Good and bad are actual properties (i.e. forces)

Empathy is where things such as helping others matters to you. Since you can't have empathy without emotions, then nothing can matter to you without emotions. Empathy would, therefore, have to be emotional states of compassion and love towards others. Sociopaths have no empathy, but they still have emotions to make other things in life matter to them in good or bad ways. According to my new definition of good and bad which is the emotional definition, artists would not be able to see the good value and beauty in their works of art if these artists were nothing but miserable. It does not matter what they believed otherwise. Lastly, positive emotions would be states of euphoria such as the feeling of joy or excitement from getting a new movie while negative emotions would be states of dysphoria such as feelings of hopelessness, misery, anger, etc. Positive emotional states are states induced by serotonin, dopamine, endorphins, and oxytocin.

 

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But that's only because you had a negative emotion there sympathizing with others. That negative emotion could be sadness or misery which would be making the suffering of others something matter to you in a bad way.

 

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Which systematically disproves what you said that

or that one

 

But you can't have pure emotions about everything. Most things are a mixture of good and bad. Dating can be stressful and depressing, but at the same time thrilling and rewarding.

 

Compassion would also have to be a negative emotional state. When you feel sad for someone, that is a negative emotion and it is compassion. When you feel joyful towards the helping of someone, then that is also compassion. But like I was saying, if you had no emotions at all due to complete anhedonia, then nothing could matter to you including the suffering of others. Remember, I made a distinction between perceived values versus experienced values. Experienced values are everything. I metaphorically described them as forces of light and darkness (i.e. forces of good and bad flowing through us). These "forces" are what make everything matter to us in life in either good or bad ways. They give either horrible or joyful/beautiful perceptual life force to things in our lives and that is what makes these things matter to us in good or bad ways.

Actually, according to my new definition of good and bad which is, again, the emotional definition, we wouldn't be able to see any real good or bad value in our lives at all without our emotions. The force of light (our positive emotions) allow us to see everything in life as good and beautiful while the force of darkness (our negative emotions) allow us to see everything in life as bad, horrible, and disgusting. They are the states of joy, beauty, suffering, etc. I have had many miserable moments in my life where I had the idea of my life changing for the better and getting help as being something good. But that did not allow me to actually see it as a good thing. I did not have the force of light in my conscious being. Therefore, value judgments of good and beauty were nothing more than words during those miserable moments.

 

Mixed Emotions: We can have mixed emotions. So, if you were euphoric, but felt a little bit of dysphoria at the same time, then your life would be half good and half bad depending on the degree of euphoria and dysphoria. If it is just a little bit of dysphoria and the rest is euphoria, then things, situations, and moments in your life would be experienced as being something like 20% bad and 80% good.

 

Hate, and dis-belief suffer to inner peace.

 

I have known musicians & people of other fields of art who claimed they could not have accomplished great art if not for the miserable times in their lives. Some even say it is necessary for every artist. But there are at least as many great artists who did not have such misery in their lives.
Perhaps for some it is good for their art. We cannot know for certain. Obviously, it is not necessary for all artists.

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Isn't it a tautology? Life is as good as the emotion we feel about it.

 

When I say things such as that depressed people's lives can't be anything good and worth living without their positive emotions, then I don't mean that they can't contribute something good to the world. I simply mean that they can't experience anything good to make their lives matter to them in good ways. This is what I also mean in general when I say things such as the good life or things being beautiful in one's life.

 

So you really are saying nothing new at all, yet trying to dress it up as something "world-changing".
You are really saying nothing but equating the quality of the experience with the nature of the emotion through which we experience it.
And since you deem only positive emotions can lead to something mattering to us, you reach the conclusion that negative emotion or lack of emotion leads to nothing mattering to us at all.

Mind blowing.

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Positive emotions make our lives matter to us in good ways, negative emotions make our lives matter to us in bad ways, while having no emotions at all would render our lives not mattering to us at all. This is world changing because there were many miserable and depressed genius artists in the past who thought that their misery and depression made their lives and artistic endeavors matter to them in good and beautiful ways. To this day, many artists still believe this and there are many other people who believe this lie as well. By revealing the truth of my theory, it would change the world and it would reveal to us that the only way to live and be an artist is through our positive emotions.

 

Artists such as?
Where is there any evidence of artists who are permanently under negative emotion?

And are you sure you are not confusing the negative emotions of their inspiration with their subsequent positive emotion at what resulted?
If painting, for example, is simply their means of trying to cope with their meaningless life, and it does not matter to them while under negative emotion, why can those paintings not mean something to them when they are in a period of positive emotion?
Maybe, during their positive emotions, upon seeing the works they had produced, they accepted that for such results they would be willing to sacrifice permanent positive emotions and let their negative emotions inspire them?

I feel you are being far too simplistic, too black and white, in what is clearly a rather grey world.

Such as?
You keep asserting it, but some support for it would be good, given that it is apparently the bedrock of your "theory"?

