Conquer you fear.....Yoda said to Luke

hmmmm....what you are saying Wes is very valid. From your perspective it could be argued that pleasure could be the primary motivator and yes I have even argued this my self in the past.

I think regardless of the angle it seems we are stuck with a duality whether it be pleasure /pain or fear and it's opposite what ever that may be.

What would be the opposite of fear I wonder?

I guess by saying pleasure, pain is implied. A form of deductive reasoning.

Maybe I am over generalising the subject.

 

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I think that one of the main reasons for this interest in the subject of fear is that the world seems so reactionary to fear in that the worlds fear is manifesting in paranoir or delusions based on that fear. Many examples exist to show how all of us in some way are affected by delusions based on fear. These delusion lead to mistaken conclusions and judgments. Thus affecting our societal functioning in some times rather major ways.

An example could be the reluctance to walk to the shop at night due to the fear whether proved or otherwise of being mugged or raped.

The fear of talking to strangers on a train because they seem so unpredictable.

The fear that men often feel about expressing their feelings.

The fear of showing fear and so on.

 

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You only have to think about what governs our spending of our money and why and how we budget.

"Can't by this because I won't have money later to by that" type of thing. or won't have the money to pay the rent or other bills. I tend to think of this being fear motivated. But calling it pleasure motivated would be just as valid I guess.

 

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Quantum Quack,

I still believe in the megalomaniac complex of our reason. It is more expressed in some people than in other though.

I still don't agree with that. In living organisms, the prime motivator is most likely the strife for balance and stability. In order to achieve stability, a great number of (sub-)motivations are employed -- depending on how complex the organism and the environment it lives in are --, and fear is only one of those motivations, or a side-effect.
As for pleasure, I think that pleasure is when stability is reached. In this sense, pleasure equals stability.

In another thread, about the origins of questions, there was a conclusion that doubt is the inicial indicator of self-awareness and thought. Mental wonderings are what is needed to (consciously) make a decision. Fear doesn't have necessarily something to do with doubt.

That's screwed. It testifies of a lack of personal integrity.

Think of all the cases of sacrifice: you choose less harm over more harm: you choose something that you think will bring more positive effect than negative effect. You can call this "avoiding pain" -- but it is really "avoiding GREATER pain" -- and it therefore is a representation of the need for balance and stability, not fear of pain.

Dr. Phil would say: "You first need to ask yourself WHY you eat, not what you eat."
But the fact is that people eat A LOT MORE highly fattening food -- to satify OTHER NEEDS. And why highly caloric food? It gives anyone, regardless of reason, a feeling of being full; you are more full if you eat a chocolate bar than eating an apple.

What came first? Advertising lite products or the issue of obesity?
I think what iniciated the whole thing was concentrating on looks, much more that it was ever done before. Concentrating on the looks probably came due to a decline in the importance of moral values, due to capitalistic expansion. Inseparatably combined with this is the immense progress of printed media and TV. Images, looks became more available than ever before; and as such new standards regarding looks could be made, and they were made. Already the Greeks thought that a beautiful body is a slim body. Well, they also thought that one who is beautiful, is also good; but someone who is not beautiful, cannot be good. Western society seems to have adopted this idea too.
With the expansion of printed media and TV, slim looks became the prevailing desirable way to look. What was once regarded as most valuable in a person, their morals and personal "goodness", was now replaced by good looks. The strife to be attractive started to equal the strife to be slim. Thence the lite and diet products.

But it turned out that the idea of "slim is the most important thing" isn't all that adequate to what makes a person attractive, or what makes one good. That's why the strife for being slim [as the most important thing] is so shallow and unfulfilling.

The issue of obesity is more complex, I think. The main reason for obesity is that it is due to psychological reasons. There are of course a few percent who have a genetic metabolism disorder or some other disease that makes one gain weight; but those are in the minority.
The real issue is wanting to feed other needs by eating. Eating makes you full, both in a literal and a metaphorical sense. People are using food to satify their need for love, acceptance, to compensate their fears and shortcomings -- of all kinds: psychological and physiological. Thinking that one is not smart enough, not rich enough, from a family not good enough; not having perfect teeth or hair or skin, having a disproportioned body, short legs, being too skinny or a bit roundy ... But it all comes down to a lack of personal strength and integrity.

