• TranscendedRealms
    126
    When I am in my most miserable and hopeless state due to an emotional trauma, then my whole entire reality is the most horrible hell. But when I reach a state of full recovery, I am able to see harmony, peace, joy, beauty, and goodness. This is a perception that I never had during that miserable moment. This is a perception that goes beyond a value judgment. In other words, it goes beyond a mere thought and it is like a blind person recovering his sight.

    So, I can clearly tell that this is not a matter of my value judgment when I say that I see the peace, harmony, joy, and goodness in my life. This proves that our positive mood and emotional state is the inner light to our lives. I could clearly tell that thoughts themselves of goodness and beauty during my miserable moments did absolutely nothing. I have thought of the idea of getting the help I needed as something good, worthwhile, and beautiful, but my life was still completely empty. I was still in the darkness and could not actually see the goodness of getting that help I needed.

    Based on this, I conclude that we might have a sense like sight that allows us to see our entire world as good and beautiful. I would personally call it the "Divine Sense." It is a new sense that has yet to be discovered by science. When we are in a positive mood or emotional state, then that is this sense allowing us to perceive stable qualities of good value as well as enhanced and more profound qualities of good value and beauty in our lives. Likewise, negative emotions such as misery and hopelessness are this sense allowing us to truly see things as horrible, bad, disgusting, etc. That is why I say that positive emotions are an objective good while negative emotions are an objective bad. So, this objective good and bad would be an intrinsic quality (our positive and negative emotions).

    So, when a person is completely miserable and hopeless and a person comes along, giving the suggestion to just work at developing a new mindset, then that is only focusing away from one's own inner light which is the very vital and precious thing that allows us to see the goodness in our lives in the first place. It is NOT value judgments and our ways of thinking alone that allow us to see the goodness in our lives. It is our new sense that does. Could a blind person make himself see? No, but he could certainly be deluded into thinking he can. Actually, let me make it a better analogy. It would be like people who think they can see the truth, but are really blind to it.

    Edit #1: I am under the impression that people are just denying the existence of my own inner light and expecting me to live by the standard of words alone. Words themselves possess no power in my life to give my life any real joy, good value, etc. I need my inner light (positive emotions) to make that happen. For such a blatant and obvious need to be dismissed and denied as nonexistence, especially such a profound need, then that just really gets to me.

    I am fed up with people in my life dismissing my inner light as nonexistence and all in my head. They think it is just my value judgment. But, like I said, value judgments are just words and words themselves are empty in my life without my inner light. The values in my life are something that go beyond words which is a value system that takes it to a higher level than a value system based on words alone going through our minds.

    I would call my values the consciousness based values since they are values that focus on our own inner conscious light and darkness rather than just judgments (words) alone. These values focus on what it is like rather than what we judge. For example, what it's like to see the color red is not a matter of value judgment. It is a matter of consciousness. So, if a certain state of mind is truly like something beautiful for you (in my case, a positive emotion) and this beauty transcends mere value judgments, then we would call this a beautiful consciousness based value.

    It would be pure goodness itself. Consciousness is everything to our human existence and shouldn't be ignored. If it weren't for consciousness, then we would all be dead. As a matter of fact, we would not be able to perceive any qualities in our lives without it. So, what it all comes down to here is what it's like to judge your life as something good and beautiful. Not a simple matter of just judging your life as something good and beautiful. What I was trying to do here with my whole idea is to present it in such a way that would hopefully convince others so that they would understand my need as a real need and no longer dismiss it as fantasy. There are many mysterious about consciousness that we have yet to know and perhaps my idea is a mystery that I have figured out from personal experience.

    Edit #2: Actually, I think my idea is already known. Let me post a person's response and my reply to him:

    Other Person's Response:
    I think the word you are looking for is "conscience"; "an inner feeling or voice viewed as acting as a guide to the rightness or wrongness of one's behavior" (Google's definition). You can certainly interpret this as a sense. Luckily for you, science's got you covered already, and the existence of conscience is fully explained by evolutionary psychology.

    In other words: you're quite right that humans have this sense (although it's certainly not objective/absolute), and you're quite wrong when you say that science hasn't discovered this yet.

    My Reply: This inner voice would not be a thought. Like I said, these are values that go beyond our thoughts.

    Other Person's Response: Conscience is not a thought either, it's "an inner feeling or voice", so conscience can also be said to "go beyond our thoughts".

    My Reply: I'm not sure, but this could be the idea I was advocating all along. I don't know on this one. But if that were my idea, then why would there be so many people out in this world claiming that the misery and hopeless feelings in our lives can make our lives something truly beautiful if we make something of it? That all goes back to my example with the famous and genius miserable artists.

