The Emotional Perception Theory Of Value: This is an idea that has recently developed and is popular. It says that our emotions are the perception of value (i.e. the perception of good, bad, beauty, joy, horror, disgust, etc.). But there are many people out there who reject this theory and this topic is an attempt on my part to prove this theory. I will give you a link to it: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9329.2011.00518.x Here is another link to it: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00455091.2013.826057 I Think I Can Prove The Emotional Perception Theory Of Value: Considering how there are many people out there who disagree with the emotional perceptual theory of value, I think there is a way for me to personally prove it. This is my own personal argument which is an attempt to translate emotions into perceptions of value. Positive emotions are the reward wanting and liking in the brain. When you want something and like something, this means it matters to you. When something matters to you, this means it is something good or something bad from your perspective. For example, if the loss of your loved one mattered to you or getting a new movie mattered to you, this means those things had value from your perspective. Positive emotions make things matter to us in good ways and negative emotions make things matter to us in bad ways since positive emotions are the perception of good value and negative emotions are the perception of bad value. Positive emotions make our lives good, negative emotions make our lives bad, and having no emotions (apathy) renders our lives without value. This means emotions are the only way we can truly perceive value. Now, the only way something can have value to you is if it matters to you. How can you say that helping someone is something good or bad from your perspective if it doesn't matter to you? It makes no sense. A life that doesn't matter to us would, thus, have to be a life that has no value from our perspective. Lastly, here is a link (study) that shows how positive emotions are the reward wanting and liking in the brain: We have found a special hedonic hotspot that is crucial for reward 'liking' and 'wanting' (and codes reward learning too). The opioid hedonic hotspot is shown in red above. It works together with another hedonic hotspot in the more famous nucleus accumbens to generate pleasure 'liking'. ‘Liking’ and ‘wanting’ food rewards: Brain substrates and roles in eating disorders Kent C. Berridge 2009 Mar 29. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2717031/ For Those Who Disagree Positive Emotions Are Wanting And Liking: I think there will also be people out there who disagree that positive emotions are a form of wanting and liking. So, here is proof for them. Emotions are a form of motivation. When you have a positive form of motivation to do something, this means you want to do it and like to do it.
