Emotions are intrinsically good and bad

[Transcended Dimensions]

I still see no justification for the claim that emotional value judgement and "thoughtful" value judgement are in all cases separate, or that one is real and the other is not, or even that they are separate in the case mentioned above.

Meanwhile, what I -do- see in that study is that what you would characterize as an "emotional value judgement" - say..chemical dependence, or eating disorders.  Somehow, in your system...a real good thing™, provided that the brain is positively rewarded for this behavior.

You know what I think...I think you googled "hedonic" and pasted whatever you thought would lend your ramblings credence..and never bothered to read the paper at all.

My worldview might seem demonstrably false due to the idea of eating disorders and whatnot, but aren't things that sound absurd often true?  Just because my worldview sounds absurd does not mean that it is false since there are so many things that are absurd in this life that are true.  It is just the absurdity of life rule.  There are certain things in this world such as people dying from deadly viruses and, even though this is an absurd thing, it is real.  So, life isn't perfect and it seems to me that you are expecting a certain value system to be the real value system which is why you see my value system as being false.  But life doesn't always meet our expectations and we don't always get what we want in life.  My value system might certainly be one that doesn't work well for humanity, but, then again, there are many absurd things in this life that just don't work out for us, but said things are true.  Instead, humanity tends to delude themselves of such things because they simply do not like them and wish to have things their way.

[The Grand Nudger]

"It's absurd therefore it;s true" is even less compelling than the initial absurdity.  Not that it matters, since I'm not criticizing your position for it's blatant absurdity..that seems to be your defualt state. I'm criticizing your position for being inaccurate by reference to your own examples and justifications.

You're just flat out wrong. That you're absurdly wrong is just the icing that keeps me amused long enough to point this out.

[Transcended Dimensions]

"It's absurd therefore it;s true" is even less compelling than the initial absurdity.  Not that it matters, since I'm not criticizing your position for it's blatant absurdity..that seems to be your defualt state.  I'm criticizing your position for being inaccurate by reference to your own examples and justifications.

You're just flat out wrong. That you're absurdly wrong is just the icing that keeps me amused long enough to point this out.

There are certain situations that we know to be true, but then there are certain situations that we just argue back and forth about all day along.  The former types of situations we don't have to argue about.  An example of this type of situation would be the idea that, if you drink poison, that would be lethal.  I know that I shouldn't drink poison because I know it would be lethal.  But then there are those types of situations that we just argue back and forth about where we just have our own personal view and there is no proving either of our views.  I think this whole worldview of mine is one of these types of situations.

[The Grand Nudger]

Ah, the burnt earth strategy: "If I can;t be right then no one can!".  Nope, sorry, it's just you.

[Transcended Dimensions]

Ah, the burnt earth strategy: "If I can;t be right then no one can!".  Nope, sorry, it's just you.

The only thing that would convince me would be a whole new personal experience since it is my personal experience in the first place that has convinced me of this worldview.  It would require a new mental state that can replace the good value, joy, beauty, and happiness I have had in my life through my positive emotions.  Remember, this has to be real good value, joy, beauty, etc. in my life and not just empty words.  If they are still empty words, then my life would still have none of those values.  Therefore, I would look inward and pay close attention to my inner universe.  If my life really is filled with real joy and good values independent of my positive emotions, then I would be convinced I am wrong.  If not, then I would still have this worldview.

[The Grand Nudger]

I'm not so naive as to imagine that I can convince crazy of anything, TD, I'm simply trying to help you understand why you're having trouble convincing others -of- crazy.

[bennyboy]

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.

Your analogy isn't one. Our sense of good and bad is nothing like our ability to perceive a gold color.

"Good" is the word we USE for positive valuation. That the term is used, ever, in any context, means that someone has evaluated something positively. When I say, "The city engineers did a good job maintaining this road," I'm not in raptures about it. I simply know what a good road looks like, and I'm capable of identifying that fact. I can discuss the real value of the road-- that people can more easily and safely get to work-- without having an orgasm about it.

