That's a good line. But does this imply that Rorty has poetry wrong and therefore can't really be valuing it properly? Or are you saying that his way of understanding and valuing poetry is different to yours? — Tom Storm

I think Rorty's explanation of poetry shows he has no real grasp of how it works or what it does. As I noted, he seems like he wants to be open-minded about something he doesn't really think is very important. He says a couple of things in this article that made me laugh:

In that essay, as in previous writings, I used "poetry" in an extended sense. I stretched Harold Bloom's term "strong poet" to cover prose writers who had invented new language games for us to play — people like Plato, Newton, Marx, Darwin, and Freud as well as versifiers like Milton and Blake. These games might involve mathematical equations, or inductive arguments, or dramatic narratives, or (in the case of the versifiers) prosodic innovation...

...I now wish that I had spent somewhat more of my life with verse. This is not because I fear having missed out on truths that are incapable of statement in prose. There are no such truths; there is nothing about death that Swinburne and Landor knew but Epicurus and Heidegger failed to grasp. — Richard Rorty - The Fire of Life

This is such bullshit. He claims poetry is important and then explains it away as nothing significantly different from other types of intellectual endeavor. And this made me groan:

We are now more able than Plato was to acknowledge our finitude — to admit that we shall never be in touch with something greater than ourselves. We hope instead that human life here on earth will become richer as the centuries go by because the language used by our remote descendants will have more resources than ours did. Our vocabulary will stand to theirs as that of our primitive ancestors stands to ours. — Richard Rorty - The Fire of Life

This is so arrogant and pompous - to claim that we are, that he is, somehow intellectually and spiritually more advanced than Plato and Aristotle (or for me, Lao Tzu).

Not to be unkind to Mr. Rorty - or you - but his explication is very far from my thoughts about, or experience of, poetry.
— T Clark

So? I don't share Rorty's views and, as I have said elsewhere, I have little interest in poetry. But I am interested in what others think, particularly influential philosophers. — Tom Storm

I knew you don't have much interest in poetry, which is why I was surprised by your comment. Rorty's explication of poetry reminds me of an atheist trying to give an open-minded and sympathetic explanation of religion without really having any idea what it's about.

You say "So?" Hey, you brought the whole thing up.

Yes, that thread is something of an anomaly, though I'm happy with where it is. — Jamal

I agree. Many times I've been steered in new philosophical and scientific directions by posts on that thread.

Here is a short and famous piece he wrote on poetry and philosophy.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/articles/68949/the-fire-of-life — Tom Storm

Not to be unkind to Mr. Rorty - or you - but his explication is very far from my thoughts about, or experience of, poetry.

Like that? — Pantagruel

Lorenz describes animals' "cognitive" capabilities, starting from the most basic, e.g. irritability, kinesis, phobic response, topic response. These foundational capacities are the building blocks for more complex mental processes up to our own. The addition of memory is needed to climb above very basic levels and this calls for a nervous system. Obviously, things become a lot more complicated as you move to the more complex organisms. That's the continuity I was talking about.

A few weeks ago, I discussed an article I read by Konrad Lorenz, "Kant's Doctrine of the A Priori in the Light of Contemporary Biology." It was a discussion of how our human nervous system and mind have evolved as a "negotiation" between Kant's things-as-they-are, the noumena, and our animal need to survive. A link to my post:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/915561

I was so impressed by the article I went looking for more information. Lorenz's "Behind the Mirror" is a detailed expansion of the article. It's completely changed the way I think about human and animal behavior and the mind. I was a psychology major in the early 1970s, when this book was written. My first reaction while reading was how could they not have shown this to us, taught this to us. Ethology, the study of animal behavior, gives us a framework, a context, to understand human neurology and psychology. People say that psychology isn't really a science - it has no solid basis in empirical study. Lorenz's and others work provided that basis decades before the techniques of cognitive science were available. This is from the forward.

[Kant] saw clearly that the forms of apprehension available to us are determined by pre-existing structures of the experiencing subject and not by those of the object apprehended, but he did not see that the structure of our perceiving apparatus had anything to do with reality. In... the Critique of Pure Reason he wrote:

If one were to entertain the slightest doubt that space and time did not relate to the Ding an sich but merely to its relationship to sensuous reality, I cannot see how one can possibly affect to know, a priori and in advance of any empirical knowledge of things, i.e. before they are set before us, how we shall have to visualize them as we do in the case of space and time.

