Alright, I'll try to piece something together. — praxis

Cool.

There is an objective form of wanting. It would be our positive emotions. Here, I will quote something that points that out:

We have found a special hedonic hotspot that is crucial for reward 'liking' and 'wanting' (and codes reward learning too). The opioid hedonic hotspot is shown in red above. It works together with another hedonic hotspot in the more famous nucleus accumbens to generate pleasure 'liking'.

In order for my theory to hold true, then I will first need to establish that thoughts of wanting things can only be thoughts of things being good to us (i.e. good value judgments). Once I have done that, then I can say that, since there is an objective form of wanting (our positive emotions), then they are an objective source of seeing the good value in our lives. So, I will now begin. A good value judgment can only be a thought of something being desirable and cherishable to us. For example, if you said that you did not want to go to work today and that you had to go to work anyway since going to work had good value to you, then you would be wanting to go to work. Here is another example. Even if you had a sinister desire and you judged that desiring thought to be bad, then this sinister desire would still be a good value judgment while you would be having a different thought (a bad value judgment).

These two thoughts have different characteristics. One is wanting and the other is unwanting. Therefore, that is why they are distinct from one another. Since I have established that good value judgments are wanting thoughts and bad value judgments are unwanting thoughts, I will now say from here that good value judgments always make us feel positive emotions such as feelings of joy and excitement while bad value judgments always make us feel negative emotions such as anger and despair. The only exception would be if you had some mental health condition such as anhedonia which doesn't allow you to have positive or negative emotions. But like I was saying, it would follow from here that positive emotions are an objective source of seeing good value towards stimuli while negative emotions would be an objective source of seeing bad value towards stimuli.

I am going to present to you an experiment that can prove that things that are good to us can only be things that we want. If you were to set up an experiment where you had an item that a person said that he did not want, but had to obtain anyway since obtaining it had much good value to him, then how would this person respond once you take that item away from him? I am quite sure he would want that item. Since that item was something very important (good) to him, then he wouldn't just have utter indifference towards the situation of that item being taken away from him.

It's also quite possibly a copy of this one @Michael

You wrote:

Creative says we can't extract traits from population samples. Which would be news to most folk. Is that a position you also mean to defend here?

It's always easiest for an author to avoid facing the consequences stemming from a clear refutation of their position by misattributing meaning. Creative did not say that, nor did what creative say lead to that.

Rather, what creative clearly set out is what it would take for an author to know what they're talking about when comparing different societal/community values. That portion of creative's post has been left sorely neglected in lieu of ad hominem. A common tactic and clear sign that one's argument/position lacks substance.

If we look towards the purported list of social/community values while actually considering the members(what a novel idea), we'll quickly find that there are folk from one community or other who share values of another community but do not share the values claimed to be ones belonging to their own community.

Given all that, what creative was pointing out was that that list was/is based upon an ill-conceived notion of community/social values, which is to say that the conceptual/linguistic framework itself is found sorely lacking... begging... for it's own correspondence to fact/reality.

So, in conclusion, if we claim there is an emotional style of a society/community that speaks to a set of shared values of the members therein, and we want to be taken seriously, we had damned well better put forth values shared by each community/society member, otherwise the notion of shared valued doesn't require shared value.

What's next?

I suppose if it's ok to say that shared community values need not be shared by community members, then neither does the emotional style.

Again...

No citation necessary.

Thanks, done.

I want to say that the aforementioned (Western)distinction between reason and emotion is indeed fraught. However, I do not find that it is the problem, but rather it is a symptom thereof. The problem is the historical failure to draw and maintain the meaningful distinction between thought/belief and thinking about thought/belief.

No words. You are saying the Dutch can't be a tall as a national characteristic because some happen to be short? You just reject ordinary statistical concepts?

I do not reject statistics. Rather, I place them in proper perspective, particularly when one uses them to make claims that fall prey to a gross overgeneralization fallacy. This is philosophy, is it not?

I have tremendous respect for your intellect apo, and over the years hopefully I've given you enough reasons to reciprocate.

