In classical philosophy, emotions (or 'the passions') were something to be overcome. — Wayfarer

Plato's chariot allegory - a tripartite division of reason, higher moral feeling and base animal emotion would be the influential basis of the Western view.

Plato paints the picture of a Charioteer driving a chariot pulled by two winged horses...

The Charioteer represents intellect, reason, or the part of the soul that must guide the soul to truth; one horse represents rational or moral impulse or the positive part of passionate nature (e.g., righteous indignation); while the other represents the soul's irrational passions, appetites, or concupiscent nature. The Charioteer directs the entire chariot/soul, trying to stop the horses from going different ways, and to proceed towards enlightenment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chariot_Allegory

I suppose this attitude conveys the impression of the proverbial Mr Spock - the cool rationalist, for whom emotion is a peculiar human trait, but who on that account misses something vital about being human. — Wayfarer

This is what I mean about the power of cultural imagery to teach appropriate attitudes. Mr Spock speaks for the cool reason of the Enlightenment. Capt Kirk speaks for the Romantic repost that humanity is ultimately defined by its heart.

Meanwhile the whole show teaches impressionable youngsters that the American Dream of individual freedom and free enterprise should be imposed on all alien cultures encountered. Even bug-eyed monsters should be given the supreme gift of human independently-minded feeling.

Oh the irony of the fact that it is social constraints that give shape to human freedoms, pointing us in a clear direction and leaving us to do our best to meet those goals.

Emotionality is a clay to be sculpted. And the goals are made so lofty, so abstract, they become unrealistic to achieve.

And the goals are made so lofty, so abstract, they become unrealistic to achieve. — apokrisis

The only goal of Western liberalism is economic growth - that's the engine that fuels prosperity. But now the Western worldview is underwritten by evolution, the only goal of which is propagation, and which is essentially a meaningless physical process. So the 'truth' spoken of by Platonic wisdom has to all intents been abandoned, there is nothing higher to aspire to than the 'four Fs'. Which is why, if you overcome emotion, in the Western eyes, you will only succeed in becoming nihilist. You see plenty of that here, don't you?

From your post, we can gather that the one horse with the rational and moral impulse would be what we call the higher emotions. The second horse would be living its life according to the lower emotions. I am now going to reverse this whole quote to make my point:

Plato paints the picture of a Charioteer (Greek: ἡνίοχος) driving a chariot pulled by two winged horses:

"First the charioteer of the human soul drives a pair, and secondly one of the horses is noble and of noble breed, but the other quite the opposite in breed and character. Therefore in our case the driving is necessarily difficult and troublesome."

The Charioteer represents intellect, reason, or the part of the soul that must guide the soul to truth; one horse represents rational or moral impulse or the neutral/dead part of passionate nature (e.g., righteous indignation); while the other represents the soul's sacred/life-giving passions, appetites, or divine nature. The Charioteer directs the entire chariot/soul, trying to stop the horses from going different ways, and to proceed towards hedonistic enlightenment.

So, what I am basically saying here is that these "lower emotions" are actually the higher emotions while these "higher emotions" are nothing at all. These lower emotions are actually divine, so to speak, and many people don't realize this. They think that non hedonistic endeavors (i.e. endeavors that don't involve these divine positive emotions) are the way to enlightenment and the true path to finding good value and worth in one's life. I think this is all a deluded lie. Likewise, people would think that all the emotional trauma that I've been through in my life was nothing more than a matter of me feeling awful.

They are dismissing the emotional hell I've been through as nothing more than trivial, insignificant, or petty emotions. What people don't realize is that these "lower emotions" are actually the true heaven and hell to a person's life. Of course, we do need to use reason and intellect (the higher impulse) to, for example, save our lives, make wise decisions, and save the lives of others. But the higher impulse alone does not give our lives any real perceived value and worth. It is not our higher impulse that is the prominent guider in our lives. Rather, it is these "lower emotions" which guide the higher impulse since they are what make any endeavor that relies upon these higher impulses of good value to us in the first place.

Yeah, there is a lot of nihilism, existentalism and ant-natalism expressed around these parts. It is a natural reaction to being asked to jump so high as a "self-actualising being" in the modern individualistic world.

So while you finger the rational side of the equation - Scientism - I see that as merely the other half of the same essential duo. It is the romantic belief in human transcendence that was also fixed by Plato right at the birth of the Socratic Western ideal of the self-made person answering to a call from beyond his or her actual (biologically and socially constrained) world.

That would be why the values of other cultures - like Buddhism - might appeal to you. They speak to a traditional, non-technological, lifestyle that perforce is more communal and ecological, less directed at growth and advance.

But what happens when Westerners start picking and choosing the bits they think they best like from other cultures? You start to get the new agers and transhumanists. You get a romanticised version of the Eastern wisdom where again it becomes all about personal ascendancy - tapping into spiritual power so as to become super-human.

It is not our higher impulse that is the prominent guider in our lives. Rather, it is these "lower emotions" which guide the higher impulse since they are what make any endeavor that relies upon these higher impulses of good value to us in the first place. — TranscendedRealms

I don't want to dispute your personal experience, but the general theoretical response would be that the game does require us to be a player. We have to accept society makes us who we are - it becomes the cause of our grief, to the degree that it is not some biological issue. And so, it is also rational to take responsibility for manufacturing the social conditions under which we might best hope to flourish. As selves, we have to make it a two-way street.

And this indeed is the basic understanding that has emerged in modern positive psychology. It understands emotionality correctly as an internalisation of cultural mores that can then be disinterred and responded to rationally.

