Emotions are intrinsically good and bad

[Transcended Dimensions]

Then read my recent posts to know what I mean here.  I first had a conversation where I said that positive emotions really are the only good and that we can't have good thoughts and that situations can't be good.  I then later said that there is good without positive emotions, but that it would be like the words at the entrance to a club being shut down (i.e. "dead").  It would be a no quality standard of goodness in your life.  I am still in the process of trying to work out this whole worldview so that it is clear to others.  So, don't just jump to the conclusion that I am speaking nonsense, making contradictions, and then end your discussion with me.

Excellent, then use my remarks as a means of improving the message?  Making contradictory proclamations -is- speaking nonsense.  Rather than complain about the recipient recognizing nonsense, perhaps you should find some other..less nonsensical way to communicate whatever it is you're trying to say?

You still haven't given anyone a reason to think that emotions and thoughts are separate categories in the first place, and you're asserting that while there may be more than one kind of good, one of the kinds of good is somehow uniformly gooder than the other kind of good.  So much sop, that it makes no sense to call them both good, and that only your selected good truly qualifies for the moniker.

Is this your emotional value judgement, or a thoughtful appraisal?  Does the satisfaction that a sex offender feels count as an emotional good?  Is it a "gooder good" than, say, knowing that sex offense is wrong?

Thank you.  I will try my best to make use of your advice in making my posts as less nonsensical as I can then.  As for thoughts and emotions being separate categories, you hear this all the time being said by psychologists.  They would say that if you think positive, then you will feel positive or that if you think negative, then you will feel negative emotions.  They never say that thoughts and emotions are the same thing.  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.  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. 

Actually, our positive emotions would be the only way we can judge things as good in the first place.  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.  This level of positive emotion would be nowhere near sufficient to make your entire world and atmosphere fully good and beautiful though.  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.

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. Perhaps physical pain or physical pleasure could count as a source of judging things as being good or bad, but they would not give my life any sufficient degree of good or bad value. 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. Therefore, if we as human beings had no emotions and no pleasant/unpleasant sensations at all, then good and bad would not exist.

Here is the skeptic's quote which says this. According to this skeptic, there might be good and bad without our emotions, but it wouldn't be any real good and bad. It's just difficult for me to put this into words that make sense:

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.

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.

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.

[Transcended Dimensions]

Excellent, then use my remarks as a means of improving the message? Making contradictory proclamations -is- speaking nonsense. Rather than complain about the recipient recognizing nonsense, perhaps you should find some other..less nonsensical way to communicate whatever it is you're trying to say?

You still haven't given anyone a reason to think that emotions and thoughts are separate categories in the first place, and you're asserting that while there may be more than one kind of good, one of the kinds of good is somehow uniformly gooder than the other kind of good. So much sop, that it makes no sense to call them both good, and that only your selected good truly qualifies for the moniker.

Is this your emotional value judgement, or a thoughtful appraisal? Does the satisfaction that a sex offender feels count as an emotional good? Is it a "gooder good" than, say, knowing that sex offense is wrong?

Let me add one more thing to this. For you to ask what the difference between a thought and emotion is makes it seem like human beings are emotionless creatures and that how they define an emotion is a thought. I know this isn't true. We as human beings do have real emotions. If I were living with a human race who defined thoughts as emotions without having any real emotions, then it would be as though I am having an experience that these race of humans cannot even begin to comprehend. It would be like I am a sighted person who could see the good value, beauty, and bad value of this life like how a sighted person would visualize colors while the rest of the human would be like blind people (i.e. nothing but machines) who could only have thoughts of the good and bad qualities of life. This would have to mean that a person who is completely miserable, has no positive emotions, but thinks of love and good value towards a family member and helps said family member would still be living like nothing but a machine.

It would still be no way to live. Like I said, I know we as human beings have real emotions. I will give you an example. You could have the thought of feeling sexually aroused while completely miserable and anhedonic, or you could actually feel sexually aroused. This is the difference between thoughts and emotions. Lastly, you can't have any good value, joy, beauty, bad value, or misery in your life without your emotions just as how a blind person cannot have red, blue, green, etc. in his life either. I liken my worldview to a blind person who thinks that seeing colors is vital and precious to him. I wish to truly see the goodness and beauty in my life. Without that, then my life is empty. Like I said, I think that all our lives would be empty without our ability to see these good values.

[Edwardo Piet]

I wish I could help you, TD.

[Transcended Dimensions]

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.

[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.

---

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.

[Transcended Dimensions]

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.