Kant was obviously convinced that an answer to this question in terms of natural science was categorically impossible. In the fact that our forms of ideation and categories of thought are not, as Hume and other empiricists had believed, the products of individual experience, he found clear proof that they are logically inevitable a priori, and thus not 'evolved'.

What a biologist familiar with the facts of evolution would regard as the obvious answer to Kant's question was, at that time, beyond the scope of the greatest of thinkers. The simple answer is that the system of sense organs and nerves that enables living things to survive and orientate themselves in the outer world has evolved phylogenetically through confrontation with an adaptation to that form of reality which we experience as phenomenal space. This system thus exists a priori to the extent that it is present before the individual experiences anything, and must be present if experience is to be possible. But its function is also historically evolved and in this respect not a priori. — Lorenz - Behind the Mirror

Lorenz then goes on to describe specific cognitive capabilities in simple organisms and how they evolve into the much more complex capabilities we have today. I think the most compelling idea in the book is there there is a direct continuity between the "cognition" of the earliest animals and the cognition of complex animals such as us.

This is a topic for a thread. — wonderer1

It is a question that has been argued many times here on the forum. I've made my arguments so many times, it's hard to work up any enthusiasm to do it again.

All the more reason to take consideration of free will out of the box of metaphysics. — wonderer1

You and I understand metaphysics differently. It's not that we haven't found proof that free will exists or doesn't exist, it's that it is not a question that can be answered empirically.

In many ways, the poem becomes about how—through retroactive narrative—the poet turns something as irrational as an “impulse” into a triumphant, intentional decision.

Yes. It's all about the stories we tell rather than what happened. I'm 72. Looking back over the things I've done and that have happened to me, there are no stories to tell. Things just happened. That doesn't mean I'm not responsible for the things I've done, but they don't mean anything.

To me the poem suggests recognition of determinism - that many little things make all the difference in the courses of our lives. — wonderer1

I don't think it's about determinism. As I see it, it's just a sly comment on the human need for stories about ourselves.

a woo based belief in free will — wonderer1

Are you saying that free will doesn't exist - that it's somehow a allusion to mysticism or the supernatural? I don't see it that way. Sometimes it makes sense to act as if ours and others' behaviors are the result of outside influences and sometimes it makes sense to act as if we are in control. Free will vs. determinism is a metaphysical issue. Its not about facts - true or false.

I see books on psychology as having a shelf life of about 20 years. — wonderer1

William James, Konrad Lorenz, and even Sigmund Freud still have a lot to tell us, just to name a few. The methods and technology for study have changed, but our minds haven't.

The Road Less Travelled by M. Scott Peck — fdrake

The phrase "the road less travelled" is from a poem by Robert Frost - "The Road Not Taken." It is ironic that the Peck used this quote because Frost meant it ironically. It is not meant as a paean to a life of non-conformity but rather a wry comment on how we look back on our lives and try to show how we are masters of our fate.

Offense is the feeling of hating facts. — Brendan Golledge

No, it's not. "Offense" means "Annoyance or resentment brought about by a perceived insult to or disregard for oneself or one's standards or principles." You should consider she might be offended by your lack of consideration for her things that matter to her more than she is of the holes in your clothes. But I guess that's not philosophy.

I think in lower animals, good = pleasure and bad = pain. — Brendan Golledge

No. As I noted earlier, your understanding of ethology - animal behavior - is lacking. Animal and human emotions come from the same place, although it's true that our more developed higher cognitive functions make human emotion more highly developed.

I could also be missing out just due to my brain not being able to digest them properly or something. — Baden

As I noted, I felt like that for a while. I just haven't been able to care. That seems to be changing now and I'm enjoying it. At least you've got football and Benny Hill to watch.

99.9% of visual entertainment is trash. — Baden

I haven't watched movies or TV much in about 15 years. I've just found them unsatisfying. I find myself quitting in the middle when someone does something that nobody would ever do or the plot goes somewhere ridiculous. I'm old enough to say, and sometimes believe, they made movies better when I was young. And yes, I remember when candy bars were a nickel.

