emotions

[victorel21]

How did this cultural meme get started then, if there was no pleasure reward in looking after your children to begin with?

Il leave this for tomorrow because it is quite long, and it is getting late here.

[Lucis Trust]

Parlovs dog, experiment proves me right. Once something is done so many times it becomes natural the dog, which then only had to see the lab coats to "feel" it was being fed. It is the same thing here only far more complex.

There's never any pleasure associated with helping your children, just pain, so how did this meme get started, why are we enforcing it if we are egoistic hedonists, there's no point. Our emotions aren't a byproduct of egoistic hedonism, they stand on their own.

[Lucis Trust]

You do not really understand, giving people money for charity does not give you "pleasure" but you feel good with yourself. You feel good because you have done the right thing and you see yourself as a good person. Feeling good is a subconscious reward to yourself and, you are basically loving yourself. Society has conditioned people so that everytime you do something right you are rewarded it is so embedded that it becomes natural to the point that every right thing you do instigates a pleasure response. Which to the brain is the same as eating. if you are not sure still which you probably wont, read my replies to moreno and the links that confirm what I say.

or read the essay on emotions.

Why do revolutions happen then? Why do people suddenly rise up and say, we shouldn't hit these nigs, we should love them, if they've been conditioned to hit nigs through schooling (everytime you hit a nig, you get a cookie), then why did some hippies rise up and say no, we love these nigs, and march in nig marches, if it's all egoistic hedonism, there'd never be any altruistic emotive acts, especially revolutionary ones.

[Lucis Trust]

I'm not interested in reading any of your essays, please demonstrate it here.

[Lucis Trust]

You're telling me all our emotions, love, courage, enchantement, awe, wonder, tranquility, contentment, joy, exhilaration, disgust, despair, all reduced to the 4 fs, wow, why does that bother me, maybe the fact that it bothers me proves it isn't true, what possible hedonistic imperative would I have for it bothering me, I should be happy to think my emotions serve the 4 fs, but I feel it cheapens them.

[Lucis Trust]

Hitler's nazi experiments with babies proved babies require love, not just food and drink.

Love isn't just a sign you're going to get food and drink from this thing so you love it, it would then follow, you should grow to love your fridge or your car the same way you love your parents or yourgirlfriend, but we don't, we can't feel those affections for our fridges and cars. Wow, bullseye right there, let's see your antihumanists deal with that, those who want to reduce human complexity, sophistication and beauty to reptilian simplicity and baseness.

[Lucis Trust]

Parlovs dog, experiment proves me right. Once something is done so many times it becomes natural the dog, which then only had to see the lab coats to "feel" it was being fed. It is the same thing here only far more complex.

A human is more conscious than a dog, sooner or later they'd realize, there's no hedonistic imperative for me to love my children, to hell with what society says (our society doesn't care anyway, whether you have kids or not, infact, society encourages us to be selfish).

it's ok to have abortions, but yet we still long to have children, why, there's no hedonistic or societal rewards. So if I want to have children, it's not because I have a desire to love and nurture someone, to raise them and pass on my proud psychological and biological traits, lineage, heritage and traditions, it's because I mistakenly believe I can get more food, sex or sleep out of this somehow, society says so, give me a break. This is an absurd fucking doctrine that needs to be called out for what it is.

[Lucis Trust]

This needs to be dealt with--

I cannot percieve love or anything like love in others, I can only percieve their actions. I can imagine and create new actions by rearranging actions i've seen, I could not imagine or create new emotions if I haven't percieved any emotions to rearrange.

A sociopath can mimic another's actions, their moans, their cries, but he cannot mimic their emotions, he'd have to be psychic to do this and even then, it wouldn't work. There's nothing in a persons action to indicate what they must feel like, and how would you go about copying that, it's ridiculous. You can't learn an emotion, it's ludicrous, you can't experience the flavour minty by watching someone eat mint chip ice cream, you can't learn what pride feels like by watching a proud person, you have to feel it yourself.

[victorel21]

I'm not interested in reading any of your essays, please demonstrate it here.

I have explained this over like 5 times. Sorry, read over what has been said, I very busy this week and since you are not going to take the time to do consider other possibilities I will not take the time and try to impose on you new ideas.

[Lucis Trust]

A lot of philosophy is about what came first, the chicken or the egg, sort of thing. Do sensations give rise to emotions or vice versa? Does matter give rise to mind or vice versa? Do we serve others so we can serve ourselves or do we serve ourselves so we can serve others? Is our character fundamentally innate (nature), programmable (nurture) or better yet, do we make it up as we go along (individualism)? These things are all part of the human condition, which is why it is foolish to pay no heed to the one and solely focus on it's other. These things, these dualities are all a part of us, one could not exist without the other, you cannot get rid of your shadow. We must be fully human, not a halfling, we must learn to develop boths sides, philosophism as well as scientism, if we are to ever attain harmony. Man is a product of the dynamic interplay between yin and yang, between male and female, left and right, mind body, spirit matter, reason emotion, love and pride.