    My idea, according to what you've just said, would be that it can only be our positive emotions which give us this "good voice" (what I call a surge of inner light energy that goes beyond words) while it can only be our negative emotions which can give us this "bad voice" (what I call a surge of inner dark energy that goes beyond words). These emotions are the voices themselves which means that these voices are always there. A stable positive mood would be like a singer constantly humming a good tune while positive emotional states would be like the singer loudly singing a good tune.

    Without emotions, then we could only have a neutral voice (a neither good nor bad voice regardless of what we were to think or believe otherwise). These good and bad voices are what make our lives truly matter to us in good or bad ways. Without this voice, then nothing can truly matter to us regardless of what we were to believe otherwise. It would be like a positive and negative charge. Except, consider our emotions to be the positive (good) charges and the negative (bad) charges. Having neither a positive nor negative charge would be no charge at all.

    Mixed Emotions: Now, if you were in a situation where you had mixed emotions, then you would be perceiving both good and bad value at the same time. It would be something like 20% good and 80% bad in regards to certain things and situations. It all depends on the degree of positive and negative emotions that are there. So, the fact that these miserable genius artists still saw their lives and art as beautiful means they would have to have had some degree of positive emotion mixed in. Otherwise, they would just be deluding themselves.
  • Jake Tarragon
    341
    This is because emotions are forms of motivation that make things matter to us.TranscendedRealms

    What about a person who experiences joy - all the feel-good effects of the mood hormones in fact - through inflicting suffering on others? Are they a new age hedonist?
  • Wayfarer
    22.5k
    This version of hedonism I am advocating is like a sacred monk who seeks the light and to subdue all darkness from his inner being.TranscendedRealms

    The thing is that the principles pursued by 'sacred monks' have nothing to do with the pursuit of pleasure. There are principles at stake which are 'transcendent', the irony being that despite your forum ID, you seem to show no understanding of what 'transcendent' might mean to actual 'sacred monks' (be they Hindu, Christian or Buddhist).
  • Wosret
    3.4k
    Pleasure seeking is masking agony.
  • TranscendedRealms
    126


    Consider it my own personal definition of transcendent then. My positive emotions, for me, are transcending life force of goodness in my life. I would be my own hedonistic monk. Likewise, consider this to also be my own personal good and bad which, for me, is an objective good and bad.
  • TranscendedRealms
    126


    I would like to say one last thing here. My version of a sacred monk might sound like the most simplistic way of life and being. But simple solutions often times are the real solutions. If you had a group of religious people defining the holy life as a tedious and grueling process of obeying a god, self sacrifice, etc., then the atheist could say that how he defines the holy life is just simply making the best of this life all the while having a wonderful and easy life playing video games.

    He doesn't have to adhere his life to these false gods. So, I think my simple solution to a transcended way of life and being is the real solution. Unfortunately, I think it is the only way which means that if I ever become unfortunate and struggle with misery throughout my life again, then my life would be completely devoid of all goodness and beauty. Lastly, for a person who obtains positive emotions from harming others, he would be a new age hedonist. But he would be misusing the power of the light for wrongdoing.
  • Jake Tarragon
    341
    . Lastly, for a person who obtains positive emotions from harming others, he would be a new age hedonist. But he would be misusing the power of the light for wrongdoing.TranscendedRealms

    So surely this "wrongdoing" must be defined objectively before you can say you have an objective morality?
  • TranscendedRealms
    126


    There are two objective values. The first type would be the ones that situations or people have such as saying that the harmful acts of a criminal are bad or that the altruistic deeds of an empathetic person are good. But in order to truly perceive these objective values, then that requires our objective good (positive emotions) and our objective bad (negative emotions). They would be our own inner light and inner darkness. Again, we can only acknowledge values without our inner light and darkness, but we could not perceive them.

    However, if you cannot have two types of objective values, then it can only be our positive emotions which would be the objective good and our negative emotions being the objective bad. You might get the idea that this is a dysfunctional model for society, but it wouldn't be and I will explain why. During my worst miserable moments, I have still chosen to get help and to make wise decisions anyway knowing that they would change my life. Likewise, I still made other wise decisions regardless of my emotional state. This is still a functional model for society.

