Emotions are intrinsically good and bad

[bennyboy]

No, it's really not.  Without the capacity to suffer, we'd be gone in about two generations.

Which is a better outcome than suffering. Non-existence is neutral.

You may think it's better, but it's not intrinsically so. Suffering is intrinsic to life, but the goodness or badness of life is left to arbitrary definition. If I could go through life suffering a little all the time (and I do), I'd still live, because intellectual interest, while not experienced as a hedonic state, still carries value for me which I perceive as good.

[Edwardo Piet]

If your happiness is intense enough to make the suffering worth it then that's not really suffering. Suffering is when pain or unhappiness becomes bad enough... that you're suffering. It's when the pain is by definition NOT worth it. Which is why I say it's intrinsically bad.

[The Grand Nudger]

You could feel a positive emotion such as a feeling of excitement from the idea of going to the carnival while, at the same time, thinking it is a good idea to not go to that carnival.  Also, thoughts and emotions are a different thing.  A thought is just an idea or some words going through your mind while emotions would be euphoric and dysphoric states such as feelings of sexual arousal (a euphoric state) or a feeling of hopelessness or misery (a dysphoric state).

You're commenting on inner conflict.  As we commonly describe it, a disparity between the head and the heart.  More accurately, it's a disparity between the head...and the head. 

Sure, I experience inner conflict.  I think we all do.  I also experience inner concordance.  Still no heavenly choir.......

[Edwardo Piet]

I think in the last couple of months I've increasingly embodied that 'one taste' thing the Buddhists speak of... that type of 'emptiness' that is neither bad nor good.... and it is indeed... nothing spectacular.

I guess that makes me enlightened. And the bar is indeed low.

[Transcended Dimensions]

You could feel a positive emotion such as a feeling of excitement from the idea of going to the carnival while, at the same time, thinking it is a good idea to not go to that carnival.  Also, thoughts and emotions are a different thing.  A thought is just an idea or some words going through your mind while emotions would be euphoric and dysphoric states such as feelings of sexual arousal (a euphoric state) or a feeling of hopelessness or misery (a dysphoric state).

You're commenting on inner conflict.  As we commonly describe it, a disparity between the head and the heart.  More accurately, it's a disparity between the head...and the head. 

Sure, I experience inner conflict.  I think we all do.  I also experience inner concordance.  Still no heavenly choir.......

Then I'm not sure what the issue here is and why my worldview is not getting across.  I first pointed out that there was a difference between thought and emotion.  Sometimes, there can be that inner conflict as I've pointed out and other times there can be no conflict.  You could just have one type of emotion while having a certain type of value judgment.  I then said from there that it is our emotions that allow us to perceive good and bad values like how a sighted person would visualize colors.  It is having this type of "sight," if you will, that is everything to our lives.  Without this "sight" (or, what I call "value vision")," then your life can be nothing regardless of what you believe otherwise.  You would be living by a no quality standard without this value vision.

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Again, making wise decisions is still vital even without any emotions or the respective emotion to allow you to see good and bad values like how a sighted person would visualize colors.  So, if your goal was to not have the most intense positive emotion of your life for only one moment and to instead have positive emotions throughout your life, then such a wise decision would still be recommended.

Your theory doesn't account for this though. If emotions are intrinsically good and bad... then it's intrinsically good to go for positive emotions regardless of how 'wise' it is. And if emotions are intrinsically good and bad by what criterion can you decide that having less intense emotions for a longer period of time is 'better' than having only one emotion intensely for a a few moments... if 'better' can only be judged by an 'intrinsically good positive emotion'?

You're smuggling in other values like 'wisdom' and 'less intensity over a longer period of time is better than more intensity over a shorter period of time' ALONG WITH your judgement of 'intrinsic goodness' being down to only and solely 'positive emotions'.

I will go by my god analogy again. Even without the holy light of god within you, you could still make wise decisions anyway and these decisions would still be recommended. But it is no way to live without that inner light.

[Edwardo Piet]

Transcendental Dimensions,

If positive emotions are intrinsically good then by what criterion do you decide that positive emotions less intense than outright ecstasy but for a longer period of time is better than outright ecstasy for a shorter period of time?