From my view, I think that thoughts can only be thoughts. Emotions would have to be a separate category. You are right though. Thoughts can make you feel emotions. You go on to say later on in your post that it is positive and negative experiences that can give our lives real good and bad value. I do not agree that there are positive and negative experiences through our thoughts alone. I think it can only be our emotions that are the real positive and negative experiences we can have. Just because you believe that your life has good value during an emotional state such as a state of complete misery does not mean that you are experiencing any real good value. There would be no positive experience there and, thus, no real good value in your life. This would have to mean that our positive emotions really are the only way we can truly judge good value in our lives. We could think of a certain decision being wise (good) such as choosing a longer duration of positive emotions over a single and momentary intense positive emotion, but if such a decision was thought of as being good during a moment where we had no positive emotions, then that would not be any real good value in our lives. It wouldn't be any real judged good value. Therefore, our thoughts alone would not be positive or negative. They would just be certain types of thoughts that allow us to make certain choices and feel certain emotions.

If you believed that your life was good and beautiful during a moment where you had no positive emotions, then that would not be any real good value and beauty in your life just as how that would not be any real red for a blind person who cannot visualize colors. Sure, the blind person is thinking of the color red and, yes, he could even believe that he is visualizing the color red if he has been taught the wrong definition of visualizing red. But it's not any real red in this blind person's life. We as human beings have been taught the wrong definition of good and bad and, now, we are like blind people who believe we have real good and bad value in our lives in the absence of our respective emotional states. I hope that, by making this sentence, it has cleared up the idea that a person who believes his life to be good not having any real good value without his positive emotions being nonsense and a contradiction in my writing.

Edit: I realize a contradiction. Let me fix it.

[Edwardo Piet]

I do not agree that there are positive and negative experiences through our thoughts alone.

I don't think that thoughts alone are sufficent either. Positive and negative experiences themselves are sufficent. And they are in thought-form in the sense that they are experienced as conscious states (so they are thought-stuff in that sense).

Or basically... I don't think that thoughts alone are sufficient but I do think positive or negative feeling alone is sufficient. I think 'feeling' is a lot broader than specific emotions. I think there are positive and negative feelings that aren't categorized into specific emotions.

And a positive feeling that is more intense and lasts longer is definitely superior to another positive feeling that is less intense and lasts less long.... but it's not clear whether 'excitement' is superior to 'relaxation'. Or 'bliss' is superior to 'ecstasy'.

 

I think it can only be our emotions that are the real positive and negative experiences we can have.

But positive and negative experience is a lot broader than the positive and negative experiences we've labelled as specific emotions.

 Just because you believe that your life has good value during an emotional state such as a state of complete misery does not mean that you are experiencing any real good value.

That's wrong if you believe that a positive emotion is intrinsic goodness. Because if you truly believe that something has good value then you will experience that belief as a positive emotion (or at least as a positive feeling that there isn't a label for. But then would you discount it even though it feels good just because it doesn't have a name you call an 'emotion'?). You can't believe you are experiencing good value and not feel it unless good value means something more to you than a positive emotion.

 There would be no positive experience there and, thus, no real good value in your life.  This would have to mean that our positive emotions really are the only way we can truly judge good value in our lives.

I don't know why you say 'judge' because emotions don't make judgements. If emotions are intrisically good then they don't need to make judgements about what is good as they are already themselves good. If you have positive emotions then it's utterly pointless to figure out what's good because you already have it.

 

We could think of a certain decision being wise (good) such as choosing a longer duration of positive emotions over a single and momentary intense positive emotion, but if such a decision was thought of as being good during a moment where we had no positive emotions, then that would not be any real good value in our lives. It wouldn't be any real judged good value.  Therefore, our thoughts alone would not be positive or negative.  They would just be certain types of thoughts that allow us to make certain choices and feel certain emotions.

On the contrary... if positive emotions are intrinsically good and we are experiencing them then we don't have to bother to be wise or make good decisions at all. We don't have to make good judgments at all and positive emotions certainly not only can't but don't need to make good judgments or any judgments... as once positive emotions are present in a person that person has already achieved intrinsic goodness so no more effort or action is necessary.

If you believed that your life was good and beautiful during a moment where you had no positive emotions, then that would not be any real good value and beauty in your life just as how that would not be any real red for a blind person who cannot visualize colors.

It works the other way around too though, that's what you're missing here. If you don't believe your life is good and beautiful then you aren't feeling any positive emotions.

Sure, you definitely don't have to label your life as good and beautiful. But if what is good and beautiful is by definition the experience of positive emotions then if your life is not good and beautiful then you are not experiencing positive emotions. And it's not possible to be deluded about it because the very feeling of truly believing your life is good and beautiful is itself experienced as positive emotions (because you've already defined them as exactly the same thing). Whether you call that belief in truly believing your life is good and beautiful or not. Because you already believe that the very feeling of life being good and beautiful is itself good and beauty itself. Because positive feeling alone is goodness (Unless, again, you really only judge a positive feeling to be positive if you can label it or categorize it as a specific 'emotion'. Which I think is silly because if you have a positive feeling or experience but you are unable to categorize it into a specific emotion... that doesn't matter as long as you are experiencing something positive).

"Positive feeling is intrinsic goodness" and "positive experientiality is intrinsic goodness" are both definitely more accurate and relevantly comprehensive positions than "positive emotions are intrinsic goodness".

