Note to Reader: I support my view with as many arguments I can to make it thoroughly convincing. If I just said a simple statement or paragraph, that would leave plenty of room for objections. So, I attempt to address all the objections I can think of. I attempt to explain why my positive emotions are the only things that can make my life beautiful and worth living. If this explanation is incoherent gibberish to you, then I don't know what to say.
I've tried my best to explain and perhaps you will understand once you read the Q&A Section below. My emotions have always been the only source of perceived value in my life. I never recall a single given moment in my life where I perceived value independent of my emotions. So, from my perspective, there is no more value to life than our emotions. With all of this being said, here is the explanation:
When you feel a certain emotion whether it be misery, despair, love, or peace, those emotions are actually the perception of value (i.e. the perception of good, bad, beauty, joy, horror, or disgust). The positive emotions are the perception of beauty and good values and the negative emotions are the perception of bad values. So, you need positive emotions to make your life good or beautiful and you need negative emotions to make your life bad, horrible, or disgusting. Having no emotions (apathy) would only render your life without any perceived value.
People might disagree that emotions are perceptions of value since they might say to me that emotions are nothing more than biochemical induced states in the brain. But I think people are in denial. For example, a person might say to me that, even though he feels that his life is horrible or that he feels like his mother is a disgusting person, that he doesn't perceive his life as horrible or his mother as disgusting because his emotions don't rule his perception. But I would say to him that all mental states whether they be feelings, thoughts, sounds, smells, colors, etc. are perceptions.
So, when a person feels that his life is horrible or his mother is disgusting, that is no different than saying he perceives his life as horrible or his mother as disgusting. Given this, I think people are in denial of their own emotions. They think they are nothing more than feelings and they think they are in charge when it comes to perceiving value in their lives. I don't think we are in charge. I think it can only be our emotions that allow us to truly perceive value. When a depressed person claims he is perceiving beauty in his life without his positive emotions, this would actually be false.
Thinking of something whether it be value, sounds, colors, smells, physical pain, hunger, thirst, etc. is not the same thing as perceiving those things. You can believe the words "I am hungry," or "I am thirsty," but that's not the same thing as actually being hungry or thirsty. Hunger and thirst are mental states since they are produced by the brain. Therefore, hunger and thirst would be considered perceptions. In order to perceive hunger and thirst, then you need to feel hungry and thirsty. Likewise, to perceive value, you need to feel positive or negative emotions.
I need to be in the mental state that brings my life real perceived beauty and joy. That mental state would be my positive emotions. Words alone will not bring my life any real perceived value just as how words alone will not give me hunger or thirst. As you can see here, our intellect (thinking) does allow us to perceive certain things. It allows us to perceive certain truths such as the idea that we all need a heart to live or that there is a tree in your yard. But, to perceive value, that requires your emotions. Likewise, to perceive the color red, then you need to actually see red rather than simply thinking of red. Having the word "red" in your mind is not the same thing as actually perceiving red.
This means red is an actual thing. It is a mental state. If you want more red in your life, then you need to perceive more and more red. Likewise, if you want more beauty in your life, then you need to feel more and more positive emotions. I would actually treat value as a materialistic thing like money. If you want to be rich, then you need more and more money in your life. Just thinking of money and believing you are rich isn't enough to give you money. It won't make money magically fall from the sky into your lap.
Unfortunately, there are poor people and then there are rich people. Likewise, there are people rich in the good value, worth, and beauty in their lives since they have a lot of positive emotions. But then there are the depressed, miserable people who are very poor on the beauty and worth in their lives since they don't have much positive emotions. A person who battles a lifelong struggle of depression and misery who believes he is rich in the beauty and joy in his life would, thus, be no different than a poor person believing he's rich when he's not.
So, all those miserable, depressed genius artists who believed their lives were beautiful and worthwhile were believing a lie since they could perceive very little to no beauty and worth in their lives as long as they had very little to no positive emotions. But the people who could enjoy these works of art through their positive emotions had much beauty and worth in their lives. Lastly, here is the emotional perception theory of value that many emotional theorists and neuroscientists support. Some people disagree with it though. But I agree with it.
According to this theory, value is a synonym for our emotions which means, if you want certain values in your life, then you need to feel certain emotions. That's why I treat value as a materialistic thing like money. As you can see here, I define perceived value as being our emotions rather than our intellect, morality, and character which would mean that our intellect, morality, and character does not allow us to perceive any real value.
Rather, it can only allow us to perceive the idea of value, the idea of hunger and thirst, the idea of colors, the idea of sounds, etc. Sure, it can send signals to other areas of the brain to make us feel hungry or thirsty if we thought of our favorite food or beverage and it can send a signal to another area of the brain to make us hear certain sounds or see certain colors in our minds. But it, alone, doesn't allow us to perceive actual value, hunger, thirst, sounds, colors, etc.
