Emotions are intrinsically good and bad

[Transcended Dimensions]

You say that satisfaction is a positive emotion which you are implying to be the rational value judgments themselves.  I don't think that is true.  I don't think rational value judgments themselves can be any positive or negative emotion in our lives. 

How, then, do you explain feelings of adequacy or inadequacy..and their attendant emotional states, based upon our various value judgements as they relate to self?  It certainly seems to be the case that a logical, or internally logical value judgement can at least be the cognitive origin of a positive or negative emotional state.  

Much ink and angst has been spent on the subject, which you seem to blithely disregard here even as this entire thread might be taken to be indicative of a great deal of emotional response caused by your own internal logic and value judgement...specifically as it relates to yourself.

You seem to believe that you (and all of us) have a great many reasons to feel bad. While I wouldn't characterize all of them as rational, I'm certain that they serve a psuedo rational purpose or qualify as rational in your mind. The statement, above, that these value judgements cannot be the emotional goods seems to be at odds with your own position..and, frankly, your entire posting history on these boards. So perhaps you should clarify exactly how you plan to affect happy thoughts™ by positive thinking about happy thoughts™, if such a clear delineation between the two can be asserted? If value judgement cannot be the goods, how will these many pages of value judgement provide the same goods? Is the value judgement that you are worthless, or worthwhile, not simultaneously and accurately described as a good or bad emotion? Is it common for people with feelings and/or rationalizations of worthlessness to be happy, or unhappy, in your opinion?

Are "empty words" and "real good value" fluid metrics which can be determined solely by your emotional state, or does the use of these terms explicitly reference an overarching schema to which your emotional states conform? Why is the one better than the other? Which, of the two, makes you happy, and which makes you unhappy? Why..and, if you can answer the question of why, isn't it at least possible that whatever logic (internal or otherwise) that you give could either be the cause of the emotional state or even a fuller description of the emotional state itself..including it's cognitive underpinnings? These are the questions.

I just think that they are the origin of a positive or negative emotional state, but they themselves cannot be any real positive or negative emotion in our lives. It doesn't matter what I've said here in this topic. Me discussing this would be no real positive or negative emotion in my life had these ideas and thoughts not made me feel any real positive or negative emotion. In such a scenario, I would just be forcing myself to write and nothing more just like how a person would be forcing himself to eat when he is not hungry. As you can see here, we can still force ourselves to do things. But that does not always presuppose that you have emotions or that you are hungry. Lastly, the reason why I have talked so much here as to take up numerous pages is because I have obsessive compulsive disorder. Any normal person would not have discussed this so much.

You say that satisfaction is a positive emotion which you are implying to be the rational value judgments themselves.  I don't think that is true.  I don't think rational value judgments themselves can be any positive or negative emotion in our lives.  This means that something other than a mindset alone is required to make our lives good and it would be the real positive emotions themselves.  Without these real emotions, then we could only have intentions, make decisions, have certain mindsets and attitudes, but there would be no real emotion there.  Most people just want things to exist and believing they exist doesn't make that happen. 

Lots of behaviors have pleasure rewards. That's how the brain works. But many of those cease very quickly, and are maybe even filled in immediately with negative ones. If I cheat on my wife with a hot secretary, I'll be on cloud 9-- until about 1 minute after the act is completed. Then I will suffer a world of pain and guilt.

My point is that emotions are temporary an transient, and a poor basis on which to judge value in life. It is true that satisfaction is experienced as pleasure-- however it is a unique kind of pleasure, in that it is continually reinforced BASED ON perceived value. See-- the pleasure isn't the value, it's the reward for the value. In fact, I'd even say that a particularly subtle satisfaction does not even need to be thought of as emotional at all. For example, an understanding of the principle of the greater good might involve a decision that hurts oneself, and gives no positive emotion whatsoever-- for example, killing someone to save others. Yet, the person may still see real value there.

Audio signals get sent to the audio cortex and that is how you hear actual sound. Visual signals get sent to the visual cortex and that is how you see actual colors and other objects. Likewise, thoughts of value judgments get sent to the emotional parts of our brains and it is through our emotions that we are able to perceive real value. But the audio and visual signals themselves are not any real sight or hearing just as how thoughts of value themselves in our lives cannot allow us to perceive any real value. Therefore, that is the reason why our positive and negative emotions are like glasses we need to wear in order to see the values in our lives. It would also be no different than if you were in a pitch black cave and you believed gold was in that cave. That belief/mindset alone would not allow you to see the gold. You would need actual light to see the gold. The more light you have, the more the gold shines which means you are able to see the gold more. The less light you have, the less the gold shines which means the less of the gold you will see. In that same sense, our positive emotions are like the light that allow us to see the good values in our lives and our negative emotions allow us to see the bad values in our lives.