Probably, to conceive an individual emotional sphere in relation to socially determined cognitive and affective processes, we could use Simondon’s approach. An individual and society are neverAt stake in this is the status of emotion: is it an 'origin' - a brute biological given that is simply 'activated' in certain circumstances - or is it instead a 'result' - a bio-social 'production' that helps orient one's actions and is the outcome of an evaluative process? It's this latter view which I want to outline and discuss here.
The basic idea behind this second view of emotion is that emotion is two-pronged, as it were. At the 'base', biological level, what is 'immediately' felt is a kind of generic, non-specific 'affect', which simply indicates both intensity (heightened or dull feeling - 'urgency' of affect) and valence ('good' or 'bad' feeling, something threatening or rewarding). The second step in the 'production' of emotion however, is an evaluative one - a matter of categorising this initial affect (as sadness, as anger, as joy...), a categorisation which takes place on the basis of a range of bio-cultural considerations. — StreetlightX
Can we infer then, that emotions are not understood through the prism of logic? — 3017amen
the contrary, I think logic is the only way to understand emotions. We can't make empirical observations of their causes, so we can only use logic. — Metaphysician Undercover
‘To be aware of’ is not the same as ‘to experience’. Often what we experience, we are aware of only as sensory events - even though we integrate the information at the level of experience - that is, as a relation of value or potential to act. — Possibility
‘Envy’ in relation to core affect has an unpleasant valence and is distinguished from ‘jealousy’ by a relatively low arousal. — Possibility
I'm not sure what this means. I find it hard to conceive of any decisions we make (or, for that matter, thought, reasoning, beliefs) that aren't related to what is taking place, or has taken place, during our lives, and our lives consist of our interactions with the rest of the world. Are these decisions, thoughts, beliefs you refer to then something that we become aware of in some manner sua sponte (of its/their/our own accord) as it were? What is "non-empirical awareness"? — Ciceronianus the White
They're still "optimal predictions" (in some sense) given their constraints and priors, but that does not mean the priors reflect the relational dynamics of the body and its environment, and their potential developments given the interventions I propose. — fdrake
This information is available for later use by limbic cortices as they generatively initiate prediction signals, constructed as low-dimensional, multimodal summaries (i.e. ‘abstractions’); these summaries, consolidated from prior encoding of prediction errors, become more detailed and particular as they propagate out to more architecturally granular sensory and motor regions to complete embodied concept
generation
the salience network tunes the internal model by predicting which prediction errors to pay attention to [i.e. those errors that are likely to be allostatically relevant and therefore worth the cost of encoding and consolidation; called precision signals
My interpretation of Will is that it is dumb, blind, emotive force that causes us to exist. In a humanistic existential context, it would be the Will to live and not commit suicide, for example. In other words as apposed to instinct, we have an intrinsic need to live and feel happy. In an ontological way, it is our need to be. We want to feel happy; it is our way of Being.
And in that sense, the OP question becomes, like Colin Cooper's post suggested, we don't learn emotions. Another example (from Colin's post) one could add to the mix of things, is the emotive feeling and phenomenon of listening to music. We don't learn the initial emotional experience when listening to same. Nor do we understand what biological advantages that has to our species. When we hear it, we like it; it feels good to us.
Emotions themselves are not concepts. Our will to listen to music (jazz, rock, country, classical, bebop) confers no biological advantages to our species. Same with Love. (Lower life forms utilize instinct and emergent properties genetically coded to procreate.) The will (and choice) to love someone, listen to music, or any (higher order) emotional phenomenon is an innate feature of higher consciousness.
What is the nature of this feeling to satisfy those existential needs, is my question to Streetlightx. — 3017amen
‘To be aware of’ is not the same as ‘to experience’. Often what we experience, we are aware of only as sensory events - even though we integrate the information at the level of experience - that is, as a relation of value or potential to act.
— Possibility
I acknowledge that there are nuances to the two terms, but can you elaborate on why you find the interchangeability of these two terms inappropriate within the contexts here addressed? Both terms have relatively imprecise definitions, and I so far find that they can both be used to reference the same given attribute of conscious being. To approach this differently: to be consciously aware of X entails one’s conscious experience of X; conversely, to consciously experience X entails one’s conscious awareness of X; such that one cannot be had without the other. If you’re using the terms “awareness” and “experience” in specialized senses that makes the aforementioned usage invalid, can you point me to the literature where the two terms are thus differentiated? — javra
'The will' is a grammatical mistake. A modal verb mistaken for a substantive and pretending to be of any philosophical interest at all. The less it is taken seriously the better.
