what makes feelings good good ? what makes feeling bad bad ? what makes pain hurt ? im having a hard time understanding this. what makes pain not bother as much if you think about it as it is? what makes feeling good so great?

any comments are welcome.

My first guess would be hormones, but Meh, what do I know

indeed, Thor....it IS hormones...well, that and nerve endings;) :D

June, you have had my answer already in my post, which was moved (God knows why) from human science to biology.
It read:
On a physiological level pain is caused by the triggering of groups of sensory neurons. They fire when tissue bocomes damaged, or is about to get damaged.
The signal from the sensory cells causes an instinctive retraction. Also, a signal goes to the primary sensory cortex in the brain. this information is used for example to learn that open fire or doors are not things to walk into.

On another level: the actual sensation of pain is a problem. We may understand how the neuronal systems associated with pain function, but how that causes the sensation of pain remains a mystery. Some have tried to solve the problem, but -to my opinion- without succes. The most famous is Dennett's "Consciousness Explained" (1991).
The problem was initially brought up by René Descartes. He wondered how the mind and the body could coincide. How can an immaterial mind be synchronized with a material body? His solution was hopelessly wrong. He thought that in the pineal gland some strange connection between the two worlds could be found.
His type of answer is Dualism: assume that there are in fact two types of wirlds -an immaterial one and a metarial one.
Materialsim, either denies the existence of the world of qualia (ie the immaterial world of sensations) or that the sensations are an artefact of the neuronal processes. Recently a more positive stream of materialism has come to be: it holds that sensations are emergent properties of the neuronal processes. This new way of thinking is quite abstract and I cannot easily explain it in a few words.

If you want to know more, I suggest you read the excellent collection of easy-to-read and highly influential articles on the topic of the mind-body problem: The Mind's Eye (1981) by D.R. Hofstadter and D.C. Dennett.

Can anybody explain why I only get SHIT in my life as a scientist as well as here at this forums?! I really get pissed.
As a scientist becuase funding of research was halted because the field of human consciousness was not deemed relevant enough - resulting in closing the research group at the university... thus ended my career as a scientist.

Ohhh i didn't move it, i dont know how it got to biology. i originally posted it in human science! :confused:

but yes thank you i already read your previous answer, and i am getting that book :)

Whoever moved this, I beg you move it back.
Psychology belongs in the "psychology" section!

i would if i knew how to

But on the more positive side: here wqe are in the philosophy section. It fits here as well, being a question of Philosophy of Mind.

i have been thinking. hmm. since we are discussing minds here...do you think it is possible to actually trust the mind. or more precisely: your mind? my mind? you get the gist? i mean the mind is so complex and, yes...still: mysterious. where do each person's set of mental characteristics come from? holy smokes..i had better stop thinking now. i smell smoke. *notices it billowing from ears*:eek: :D

I know I do not trust my own mind :P

A number of chemicals in the brain affect the way we feel. (I'm learning this in Bio right now)

Seratonin
Norapinephrine
Dopamine
Endorphines
^^^Major players

Some people produce too much or too little of a chemical some of the time, or even all of the time. If you're always feeling happy, or sad then you should get yourself checked out by a doctor. They'll provide you with medication :p

Feeling CHilled all the time is fine. Feeling a bit nervous is also fine. If it doesn't take hold of your life than your fine. Though, you should make sure to get proper nutrition, sleep and emotional stability through natural means (not to mention excersise your brain) and you should feel fine.


This belongs more on the bio forum. I'd recommend chekcing that place out. There are a lot of scientists on this board who know a hell of a lot more than I do.

Have Fun :cool:

again: okay we know how tha brain works, but what is it that makes us actually experience the sensations related to the neural mechanisms?

For insance: one of the things happening during orgasm is a surge of endorphins and oxytocin among others. Also there is rhytmic muscular contraction in the base of the pelvis.
Knowing this, can we conclude we also know what an orgasm feels like? -Hell no.
I find the questions "how are the biological processes related to the experiences?" and even "what does it feel like?" much more interesting than those from biology. Complared to the qualitative questions, thoise in iology are relatively trivial. I have until now read only few articles and books (e.g. Clak & Toribio, "Doing without representing", Synthese 101, 1994; and Dennett "Consciousness Explained", 1991) that come close of being serious attempts to tackle the problem.

If you do not understand what I write, please read the famous article "What Is It Like To Be A Bat?" by Thomas Nagel which appeared originally in Philosophical Review, Oct. 1974, and is also in the collection "The Mind's Eye" I referred to in an earlier post.

Merlijn, I am curious now:

How come pain and pleasure are interrelated? As Socrates put it:

Socrates, sitting up on the couch, began to bend and rub his leg, saying, as he rubbed: "How singular is the thing called pleasure, and how curiously related to
pain, which might be thought to be the opposite of it; for they never come to a man together, and yet he who pursues either of them is generally compelled to take the other. They are two, and yet they grow together out of one head or stem; and I cannot help thinking that if Aesop had noticed them, he would have made a fable about God trying to reconcile their strife, and when he could not, he fastened their heads together; and this is the reason why when one comes the other follows, as I find in my own case pleasure comes following after the pain in my leg, which was caused by the chain."
--Plato, Phaedo

I don't know much neurochemistry or neuroanatomy at all....

For insance: one of the things happening during orgasm is a surge of endorphins and oxytocin among others. Also there is rhytmic muscular contraction in the base of the pelvis.
Knowing this, can we conclude we also know what an orgasm feels like? -Hell no.

Because orgasm involves the release of various pleasure-causing chemicals that we can't really describe?