That being said, there are a lot of wonderful movies and television shows out there. We get to watch everything, anything, that has been made in the past 100+ years. I subscribed to the Criterion Channel a few months ago. That's a streaming service that plays artsy fartsy movies. I've been watching more lately and enjoying it.

Original 70s version only. — Baden

Of course. Both Wilder and Depp were creepy, but Wilder was good creepy and Depp was creepy creepy.

Are you sure it wasn't this thread? :cool: — wonderer1

I'm old. You'll have to make allowances.

What I'm trying to get at is that what I'm calling "core beliefs" seem to exist in a pre-linguistic way. That's what I'm getting at with the idea of a "linguistic quantum world". It's admittedly a sloppy metaphor. I think there are layers to belief, and if you continue to strip them back, things do indeed get murky until you uncover something pretty raw in the core of your being. — Noble Dust

In another thread I recently had a similar discussion where I got all hard-ass and philosophical about what a belief really is. Now I've started down that same path with you, but I'm not sure that is the right way to go about it. As I acknowledged in my previous post on this thread, I recognize layers of thought, consciousness, experience, or whatever you want to call it that come before language. That is at the heart of what the Tao Te Ching and Chuang Tzu are about. Becoming aware of how this all fits together is why I am interested in philosophy.

And since I'm already here, I've been thinking about my favorite movies about food.

"Babette's Feast" - The story of a famous Parisian chef who moves to Denmark in the 1800s to be a housekeeper for a bunch of dour Calvinists. Wonderful, moving, mouthwatering.

"Mostly Martha" - German with subtitles. The story of an inflexible chef whose sister dies and leaves her with her nine-year-old niece to take care of. It becomes a romantic comedy when an earthy Italian sous chef comes to work at the restaurant. The kitchen scenes are believable and amusing. The characters are appealing and their friendships are natural and believable.

"Tampopo" - Japanese with subtitles. A widow owns a run-down ramen shop. A group of her customers take it on themselves to teach her how to cook ramen correctly and fix up her shop. Funny with cowboy and gangster movie overtones.

Does "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" count?

"Big Night" - Persnickety chef Stanley Tucci and his brother Tony Shalhoub struggle to run a small, traditional Italian restaurant across the street from a popular spaghetti palace. Tucci can't understand when people complain it takes 45 minutes for them to serve the risotto after it is ordered.

"The Trip" - Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon travelling through northern England eating at fancy restaurants and doing Michael Caine impressions.

I recently watched Paul Thomas Anderson's "Licorice Pizza" and liked it very much. This is my summer of nice movies. It's about the friendship between a 15 year old boy and a 25 year old women in the early 1970s in Los Angeles. They call this a romantic comedy, which I guess makes sense, except it's only the boy who thinks it's a romance. What's important is the relationship between the two main characters. The boy is a child actor with maybe a bit of ADHD and the woman is somewhat aimless - living at home and working at a dead-end job. The growth of their friendship is funny and moving. We see what they each see in the other and it makes them better people.

Thanks.

I happen to believe that the functionally unified, normative, goal-oriented organization of living systems is what consciousness is in its most primordial sense — Joshs

Whenever we set sail on the sea of consciousness, differences in definitions are often the reefs on which our arguments run aground. I would not normally call what you have described "consciousness." That's not an argument against your position, but we are talking about different things.

The above account suggests instead that affect, cognition and consciousness developed in tandem. — Joshs

I think I was clear in my previous post that emotions are involved in all aspects of our cognitive life. At the same time, it is true that every mammal that has ever existed has had emotions. Emotions were a part of animal cognition long before anything we would call consciousness had evolved.

I realize that if you're talking about how those words are commonly used, then what I said was not right. But when I was talking about instincts/desires/emotions, I was giving definitions that I find useful for the purpose of discussion. — Brendan Golledge

If you want to participate effectively in philosophical discussions, you should use words as they are commonly understood. At the very least, you should specify clearly what non-standard usages you are using.

