science and maths

@rcs,

A spectrum of positive-neutral-negative is only one of countless variables to the emotions, reactions, and thoughts we feel. Where does "fear" fit in? Is it negative? If so, then why do people go to horror movies and ride roller coasters?

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@rcs,

Quote:

A spectrum of positive-neutral-negative is only one of countless variables to the emotions, reactions, and thoughts we feel. Where does "fear" fit in? Is it negative? If so, then why do people go to horror movies and ride roller coasters?

Well it depends on how the fear arises. There is positive and negative fear but there is also positive and negative love. It's just when the love is negative we tend to slap a different word onto the love as to not pollute the word love because people want to try to keep love pure or divine, in other words positive.

If you really want to get technical, the emotions really don't exist at all. They are just labels to express how we are responding to an experience. Without the experience the emotion wouldn't arise at all. Hatred doesn't just spontaneously arise for no reason, there is something that triggers it to happen. You can make adjustments to how you react to experiences and anger will never arise again. It is rare but it can be done. Some would say it is putting up a resistance but I disagree. It all has to do with how you place value and just how attached you are to the outcome of that value. Every emotion fallows this process the only difference is the label.

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@Aedes,

Aedes;87606 wrote:

What most regard as the major contributions of Freud and Jung is the idea that our mind operates at several simultaneous levels, and there usually is internal conflict.

However, both Freud and Jung agreed that this internal conflict is absolutely unconscious.
The person's consciousness only gets aware of the outcome of that emotional and moral (id & superego) conflict and rationally judges it.

I totally agree with Krumple that you can't feel two different emotions (rather "classes of emotions", refering to Krumple's distinction positive, negative, neutral) towards the very same "thing".
Well, "thing", what exactly do I mean by that?
Krumple said that one could love a person but hate his or her actions.
I would expand this thought and claim that there are a lot of more than those two factors (generally habitance, beheaviour, attitudes, etc.) which you each judge as positive, negative or neutral.
Providing this, how you judge a person who summs up all those factors would especially depend on wheither the factor that is most present in that moment is positive, negative or neutral.
Furthermore, I believe that at the very same moment the output of all those feelings can only be positive, negative or neutral - thus I think it absolutely impossible to feel more than one emotion towards a person at one time.

Aedes;87658 wrote:

If so, then why do people go to horror movies and ride roller coasters?

At first, you refer to Freud and Jung and then you ask this kind of question.
To me, this doesn't make sense at all.

[Pheew, I hope I somehow managed to write this text so that you all are able to understand what I meant. As English is not my mother tongue, I did quite hard writing this especially since I lack experience in using English.]

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@Sasori-sama,

If I were to create a data set where each point represented an electrochemical state that corresponded to an emotional state that would be quite a large set, it would be finite, but still quite large. I think that it would be more appropriate to approximate emotion with a Fuzzy system rather than a ternary one. We can arrange the different states along a continuous spectrum (a crude approximation, but not as bad as using three discrete states).

We could have 0, .5 and 1 in our interval [0,1] represent negative, neutral and positive states and work with a gradation scheme.

Still, this is inferior and clumsy when compared to assuming that we have a complete set of possible emotionally relevant electrochemical states. If we had this we should in theory be able to scan the brain and identify what emotion a person is feeling. How they feel it is not really consequential if we can establish enough universality for useful detection. How one experiences an electrochemical state does not matter as long as they react to it in the same way (or similar way) as another person in a given social setting. In practice one could detect the emotional state of a person and veritably read their mind if we can get to such a high degree of precision.

In short, unless we are dealing with a very sensitive procedure for which we may need to have an accurate grasp of consiousness, such as how to create a synthetic brain that could be used to replace a current one, qualia do not matter; only the physical responses to other physical responses and the patterns therein do.

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@Sasori-sama,

Sasori-sama;87734 wrote:

However, both Freud and Jung agreed that this internal conflict is absolutely unconscious.

