The word I use for what you describe is shock, or perhaps if you’re allowing something longer term, dread. I use fear to mean the emotional state I usually (but not always) experience when anticipating negative outcomes. It is characterized by a contracting feeling in the chest, racing thoughts, and what I’ll call for lack of a better phrase “negative emotional valence”. I experience this when anticipating death, which is an outcome that is quite negative indeed. I also experience this, due to my social anxiety, before talking to almost anyone, despite not actually anticipating a negative outcome, and before important tests, which I don’t expect to cause me danger but could cause something bad to happen.
Do you experience this emotion in this way? If so, what do you call it?
The names we assign emotions are, of course, somewhat arbitrary, but I find it interesting that what you call fear seems to be centered around a possible danger. What do you consider danger to be, if not a risk of death? If an assassin were hunting you with a completely painless weapon, would you experience what you call fear?
The word I use for what you have described is anxiety. I do not experience it when contemplating the diminishing amount of thread left on the reel.
Yes, danger is a risk of negative things, and death is one of those things. The painlessness of the hypothetical assassin’s weapon would be a trifling matter compared to the fact that he would be trying to kill me. But I dare say that no-one knows how they will react under fire, until the first time. I am fortunate enough to have never lived in a bad neighbourhood or a war zone, nor given anyone reason to send assassins after me.
Huh, people really do have a lot of variation between them. I’d personally call anxiety a subtype of fear, but I suspect I have coarser grained emotional labels than some or even most.
Regardless, it’s fascinating you don’t experience anxiety when thinking about death. I guess unless we ever find something to actually prevent it for it you’re certainly luckier than I.
people really do have a lot of variation between them.
Big understatement, and insanely easy to forget. https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/typical-mind-fallacy has been common knowledge for a long time, but it keeps surprising me just how many dimensions it applies to. That said, it doesn’t surprise me at all that anxiety experience is one of the highly-variable dimensions.
Note that it varies across time as well as between individuals. I used to be much more fearful of death (and physical pain, and failure at work, and many other things) than I am now. Part of it is intentional meditation, introspection, and therapy, but a lot of it seems to be just age. I’m simply more accepting of things than I was a few decades ago.
The word I use for what you describe is shock, or perhaps if you’re allowing something longer term, dread. I use fear to mean the emotional state I usually (but not always) experience when anticipating negative outcomes. It is characterized by a contracting feeling in the chest, racing thoughts, and what I’ll call for lack of a better phrase “negative emotional valence”. I experience this when anticipating death, which is an outcome that is quite negative indeed. I also experience this, due to my social anxiety, before talking to almost anyone, despite not actually anticipating a negative outcome, and before important tests, which I don’t expect to cause me danger but could cause something bad to happen.
Do you experience this emotion in this way? If so, what do you call it?
The names we assign emotions are, of course, somewhat arbitrary, but I find it interesting that what you call fear seems to be centered around a possible danger. What do you consider danger to be, if not a risk of death? If an assassin were hunting you with a completely painless weapon, would you experience what you call fear?
The word I use for what you have described is anxiety. I do not experience it when contemplating the diminishing amount of thread left on the reel.
Yes, danger is a risk of negative things, and death is one of those things. The painlessness of the hypothetical assassin’s weapon would be a trifling matter compared to the fact that he would be trying to kill me. But I dare say that no-one knows how they will react under fire, until the first time. I am fortunate enough to have never lived in a bad neighbourhood or a war zone, nor given anyone reason to send assassins after me.
Huh, people really do have a lot of variation between them. I’d personally call anxiety a subtype of fear, but I suspect I have coarser grained emotional labels than some or even most.
Regardless, it’s fascinating you don’t experience anxiety when thinking about death. I guess unless we ever find something to actually prevent it for it you’re certainly luckier than I.
Big understatement, and insanely easy to forget. https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/typical-mind-fallacy has been common knowledge for a long time, but it keeps surprising me just how many dimensions it applies to. That said, it doesn’t surprise me at all that anxiety experience is one of the highly-variable dimensions.
Note that it varies across time as well as between individuals. I used to be much more fearful of death (and physical pain, and failure at work, and many other things) than I am now. Part of it is intentional meditation, introspection, and therapy, but a lot of it seems to be just age. I’m simply more accepting of things than I was a few decades ago.