Certainly, there is the issue of changed metabolism. We're talking about psychosomatics here.

In fact, once someone starts solving their problems a certain way, the body and the brain TUNE IN into that [if that way is eating, then it is a faulty way!] method, and then they run in that mode. Metabolisms change slowly; it takes some 6 months to successfully learn a new habit! That's why it is so damn hard to break out of a certain way of thinking/living.

In a spur of the moment, you may come up with an enlightment, a great idea: but you just seem to be unable to put it into practice. Why? Because your brain metabolism and your digestion/muscle metabolism need a lot of time to change gears. This is why, in practice, it takes an immense will to overcome a certain unproductive way of thinking/living. If someone already lacks personal strength, the harder it will be for him to gain some, and thus the vicious circle can be completed.

Why? Why reactionary to fear? I think this has something to do with the general relativity (" ") in our society. Standards, norms, values -- are all so vague, so relative, so changeable, so uncertain. Who wouldn't be afraid?!
But society feels that it should be democratic, allowing alternative ways of thinking, accepting differentness, believing in relativity. The only way to pursue these ideals is to be reactionary to fear.

Which doesn't change the fact though that fear IS present. Fundamentalisms of all kinds are a try to overcome fear. But then, fundamentalism is not democratic, so it shouldn't be there! It's a vicious circle.
Good old-fashion tyrannic systems based on religion are still the least fearful environment.

Wouldn't you say it is rather a self-fulfilling prophecy?

This is NOT A DELUSION! Today, this is very possible, and it is good and necessary to be afraid of going around at night or in certain neighbourhoods.

Tell me about it!
It probably has something to do with the patriarchic organisation of western society. The one in the leading position should not present any ways of behaviour that could be interpreted as weak, for this would endanger the social organisation that he is leading.

 

Wes,

The clue is in the emotions: We remember things due to the emotional value that tehy have for us. Something we consider of great emotional impact for us (a positive or a negative), we are more likely to remember. If you take a flight from NY to London and everything goes well, you are not likely to remember the name of the pilot. But if there was a storm over the Atlantic, and the plain made it through it, you are very likely to remember, for the rest of your life, the storm, the pilot's name, the person who sat next to you etc. The emotinal effect of people you love is very strong, and so is the memory of things connected to them.

That's the difference between the knowledge of authists-savants and normal people: savants don't have emotional evaluation of the information, so they just remember (sometimes) EVERYTHING. We think some things more important than other, so we differentiate between information, and we don't remember everything equally well.


Semon,

I agree with the first part. The film "Fearless" was a wonderful study of this phenomena.
Whether happiness comes from unhappiness -- you'll have to expand on this.

 

Rosa is this not all about the fear of instability and the pain that instability creates.

Why strive for balance? What is wrong with imbalance?

 

That's what living organisms do: they try to stay alive.

When The Great Master set the Universe in motion, this is where the strive for balance began. Imbalance as such is not possible, IMO, all there is is a greater or lesser balance. Sometimes, this lesser balance is called imbalance.

Imbalance would equal status quo = not breathing, not living, not moving. But for that, you would have to go beyond The Great Master. Meaning: imbalance would be possible when there would be no existence, no identity and no consciousness; but if they are not there, there is also no imbalance, as there is noone to perceive this balance.

 

While there is some truth toi this, it's doesn't necessarily hold. Well rather, it may have some merit in the abstract sense of stablity, meaning like, you gain pleasure and the capacity for it through mental stablity, but there are a number of bastardizatoin of pleasure and exceptions to the idea "pleasure = stability". I can deposit a load down your throat and find great pleasure in it - but that doesn't make me in any way 'stable', depending of course on what you mean by stable. A serial rapist would probably find stability to be something quite different that you or I. I think example covers both the physical form of raw pleasure, and the more abstracted type of pleasure at the same time. What if I take pleasure in your demise? Is that stable? I suppose subjectively it could be, but I don't see why it has to be. Can I be completely off my rocker and take pleasure in your demise? I'd think that more likely. I suppose you might question: Well is that really pleasure? I think it is. Would you agree?

