Good is an actual quality like water that we need to "drink"

[MozartLink]

To begin, I would like to say that I am a hedonist. Hedonism is a philosophy which states that pleasure gives our lives good value and pain gives our lives bad value. The goal is to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. So, hedonism is all about pursuing positive emotions and avoiding negative ones since it is all about being happy and enjoying our lives that gives our lives good value. But there is the idea of non hedonistic based values which are values independent of those advocated by hedonism. I think hedonism is true while non hedonism is false. These arguments I present in this packet are entirely my own personal and unique arguments based upon my own personal experience of having struggled 10 whole years with ongoing misery due to emotional trauma and obsessive thinking. It was an ongoing battle and I have finally broken free of that cycle.

Now, I am here to share to you what I have learned from this horrible experience. I am firmly convinced, based upon my own personal, profound, and powerful experience, that it can only be the emotional value judgments that can give our lives real value. That is, it can only be our emotions that can make things, moments, and situations of real good or bad value to us depending upon which emotion we feel. Since positive emotions are always emotional value judgments of good value, then they are the only things that can make things in our lives perceived as good. Since negative emotions are always emotional value judgments of bad value, then they are the only things that can make things in our lives perceived as bad. It is, therefore, only through our emotional states that we can perceive good and bad. Our emotions would have to be like glasses that we need to wear in order to see the value in our lives.

If you felt a negative emotion (an emotional bad value judgment) and you used a rational good value judgment, then this just creates a big mess here since you have two value judgments going on at once. It's no different than if a sighted person was seeing colors, smelling a certain scent, and hearing a certain noise who, at the same time, had the thought of those colors, that scent, and that noise. To say that the thought itself is a rational form of a heard noise, a smell, and perceived colors would be nonsense and it would just create one big mess here. That is why we would say that the thoughts alone can only be the idea of sounds, smell, visuals, values, emotions, water, food, pain, love, hate, misery, etc., but that they do not give our lives any real version of those things.

The emotional value judgments are value judgments that go beyond words. The rational value judgments are the words while the emotional ones are beyond words (the emotions themselves). Having real value in our lives is something profound and powerful and, thus, it would have to be something that goes beyond words. Sure, I have used words in saying all of this. But those words alone are, again, just thoughts of our emotions being the source of judging our lives as being good and bad while the rational value judgments themselves would still be no real value judgments. Thinking of value is not the same thing as judging (seeing) value.

Since positive emotions are the only things that can put us into a state of mind where everything is joyful, beautiful, happy, good, and worth living for, then the only way to live and be an artist is through positive emotions. Having negative emotions in your life or no emotions at all is simply no way to live or be an artist regardless of your contributions to the world and what types of artwork you create. Your life would either be bad, horrible, sh1t (negative emotion) or just completely blank and nothing at all (no emotion).

Since I don't think rational value judgments themselves can be any real emotions and since emotions themselves are value judgments, then I don't think the rational value judgments can be any real value judgments either. They are only being claimed to be real emotions and real value judgments when they really aren't. You can do all the things in life that would imply that you were hungry or thirsty even if you weren't hungry and thirsty just as how all the factors that would imply good and bad value independent of positive and negative emotions can be evidenced in this world. But, again, that does not mean that you are hungry or thirsty or that you have real good and bad value judged/perceived in your life independent of your positive and negative emotions. After all, there are many people who believe in false ideas all the time such as Thor the God of Thunder. These people have lived their lives as though Thor was real. But Thor was actually not real.

Continuing on here. Aren't things that sound absurd often true? Just because my worldview sounds absurd does not mean that it is false since there are so many things that are absurd in this life that are true. It is just the absurdity of life rule. There are certain things in this world such as people dying from deadly viruses and, even though this is an absurd thing, it is real. So, life isn't perfect and it seems to me that many people are expecting a certain value system to be the real value system which is why you see my value system being dismissed as nonsense and false. But life doesn't always meet our expectations and we don't always get what we want in life. My value system might certainly be one that doesn't work well for humanity, but, then again, there are many absurd things in this life that just don't work out for us, but said things are true. Instead, humanity tends to delude themselves of such things because they simply do not like them and wish to have things their way.