[statiktech]

you cannot get rid of your shadow.

Excellent analogy! I've been trying to explain in my own way, but this works even better. Emotions are like the shadows of rational thought. A natural aversion to pain doesn't 'cause' emotion, so to speak. That aversion is an emotional aversion, among other things. You call that aversion a "reflex". I'm saying that "reflex" is emotional. The aversion is 'caused' by emotion as much as it is sensation.

To me, what you're claiming is tantamount to saying "sight is not innate because we need an environment to see -- thus the environment comes first and we 'learn' to see it." Like you're case, that is partly true in that we do learn to tailor our senses to our environments, but that doesn't mean those senses are not innate. These are all inbuilt faculties, or capabilities, that we understand gradually and learn to use.

Sometimes we even pretend to be our shadows, only to realize later that we are not.

[Lucis Trust]

These are all inbuilt faculties, or capabilities, that we understand gradually and learn to use.

Right, they're all a part of us, neither can be said to give rise to the other

[Arcturus Descending]

Why sacrifice? first of all does everyone want to have children? does everyone love? Second to respond, this is because parents seek success, in their child lif and see it as a continuation to it. The childs achievementsare the parents achivements.

This doesn't really address my point. The vast majority of time, there's little or no physical pleasure in loving your kids (infact, there's a lot of physical pain), especially in sacrificing your life for them, so here's an emotion not rooted in physical pleasure and pain. A-ho-ho.

Though of course there is sacrifice in raising children, it's possible that many parents do not see it so much as a sacrifice.
Is is possible that only those parents who dwell on raising their children as such a sacrifice, do not have the inner awareness of 'why' - or the ONLY real purpose, imho, for which they brought the children into the world in the first place - which is to create new life and to love and teach and nurture that life in all ways - so that that life may at some point go out into the world, be independent and find its own purpose.

'Little or no physical pleasure in loving your kids'? A sense of wonderful satisfaction, pride in the child, and joy and happiness because of our children may be felt as physical pleasure - they are after all rooted in positive emotions and the inner awareness that our greatest desires have come to fruition, which is also part of that a raison de etre.
As far as the children's achievements being the parents' achievements, this is pretty narcissistic, wouldn 't you say? When parents consider their children to be 'extensions' of themselves, they may sadly consider their children's achievements to be there own.
Sure, they've played a part in helping their children, but let's just give the children their due...let's allow them to see that what they've achieved has been through their own power, with the love and help from the parents.

Bats have some pretty altruistic genes. They will allow other weakened bats to suck a great deal of their own blood to strengthen those other bats, thereby making themselves weak. Does the bat instinctively and intuitively consider this to be a sacrifice or just what comes naturally to the altruistic bat?

[lizbethrose]

Is the bat being altruistic? These are the sort of questions people raise, AR. Does a lactating timber wolf take on an orphan and raise it as her own? Yes. So do many other animal species.

But then, you read stories of lactating animals suckling cross species young. They have no interest in the survival of the litter they suckle. Biology may say one thing--like relieving their teats from pain--but is that true? Doesn't suckling create a bond--whether it's from giving milk or giving blood--and don't we understand that bond as being a parent? Where's the sacrifice?

[GaryK]

Hi all,
First post.....I'm Gary and in brief, I'm friendly, capable of making an arse of myself and extremely polite Philosophically I suppose I could be broadly pidgeon holed (for those who must) as humanistic/existentialist.


Emotions? I don't know for sure but I believe,innate.

Emotions are indicators of need and are motivators, every thing we do is motivated by and rewarded with an emotion triggered by needs........since babies are humans at their most needy, I would suggest they have emotions from day one (and possibly earlier). These emotions are communicated to an empathic mum. Mum can recognise the first sad cry of hunger,if left it may become angry, if further left it becomes fear of abandonment and death..... (I would guess that If baby is only fed at the angry stage it may develop a pavlovian response.)

The emotions at this stage are preverbal, there is no associated reasoning and there are no words to rationalise, they are pure...... They are Unspeakable, so: Blind anger/terror, purest joy and sobbing chest heaving sadness. Adults may recapture these moments in extreme situations.

Adult emotions could be based on these basic emotions in a mix and match way + thinking and words to add the narrative (as mentioned earlier).