Why?
If the artist is prepared to subject themselves to negative emotion for the purpose of inspiration, hoping that the end result is something that, during their positive outlook, they find beautiful, why should they be stopped?

 

They don't need to be stopped. All I am saying is that, during their negative emotional period, their lives can be perceived as nothing but negative (bad value). But once they reach a moment where they feel a positive emotion, then these are the moments where things would matter to them in good ways. Negative emotions of inspiration can only badly inspire us. That is, they can only inspire us in such a way where things can only matter to us in bad or horrible ways. Positive emotions are the only true inspiration to live by.

 

I would agree with that for the most part. And here is an artist who agrees with that sentiment also:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2006/jun/11/features.review1

And I've experienced that also. I was a very good visual artist in that I could draw, paint, sculpt etc very well but I have no inspiration to do such anymore. It's also often a matter of degree as to what you experience as positive or negative, people also have different levels of tolerance as well as types of experiences which may break one may not another and vice versa. If there is negative emotion and an artist feels inspired, that means there is a positive impetus underneath to 'transform' that into art. in the end, the real motive is to purge the negative or transform it in some manner. If one is too focused on the negative or the bottomline, it tends to inhibit higher level conceptual ideas because the positive emotions just are not there (buried is another matter). if the inspiration is gone, it's gone. that's a state of survival mode.

I can critique art but I have no desire to produce it. it requires the light (positive emotions) of inspiration for that. You need all the different aspects of yourself working together in unison like a well-oiled machine, not clogged, tarnished and rusty. Challenging vs detrimental.

For instance, writer's block is being in a state of no emotion or abject negative emotion. If there is some glimmer of positive emotion, that may be used as an inspiration to tell even a negative tale with some purpose in mind and that purpose can vary from moralistic to a warning or highlight some silver lining or in the best cases, a solution.

One can be a great artist even with mostly positive experiences, but not with only 'shallow' experiences or emotions. there is a difference. Understanding the highs and lows can contribute to being a great artist as it lends breadth and depth, when needed. The positive is that one can often understand even the negative without actually experiencing it, if they are willing to use empathy. Just as perpetrators know how to inflict that which they may not experience.

When people were burned at the stake, those who set the fire well knew how painful it would be as one knows just by experience by burning a hand or finger. the point is that everyone will inevitably understand the concept of pain and suffering just by virtue of living so it's not farfetched to be able to project the intensity level beyond a particular gradient.

there is no real virtue in pain and suffering though.

 

Alright, but let me just share to you the rest of my theory here which is very brief:

Brief Description Of My Theory: Positive emotions make our lives matter to us in good ways, negative emotions make our lives matter to us in bad ways, while having no emotions at all would render our lives not mattering to us at all. When something matters to you in a good or bad way, these are actually emotional states rather than outlooks or mindsets (i.e. thought states). Our positive emotions are like a sacred life force of goodness that can only make things matter to us in good ways while our negative emotions are like a horrible and dark life force of badness that can only make things matter to us in bad ways. When you see the good or bad value in your life, then that is an emotional state, according to my new definition of good and bad that my theory advocates.

 

Yes, I get it, because your mindset or your thoughts are not always an indication of your emotional state and neither can you always force a positive emotional state with your thoughts. and to further cement your point, emotions are a 'thing', not always coinciding with abstract thoughts. Satisfied?

 

There is a greater social danger from negative emotions (which oftens stem from injustice and abuse). It tends to lower the standards of the public/society itself.

Ironicly, it's often those with an outside perspective who are most able to be of assistance and help with solutions. This is because suffering or negativity causes perceptions to dull and even worse, may, if chronic, result in lowering moral and ethical standards, not just morale. besides people just giving up or becoming listless, it can result in dehumanization of self and others using aggression.

Those who have a relatively good life can understand sympathy and empathy just as well, if not better because they have experienced higher standards or been able to protect the positive or not have it compromised (innocence, positive outlook on life etc). This is why the most sensitive, kind, sympathetic, modest and giving people are those who have not suffered as much (of course, there are exceptions to this). They should not be targets of ill will or jealousy for this reason but to be looked up to as an example because they embody those higher standards and can show as well as teach a better way.

Negativity, suffering, pain, abuse, injustice etc, deteriorate the mind and humanity as well as sophistication and sensitivity of one's senses and faculties.

again, negativity is just not as valuable as positive. now, it's important to differentiate what is truly 'positive' emotions, not any misconstrued as positive resulting from dysfunction as everyone in society has had those experiences as well as been a perpetrator of them at times (some more than others) such as feeling satisfaction from another's suffering or failures etc, especially when the other has done no wrong to you. these are based on negative emotions or programming. truly positive emotions are infused with love, ethics, fairness, honesty and goodwill. it is pure.

 

I highly doubt that. They may have used art to deal with their problems, but I'm quite sure they would have rather not been depressed. It's popular culture that said you have to suffer to do good art, because they noticed a correlation.