I am going to say this last thing here before I finally conclude this description. I am going to point out a quote by a skeptic/neuroscientist who supports the idea of our emotions being value judgments:

Emotions are value judgments too. If they weren't, humanity would not be distinct from other mammals; we would be biological machines with no autonomy, acting purely on instinct. For example, if you are physically hurt, and the doctor treating you causes you pain during treatment, do you become angry and bite him? No, because you are able to override your instinctive anger and fear at someone causing you pain with your ability to reason that the treatment is necessary and the pain is temporary. But a dog can't reason, and will bite to stop the person causing the pain. Both the instinctive emotions AND the reasoned thoughts are value judgments.

Therefore, since our positive emotions are always emotional value judgments of good value and our negative emotions always being emotional value judgments of bad value, since emotions themselves are actual qualities (things that exist such as water, food, electricity, etc.), then positive emotions would have to be a quality of good and negative emotions would have to be a quality of bad. This means that the only way to live the most beautiful, good, and worthwhile life would be if you were in the most profound, intense state of euphoria of your life and the only worst life you can live would be if you were in the most profoundly horrible negative emotional state of your life. Unfortunately, moments of euphoria are very brief and fleeting which means that your life can only be the greatest for you in brief, fleeting moments.

To conclude this description, I guess you could consider me someone like a sociopath who does not understand empathy since he never had any. Of course, I am not a sociopath and this is just an analogy for saying that I simply do not understand how one can live a life that is truly good, beautiful, and worth living for independent of positive emotions. As a matter of fact, I never recall a single given moment in my life where I perceived real value independent of my emotions. If there was a given moment, then I do not recall. Neither have my rational based values been any real emotional state in my life either. You could fully educate a sociopath on empathy, but the sociopath would still not understand it since he never had it.

Likewise, you could also fully educate me on values, morals, and ethics and how our rational value judgments can be emotional states, but I would never understand that either since this is something that has never been known to me from personal experience. The only way my worldview could change to a new sense of values would, therefore, be if I had a whole new personal experience that could replace all the good values, joy, beauty, misery, badness, etc. that my positive and negative emotions have offered me. Remember, this has to be a real version of those things in my life and not just a matter of empty words. I would pay very close attention to my inner universe. If there is a real form of those things there, then my life would have a real version of those things. If not, then they would not be anything real, they would just be empty words, and there would also still be no real emotion there either.

As a matter of fact, I think skeptics and neuroscientists have even said that we can't have empathy without emotions, but that we can have emotions without empathy. I think I have heard them also say that our rational value judgments themselves are not any real emotional state and that the only real emotions are the biochemical emotions defined in my lexicon. Since you cannot have empathy without emotions, then I don't think you can have any real value and worth in your life either without emotions. Since emotions are the biochemical induced states, then it would have to follow that, not only can you have no empathy without these biochemical emotions, but you also cannot have any real value in your life either. This would have to, therefore, mean that rational value judgments themselves are not any real value judgments and neither are they real emotions.

In short, since positive biochemical emotions are always emotional value judgments of good value and since negative biochemical emotions are always emotional value judgments of bad value, then having no biochemical emotions (i.e. the rational value judgments themselves) would have to be no real value judgments since there is good, bad, and neutral (neither good nor bad, aka no value). Sure, you could have a positive or negative biochemical emotion present, but any rational value judgments mixed in with those emotions cannot be any real value judgments. You have positive, negative, and neutral just like you have a positive charge, a negative charge, and a neutral (no) charge.

