Emotions are intrinsically good and bad

[Transcended Dimensions]

The idea that you've mattered would make you feel a positive emotion and it can only be that positive emotion which brings your life good values.  But the idea (thought) alone that you mattered would not bring your life any real good values as long as that thought did not make you feel a positive emotion.

Word salad abounds.

I think your comment is word salad.  Perhaps I need to make myself more clear then.  There are moments where thoughts cannot make you feel positive emotions such as if you struggled with depression.  Having a positive thought sometimes cannot make you feel any positive emotion.  So, that is where I was getting at here.

Jerking off gives me a "positive emotion," as it feels good.  It does not, however, add any lasting value to my life.  That's because the only long-running positive emotion is that of satisfaction, which depends on one's world view, a sense of achievement, a sense of self-respect, a sense of functionality in family, and so on.

If you want to argue that satisfaction is required in order to evaluate one's life as good, I'd agree.  If you want to argue that all pleasurable emotions represent good, and all unpleasurable emotions represent bad, then you have a poor understanding of how the human animal functions.

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. 

This life is an unfortunate one where we can't always have what we want.  We want to personally define our own values and we somehow believe these to be real values when they never were.  It can, sadly, only be our real and fleeting positive emotions that can make our lives something more than just a matter of empty words of good value, joy, and beauty going through our minds.  There are moments where we can't feel positive emotions and no thought of our lives being something lovely and good can make us feel positive emotions such as during our worst miserable moments.  But then there are moments where we do feel them to make our lives truly good. 

A life of empty words versus a life of real good values makes all the difference in the world since there is a big difference between words and the actual mental states.  For example, if you were blind, then believing you could see colors would not allow you to see colors.  In that same sense, believing that you can see the good values in your life without your positive emotions would be no different than a blind person believing he can see colors when he can't.  

But a blind person recovering from his blindness and being able to see would be a whole new world for him just as how recovering from our miserable moments and actually seeing the good values in our lives would also be a whole new world.  But there are many people who believe they can see the truth when they can't.  They are like blind people who believe they can see when they can't.  You might say that I am one of these people, but I don't think so.  I think it is instead humanity who can't.  This is just going to have to be an agree to disagree scenario.

[Silver]

I think your comment is word salad.  Perhaps I need to make myself more clear then.  There are moments where thoughts cannot make you feel positive emotions such as if you struggled with depression.  Having a positive thought sometimes cannot make you feel any positive emotion.  So, that is where I was getting at here.

Thoughts are not influences of emotions. I can think I want to be happy all I want; it doesn't make it so.

---

I think your comment is word salad.  Perhaps I need to make myself more clear then.  There are moments where thoughts cannot make you feel positive emotions such as if you struggled with depression.  Having a positive thought sometimes cannot make you feel any positive emotion.  So, that is where I was getting at here.

The thought to reality model is utter nonsense.

[The Grand Nudger]

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.

[bennyboy]

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.

[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.

[The Grand Nudger]

What parts are the "emotional parts", and what "sends" them there? How do emotions, somehow detached from thoughts or value judgement, allow you to "see" anything, but more specifically,how do they "see" good or bad value?

[Transcended Dimensions]

What parts are the "emotional parts", and what "sends" them there?  How do emotions, somehow detached from thoughts or value judgement, allow you to "see" anything, but more specifically,how do they "see" good or bad value?

We have the emotional part of our brains and then we have the rational, thinking cortex which is obvious since this is all just neuroscience.  The rational, thinking cortex alone cannot be any emotional state in our lives.  It, alone, cannot allow us to see any values in our lives.  However, thoughts of value send signals to the emotional part of our brains to make us feel either positive or negative emotions.  Since emotions themselves are value judgments as I have said before and since value judgments are what allow us to perceive value since value judgments are a perceptual state, then our emotions are what allow us to see the good and bad value in our lives.  But, like I said, the rational, thinking value judgments themselves do not allow us see any real values.

[The Grand Nudger]

You seem to be trying to split the baby between some category of mental state you consider an emotional value judgement and a thinking value judgement, and refuse to consider any instance in which the two are the same.  

You say alot of things, none of which carry any weight of authority.

[Transcended Dimensions]

You seem to be trying to split the baby between some category of mental state you consider an emotional value judgement and a thinking value judgement, and refuse to consider any instance in which the two are the same.   

You say alot of things, none of which carry any weight of authority.

It makes no sense to me to say that they are the same thing.  For example, I will point out to you this study:

We have found a special hedonic hotspot that is crucial for reward 'liking' and 'wanting' (and codes reward learning too). The opioid hedonic hotspot is shown in red above. It works together with another hedonic hotspot in the more famous nucleus accumbens to generate pleasure 'liking'.

‘Liking’ and ‘wanting’ food rewards: Brain substrates and roles in eating disorders

Kent C. Berridge 2009 Mar 29.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2717031/

As you can see here, there is a distinction between thoughts and emotions since there is the reward wanting and liking (a positive emotion generated by the nucleus accumbens) and then there is a form of wanting and liking which is not an emotion at all, but is simply the thought of wanting and liking.  That is why I personally think that there is a distinction between thoughts and emotions.  There is the thought of value in our lives and then there is an emotion of value in our lives.  The emotional value is the real value while the thought form of value is only the thought of value, but does not give our lives any real value.  This means that there really is no subjective wanting and liking since it is only the thought of wanting and liking, but no real wanting and liking regardless of what that study points out and says otherwise. 

So, thoughts themselves just give us ideas of certain things such as the idea of value, joy, beauty, sounds, smells, visuals, wanting, liking, disliking, emotions, hunger, thirst, pain, misery, suffering, love, hate, food, water, etc., but these thoughts themselves do not bring our lives any real version of those things.  We can still take action and make choices through ideas alone such as eating something when we are not hungry or claiming that our lives have real value through the helping of others and through our mindsets alone, but such actions and judgments do not mean that we are hungry or that our lives have real perceived value.  Saying that mindsets themselves can be emotional states that give our lives real perceived values would, again, be no different than a person believing he was hungry when he wasn't just because he claimed that he was hungry and got up and got something to eat.

[The Grand Nudger]

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.