Emotions are intrinsically good and bad

[Edwardo Piet]

That may explain why I can half-understand where TD is coming from. Although she is still pretty nuts

By the way, in regards to your question earlier about how I could judge a moderately intense amount of positive emotions over time versus a brief period of a very intense positive emotion as being the better solution, the answer here would be that our rational/thought form of value judgments are actually not real value judgments.  Instead, I would be having the idea of it being a better thing to do, but I wouldn't be judging (seeing) it as a good thing as long as I did not feel a positive emotion from that idea.  Our thoughts themselves are just ideas of things such as the idea of food, water, smells, visuals, sound, etc. but they do not bring our lives those things.  They could certainly trigger a certain smell or sound, but they themselves are just ideas.  Therefore, it is instead our emotional value judgments which are the real value judgments.  But what about situations where wise choices need to be made though?  If you felt angry at someone, then wouldn't we say that you would be judging it as a good thing to not harm this innocent person?  We wouldn't.  Rather, we would say that you had the idea of it being a good thing, but you weren't actually judging (seeing) any real good value in that.  Nonetheless, we should still make wise choices anyway since they are ideas of avoiding harmful, bad situations and reckless deeds to ourselves and others.

I agree that thoughts about goodness/value judgements are not the same as emotions. That is true but irrelevant.

I also disagree that it's even possible to have an emotional value judgement. Judgements of any kind are not emotional. Someone can feel emotional or experience emotions while they are making judgements, but that doesn't change the fact that the judgements and the emotions are entirely separate.

But if I bite the bullet and for sake of argument say that you're right about there being a such thing as emotional value judgements . . . that still gets you nowhere. The fact that emotional value judgements could lead us to make wise choices about our future does not entail that time is more important than intensity.

Your own subjective 'emotional value judgements', may lead you to do what you think makes you feel better, but you can be completely mistaken and deluded not only for others, but even for yourself. For starters I completely disagree. It isn't wiser to prefer time over intensity and variety over singular acuteness. It's wise to avoid the valleys and to seek the peeks (and it's especially wise to avoid the valleys), but I have additional premises and arguments to come to those conclusions. You merely pretend that your premises "emotions are intrinsically good and bad" and "emotional value judgements exist and are able to guide us wisely" entail "time is more important than intensity", but they don't. I disagree, intensity is more important than time. And for starters, I don't believe time is even real. There is only the present.

---

We should avoid harmful, bad situations and reckless deeds to ourselves and others -regardless- of how good we might feel engaged in them.  Utterly scuttling your entire position on the nature of good and evil.

-You- don't even agree with your own position, you're just too dense and stubborn to realize it.

But we should only avoid harmful situations for ourselves and others because they harm us. And harm is only a thing because it either hurts, damaging us emotionally, or it has potential to damage us so much that it eventually kills us, which only matters because when we're dead we can no longer feel happiness AND the people who care about us will suffer if we die.

[Transcended Dimensions]

Now, you told me earlier that my worldview was blatantly false because of the fact that all the things we see in this world disprove my worldview. 

It's blatantly false -before- we consider what we see out in the world.  You've been presenting a series of mutually contradictory statements as your worldview.  That it was inane by reference to things beyond your worldview is just icing on a shit cake.

I will keep an open mind towards the possibility that you are right and I will also keep an open mind towards the possibility that you are wrong and that you are just emotionally connected to your worldview rather than using a rational mindset.  According to my worldview, even though our rational thinking does not bring our lives any real perceived values, it does allow us to perceive the truth.  So, we can still use our thinking to arrive at certain truths. 

Not according to your worldview.  Full stop.

I don't see any contradictions given those 4 possibilities I've presented.  I don't know how you are arriving at that conclusion and I don't know how you arrive at the conclusion that my worldview has to be false before we even realize what's going on in the world.  Lastly, our rational thoughts themselves, according to my worldview, can only allow us to see certain truths such as the fact that there is day and night, the Earth revolves around the sun, etc.  But they do not allow us to judge (see) values, but to only have the idea of values in our minds.

[The Grand Nudger]

Your inability to rationally assess your own worldview is an irrelevance.

[Edwardo Piet]

No one gives a shit, "it's absurd therefore true" is garbage.  You fucked up, you've -been- fucking up since post one, you have nothing informative whatsoever.