In addition, it, alone, cannot allow us to perceive/experience any real emotions since there is no intellectual/moral form of emotions just as how there is no intellectual/moral form of hunger, thirst, smells, sounds, or colors. This means that the only real emotions are the primitive, instinctive ones. So, not only is humanity in denial when it comes to there being value founded upon intellect, morality, and character, but they are also in denial when it comes to them believing there are emotions founded upon intellect, morality, and character.
An example of the primitive instinctive emotions would be a feeling of excitement to go to the carnival, a feeling of sexual arousal, or a feeling of panic from being in a dangerous situation. It can only be our primitive, instinctive positive emotions that allow us to perceive beauty, joy, love, and good value in our lives. That's the only way we as human beings can truly see things in life from a positive perspective. Sadly, positive emotions are very fleeting things which means that the only thing that can make my life something positive, good, beautiful, and worth living for is something very fleeting.
I will say one last thing here. When our lives have perceived value, that's no different than saying our lives matter to us. Our lives can either matter to us in good and beautiful ways (our positive emotions) or in bad, horrible, and disgusting ways (our negative emotions). I need my life to matter to me in beautiful ways through my positive emotions. I wouldn't want to have any negative emotions in my life or any apathy which would render my life not mattering to me at all. With all of that being said, here is the link to the emotional perception theory of value:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs ... 11.00518.x
Q&A Section
Other Person's Response: Could you further explain what you mean when you say emotions are the perception of value? I want a bigger picture of this is all.
My Reply: When you witness a work of art such as a famous painting or a composition, in order to perceive that work of art as something amazing, beautiful, or magnificent, then you need to feel a positive emotion from it. That positive emotion you feel is something far more than just some pleasant feeling. It is a chemical message to your brain which tells your brain:
"Wow, that is something beautiful and amazing!"
Your brain getting that chemical message is how you perceive people, moments, things, and situations as beautiful or amazing. Without that chemical message, then you cannot perceive anything as good, beautiful, magnificent, or amazing. Just thinking or believing it's something amazing is not the real chemical message that tells your brain that it's something amazing. That's why no thought alone can allow you to actually perceive something as amazing or beautiful. The same rule applies to negative emotions.
Negative emotions are where your brain gets the chemical message that moments, people, things, and situations are horrible, disgusting, tragic, frightening, awful, bad, horrific, morbid, etc. If I couldn't feel any negative emotions and I only felt positive emotions, then I would just carry on happily with my life and things going on around me in the world such as the suffering of others wouldn't bother me one bit since I wouldn't perceive these situations as horrible or tragic. This has been my own personal experience and I am, therefore, convinced that emotions are the chemical message of value to our brains and that other people are in denial to think otherwise.
This means emotions are value judgments and the only way to truly judge something as good, bad, horrible, beautiful, or disgusting is through our emotions. In other words, emotions are the only real value judgments. What's interesting is that these emotional value judgments all feel different. For example, the positive emotion you feel from looking at a flashlight is different than the positive emotion you feel from looking at nature. The positive emotion you feel from looking at a flashlight has an artificial quality/atmosphere since the flashlight is something artificial and you would be perceiving an artificial form of beauty and joy through that positive emotion you feel from looking at that flashlight.
The same rule applies to feeling a positive emotion from looking at nature. You would be perceiving/experiencing a naturalistic form of beauty and joy which is the reason why that positive emotion you feel from looking at nature has a naturalistic quality/atmosphere to it. You can, therefore, feel positive emotions that have any given atmosphere to them since there are so many different stimuli you can feel positive emotions from. You can experience the beauty of the color red, you can experience the beauty of a sunset, or you can experience the beauty and joy of a heavy metal concert.
Our positive emotions, therefore, give our lives various forms of beauty and joy. The same rule applies to negative emotions. Some types of beauty, joy, horror, tragedy, etc. will be more profound than others. For example, if you felt a certain negative emotion such as embarrassment, that would be nothing compared to experiencing an emotional trauma from the loss of your loved one since losing a loved one would be something far more horrible for you than being embarrassed. How you think is how you will feel.
So, thoughts of the absolute worst will make you feel emotions that are the absolute worst for you while thoughts of things that aren't that bad will make you feel emotions that aren't that bad for you. For me, the miserable moments I've struggled with much of my life were the absolute worst negative emotions since these were the worst moments of my life. Moments such as feeling angry at my brother or feeling sad from witnessing a dead animal were nothing compared to these miserable moments. This is because the former moments were normal and healthy. But the latter, miserable moments I've been through were nothing normal and healthy.