Lots of people have told me things like, "What you said is contradictory", or "I disagree", but if they don't provide an argument, then I have no reason to change my mind. — Brendan Golledge

I have provided specific arguments in my posts in this thread based on my understanding of cognitive science and psychology while you have provided nothing beyond "seems to me" based on a very incomplete understanding of both religion and science.

enactivist approaches to cognitive psychology insist that cognitive and affective processes are closely interdependent, with affect, emotion and sensation functioning in multiple ways and at multiple levels to situate or attune the context of our conceptual dealings with the world , and that affective tonality is never absent from cognition. — Joshs

Yes, I agree with this strongly. People with damage to those areas of the brain involved in emotions sometimes find themselves unable to make even the simplest decisions. There is no doubt that emotions are interwoven with all aspects of our cognitive life. But that's not what Brendan Colledge wrote. Here's what he said:

I believe values (what we care about) are the root of our emotional experience, and our emotions drive what things we think about, and what we think about drives what we do. So, studying the self is really the same as studying values. And that's really the same as morality. And this is also what religion is concerned with. — Brendan Golledge

Emotions developed early in our species evolutionary history and parts of the brain involved in emotions are located in more "primitive" areas, i.e. in the pre-cortex. In that context, what does "values are the root of our emotional experience" even mean? To over-simplify, the emotions were there first. They are part of the foundation of our thinking and were there long before consciousness.

when I try to share my ideas, most people don't engage or are vacuously hostile. So, I have very little other than my own opinions of my ideas as a check on whether they are right or not. — Brendan Golledge

I am a big fan of introspection, so I have no problem with looking within for answers, but that doesn't compensate for opinions that are just objectively wrong.

Well, obviously all of our instincts, desires, and emotions are wired to keep us alive. But it seems to me that the way emotions do that is that they make us try to make ourselves happy. It seems like a common-sense thing that we prefer to be happy rather than sad. — Brendan Golledge

You make two unrelated statements. First you say the way emotions help keep us alive is to try to make ourselves happy. This is mostly wrong. Then you say that we prefer to be happy than sad, which is generally true, but irrelevant.

I've thought before that instincts appear to be those behaviors which act without thinking (like blinking), — Brendan Golledge

These are reflexes, not instincts.

desires are from the body but require conscious action to act upon (like hunger) — Brendan Golledge

Desires are from all over the place. Some are definitely instinctive others are learned or socially mediated. Acting on those desires may be based on conscious decisions but are not necessarily. In my experience, conscious action is more likely to restrict the fulfilling of desires than support them.

It seems clear at least that Christianity is more inward focused than many other religions. Take Islam, for instance. All the commands are outward focused, like professing a belief in Muhammad, taking a pilgrimage, giving to the poor, etc. The two main commandments in Christianity are to love one's neighbor as one's self and to love God with all one's heart. And the 7 deadly sins (I know this is a Catholic thing) are inward orientations of the soul rather than particular actions. — Brendan Golledge

This seems like a very simplistic analysis. More than that - it's presumptuous unless you are a student of religion, which you indicate you are not.

I'd never heard that quote before. Maybe I should read Franz Kafka. — Brendan Golledge

I've never been able to read Kafka's books. They are bleak and depressing and I find their lessons obscure unless it is just that we should all despair. I don't know where the quote I provided comes from.

I believe values (what we care about) are the root of our emotional experience, and our emotions drive what things we think about, and what we think about drives what we do. So, studying the self is really the same as studying values. And that's really the same as morality. And this is also what religion is concerned with. — Brendan Golledge

I disagree with just about everything in this paragraph.

Out of the Silent Planet — Count Timothy von Icarus

I read this when I was a kid and really liked it. I read it again more recently and was less impressed. Still it’s my favorite title of any book ever.

By "true" in this case I mean that my mental model has a correspondence (or isomorphism) with what is going on within the physical system being mentally modeled. — wonderer1

Before you were using a non-standard meaning for "belief." Now you're using a non-standard meaning for "truth." This is not just a nit-picky linguistic argument. As I understand it, the thought processes you and I are in disagreement about are different neurologically, psychologically, and philosophically.

Nuff said.

Well knowing something about an electronics design I'm considering is often for me a matter of pictures or maybe something somewhat analogous to videos. — wonderer1

I gave a definition of "belief" in a previous post - "attitudes about the world which can be either true or false." You must be using a different definition, which makes fruitful discussion impossible. How can a picture or video be true or false?

...saying I know something is a different matter than expressing what it is that I know. — wonderer1

I'm shaking my head. That doesn't make any sense to me. I can't imagine what kind of thing you might say. Please give me an example.

I imagine that in some cases I could communicate things in pictures and without resorting to words, — wonderer1

I never said you can't communicate without words.