    So, a harmful situation wouldn't be a bad situation and neither would a situation of changing your life to recover your positive emotions be a good decision. They would just simply be decisions we would make anyway knowing that they would simply benefit ourselves and the lives of others But living a lifestyle that involves making wise decisions in the absence of your positive emotions is no way to live or be an artist since such a way of life would be devoid of goodness and beauty. Some people would actually say that there is no such thing as good or that it life does not have to matter to us. They would say to just simply live life as it is. But, based on my idea, goodness would not be a concept or an idea fabricated in the minds of humanity. It would instead be our emotions themselves. I liken goodness and badness to be pure energy itself.
  • Jake Tarragon
    341

    There will be times when there is a clash between what some regard as good as some as bad; the fact that all parties feel good about their decisions/viewpoints doesn't really help to resolve the differences.
  • TranscendedRealms
    126


    I personally think that our emotions are the objective good and bad regardless of what people think. People can have false judgments in regards to objective things. So, our emotions would be an objective good and bad that humanity is not yet awakened to. Our positive emotions are an objective form of wanting and liking since they are the reward wanting and liking in the brain. Yet, if you were to ask many people if they think that their positive emotions are an objective wanting and liking, they would tell you "no." This proves that people are having false judgments regarding their positive emotions. Who knows, our positive emotions could also be the objective good and people are denying this, too!
  • mcdoodle
    1.1k
    Our positive emotions are an objective good and our negative emotions are an objective bad.TranscendedRealms

    The purported division of emotions into positive and negative is useful to simplifiers and psychologists who like things about human beings to add up in neat columns, or look good on graphs. Unfortunately (a) emotions are more complicated than these countable things; (b) emotions segue into different emotions, as grief turns to love, or love to dislike, or joy to indifference, and sometimes these different emotions can be in a person at the same time over the same thing; (c) much brilliant art comes from darkness.
  • TranscendedRealms
    126


    I have never experienced the more complicated emotions, what I assume you mean to say a thought form of emotion (i.e. a thought that is an emotional state).. If you mean to say that there can be a thought form of emotion, then I do not think such a thing exists. I think emotions can only be those biochemical induced states.

    If you felt a positive emotion of love or joy, then that would be a biochemical induced euphoric state by dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins. Negative emotions would be dysphoric states such as feelings of hopelessness, despair, and anger. I, myself, have felt a clear division of emotion into the positive and negative categories. So, I can clearly tell that there is a distinction of positive and negative when it comes to emotions just as how there is a clear distinction of positive and negative when it comes to our thoughts. You could either think positive or negative and you could also feel positive or negative emotions.

    When you said that grief turns into love, then that grief would be the negative emotion and then the love you felt later on would be a positive emotion. You could also have mixed emotions as well which means you could have a mix of both positive and negative emotions. Lastly, you could create works of art through negative emotions. But that would only be a negative form of inspiration that would yield nothing but bad value to your life since it is nothing but the darkness. The darkness can only make your life pure shit.

    If there was a product with a positive (good) rating, another product with a zero (neutral) rating, and another product with a negative (bad) rating, then the product with the negative rating would have a shit rating. It would very likely to be a complete shit of a product. It would be even worse than the product with a zero rating because something bad is always worse than something neutral. All I'm trying to say here is that, as long as your life is bad in any given moment, then it can only be bad in that given moment. If your life is good in any given moment, then it can only be good in that given moment. It's as simple as that.
  • Jake Tarragon
    341
    . If your life is good in any given moment, then it can only be good in that given moment. It's as simple as that.TranscendedRealms
    It's all very well defining good and bad. But what are the implications here?
  • antinatalautist
    32
    You might be interested in the "cyrenaic" school of Greek hedonism, which appears to share the same ideas as you.

    Why not just shoot heroin all day?
  • mcdoodle
    1.1k
    If you mean to say that there can be a thought form of emotion, then I do not think such a thing exists. I think emotions can only be those biochemical induced states.

    If you felt a positive emotion of love or joy, then that would be a biochemical induced euphoric state by dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins. Negative emotions would be dysphoric states such as feelings of hopelessness, despair, and anger.
    TranscendedRealms

    Well, I think thought and emotion interact, indeed they are just our labels for certain notions of what happens in ourselves. There's quite a lot of good stuff written about emotion, including a neat paper by Solomon on 'positive' and 'negative'. One example would interest me: fear is usually a good emotion to have, on most readings, in response to an object of fear, because it motivates you to do the sorts of things it's wise to do when faced with such objects. How does fear fit into your schema?
  • TranscendedRealms
    126


    My view would actually be an upgraded version of hedonism. Like I said, I called it "New Age Hedonism."



