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Re: opinion survey » littleone

Posted by Estella on May 17, 2006, at 22:53:47

In reply to Re: opinion survey » Estella, posted by littleone on May 17, 2006, at 21:06:35

> Yes. I don't think their behaviour is *just* behaviour. I think it is driven by emotion. Fear is an obvious one that I think we've all seen animals experience. And from living with my cat I can see her get in certain moods. Moods driven by emotion.

yeah. i think so too. Le Doux studied fear response in rats and made some generalisations back to humans. some philosophers attempt to write off his findings as fairly irrelevant because philosophers tend to think that... cognition is very central to emotion indeed (an intuition that tends to be at odds with people who aren't in the grip of a philosophical theory and so I say YAY!!!! 'cause i don't like cognitive theories of emotion) cognitive theories of emotion sometimes entail that infants and animals can't have emotion because they lack the concepts that are required for emotion. but to me that seems backwards. i think most people think that animals can indeed have emotion and philosophers are in the grip of a theory...
:-)

> how about human infants?
> I would guess yes, but I've never really spent any time around babies. So that is not an educated guess.

happiness is an emotion
and rage... i think infants can get frustrated / angry when they are hungry etc.
seems fairly plausible...
but i have read descriptions of them as having emotions and i haven't spent any time around them particularly...

> > which seems to be most central to emotion?

> I think your body changes are a result of the emotions you are experiencing (although I don't think my T thinks the same as me re that).

so emotion -> body changes.
(in which case emotions aren't identical with body changes because emotions CAUSE body changes)

> I think your emotions can affect your thoughts and your thoughts can affect your emotions.

so emotions can cause thoughts
and thoughts can cause emotions
(so emotions aren't identical with thoughts because something can't cause itself...)

so...

> To me the felt quality you mention *is* emotion. But once again, I think my T believes something different to that.

that leaves phenomenology. i think that most people (aside from philosophers and maybe psychologists and clinicians) think that phenomenology is most central :-)

i think philosophers / psychologists / clinicians don't like to talk about phenomenology because phenomenology is a hard topic that isn't very well understood... but IMO that is no excuse...

> > 3. are unconscious emotions possible?

> I would definately say yes to this, but I'm not sure if we are talking about the same thing.

> I know you can *feel* sad, but it is really anger that's driving you. And in fact you can be totally unaware of that anger. You are only conscious of feeling sad.

okay. so we can mistake what particular emotion we are experiencing... but can we make a mistake in the fact that we are / are not experiencing an emotion?

(though this does seem to create some trouble for the notion that phenomenology might not only determine whether we are having an emotion or not but might also determine which emotion we are experiencing... basically... the latter claim seems to be false...)

> Also, often I will *know* that I am very angry about something, but I will feel nothing. Psychological numbing.

hmm.

i mean this question very genuinely...

how do you know you are angry if you feel nothing?

(i get that too... i'm not sure what to say in response to that question...)

> And I also definately think you can be mad at something/someone and know you're mad but have no idea what it is you're mad at. Same with mis-directed anger. Mad at my boss/T/husband instead of at my mum or dad.

yeah. i find that too.

> Hope this was what you were talking about.

yes it was indeed. thanks very much. yeah the notion of 'unconscious emotion' is (all by itself) a fairly badly formed question thanks for drawing my attention to that... best segment it off into a few related questions thanks :-)


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poster:Estella thread:645293
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20060513/msgs/645353.html