↪Joshs a
Absence of emotion is an interesting area. In particular, the philosophy and spectrum of autism, raises this question. However, if does come down to what the absence of emotion signifies. Is it about being overwhelmed by the conflicts of the dichotomy of emotion. — Jack Cummins

Autists don’t lack emotion. No one on the planet lacks emotion. Autistics have difficulty in interpreting the meaning of emotion cues in others. Affect is never absent in our lives. What we call absence of feeling is a neutral or blase mood , but this is far from an absence of feeling. All experience is meaningful, and all meaning is valuative. All valuation is affective.

So the way I would construe anger is as a rapid , multi-step construal of a situation that begins with loss and disappoint, and is immediately followed by assessment of blame. — Joshs

I wake up late and have to skip my breakfast and coffee. So I am edgy and aggravated. While running for my bus, someone beats me to it and takes the last possible free spot, so I have to wait for the next one. I enter the morning meeting late only to find that my boss has given a choice assignment to someone else. I am angry at my boss, and at the person given the assignment.

The point is, you can't reduce anger to a logically valid behaviouristic framework. Human interactions are "overdetermined" to use psychiatric jargon. Anger perhaps most of all. At the end of the day, as I said, it isn't wrong or even mysterious that we become angry, but it is usually unproductive to allow anger to determine our responses.

The point is, you can't reduce anger to a logically valid behaviouristic framework. Human interactions are "overdetermined" to use psychiatric jargon — Pantagruel

Yes, but overdetermined by what? The litany of aggravating events that pile up over the course of the day are not stored in some internal ‘anger pot’ as the accumulation of a random collection of negative energy, they are interpreted in terms of how they impact our ability to make sense of our world , how we are valued by others and how we value ourselves. Emotions are not expressions of assessment thought in terms of formal logic or rationality , but of our relative success or failure at maintaining a normative equilibrium, an ability to keep our world recognizable, coherent and anticipatable. This we share with all animals.

Our emotional health depends on our sense of control and agency, and everything that happens to us in the course of a day puts that equanimity to the test. Whereas a single disappointing or angering incident may be not threaten our confidence or self-esteem, a multitude of such events , especially by people we consider friends, may plunge us into self-doubt and magnify our anger.

The litany of aggravating events that pile up over the course of the day are not stored in some internal ‘anger pot’ as the accumulation of a random collection of negative energy, — Joshs

Are they not indeed? People who are the subject of systemic environmental and social disadvantage might disagree.

Anger is a manifestation of our own failure to find a more productive expression, one which solves the problem. The problem is, the proximate cause is not always the only - or the real - problem.

Anger is a manifestation of our own failure to find a more productive expression, one which solves the problem. The problem is, the proximate cause is not always the only - or the real - problem — Pantagruel

I think I agree, but I would add that it is not the expression of anger which is the biggest problem today in our polarized world, but the failure to see the world from the perspective of others such that what appears as malevant intent can be seen instead as the other’s best effort to live ethically based on their vantage. Anger is blame, and blame impugns intent, delegitimizing the other’s motives. Whether we express our anger or not , as long as we cling to blame, we delegitimize the other, as seen in today’s political discourse.

I think I agree, but I would add that it is not the expression of anger which is the biggest problem today in our polarized world, but the failure to see the world from the perspective of others such that what appears as malevant intent can be seen instead as the other’s best effort to live ethically based on their vantage. Anger is blame, and blame impugns intent, delegitimizing the other’s motives. Whether we express our anger or not , as long as we cling to blame, we delegitimize the other, as seen in today’s political discourse. — Joshs

I think I agree too.

All experience is meaningful, and all meaning is valuative. All valuation is affective. — Joshs

Nice. :up:

I think I agree, but I would add that it is not the expression of anger which is the biggest problem today in our polarized world, but the failure to see the world from the perspective of others such that what appears as malevant intent can be seen instead as the other’s best effort to live ethically based on their vantage. Anger is blame, and blame impugns intent, delegitimizing the other’s motives. Whether we express our anger or not , as long as we cling to blame, we delegitimize the other, as seen in today’s political discourse. — Joshs

A way of thinking we really need to overcome. Any thoughts on that?

It is difficult to know to what extent emotions help or hinder in thinking. In some ways, it can end up in a picture of 'bias. Emotions may tinge the way in which ideas are seen.l

In the extreme, this may involve anger at ideas which may have a destructive role. 9n particular, ideologies, religious or otherwise can be a source of anger. It can lead to so much psychological and social awareness of the construction of systems of ideas.