Other Person's Response: The biochemical emotions are just emotions. Those biochemicals are not any message of value to our brains since physical and chemical processes do not possess inherent values.
My Reply: If that's true, then I would have to resort to the religious version of my worldview because, in a spiritual universe where god's divine energy exists, then his energy would be inherently good and beautiful. Our positive emotions would be his divine energy or divine life force within us. There could be no god though, but this still being a spiritual/mystical universe where divine energy exists that possesses inherent beauty, joy, and goodness. One last thing here. We as human beings value longevity and happiness.
We want to live as long as we want and have all the positive emotions we want. I think this is our divine desire as spiritual beings since our spiritual nature is eternal and blissful. Given this, I think positive emotions are far more than just pleasant feelings. They are our soul's sustenance that gives our lives beauty and joy. It's like giving a plant the water and sunlight it needs to thrive. Without that, it just becomes a dark, dull, withered, disgusting plant.
Other Person's Response: If positive emotions really were this ultimate, divine thing you speak of, then why are there so many people just fine living without them? Why do so many people claim their lives have beauty and joy with no need for them?
My Reply: Again, it's because people are delusional and in denial. They are not awakened to their divine nature as spiritual beings. They just carry on with their lives like robots or machines believing this is somehow a beautiful way to live when it never was.
Other Person's Response: That emotional perception theory you gave a link to is wrong. Our emotions are not any real perception of value while our intellect, character, and morality is the real perception of value.
My Reply: I think humanity has it all backwards. I think it's our emotions which are the real perception of value while all other mental states are not any real perception of value.
Other Person's Response: If emotions were the only way you could perceive value, then how do you explain the fact that you make certain choices in life even though you feel apathetic? If nothing mattered to you, then why would you even bother making those choices?
My Reply: This is because I can still make choices just through ideas in my mind of things being good or bad even without perceiving those things as being good or bad. But I would be living my life like a robot or a machine just doing tasks because, without my emotions, nothing could truly matter to me. A life of apathy would, therefore, be a life where I perceive no value at all. So, I still make certain choices in my life regardless of my emotional state. But living our lives through ideas/thoughts alone is no way to live since we need to actually perceive beauty, joy, and greatness in our lives. That's why we need our positive emotions.
Just having a sense of morality, obligation, or responsibility to the world is not enough to make our lives beautiful and worthwhile. You could do all these amazing things in your life and you could achieve all the amazing goals you want. But, without your ability to actually perceive them as amazing or great, then you would just be living your life like a robot or a machine just "getting things done." Basically, you would just be living out the motions. That is no way to live. We as a society teach this false idea that "You gotta do what you gotta do" or "We gotta make the best of things." That's not how we have value in our lives. Value comes through our emotions.
So many depressed people just carry on in life with their mental illness. They take the advice of others who tell them that they just got to make the best of things and that life isn't happy or perfect. That was never the right thing to do. Sure, giving such advice would certainly help these depressed people cope with their empty, meaningless lives. But what really needs to be done here is to find cures for these depressed people to restore their positive emotions so that their lives can have beautiful and joyful meaning. I think this life needs to be a beautiful, joyful utopia because life as it is now is very cruel and unfair. It's not a happy place.
Other Person's Response: There are other ways we can love and have joy in our lives.
My Reply: Based upon my own personal experience, the only way I can love someone is if I feel love towards that person, the only way I can regret is if I feel regret, the only way I can be ashamed is if I feel ashamed, the only way I can be miserable is if I feel miserable, and the only way I can be happy is if I feel happy. So, I am convinced emotions are the only source of value in our lives.
Those attributes I just described to you (shame, regret, misery, happiness, etc.) are things humanity likes to define as being intellectual qualities. I don't think there is any real intellectual form of those things and people are just deluding themselves. I think those attributes can only be emotional. There are also no intellectual form of emotions and there are no values founded upon intellect, morality, and character either regardless of how humanity behaves and claims otherwise.
Other Person's Response: Emotions are nothing more than just how I feel during the day. They are trivial.
My Reply: If we refer to emotions as simply being emotions, that could give a trivial impression of them. Therefore, I would instead describe them as different mental realms to give them more importance. When we feel positive emotions such as profound beauty and joy, we are in a beautiful, joyful mental realm. I would call it the realm of the light. During our worst miserable, hopeless states, we would be in the realm of the dark.
Other Person's Response: I heard you wanted to be a composer and that you wanted to achieve your goal of creating great music. With a worldview like this, you won't succeed anywhere in life. You will always find yourself giving up the moment you don't feel up to the task.
My Reply: Yes, I will admit. My worldview is very self-defeating. But I still think positive emotions are the only things that make life beautiful and worth living.