Positive emotions (a good value judgment) would be analogous with a positive charge, negative emotions (a bad value judgment) would be analogous with a negative charge, and rational value judgments themselves would be analogous with no charge. Therefore, that is why we can't have any real rational value judgments since they are analogous with no charge. Rational value judgments themselves cannot be any real emotions either because, again, positive emotions would be analogous with the positive charge, negative emotions would be analogous with the negative charge, and rational value judgments themselves would be analogous with no charge which is why they can't be any real emotions.

[Nick_A]

Hello MozartLink

What really needs to be done for these depressed folks is to somehow find a way to restore their positive emotions. I realize that antidepressants are one method. But something more needs to be done here since our positive emotions are truly the only things we have to make our lives good and worth living for. I don't care if anything I say offends or upsets you. The truth is the truth and it needs to be shared. I, myself, have struggled 10 whole years with the worst misery of my life induced by emotional traumas and obsessive thinking and it is time I shared the truth of my personal experience to the world.

For what its worth, I've read DEPRESSION defined as lacking in IMPRESSIONS. As you know depression can have, psychological causes, chemical causes, or both but the idea is to add new impressions into ones life. Even though the natural tendency is to escape into depressing imagination, it helps to get out into new environments and invite the experience of powerful new and varied sensory impressions. These new sensory experiences will invite positive emotions. Depending upon the cause, it sometimes breaks the cycle. If not, like chicken soup, it cannot hurt. The hardest thing is getting started. After that it becomes easier because it is a freedom you really want.

Simone Weil wrote: ""Where as the desire for gold is not gold, the desire for good is itself a good -- our only task is to desire the good."

The desire for the good seems a natural desire that conditioned habits supporting depression oppose. Opening to new sensory impressions is the natural antidote to the psychological slavery from negative or bad habits.

Stick with positive art and music and avoid the fashionable negative art and music. The impressions they offer is the last thing you need since they can serve to justify and intensify depression.

[Celebritydiscodave2]

So called negative emotions can of course be the catalyst for positive reactions, and vica versa, positive ones can be the catalyst for negative. Such as love, followed by a life of emotional entrapment with a psychopath. These reactions, in healthy people, will take you immediately to emotion, which again, is either on the positive on the negative side, as measured by body chemistry. In healthy people the starting place may have little or no enduring significance. Many of those that function below the fresh hold for normally healthy have a short coming of serotonin. When very mild (anxiety) the supplement tryptophan can make all the difference, but never to be taken in conjunction with synthetic serotonin inducers. It works 100% for me!
To escape ones depression, such as that caused by living with a psychopath, one must first escape ones environment, and this on every single last level of escape. One classic such escape would be in saiingl around the world. Endurance athletes should make themselves available, for a handsome fee. It would save numerous lives.
I do n`t believe that there are "conditioned habits supporting depression" There are conditioned habits, but depression is a disease, and it supports itself.

itsSimone Weil wrote: ""Where as the desire for gold is not gold, the desire for good is itself a good -- our only task is to desire the good."elf.

Sure, the desire for gold is a lusting for monetary profit, in general, thus the point being made. The desire for good might also be a self centered craving however. We may crave to own a person that will treat us well. Desire for good too often over looks our own selves, or may otherwise only be concerned to serve a second parties perception, again, self centered.

[Belinda]

Hello MozartLink

What really needs to be done for these depressed folks is to somehow find a way to restore their positive emotions. I realize that antidepressants are one method. But something more needs to be done here since our positive emotions are truly the only things we have to make our lives good and worth living for. I don't care if anything I say offends or upsets you. The truth is the truth and it needs to be shared. I, myself, have struggled 10 whole years with the worst misery of my life induced by emotional traumas and obsessive thinking and it is time I shared the truth of my personal experience to the world.