I would reflect on the Bodily feeling presently "occurring" or released (?) during what one might interpret as anger or as hatred. Presumably, both would be felt as, for lack of a better word, "unpleasant," subject to possible varying degrees or subtle undectable differences (if any. maybe degree of unpleasantness is the only difference). Perhaps, from the Body's perspective that is the extent that our "purest" most raw reflection, can tell us about these so-called emotions, i.e., that they are unpleasant bodily feelings varying only in degrees of unpleasantness,
suggesting that at the purest "level" of feelings, or in Truth, we can only access the binary, pleasant/unpleasant. It is only when the Language of human Consciousness enters the picture that the Fictional emotions, anger or hatred, are constructed. That is, to answer the question, what is anger? Or what is hatred? Or what is the difference? Anger and hatred in Truth, do not exist. They are, in truth, unpleasant feelings of the Body. However, out of, or to, these real feelings, we construct our Narratives in human Mind, those fabricated Narratives, being what we collectively call emotions, and, being constructed by fleeting Language, and not actually real organic processes (which are restricted to the binary pleasant/unpleasant) we only think these emotions are Real, their differences relevant, etc. In otherwords anger and hatred are only constructed Fictions which come to displace the real feelings which cannot be accessed beyond how we feel, cannot be discussed in truth beyond the simple binary, pleasant or unpleasant.

It is difficult to know to what extent emotions help or hinder in thinking. — Jack Cummins

On the contrary, mate, it's quite easy to know the impacts of emotion on thinking from lived experience (e.g. frustration, romance, intoxication, stress, trauma, etc) as well from disciplines such as cognitive neuroscience, behavioral psychology & cognitive behavioral therapy which corroborate (ancient) 'philosophies of life' both East and West.

Well, the first word in Homer's Iliad is Anger. We are more easily offended than a flower is buffeted by the wind.

true, and so has history written us.

I didn't mean that it is not possible to work out the actual effects of thought. In particular, the ABC model of affect, behaviour and consequences is relevant. I am aware of the parallels between CBT and Stoicism. What I meant was that the nature of emotions may affect the nature of judgment itself and affinity with particular ideas. It is likely that mood affects perception itself. Personally, I think that I see differently, according to whether I feel sad or happy, such as the intensity of colours. It is probably a two way process of thinking affecting mood and mood affecting thinking. Also, bodily health affects mindset itself.

The binary is the essential basis from which mood is assessed. I know whether I feel 'good' or 'bad' as a basis for assessing one's own wellbeing. When people ask me how I am I often say''in between', although I may be just being polite in terms of not wishing to come out and say, 'not that great'.

Nevertheless, the subtle effects of emotions may be brought out by attention to fine details. Processes of description may affect experience and expression of emotions. For example, the processing of anger, may be done internally by the description of specific thoughts, such as the triggers of it, and the way in which it is attributed. In particular, if one blames oneself or others, the anger may be a different experience as opposed to when the anger is experienced for what it is a non-judgmental approach to it, and prevent 'beating oneself up' for the way life unfolds, including the anger itself.

I would reflect on the Bodily feeling presently "occurring" or released (?) during what one might interpret as anger or as hatred. Presumably, both would be felt as, for lack of a better word, "unpleasant," subject to possible varying degrees or subtle undectable differences (if any. maybe degree of unpleasantness is the only difference) — ENOAH

The distinction between somatic feeling and cognition harks back to a long-standing Western tradition. Affect is supposedly instantaneous, non-mediated experience. It has been said that ‘raw' or primitive feeling is bodily-physiological, pre-reflective and non-conceptual, contentless hedonic valuation, innate, qualitative, passive, a surge, glow, twinge, energy, spark, something we are overcome by. Opposed to such ‘bodily', dynamical events are seemingly flat, static entities referred to by such terms as mentation , rationality, theorization, propositionality, objectivity, calculation, cognition, conceptualization and perception.

I dont agree with this split between feeling and thinking. Pleasantness and unpleasantness are not just meaningless bodily sensations that happen to get tied to different experiences via conditioning. They are better understood in terms of enhancement to or interruptions of goal-directed thought. We are sense-making creatures who attempt to anticipate and assimilate strange new events via familiar schemes of meaning. We strive to make the world meaningfully recognizable and relevant to our purposeful activities, and pleasantness-unpleasantness are meanings that express our relative success or failure in making sense of things. Anxiety, guilt, fear and anger result from our finding ourselves in situations that threaten to plunge us into the chaos and confusion of incomprehension.

Understood (or, in fairness, maybe not) But if feelings are not, in their "essence" the raw binary, and meaning is not tacked on by thinking, where does the meaning come from? If the feeling triggers/gives rise to meaning, or thinking, no matter how seemingly immediate, isn't there a split? Is our confusion not just a necessary/functional illusion?

I dont agree with this split between feeling and thinking. Pleasantness and unpleasantness are not just meaningless bodily sensations that happen to get tied to different experiences via conditioning. They are better understood in terms of enhancement to or interruptions of goal-directed thought. We are sense-making creatures who attempt to anticipate and assimilate strange new events via familiar schemes of meaning. We strive to make the world meaningfully recognizable and relevant to our purposeful activities, and pleasantness-unpleasantness are meanings that express our relative success or failure in making sense of things. Anxiety, guilt, fear and anger result from our finding ourselves in situations that threaten to plunge us into the chaos and confusion of incomprehension. — Joshs

I’ve come to a similar view. This is beautifully explained.