Other Person's Response: Where would we be without negative emotions though?
My Reply: It would be much better for me if my brain did not have negative emotions built into it and only had the positive emotions built in. That way, I could only have the capacity to feel positive emotions and not the negative ones. I see no need for the negative (the bad) when you could instead have a life that only has the positive (the good). After all, the positive is what we need in life and we need to avoid the negative.
Other Person's Response: It doesn't matter how a person feels. What matters is what a person does with his life and what contributions or impact he's made.
My Reply: I vehemently disagree based upon my own personal experience which was something powerful and profound. It's all about the experience because perception and experience are the same thing. As long as you cannot perceive the color red, then you aren't experiencing the color red and vice versa. As long as you cannot perceive any value in your life, then you aren't experiencing value either. Like I said earlier, I think it can only be our positive emotions that allow us to experience beauty and joy in our lives.
I can come up with words to describe positive emotions. Positive emotions come in various forms whether it be feelings of love, joy, beauty, attraction, fun, or adventure. So, I would describe positive emotions as being beauty, love, joy, attraction, fun, wild, and adventurous. Our intellect, morality, and character alone cannot give us such an amazing experience which means nothing else can give us such a beautiful experience.
Sure, a depressed or miserable person can choose to go on an adventure. But he would be left out of the whole experience since he wouldn't be able to perceive/experience any beauty, joy, or fun in his life without his positive emotions. The more positive emotions you have and the more profound and intense you experience them, the greater beauty, fun, and joy your life has.
Other Person's Response: I think our intellect, morality, and character really can give us such an experience.
My Reply: Consider any amazing or beautiful experience in your life to be a golden gem that shines very bright. Can your intellect, morality, and character alone give you that gem? No, it can't. That gem is an actual thing and just thinking of that gem won't give you that gem and believing you have that gem won't give you that gem either. That gem would be our positive emotions.
If you lose that gem due to any number of factors whether it be clinical depression or emotional trauma, then you are screwed for the time being until you can regain that gem. It's only once you regain that gem would your life be filled with beauty, joy, and greatness. That's the reason why I give up on my life and hobbies whenever I lose my positive emotions because my life and hobbies are without any value for the time being.
Other Person's Response: If there is a god, then I think our purpose here on Earth is something far more than just hedonistic pleasure-seeking.
My Reply: If there is a god, then I think our positive emotions are god's holy light within us. Without his holy light, then we become dead and empty on the inside. So, my worldview would be a religious form of hedonism. In case you wish to know what hedonism is, hedonism is a philosophy which states that positive emotions are the only good things in life and negative emotions are the only bad things in life.
So, hedonism is a philosophy which states that having fun and enjoying our lives is the only beautiful and worthwhile life to live. Life was meant to be a beautiful, happy, fun adventure. It was never meant to be a miserable struggle since such a life is nothing good or beautiful. It is the worst hell. Sadly, we live a life where it's mostly a miserable struggle since so many people struggle with depression and misery. That is very unfortunate and sad.
Other Person's Response: Masochism is the opposite of hedonism and I think this is a great example of how your hedonistic worldview is false. Masochists love and enjoy their misery. They perceive it as being something beautiful.
My Reply: People who claim they love, enjoy, and perceive their misery and other negative emotions as something beautiful must be having a positive emotion on some level mixed in with that pain, suffering, or misery. Otherwise, they would just be delusional and in denial. They think they can love, enjoy, and perceive beauty through their intellect and character alone. But that wouldn't be true.
Other Person's Response: According to your worldview, a miserable, struggling person making the best of his life and contributing to the world would be a life that is nothing good or beautiful. But a person paralyzed in a bed his whole entire life in a state of profound bliss would be living a very beautiful life.
My Reply: Correct. Again, it's not about what we do with our lives or what contributions we make. It's about what mental state we are in. As long as you are not in the mental state that allows you to truly perceive and experience any value in your life, then your life is empty and without any value. What would it matter to that person if you told him that his life still has value and worth?
It wouldn't matter to him because, without his ability to perceive value and worth, then his life really is without value and worth from his perspective. Given this, it would be much better off for you to become a paralyzed person in a bed feeling bliss his whole entire life rather than you being a miserable/depressed person living the life of his dreams. It wouldn't matter how much luxury or riches you have. Without your positive emotions, none of it can be anything beautiful in your life.
Other Person's Response: My life doesn't need any value. As long as I have made the lives of others valuable, then that's what matters.
