If we are bags of chemicals, and we have feelings. Feelings are caused by chemical reaction in our brain.
Does that mean, chemical reaction in general give rise to feelings. Does that mean, all chemical reaction generates feelings. Does that mean, mixing salt with water produces feelings, even though we can not feel it?
I like to think we’re a little more complex than that, its not really a case of certain chemicals mixing or being produced. Our feelings are not chemicals or chemical reactions in isolation, you need to take into account the workings of the limbic system which includes: hypothalamus - connected to sexual drive and fight/flight, the hippocampus - memories and amygdala - motivational feelings, and also acknowledge the vast complexity of the nerve cell structure within that and its role within the brain, and all that before trying to understand the workings of the chemicals (Neurotransmitters) Neurotransmitters are arranged in systems and each system can have a specific function or group of functions. Alteration in neurotransmitter balance can lead to alterations of functioning within the system and causes changes in feelings but the important point to remember that this isnt in isolation, it happens in conjunction with millions of other occurances going on at the same time in the limbic system and only under certain conditions that we still do not fully understand.
please excuse my shallowness,
why do you claim understanding when you only half understand. hehehehe. I will not proceed further for I do not wish to antagonise you.
I think, if pain is delievered by electricity, is electricity pain? This is just an aside, no need to reply. 
Its fine, i come here to learn and i accept my own limitations (i’m new to all this so expect mistakes) and i expect to be challenged and antagonised and it helps me question things… all part of the fun
Yeah i dont know everything, i certainly dont claim full understanding (i dont think thats possible) and neither am i implying that you or i are right or wrong, its just stuff that makes me question ur suggestion and why i feel there is more to it than what you propsed and the reasons i think that way and am fully aware of my potential to get things completely wrong and my lack of knowlege, just wanted to add some things i thought were worth consideration… isnt that what being here is about?
i think that the only thing about humans that is not a chemical processes, or an interaction between pieces of machinery, is our memories. the only reason why anything feels like its ‘real’ if because we have thought about it and considered what the thing is in relation to other things.
an emotion only makes sense if we have memories of what that emotion means and what it is in repsonse to and how we should react. when we are babies, these thoughts form because our body somehow knows beyond our consciousness when and where to set off the fear reaction. we associate increased heartbeat with scary things flying at us, or not being able to reach the bottle when we are so hungry we could die.
first your body showed you when to be scared, then you learned what kind of things create fear, then when you see new situations that could inspire fear, you see them the same way as the intial situations were, even if they are not the same.
emotions are a connection between a physical response to something and the memories we have of when that physical response has happened int he past. you could make neruons in the same pattern in a petri dish that zap photons and chemicals around in the same way, but your petri dish wont be experiencing anything that is fearful, it will just be trying to increase a heartbeat somewhere.
the relation between emotion and memory. a very good point future man, I’ve never thought about it. hey, I’ve come across something new. It reminds me of a situation describe in a book somewhere, that a person was blind-folded, the only way he can tell a sphere apart from a cube is by feeling the soild with his hands. Imagine, if the blindfold is lifted, will he be able to tell the two apart using sight. (I may have gone a bit side-track).