Look, a shoulder to cry on, fine.  The rest?  Garbage.

If you are calling BS on the notion that I didn't perceive it as a good thing to get the help I needed from the idea of it being a good thing and choosing to get that help since you might be thinking that the two are the same thing, then there is another possibility.  I could have had a positive emotion on such a small level that I could not detect it which would mean that I really did perceive (judge) it as being a good thing to get that help.  However, that level of good value in my life would be so small that I could not detect it.  After all, if there was absolutely no good value whatsoever perceived at all in regards to that situation, then it could really be the case that I would have just sat there and did nothing.

You said that you were miserable but fought to get help because you saw it as a possibility that you wouldn't be miserable forever: i.e. the future may be less miserable if you get help.

So if there was an emotion you did not detect, it was probably the emotion of "hope". If there wasn't, then it was just your survival instinct.

Either way, the rational judgement of getting help so you can feel better is separate from any emotions of feeling better.

---

It's blatantly false -before- we consider what we see out in the world.  You've been presenting a series of mutually contradictory statements as your worldview.  That it was inane by reference to things beyond your worldview is just icing on a shit cake.

Not according to your worldview.  Full stop.

I don't see any contradictions given those 4 possibilities I've presented.  I don't know how you are arriving at that conclusion and I don't know how you arrive at the conclusion that my worldview has to be false before we even realize what's going on in the world.  Lastly, our rational thoughts themselves, according to my worldview, can only allow us to see certain truths such as the fact that there is day and night, the Earth revolves around the sun, etc.  But they do not allow us to judge (see) values, but to only have the idea of values in our minds.

Emotions are experiencial if they are anything at all. When you experience something, either you experience that emotionally as an emotion or you don't and you experience it as a non-emotion.

The point is that you only ever experience the present moment in any moment that is present, you experience that acuteness which cannot be aggregated, time is irrelevant. Intensity is more important than time.

I also pretty much think that emotions are intrinsically good and bad (although I think that's a very narrow way of framing my premise), but I recognize that nothing from that entails that "time is more important than intensity". In fact, all we experience are intensities in the moment, and I fail to see how it makes any sense to aggregate them together. Just as it makes no sense to aggregate different people's conscious experiences together as one individual, it makes no sense to aggregate any particular individuals experiences at different times together, into a feeling. However long a feeling lasts, that feeling is experienced as an experience, like all other experiences are experienced as experiences, and it only lasts as long as it lasts. This is all tautological, but the point is that regardless of however long a feeling (or emotion) lasts, it makes no sense to aggregate it with other feelings and emotions. It doesn't matter how many emotions you feel or how long they last, what matters is the quality, peaks, and valleys.

I also have an additional premise: Negative emotions are more important than positive ones. Positive emotions are intrisincally important, but negative emotions are intrinsically far more important. So much so that positive emotions are only really important if negative emotions aren't around to spoil them.

You don't recognize this asymmetry so you have no way of arguing that a rapist is doing anything wrong because you don't have a premise that says the suffering from the rape victim is far far more important than any pleasure from the rapist. Ratting on about wisdom and emotional judgements doesn't get you anywhere because that isn't a logical argument. It's a premise that doesn't lead to anything useful. Obviously wisdom is wise. That doesn't tell you what is wise. Maybe emotions can be helpful guides to wisdom, although I disagree, but even if you're right about that that still doesn't tell you what that wisdom is. You have still made no argument for why negative emotions are more important than positive ones.

I haven't made an argument for that either, but at least I have it as an additional premise, and I don't pretend that I can just say "emotions are intrinsically good and bad" and just declare victory.

[Transcended Dimensions]

Your inability to rationally assess your own worldview is an irrelevance.

Then feel free to present your own rationalizations to my worldview right here.

[The Grand Nudger]

I see no point in rehashing the last 60 pages TD.  Do you? Have you altered your worldview or your arguments for it a single iota in response to previous criticism? Nyet.