I would argue that your five senses lead you to feel a certain emotion, not necessarily that they are one. My evidence being that when I hear something or touch something that reminds me of an emotion, it reminds me of an emotion, I don't suddenly have a new unique emotion due to my senses.
Furthermore, your emotional brain and your physical one are different and are also located in different parts of your brain.

I am going to present to you an experiment that can prove that things that are good to us can only be things that we want. If you were to set up an experiment where you had an item that a person said that he did not want, but had to obtain anyway since obtaining it had much good value to him, then how would this person respond once you take that item away from him? I am quite sure he would want that item. Since that item was something very important (good) to him, then he wouldn't just have utter indifference towards the situation of that item being taken away from him.

Let me actually clarify something here before I move on. There is the difference between conceptual values and our value judgments. For example, if there was a mother who was feeding vegetables to a little child and the mother said that these vegetables were good for him, but the child said he hated them, then these vegetables would be good and would be good for him. However, the child would not be seeing them as anything good since he hated them. This means that the vegetables would be good from a purely conceptual point of view while the child's value judgment would be a bad value judgment since he thought of them as being something bad. In order for this child to see these vegetables as being something good to him, then he would want to eat them or have them. The child cannot simply acknowledge the vegetables as having good value. He needs to actually want these vegetables in order to see them as something good.

You can't have a subjective when there is an objective. That all goes back to what I said before. There is an objective form of sight which is the real sight that allows us to see objects. Therefore, you cannot have a subjective form of sight since this form of sight will not allow you to see objects. Thinking you can see when you are blind will not allow you to see objects. In that same sense, you cannot have a subjective form of wanting and liking when there is already an objective form (the positive emotions). It is only the positive emotions that can allow you to want and like things (see good value in things).

Here is the objective wanting and liking:

We have found a special hedonic hotspot that is crucial for reward 'liking' and 'wanting' (and codes reward learning too). The opioid hedonic hotspot is shown in red above. It works together with another hedonic hotspot in the more famous nucleus accumbens to generate pleasure 'liking'.

The child cannot simply acknowledge the vegetables as having good value. He needs to actually want these vegetables in order to see them as something good. — TranscendedRealms

The child may not have the capacity to see the value of vegetables in terms of nutrition but he could certainly appreciate simpler forms of abstract value. The mother could create a social construct like money such that eating 5 carrots equals something that the child does value, like some sort of healthy treat or perhaps a toy. Her child eating nutritious food is valuable to the mother and a toy, or whatever, is valuable to the child. The child would then want to eat carrots because he could 'see' that that activity would result in acquiring something that he did value.

You can't have a subjective when there is an objective. That all goes back to what I said before. There is an objective form of sight which is the real sight that allows us to see objects. — TranscendedRealms

What you may not appreciate is that emotions are social constructs. Constructs that are fundamentally that same as the construct the mother created in the value-added vegetable scenario above.

Well, my theory is just pointing out here that, without wanting, then nothing can be of any good value to you. That is, nothing can matter to you in a positive way. You need your positive emotions in order to want and, therefore, make things of good value to you. When I said that logical and rational thought processes alone (value judgments) do not allow us to see value in our lives, I am saying that the only thing that can allow us to see value is a force/energy, if you will. It is like a divine force that is literally intrinsic goodness itself. That force would be our positive emotions.

Without this sacred life force in my life, then all value judgments (words alone) are completely dead and, thus, cannot allow me to see any real good value in my life. Words alone hold no power to my life and are a no quality standard of living. Having this divine life force is the only real good quality standard of living. People haven't been awakened to this standard and my theory is trying to make it a known truth to the world. I was trying to establish this as an objective fact by pinning up our thoughts (good value judgments) with our positive emotions.

Since positive emotions are an objective form of wanting and since I have established earlier that good value judgments are always thoughts of us wanting things, then it would have to follow from here that our positive emotions are an objective form of seeing good value in our lives. Establishing this objective goodness would, therefore, establish the idea that a divine life force (our positive emotions) really are needed in our lives to allow us to perceive the positive qualities of life.

