(September 25, 2017 at 9:46 pm)mh.brewer Wrote: (September 25, 2017 at 7:51 pm)Transcended Dimensions Wrote: I know that. But I was trying to make a point here. Even though you can perceive objects through other senses, you cannot see (visualize) them. Let me make it easier for you to understand. Now, I am going to give a religious analogy just to get my point across even though I, myself, am not religious. We can still use whatever analogy we want as long as it gets our point across regardless of how nonsensical the analogy sounds. You, as an unsaved sinner, can never see the magnificence, love, and beauty of Jesus without his holy light within your inner being. It doesn't matter how much you acknowledge the existence of his magnificence and love. You need his holy light in order to truly see his love and beauty for what it truly is.
In that same sense, our positive emotions are like the light of Jesus as they allow us to truly see the beauty, worth, and good value that things and situations hold. Likewise, our negative emotions would be like the opposite of Jesus' light (the inner darkness). They are what allow us to truly see things as horrible, disgusting, etc. So, our positive emotions put us into states of sheer love, joy, goodness, and beauty while our negative emotions put us into states of sheer misery, despair, hate, suffering, agony, and badness. In short, our positive emotions are our own inner paradise while our negative emotions are our own inner hell and absence of the light. Having no emotions at all would be a completely neutral state of mind. It would neither be heaven nor hell for us regardless of what we were to believe otherwise.
Using that analogy I'm not convinced at all that you are not religious. In fact, I believe that you are religious and this whole objective good/bad emotion is a thinly veiled attempt/position in support of religion. While I don't really care if you need religion, it would irk me if you are being disingenuous.
Could you substitute the word "experience" or "feel (not touch)" for "see"? I don't know why you are stuck on the visual "see".
Your definitions/examples for good/bad emotions are certainly extreme and definitely subjective. I doubt that any other individuals experience your good/bad emotions to the same depth and extent in the same context.
I am actually undecided when it comes to the existence of god, the paranormal, and the afterlife which means I keep an open mind. So, I don't believe in god, but keep an open mind anyway. Now, I would like to share a discussion I had with a highly intelligent skeptic. I think my idea is actually already known for a fact. I will first present some information and then the discussion:
We already know that emotions are everything to our human existence because they are what make things matter to us. Without emotions, then nothing could matter to us and we would only be deluding ourselves to believe otherwise. Emotions are forms of motivation and that is why they make things matter to us. They make things matter to us in good ways (positive emotions) and bad ways (negative emotions). We also can't have empathy without emotions either. Empathy is where things such as helping others matters to you.
Since you can't have empathy without emotions, then nothing can matter to you without your emotions. We know this for a fact because of the discussion I have below who is a highly intelligent skeptic. He has much knowledge in neuroscience. Not only is my worldview based upon his insights, but also upon my own personal experience and insights as well. I have struggled with 10 years of misery due to obsessive negative thoughts. I was trapped in that struggle and it took me a long time to finally get out. It is through this personal experience that I have come to realize that our positive emotions are truly everything to our lives while feelings of misery and hopelessness are the worst emotional hell to have in my life.
The worldview I have is based upon this known fact. It takes it further by saying that our positive emotions are the inner light to our lives and our negative emotions being the inner darkness to our lives. Now, I am actually undecided when it comes to the existence of god, the paranormal, and the afterlife, but I keep an open mind to it anyway. If we really are living in such a supernatural universe, then our brains would be transceivers that pick up on divine energy in this universe. This divine energy is sheer intrinsic goodness itself. It engulfs our conscious being and puts us into a divine state that is known as a positive emotion. It is through our positive emotions that we truly see the good value and beauty that things and situations hold on a whole new level that goes far beyond simply acknowledging these values.
Through our positive emotions, we see the goodness, joy, love, and beauty through the eyes of god, so to speak, as opposed to through the eyes of a mere biological being/machine who can only think of words and acknowledge things and situations. Without god's light, so to speak, then our lives would be completely empty and it would be no way to live regardless of what we were to do or believe otherwise
You could either perceive the values that situations and things have or you can perceive your own created values. For example, if a mother was feeding her child vegetables, then the vegetables would be good. But the child would be perceiving them as bad since he felt a negative emotion from them. So, even though the vegetables are good, the child saw them as bad which would be his own personal perceived value. Our positive emotions would have to be an intrinsic quality of good and our negative emotions would have to be an intrinsic quality of bad.
