What is emotion?

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by zzz_ZZZ_zzz, Jan 17, 2006.

  1. Buddha1 Registered Senior Member

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    Can we leave my agenda behind for a while! I'm really trying to think!
     
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  3. Buddha1 Registered Senior Member

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    That still shows your overconfidence! You may have rebelled against and sought limited freedom from the overbearing culture --- but you would have created your own subgroup, with its own values, mores and influences.

    As long as we live in a society, we cannot be free from our social influences, and we cannot stop influencing others (as is obvious from various posts of yours!)
     
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  5. Buddha1 Registered Senior Member

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    I know nothing about spirituality, though I'd like to.

    I don't think we can understand life, if we ignore the physical part totally. We need to understand it first at the physical level and then we can graduate to the spiritual level.
     
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  7. Buddha1 Registered Senior Member

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    Why would you think that living organisms don't have a 'true nature'. E.g. a seed --- it may be naturally inclined to bloom and grow in a certain way, and that may be its true nature.
     
  8. Avatar smoking revolver Valued Senior Member

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    Speak only for yourself, not the rest of the mankind. If you can't, that doesn't mean that everybody else can't.

    And my posts...?

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    To be frank a lot of them are just written for laughing and playing with the responses and emotions of forumers.

    Besides Buddha achieved Nirvana, so why do you think nobody else can?
     
  9. Buddha1 Registered Senior Member

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    I think there are layers and layers of emotions. There are our first, often subconscious primary set of emotions. They trigger our secondary emotions. Our secondary emotions are also triggered by our perceptions of things --- and if they arise out of an unreal perception of things, they will differ from the secondary emotions triggered by the primary emotions.

    And all these emotions interact and produce may be a third generation of emotions. And it all gets very complex. Emotions influence opinions and opinions in turn influence emotions. E.g. my basic emotion about a certain thing may be 'pleasant'. At the same time my emotion about religious indoctrination may be 'blind total committment' which may become so strong that it may overshadow all my basic and secondary emotions. When the two are in confrontation, they may generate a strange kind of third generation of emotions that are mixed and confusing. Though I may try to make sense of them by rationalising them.
     
  10. Buddha1 Registered Senior Member

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    That doesn't mean that all of us stop living in the physical world or stop trying to understand it.
     
  11. cole grey Hi Valued Senior Member

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    I was saying that pure cognition may not even exist, perhaps what we call "thinking" is indivisibly linked to "feeling".
    What about the agenda of the "american way of life" for poor americans? There is a "possibility" of exit from an unfortunate situation, but there is also a "possibility" of winning the lottery, although I would categorize a person who expects to win the lottery as "irrational", due to the odds.
    The amount of possibility isn't my point though, it is that one might not know the end at the beginning and therefore might not know which agendas are rational or irrational. There are degrees of rationality in this "agenda" thing you speak of, that is where the "fix" gets a little complicated.
    This is where a person who thinks like you do can be quite invaluable to someone who thinks like i do - at a weak enough moment I may just believe you and re-create myself using your (seemingly impossible) idea, into something much closer to what my agendas dictate.
     
  12. Buddha1 Registered Senior Member

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    How about, it would be clearer to feel without thinking.

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  13. cole grey Hi Valued Senior Member

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    depends on what we mean by "clearer", i guess.

    Also, WATER -
    what about an irrational desire that requires a completely rational agenda to accomplish it? Is the agenda rational or irrational? Should I fix it?
     
  14. Avatar smoking revolver Valued Senior Member

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    Understanding it is the release. The moment when samsara turns to nirvana.
    There are no two worlds, there is just one.

    Like Jesus said
    (Thomas gospel; 113)
     
  15. Buddha1 Registered Senior Member

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    Exactly, and the problem with men is that they have been too much distanced from their 'emotions' --- because they are told emotions are 'feminine'. Men are trained to use their 'head' instead of their 'heart', to be emotionless, to be 'pragmatic'. And that has made men insensitive. Insensitive to his own pain and to the pain of others around him. Insensitive also to his own inner nature, as well as to the nature outside of him. And that is how 'science' comes into being. Science which seeks to exploit control and destroy nature for 'pragmatic', short term gains.

    It's all interrelated.
     
  16. water the sea Registered Senior Member

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    Is cooking, or sex, self, or not-self?
    If it is not-self, then it is secondary to our true nature.
    If it is self ... then I don't know what to say here. I think those things are not-self though.
     
  17. water the sea Registered Senior Member

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    Sure. And?
    Thinking that being influenced is something awful, is a bigger problem than the actual influence itself.
     
  18. water the sea Registered Senior Member

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    Sure, I didn't imply that living organisms don't have a "true nature".
    But I think we can mostly only speculate about the "true nature" of things.
    So it's not a very wise endeavour to do so -- to speculate.


    I am not saying to ignore the "physical part".
    But I do have troubles to draw the line between the physical and the non-physical.
     
  19. Buddha1 Registered Senior Member

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    What is 'self'? How do we understand it? How do we get in touch with it?
     
  20. Buddha1 Registered Senior Member

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    a. I was responding to Avatar's post who claimed that he exists without being influcenced by the society.

    b. Influence can be both good and bad. And it certainly can be awful. In the modern world, influences are often bad than good for an average middle class human being.
     
  21. Avatar smoking revolver Valued Senior Member

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    I didn't claim that, I said "mostly".
     
  22. water the sea Registered Senior Member

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    Cole Grey,



    I have an approach which I really really like (...):
    I don't distinguish between "feelings" and "thoughts". They're all one anyway.
    Solves many many problems for me.


    One never knows the end at the beginning anyway.
    I mean the term "rational" in the sense of 'proportional', ie, proportional to the circumstances and resources available.
    Of course, what "proportional" means, is relative.

    Bottomline, the basic problem is that not all desires are worth acting on, not all goals are worth pursuing. This, however, is for the individual to realize.


    I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean.
    Why would my idea be impossible?


    It all depends on your priorities.

    Most desires are such that demand rational agendas to pursue those desires.
    I'm not sure that there are desires that can be satisfied by an irrational agenda of pursuing them, or that there are desires that can be satisfied by happenstance.

    Also, whether a desire is rational or not: Proceeding a desire is a reason, something that drives us. Problems emerge when we harbor inconsistent reasons.
     
  23. Buddha1 Registered Senior Member

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    I have not endeavoured to speculate here about what is "true nature" (though I don't think it unwise to do so, I believe humans can be happy only when they flow with their true nature. Unhappiness arises when we go away from our true nature. And to figure this out we have to find out what our true narure is!)

    All I am saying is that our emotions are our connection (perhaps our only connection) with our true nature.

    They tell us when we move away from this true nature or when we harm it. And they signal us when we move in harmony with and in the direction of our true nature.
    On a hunch I think I agree with you there!
     

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