In fact the video game Journey is an example of such a strange communication game, as it doesn't provide for language use between players, but it certainly allows for teaching aspects of Journey-world physics via a sort of monkey-see/monkey-do mechanism. — wonderer1

I'd never heard of the game, which isn't surprising. I not a game-playing kind of person. I looked it up though. It looks interesting. I can't tell if it is relevant to our discussion.

As I said, we're using different definitions. Our posts aren't connecting with each other. It's probably not productive for us to continue.

I find it interesting, in light of your career as an engineer, that you question having beliefs that are not expressed in words. — wonderer1

My stereotype of an engineer is someone who would think that beliefs have to be expressed in words. Be that as it may, for philosophers, beliefs are true or false and truth only applies to propositions which are necessarily expressed in words.

I often believe, and I'd say know things, without the belief being expressed in words. — wonderer1

Not to be cute, but since saying things uses words, how can you say you know things that aren't expressed in words. That's a serious question.

You mentioned once, funneling facts into your head and engineering solutions arising later as a result. If you don't mind me asking, were the results that arose from this process results in the form of words? — wonderer1

Hey, no fair using my own previous arguments against me. But seriously, and as I already acknowledged - my understanding and experience is that

...there is something - thought, emotion, even motivation to act - beneath language. I think, but I'm not sure, that we can access, experience that something. — T Clark

And yes, the results that arise from this non-verbal processing are in words and I would call them, if not beliefs, at least conjectures or understandings. The truth, validity, and usefulness of those results can't be determined without further evaluation and justification, which takes place using words and numbers.

Be warned that there's a good chance I'll pull a newbie OP move and ghost this entire thread, i.e. not respond to anyone's replies. — Noble Dust

I forgot this. You should be warned. I know where you live (Brooklyn), and I know what you look like (Casey Affleck with a beard). I'll just go to every hoity toity liquor store in Brooklyn and show them your picture. There couldn't be more than a couple thousand. I'm sure I can find you and give you a good talking to.

First off, it's good to see you step out from the Shoutbox and toss us some meat to chew on. Also, I'd like to praise your use of the term "quantum" in the title, even though the content of the OP has nothing to do with physics. Everything is better, more interesting, when you bring quanta into it. I think it would be good if the forum required every OP to include "quantum" at least once. Now, down to business.

What is a belief, and what is an attitude? Are they synonyms? Are they different aspects of the same thing? — Noble Dust

My first thought was "no, of course they are not synonyms. I'll provide definitions and set ND straight," but then I went to the web:

...philosophers use the term "belief" to refer to attitudes about the world which can be either true or false. To believe something is to take it to be true; for instance, to believe that snow is white is comparable to accepting the truth of the proposition "snow is white". — Wikipedia - Belief

So, yes, I guess "belief" is a synonym for "attitude" or at least a type of attitude.

We receive language as a tool that we use to differentiate the undifferentiated raw data of experience [notice that the words "raw" and "data" used here are metaphors]. I want to understand my beliefs, so I use language to dissect my experience of believing [dissect, another metaphor]. — Noble Dust

To nit pick, processing data from our senses begins long (relatively - you know, milliseconds) before we get to the level of language. In my understanding, language comes along at the end of the production line to package up all the processing so we can tell ourselves and others what it means. I don't know if that makes a difference in the context of your OP.

Back to the original questions above. What is a belief? On the surface it appears to be a set of thoughts formed into words (or not) that signify something for me in my world. But I think this is just a surface level understanding. If I use language to dig around deeper into the cadaver of my thoughts, the knife eventually hits the operating table. I've cut through the whole thing. Belief is not a set of thoughts which are then represented by words. — Noble Dust

This gets a bit murky. In my understanding, truth is a factor that only applies to propositions, which are expressed in language. So, can you have a belief that is not expressed in words? I think maybe the answer is "no," but I'm not sure. Are you talking about something different from belief, different from truth? I think the answer to that is probably "yes."

