I was just talking to Water about you - well actually I said "where the hell is gendanken, she can't leave us here to rot in this hole by ourselves (since I fell back into the hole a couple of weeks back, I could say that)," and she said she wasn't at liberty to tell me, so I assumed you were in jail. *hugs* *cough* Let's brawl. (just kidding)
no it doesn't. it reveals your reductionist limited understanding emotons are chemica reactions, yes. but to then believ e that is it betrays your ignore-ance about theproblem. for example,about theongoing'mind body/brain/mind problem' in philosophy an cognitive science. also called the 'hard problem..........so yeah. we CAn measure chemicals, eltricals, ND SO ON, AND EVEN BEHAVIOUR. BUT WHAT IS THEINSIDE FEELING, THE SUBJECTIVITY OF emotion, WE CANT. so to assume emotions are JUST chemical reaction is limited materialisic undeerstanding. and that belief, which some claim falsely is scientifically'proven' fules the evil scam called bio-psychiatry which assumes to be abl to 'cure' 'emotions' not deemed acceptable, and classed 'a biological disease/'mental illness. so it is VERY important that tis is realized, and you dont blindly assume and carry on tis insidious myth which opresses many many peopple. making out they are 'J U S T' biochemical machines, or bio-computers !
Very interesting thread. This is something that I would also like to understand deeply. Because it has an immense impact on men and masculinlity. My field of work. Men are trained and brainwashed away from their emotions from early childhood. They are made to feel ashamed for expressing most of the range of emotions they feel. The only emotions they are allowed are: anger, humour and sex with women. I think emotions have both negative and positive parts. Emotions are very important for us in that they are our connection with our inner self, our real self. When we lose connection with our emotions we also lose connection with who we really are. We also lose connection with our nature --- even the most basic of our nature.
Invert: You didn't have to. See, I said "No" in the same sense you'd streak through a pretentious tea party. I don't care for tea parties = I don't care for pretentious attempts to embelish "emotion" Like this guy: As if eating and laughing and shitting were some form of sorcery. They're the reason behind "self-awareness"? I don't see one becoming 'self-aware' emotionally, a child can grow an isolated, emotional enclave and still never know who he is. Self-awareness is the ulitmate narcissm of being taught that you are the navel of the whole universe, and no one can teach this to you outside of language. One day you're nothing but a sensual brat and the next you're an intellecutal, self-aware brat becuase you heard Protagoras saying man was the measure of all things. Therefore, I don't think ~emotions~ are it. I'm talking about this guy: Or this guy: Its like sitting through yet another moral equivalance theory by some Jew. i.e. Romance No. More like.......saying that what you feel is simply a state of mind. I, for example, could never feel lust til my mind was in it. Cole Grey got it- think of mind as program. A line of code appears saying “seek pleasure" and the entire mind is mobilized into accommodating that one goal. In this state of mind, experience is distorted: sky's bluer, roses rosier, wine sweeter. Negative sensations- the harpy next door, your fat boss, men- are no longer so negative. All is sanctioned by mind- the 'seek pleasure' goal is the mind's bias at that one point in time you experience as subjective pleasure and it tilts the perceptual scales towards that one priority. "Shit smells sweet when in love" You lust as your mind allows, you cry, hate, thirst in direct proportion to those mental resources. Emotion, therefore, is perception. See, I know I'm being a moron as if looking down from above. You're more than welcome to Do we have to? Cole Grey: Ew. Coly cooties. Welcome back.
The question is - can we understand our emotions, or, better, can we control them, being that we exist alongside them and they are constantly affecting us even when we are not currently "feeling" them. The answer is yes if the emotion is a level below our self-consciousness, i.e. only a part of a group of conscious and unconscious ideas by which I describe "me", and there is a higher level of being which i can access, like becoming the watcher Tolle describes. Perhaps this sense of me is just an emotion, i.e. a perception modifier. Then again, Gendanken is having fun poo-pooing emotional awareness, but her emotions from throughout her life are affecting her life; and thoughts; and life choices; whether she likes it or not. Better to be aware of the emotions than ignore them, or maybe beware. But can we actually rise above the level of emotion to get a good look at emotion?
when you look at patriarchal mythological propaganda you see that it denigrates Nature, he body, which includes emotions! Nature, body, and emotions were considered belonging to the feminine, who was also denigrated the patriarchy, which includes mystery schools, adEastern belief systems. saw the body and emotions as dragging one down. keeping the 'male spirit' anchored to ature andits cycles so there was this all round attempt to tame them and eventually escpae them, body and Natureand return to 'pure spirit' swoooo, this is a male thing. not ALL men, causemany men became a victim of this mindset. ths mindset that divided itself into a 'mind' and a 'body'. again we have the dualistic idea of there being a schism between 'spirit' and 'matter' in REALITY what you feel IS what you feel. there is no separate entity that feels. the feeling of there being so is exactly that dividing indoctrination which has been drilled into us since when!