I like this: "the prime motivator is most likely the strife for balance and stability". But I can't help but nitpick it. I'd say more accurately, the prime motivator is "the subjective good". "Strife for balance" may for whatever reason, be exactly what you don't seek, depending on what you've become through your experiences at a given time. The prime motivator is survival, but given the human propensisty for abstraction, survival is skewed into that which is questionably completely imaginary. As my experience shapes my imagination, and how I percieve the world around me (as through it and the propensities of my mind, I create the conceptual inter-relationships that structure my thinking and subconscious), a "profit function" of sorts can be identified. It's discernable directly through your actions/thoughts/words. If you watch carefully, I think you can start to see yourself doing it. Why did I type this? Why did you read it? If you can answer either in the context of the framework of your conceptual inter-relationships, well.. that is something special it seems to me. But of course, that's just what my skew has led me to spew. I obviously see it as my best interest to tell it to you now. I think it's probably because I look forward to the potential praise of my analysis and I've found you very insightful, so I see the potential for new insights, which my mind hungers. Further, I feel a level of social interaction and have an appreciation what i think is a healthy exchange of ideas. That I benefit and you benefit from the interplay of a wholly non-physical component of existence is fucking neat to me. Blah blah.. sorry, got on a tangent of trying to demonstrate what I appreciated about my tangent blah blah psychoanalysis I'll just stop this now.

I thought I made this point while talking to QQ? Why you always gotta make my points more clearly than I can?

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Thank you though, you are much more clear than I am I think.

That's an interesting notion. Hmm. That part about savants.. you're saying they don't have emotions? That their cicuits just don't allow emotions to interface with their stimulous? That doesn't make sense to me, as I'd guess they do have emotions, but they are uhm, less complicated in general (their emotions). As such, the emotions they do feel are possible even more intense that that of a "normal" person. That might go actually to re-enforcing the opposite of your claim, in that savants maybe remember better because of the raw emotion seating the information more firmly into their memory. Perhaps it's that their condition renders their perception to be siginificantly different that 'normal people' and the way they remember things follows suit? Perhaps in theses rare savants, they are simply autistic people whose entire brains have formed to do one thing (besides all the automated stuff), and so while we can do the thousand and ten different things, they just do the one, INCREDIBLY WELL. I dunno, just tossing some thoughts out there, gimme feedback please.

 

oh and rosa:

when it comes to first cause, my point becomes: Do you think from spacial dimension 2923934, the idea of "time" is really pertinent? It certainly is from the point of view of us dealing with TSC, but is our POV pertinent to that which is inherently beyond our comprehension?

I've grown to doubt that the term "when" is really applicable to that which lies outside the known universe. I don't mean it can't be, but I mean if we look at it, we have no choice but to force the idea through the filter of TSC (since that's where our POV exists) and in doing so, we cannot see it for anything outside of that... can we?

 

Wes,

Think of your function! "At any given time you do what is best for you in the way that you've learned and currently think is the way that works best for you to do it."
Someone achieves stability [pleasure!] by having lunch, someone by killing 20 people, someone by comitting suicide. It is all in their *context* of what they think *best* for them at a given time.

Just you try! I'll come and haunt you in your dreams! I'm highly qualified for that.

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Oh yes, it is pleasure/stability. It is just not a (traditionally?) SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE kind of pleasure, the same as suicide isn't.

Well, isn't that one and the same? The subjective good is what we strive for, it is another name for stabilty, balance, pleasure.

Giving it a different name states of a different *ethical* approach to the subject: If I call it "stability" or "balance" that per se is neutral, and a bit dry, in our society. "Pleasure" is connotated with hedonism, and hedonism isn't officially accepted. If I call it "the subjective good", this shows that I have a positive attitude towards it, and that I think something like it is "good to be alive".
Another exapmle, to be "unemployed" sounds much worse than to be "between jobs", but they both mean the same thing.

It's is just what you thought that you need to do right then, as you were thinking/typing it. And right now, as you are reading it, it is because you think it is just what you need to be doing. And when I was thinking/typing it, I did it because I thought it was best ...

I'm sorry if I come across as a smartass.

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I just thought that you presented your point to QQ in a manner that could be ambigous; it was ambigous to me, that's why I cleared it up for myself. Besides, I don't ALWAYS do that, foxy Wes.

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At least I'm good for something. (Hihi. My mind is just doing somersaults ...)

That's what observation and experiments show.