When I said that logical and rational thought processes alone (value judgments) do not allow us to see value in our lives, I am saying that the only thing that can allow us to see value is a force/energy, if you will. It is like a divine force that is literally intrinsic goodness itself. That force would be our positive emotions. — TranscendedRealms

There are many avenues to meaning, and perhaps none better than pain and suffering.

Preach it, Viktor!

By saying that, then you would be agreeing with my theory. According to my theory, pain would be our negative emotions and pleasure would be our positive emotions. You can't have pain and pleasure without these emotions. Sure, you could have physical pain and pleasant smells such as the smell of a rose, but these types of sensations do not allow you to perceive any sufficient quality of good or bad value in your life at all. I could be in the worst emotional state of my life and I could smell the most intense pleasant smell. But as long as I am still in that horrible miserable state, then that scent would not give me much awareness of good value in my life at all. It would only give me an awareness (perception) that is very slim.

Your language is difficult to interpret but what you seem to be saying is that sensations themselves, whether good or bad, do not add sufficient meaning to our lives. You write: "sensations do not allow you to perceive any sufficient quality of good or bad value in your life at all". When you say "value in your life," you essentially mean meaning, right?

Most would agree that modernity has shifted the world towards a more materialistic mindset, that we're currently trapped in the iron cage of rationalization, and there's something of a cultural void when it comes to meaning in our lives. So we may be on the same page so far. There's a need that you attempt to address.

You go on to say that being in a "horrible miserable state, then that scent [of a rose] would not give me much awareness of good value in my life at all. It would only give me an awareness (perception) that is very slim." So the question is how do we get out of this miserable state. We know that pleasant sensation is too slim. I think even the illustrious pioneer in meaning Viktor Frankl would agree with this assessment so far.

From your previous comments, I glean your proposal to be that developing positive emotions is a way out of this miserable state and even go so far as to suggest that these positive emotions are objective perception, and then go even further by adding a quasi-spiritual quality to these positive emotions.

I can see some truth to this in that we can take an active part in how we experience emotion, and perhaps change them, with good result. For example, it's been suggested by researchers that reframing 'nervousness' to 'excitement' can change a potentially unpleasant and poor performing experience to a pleasant and high performing experience. Regarding whatever induced the arousal as a challenge rather than a threat changes the way our body prepares itself. If our mind predicts injury it will prepare for injury, sacrificing performance. If our mind predicts a need for heightened performance our body will prepare for that and our performance will be enhanced.

The scent of a rose may be too slim an experience to add meaning to our lives, but seeing the world through rose colored glasses may be too slim as well. Emotions are not a sense, they're only the tint of our lenses.

I feel emotions are becoming more and more unnecessary in today's world due to the rising popularity of social media and devices. Philosophy is becoming less important.

Actually, let me present to you a logical argument that should make my point clear. I will first start out with introducing what I have to say and I will then present the argument to you along with an experiment below:

We currently believe that it is our value judgments and outlooks alone that allow us to see the value in our lives. I think this is a false myth. Many people wish to dismiss emotions as nothing more than emotions and say that it is instead the thought that counts. I think it is the other way around. I think it is instead the emotion that counts. This is a theory that I have learned from struggling with much emotional trauma, hopelessness, and misery in my life.

This is a world changing philosophy/theory of mine that would awaken humanity to their higher component (their emotions) and would encourage others to find cures for depression and other illnesses that take away our positive emotions. I am just saying it is a world changing theory just to get readers interested. It doesn't mean that it actually is. But who knows. It could be. You never know. I am going to present to you a logical argument that basically summarizes my whole theory. It is a logical argument that advocates hedonism as the only way to see value in our lives. Hedonism is the idea that pain=bad while pleasure=good.

My Hedonistic Logical Argument

1.) Wanting or liking something is the only way to see the good value and worth in said thing. Wanting or liking something such as an exciting new video game or movie is the only way to see good value in that movie or game. Having no wanting and liking towards it would mean that it wouldn't matter to you and, thus, you wouldn't be seeing any good value in it. Or, according to premise #2, you would be seeing bad value in it.

