Yeah, if the English language had any words for feelings that aren’t hopelessly vague
I suspect this is because of large psychological differences between humans. Specifically, not all humans experience all feelings; thus when a human hears a word referring to a feeling he hasn’t experienced he assumes it refers to the closest feeling that he has.
Other theories: people just don’t introspect much, people like being vague because “I love you” pleases someone who wants to hear “I want to work to make you happy” when you mean “I have lots of fun on dates with you”, people before the advent of self-help books had a taboo against discussing (and generally expressing) feelings qua feelings and used preference-revealing actions instead.
I’m given to understand that English is unusually bad in this regard; that would seem to screen out standard human variance unless English-speakers are unusually varied.
Also, I don’t think it’s generalizing from one example; humans demonstrate pretty standard emotions (and facial expressions, for that matter) AFAICT.
(Also, there’s The Psychological Unity of Mankind. We don’t want to overgeneralize, sure, but evidence regarding one human mind is, in fact, evidence regarding all of them. It’s far from overwhelming evidence, but still.)
The only ones to love a martyr’s actions are those who did not love them.
That isn’t true. If I love someone and they martyr themselves (literally or figuratively) in a way that is the unambiguously and overwhelmingly optimal way to fulfill both their volition and my own then I will love the martyr’s actions. If you say I do not love the martyr or do not love their actions due to some generalization then you are just wrong.
Agreed… but also, this gets complicated because of the role of external constraints.
I can love someone, “love” what they do in the context of the environment in which they did it (I put love here in scare quotes because I’m not sure I mean the same thing by it when applied to an action, but it’s close enough for casual conversation), and hate the fact that they were in such an environment to begin with, and if so my feelings about it can easily get confused.
Unfortunately, most people don’t view things this way. I figured that so long as we were discussing a show based on how humans try to rationalize away and fight against the truly rational optimum, I might as well throw out a comment on how such people react to truly rational optimizers (martyrs).
Of course Kyubey never reveals how much saving-of-the-universe Madoka’s life would pay for exactly. It’s not just her life (and suffering) they want, but all the MGs in history, past and future, for an unspecified extention of the Universe’s lifespan...
Also, Kyubey clearly has pretty drastically different values from people, and thus his notion of saving the universe is probably not quite right for us.
-- Kyubey (Puella Magi Madoka Magica)
For you, I’ll walk this endless maze...
The only ones to love a martyr’s actions are those who did not love them.
Yeah, if the English language had any words for feelings that aren’t hopelessly vague, we wouldn’t have those silly arguments about catchy proverbs.
I suspect this is because of large psychological differences between humans. Specifically, not all humans experience all feelings; thus when a human hears a word referring to a feeling he hasn’t experienced he assumes it refers to the closest feeling that he has.
Other theories: people just don’t introspect much, people like being vague because “I love you” pleases someone who wants to hear “I want to work to make you happy” when you mean “I have lots of fun on dates with you”, people before the advent of self-help books had a taboo against discussing (and generally expressing) feelings qua feelings and used preference-revealing actions instead.
I’m given to understand that English is unusually bad in this regard; that would seem to screen out standard human variance unless English-speakers are unusually varied.
Also, I don’t think it’s generalizing from one example; humans demonstrate pretty standard emotions (and facial expressions, for that matter) AFAICT.
(Also, there’s The Psychological Unity of Mankind. We don’t want to overgeneralize, sure, but evidence regarding one human mind is, in fact, evidence regarding all of them. It’s far from overwhelming evidence, but still.)
That isn’t true. If I love someone and they martyr themselves (literally or figuratively) in a way that is the unambiguously and overwhelmingly optimal way to fulfill both their volition and my own then I will love the martyr’s actions. If you say I do not love the martyr or do not love their actions due to some generalization then you are just wrong.
Agreed… but also, this gets complicated because of the role of external constraints.
I can love someone, “love” what they do in the context of the environment in which they did it (I put love here in scare quotes because I’m not sure I mean the same thing by it when applied to an action, but it’s close enough for casual conversation), and hate the fact that they were in such an environment to begin with, and if so my feelings about it can easily get confused.
Ding, rationalist level up!
Unfortunately, most people don’t view things this way. I figured that so long as we were discussing a show based on how humans try to rationalize away and fight against the truly rational optimum, I might as well throw out a comment on how such people react to truly rational optimizers (martyrs).
I’m not sure in what way this is about rationality. Can someone please explain? (And yes, I’ve seen PM and I do remember that line).
I had scope insensitivity in mind. The universe is pretty big and one person’s life is pretty small.
I see, thanks.
Of course Kyubey never reveals how much saving-of-the-universe Madoka’s life would pay for exactly. It’s not just her life (and suffering) they want, but all the MGs in history, past and future, for an unspecified extention of the Universe’s lifespan...
Also, Kyubey clearly has pretty drastically different values from people, and thus his notion of saving the universe is probably not quite right for us.