By emotion, I mean, “that which controls the macro-physiological state of the body across multiple control systems, whose effects may be observed through kinesthetic awareness, and which is not a product of direct conscious effort to influence that state.”
Or, in simpler words, “feelings”. ;-)
Evolutionarily, I propose that the function of emotion is to prepare the body for co-ordinated action of some kind—for example, fear prepares for fight/flight and triggers heightened sensory focus.
Other emotions are more cerebral (e.g. the “aha” sensation), but still can be perceived in physical form, often still having externally visible effects, even to the naked eye.
When you describe the quite real operations performed by human mind, consisting in assigning properties to things and priming to see some properties easier or at all, you bless this description with the action of emotion-substance for some reason.
The reason is that brains were not created for us to perform reasoning, they were created to classify things by emotion—that is, to prepare the body for responses appropriate to recognized external events. It’s important to remember that thinking arose after simple memory-prediction-action chains, and that it’s built on top of that legacy system. That’s why emotion (using the definition I gave above) is critical: tagging things with emotions and replaying those emotions upon recall is the primary substance and function of brains.
Yes, there are goal subsystems and all that… but that’s another system (like “thinking”) that’s layered on top of the memory-prediction-action chain.
For example, you talked about good and bad emotions in the past, and it’s OK once you specify a model which is driven by good and bad emotions instead of more explicit expected terminal utility computation.
Certainly—that’s later in the sequence. It was going to be next, but yours and Yvain’s comments make me think that maybe I need to get a bit more explicit about the evolutionary chain here, including the memory-prediction-action core, although maybe I can work that in at the beginning.
The reason is that brains were not created for us to perform reasoning, they were created to classify things by emotion—that is, to prepare the body for responses appropriate to recognized external events. It’s important to remember that thinking arose after simple memory-prediction-action chains, and that it’s built on top of that legacy system. That’s why emotion (using the definition I gave above) is critical: tagging things with emotions and replaying those emotions upon recall is the primary substance and function of brains.
Really, taboo emotion, taboo feelings, taboo anything that allows “all things that are not conscious reasoning” to be compressed to a single word.
I don’t understand your request. Do you want me to list every possible somatic marker?
(Note, btw, that different animals have different somatic marker hierarchies, so that would be a pretty extensive list, if I were even able to compile it.)
In my work, I rarely need to distinguish the nature of an emotion in any finer degree than “toward” or “away”, “good” or “bad”. The difference between (say) somebody feeling “terrible” about their work or “awful” is not important to me, nor do I care what specific somatic markers are involved in marking those concepts either across human beings or even within any given single human being.
However, it is important for the person experiencing that marker to be able to identify the physical components of it, in order to be able to test whether or not an intervention I suggest has actually removed the link between a concept and the marker that gets automatically played back when the concept is thought of. (Since the marker is a preparation for action—including actions such as “hesitation”—changing the marker also changes the behavior associated with the concept… but the markers can be tested much more quickly than full-blown behaviors, allowing for faster feedback in cases where more than one technique might be relevant.)
Thus, “emotion” to me is a testable and predictable concept that governs human motivation in a meaningful way. If somebody wants to give me a better word to use to describe the thing upon which my interventions operate and manifest as physical (muscular, visceral, etc.) sensations in the body, then by all means, suggest away.
I am not a psychology researcher—I help people to fix motivation problems and make personality changes. My work is not to “prove” that a particular hypothesis or physical mechanism is in effect in human beings; it’s to identify practical techniques, and to devise useful models for understanding how those techniques operate and by which new techniques can be developed. Of course, as I find out more about evolution or about experimental results, I incorporate that information into my theoretical models to improve my practical results.
It seems to me that you are asking me to stop using a model that actually works for producing practical results, and to substitute something else—and what that something else is, I’m not sure.
So, I’d appreciate it if you’d explain more specifically what it is you’re asking for, in the form of an actionable request, rather than primarily in the form of what you’d like me not to do.
The reason is that brains were not created for us to perform reasoning, they were created to classify things by emotion—that is, to prepare the body for responses appropriate to recognized external events. It’s important to remember that thinking arose after simple memory-prediction-action chains, and that it’s built on top of that legacy system. That’s why emotion (using the definition I gave above) is critical: tagging things with emotions and replaying those emotions upon recall is the primary substance and function of brains.
You have already said this in the article, and I basically agree with this model. But it doesn’t follow that the categories/responses/tags are in any sense simple. They have the structure of their own, the structure as powerful as any piece of imagination. The structure of these “tags” has complexity still beyond the reach of any scientific investigation hitherto entered upon. ;-) And for this reason it’s an error to write them off as phlogiston, even if you proceed with describing their properties.
And for this reason it’s an error to write them off as phlogiston, even if you proceed with describing their properties.
I’m treating emotion—or better, somatic markers—as a category of thing that is useful to know about. But I have not really needed to have finer distinctions than “good” or “bad”, for practical purposes in teaching people how to modify their markers and change their beliefs, motivations, etc. So, if you’re saying I have too broad a category, I’m saying that in practice, I haven’t needed to have a smaller one.
