Emotions are intrinsically good and bad

[Edwardo Piet]

I wish I could help you, TD.

But I think I have addressed your post.  These two recent posts of mine have addressed your questions.

Oh because you didn't quote me I assumed you had given up on attempting address my arguments. I'll read them.

But a pre-warning before I read: I have to be honest and say I'm not optimistic because my argument is sound and valid and you can't really address my argument without biting the bullet and admitting that you need more than emotions being intrinsically good and bad to arrive at the conclusion that a variety of multiple mild positive emotions for long periods is 'better' than one single intense positive emotion for a shorter period. Because you have no criterion to prioritize time over intensity when your only intrinsic values are emotions because there's nothing intrinsic to emotions that entails that time should be prioritized over intensity.

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If there is somehow a thought form of emotion, then this version of an emotion would not give our lives any real good value and beauty during our miserable moments.

That's a complete non-sequitur. It doesn't matter what emotion is made of. It's not going to change how meaningful it feels if the very meaningfulness of emotions themselves is the fact that it feels meaningful then whether emotions are made of thoughts or not is irrelevant.

Also, emotions may not be made of thought. There may be no 'thought form' of emotion. But thought is entirely tired to emotion. In that... you can't experience a feeling without being conscious of it. Without experiencing it in... thought form.

In fact, in that sense, all emotion and everything we experience is 'thought form'. If by 'thought form' we mean it is phenomenologial. Everything we experience is phenomenological. The only world science knows is the world of phenomena, the only world scientists experience is the world of phenomena, the only testable world is the world of phenomena, the only experiencable world is the world of phenomena. Because the world of phenomena is the world of experience.

 

Now, since what I said makes no sense, then our positive emotions would really have to be the only things that are good in life. 

The way I see it is.... it's positive experience overall that is ideal intrinsic goodness (ideal because when we're not being idealistic... the greatest available goodness is usually to avoid intrinsic badness (suffering) rather than go for some sort of emotional utopia of 'bliss').... not specific positive emotions. We have no criterion to judge any particular set of positive emotions or to priortize duration over intensity. But we do have maximumally intense positive experience for a maximum duration as the utopian emotionally ideal intrinsic goodness.

Actually, our positive emotions would be the only way we can judge things as good in the first place. 

I don't agree because emotions don't make judgements. And emotions are irrational. I would say that positive emotions are particular arbitrary categorizations of positive experience as a whole that are useful for everyday social and practical functionality but are too vague and arbitrary to be true ultimate ideal intrinsic goodness ™ I would say that "maximally intense general positive experientiality for a maximum duration"=true ultimate ideal intrinsic goodness™. But remember that's ideal. In the practical non-ideal world we live in... avoiding suffering seems to be the best goal most of the time. And just any level of positive experience above neturality=winning. No need to really go for the ideal most of the time (or even all of the time. It's not just impractical and dysfunctional but probablly impossible to go for the utopian emotional ideal. Although if it is possible it's probably possible only through transhumanism in the future).

So, if you were completely miserable and thought that something was a good idea or choice, then there would have to be at least some positive emotion there on a very small level even if you could not detect it.

I don't think so. You can conclude that something is a good idea without feeling good about it. You can think you're probably wrong and be feeling despair. And then you can be pleasantly surprised.

  This level of positive emotion would be nowhere near sufficient to make your entire world and atmosphere fully good and beautiful though.

Again, I don't think it's realistically possible to make your entire world and atmosphere fully good and beautiful without transhumanism in the future.

  Therefore, if you are going to have a thought form of a good value judgment, then that would have to reflect the emotional good value judgment because, without any positive emotion whatsoever, then you couldn't have the thought form of a good value judgment.  

I am waiting to get to the part where you retract your position that "emotions are intrisically good and bad" can lead to the conclusion that "several mildly positive emotions for a longer period of time is better than one extremely intense positive emotion for a short period of time."

This would have to mean that, if we as human beings never had any positive or negative emotions at all, then good and bad would not exist.

I agree if you mean we also have no positive or negative experiences. But I think we can have positive and negative experiences without categorizing them into specific emotions. I think there are good and bad experiences we can have that we don't have particular labels for yet. I think the concept of emotions are useful socially and practically but when it comes to discovering the best philosophical position for ultimate goodness and badness.... peak overall positive experience being ultimate intrinsic goodness and peak overall negative experience being ultimate intrinsic badness is much more accurate than "emotions are intrinsically good and bad." Emotions are very limited labels if we're looking for an ultimate philosophy of intrinsic goodness and intrinsic badness. Emotions are far too limited as concepts to comprehensively cover ultimate ideals.