How can an emotion be more or less complicated? It can surely be more or less *rationalized*, but I don't believe emotions can be more or less complicated. Or? Expand!

That's exactly what I was thinking: that the emotions of savants are even stronger/more all-encompassing than ours. There is something that loudly speaks for them being in an intense emotional state most of the time: their limited abilities to do something else but that one thing. The articles I read about savants and books on emotional intelligence don't say anything like that about savants, but I bet there is some truth in my conclusions.

I was thinking why I have the weakest memory for musical pieces that I like best. I doesn't seem logical, right? (I chose musical pieces because I know a lot of them, with different emotional effects and differents grades of memorization.)
But the thing is that the memory of something can produce the same effect on us as the original stimulus itself. Those musical pieces that I like best produce an immense emotional impact on me -- and it is this immense emotional impact that I cannot afford just like that at any time! It is the strife for balance that prevents great swings of emotions.
But when in an intense emotional state, the organism is concentrated on doing just that one thing, disregarding everything else, allowing even more brain power to be invested into that state.
This is why I, trying to play the last movement of Mahler's 8th symphony in my head, can't do anything else, and I bet that I have a perfect copy of it in my brain, that I could play to myself when I would allow myself to get into such a strong emotional state.
(Think of a kennel of mating dogs: you can walk pass them in 1 meter distance, and they won't even notice you, while otherwise they'd shred you to pieces.)

And probably this is exactly what a savant's brain is tuned in to: to be in an intense emotional state most of the time. The difference between savants and "normal" people is that "normal" people have several *different* grades of emotional states, from mild to exuberant, or even madness.

Being able to experience those different emotional grades, a sense of controlling one's emotions develops, that then helps us "to behave".

There is s theory that we basically swim in emotions all the time; it is just that we are able to not let them take over, and have a certain control over them.

All this is due to the metabolism of the brain; and that metabolism is changeable. We are able to learn! You probably know girls from high-school who would be screaming with joy at seeing a lovely kitten or something like that -- and how these girls have changed over time, giving less exuberant reactions; and some other girls, who remained in their "screaming mode".

It must be that a savant's brain is genetically malprogrammed to much more intense emotional perception from the beginning on.
So it is not that savants wouldn't ascribe emotional value to certain stimuli -- it is more like that they are unable to ascribe/experience *different* grades of emotional value/intensity. This then, to an outside observer, easily seems like a lack of emotions.

You're most welcome, kind sir.

This is why the TSC theory is screwed, I elaborated it a bit on the Truman thread.

 

While I'm thinking about it I thought I'd try:

Okay imagine as an infant, your first experience of pain. Who knows what lead to it, maybe hunger made your stomach hurt, but you just feel pain and know nothing of the concept of hunger. As you complexificate, you learn the idea of hunger. Pain, the base sensation, becomes abstracted over the idea of food, into the idea of meals, hungry people in africa, death.. etc.

This is kind of what I mean by the complication of emotions. There is some base stuff that gets all wrapped up into your conceptual inter-relationships, or the "structure of your mind" or whatever. So as a general rule, to me it seems that emotions are as complicated as the host. Perhaps you have a "base volume" of emotional capacity, that is spread across your complexity. A little here, and little there.. or in the case of autistics - all of it in one spot.

That's not exactly right, but close enough I think to get the idea across?

 

Hmmm ... I'm not sure about this. The infant may not know the words "pain" and "hunger", and on a rational level, he won't have concepts of pain and hunger -- but this doesn't mean that he doesn't feel pain and hunger. I mean, the infant will cry, which is an indicator that something is going on.

Yes, I see your point.
As for hungry people in Africa and that -- I think that's empathy. In order for empathy to develop, one must have a certain amount of personal experience and be able to organize them somehow. It seems to me that empathy is a natural instinct, it is just differently developed. (It seems it works for other animals too, not just humans. We used to have two cats. As I was cleaning the ears of one, he cried ; the other cat came, stared straight into my eyes, meowed threateningly, and then eventually bit me in the leg. That's empathy.)

While talking about food and meals: I'm not sure this is a good example for emtions to be complicated. Feeding is an instinct, and this instinct is then shaped by the environment. In our world, we go places to eat, if we'd be living in a jungle, we'd go hunting or gathering ...