My Reply: But without your ability to perceive that as something valuable, then it wouldn't matter to you. That's why you need to feel positive emotions when making the lives of others valuable to perceive it as something beautiful and worthwhile. So many depressed, miserable people are deluding themselves into believing that they are perceiving beauty and worth in their lives independent of their positive emotions when none of that's true. People wish to go beyond their emotions and instead wish to base their values on things such as self-sacrifice or altruism. But you still need your positive emotions to perceive moments, things, and situations in your life as beautiful and worth living for.
Other Person's Response: You are wrong. Positive emotions are such trivial things. There are far more important things in life.
My Reply: I don't agree. Our emotions create our whole entire mental atmosphere whether that atmosphere be something beautiful, joyful, hell, horrible, loving, or disgusting. Without my emotions, then I could look at a couple getting married. But there would be no beautiful or joyful atmosphere to it from my perspective. Therefore, it would just be a couple getting married and nothing more. So, I think our emotions are vital and absolutely necessary given that they create our entire atmosphere. I only see the positive/pleasant emotions as being vital and necessary since the negative/unpleasant ones only make our lives shit.
I disagree with anyone who says that negative emotions can make our lives beautiful. It's like saying a negative charge can be a positive charge which makes no sense. Negative emotions can't be anything positive in our lives since they don't give us any positive experience. Only positive emotions give us the positive experience since they are the experience of beauty, joy, and good value to our lives.
Here's another horrible thing about negative emotions. During my worst miserable moments, I was there physically with my family. But, mentally, I was not. I was in complete darkness completely separated from all beauty and joy. But, the moment I fully recovered from these miserable moments is the moment all the beauty and joy returned. So, mentally, it was like I was brought back home with my family again. That's how powerful and profound emotions are. They can either make your life a living hell or a living paradise.
Other Person's Response: Our emotions do not create our atmosphere. We create our own atmosphere.
My Reply: I don't think we do. Our emotions color our whole entire world. Positive emotions color things, moments, and situations in our lives in beauty, greatness, and joy while our negative emotions color our lives in tragedy, disgust, misery, horror, etc. Without our emotions, then our lives would have no color at all. It would just be a dull, gray, valueless world regardless of what we do and what value we believe our lives have. So, we are not the ones in charge when it comes to coloring our world. It can only be our emotions that color our world (give our lives value).
We as human beings are like the paintbrush and our emotions are the colors (the values). Without the colors (emotions), then just using a paintbrush alone will not color our lives in any type of value at all. We paint our lives through our ways of thinking. But we need the colors to do so. Otherwise, if we just thought certain ways and these thoughts could not make us feel certain emotions due to a mental illness or some other brain defect preventing us from feeling certain emotions, then we could not paint our lives in those colors (values).
Other Person's Response: I think negative emotions do make our lives worthwhile since they do motivate us.
My Reply: Actually, let me correct myself earlier when I said negative emotions don't make our lives worthwhile. They actually do make things, moments, and situations worth living for. But don't act as though that's something positive because it's not. Negative emotions only make our lives worth living for in a negative way. Let me give an example. If you were in a dangerous situation where you felt the negative emotion known as fear, that panic would allow you to perceive that situation as being bad.
We would also say that this feeling of panic allows you to perceive it as being worthwhile to escape. But we wouldn't say that, just because the panic allows you to perceive it as worthwhile to escape, that it allows you to perceive it as being a good thing to escape. In order to perceive it as being a good or beautiful thing to escape, then you would need to feel a positive emotion. Let me give one last example here. If someone felt angry and said in a violent (negative) tone of voice:
"It's worth it to punch that guy's face!"
Then this would be an example of a negative form of worth. That angry person's life wouldn't be anything beautiful or good. But he still perceives it as being worthwhile to punch that guy's face in. For anyone else to display a positive tone of voice and tell that angry person:
"Hey, at least your life was something worthwhile because punching that guy's face was something worth doing!"
Then that would be the wrong attitude to have since such an attitude implies that this was something positive (good/beautiful) in that angry person's life when it wasn't. Now, if this person felt happy to punch that guy's face it, then this would be an example of a positive form of worth. Therefore, the quote above expressed in a positive attitude would apply.
Other Person's Response: I heard you would want to live forever in the eternal blissful afterlife of your dreams. But living forever in bliss might turn out to be hell for you. You might go bored or insane.
My Reply: The only way I can experience hell or boredom is through my negative emotions. As long as I am blissful, then my life can only be beautiful and worth living. I would never grow tired or go insane from an eternal blissful life. But, if I started to feel bored or miserable, that's when my life would become hell or boring. Since there are no negative emotions in an eternal blissful afterlife, then my life can only be beautiful for all of eternity. It wouldn't matter if I was doing the same things over and over again or revisiting the same places again and again.