In therapy, a person might realise that they have been beating themselves up for years over the way their parents in particular might have framed their existence. "You need to be a man." "You have to win at life." "Oh you're the shy type." Discovering these are constructs that can be challenged or put sensibly into context means that the social expectations that shape an individual become individually negotiable. A new state of relations with the social world can be established.

Of course this doesn't make life perfectable. But then a belief in perfection (or nothing) is the reason why people set themselves up to fail. Or becomes the excuse for not even engaging in the business of the social co-creation of the individualised self.

I will add one last thing here. From there, I will present a logical argument that attempts to support my view. Let me know when you are ready to read it. But first, I will just say this:

The reason why these "higher emotions" aren't actual emotions would be due to the fact that there is no actual quality of emotions there. Remember, there is a big difference between terms and qualities. You can define or judge an apple to be an orange, but that will not change the qualities of the apple and make it into an orange. Therefore, these "higher emotions" are nothing more than a person's will to carry on in life in the absence of his "lower positive emotions." This will to carry on does not give this person a real perception of good value in his life regardless of what he thinks and believes otherwise.

The reason why these "higher emotions" aren't actual emotions would be due to the fact that there is no actual quality of emotions there. — TranscendedRealms

If I say I am in love, or I am being brave, there is always some affect - and even a lack of affect counts as an empty kind of feeling I could report.

So the issue for socially-constructed emotions is that they are bound by being a script. They are associated with a set of acceptable actions more than any single quality of feeling. They are complexes and not simplicities.

And this applies even to biological level emotionality. Does feeling scared vs feeling angry really feel much more than being in an adrenalised aroused state - just in one case you are primed for advancing, the other for retreating. So the experience is of that high arousal plus the behavioural direction that ensued.

Emotion theorists often say that the actual physiological "feelings" we can report are much simpler than we in fact think. Perhaps just those two dimensions of I am feeling aroused vs I am feeling relaxed, I am feeling pain vs I am feeling pleasure?

The OP wrote...

...Thoughts make us feel certain ways...

Emotions are then... caused by thoughts. Physiological sensory perception is not.

But my theory is that these higher emotions you are talking about do not give a person's life any real perception of value. I have a logical argument to support this. Let me know when you are ready to hear it.

The thoughts themselves can't be any emotions for us. They send emotional signals which make us feel emotions.

What is the criterion, which when met, counts as being an emotional signal?

For example, when you feel excited over a new video game or movie, that is a state of euphoria caused by a certain thought. That thought was, again, the idea of you getting that new game or movie.

You claim that emotions are a sense, like sight. You then acknowledge that thought causes emotions. If thought causes emotions, but not physiological sensory perception, then emotions are not equal to physiological sensory perception(sight).

I asked you to set out a criterion, which when met, counts as being an emotional signal. Your example failed to do that, and rather re-affirmed the above... which is a big problem for your position here.

But I think emotions would still be a sense even though it is a different mechanism than sight. So, just because thoughts make us feel certain emotions while thoughts do not make us see or hear, this does not negate the idea of emotions being a sense.

If physiological sensory perception is not caused by thought and emotion is, then it only follows that emotion is not physiological sensory perception.

I actually have a logical argument that supports the idea that emotions are a sense. Let me know when you are ready to read it.

I actually have a logical argument that supports the idea that emotions are a sense. — TranscendedRealms

Go on, then.

When you, for example, look at nature, then all the information of the trees, rivers, etc. is flowing through your brain. The moment you get a positive emotion from nature, then that naturalistic information in the brain gets combined with that positive emotional state. Thus, producing a positive emotion that literally contains a naturalistic quality to it. The same thing would apply if you got a positive emotion from looking at something artificial such as a lit flashlight. The positive emotion would take on the artificial tone of that flashlight. So, instead of seeing the flashlight and all its qualities, you are actually feeling all of its qualities. It would be no different than tasting a sweet piece of candy.

You could either look at the piece of candy and all its sweet and delicious attributes, or you can taste them. In a way, I guess you could consider our positive emotions to be the taste we get from life itself. This means that, as I explain later on here, emotions are a sense like taste, sight, hearing, etc. Now, here's where things get interesting. I established earlier that our positive emotions are like the sense of taste in the very beginning of my logical argument. This means that if we have a good value judgment that makes us feel a positive emotion, then we are sensing something good in our lives. Therefore, our positive emotions are a sense like sight and hearing.

Physiological sensory perception is not caused by thought.
Emotion is caused by thought.
Emotion is not physiological sensory perception.

Physiological sensory perception is not caused by thought.
Emotion is caused by thought.
Emotion is not physiological sensory perception. — creativesoul

Citations?

Citations?

X-)

Hah. You need a bibliography here? Footnotes and all...

I understand your point of view. But feel free to fully read my logical argument I just made above and give your response.

No. You need it. If you are going to make these bald, unsubstantiated, assertions.

That's not a logical argument.

Break it down for me. That is, condense that post into argumentative form. I'd be glad to review it then. At first blush, a few falsehoods seem to be at work, but I didn't give it all of my attention either.

What are you talking about apo?

Bald unsubstantiated assertions...

What are those?

Really really bald ones?

>:O

Never mind then. I will just wait for someone else to fully read and respond to it. This logical argument fully explains the concepts I am presenting. By breaking it down, I would only be leaving plenty of room for objections to my logical argument. Therefore, by fully explaining my logical argument in such a long winded manner, I would have thoroughly addressed any objections to it.

Ok TranscendedRealms...

Listen. There are several false statements at work in that post. What would it take for you to acknowledge that? I mean, could you? If so, what would it take for you to admit that much of it is based upon falsehood?

That's not a logical argument.

Yes, I would take into consideration into whatever these falsehoods are. However, I am currently unaware of these falsehoods. Therefore, feel free to point them out and discuss them.