For what its worth, I've read DEPRESSION defined as lacking in IMPRESSIONS. As you know depression can have, psychological causes, chemical causes, or both but the idea is to add new impressions into ones life. Even though the natural tendency is to escape into depressing imagination, it helps to get out into new environments and invite the experience of powerful new and varied sensory impressions. These new sensory experiences will invite positive emotions. Depending upon the cause, it sometimes breaks the cycle. If not, like chicken soup, it cannot hurt. The hardest thing is getting started. After that it becomes easier because it is a freedom you really want.

Simone Weil wrote: ""Where as the desire for gold is not gold, the desire for good is itself a good -- our only task is to desire the good."

The desire for the good seems a natural desire that conditioned habits supporting depression oppose. Opening to new sensory impressions is the natural antidote to the psychological slavery from negative or bad habits.

Stick with positive art and music and avoid the fashionable negative art and music. The impressions they offer is the last thing you need since they can serve to justify and intensify depression.

I agree entirely. Nick's description of depression is very apt and it illustrates the difference between depression and unhappiness.

Simone Weil wrote: ""Where as the desire for gold is not gold, the desire for good is itself a good -- our only task is to desire the good."

This is what the successor to the metaphysical God can be. Desire for the good. I had not thought of Simone as a humanist.

https://iainews.iai.tv/articles/against ... l-auid-844

According to the professor of philosophy who wrote the above, Weil was not a humanist but did believe in the good, not as an abstraction, which she hated, but as ontological , supernatural be-ing .I don't understand references to 'grace' which always seems to imply that the good has intentions towards us. I do recommend the essay as a quick and easy introduction to Simone Weil.

[MozartLink]

Hello MozartLink

What really needs to be done for these depressed folks is to somehow find a way to restore their positive emotions. I realize that antidepressants are one method. But something more needs to be done here since our positive emotions are truly the only things we have to make our lives good and worth living for. I don't care if anything I say offends or upsets you. The truth is the truth and it needs to be shared. I, myself, have struggled 10 whole years with the worst misery of my life induced by emotional traumas and obsessive thinking and it is time I shared the truth of my personal experience to the world.

For what its worth, I've read DEPRESSION defined as lacking in IMPRESSIONS. As you know depression can have, psychological causes, chemical causes, or both but the idea is to add new impressions into ones life. Even though the natural tendency is to escape into depressing imagination, it helps to get out into new environments and invite the experience of powerful new and varied sensory impressions. These new sensory experiences will invite positive emotions. Depending upon the cause, it sometimes breaks the cycle. If not, like chicken soup, it cannot hurt. The hardest thing is getting started. After that it becomes easier because it is a freedom you really want.

Simone Weil wrote: ""Where as the desire for gold is not gold, the desire for good is itself a good -- our only task is to desire the good."

The desire for the good seems a natural desire that conditioned habits supporting depression oppose. Opening to new sensory impressions is the natural antidote to the psychological slavery from negative or bad habits.

Stick with positive art and music and avoid the fashionable negative art and music. The impressions they offer is the last thing you need since they can serve to justify and intensify depression.

Please reread my opening posts since it is my best explanation so far. I am trying to come up with the best explanation and this new explanation is the greatest improvement I have made. I think it might be my perfect presentation/explanation.

[Belinda]

MozartLink, if you were to understand the physiology of emotions you might better understand your own philosophy.

Emotions are physiological events which can be observed in signs such as pallor, blood pressure fluctuations, hormonal fluctuations, digestive events, pupil size, 'hair standing on end', loose bowels, flight and fight responses generally, and so on.

Feelings are not emotions but are partly caused by emotions, as with insufficient emotional response to what is in our environments we cannot feel. Feelings , besides being partly caused by physiological emotions, are also partly caused by our ideas which we have learned. What I gather from your introductory post , apart from your general idea with which I largely agree,is that you are unaware of what emotions actually are, and how they differ from feelings.

Nick and others have posted much on education , which largely is institutions that teach ideas to the young, and that talk is still ongoing. The more enlightened schools now teach emotional intelligence. So-called 'emotional intelligence' is not emotion (although people's physical bodies are of course involved) but is feelings which are oriented towards love. I repeat feelings are emotion plus ideas. I don't of course, by 'love' mean cute fluffiness of pink bunnies , nor sexual contentment, but serious commitment and habitual attention to others.