Are you saying that one need to rise above one's emotions in order to rise to a higher level of existence --- as in spirituality?
That emotions are a "cognitive bias" implies that there is also "pure, non-biased cognition". Which may indeed be so. The way I see it, our problem with that which we call "emotions" is that we have an agenda of how things *should* be and then in regards to this should-be, we judge a statement to be "biased", and another as "unbiased" or "less biased". In practical application, this tends to make that which we call "emotions" very dangerous or at least unpleasant for us, esp. in the West. For example, if a person finds himself angry, the first thing to do may be repressing this anger, or others will tell him so. Anger arises, and he thinks he has to do something about it; he must be having a reason for thinking that way. Or, a person finds himself strongly attracted to someone or something. And the first thing he may do is is try to get it, and feels awful if he fails. There must be a reason for thinking this way. And these reasons are provided in our agendas, in our idea of how things should be. But, we are often not aware of these agendas, so we are on a roller-coaster all the time -- and then we blame "emotions" and take medicines to ease and numb them. When in fact all that would be necessary is to check how rational that agenda is, and fix it. All in all, it's due to our agenda that we have trouble dealing with "emotions", that is "cognitive biases". * * * As for the definition of "emotion", I'd say that emotion is the bodily equivalent of a certain mental content. Mental and bodily states arise simultaneously, and go hand in hand. They are often both very complex.
I think we can understand the notion of emotions better if we contrast it with our thought process. as in "I feel" as against "I think". Although you are right, both feeling and thinking happens in the brain, traditionally/ euphemistically (I don't know the meaning of the word!) thinking is associated with head/ brain, while 'feeling' is associated with the heart.
A property of perception of a particular object or subject, a property which is arises from information stored in brain and executed by consciousness through biochemical and electrical processes.
I thought that blood pumping is associated with heart Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
welll, yes. that is a prosaic technical manual way of describing the heart's function, but errrr, have yu heard of poetry, and art, ...?or has it passed you by?
Very true (in my opinion). This makes finding the opposite of emotion tough, which was one posters wish (sorry I can't find the exact post). However we may list emotions themselves, and surely find opposites there: happiness or sadness, pride or shame, excitment or boredom, love or hate, safety or fear, pleasure or pain, etc. but expressions of emotion, such as laughter or crying, may be ambiguous, for one may cry when happy or when sad! "Seek pleasure" or "avoid pain"?! I believe the natural default for life is 'pleasurable', but we only come to notice this after we have experienced pain. What's wrong with having a fat boss and what's wrong with men? (Better keep your list of male faults to a minimum, we only have so much space).
Well, it's nice to know when someone is angry, so you are prepared to face it (or run). Emotions are very important for building personal oppinions, I wonder if we would have oppinions weren't it for the emotions associated with them...at least we wouldn't be prepared to fight for them as much as if we didn't have emotions. Emotions are of course also good just because they are, they make life more meaningful, all oppinions against emotions are oppinions with emotions, as such they don't know what they are talking about, I don't even think I can conceive how things would be without emotions. Why matter? would be a common frase I think.
It asks the question whether there is pure cognition, but it doesn't necessarily imply we can partake of it. Sometimes agendas are placed on us in ways by which it becomes very difficult to opt out of them. Understanding your agendas and emotions is quite different from controlling them. Perhaps an agenda is rational but may or may not be fulfillable. What do you do with those?
Maybe just fear and desire, i.e. all of them. If we had to rise above emotions to be spiritual...that would be a tall order for humans. Maybe we can access a "different" level of consciousness, not necessarily a higher one. It might be clearer to think without emotion, but it might be ignoring some important information from the emotional side.
I don't think it is a property of our 'perception'. I think it is rather how we spontaneously react to our 'perception' of something.
No emotion is spontaneous, there's always a reason why you have that and no other emotion when perceiving a particular object or subject. If you think it's spontaneous (i.e., without a ground), you haven't dug deep enough in your conscious and unconscious self.
So one importance of emotions is that it tells us about how we should percieve the impending situation. E.g., if we step on a thorn, we immediately feel pain and it is the way we know that we must pull ourselves back. Like I said, emotions are our connection with our nature --- and whether we are going in the way of our nature or against it. Expressions of emotions have another angle to it. Amongst humans, we consciously control, hide, mask, manipulate, divert and misrepresent our emotions for social reasons. One example is 'sophistication'. It involves presenting an artificial and doctored image of oneself to the world. So, the air hostess who smiles at you and wishes you with 'apparent' warmth, may actually be feeling quite irritable at your very sight, or may still be sorely thinking about the fight with her boss.
I really wish it is so! However, how I percieve it is that the natural default for life is 'pain'. And we have to strive to find 'pleasure'/ comfort --- which we tend to seek in things material. Or is it a continuous fight between pleasure and pain?