As long as I am feeling positive emotions from doing those things, then my life can only be beautiful. Given this, you can see why this Earthly life of 80-90 years is not enough for me. As long as I am happy and having fun, then I would want to live forever. But, as long as my life is miserable and this were a life where I could have very little to no positive emotions, then I wouldn't want to live such a life.
As you can see here, I am the type of person who wants life to be a beautiful, fun, joyful adventure that never ends. I would be like Dora the Explorer who wishes to be happy and live a fun, adventurous life. I am not the image of a warrior who endures much hardship and misery since I see no value in such a life. That's why I see no value in being a miserable composer. I only see value in being a happy composer who composes any type of music whether that music be dark, gothic, heavy, tragic, angry, beautiful, or joyful.
Other Person's Response: A miserable or unhappy composer who composes is the truly great composer who is living the truly beautiful life. You are wrong about this whole idea that positive emotions are the only beautiful way to be a composer.
My Reply: I think it's a joke to somehow think that would be a beautiful way of life and being an artist. When a person is miserable and hopeless, there can be no perceived beauty and joy in that person's life without his positive emotions and that person would be in complete darkness. How is that any beautiful way to live or be a composer?
Other Person's Response: To me, it's a joke for someone to believe that positive emotions are the only beautiful things in life and that this is the only thing an artist has to rely on to make his artistic endeavors something beautiful and worthwhile.
My Reply: You have your way of seeing things and I have my way of seeing things. Let's just leave it at that.
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I would describe positive emotions as some divine life force or flow of divine energy within our conscious being. This divine life force makes us alive on the inside since it makes our whole entire reality perceived as beautiful, good, and worth living for. In other words, it transforms our whole entire reality into something amazing, beautiful, and great. No other mental state can do this. All other mental states in of themselves are "dead" and "empty" since they do not do this.
I would also describe positive emotions as being a divine inner light or inner fruit. If you hear the word 'fruitful," then that means filled with inner positivity. It means you are in a mental state where you truly experience positivity in your life which is no different than, again, saying that you are truly perceiving things from a positive perspective (i.e. perceiving things as joyful, beautiful, and good). Again, positive emotions are that mental state and they are the only positive mental state.
When you feel positive emotions, it's as though you are filled with the force of the light and, when you feel negative emotions such as misery and despair, it's as though you are filled with the force of darkness. The goal is to become the being of light by pursing the force of light to make your life beautiful and to avoid the inner darkness which makes your life bad, horrible, and disgusting.
When we lose our ability to feel positive emotions, it's as though we have become dead on the inside since we lose that force of light within us. Intellect, morality, and character is just words, intentions, and ideas in our minds. None of these things can allow me to perceive/experience the sheer beauty and joy my positive emotions have brought my life and neither can it allow me to experience what I've experienced through my miserable struggles.
Those hopeless and miserable states I've been through were such horrible states that no words, ideas, etc. can allow me to experience something so horrible. Let me say a few more things here before I conclude this explanation. People can act as though certain things are real and claim these things are real. For example, people have acted and claimed Thor was real. But that doesn't mean Thor was real.
So, just because people act as though value independent of positive emotions is real and claim it's real does not mean it's actually real. You cannot trust a person's claim just because they act as though it's real and claim it's real. That's the reason why I cannot trust people who claim that they perceived their lives as something beautiful and great despite their misery and inability to feel positive emotions.
There are many factors that can take away our ability to feel positive emotions and I don't trust anybody when they say that your life can still be something beautiful without your ability to feel positive emotions, that you can create your own value in life, and that value is something far more than just a matter of feeling good or feeling bad. I think our emotions are something far more than just pleasant and unpleasant feelings. Like I said before, they are like the inner light or inner darkness to our conscious being.
So many people go about their work and everyday life despite feeling miserable and they dismiss their emotional state as something trivial. They would claim that the true value in their lives comes about through helping others and contributing to the world. I completely disagree with this. You need that force of light within you to make any endeavor in your life beautiful and worth living for.
I don't care how fleeting positive emotions are; I still think they are the only real source of beauty and joy in our lives. To conclude this explanation, I know my worldview/philosophy is like a religion. But I am actually undecided when it comes to the existence of god, the paranormal, and the afterlife. If it's the case that these things do exist, then my worldview would apply in the form of a spiritual belief or religion.
But, if we live in a universe where those things do not exist (i.e. a purely naturalistic universe), then my worldview would still apply. But it would take on a secular form. I would describe the religious form of my worldview to be Spiritual Hedonism, Divine Hedonism, or New Age Hedonism since it would be the hedonistic philosophy taking on a spiritual/religious form.