So, they would be an objective good and bad. In a purely naturalistic universe, our emotions would simply be objective goodness and badness with no god or spiritual darkness attached. But continuing on here. I personally do not think that famous and genius artists who have struggled with depression and misery had the inner light at all. Since they did not have their positive emotions or, at least, had a small degree of them, then their lives and artistic endeavors could only amount to virtually nothing.
They might have believed otherwise and achieved magnificent goals. As a matter of fact, some of them could have been masochists who loved their misery. However, they were falsely judging their miserable emotional state as something beautiful (the inner light) when it was nothing but the inner darkness. I personally do not think that the inner light and inner darkness (the objective goodness and badness) can take on any other form for us besides our emotions. Have you ever heard people say that our emotions are everything to our human existence and that, without them, we would only be like machines? I have heard this saying quite often myself. Therefore, since our emotions are the absolute higher component to our very being, then they would have to be the inner light and darkness to our lives.
But our goal should purge and rid of the darkness out of our lives since it is no good. We should be like sacred monks who seek the light and destroy all the darkness from our inner being. This means that all art, whether it be tragic, gothic, or beautiful, should solely be inspired by positive emotions. All endeavors such as escaping from danger should also be solely motivated by positive emotions as well. We would, thus, have no need for negative emotions. Positive emotions are the only way to live and they are the only way to be an artist. Having neither the light nor the darkness would be the void. It would be an empty life that is neither perceived as good nor bad. Thoughts themselves are just words going through our mind and nothing more.
To conclude this portion of my packet, in any given event or situation I lose my positive emotions such as due to depression, emotional trauma, etc., I would give up on my composing and wait until I fully reach a recovery again so that I can finally celebrate and embrace the good qualities of my life and composing through my positive emotions. I absolutely cannot stand living my life and composing without my inner light which is the very reason why I just give up. However, I am doing just fine now. I am fully recovered and have my inner light back to me again. But the question is, can any advice or worldviews of others help me? I don't think so. I am firmly convinced of the existence of the light and darkness. No other worldview or advice could ever work or convince me otherwise since such advice and worldviews only serve to deny and dismiss my inner light and darkness.
Mixed Emotions: Now, if you were in a situation where you had mixed emotions, then you would be perceiving both good and bad value at the same time. It would be something like 20% good and 80% bad in regards to certain things and situations. It all depends on the degree of positive and negative emotions that are there. So, the fact that these miserable genius artists still saw their lives and art as beautiful means they would have to have had some degree of positive emotion mixed in. Otherwise, they would just be deluding themselves.
Discussion Between Me And The Skeptic
I will now present to you the discussion me and this skeptic have had which points out the facts we already know:
Skeptic's Response: I have heard you mention someone who said that living a life without emotions can still be a good quality life. I disagree. That person fails to understand that we are literally not capable of changing our outlook when we are in a state of anhedonia, when we lack Biochemical Emotions. His advice is as valid as saying to a blind man, "Just will yourself to see." Once you get to a place where your neurochemicals begin to function properly, only then does it become possible to change your outlook. Your brain requires a jumpstart first.
When your Biochemical Emotions are dysfunctional, no Emotional Viewpoint will convince you that your life has value. That's not how our brains work, and this portion of your theory is correct. Even if your BEs are minimally functional, that would put you in a state of being able to form an EVP (Emotional Viewpoint)...it would be enough of a state for you to bootstrap yourself into fully functioning Biochemical Emotions, and a normal and healthy emotional cycle of both BE and EVP. But you are correct in saying that functional BE are a requirement.
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.
Quote:So, you admit that value judgments alone are no way to live without the emotions.
Of course! You can still make value judgments (make an Emotional Viewpoint), but they will be meaningless. For example, if you are in a state of anhedonia, you are capable of thinking, "I know that eating a properly balanced diet has good value for my life," and knowing that your value judgment is correct. But without Biochemical Emotions, you don't care. You have no motivation to follow that Emotional Viewpoint, because it is the Biochemical Emotions that provide the motivation.
Quote:By this, you are implying that value judgments themselves do not allow us to perceive value and that it is instead the emotions that do.
No, I'm not. The Emotional Viewpoint allows us to perceive good value, but by itself, it is insufficient to allow us to experience that good value. Let me break it down:
Emotional Viewpoint allows us to perceive good value, but not experience good value. The EVP is the rational analysis of value, simply the logical voice that integrates information about a person, object, idea, or event, then quantifies its value as good, bad, or neutral. But our BEs have their own value judgments. We cannot solely rely on these types of value judgments lest we cause harm and wrongdoing to ourselves and/or others.
