Be calm; I don't think you're a fool in any way or I wouldn't be talking to you. I am having trouble understanding a bit of what you are saying. It may be language difficulties or perhaps we have different concepts going on. For example...Quote:
Originally Posted by Psychotronic
What are these abstract emotions? Are you talking about (to use a biblical context) the Knowledge of Good & Evil? The kind of sense that something is right or wrong when you do or say it? That could easily be more to do with experience & association than with emotions. I'm not sure but I think you're confusing emotions with feelings. Feelings can come from mental processes that are related to experience & memory, whereas this conversation began with talking about how people react emotionally to events that occur outside themselves.Quote:
Originally Posted by Psychotronic
And animals (some of them anyway) experience the higher emotions as well - there are numerous instances of dogs sacrificing themselves for their owners. If that isn't love, I am not sure what might constitute Love.
Sorry, but I don't understand this part - are you saying you have a feeling about the state of society & this feeling comes from emotions? I think it is more an internal thing & is based on your knowledge & experience of life & the people you've met & heard. The feeling doesn't come from emotion, it comes from the associations - we know from dreaming & from imagination studies that the mind 'relives' memories & they can have similar effects in the brain to the original events.Quote:
Originally Posted by Psychotronic
I think you may be confusing the meaning of dialectic - dialectic is to do with opposing theses, a statement of a situation or theory that is countered by its opposite but then works to resolution via a compromise of opposites.Quote:
Originally Posted by Psychotronic
Sorry mate, I find this confusing again. I think you're saying that using logic is a step by step process & so to decide something or form an opinion may take a long time, where it is possible to arrive at a conclusion almost instantly rather than go the step by step route. This is called intuition & isn't emotion. A guy called Edward de Bono named it as Lateral Thinking & there are processes we can use to stimulate the flow of intuitive thought - but they aren't particularly emotive processes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Psychotronic
Now I think of it, I read back & I think you may be talking more about Intuition than Emotion. If so, I agree entirely - there are times when logic fails & intuition can work better. But from my PoV, there are very rarely times when relying solely on emotion brings a reasonable result - emotion modified by reason is what (to me) makes us human.
Perhaps you could tell me what you consider to be primitive or abstract emotions? I'm not in the camp of those who claim everything is chemicals & brain processes - I think if I was this wouldn't be a site I'd frequent. But from science it is clear that the base emotions do arise from chemical changes - if I am understanding what you are saying, the virtues (abstract emotions like honour & love) aren't body emotions at all & are not provoked from external events but rather from internal reaction & experiences. That is, in the process I described earlier, they come along after the primitive brain has passed along the emotional coloured perceptions & only when the reasoning mind has had a chance to review the 'event' perception. That is why a person can hit someone they love in reaction to a momentary rage - the 'higher' or abstract feelings don't get a chance to moderate the reaction - the rage comes & they lash out & only after they hit does the 'love' come along & bring shame.Quote:
Originally Posted by Psychotronic