But hedonism in a purely naturalistic universe would simply be hedonism. By the way, hedonism is a philosophy which states that pleasure (the positive emotions) are the only good things in life and that displeasure (the negative emotions) are the only bad things in life. So, according to hedonism, the only way our lives can be good and beautiful is if we are having fun, enjoying our lives, and experiencing profound beauty and joy through our positive emotions. Here is a link to hedonism which says that pleasure is the only good thing in life:
http://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_hedonism.html
I Think I Can Prove The Emotional Perception Theory Of Value: Considering how there are many people out there who disagree with the emotional perceptual theory of value, I think there is a way for me to personally prove it. This is my own personal argument which is an attempt to translate emotions into perceptions of value. Positive emotions are the reward wanting and liking in the brain. When you want something and like something, this means it matters to you.
When something matters to you, this means it is something good or something bad from your perspective. For example, if the loss of your loved one mattered to you or getting a new movie mattered to you, this means those things had value from your perspective. Positive emotions make things matter to us in good ways and negative emotions make things matter to us in bad ways since positive emotions are the perception of good value and negative emotions are the perception of bad value.
Now, the only way something can have value to you is if it matters to you. How can you say that helping someone is something good or bad from your perspective if it doesn't matter to you? It makes no sense. A life that doesn't matter to us would, thus, have to be a life that has no value from our perspective. Lastly, here is a link (study) that shows how positive emotions are the reward wanting and liking in the brain:
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/
For Those Who Disagree Positive Emotions Are Wanting And Liking: I think there will also be people out there who disagree that positive emotions are a form of wanting and liking. So, here is proof for them. Emotions are a form of motivation. When you have a positive form of motivation to do something, this means you want to do it and like to do it. The religious form of my worldview would say that the force of light (positive emotions) motivates us to have a relationship, create works of art, and to live our lives to the fullest.
Yes, The Light is unreliable since it can result in harming ourselves and others, but it's still the only source of beauty and joy in our lives. The Darkness can also motivate us, but makes our lives bad and horrible. The force of light is from the heavens and the force of darkness is from the lower realms. So, positive emotions symbolize heaven and negative emotions symbolize hell. Having no emotions symbolizes The Void (or limbo which is neither heaven nor hell). Our positive emotions make us angels on the inside, our negative emotions make us demons on the inside, and having apathy just makes us empty vessels on the inside.
A Little Experiment: I have performed a little experiment here and it's already clear to me that my emotions really are the perception of value that give my life perceived value. There are certain stimuli that trigger positive or negative emotions and then there are the types of stimuli that trigger no emotional response. When I look at the cup sitting there on my desk, it triggers no emotional response. I can clearly tell that this cup does not matter to me and has no perceived value. It is nothing more than just a cup sitting there.
Sure, I can think that it has perceived value in my life and that it matters to me. But those thoughts are just words going through my mind that don't make that happen. Now, when I turn my sights over to something that does trigger a positive emotion such as a character from a video game or anime, I can clearly tell that this character matters to me and has such beauty and joy from my perspective upon feeling a positive emotion.
I clearly notice that all stimuli that trigger no emotional response are stimuli that have no perceived value (don't matter to me) while the stimuli that do trigger an emotional response are the stimuli that have perceived value (do matter to me). When people mistreat me and I feel a negative emotion from that, this mistreatment bothers me. But, when I don't feel any negative emotions from their mistreatment, then it doesn't bother me.
This is yet another reason why I would prefer a life without negative emotions because this would mean that any name calling or mistreatment others give me wouldn't bother me. I would be immune to it. Anyway, like I was saying before. If people perform this little experiment and report the opposite of my results, then this is just something I don't understand.
We live in a society where we as human beings are expected to go beyond our emotions. Thus, we tend to dismiss them as trivial when, in reality, they are vital and the very source of perceived value in our lives. So, maybe this would be a contributing factor to any results opposite of mine in this experiment. I have a keen sense of introspection and I can clearly tell that emotions make things matter to me and maybe others don't have this keen sense of introspection.
Changing My Worldview Might Prove Very Difficult: As I said before, my worldview is profoundly spiritual to me like a religion. Therefore, it would be that more difficult to change. It would be like trying to convert a Christian over to some other worldview such as atheism or to some philosophy. Most Christians I know remain Christians their entire lives. Few of them convert. As for me, I am 29 years old now.
Chances are, I might have this worldview my whole entire life. Also, most Christians have a disagreement and conflict with atheists or people with different worldviews. This is no different than how I disagree and debate with other people. What makes this situation even worse for me is that there are many factors that can take away my positive emotions.
If I am ever put into a position where I lose my positive emotions and they can't sufficiently recover back to me, this would put me in a position where changing my worldview is the only option of changing my life for the better and giving me a whole new set of values.
Unfortunately, this would be no different than putting a Christian in a position where converting over from his religion is the only way to change his life for the better. It would obviously prove very difficult to try to convert this Christian since he thinks any other worldview is false and that any set of values not founded upon Christianity aren't the truth.