[Transcended Dimensions]

If you are calling BS on the notion that I didn't perceive it as a good thing to get the help I needed from the idea of it being a good thing and choosing to get that help since you might be thinking that the two are the same thing, then there is another possibility.  I could have had a positive emotion on such a small level that I could not detect it which would mean that I really did perceive (judge) it as being a good thing to get that help.  However, that level of good value in my life would be so small that I could not detect it.  After all, if there was absolutely no good value whatsoever perceived at all in regards to that situation, then it could really be the case that I would have just sat there and did nothing.

You said that you were miserable but fought to get help because you saw it as a possibility that you wouldn't be miserable forever: i.e. the future may be less miserable if you get help.

So if there was an emotion you did not detect, it was probably the emotion of "hope". If there wasn't, then it was just your survival instinct.

Either way, the rational judgement of getting help so you can feel better is separate from any emotions of feeling better.

---

I don't see any contradictions given those 4 possibilities I've presented.  I don't know how you are arriving at that conclusion and I don't know how you arrive at the conclusion that my worldview has to be false before we even realize what's going on in the world.  Lastly, our rational thoughts themselves, according to my worldview, can only allow us to see certain truths such as the fact that there is day and night, the Earth revolves around the sun, etc.  But they do not allow us to judge (see) values, but to only have the idea of values in our minds.

Emotions are experiencial if they are anything at all. When you experience something, either you experience that emotionally as an emotion or you don't and you experience it as a non-emotion.

The point is that you only ever experience the present moment in any moment that is present, you experience that acuteness which cannot be aggregated, time is irrelevant. Intensity is more important than time.

I also pretty much think that emotions are intrinsically good and bad (although I think that's a very narrow way of framing my premise), but I recognize that nothing from that entails that "time is more important than intensity". In fact, all we experience are intensities in the moment, and I fail to see how it makes any sense to aggregate them together. Just as it makes no sense to aggregate different people's conscious experiences together as one individual, it makes no sense to aggregate any particular individuals experiences at different times together, into a feeling. However long a feeling lasts, that feeling is experienced as an experience, like all other experiences are experienced as experiences, and it only lasts as long as it lasts. This is all tautological, but the point is that regardless of however long a feeling (or emotion) lasts, it makes no sense to aggregate it with other feelings and emotions. It doesn't matter how many emotions you feel or how long they last, what matters is the quality, peaks, and valleys.

I also have an additional premise: Negative emotions are more important than positive ones. Positive emotions are intrisincally important, but negative emotions are intrinsically far more important. So much so that positive emotions are only really important if negative emotions aren't around to spoil them.

You don't recognize this asymmetry so you have no way of arguing that a rapist is doing anything wrong because you don't have a premise that says the suffering from the rape victim is far far more important than any pleasure from the rapist. Ratting on about wisdom and emotional judgements doesn't get you anywhere because that isn't a logical argument. It's a premise that doesn't lead to anything useful. Obviously wisdom is wise. That doesn't tell you what is wise. Maybe emotions can be helpful guides to wisdom, although I disagree, but even if you're right about that that still doesn't tell you what that wisdom is. You have still made no argument for why negative emotions are more important than positive ones.

I haven't made an argument for that either, but at least I have it as an additional premise, and I don't pretend that I can just say "emotions are intrinsically good and bad" and just declare victory.

Now, let me just say one last thing here and this is just some point I am making.  I think it could be the case that the knowledge of good and bad is wired into us.  I think it might be an instinct.  Even though we have that knowledge, the only way to actually see good and bad value would be through our positive and negative emotions.

[The Grand Nudger]

Plainly false regardless of whether or not it's wired in, as at least one person in the world can distinguish good from bad without an emotional response.  I'm guessing I'm not the only one. If you're suffering from some sort of disability in that regard, that's your business.

[Edwardo Piet]

You said that you were miserable but fought to get help because you saw it as a possibility that you wouldn't be miserable forever: i.e. the future may be less miserable if you get help.

So if there was an emotion you did not detect, it was probably the emotion of "hope". If there wasn't, then it was just your survival instinct.

Either way, the rational judgement of getting help so you can feel better is separate from any emotions of feeling better.

---

Emotions are experiencial if they are anything at all. When you experience something, either you experience that emotionally as an emotion or you don't and you experience it as a non-emotion.

The point is that you only ever experience the present moment in any moment that is present, you experience that acuteness which cannot be aggregated, time is irrelevant. Intensity is more important than time.