Biochemical Emotions allow us to both perceive good value and experience good value. The BEs are the visceral feelings of value, the sensory apparatus by which we interact with a person, object, idea, or even, then quantify its value as good, bad, or neutral.
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. At the same time, experiencing what the BEs decide is good value (without the EVP) can be dangerous to us. We need both "voices."
Our BEs are precious, priceless, and irreplaceable. They are what makes us human.
My Reply: Let me add something here which is something very interesting. When I am in my most miserable and hopeless state due to an emotional trauma, then my whole entire reality is the most horrible hell. But when I reach a state of full recovery, I am able to see harmony, peace, joy, beauty, and goodness. This is a perception that I never had during that miserable moment. This is a perception that goes beyond a value judgment. In other words, it goes beyond a mere thought and it is like a blind person recovering his sight.
So, I can clearly tell that this is not a matter of my value judgment when I say that I see the peace, harmony, joy, and goodness in my life. This proves that our positive mood and emotional state is the inner light to our lives. I could clearly tell that thoughts themselves of goodness and beauty during my miserable moments did absolutely nothing. I have thought of the idea of getting the help I needed as something good, worthwhile, and beautiful, but my life was still completely empty. I was still in the darkness and could not actually see the goodness of getting that help I needed.
Based on this, I conclude that we might have a sense like sight that allows us to see our entire world as good and beautiful. I would personally call it the "Divine Sense." It is a new sense that has yet to be discovered by science. When we are in a positive mood or emotional state, then that is this sense allowing us to perceive stable qualities of good value as well as enhanced and more profound qualities of good value and beauty in our lives. Likewise, negative emotions such as misery and hopelessness are this sense allowing us to truly see things as horrible, bad, disgusting, etc. That is why I say that positive emotions are an objective good while negative emotions are an objective bad.
So, when a person is completely miserable and hopeless and someone comes along, giving the suggestion to just work at developing a new mindset, then that is only focusing away from one's own inner light which is the very vital and precious thing that allows us to see the goodness in our lives in the first place. It is NOT value judgments and our ways of thinking alone that allow us to see the goodness in our lives. It is our new sense that does. Could a blind person make himself see? No, but he could certainly be deluded into thinking he can. Actually, let me make it a better analogy. It would be like people who think they can see the truth, but are really blind to it.
It makes me think that people are just denying the existence of my own inner light and expecting me to live by the standard of words alone. Words themselves possess no power in my life to give my life any real joy, good value, etc. I need my inner light (positive emotions) to make that happen. For such a blatant and obvious need to be dismissed and denied as nonexistence, especially such a profound need, then that just really gets to me.
I am fed up with people in my life dismissing my inner light as nonexistence and all in my head. They think it is just my value judgment. The values in my life are something that go beyond words which is a value system that takes it to a higher level than a value system based on words alone going through our minds.
I would call my values the consciousness based values since they are values that focus on our own inner conscious light and darkness rather than just judgments (words) alone. These values focus on what it is like rather than what we judge. For example, what it's like to see the color red is not a matter of value judgment. It is a matter of consciousness. So, if a certain state of mind is truly like something beautiful for you (in my case, a positive emotion) and this beauty transcends mere value judgments, then we would call this a beautiful consciousness based value.
It would be pure goodness itself. Consciousness is everything to our human existence and shouldn't be ignored. If it weren't for consciousness, then we would all be dead. As a matter of fact, we would not be able to perceive any qualities in our lives without it. So, what it all comes down to here is what it's like to judge your life as something good and beautiful. Not a simple matter of just judging your life as something good and beautiful. What I was trying to do here with my whole idea is to present it in such a way that would hopefully convince others so that they would understand my need as a real need and no longer dismiss it as fantasy. There are many mysterious about consciousness that we have yet to know and perhaps my idea is a mystery that I have figured out from personal experience.
Skeptic's Response:
Quote:...value judgments are just words...
Emotions are value judgments too. If they weren't, humanity would not be distinct from other mammals; we would be biological machines with no autonomy, acting purely on instinct. For example, if you are physically hurt, and the doctor treating you causes you pain during treatment, do you become angry and bite him? No, because you are able to override your instinctive anger and fear at someone causing you pain with your ability to reason that the treatment is necessary and the pain is temporary. But a dog can't reason, and will bite to stop the person causing the pain. Both the instinctive emotions AND the reasoned thoughts are value judgments.