 

Sure, the blind person is thinking of the color red.  But it's not any real red in this blind person's life.

If the thought the blind person is experiencing is truly an experience of red then it is indeed real red or it isn't true red.

Of course this is only possible if the blind person had vision in the past and is experiencing a memory of real red that the blind person has seen in the past before they lost their eyesight.

And it's irrelevant that that's only a memory and 'not really physically happening now' as positive and negative emotions can be felt in memories just as much as in present physical reality.

I still haven't found the part where you finally make an admission that positive emotions themselves cannot entail the conclusion that duration is more important than intensity.

[Transcended Dimensions]

I don't think that thoughts alone are sufficent either. Positive and negative experiences themselves are sufficent. And they are in thought-form in the sense that they are experienced as conscious states (so they are thought-stuff in that sense).

Or basically... I don't think that thoughts alone are sufficient but I do think positive or negative feeling alone is sufficient. I think 'feeling' is a lot broader than specific emotions. I think there are positive and negative feelings that aren't categorized into specific emotions.

And a positive feeling that is more intense and lasts longer is definitely superior to another positive feeling that is less intense and lasts less long.... but it's not clear whether 'excitement' is superior to 'relaxation'. Or 'bliss' is superior to 'ecstasy'.

Then I do not agree that there are positive and negative feelings. I have never had positive and negative feelings. So, according to my definition, positive and negative feelings can only be our positive and negative emotions. This means that our positive and negative emotions truly are the only real positive and negative experiences regardless of what we were to believe otherwise.

That's wrong if you believe that a positive emotion is intrinsic goodness. Because if you truly believe that something has good value then you will experience that belief as a positive emotion (or at least as a positive feeling that there isn't a label for. But then would you discount it even though it feels good just because it doesn't have a name you call an 'emotion'?). You can't believe you are experiencing good value and not feel it unless good value means something more to you than a positive emotion.

During mental conditions such as anhedonia or depression, a belief sometimes cannot make you feel a positive emotion. As for what you call a positive feeling, I do not agree they exist. This is because, during my worst miserable moments, I have thought that the idea of getting help was something of good value and beauty. But there was no positive experience there whatsoever. There was no positive feeling at all. The same thing applies to moments in my life where i have felt excited and felt no negative emotions. During these moments, I have judged things to be the most horrible things anyway. But there was no negative experience there. Therefore, I clearly recognize my positive emotions as being the true positive experiences in my life and my negative emotions as being the true negative experiences in my life.

I have had some horrible negative emotional states of hopelessness and misery in my life. The nightmare states induced by these miserable states were crippled states that were orders of magnitude worse than my waking ones. It is literally impossible for me to fathom what you call a negative feeling being just as horrible or even more horrible than those emotional states I've been through. Likewise, the same is impossible to fathom when it comes to positive feelings. That is why I have to conclude that it can only be our positive and negative emotions which can be the real positive and negative experiences (feelings).

With all of this said, I do make a distinction between believing your life is good or bad as opposed to a positive or negative feeling, emotion, and experience. Given this, it really would all have to come back down to the blind person believing he can visualize the color red all because he was taught the wrong definition of visualizing red. Saying that we could not even think of good or bad in the first place without a positive or negative experience would be no different than saying that a blind person who thinks of the color red could not have done so without ever having visualized red. Thinking of red is not any real red in this blind person's life just as how thinking of good value, beauty, or bad value wouldn't be any real version of those things either in our lives without our positive and negative emotions.

As for your final point in regards to me not admitting, I have to just set this aside for now since I am currently focused on the discussion we are having. Actually, we could have the thought that having a longer duration of positive emotions is preferable to just a brief moment of an intense positive emotion. That thought would make us feel a positive emotion which would allow us to truly see that decision as being something good.

[The Grand Nudger]

Dug in like a tic, on an evidence free proposition of garbled language and thought, which is an endless well of further non-seq propositions.

All of it spurred on, apparently, by a misreading...and then misapplication.....of a common thought experiment.

[Transcended Dimensions]

Dug in like a tic, on an evidence free proposition of garbled language and thought, which is an endless well of further non-seq propositions.

All of it spurred on, apparently, by a misreading...and then misapplication.....of a common thought experiment.

If this is your way of saying you give up on this conversation because what I'm saying is all garbled nonsense, then perhaps it is because you just keep on reading the posts in the past I have made to others as well as to you.  Have you read the most recent posts (discussion) I've had, then maybe it would all become clear and coherent for you.  Like I said, this whole process is an entire journey to finally reach the point where my worldview is clear, makes sense, and is coherent.  I have every reason to believe that my idea is coherent, makes sense, is rational, etc. and that it will just take a bit of time to finally convey my worldview in such a manner. That will require a process of correcting flaws, nonsense, and errors in my thought processes to finally reach that destination. I have a very strong hunch here that my personal experience regarding my emotions is true and, now, I am trying to convey that truth in such a manner that is clear and coherent.