Cross species nurturing is interesting, I looked into this phenomenom some while back. There are a few cases of humans being reared by animals. (Off topic but google feral children or Mowgli Syndrome if interested in identity stuff).

Mostly speculation here:
As I mentioned earlier 2 of the ingredients for human success could be: An emotional baby and an empathic mum. In most species that have dependant offspring this is possibly also the case, particularly with species that depend on a large extended family or group for survival, empathy is essential for team work. The mums in these species will probably have highly atuned empathic responses that extend beyond imediate family, this empathy could well extend beyond the species.

I don't think humans have the monopoly on caring.......A pet dog can feel guilt and it will also care for it's owner.

[Lucis Trust]

If it isn't a sacrifice then what is? You're doing it for the childs sake, not yours. This may make you happy, but only indirectly. In any case, my point was, having compassion for your children has nothing to do with personal physical pleasure or pain, as victor was erroneously suggesting.

[victorel21]

First let me apologize for taking so long.I have Been really busy lately and also for several weeks i wont be able to join fully in discussion but let me adress some of these points.

There's never any pleasure associated with helping your children, just pain, so how did this meme get started, why are we enforcing it if we are egoistic hedonists, there's no point. Our emotions aren't a byproduct of egoistic hedonism, they stand on their own.

Actually there is considerable pleasure associated with helping your child. First let us talk about conditioning. A person from birth gets conditioned to believe that their are right and wrong actions. a wrong action is associated with pain and right with reward. Now through familiarization the person gets conditioned to associate any "good" action with pleasure. In this way the person will seek to "suceed" in his environment because of the association to pleasure. Taking care of your children is viewed as good by society and thus the better raised your kids are the more "succesful", happy a person is. This then explains why people who do not raise their children with care tend to be less concerned for society rulings. They tend to be rebels. This also explains why parents feel happy when their kids suceed.

Its actually very simple.

[victorel21]

Why do revolutions happen then? Why do people suddenly rise up and say, we shouldn't hit these nigs, we should love them, if they've been conditioned to hit nigs through schooling (everytime you hit a nig, you get a cookie), then why did some hippies rise up and say no, we love these nigs, and march in nig marches, if it's all egoistic hedonism, there'd never be any altruistic emotive acts, especially revolutionary ones.

Umm.. this is not evidence against conditioning I am afraid. Altruism is actually seen as good by society, people find proudness in being called humble for example. Therefore it does not defeat the conditioning premise. (nothing can actually) but you are welcome to throw as many as you want. Also let me say that the transition from slavery was very gradual and I want to say that it was not altruistic at all. Remember that those who were in favour of ending slavery were the slaves and those that did not need the slaves as much. Increased resources and the american ideology of every man should be equal were the instagators of the anti -slavery move.

To adress your other question why do revolutions happen? Two reasons people think that something good is going to come out of it. And they are not happy with the current way thigs are going. to defeat my premise you should ask would a society revel if they thought it would not bring any reward only punishment?

[victorel21]

You're telling me all our emotions, love, courage, enchantement, awe, wonder, tranquility, contentment, joy, exhilaration, disgust, despair, all reduced to the 4 fs, wow, why does that bother me, maybe the fact that it bothers me proves it isn't true, what possible hedonistic imperative would I have for it bothering me, I should be happy to think my emotions serve the 4 fs, but I feel it cheapens them.

Yep all derive from only two basic motivators pain and pleasure. Except for curiosity ofcourse which is the reason people are philosophers. "Only a philosopher can beat conditioning." All other emotions are basically the same or a combination of those. Why does it bother you? remember joy and exhilaration are different measures of the same thing. disgust is rejection due to expected punishment and so on. Wonder is curiosity. (not an emotion by my definition).

Im sorry but why is your not liking this assertion prove that the premise is wrong?

[victorel21]

Hitler's nazi experiments with babies proved babies require love, not just food and drink.

Love isn't just a sign you're going to get food and drink from this thing so you love it, it would then follow, you should grow to love your fridge or your car the same way you love your parents or yourgirlfriend, but we don't, we can't feel those affections for our fridges and cars. Wow, bullseye right there, let's see your antihumanists deal with that, those who want to reduce human complexity, sophistication and beauty to reptilian simplicity and baseness.

let me brake this down.

Hitler's nazi experiments with babies proved babies require love, not just food and drink.

Define love.

Love isn't just a sign you're going to get food and drink from this thing so you love it, it would then follow, you should grow to love your fridge or your car the same way you love your parents or yourgirlfriend, but we don't, we can't feel those affections for our fridges and cars.