Isn't this "complication" then the same as "behaviour, as actually shaped by environment and experience"?

I'm not sure. We certainly have a certain emotional potential when we are born, and as we grow up this potential then gets shaped into behaviour and thinking styles. In order to survive and be able to sustatin ourselves, not all kinds of thinking and behaving are successful. If we would go on with the exact same behaviour where someone else would have to feed us and everything -- well, I don't think this is really possible, if a child has a healthy brain to develop with; "you can't stop progress".
Authistic children must have some disfuncition from the beginning on.

 

so ....Wes and Rosa, How does fear picture in all this?

 

Continued from last post:

And it is this disfunction that disables them to adjust to the environment (in the sense of becoming able to take care of oneself). This inadjustment is then demonstrated as autistic behaviour.

I'm thinking that a lot more is involved here, so it isn't just about emotional capacity being wide-spread or centred. That emotions appear centred is more likely an *indicator* that something else isn't properly dispersed, like neurotransmitters, or that a gland in the brain doesn't work right. And once we are at chemicals in the brain, there are probably long strings of inter-relations between one chemical process and another.
What in a normal person looks like "wide-spread emotions, little here, little there" is probably due to a lot of different processes. And on the other hand, what appears like "all in one spot" is probably due to a lot of different processes too.
I mean, looking at it from this POV, the whole thing with both normal people and autists makes a lot of sense to me.
[All we can make here are more or less intelligent speculations I think, because in order to get the real picture, a living brain would have to be analyzed for its chemical processes -- but this cannot really be done.]

 

He who fears nothing lives in Nirvana



- Jacko is Wacko (Stop Pedophiles) -

 

Good point for clarification.

If we say that the prime motivator for us is the strife for balance/stability/the subjective good -- and *not* fear, that allows us to look at fear from a significantly different POV from the one you first suggested.
In the concept of stability being the prime motivator, fear is a natural instinct or something learned. This natural instinct is of course shaped by the environment and experience in it. Then what we said before about fear applies, I think.


Wes,
I just thought of this: Did you by "complicated emotions" mean those that are learned/phobias -- like instinctive fear of snakes vs. learned fear of ropes?

Maybe the methodic troubles regarding this lay in how generally we perceive LEARNED:

1. We can say that a baby has original instincts and emotions, which are then SHAPED into certain emotions, ways of behaving and thinking. This way, we say that everything from baby age on is learned.
Or
2. We can say that we (as adults too) have primal instincts and emotions (these are the non-socialized and non-socializable), and secondary instincts and emotions (which are socialized). Here is also a third group, where the second kind (the socalized) gets altered in socially unspecific ways, like phobias.

Also, regarding how complicated emotions are: It depends on how far you wish to go; how complicated they appear, depends (a lot) on the observer/interpreter, don't you think?

I mean, think of Michael Jackson, for example.
Observer 1 knows him only from a few public appearances, and is likely to think that MJ is just a simple egocentric selfish bastard with potency problems.

Observer 2 knows MJ personally, knows the doubts and personal struggles MJ is going thorugh, and makes a totally different connection between the things MJ does than the connection observer 1 makes.

MJ knows some things about himself and makes connections that neither o1 nor o2 do.

Who is right? What are MJ's true emotions? How complicated are they really? The complexity of emotions, as we see them, is a lot due to how much we know about emotions in general, and how much we know about emotions of a certain individual person.
In this regard, the POV that all is learned or shaped by learning is more in place, as it doesn't deal with absolute values.

 

Maybe there is no need for an opposite of fear after all. Maybe fear, love, ... are like A, B and C and so on -- a line of emotions that are just there, or not there. And you need a complete ABC of them to be a "complete person".

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I would say 'confidence'.

 

More specifically, I mean the kind of thing where your instinctive fear of snakes becomes your learned fear of ropes... that ropes are squigly and you recognize that so your emotions regarding snakes ooze to also become your fear of ropes, but in the process your fear of snakes become more entrenched in your phsyche.. on and on and on..

 

Absolute confidence is an illusion.
A healthy measure of confidence contains some fear too; that means that (healthy) confidence does not exclude fear.

P.S.
Hey, LOSER (still!!), strange that we thought of the same thing at about the same tinme - 1 minute difference!