[Celebritydiscodave2]

Feelings are not emotions but are partly caused by emotions, as with insufficient emotional response to what is in our environments we cannot feel. Feelings , besides being partly caused by physiological emotions, are also partly caused by our ideas which we have learned. What I gather from your introductory post , apart from your general idea with which I largely agree,is that you are unaware of what emotions actually are, and how they differ from feelings.


Feelings are exactly emotions, we feel love, we feel depressed, anxious, etc, all of these are emotions. There are scores of different emotions and some of them may not even be named yet. We can be feeling two or more emotions simultaneously too.

Yes, goodness is a quality, but it is unlike water, for water is not a quality, it`s a commodity, come quantity, and therefore there exists no relationship between the two of them. Go without water and you will die.

[Belinda]

Feelings are not emotions but are partly caused by emotions, as with insufficient emotional response to what is in our environments we cannot feel. Feelings , besides being partly caused by physiological emotions, are also partly caused by our ideas which we have learned. What I gather from your introductory post , apart from your general idea with which I largely agree,is that you are unaware of what emotions actually are, and how they differ from feelings.


Feelings are exactly emotions, we feel love, we feel depressed, anxious, etc, all of these are emotions. There are scores of different emotions and some of them may not even be named yet. We can be feeling two or more emotions simultaneously too.

Yes, goodness is a quality, but it is unlike water, for water is not a quality, it`s a commodity, come quantity, and therefore there exists no relationship between the two of them. Go without water and you will die.

Celebrity, most people would agree with you but you aren't a physiologist are you?

[Celebritydiscodave2]

No, that is what you are claiming I wrote, what I actually wrote was the precise opposite of that. You are not quoting me, you are quoting that individual whom I was responding to. It is therefore pointless me reading beyond this first line of your post as you are unwittingly communicating with another party. It wont be my response which you`ll require, it shall be his. Good luck with that.

[Celebritydiscodave2]

No, that is what you are claiming I wrote, what I actually wrote was the precise opposite of that. You are not quoting me, you are quoting that individual whom I was responding to. It is therefore pointless me reading beyond this first line of your post as you are unwittingly communicating with another party. It wont be my response which you`ll require, it shall be his. Good luck with that.

[Viveka]

You must not be as in touch with your emotions as others as you claim you do. I am sure that thoughts can trigger emotions as much as emotions can condition thoughts, at least in my own experience. Not to mention memories, anticipations, imaginings. and willing. Exercise helps generate positive emotions but it is as you describe thoughts--not directly related in concept--yet the relation is there in observation. Food is another thing that can condition emotions. All of the senses detect either positively, negatively, or neutrally valenced sensoria. Positively valenced sensoria can generate all sorts of emotions and thoughts, and so can negatively valenced sensoria. Neutral sensoria tend towards ignorance and no true grasping of what is there in front of you. Hence, mindfulness is key because we cannot always experience the desire, aversion, and ignorance, and the deeper we experience these, the more we can relinquish each deeper layers.

But I shouldn't have to tell you this if you have any emotional capacity. I guess it takes a conceptual idea for people to grasp what comes natural to most. I guess that's the point of Buddhism.

[Celebritydiscodave2]

Quote by Belinda
Feelings are not emotions but are partly caused by emotions, as with insufficient emotional response to what is in our environments we cannot feel. Feelings , besides being partly caused by physiological emotions, are also partly caused by our ideas which we have learned. What I gather from your introductory post , apart from your general idea with which I largely agree,is that you are unaware of what emotions actually are, and how they differ from feelings.