No they did not. Subconscious and unconscious are different. You cannot ascertain unconscious processes by interviewing people, but they sure learned a lot about people's sub-conscious in the process.

Sasori-sama;87734 wrote:

I totally agree with Krumple that you can't feel two different emotions (rather "classes of emotions", refering to Krumple's distinction positive, negative, neutral) towards the very same "thing"

Then you are in the awkward position of having to account for people's internal conflicts and disobedience to their own knowledge and feelings.

You two seem to think that humans are like coins with a head or a tails. We're a lot more nuanced than that.

1 Reply

@Aedes,

Aedes;87744 wrote:

No they did not. Subconscious and unconscious are different. You cannot ascertain unconscious processes by interviewing people, but they sure learned a lot about people's sub-conscious in the process.

I won't dare to write about Jung's teachings as I haven't read any explicit literature of or about him.

But concerning Freud he absolutely did.
As all the surpressed thoughts and memories exist in the unconsciousness, psychoanalytic therapies would have completely no effect.

I'm not sure how you define subconsciousness and unconsciousness (I just tried to look up "subconsciousness" but happened to find totally different definitions). My definition of the unconscious (or unconsciousness) refers to Freud's definition.

Aedes;87744 wrote:

Then you are in the awkward position of having to account for people's internal conflicts and disobedience to their own knowledge and feelings.

These things happen if there is no way for the three instances (ego, superego, id) to unite all their necessities.
This forces your rationality to think about the different necessities and the conditions of their fullfilment in depth, which makes the concsiousness to focus on certain necessities whose relevance in the sum of all factors will rise. If your rationality now takes a closer look on all the necessities, the relevance of different factors will quickly increase or decrease - which makes your ego to shortly switch between positive or negative (or neutral) feelings towards a sum of factors (a person).
Still you won't be able to feel more than one emotion towards the person at the very same moment, even if the emotions switch fast (which most likely makes your rational thought become confused).

1 Reply

@Aedes,

Aedes;87003 wrote:

I love Dostoyevsky.

Hey, we have something in common.

There was a guy who decided to collect photos of criminals and average them together into one face, thereby obtaining the appearance of "the average criminal."

To his astonishment, the outcome was the face of an angel... and the more faces averaged in, the more beautiful it became.
www.faceresearch.org/demos/average

Math was involved in discovering this. A scientist can tell you which part of the brain is using oxygen and glucose during the experience of seeing the angel. But like Heidegger said: we can look at you the same way we look at a hammer: like you're an object. But aren't you more than an object? That quality of being... words are pale attempts to describe it.

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@Sasori-sama,

Sasori-sama;87751 wrote:

I won't dare to write about Jung's teachings as I haven't read any explicit literature of or about him.

But concerning Freud he absolutely did.
As all the surpressed thoughts and memories exist in the unconsciousness.

Freud used the term "preconscious".

1 Reply

@Aedes,

Aedes;87753 wrote:

Freud used the term "preconscious".

Yes he did.
But what he used to call the preconscious had about nothing to do with surpressed thoughts which all belong to the unconscious.

1 Reply

@Aedes,

Aedes;87606 wrote:

What most regard as the major contributions of Freud and Jung is the idea that our mind operates at several simultaneous levels, and there usually is internal conflict. And they didn't just pull these ideas out of thin air, they developed them by systematically interviewing thousands of people. People can have mutually contradictory opinions and processes going on simultaneously.

Significant critiscism was made of both Freud's and Jung's enquiry's. In particular Popper felt Freudian Psychoanalytic theorys could not be falisfied and in Popper's eyes were not Scientific. I have also seen other critiscisms of psychoanalysis which have made attacks on the scientific status psychoanalysis from other view points. It should also be noted that the influence of psychoanalysis within the field of Psychology, has decreased quite significantly.

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@Sasori-sama,

Sasori-sama;87756 wrote:

But what he used to call the preconscious had about nothing to do with surpressed thoughts which all belong to the unconscious.

I was not talking about suppressed thoughts.