Anime Analogy: Since I love anime, then I am going to use an anime analogy for my worldview. As I said before, the perception of beauty and joy in our lives is a vital mental state to have because, without it, then our lives would be empty and we would be empty on the inside. Without our perception of value, then our lives would have no perceived value. Now, I would metaphorically describe the perception of beauty and joy to be a divine state of consciousness since it's something so vital and precious to our lives. This metaphor goes quite well with the anime analogy I am going to give.
The anime I am going to use is Dragon Ball Super if you are familiar with that show. Imagine if I was a character out on the field meeting another character. I then induce a profoundly beautiful positive emotion by thinking of something very beautiful. This positive emotion is a powerful, intense surge of divine beauty and joy through my conscious being. It transforms me into a Super Saiyan God. I am now in a divine state of consciousness through this positive emotional state and that's the reason why I am now in this god-like/divine form. This form has beautiful aura and there is beautiful music playing to express my divine form.
I then tell the other character on the field that this form is the ultimate thing in this universe and nothing compares to it. I tell this character that positive emotions are, therefore, the ultimate divine things in this universe and that he cannot match such power through his intellect and character. Especially euphoric states since these would be the most powerful god-like forms. The character then responds back to me by saying that I transform into the Super Saiyan God through my positive emotions, but that he transforms into the Super Saiyan God through his intellect, character, and morality. Now, there are two possibilities here.
The 1st is that this character would transform into a Super Saiyan God which would mean that he really is in that divine mental state (that state of perceiving beauty and joy). As a matter of fact, his Super Saiyan God form could be much more powerful and beautiful than mine. He might tell me that he has much more knowledge and life experience than me and that's the reason why his form is so much greater than mine. From there, he would tell me that his form is everlasting unlike mine which only lasts for a short while. If this 1st scenario is the case, then I would be very interested in obtaining the Super Saiyan God form that this guy has.
It would bring my life perceived beauty and joy that, not only goes beyond that of my positive emotions, but is everlasting. But there is a 2nd possibility here. That is, this guy could attempt to transform into a Super Saiyan God through his intellect and character, but won't. He then might say to me that he's a Super Saiyan God when he really isn't. If this is the case, then he does not have that divine state of consciousness. He believes he is perceiving beauty and joy in his life when he really isn't.
From there, I would tell him that I am the real god through my positive emotions and that his intellect, character, and morality is nothing compared to positive emotions. So, there is my anime analogy. I wanted to give this analogy since it makes my worldview more interesting. While I'm on the topic of anime, if I were to feel profound beauty and joy from, for example, a female character, then it's as though her joyful and beautiful presence is there within my conscious being for a limited time only. So, not only do we perceive and experience the beauty and joy of moments and things in our lives through our positive emotions, but also the beauty and joy of certain characters.
Conclusion: I have struggled with many miserable moments due to unhealthy thought processes. This misery and hopelessness took up much of my life and was the worst hell to be in. I have finally broke free of that cycle. What I've learned from this whole struggle is just how vital and precious positive emotions really are. In the past, I took them for granted and thought that perhaps there is more value to life despite the fact that I was a hedonist in the past.
Now I've come to realize that positive emotions truly are the only good in life through my whole struggle. This has made me into a religious hedonist which means I'm much more of a hedonist now than I was before. How do I know that positive emotions really are the only good things in life though? Well, I have a keen sense of introspection. That's how I know. I have no scientific evidence or anything else.
I just have my personal experience and my own introspection. What's interesting is that my own introspection has led me to conclude that emotions are the perception of value. Sure enough, I later discovered the emotional perceptual theory of value. Clearly, I might be on to something then. Therefore, this could very well mean that my worldview was right all along and that other people who claim there is more value to life than emotions could be having a flawed sense of introspection.
They might not have the keen sense of introspection I have. After all, people usually don't pay attention to their emotions and just get on with life. But I pay close attention to my emotions and whether I'm in the mental state that truly allows me to perceive value or not. However, I'm actually open minded towards the idea that I'm wrong and that there is more value to life than emotions.
But I have yet to have a personal experience that convinces me of this. In other words, I have yet to acquire a mental state that brings my life true beauty and joy. So far, no mental state has ever given me the beauty and joy my positive emotions have brought my life. Remember, it's all about what mental state I'm in because perception is everything.
As long as a person cannot perceive his life as something beautiful and worth living for, then what would it matter to that person if you told him that his life is still beautiful and worth living for? He would just be an empty vessel and none of that would actually make his life beautiful and worth living for from his perspective.
Why emotions and value are the same thing
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MozartLink
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