You are confusing feelings with opinions. You do n`t emotion love, you feel the emotion of love sweep over you, you feel a tingling sensation, you feel warm, you feel joyous, you feel love. You do n`t stand back from a feeling and analyse it before it becomes love, we do n`t work like that. Love is an emotion, is a feeling, and this is totally isolated from anything learnt, the propensity for emotions do however develop, or not, according to environment, early environment obviously being the most critical. We may rationalise our emotions through intellect, we may entirely avoid an emotion through intellect, but intellect itself cannot make up an emotion, not a genuine actual emotion. Yes, it can "love", that`s to say love by given definitions of the term, but never the genuine emotion which we refer to as being love, no more than we can even assemble that which we find attractive in people. That which we will be responsive to, certainly, and even that which we would fool ourselves and others into believing that we find attractive, this too.

The end product is emotion, it is not a half way house which carries on to finish up in a feeling. Just because not all that we feel is an emotion it does not follow that an emotion is not something felt. Emotions and feelings are spontaneous, like a heart beat, we cannot control them by intellectual effort. Opinions consequence of emotions, not feelings, at least never directly, there would have to be a physiological response to an emotion which one could feel first. Emotions come before intellect, not after, not even in part after as you suggest.

Bring a girl up on sexual abuse and love will be replaced by those emotions/feelings she was developing, and later wholly experiencing during the abuse, anxiety, fear, inadequacy, confusion, and hate.. Meanwhile she`ll be intellectually aware that her emotional responses are illogical. Even under these circumstances emotions are quite separate from the thinking mind. There would of been reliving in the future of very early abuse before such emotional response could materialize, but no actual thought process, beyond emotion itself, is required.

Post by Viveka » Thu Nov 02, 2017 9:54 pm
Quote
You must not be as in touch with your emotions as others as you claim you do.
What does your opening line mean? I`m not in touch with my emotions? Explain how discussing terms has anything at all to do with being aware of one`s emotions? Being aware of one`s emotions is primitive functionality, simply not an intellectual exercise, nor mixed up with it in any single way.

Quote
as with insufficient emotional response to what is in our environments we cannot feel. Feelings , besides being partly caused by physiological emotions, are also partly caused by our ideas which we have learned. What I gather

What, you cannot feel hot, cold, a headache, sore throat, etc should your emotional response to your environment be below the average, is this what you mean? Sure, you might feel apathetic, in want of an opinion, thus likely emotionally dead, but you would not lose your feelings so easily.

[Belinda]

Celebritydiscodave, I am confused about who said what because you are not using the quotation box as accessed via the two inverted commas in the editing bar.

When I wrote about the nature of emotion I was concerned to explain that emotions are bodily functions and that cognition is what adds meaning to them. Thus, fear makes you react without thinking, while anxiety is fear which may have been thought about too much.

Passion (i.e. emotion)of sexual desire is transmuted to romantic love by way of cognitive romantic beliefs. Romantic love is therefore not a simple emotional reaction but is based upon physiological reaction to one's hormones and the presence of an object of sexual desire. This emotion is usually (?) acted upon, in many civilised societies, by cognition of the loved one's virtue, beauty, or sense of humour and so on. After the cognition event the reactive emotion is transmuted into a feeling.

[Celebritydiscodave2]

Celebritydiscodave, I am confused about who said what because you are not using the quotation box as accessed via the two inverted commas in the editing bar.

When I wrote about the nature of emotion I was concerned to explain that emotions are bodily functions and that cognition is what adds meaning to them. Thus, fear makes you react without thinking, while anxiety is fear which may have been thought about too much.

Passion (i.e. emotion)of sexual desire is transmuted to romantic love by way of cognitive romantic beliefs. Romantic love is therefore not a simple emotional reaction but is based upon physiological reaction to one's hormones and the presence of an object of sexual desire. This emotion is usually (?) acted upon, in many civilised societies, by cognition of the loved one's virtue, beauty, or sense of humour and so on. After the cognition event the reactive emotion is transmuted into a feeling.