---------- Post added 09-02-2009 at 09:06 PM ----------

R.Danneskjöld;87757 wrote:

Significant critiscism was made of both Freud's and Jung's enquiry's. In particular Popper felt Freudian Psychoanalytic theorys could not be falisfied and in Popper's eyes were not Scientific.

Well, I've never been convinced that Popper's philosophy of science is wholly sound, first of all. It's only really applicable to experimental science, whereas much of science is exploratory and not hypothesis-driven. Be that as it may, Freud's and Jung's divisions of the mind were functional and hierarchical divisions that were inferred by categorizing different types of thought process. It's like knowing that a black hole is there because you can see the light around it.

It's a moot point anyway in the context of this discussion. The issue is that Freud and Jung were two notable academicians who studied the internal conflicts of people, but very few people would argue that such conflict does not occur. And it's unrealistic to say that a normal human cannot be in two minds about something, and have both positive and negative judgement.

R.Danneskjöld;87757 wrote:

It should also be noted that the influence of psychoanalysis within the field of Psychology, has decreased quite significantly.

That's a clinical discipline, though. We're not talking about strategies to heal the sick in this thread.

1 Reply

@Aedes,

Aedes;87772 wrote:

I was not talking about suppressed thoughts.

Well, you said:

Aedes;87744 wrote:

You cannot ascertain unconscious processes by interviewing people

Which I think of as worng, since you are able to ascertain them.
Otherwise you wouldn't be able to cure mental illnesses mostly caused by surpressed thoughts by psychoanalytic methods.

I somehow happened to start thinking that you have never actually read something Freud wrote.

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@rcs,

ExcludeReality wrote:

Positive, negative and neutral categorizes can pretty much map human emotions.
Love and like are both positive but have different values depending on who says it (the persons experience with the word) and what the person is referring to.

It's not always so easy to map our emotions. There are some feelings which I don't feel good, bad, or neutral about. Sometimes I feel *something* towards a person, place, or thing, and I can't quite put my finger on it. Have you ever heard the expression "mixed feelings"? If so, have you ever experienced this?

Krumple wrote:

Well it depends on how the fear arises. There is positive and negative fear but there is also positive and negative love. It's just when the love is negative we tend to slap a different word onto the love as to not pollute the word love because people want to try to keep love pure or divine, in other words positive.

When you say "negative" or "positive" here, are you applying moral judgments? On your scale, what makes love positive and sad negative? If you agree that love could be positive or negative and sadness could be positive or negative (which you seemed to acknowledge), how then does your contrived scale take this into account?

Oh, and I'm a bit confused as to how "neutral" even has anything to do with emotion. If I don't care about something, isn't that a lack of an emotional response, rather than a type of emotional response?

{---------|---------}

I don't think it makes any sense for neutral to be in the middle of this spectrum. Every single point in this spectrum should be felt, and one cannot feel "neutral". If you're indifferent towards something, you don't feel anything for it, and thus it should not be part of a scale trying to make sense of emotion.

Most importantly, I really need to know how the both of you are using "positive" and "negative". Are these moral judgments? Are we speaking simply on terms of emotions that make us feel good or bad? And how does the scale fit into all this?

1 Reply

@Zetherin,

Zetherin;87801 wrote:

When you say "negative" or "positive" here, are you applying moral judgments?

Nope, I am NOT including any moral into it. I don't care about morals they really have no basis as far as I am concerned, so why would I use them?

Zetherin;87801 wrote:

{---------|---------}

I don't think it makes any sense for neutral to be in the middle of this spectrum.

You are the one adding in the spectrum, I never mentioned anything about a spectrum. So why are you insisting I was using a spectrum?

Zetherin;87801 wrote:

Most importantly, I really need to know how the both of you are using "positive" and "negative". Are these moral judgments? Are we speaking simply on terms of emotions that make us feel good or bad? And how does the scale fit into all this?

I am not even talking about the emotions themselves. I am referring to how you react to everything experienced. You either react to the experience in a positive way, a negative way or a neutral way.