If positive emotions are intrinsically good then by what criterion do you make 'wise' judgments if really anything that can get you to the height of excitement is intrinsically good?

And by what criterion do you judge 'wisdom' to be good at all if intrinsic goodness is just positive emotion?

Please answer all of my questions separately.

[Foxaèr]

I will go by my god analogy again.  Even without the holy light of god within you, you could still make wise decisions anyway and these decisions would still be recommended.  But it is no way to live without that inner light.

Your light analogy sucks, because it's no different than theists who constantly claim that life is useless without belief in god.

[Transcended Dimensions]

Transcendental Dimensions,

If positive emotions are intrinsically good then by what criterion do you decide that positive emotions less intense than outright ecstasy but for a longer period of time is better than outright ecstasy for a shorter period of time?

If positive emotions are intrinsically good then by what criterion do you make 'wise' judgments if really anything that can get you to the height of excitement is intrinsically good?

And by what criterion do you judge 'wisdom' to be good at all if intrinsic goodness is just positive emotion?

Please answer all of my questions separately.

I think the response I have given to you in my previous post answers this in regards to that god analogy.  But I will answer it further.  I guess we wouldn't say that these are good or bad decisions then.  We would just simply refer to them as being decisions to promote your health and well being as well as the well being of others.  Dangerous choices would instead be simply be referred to as choices that would cause harm to you or others.  But I would still make the choice that would promote my health and well being if I was in a situation that called for such a decision.

[Edwardo Piet]

I will go by my god analogy again.  Even without the holy light of god within you, you could still make wise decisions anyway and these decisions would still be recommended.  But it is no way to live without that inner light.

An analogy doesn't answer anything here.

You still have to address how you can make a judgement about that 'inner light' when all you have as a definition of intrinsic goodness is 'positive emotions are intrisically good'.

If that's what goodness is... then inner light doesn't actually mean anything. Your metaphor doesn't work.

It doesn't matter if you could make wise decisions or not. We're not addressing what is possible. We're addressing what is good.

And if positive emotions is what intrinsic goodness is then you have no criteria to choose wisdom or choose a reasonable variety of moderate positive emotions over a longer period of time. Because moderation, variety, being reasonable, wisdom and inner light and metaphors are all irrelevant if all that matters is the intrinsic goodness of 'positive emotion'. If going for pure peak ecstasy is maximum intrinsic goodness and maximum intrinsic goodness is good to have by definition: then you should go for pure peak ecstasy... and wisdom and moderation and all that stuff about 'inner light' is therefore wholly irrelevant.

Perhaps you should say intrinsic goodness is "wisdom and a variety of positive emotions that aren't so intense as to make your life dysfunctional". That seems a more accurate description of what you believe.

[Transcended Dimensions]

I will go by my god analogy again.  Even without the holy light of god within you, you could still make wise decisions anyway and these decisions would still be recommended.  But it is no way to live without that inner light.

An analogy doesn't answer anything here.

You still have to address how you can make a judgement about that 'inner light' when all you have as a definition of intrinsic goodness is 'positive emotions are intrisically good'.

If that's what goodness is... then inner light doesn't actually mean anything. Your metaphor doesn't work.

It doesn't matter if you could make wise decisions or not. We're not addressing what is possible. We're addressing what is good.

And if positive emotions is what intrinsic goodness is then you have no criteria to choose wisdom or choose a reasonable variety of moderate positive emotions over a longer period of time. Because moderation, variety, being reasonable, wisdom and inner light and metaphors are all irrelevant if all that matters is the intrinsic goodness of 'positive emotion'. If going for pure peak ecstasy is maximum intrinsic goodness and maximum intrinsic goodness is good to have by definition: then you should go for pure peak ecstasy... and wisdom and moderation and all that stuff about 'inner light' is therefore wholly irrelevant.

Perhaps you should say intrinsic goodness is "wisdom and a variety of positive emotions that aren't so intense as to make your life dysfunctional". That seems a more accurate description of what you believe.

Have you ever heard the saying that there is no good without god?  In that same sense, there is no good without positive emotions.  When a person without god in his life still makes a decision to save his own life or the life of someone else, then how does the religious doctrine address this?  I'm quite sure it would be the same answer here as well when it comes to positive emotions being the god in our lives.