 

For example, I could be in the most miserable moment and the most intense pleasant smell such as the smell of a rose would do me hardly any good.

Or in other words.... pleasure doesn't help if you're suffering.

Likewise you can be happy even when experiencing physical pain. Or in other words pain isn't bad if you're not suffering.

The two paragraphs above this one you are reading now is me illustrating my ultimate conclusion that 'The word 'suffering' is the most accurate single word for ultimate intrinsic badness'.

 Therefore, if we as human beings had no emotions and no pleasant/unpleasant sensations at all, then good and bad would not exist.

I don't agree if we can still have positive and negative experiences without bothering to define or categorize them into specific 'emotions'.

I do agree if you mean that we can't have good and bad without experiencing something positive or negative.

Good and bad absolutely do not exist without conscious experience. Or in other words..... ontological subjectivity is epistemically objectively valuable to whoever experiences anything at all that they themselves value.

Remember that most people responding to you have never suffered from true clinical depression; they don't know what it's like to experience anhedonia, and their judgments are coming from brains that have always had functioning Biochemical Emotions. You and I know all too well that it's impossible to understand this living Hell unless you've experienced it.

I've definitely experienced anhedonia. I've also attempted suicide (years ago and I haven't been suicidal in years). It's the inability to experience anything positive.

I wouldn't say I was incapable of having thoughts that led to me taking action that eventually led to me feeling positive emotion. I would say that I often did have that hope (cognitive hope... I certainly didn't FEEL hopeful).... but because I was anhedonic the successes were acheived but I felt no acheivement. Or in other words: Taking the required action to become happy is possible when clinically depressed. And taking action is a necessary condition for becoming happy and recovering from depression. But it's not a sufficient condition for becoming happy and recovering from depression. You have to become motivated and take positive action and your brain has to function properly and actually produce the biochemicals that create feelings of happiness (or at least a feeling that is better than depression). And if your brain isn't doing the latter then motivation isn't enough.

So I do think motivation is possible when you're depressed. But motivation isn't enough to recover from depression. And the depressed person often knows this. Which is why they are often demotivated shortly after trying and why their actions to improve their life are often short lived.

Motivation when depressed is extremely important. But you need both better brain chemicals and motivation. They are both necessary conditions for recovery but it's only both together that is a collective sufficient condition for recovery. And I am extremely confident that it isn't just my own experience, wisdom and logic that is right on this matter. I am extremely confident that the scientific evidence very much favors this position. It also explains why a combination of both medication and therapy is usually the most effective way to treat depression (the therapy helps with the motivation (after all, motivating yourself alone is often a Catch-22 type problem) and the medication helps with the brain chemistry).

Emotional Viewpoint allows us to perceive good value, but not experience good value.

I don't believe in this EVP or "Emotional Viewpoint". I believe you are incorrectly aggregating cognitive and emotional reality into one collective entity. I'm also an epihenomenalist so I believe that consciousness is an effect that has no effects. When we feel good or bad it certainly does feel good and bad and that matters very much to us. But the feeling itself doesn't actually do anything. It's completely useless. The feeling itself is the final effect, the end product, and indeed all that matters, whether it's positive or negative. But 'feeling' is a better word than 'emotion' as 'feeling' covers every single kind of conscious experience that feels positive and negative and not just the ones that we arbitrarily categorize into specific 'emotions'.

Does that make sense? This is why either one by itself cannot provide true happiness. Simply thinking, "This has good value," does not allow you to experience its good value.

"Think" can mean both literally merely having a thought... and it can also be a synonym for believe. If you think "This has good value" as in you literally have the thought in your head "This has good value" without actually believing it. Then yes that is insufficent and useless. But if you think "This has good value" as in you think that/believe that "This has good value" then that belief/thought is the experience of something having good value, to you, whether it does objectively 'in the real world' or not. And that thought/belief of something having 'good value' is identical to the subjective experience of valuing something we think/believe to be good. So it depends what you mean by 'think'.

This is why you are tying yourself in knots so much. Trust me I have thought about this stuff for years. Over 4 years when I was on lithium in fact because I especially struggled with emotions when I was on lithium so I was constantly extremely motivated to think about emotions to try and figure myself out. I was tied in knots for years by my own equivocations.

"This has good value" both is and isn't a sufficent condition for literally feeling that something has good value entirely depending on which definition of the word "think" you use.