When you see the rainbow you either like it, hate it or don't care about it or don't care either way. All this other stuff you added, I never did.

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@rcs,

Krumple wrote:

All this other stuff you added, I never did.

Then I've been misunderstanding you. The spectrum and everything else I've written about was an attempt to better understand your rationalization. I apologize for the confusion; my misunderstanding is at fault here.

Quote:

I am not even talking about the emotions themselves. I am referring to how you react to everything experienced. You either react to the experience in a positive way, a negative way or a neutral way.

I've had feelings towards people, places and things that would not be neatly categorized as positive, negative, or neutral. The expressions, "I don't know how to feel about this" and "I have mixed feelings", hint toward this human confusion. Sometimes I don't even know why I've reacted the way I have. If I don't even know why, is it positive, negative, or neutral? I need to know what defines positive, negative and neutral.

Upon typing this to you, I looked at my computer monitor and felt something. It's definitely not negative, it's not neutral (because I'm feeling something), and it's not really positive. It just felt odd. How should I go about placing this feeling into one of the three categories? Please be as descriptive as possible, detailing what exact distinctions I should be looking for in my feeling in order to categorize correctly.

1 Reply

@Zetherin,

Zetherin;87809 wrote:

Then I've been misunderstanding you. The spectrum and everything else I've written about was an attempt to better understand your rationalization. I apologize for the confusion; my misunderstanding is at fault here.

I'm not sure what course of action to take then, if more words from me will only create additional confusion. So should we even go any further into the dicussion? My feeling is that it isn't so much about understanding its that you want to nick pick my definition. You can always find fault in an explanation if you pick at it long enough. In some ways I think you are trying to invent confrontation arguments.

Zetherin;87809 wrote:

I've had feelings towards people, places and things that would not be neatly categorized as positive, negative, or neutral. The expressions, "I don't know how to feel about this" and "I have mixed feelings", hint toward this human confusion. Sometimes I don't even know why I've reacted the way I have. If I don't even know why, is it positive, negative, or neutral? I need to know what defines positive, negative and neutral.

Yeah, this falls into neutral.

Zetherin;87809 wrote:

Upon typing this to you, I looked at my computer monitor and felt something. It's definitely not negative, it's not neutral (because I'm feeling something), and it's not really positive. It just felt odd. How should I go about placing this feeling into one of the three categories? Please be as descriptive as possible, detailing what exact distinctions I should be looking for in my feeling in order to categorize correctly.

This also falls into neutral.

Neutral means anything that is not positive or negative. You basically hold no position. For example, the feeling you have towards a person you have never met, would be neutral. If you can't decide if you like a person you have met, you are neutral. If you can't decide if you hate a person you met, you are neutral. Why? Because you are not reacting to them as if you like them or hate them, so you are indifferent.

Indifferent:

1 : marked by impartiality : unbiased
2 a : that does not matter one way or the other b : of no importance or value one way or the other
3 a : marked by no special liking for or dislike of something <indifferent about which task he was given> b : marked by a lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern for something : apathetic <indifferent to suffering and poverty>
4 : being neither excessive nor inadequate : moderate <hills of indifferent size>
5 a : being neither good nor bad : mediocre <does indifferent work> b : being neither right nor wrong
6 : characterized by lack of active quality : neutral <an indifferent chemical>
7 a : not differentiated <indifferent tissues of the human body> b : capable of development in more than one direction; especially : not yet embryologically determined.

1 Reply

@Krumple,

Krumple;87816 wrote:

Yeah, this falls into neutral.

I disagree with you.
Theoretically you always feel "something", and that feeling can't be neutral.

Imagine, as you said, that you can't decide how to feel about a person you have met.
I don't think this would be neutral, because that would mean either no positive or negative feeling at all, or an equal positive and negative feeling towards the person.
The feelings can't be exactly equal, nor can they be completely neutral.
There are too many factors involved, just like how you can love someone but hate their actions.
My point is, you feel differently about different aspects of the person.