I strongly suspect that the endorphins are largely responsible for the relatedness of pleasure and pain. Both in pleasure and in pain our brains excrete endorphins.
When one is "runners high" -euphoric and dizzty during and after an exhausting physical challenge- his/her endorphins have taken over.

Furthermore, there is a strange thing involved with sexual fantasies and pain/submission/restaining/...
But I have no clue to what neural mechanisms arte involved in these. Nor what social or even evolutionary causes are possible. (Even though these fantasies are not strange to me ;))

Because orgasm involves the release of various pleasure-causing chemicals that we can't really describe?

No - that is not at all what I mean!
Imagine there is someone who has never experienced an orgasm. If that person is sufficiently intelligent we can explain to the person what exacly happenes in the body of somebody experienceing an orgasm. Still the person will have no clue...
Understanding the mechanisms is something else then understanding the process.

Merlijn:
I strongly suspect that the endorphins are largely responsible for the relatedness of pleasure and pain. Both in pleasure and in pain our brains excrete endorphins.
When one is "runners high" -euphoric and dizzty during and after an exhausting physical challenge- his/her endorphins have taken over.

Yes, yes I agree. I run, and I know what it's like to run five miles when you're not used to it, and then your leg muscles are cramping and you want to curl up in a ball and scream....but you feel damned good. As if nothing could get in your way.

For instance, I get severe migranes once or twice a month. The sort of "I want to poke sharp objects into my eye sockets" sort of migranes.

Now, if I take a Vicodin or two, the pain lifts. About fifteen minutes or so after the pain begins to lift, I feel this sensation of absolute clarity and warmth. My release from pain is followed immediatly by the sensation of pleasure, like what Socrates wrote about.

Do you think that this could be from when we had to bear pain to get away from predaters/make long treks to find food/fight enemies and we needed a way to keep going even when we were hurting? I'm probably not making any sense....

I'm trying to say that maybe the evolutionary reason for this was a kind of way for us to be better at bearing pain?

Furthermore, there is a strange thing involved with sexual fantasies and pain/submission/restaining/...
But I have no clue to what neural mechanisms arte involved in these. Nor what social or even evolutionary causes are possible. (Even though these fantasies are not strange to me )

But that's the thing, "runner's high" is different from that sort of feeling. There's the same euphoria, but I'm tending to think that the union of pain and pleasure in sadomasochism is only a facet - albeit an important one - in what is ultimately an exchange of power.

Evolutionary causes are simple enough if you accept that what Neitzsche called the "Will to power" has a evolutionary base, and if you regard evolutionary psychology as something more than a parlour game. I do.

No - that is not at all what I mean!
Imagine there is someone who has never experienced an orgasm. If that person is sufficiently intelligent we can explain to the person what exacly happenes in the body of somebody experienceing an orgasm. Still the person will have no clue...
Understanding the mechanisms is something else then understanding the process.

Oh, okay, sorry. I thought you were saying something else.
Or actually, I wasn't thinking at all, more free-associating onto sciforums. :)

I agree with you.

P.S: I'm sorry if none of this made sense. I've got a headache.....thus my question.

Do you think that this could be from when we had to bear pain to get away from predaters/make long treks to find food/fight enemies and we needed a way to keep going even when we were hurting? I'm probably not making any sense....
On the contrary: it makes perfect sense. In fact that is the most accepted (and only serious) theory on the evolutionary bases of the mechanism.

On the sexual (sado)masochistic topic: can you elaborate more on the evolutionary base to it? I know that in a highly social species as homo sapiens power is a must-have for sexual activity. Also males have to be physically strong and fit; females have to be healthy and fertile.
So, I can understand that females get aroused by powerfull and strong males. But how is it that males can get excited in a submissive role? (or does that have anything to do with the all-powerfull mother-figure?)
Am I missing something important here?

Good luck with the migrane attacks. I know they can be hell.

Merlijn:
On the contrary: it makes perfect sense. In fact that is the most accepted (and only serious) theory on the evolutionary bases of the mechanism.

Oooh cool!

On the sexual (sado)masochistic topic: can you elaborate more on the evolutionary base to it? I know that in a highly social species as homo sapiens power is a must-have for sexual activity. Also males have to be physically strong and fit; females have to be healthy and fertile.

Okay. I regard sadomasochism as simply another facet of the Will to power. I've never quite figured a decent evolutionary explanation of sadomasocism per se, but it's basically just a refinement of power relationship.

Now, women are attracted to strong men who can support their children, that's obvious enough. That's why we have Monica Lewinskys.

But why would anyone who was powerful themselves voluntarily surrender power? You asked what the evolutionary purpose of a male becoming excited by a submissive role is. A purely anecdotal observation - take it or leave it - of mine is that the people most "powerful" are the people who are also the most submissive.

And try as I might, I'm reverting to Nietzsche. Losing power is a way of gaining power. It's a way of affirming one's own hold on power. That is, the willingness to surrender control, to feed power to another, is in itself a mark of the posession of power. Like the more you push power away, the more it comes back to you. Kinda like a needy boyfriend. :)

"Therefore thy humiliation shall exalt"

It's my paradox, really. How can one live a life with the "courage never to submit or yeild" and yet be so perfectly excited by submission? The thing is (and this SOOOOO pisses me off) is that I don't know.

What this baroque gibberish is is an attempt to say that submission is a way of gaining power. Pushing it away to make sure that it'll come back to you. All humans try to gain power. This is simply a more tortured way of going about doing it.

I realize I've strayed off topic, and I don't think I answered the question well enough. I'll try to explain myself better tomorrow.

Good luck with the migrane attacks. I know they can be hell.

Thanks. :)