeling. The origin of this response, as previously pointed out by others, more than likely originates from an evolutionary background. However, the attributed value is very important to recognize as well. For instance, two different people can listen to one song and "feel" or rather, have different emotional responses after hearing that song. This is due to the value or deeply subconscious values each subject holds to that medium (which is the music). This is heavily related to language and symbol recognition as well, and it is perfectly reasonable to argue over the origination of those values to begin with. 

 

Another, perhaps more concrete and personal example are those responses of two different married men that I know of. Both of their wives committed adultery, and yet the responses from each man was completely different! My friend, who is one of the men I am talking about, was completely devastated when he found out about his wife's action. The other however, literally, simply shrugged it off and gladly proceeded to sign the divorce documents. Basically you have two different individuals facing the same objective reality (wife cheating), and yet they react to this in radically different ways because the value of their wives were completely different. There are many more concrete examples but I'm not trying to sound like a broken record here lol

 

Anyway, I only think I answered your first two questions, because the other questions that follow are much more complicated in my opinion, and would take much more time and research to answer (for me at least). 

[Lori Bell]

According to current research, what we experience as "emotions" are actually the flow of very specific chemical compounds in the body, variations of "peptides" that bind to specific receptors on the cells triggering cascading responses in the cell. The limbic system, which is also considered the "paleomammilian brain" is the source of most of this emotional-biochemical production. It includes the amygdala a focus of fear based responses - fight, flight or freeze - and the hypothalumus, among other organs. Furthermore, even before nervous systems evolved, cells developed this chemical communication system. It kind of makes sense when you appreciate how important "communication" is to evolution and the cooperation of organisms in general. Much easier to have chemicals in fluids flowing around cells rather than having only solid structures that relay "electrical impulses" - the latter is much, much more complicated (although, there are a lot of biochemicals involved with those "electrical impulses" as well).

 

As noted above, there is a vast complexity to this fluid dance of chemicals in the body, interacting with all kinds of different cells and causing both local and global responses, some of it is automatic, but as it is becoming clear, much of it Is being mediated by our thoughts and beliefs. The "placebo" effect is a perfect example.

 

Just like some drugs people consume from an external source, the body can get addicted to its own biochemical patterning and that includes neural pathways and connections/associations. That is why we "seek out" (more or less consciously) the same types of experiences over and over again resulting in the same biochemical responses in our bodies.

 

But again, there is extraordinary plasticity with a lot of that. Consider just how often someone really is capable of "changing their mind" - that's not just in an abstract way, there are tangible, physical changes that take place in the brain when new ideas or concepts are integrated and old ones, old linkages and associations are broken up.

 

Personally, I've been working with this understanding for about six or seven years now. I feel I've become quite capable of mediating most of my emotional states at will - and - generally choose to be in a kind of calm state most of the time - neither depressed or over excited, just "at ease" with myself and my circumstances.

 

At the same time, I am still learning in this area so although my "intuitions" have been bringing certain considerations to mind, certain conceptual ways of framing my ideas, I'm still looking for scientific research to confirm my suspicions, about which chemicals are being associated with which types of "emotional experiences". For instance, I read recently that feelings of "lust" are seen now to be driven by testosterone and estrogen, feelings of "falling in love" are being driven by dopamine, adrenaline, and endorphins (I think? Maybe something else there but the article is not right in front of me), and then "long-term attachment" is driven or reinforced more by oxytocin and vasopressin.

 

For more details you might want to take a look at "Molecules of Emotion" by Candace Pert. You can also see more of my theoretical musings at http://thebluemoonturtleblog.blogspot.com/.

 

I do agree with the original poster though. For whatever reasons, people can get very touchy about talking explicitly and "rationally" about emotions. I attribute this, again, in a "theoretical" way to the limbic brain wanting to maintain control over the more evolved parts of the brain, i.e. the cerebellum and frontal cortex. And if we let our emotions continue to run things unconsciously, then I feel we will not experience all the greater possibilities of our more highly evolved brains as human beings.

 

In fact, I feel that is pretty much where we are right now, in society and cultue, still mostly being driven by the limbic brain. Nevertheless, all of Stefan's work is helping to expand the opportunities for people to develop the parts of their brains that are capable of rational thinking, and the internet is doing a wonderful job of accelerating that dissemination process - so maybe, just maybe, we can create a rational culture before we end up irrationally destroying it with the many technologies that we have managed to produce with those same highly evolved brains that we have.

 

Finally, I'm not saying either that emotions are "bad" - they clearly have a place in the evolution of biological organisms, including human beings. And there are all kinds of ways the brain can process information that is important and even critical to having "intuitions" that might not come through a very methodical, "rational/analytical" thinking process. I do, however, feel we can't rely entirely on our "intuitions/emotions" and have to be willing to get feedback to verify the accuracy of our intuitions, etc. and that there can be a learning process there, a "fine tuning" if you will of intuitions based on that feedback. I think that is also where the internet is so valuable as it allows for "idea/intuition" testing with all kinds of people being involved in the process.

[Pepin]

Lori, I quite enjoyed your post, and it has me thinking about various ways to modify behavior.

 

To a degree, I think like emotional reactions to arguments and statements are just a way of your brain telling you to defer judgement while it sorts, finds, or processes information. It is kind of like when someone says something that doesn't sound wrong, but doesn't' feel right, and with time an answer usually comes up as to what it was. A good example of this is the detective cliche where something doesn't feel right about the witness's testimony, but they just know what, and eventually they remember some detail that makes sense of the feeling. I'm sure we've all had the feeling that we are missing something, and then all of sudden it pops up in our head.

 

Since different parts of the brain have different processing times, it would make sense for "wait" signals to exist and for the signals to be more involuntary for survival reasons. I'm not arguing that these signals are right in what they convey, but that a large role they play is to cause deferment of decision in the moment until the reason for the emotion can be unearthed. I know I've had plenty of times where I've had a feeling something was going to go wrong, but no reason came to mind so I decide to do it anyway, and of course it goes quite wrong that I so totally should have been able to prevent through a little bit of thinking or remembering. This sort of inclination, especially in tribal days, has a good likelihood of resulting in death.

 

Personally I almost always find that there is a reason for the emotion, but that it is often something that wouldn't really change my action. There is usually something to figure out, but it isn't something that usually matters. In some cases though I discover pretty important flaws in arguments, have those "aha" moments, or realize what I thought was wrong and why it isn't actually wrong.