Also, feelings aren't as complexed as we experience them.
We just experience subtle feelings on a different level then we experience the scientific interpretation of them

1 Reply

@rcs,

Krumple wrote:

If you can't decide if you hate a person you met, you are neutral. Why? Because you are not reacting to them as if you like them or hate them, so you are indifferent.

I think you're gravely oversimplifying this. There are a myriad of reactions I could have towards a person, and all those reactions which do not show a special like or dislike for a person you just lump into the "neutral" category? If we are to use indifferent as a descriptor and call it a day, we are to say that a scale of extremes is all we should take into consideration. That is, there are two ends of extremes in emotion, and indifference is simply not feeling either end. That's vague and isn't an adequate explanation for the multitude of reactions I could have towards a person, place or thing. All indifferent reactions are not alike, just as not all positive or negative* reactions are alike.

I urge you to consider that emotion has nothing to do with picking sides; neutrality has nothing to do with this equation. If we are to use indifferent to describe a feeling that has no stance whatsoever, then we are to use this word in the description of emotion inappropriately - in fact, we are speaking of a lack of a emotion, rather than a type of emotion. If we feel something towards something, we essentially have a stance, regardless if we are able to discern just what that stance is. It's a bit difficult to call all those stances "neutral" when I know I've experienced different feelings, feelings which did not exude a special like or dislike.

* You still haven't detailed exactly how you're using positive and negative. What makes something positive, what makes something negative?

Quote:

In some ways I think you are trying to invent confrontation arguments.

I'm sorry you feel that way, but I don't think I'm just picking at straws here. I feel emotion is intensely complex and only allowing three categories with which all emotions should fall just doesn't seem to be doing emotion justice.

I hope you don't sense hostility or that I'm being deliberately confrontational without reason. Thanks for the responses thus far.

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@ExcludeReality,

ExcludeReality;87834 wrote:

I disagree with you.
Theoretically you always feel "something", and that feeling can't be neutral.

It is not neutral, that is just what I am labeling it, refer to the word indifferent. When I call it neutral you can substitute it for indifference. If you take indifference and add in your second attempt to claim it is not neutral you will see they parallel.

I know that emotions vary in intensity and I realize there are different connotations but generally they can be lumped into these three categories.
The use of positive is the reflection of favoritism towards the subject where as the negative is a reflection that is unfavorable. Then there is the neutral but I don't call it a middle or an in between positive or negative. Just like the example I gave I thought was clear enough; a person you have never met, you would be considered indifferent to them.

I understand that there are varying degrees of liking something.
I understand that there are varying degrees of hating something.
I understand that there are varying degrees of indifference to something.

Some emotions can take different aspects depending on how they arise. But they can still be classified how I just outlined.

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@rcs,

Krumple wrote:

I understand that there are varying degrees of liking something.
I understand that there are varying degrees of hating something.
I understand that there are varying degrees of indifference to something.

Some emotions can take different aspects depending on how they arise. But they can still be classified how I just outlined.

If you acknowledge all of this, then I'm at a loss as to why you would try to lump emotions into three categories. Clearly three categories just does not suffice. Fear, for instance, like Aedes detailed, can be a very complex emotion. You acknowledge the complexity, but feel more comfortable oversimplifying to make categorization easier?

Quote:

Just like the example I gave I thought was clear enough; a person you have never met, you would be considered indifferent to them.

I think you can only feel indifference towards things you are aware of. It would simply be a feeling which isn't especially positive or negative. If you haven't even met the person, how can you feel anything about them? There's no potential for feeling at all as you have no knowledge of the individual whatsoever, and indifference, as far as I understand it as used, does entail a certain type of feeling.

As of yet, I don't 'grip' what your simplified categorization can lend us, or how what you just said in your last post isn't a contradiction to what you've previously said. It seems you're backpedaling. I'll reread your posts several times in order to try to understand. Perhaps someone else can chime in and help this communication out.

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