Quote:As a matter of fact, we would not be able to perceive any qualities in our lives without it.
Exactly. But biochemical emotions are only one part of consciousness. The ability to reason means that you can perceive and judge whether something is "good" or "bad" regardless of your emotional state. Further, your emotional judgment about something is not always in agreement with your reasoned judgment. Example: I dislike broccoli (emotional judgment of "bad value"), but I freely admit it's a nutritious vegetable (reasoned judgment of "good value"). The ability to separate the two allows me to override my emotional judgment and, in keeping with my reasoned judgment, find recipes that include broccoli that I will enjoy, like a julienned broccoli stem slaw (delicious) or steamed florets with a sweet and salty sauce (because both "sweet" and "salt" reduce the perception of "bitter").
Quote:I would call my values the consciousness based values since they are values that focus on our own inner conscious light and darkness rather than just judgments (words) alone. These values focus on what it is like rather than what we judge. For example, what it's like to see the color red is not a matter of value judgment. It is a matter of consciousness.
Nonsense. First, all values are consciousness-based; if you lacked consciousness, you would be unable to formulate values. Second, "what it is like" is a value judgment, since no two people experience the same thing in the same way. "What it's like to see the color red" is a value judgment based on your knowledge, experience, and memories. If the color red prompts negative connotations for you, then your "what it's like" will be completely different from the person who associates red with positive things. Neither of you is wrong, because both of you are making subjective value judgments about the color red.
Quote:So, the fact that these miserable genius artists still saw their lives and art as beautiful means they would have to have had some degree of positive emotion mixed in. Otherwise, they would just be deluding themselves.
Do you have any idea how valuable a skill is the human ability for self-delusion? Within reason, that is. An example I lifted from a Heinlein novel...a human infant is, on the face of things, a completely useless organism. It cannot care for itself, or even articulate its needs clearly. It is an investment that requires a {!#%@} of time, energy, money, and sacrifice on the part of its parents. There are no tangible short-term results, and the long-term results do not return the time, energy, money, and sacrifice spent; they are also intangible. Yet its parents will willingly lose sleep and alter their entire lives to focus on caring for and raising that infant to become a self-sufficient adult. In this, we are completely deluded, because biology pushes us to pass on our genes...that is the tangible result. And we delude ourselves that this is not only a necessity, but also a happiness.
Please note that I am not saying I regret having and raising my daughter. Quite the contrary: I'm just as deluded as every other parent. My daughter is more intelligent, empathetic, beautiful, and capable than anyone else's children...thanks to the time, energy, money, and sacrifice on my part. See what I mean? It's playing god, which is delusional. But even recognizing and admitting my own delusions does not change my opinion on the matter, because it's a necessary delusion. Parents who don't delude themselves end up not spending the time, energy, money, and sacrifice, because without the delusion, they are incapable of seeing value in their children.
My Reply:
Quote:Second, "what it is like" is a value judgment, since no two people experience the same thing in the same way. "What it's like to see the color red" is a value judgment based on your knowledge, experience, and memories. If the color red prompts negative connotations for you, then your "what it's like" will be completely different from the person who associates red with positive things. Neither of you is wrong, because both of you are making subjective value judgments about the color red.
I will just go ahead and address this for now as well as another point you've made. I will address this point and another one below. When I said what it's like to see the color red, I was not talking about any positive or negative connotations. A blind person who has never seen the color red would not know what it's like to see red no matter how hard you describe to him what it's like to see red. Let's pretend for a moment that seeing the color red was sheer goodness and beauty itself, then this would be a consciousness based value since it is beauty and goodness that goes beyond words (our thought based value judgments).
Quote:Emotions are value judgments too. If they weren't, humanity would not be distinct from other mammals; we would be biological machines with no autonomy, acting purely on instinct. For example, if you are physically hurt, and the doctor treating you causes you pain during treatment, do you become angry and bite him? No, because you are able to override your instinctive anger and fear at someone causing you pain with your ability to reason that the treatment is necessary and the pain is temporary. But a dog can't reason, and will bite to stop the person causing the pain. Both the instinctive emotions AND the reasoned thoughts are value judgments.