Frankly, it seems to me that perhaps some people are quibbling about the word “emotion” because they have it labeled “bad”, but I’m also using it to describe things they have labeled “good”. Ergo, I must be using the word incorrectly. (I’d be happy to be wrong about that supposition, of course.)
From my perspective, though, it’s a false dichotomy to split emotion in such a way—it overcomplicates the necessary model of mind, rather than simplifying it.
Frankly, it seems to me that perhaps some people are quibbling about the word “emotion” because they have it labeled “bad”, but I’m also using it to describe things they have labeled “good”. Ergo, I must be using the word incorrectly. (I’d be happy to be wrong about that supposition, of course.)
From my perspective, though, it’s a false dichotomy to split emotion in such a way—it overcomplicates the necessary model of mind, rather than simplifying it.
By emotion, I mean, “that which controls the macro-physiological state of the body across multiple control systems, whose effects may be observed through kinesthetic awareness, and which is not a product of direct conscious effort to influence that state.”
Or, in simpler words, “feelings”. ;-)
Evolutionarily, I propose that the function of emotion is to prepare the body for co-ordinated action of some kind—for example, fear prepares for fight/flight and triggers heightened sensory focus.
Other emotions are more cerebral (e.g. the “aha” sensation), but still can be perceived in physical form, often still having externally visible effects, even to the naked eye.
The reason is that brains were not created for us to perform reasoning, they were created to classify things by emotion—that is, to prepare the body for responses appropriate to recognized external events. It’s important to remember that thinking arose after simple memory-prediction-action chains, and that it’s built on top of that legacy system. That’s why emotion (using the definition I gave above) is critical: tagging things with emotions and replaying those emotions upon recall is the primary substance and function of brains.
Yes, there are goal subsystems and all that… but that’s another system (like “thinking”) that’s layered on top of the memory-prediction-action chain.
Certainly—that’s later in the sequence. It was going to be next, but yours and Yvain’s comments make me think that maybe I need to get a bit more explicit about the evolutionary chain here, including the memory-prediction-action core, although maybe I can work that in at the beginning.
Really, taboo emotion, taboo feelings, taboo anything that allows “all things that are not conscious reasoning” to be compressed to a single word.
I don’t understand your request. Do you want me to list every possible somatic marker?
(Note, btw, that different animals have different somatic marker hierarchies, so that would be a pretty extensive list, if I were even able to compile it.)
In my work, I rarely need to distinguish the nature of an emotion in any finer degree than “toward” or “away”, “good” or “bad”. The difference between (say) somebody feeling “terrible” about their work or “awful” is not important to me, nor do I care what specific somatic markers are involved in marking those concepts either across human beings or even within any given single human being.
However, it is important for the person experiencing that marker to be able to identify the physical components of it, in order to be able to test whether or not an intervention I suggest has actually removed the link between a concept and the marker that gets automatically played back when the concept is thought of. (Since the marker is a preparation for action—including actions such as “hesitation”—changing the marker also changes the behavior associated with the concept… but the markers can be tested much more quickly than full-blown behaviors, allowing for faster feedback in cases where more than one technique might be relevant.)
Thus, “emotion” to me is a testable and predictable concept that governs human motivation in a meaningful way. If somebody wants to give me a better word to use to describe the thing upon which my interventions operate and manifest as physical (muscular, visceral, etc.) sensations in the body, then by all means, suggest away.
I am not a psychology researcher—I help people to fix motivation problems and make personality changes. My work is not to “prove” that a particular hypothesis or physical mechanism is in effect in human beings; it’s to identify practical techniques, and to devise useful models for understanding how those techniques operate and by which new techniques can be developed. Of course, as I find out more about evolution or about experimental results, I incorporate that information into my theoretical models to improve my practical results.
It seems to me that you are asking me to stop using a model that actually works for producing practical results, and to substitute something else—and what that something else is, I’m not sure.
So, I’d appreciate it if you’d explain more specifically what it is you’re asking for, in the form of an actionable request, rather than primarily in the form of what you’d like me not to do.
You have already said this in the article, and I basically agree with this model. But it doesn’t follow that the categories/responses/tags are in any sense simple. They have the structure of their own, the structure as powerful as any piece of imagination. The structure of these “tags” has complexity still beyond the reach of any scientific investigation hitherto entered upon. ;-) And for this reason it’s an error to write them off as phlogiston, even if you proceed with describing their properties.
I’m treating emotion—or better, somatic markers—as a category of thing that is useful to know about. But I have not really needed to have finer distinctions than “good” or “bad”, for practical purposes in teaching people how to modify their markers and change their beliefs, motivations, etc. So, if you’re saying I have too broad a category, I’m saying that in practice, I haven’t needed to have a smaller one.
Frankly, it seems to me that perhaps some people are quibbling about the word “emotion” because they have it labeled “bad”, but I’m also using it to describe things they have labeled “good”. Ergo, I must be using the word incorrectly. (I’d be happy to be wrong about that supposition, of course.)
From my perspective, though, it’s a false dichotomy to split emotion in such a way—it overcomplicates the necessary model of mind, rather than simplifying it.
I don’t believe anyone is thinking that.