I also pretty much think that emotions are intrinsically good and bad (although I think that's a very narrow way of framing my premise), but I recognize that nothing from that entails that "time is more important than intensity". In fact, all we experience are intensities in the moment, and I fail to see how it makes any sense to aggregate them together. Just as it makes no sense to aggregate different people's conscious experiences together as one individual, it makes no sense to aggregate any particular individuals experiences at different times together, into a feeling. However long a feeling lasts, that feeling is experienced as an experience, like all other experiences are experienced as experiences, and it only lasts as long as it lasts. This is all tautological, but the point is that regardless of however long a feeling (or emotion) lasts, it makes no sense to aggregate it with other feelings and emotions. It doesn't matter how many emotions you feel or how long they last, what matters is the quality, peaks, and valleys.

I also have an additional premise: Negative emotions are more important than positive ones. Positive emotions are intrisincally important, but negative emotions are intrinsically far more important. So much so that positive emotions are only really important if negative emotions aren't around to spoil them.

You don't recognize this asymmetry so you have no way of arguing that a rapist is doing anything wrong because you don't have a premise that says the suffering from the rape victim is far far more important than any pleasure from the rapist. Ratting on about wisdom and emotional judgements doesn't get you anywhere because that isn't a logical argument. It's a premise that doesn't lead to anything useful. Obviously wisdom is wise. That doesn't tell you what is wise. Maybe emotions can be helpful guides to wisdom, although I disagree, but even if you're right about that that still doesn't tell you what that wisdom is. You have still made no argument for why negative emotions are more important than positive ones.

I haven't made an argument for that either, but at least I have it as an additional premise, and I don't pretend that I can just say "emotions are intrinsically good and bad" and just declare victory.

Now, let me just say one last thing here and this is just some point I am making.  I think it could be the case that the knowledge of good and bad is wired into us.  I think it might be an instinct.  Even though we have that knowledge, the only way to actually see good and bad value would be through our positive and negative emotions.

I think it's far less spectacular than that.

I think you're making two key errors:

1. You're saying that emotions cause goodness and creating an unnecessary two-step process. It's like the same mistake Daniel Dennett points out that people make about consciousness (one part about consciousness he actually gets right, until he goes a step further and says it's an "Illusion") . . . people say that the conscious workings of the brain allows consciousness to emerge. But the reality is that the conscious workings of the brain is consciousness. There is no extra step of 'and then consciousness emerges'.

2. It's not that emotions are intrinsically good because they allow us to find goodness. I mean, for starters that would make them extrinsically good and goodness would be intrinsically good. A goodness, that emotions enable us to find, that you're still yet to explain.

No, it's not that emotions allow us to find goodness. It's that emotions themselves are literally good and bad in that the bad ones are badness and the good ones are goodness. I would also argue though that it's paramount to have the additional premise that there's an asymmetry between them and negative emotions are far more important than positive ones. It's more urgent to fix the world's shittiness than it is to try to get to utopia. And when someone is already doing 'okay' or 'alright' then positive emotions on top of that are merely a bonus. The really important part is removing the pain and suffering (negative emotions).

There's nothing magical about emotions, nothing special, nothing spectacular. It's not mysterious that they're all we really ultimately care about (even if we think otherwise) because they are literally what allow caring itself. And the 'hard-wiring' is no mystery. Evolution has merely given us ways to survive and reproduce because of the very mundane process-of-elimination approach of natural selection, which is rather a law of the universe, and emotions are merely the path that evolution has happened to take for this planet or at least for us humans and perhaps other higher mammals.

Consciousness, is even less spectacular. It's a mere side effect of brain advancement, an effect that has no effects, an epiphenomenon. We're very lucky or very unlucky to have it. But it doesn't cause positive or negative emotions. It doesn't cause anything. It's an effect that has no effects, like I said. When you experience a positive or negative emotion, that emotion is a state of consciousness. And that state is the piece of good or bad luck. Again, there's no second step.

[Transcended Dimensions]

Plainly false regardless of whether or not it's wired in, as at least one person in the world can distinguish good from bad without an emotional response.  I'm guessing I'm not the only one. If you're suffering from some sort of disability in that regard, that's your business.

So, would you be thinking that factor #4 I've presented earlier would be the real factor even though I disagree with it?