But it is only our positive emotions which can be the good emotional value judgments and our negative emotions which can be the bad emotional value judgments. That is my whole theory. Is my theory already true? You said that our emotions are what make our lives matter and that, without emotions, nothing could matter to us. This means that our positive emotions make our lives matter to us in good ways while our negative emotions make our lives matter to us in bad ways. So, those miserable and genius artists would have to be deluding themselves if they thought their lives and art mattered to them in beautiful and good ways if they had no positive emotion at all. That gets to the point you make below right here:
Quote:Do you have any idea how valuable a skill is the human ability for self-delusion? Within reason, that is. An example I lifted from a Heinlein novel...a human infant is, on the face of things, a completely useless organism. It cannot care for itself, or even articulate its needs clearly. It is an investment that requires a {!#%@} of time, energy, money, and sacrifice on the part of its parents. There are no tangible short-term results, and the long-term results do not return the time, energy, money, and sacrifice spent; they are also intangible. Yet its parents will willingly lose sleep and alter their entire lives to focus on caring for and raising that infant to become a self-sufficient adult. In this, we are completely deluded, because biology pushes us to pass on our genes...that is the tangible result. And we delude ourselves that this is not only a necessity, but also a happiness.
Please note that I am not saying I regret having and raising my daughter. Quite the contrary: I'm just as deluded as every other parent. My daughter is more intelligent, empathetic, beautiful, and capable than anyone else's children...thanks to the time, energy, money, and sacrifice on my part. See what I mean? It's playing god, which is delusional. But even recognizing and admitting my own delusions does not change my opinion on the matter, because it's a necessary delusion. Parents who don't delude themselves end up not spending the time, energy, money, and sacrifice, because without the delusion, they are incapable of seeing value in their children.
I, myself, do not have this delusional mechanism and I am beyond it when it comes to realizing what gives my life real good value, joy, happiness, beauty, and worth. I do not fall for it, live by it, and I clearly recognize my positive emotions as being my own inner light since they are what make things and situations matter to me in good ways. With all of this being said, I think it is quite obvious that my whole idea/theory is already known. For me to live my life by the delusion I've talked about would be no different than an atheist living his life serving a god. To me, there is simply no reason at all and neither can I make myself compose or do my hobbies deluding myself into thinking it somehow matters to me in good and beautiful ways in the absence of my positive emotions. So, according to my non deluded standard, good value would have to be defined as our positive emotions.
They would be like an inner light (an intrinsic goodness). But, according to the deluded standard of others, good value, beauty, and worth would have to be defined as living one's life miserable and just deluding his/herself into thinking it is the good and worthwhile life. You told me earlier that emotions allow us to experience value to make our lives matter to us in good or bad ways. Based on this and based upon my own non deluded definition of a good life, experiencing value via our emotions would be a higher and transcended perception of value in our lives while our delusional mechanism alone only allows us to simply acknowledge the good and bad value that things and situations hold. As you can see here, it is like I am trying to awaken humanity to their positive emotions (higher component) rather than adhering to this delusional mechanism. It's like an atheist trying to awaken deluded religious people.
Lastly, now that I have realized the truth, I now know that there is no reason to live in the absence of my positive emotions. If it were a life of misery, then it would literally be the worst life. I would not delude myself and continue on in such a life thinking and believing it to be a good, beautiful, and worthwhile life when it never was. I am awakened to the truth and I would personally much rather die than to live a life without my inner light (positive emotions). You said that we are wired for survival to continue on in life anyway and that this is a delusional mechanism that makes us think our lives matter to us in good and beautiful ways without our positive emotions when that was never true.
I'm sorry, but, like I said, I am beyond that mechanism. I am on a higher level. It's as though I am living by the standard of god's inner light, so to speak, rather than a standard of a mere biological machine dragging on and doing things that just have to be done anyway in life. If my standard does not get met, then, like I said, I am giving up on life entirely since I know that my standard is the real one while the standards of others are nothing, no real way to live or be an artist, and delusional. I am doing just fine now though since I have my positive emotions fully recovered back to me again.
My New And Improved Non Delusional Model For Society: In the event that people struggle with misery, complete anhedonia, or despair and they cannot regain their positive emotions significantly or fully within a reasonable time frame, then they should have their lives ended. Since it would be delusional to carry on in such a life and somehow believe it to be the good and beautiful life worth living, then it is time humanity lived their lives by the higher standard of truth rather than hiding from it in the corner of their deluded standard.