'The will' is a grammatical mistake. A modal verb mistaken for a substantive and pretending to be of any philosophical interest at all. The less it is taken seriously the better. — StreetlightX
I don't think anyone really understands will, it's just one of those things. There's many different ways to approach it, but you get side tracked before you get there, as if there's a forcefield which surrounds it and deflects you off this way or that way, depending on your approach. — Metaphysician Undercover
Imagine training machines instead of trying to program them. — praxis
The price of the neural network revolution was giving up (or at least severely compromising) the model of the brain (or computer) as a processor of stored symbols - internal words and pictures representing external objects. Ironically, it had to revert to Skinner's behaviourist model, a "black box". Training, without necessarily understanding the learning. — bongo fury
Well, it seems to me to be the case that we simply decide. We don't become aware that we do so. [...] The fact that we might in very limited circumstances become aware we did something doesn't mean that it's accurate to say we are aware that we decide, or think, or feel. — Ciceronianus the White
Someone else may become aware that we've made a decision, but we don't. — Ciceronianus the White
Thus, we don't often hear someone say "I perceive (or realize, or know or discern--or am aware) I've made a decision." — Ciceronianus the White
I'm saying I think it's inappropriate to treat our own decisions, thoughts, feelings as if they were like objects or things [...] — Ciceronianus the White
Are you familiar with Damasio? I believe he differentiated between ‘feeling’ and ‘emotion’ in pretty much the same way you’ve briefly outlined. — I like sushi
the point is that we can be wrong about our emotions not just in the sense that they're not suited to our modern world (that idea has been around for years) but that they're not 'suited' to any world, they don't come pre-packaged and suited to some set of circumstances predicted by evolution — Isaac
In addition, emotion words cause a perceptual shift in the way that faces are seen. Morphed faces depicting an equal blend of happiness and anger are encoded as angrier when those faces are paired with the word ‘angry’, and they are encoded as even angrier when participants are asked to explain why those faces are angry [19].
you seem unable to provide an account of how we arrive at the conclusion that decisions, thoughts, and feelings occur in the first place. — javra
We seem to be talking past each other. — Ciceronianus the White
Isaac DESTROYS evolutionary psychology. (Maybe). — fdrake
How I'm thinking about emotions in the natural kind flavour are that they are attractors in the dynamical system of active inference given the statistical regularities of our current lifestyles. — fdrake
A more complicated attractor might be whether an asteroid would enter into orbit around Earth. It'll come from some angle, and when it non-negligibly gets pulled by Earth's gravity, it might start to rotate around Earth. The attractor there would be the collection of all orbits around Earth that the asteroids take. — fdrake
I'm unclear whether "state" refers to something like the state of a neuron, or whether it refers to something like the state of an environmental parameter, or whether at one stage in the process it refers to an environmental parameter (well, in its encoded form) and at others it refers to neuron states. — fdrake
my entire argument pivoted on decisions, thoughts, and some certain emotions not being perceptions – hence on our knowledge of these not being empirical. — javra
The system described regarding habit formation in the Friston paper you linked doesn't have this "gets stuck there forever" property regarding habits though, a prior becomes change resistant by having its updates diminished by previous success using the policies (actions/worldly interventions, in the paper foraging strategies in a maze) it proposes. — fdrake
So thinking of emotions (not core affect alone) as learned, they would need to be change resistant habits that activate based upon context similarity to the predictions (bodily-environmental model) their representations/encoded patterns generate. When evidence accumulates that the activating context for the habit is no longer present, the agent switches to an exploratory mode that yields the formation of new habits. — fdrake
Language seems to have the ability to prime which habits are simulated and enacted; and language as a cultural artifact/shared repository of symbols and meanings changes much more slowly than the fleeting associations that shape our emerging experience of emotions. It's a relatively time stable network of associations we partake in by analogous simulations. Moreover, language plays a mediating role in valuation of core affect. So: it changes slowly, it primes for which habits to activate by being a context, it mediates valuation in accordance with its own system of associations. It also seems to amplify predictions/interventions that are more typical of it when it's used as a prime (people primed with angry words report faces as more angry). — fdrake
It's possible that some of the restrictions society places of the classification are acting in a similar way - constraining private variety to make public expression meaningful? — Isaac
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