I disagree that emotions are bodily functions, they are also cognative, for one cannot love through one`s leg. Sexual organs play a part, but neither could the brain be said to function normally on its own. I`d argue that emotions have meaning of their own, that they are spontaneous and that the mind can direct them, even redirect. They cannot under normal circumstances exist in the absence of any meaning/stimulus.
I broadly agree that passion is transmuted such, but romantic love, as you suggest, is not the actual emotion, passion is. Passion is sexual desire, and some individuals if left to their own impulses would opt for sex, others for courtship, and still others again might simply move on. The concept of romantic love is only served as a means to a final end, but likely changes the nature of nothing, merely what we might say, and do, our reaction. Emotions cannot be transmuted into feelings for they are feelings in their own right,but they are obviously responded to. One may feel the emotion passion, and generally not for nobody, generally for another individual, you feel passionate towards them. You may, and likely shall, not necessarily though, go on to feel more than just passionate alone, but now we are no longer speaking of our emotions, we have moved on from this place.

There is not a different emotion for every one of the very many forms of love, and even more forms of friendship, there exists just the one. Transmuted emotions into feelings I`d be fine with, but I think of emotion as a particular nature of feeling to begin with. Yes, should romantic love have more than this half life we move on to thinking we know why it is that we love the person, but as is most often the case, with about nineteen out of every such relationship failing at some point, all we ever genuinely had was just the emotion/passion, albeit directed at a particular person. Reliving the emotion, and the emotion can be carried forward indefinitely, forms the only true fabric of a typical romantic relationship, in my opinion, and I would n`t even extend a definition beyond this point. There is in my view over respect for such relationships, largely emotional, and too often distant from a place of truly genuine love, as distinct from emotional love. We claim to love a persons virtues, but I`m not persuaded that this is the actual process. and I do n`t believe it possible to know why and how we love a person, other than being aware that we simply do.

It would be difficult to be fearful without a brain though? - Sure, emotion requires no thought processes, it`s a spontaneous reaction. You would n`t be aware of fear without a body, that is also true. " Fear makes you react without thinking"? - Surely though, planning an escape, even if quickly, is still a thought process? Hitting somebody has also to be calculated for. People may claim to have reacted without thinking, they certainly wont remember having done so, just the fear, but I`d argue were actually more likely to have been in a state of hyper thinking. In this regard I believe that we think far more and use what is left of our instincts far less. I do n`t think of anxiety as being a separate emotion from fear, I consider it to be a nature of fear, for anxiety is simply long term fear. Sure, cognitive process, focusing on, extends the life of a given emotion. This is all that keeps many relationships alive. This, familiarity, and the need to support one`s ego, come the fear of loss. Where love is concerned we (feel) emotion, but after that I think it has a lot more to say for what one thinks one feels, perhaps only ever through the memory of the passion. Empathy is of course everything in long term relationships, by way getting back to the real world.

[Belinda]

Celebritydiscodave wrote:

I`d argue that emotions have meaning of their own, that they are spontaneous and that the mind can direct them, even redirect.

True, emotions are not only caused by events external to the body but are also caused by memories.

It would be difficult to be fearful without a brain though?

(Celeb--)

There are levels of response to what we might call 'fear'. Usually what we mean by 'fear' is the level of human fear which is felt by anybody who has a brain /mind. Human fear is also detectable by objective observations.
Fear is basically an instinctive response to danger. In the cases of primitive living organisms the fear is not related to any central nervous system but is a chemical reaction e.g. the irritability and motility of the amoeba .

Animals with central nervous systems not only feel the fear but many can also remember the occasions of it.It is only when memory and learning are possible that the living organism can have feelings based upon fear. Fear is primitive but human feelings of fear besides instinctive are also retrieved from memories of events.

There's a difference between primitive, instinctive, biochemical emotion on the one hand, and emotion with the addition of memory and learning. This is why it's useful to think of emotions as applicable to the former, and feelings as applicable to the latter.