“Emotion concepts are disanalogous to that. If you have learned from culture that people respond to the death of a loved one by getting sleepy, that might become a self-fulfilling prophecy. You are not purely a passive observer of your facial expressions, physiological arousal, etc.—and that includes not only voluntary actions but even “involuntary” things like facial expressions, crying, etc.
Now, on my models, as in Section 2.3 above, there are “innate behaviors” implemented by cell groups in the hypothalamus and brainstem, and there are also predictive models in your cortex, amygdala, striatum etc. that involve concepts / categories. There’s a funny loopy thing, where the innate behaviors can provide “ground truth” that trains the various predictive models, but also, those same predictive models can provide a subset of the inputs to those “innate behaviors”—allowing, for example, self-fulfilling prophecies where you cry because your brain has learned through experience that this is a situation where you’re about to cry. For example, see my discussion of so-called “defer-to-predictor mode” here. So anyway, on my models, I can acknowledge that concepts / predictive models are relevant to “innate behaviors”, but I still see innate behaviors as a pretty self-contained topic of discussion. But I’m getting off-topic.”
I have doubts about this. You can’t really measure emotions just expressions of emotions. I think it’s possible to still feel all these things and just not have a word for them. Same with the self fulfilling prophecies. You’ll find many accounts of people who don’t “cry when they’re supposed to” there seems to be a lot more to it than that. You don’t cry because the script says you’re supposed to. I know in my experience I only cry when I had a emotional connection to whoever died. If I didn’t then I couldn’t make myself do it no matter how much the script said I should, not even at my mother’s funeral.
That said you are a purely passive observer over your facial expressions, arousal, etc, you don’t really have a say or control over that stuff. You don’t control what you like, find convincing, sad, etc, so in a sense you are just an observer of this stuff. At most you might be able to suppress these actions but not for long.
“I offer my position of Section 2.3 as a starting point for this moving-forward process. I claim that I have incorporated all the correct insights and criticisms from both sides, and that my position is consistent with everything we know about psychology and neuroscience. ”
I wouldn’t go that far. From what I read on psychology and neuroscience the position seems to be “whoever you’re asking”. So far the evidence seems to support the innate side more, as the constructed side seems to be going about it wrong. They can’t really measure emotion just expression of it. I tried contacting Lisa for more info on her theory but just got asked to read the books so...yeah.
Also you’ll find examples of people like Helen Keller who claim to have felt emotions but couldn’t really find a way to express what they’re feeling. I know my own experience mirrors hers though I don’t have the condition she did. But I have felt various different emotions I had no concepts of, it was only later when I learned about stuff like Schadenfreude that I can talk about them.
IMO this research has to be taken with a grain of salt as there is no real way to measure emotion without being in someone’s skin. Even in the example of a baby, you’re just assuming they don’t feel anger or sadness, but there isn’t a way to really tell no matter how many brain scans you do. You usually have to ask them and hope they’re telling the truth.
TLDR: It’s complicated and no one has any real idea what they’re doing.
“Emotion concepts are disanalogous to that. If you have learned from culture that people respond to the death of a loved one by getting sleepy, that might become a self-fulfilling prophecy. You are not purely a passive observer of your facial expressions, physiological arousal, etc.—and that includes not only voluntary actions but even “involuntary” things like facial expressions, crying, etc.
Now, on my models, as in Section 2.3 above, there are “innate behaviors” implemented by cell groups in the hypothalamus and brainstem, and there are also predictive models in your cortex, amygdala, striatum etc. that involve concepts / categories. There’s a funny loopy thing, where the innate behaviors can provide “ground truth” that trains the various predictive models, but also, those same predictive models can provide a subset of the inputs to those “innate behaviors”—allowing, for example, self-fulfilling prophecies where you cry because your brain has learned through experience that this is a situation where you’re about to cry. For example, see my discussion of so-called “defer-to-predictor mode” here. So anyway, on my models, I can acknowledge that concepts / predictive models are relevant to “innate behaviors”, but I still see innate behaviors as a pretty self-contained topic of discussion. But I’m getting off-topic.”
I have doubts about this. You can’t really measure emotions just expressions of emotions. I think it’s possible to still feel all these things and just not have a word for them. Same with the self fulfilling prophecies. You’ll find many accounts of people who don’t “cry when they’re supposed to” there seems to be a lot more to it than that. You don’t cry because the script says you’re supposed to. I know in my experience I only cry when I had a emotional connection to whoever died. If I didn’t then I couldn’t make myself do it no matter how much the script said I should, not even at my mother’s funeral.
That said you are a purely passive observer over your facial expressions, arousal, etc, you don’t really have a say or control over that stuff. You don’t control what you like, find convincing, sad, etc, so in a sense you are just an observer of this stuff. At most you might be able to suppress these actions but not for long.
“I offer my position of Section 2.3 as a starting point for this moving-forward process. I claim that I have incorporated all the correct insights and criticisms from both sides, and that my position is consistent with everything we know about psychology and neuroscience. ”
I wouldn’t go that far. From what I read on psychology and neuroscience the position seems to be “whoever you’re asking”. So far the evidence seems to support the innate side more, as the constructed side seems to be going about it wrong. They can’t really measure emotion just expression of it. I tried contacting Lisa for more info on her theory but just got asked to read the books so...yeah.
Also you’ll find examples of people like Helen Keller who claim to have felt emotions but couldn’t really find a way to express what they’re feeling. I know my own experience mirrors hers though I don’t have the condition she did. But I have felt various different emotions I had no concepts of, it was only later when I learned about stuff like Schadenfreude that I can talk about them.
IMO this research has to be taken with a grain of salt as there is no real way to measure emotion without being in someone’s skin. Even in the example of a baby, you’re just assuming they don’t feel anger or sadness, but there isn’t a way to really tell no matter how many brain scans you do. You usually have to ask them and hope they’re telling the truth.
TLDR: It’s complicated and no one has any real idea what they’re doing.