2.) Not wanting and liking something is the only way to see bad value in it. It would be a negative reaction such as not wanting anymore people around you. It would be a situation that would matter to you in a negative way and, thus, you would see bad value in it.

3.) Being in a completely apathetic state where you neither wanted, liked, nor did not want anything is the only way to see no value and worth in things. Nothing would matter to you at all and, thus, you would see no value in anything.

4.) Simply acknowledging that things have good and bad value in your life is not actually seeing the good and bad value that these things hold. If you were completely apathetic where nothing mattered to you at all and you just said something such as: "Meh, this is really good," then you wouldn't be seeing any good value in said thing. You would just be blurting out a thought in your mind or some spoken words.

5.) There is an objective form of wanting and liking. It would be our positive emotions. Here, I will quote this out to you:

We have found a special hedonic hotspot that is crucial for reward 'liking' and 'wanting' (and codes reward learning too). The opioid hedonic hotspot is shown in red above. It works together with another hedonic hotspot in the more famous nucleus accumbens to generate pleasure 'liking'.

6.) It would follow from premise #5 that our negative emotions would be an objective form of not wanting things (a negative response) while having neither positive nor negative emotions would be an objective form of things not mattering to you at all (a neutral response).

7.) Your level of wanting, liking, not wanting, and neither wanting nor not wanting dictates the level of good, bad, or neutral value you see. If you really wanted something, then you would be seeing much good value in said stimulus. If you really did not want something, then you would be seeing much bad value in said stimulus. If you were very apathetic and nothing mattered to you at all, then you would be seeing much neutral value in said stimulus.

8.) Moments where you want, like, not want, and are indifferent are moments where you see good value, bad value, or neutral value in certain stimuli.

9.) You can have mixed wanting and not wanting. For example, if you claimed that something you wanted you saw bad value in, then there would have to be an unwanting thought there. So, you would see both good and bad value in that thing. (Note: I talk more about this when I discuss the concept of mixed emotions very soon).

Even though thoughts of us wanting things make us feel positive emotions while unwanting thoughts make us feel negative emotions, if you did not feel mixed emotions during that scenario I have given of you seeing bad value in wanting something, then you could still be having mixed wanting and unwanting thoughts.

This is because when you have a wanting thought that makes you feel a positive emotion, the unwanting thought does not always make you feel a negative emotion to mix in with that positive emotion. You could, for example, have an angry thought at a friend that makes you feel angry which would be an unwanting thought. But, at the same time, you could still want that friend in your life. That is, you could have the thought that a certain attribute of this friend is bad and another thought of him/her being a good person anyway.

Therefore,

Conclusion: It is only our positive moods/emotions that allow us to see the positive qualities of life such as good value, worth, joy, love, beauty, etc., our negative moods/emotions that allow us to see the negative qualities of life such as bad value, suffering, misery, hate, torment, etc. Having neither positive nor negative moods/emotions would be a state of mind where nothing mattered to you at all and, thus, you would not be seeing any good or bad value in your life. Your level of positive and negative emotions dictates the level of good or bad value you see in your life. From this, I can gather that our emotions are like the sense of sight. They allow us to see the good and bad value in things just as how our sight allows us to see objects.

Having no sight would mean that no way of thinking or value judgment can allow you to see objects just as how no way of thinking, belief, outlook, or value judgment can allow us to see any good or bad value in our lives without our emotions. Therefore, seeing the value in our lives is not a matter of value judgment at all since it is not a thought form of awareness (perception) at all. It is instead purely an emotional awareness. This means that our emotions do not have some sort of mind control effect and make us perceive, through our thinking, the value in our lives. It is purely the emotions themselves that make us perceive value in our lives. Our positive emotions are like a divine and sacred sense. They are like a divine light energy or force that is intrinsic goodness itself flowing through our very conscious being.

