• Qmeri
    209
    I have this idea to explain all emotions than can be experienced by a simple mechanical idea.

    Stability is when a system does not change by itself or through small outside disturbances. Instability is the opposite when a system tries to change itself unless an outside force forces it to stay the same. So for this argument... lets define stability as systems tendency to stay the same and instability as systems tendency to change itself. It seems like a logical inevitability for a system to be either stable or unstable or the combination of the two since parts of a complex system can try to keep the system the same and parts of it can try to change it at the same time.

    While I can't see a practical way to test this, stability does seem for me to do pretty much exactly the same things in humans as emotions... We are clearly systems whose properties can partly be described through stability. Are our positive feelings the parts of our system trying to keep things the way they are going? Are the negative feelings the parts in our system that are trying to change the way things are going? And since there is an infinite number of ways to be stable, unstable or the combination of the two, all possible emotions could technically be explained by this. So could this be the mechanical explanation for the mystery of our feelings?
  • Constance
    1.3k
    You treat an emotion quantitatively, as if it were a principle of stability or instability that is either sufficient or isn't. But then, an emotion is only incidentally stabilizing or otherwise. Taken qualitatively, an emotion is simply as it appears to be and its "mystery" is unanalyzable, irreducible. Granted, emotions are like beliefs, where in the latter doubt always moves towards belief, wants to be settled, so here, there is this drive for emotional stability. But the interesting questions is, what is the nature of this toward which we are inclined? Simply THAT we are so inclined is vacuous.
    Then the matter turns to love and hate and pride and regret and so on. Mechanical interpretations of these is where evolutionary theory seems go, and it is right, but only as far as its concepts can grasp the matter. the most interesting thing about emotions, however, is their actuality, their concrete realization. What is this?
  • Metaphysician Undercover
    13.1k

    I think that a stable system is not real by the second law of thermodynamics. If "positive feelings" are associated with stability, then we are fighting a losing battle, and won't have any positive feelings until we reach maximum entropy.
  • Qmeri
    209

    Its not just about having maximally positive feelings... Being a very stable system can feel quite nice even if you're not maximally stable.
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