Why love your fridge, its only there to store the food why not love the supermarket or better still the money which is what you use to buy the food. Who does not "love" money, who does not want to be rich and have all the associated pleasures that brings? People have great memories and the way the brain processes information allows for people to distinguish and pinpoint the source of the pleasure. Otherwise we would not have scientists. Now if a rat were to go to a fridge to get food would not the rat love the fridge? Ofcourse. Also I think that misunderstand things. when I say the same as eating is not saying that what you eat is what you love but rather that it instigates the same pleasure response. (depending on your dfinition for love, you can actually love food.)

[victorel21]

A human is more conscious than a dog,

Or rather it has a better memory and has the ability to make more complex associations.

(our society doesn't care anyway, whether you have kids or not, infact, society encourages us to be selfish).

Depends what society you are talking about. Most religions see child raising as extremely important.

society encourages us to be selfish).

The opposite, but again depends what society you are talking about. Most religions teach people to be kind to others.

it's ok to have abortions, but yet we still long to have children, why, there's no hedonistic or societal rewards.

Why do parents want the best for the their children? Tell me who defines best? Society. Why would people kill their daughters beacuse they dont follow their rules? (ancient societies). Why does a mother cry when a child goes to jail? It was her duty to raise her child she failed as a mother, this is then demostrating depression, a byproduct of pain, she is a failure as a mother and thus pain is perceived.

[victorel21]

A lot of philosophy is about what came first, the chicken or the egg, sort of thing. Do sensations give rise to emotions or vice versa? Does matter give rise to mind or vice versa? Do we serve others so we can serve ourselves or do we serve ourselves so we can serve others? Is our character fundamentally innate (nature), programmable (nurture) or better yet, do we make it up as we go along (individualism)? These things are all part of the human condition, which is why it is foolish to pay no heed to the one and solely focus on it's other. These things, these dualities are all a part of us, one could not exist without the other, you cannot get rid of your shadow. We must be fully human, not a halfling, we must learn to develop boths sides, philosophism as well as scientism, if we are to ever attain harmony. Man is a product of the dynamic interplay between yin and yang, between male and female, left and right, mind body, spirit matter, reason emotion, love and pride.

Nice piece of writing, however, from my take there is either one or the other, if it were not like that then logic would not serve as a good prediction devise. By the way sensations are programmed to be perceived by genetics emotions are developed. this is true to every human everthing that derives from this must also be true by default.

Attaining harmony is another thing, if it is too painful to beleive it then dont believe it and retain sanity, but for as long as this makes sense to me and serves as a valid way to exlain and predict, I will stick to it.

Also the isolation principle destroys any idea of altruism. Would you help someone you dont have any knowledge of his existence? no, analyze the quote and you will understand how incredibly profound the statement is.

[victorel21]

Emotions are like the shadows of rational thought.

agreed no motivation no action.

I'm saying that "reflex" is emotional.

umm.. if you define the reflex as an emotion then you dont contradict me you are just putting another name to the same thing.

The aversion is 'caused' by emotion as much as it is sensation.

Before we continue define emotion and sensation so that we can have a good discussion.

sight is not innate because we need an environment to see

we have the innate ability to perceive light, whether we see or not and what we see is dependant on the environment.

'learn' to see it.

True, our experince can greatly change the way we see and what we see. Childrens eyes have to adapt to the environmnet and they actually see things upside down until their eyes shift it to the way we see it now. there is more evidence for this.

Like you're case, that is partly true in that we do learn to tailor our senses to our environments, but that doesn't mean those senses are not innate. These are all inbuilt faculties, or capabilities, that we understand gradually and learn to use.

Sometimes we even pretend to be our shadows, only to realize later that we are not.

Senses are innate since they are innately inbuilt and act as a reflex they are not learned since the change in the environement is enough to trigger the sensation, light on the retina for example, emotions on the other hand are associations between those sensations. They are attained through experience ( sensorial stimuli ) by definition they are learned.

[victorel21]

Is the bat being altruistic? These are the sort of questions people raise, AR. Does a lactating timber wolf take on an orphan and raise it as her own? Yes. So do many other animal species.

But then, you read stories of lactating animals suckling cross species young. They have no interest in the survival of the litter they suckle. Biology may say one thing--like relieving their teats from pain--but is that true? Doesn't suckling create a bond--whether it's from giving milk or giving blood--and don't we understand that bond as being a parent? Where's the sacrifice?

Bond or trying to keep near the associated source of pleasure?

[victorel21]

If it isn't a sacrifice then what is? You're doing it for the childs sake, not yours. This may make you happy, but only indirectly. In any case, my point was, having compassion for your children has nothing to do with personal physical pleasure or pain, as victor was erroneously suggesting.

Read the above posts.