Beneath language, at the quantum level of experience, is something that exists in an undifferentiated form. This is belief. Belief is undifferentiated from reality down here. There is no "higher" reality in a spiritual sense, nor a "true" reality (in contrast to falsehood) in a logical sense, that exists "behind" or "beneath" my beliefs about reality. Belief is reality. There is no difference. — Noble Dust

I teased you about "quantum" previously, but now I'll put the squeeze on you. If you mean "quantum" as a metaphor, ok, but you're opening the door for lots of confusion. If you mean it literally, you're just using the word wrong. As for "something that exists in an undifferentiated form", as I noted previously, that doesn't really exist. Differentiation starts right as signals enter our sense organs. Eyes, ears, noses, skin, and tongues are designed by evolution to sort, classify, and sometimes discard information from the input we get from the world. That processing continues at every step on every level of your nervous system.

So, no. Belief is not reality, at least not in the sense we usually use that word. We do not have access to unprocessed reality. Now we can argue about what we really mean by "reality." That's a common theme here on the forum, one that no one can ever agree on.

To stop picking nits, I do believe there is something - thought, emotion, even motivation to act - beneath language. I think, but I'm not sure, that we can access, experience that something. As you know, I am strongly attracted to the ideas expressed in the Tao Te Ching and other Taoist sources. As I understand it, gaining access to, becoming aware of, that pre-language aspect of our selves is the whole point.

Good OP. Thanks for the opportunity to pontificate.

My father, shortly before he entered seminary, spanked me until I was black and blue when I was six months old, and my mother stayed with him. — wonderer1

I'm sorry it happened to you, but I don't see how it is relevant to your point. Both religious and non-religious people do things like that.

I don't want to pry any deeper, so I'll leave it at that.

No, I didn't say anything about actions by religious institutions. — wonderer1

You wrote:

I could tell you horror stories about the results of a strongly religion based 'understanding' of psychology. — wonderer1

How is that different from what I said? Perhaps you can provide an example of one of the horror stories.

I know dogs have moods, because I've owned many. But then domestic dogs have existed in a symbiotic relationship with humans for 50,000 years. — Wayfarer

This sounds like the No True Scottish Terrier fallacy.

Granted, but not clearly relevant to what I was interested in discussing with ↪Brendan Golledge. — wonderer1

I think it is relevant. You say the validity of the psychological understanding expressed by religious beliefs is somehow invalid because of the consequences of actions by religious institutions. If that's true, and I don't think it is, the same can be said for the physical, chemical, and technological knowledge resulting from science.

First, there is no way of knowing, or of testing, whether animals have emotional states. ‘Thinking animals’ is also a contentious claim, as what ‘thinking’ implies, and whether animals are capable of it, is vaguely defined and probably untestable. — Wayfarer

I am surprised, shocked actually, to hear you say this. I find it hard to believe that anyone who has seen animals, much less owned them as pets, would not understand that animals have the same kinds of emotions we do and that those emotions fill the same role as ours. To deny this conflicts with with my personal experience and my understanding of ethology, human psychology, and biology. Evolution does not build new genetic and organic structures from nowhere. It builds them out of what is already there. The bones of our inner ears started out as the jaw bones of fish. Ditto with our mental capacities.

I don't propose we get into a discussion about this here. I'm interested in the subject but I'm not qualified to make my case any better than I have here. It would also be out of the scope of this discussion as expressed in the OP.

Thanks for the recommendation, although I don’t do very well with horror movies. I tend to sit hunched over with my hands covering my eyes.

horror stories about the results of a strongly religion based 'understanding' of psychology. — wonderer1

The world of science and technology is full of its own horror stories.

I enjoyed your OP. It's well-written and clear. I found a lot to disagree with and I think you make many over-broad statements that aren't necessarily consistent with my understanding of ethnology, human psychology and cognitive science, and sociology. I also think your tone is a bit presumptuous - expressing your opinions as fact. On the other hand, I was surprised to find I agree with you on some important points. Some thoughts:

All thinking animals (such as birds and mammals) appear to be hardwired to try to improve their emotional state. That one seeks after the "good" and tries to avoid the "bad" seem to be intrinsic to what "good" and "bad" are. Thus, hedonism is the default value system for animals such as ourselves.

Hedonism works fine for most animals because they aren't as smart as us and have very limited ability to imagine good and bad beyond their physical needs. But humans have imagination, so that we can invent good and bad that have no relation to our actual needs. — Brendan Golledge

I agree that a lot of human and animal motivation and behavior is hardwired, but I think your take is over-simplistic. As I understand it, animal, including human, behavior doesn't aim at improving their "emotional state." It aims at maintaining the equilibrium of their living systems - homeostasis. Emotions are, among other things, a sign that things are out of balance and a motivation to act.