Our negative emotions would be like a horrible and negative spiritual dark energy flowing through our conscious being.Since I have presented to you this logical argument, it has now become quite obvious that we absolutely need our positive emotions to make our entire lives and atmosphere something perceived as profoundly beautiful, joyful, and good. Our positive emotions are like the divine and sacred light energy and water for a sacred plant. The plant needs this light energy and water to grow and thrive. Without them, then the plant will only wither away. In that same sense, we are like these sacred plants and we need the sacred light and water (our positive moods/emotions) for our conscious perception of good values and qualities to grow and thrive. Our positive emotions are simply a transcending and profoundly beautiful source of energy and growth for our consciousness.

Lastly, depressed and miserable inspirational figures such as Abraham Lincoln weren't really seeing any good value and worth in their lives at all if they had no positive emotions. If they had a little bit of positive emotions, then they would only be perceiving a slim amount of good value in their lives. Therefore, these inspirational figures are conveying a false message when they say things such as that depression and misery are good, they inspire us, allow us to see greater good value in our lives, etc. Inspiration is a positive quality and can only be perceived by our positive emotions.

So, it is not the depression and misery itself that allows us to see greater good value in our lives. It is instead the positive emotions that inspire us and make us see greater good values in our lives. These inspirational figures are, in a way, blind fools who think they see the truth when they can't. I am the only one who knows the real truth and it could change the world. So many people drag their lives on and on in unhappy lifestyles and this needs to be changed. People need to be awakened to the fact that an unhappy lifestyle is nothing at all. It is a no quality standard of living and people need to be awakened to the real good quality standard of living that my theory has proven.

I don't care how offensive and insulting my theory is. The truth needs to be shared to the world regardless of how offensive it is. I am fed up with those types of people who only throw out and dismiss my positive emotions as trivial things that only a spoiled child would crave and all the emotional trauma I've been through as no form of real suffering in my life. This only serves to dismiss all the real suffering I've been through as being "all in my head" since, according to these people, it is nothing more than our value judgments and ways of thinking that either allow us to be in a state of joy or suffering. I think that is complete nonsense.

Experiment

Now that I have presented this logical argument to you, I will now present to you the experiment that can be performed to prove that wanting things is the only way we can see the good value in things. Take note that I am leaving out liking to make things easier, more convenient, and just for the sake of this experiment. If there were an item that a person said he did not want, but had to obtain anyway since he saw much good value in it, then how would this person respond once you take that item away from him? I am quite sure he would want that item. There is just no way he would be completely indifferent towards the situation of that item being taken away from him.

As long as he is seeing much good value in that item, then this means the item is very important to him and, thus, he would want the item if you were to take it away from him. This experiment should discover evidence for my theory and make my theory known to the world. Here is another experiment. Take, for example, someone who says he doesn't want to go to work, but that he has to since it is important. This person would be seeing much good value in going to work. If you were to block his path, then I bet this person would become frustrated. He really wants to go to work and you would be in his way.

Disscusions like this one often devolve into the different parts arguing about definitions. So before we get to that point, what is your definition of sense?

I always equate emotions with hormones: slower acting, longer lasting. As opposed to those sharp cognitive pulses that arrive in a milisecond and evaporate soon after.

I think that the neural reactions arose from those deeper hormonal emotions. Because they are slow and considered, they tend to be right more times than wrong - at least compared to your cognitive ones that make you go off half-cocked.

I agree that in the heirachy of things emotions should dictate to the cognitive mind and not the other way around. I heard a good expression once, something like the order should be

Body obeys mind obeys heart obeys (god - the spiritual world), - words to that effect.

Have you seen the Vikings on TV? I think they say at one point "Who ever told you life was meant to be about happiness?"

You realise of course that trees don't have a nervous system, and people commonly assume that means they don't have a sentience (although the root tip is coming under scrutiny). And the reason they don't have a nervous system is that it would be useless to them. We have it to navigate our world. A tree would see a truck coming at it from a mile away and think "Oh shit, here comes a truck" Then it would hear a chainsaw and think "Oh shit, I'm about to be cut down."

It still has hormones though and uses them for communication.