    A charge could either be positive or negative and you could certainly judge a negative charge to be something good if it was helpful. You could also judge it to be a positive charge. But the negative charge would still be negative. Our emotions are like positive and negative charges, in a way. However, our emotions would be good and bad "charges." So, the positive and negative that applies to our emotions is an objective (intrinsic) good and bad while the positive and negative that applies to charges is simply positive and negative. This means it doesn't matter how you judge your emotional state; a positive emotion can only make your life truly perceived as good and your negative emotions can only make your life truly perceived as bad. This objective good and bad would be an emotional definition of good and bad rather than the definition of good and bad that we as human beings are familiar with.
  • Jeremiah
    1.5k
    Our positive emotions are an objective good and our negative emotions are an objective bad. The objective good and bad is beyond words. It is beyond any reasoning.TranscendedRealms

    Too black and white.
  • TranscendedRealms
    126


    Actually, reread my opening post since this is a whole new explanation of my worldview that I think is much better.
  • Jeremiah
    1.5k
    The entire OP is a waste of words.
  • Jeremiah
    1.5k
    It is still very much black and white, a limited frame that is way too binary. It is also overly simplistic and ridged to be significantly shaped to life. I mean if that is the sum of your world view then you need to experience more of life.
  • TranscendedRealms
    126


    I did not simply say that positive emotions are the objective good and negative emotions being the objective bad as that would be too simple. I also introduced the concept of mixed emotions:

    Mixed Emotions: Now, if you were in a situation where you had mixed emotions, then you would be perceiving both good and bad value at the same time. It would be something like 20% good and 80% bad in regards to certain things and situations. It all depends on the degree of positive and negative emotions that are there. So, the fact that these miserable genius artists still saw their lives and art as beautiful means they would have to have had some degree of positive emotion mixed in. Otherwise, they would just be deluding themselves.

    Lastly, as for life experience and getting out, I do this all the time. I go out in nature and out in the community. So, there is no problem here.
  • Jeremiah
    1.5k
    I did not simply say that positive emotions are the objective good and negative emotions being the objective bad as that would be too simple. I also introduced the concept of mixed emotions:TranscendedRealms

    I never said you did, but not that you mention it, it is implied when you label them "positive" and "negative", as that implication is inherit in the words themselves. However, I was referring to the simple fact that you think there are "positive" and "negative" emotions.

    Lastly, as for life experience and getting out, I do this all the time. I go out in nature and out in the community. So, there is no problem hereTranscendedRealms


    Oh wow, nature? And the community? So vastly experienced. . . . :-}
  • TranscendedRealms
    126


    Yes, I go to the gym and I play sports outside with my family as well as going out and enjoying nature in general. What else is there that you are implying that I should experience?
  • Jeremiah
    1.5k


    Don't you ever challenge yourself?
  • TranscendedRealms
    126


    During my miserable moments undergoing emotional trauma, I have still chosen to remain in this life anyway to get the help I needed. So, that was indeed a challenge. However, my life was still complete hell and devoid of all goodness and beauty regardless of what I did with my life in that miserable state.
  • Jeremiah
    1.5k


    I am not talking about your nondescript "miserable moments". Everyone feels bad from time to time, you are not special in that regards. Don't you ever purposely do something that scares you? Something that is a big risk? Something that you may fail at?
  • Jeremiah
    1.5k
    There are no bad emotions or "negative" emotions, these emotions are trying to tell you something and guide you, recognizing them and listening to them is part of a healthy mindset.
  • TranscendedRealms
    126


    Such challenges that induce negative emotions would only serve to focus on situations and things themselves and to focus away from my own inner light I need in my life (my positive emotions). So, I am not fooled by those types of people who attempt to trick me into believing in some sort of good and worthwhile life that does not depend upon positive emotions. As for your question, no. I just live my life and enjoy my activities. Lastly, from my personal experience, I am convinced that there are negative emotions and positive emotions.
  • Jeremiah
    1.5k


    So you purposely limit your life because you are too weak to face yourself.

    Honestly, that does not sound like a healthy well balanced life to me. You are trying to avoid an important aspect of who you are, and I promise you that you will fail.

    It would be better if you knew how to handle and accept these "negative" emotions so when the crap really hits the fan you'll be ready to face it. Hiding from yourself never works, somehow you always catch up to yourself.
  • TranscendedRealms
    126


    First off, I do not agree with your definition of weak because I have my own defined terms. I define good and bad different than how most human beings define it and I define weak differently as well. A weak person, to me, would be someone devoid of the inner light. As long as he has the inner light, then he is filled with powerful good life force and he is like a being of light. Lastly, I have struggled 10 whole years with misery. My brain would have surely adapted to it on its own since the brain is a remarkable organ that can adapt to harsh situations. It doesn't matter what your belief system or outlook is.

    Your brain would still adapt on its own. The fact that this never happened to me during that whole struggle means that there is no adaptation or character strength that can replace my inner light. Based on this, I am convinced that positive emotions are the inner light and that they are truly all there is to life. I am convinced that the rest of the world is deluded and is only living by empty words. They are just dismissing and leaving out the inner light like it doesn't exist.
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