It seems to me that the most generalized way of avoiding belief in falsehoods that feel good is to disbelieve in the statement, "Feeling good is intrinsically good." This would mean belief in an objective morality. That means that there is a distinction between what is actually good and what feels good...

Choosing an objective morality is very hard, because all values are arbitrarily asserted. This is because of the is-ought dilemma. There is no way to take a physical measure of goodness. So, moral argumentation only works when the person you're arguing with already shares at least some of your arbitrarily asserted moral values. Humans are extremely social creatures, so we most-often take our objective morality from social pressure, which is usually (but not currently in the west) rooted in tradition. It is hard to do anything else but look outside of ourselves for guidance, because values are arbitrarily asserted, and the primary thing inside of ourselves that we can use as a reference is that we want to feel good, which is not a basis for an objective morality, as discussed above. So, people are always looking outside of themselves for some guidance on what they ought to do. — Brendan Golledge

This is confusing. You say you are looking for objective morality, but you also acknowledge that moral values are arbitrary. Perhaps a better word would be "formal" rather than "objective."

If humans are hardwired to lie to themselves to make themselves feel good, then it becomes clear that our opinions are not to be trusted. A great deal of our energy is spent in foolishness, and most of our personal opinions are false. — Brendan Golledge

This is one of those presumptuous statements I was talking about. As I've said, we are not hardwired to make ourselves feel good by lying. Can our opinions be trusted? Sure, maybe, sometimes, often. This is the biggest issue in western philosophy and you've side-stepped it with six words - our opinions are not to be trusted. You say we spend a lot our time in foolishness - more pontification on your part.

I believe that religion at its highest is conscious attention paid to one's inner state. Buddhism and Christianity (I pay most attention to Christianity because it is in my tradition) are the religions most concerned with this. This is why these are virtually the only two religions that have a concept of monasticism; these religions believe more so than other religions that inner work is good for its own sake. These two religions provide their own objective moral framework for the believer to use as a yardstick in his own inner work. — Brendan Golledge

Now we get into the part where I agree with some of what you say. My goal in life is to become more self-aware, what you call paying conscious attention to my inner state, and philosophy is one of the ways I pursue that goal. I can't speak with any authority about Buddhism or Christianity, but I question your assertion those two religions are the ones most concerned with that. My personal adult experience is with Taoism, and, as I understand it, it is all about self-awareness.

I believe that many Christians mistake their own private conscience as the voice of the Holy Spirit. This would explain how it is possible that there is so much confusion in the church, while each individual believer is so sure that he's right. Anyway, this insight made prayer easy for me. I just sit quietly without distractions and wait for some thought or "voice" to pop into my head. I consider what it has to say and maybe have a dialogue with it. This is how one orders one's inner world. — Brendan Golledge

You describe your inner world as if it's the only way to see these things. It's not. On the other hand, I also have experienced that voice pop into my head. For me, that voice is not how I "order my inner world." It is a sign that I have done so.

There are books that have been written on how to do inner work, but I think this is the most important piece of advice. It is simply to be quiet, not distract yourself with anything, and pay attention to the thoughts that spontaneously arise from within one's self. With practice, you will be able to teach yourself about yourself. — Brendan Golledge

That's my cue to roll out one of my favorite quotes. I try to use it at least once a month here on the forum.

You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet. — Franz Kafka

your opinions are probably flattering lies — Brendan Golledge

Such disrespectful arrogance. Why should anyone listen to you?

there is a structure to one's inner world which can be studied, understood, and manipulated. However, one's inner state can't be shared with other people the same way one can take measurements of physical bodies, so that one's study has to always be personal. — Brendan Golledge

I don't disagree that it might be difficult to study our and other's inner lives, but it certainly is not impossible. We do it all the time - colloquially and scientifically.

a genuine area of study in its own right, which as of yet has no name. — Brendan Golledge

I don't know what this means.

When properly understood, I think religion, psychology, and morality are all actually only one subject. — Brendan Golledge

This doesn't strike me as a particularly true or particularly useful way of looking at things.

In the hyperreal number line, it's wrong. — alan1000

It's not wrong, it's inapplicable.