If I do heroin, I can say that I feel good. That doesn't mean that I think heroin is good, or that I value heroin as a positive player in my life.

When I tell my dog he's a "good dog," I'm not necessarily having an emotional reaction, either. I'm simply identifying to the dog that his behavior is in line with the behavior I intend to induce in him.


I don't think in 50 pages, you've precisely defined what "good," "value" or "emotions" really mean. Instead you've bounced those words constantly off each other, not realizing that you are really just juggling and re-stating definitions of those words in a variety of forms. All that busy work amounts, pretty much, to a so what? Yeah, we value good feelings. Yeah, someone without the capacity to feel wouldn't evaluate life in the way that we do. So what?

[Edwardo Piet]

Oh TD . . . still at it are we sister?

[Transcended Dimensions]

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.

Your analogy isn't one.  Our sense of good and bad is nothing like our ability to perceive a gold color.

"Good" is the word we USE for positive valuation.  That the term is used, ever, in any context, means that someone has evaluated something positively.  When I say, "The city engineers did a good job maintaining this road," I'm not in raptures about it.  I simply know what a good road looks like, and I'm capable of identifying that fact.  I can discuss the real value of the road-- that people can more easily and safely get to work-- without having an orgasm about it.

If I do heroin, I can say that I feel good.  That doesn't mean that I think heroin is good, or that I value heroin as a positive player in my life.

When I tell my dog he's a "good dog," I'm not necessarily having an emotional reaction, either.  I'm simply identifying to the dog that his behavior is in line with the behavior I intend to induce in him.


I don't think in 50 pages, you've precisely defined what "good," "value" or "emotions" really mean.  Instead you've bounced those words constantly off each other, not realizing that you are really just juggling and re-stating definitions of those words in a  variety of forms.  All that busy work amounts, pretty much, to a so what?  Yeah, we value good feelings.  Yeah, someone without the capacity to feel wouldn't evaluate life in the way that we do.  So what?

I said earlier that emotions themselves are also value judgments which means we have the rational value judgments and then we have the emotional value judgments which are the emotions themselves.  You are talking about the rational value judgments here.  But this is all still analogous with sight and hearing since the rational value judgments are not any real value judgments just as how the thought of hearing a certain sound or seeing colors is not any real heard sound or visualized colors in your life either.  It's also no different than needing light to see gold in a pitch black cave.  The light is our positive emotions and it is they that allow us to see (judge) the gold (good value).

[bennyboy]

I said earlier that emotions themselves are also value judgments which means we have the rational value judgments and then we have the emotional value judgments which are the emotions themselves.  You are talking about the rational value judgments here.  But this is all still analogous with sight and hearing since the rational value judgments are not any real value judgments just as how the thought of hearing a certain sound or seeing colors is not any real heard sound or visualized colors in your life either.  It's also no different than needing light to see gold in a pitch black cave.  The light is our positive emotions and it is they that allow us to see (judge) the gold (good value).

Nope. The values you are talking about aren't made available to us by our positive emotions: they are words ABOUT positive emotions. I taste cake. I feel pleasure. I say, "Mmmmmmm, good cake." My Korean friend eats squid jerky, which I find horrible, feels pleasure and says, "Mmmmmmmm, good cake."

There's really nothing magi-special here. In the context you are talking about, one definition of good is "things that make me feel good." It isn't really much of a discover to say that this kind of goodness wouldn't exist for you if you lacked the capacity to feel good. Value, under that definition, would be meaningless.

But this isn't a statement about reality. It's just one of the ways we use the word good. It's also a particularly weak and useless method of evaluation. "Mmmmm, good cake" almost never leads to lasting satisfaction, nor does "That ho gave great blowjobs" or "the way that girl's eyes bugged out when I strangled her reminded me of my childhood doll when it got run over by my drunken daddy."

Your view would be like saying that if a table lacked the quality of table-ness, we would never have a table, and then marveling at the existence of tables. That should be both immediately obvious and immediately uninteresting.