Emotions and experiences

[DarlBundren]

So the other day I was talking with this friend of mine about a recent romantic relationship of his. The point he was trying to make was that despite having suffered a lot throughout said story, he didn't regret a thing. According to him, what really mattered was that he had been able to feel a complex array of emotions and these emotions are ultimately what we should be looking for. In other words, it didn't matter if that relationship had proven to be very painful, since that pain (or that joy) is what relationships are all about.

Now, I found that opinion slightly disturbing, and I would like to hear your thoughts on it. My take on the topic is that we should not give too much importance to emotions. Yes, emotions are undoubtedly part of the system that enables us to do things, but should not, nevertheless, be confused with experiences. I drew an analogy. I told him that emotions can be thought as fuel and experiences as journeys. If you don't fill up your car with petrol you are not able to go anywhere, but you should not mistake that fuel for your journey. It is the journey, our experience, that is really worth-while. Why? Because experiences are up to you, whereas emotions are there for everyone because of evolution. Are they important? Of course they are, without them you would not be able to care about anything, but there is nothing remarkable in being 'angry' or in being 'glad'. It is just the way we are wired, the way we respond to a certain stimulus.

This friend of mine disagreed. 'Emotions are what we are really looking for. Everything else is just a means to achieve them'.

I find it an important topic, because when we talk about reasons for doing or even liking something you often hear 'Because it's beautiful', 'because it makes me feel good'. 'Why do you like that painting?' 'Because it's beautiful'. But, wouldn't that be circular reasoning? If you say you like something because it makes you feel good, aren't you just saying that 'you like it because you like it'?

Any thoughts?

[NonZeroSum]

It is the journey, our experience, that is really worth-while. Why? Because experiences are up to you, whereas emotions are there for everyone because of evolution. Are they important? Of course they are, without them you would not be able to care about anything, but there is nothing remarkable in being 'angry' or in being 'glad'. It is just the way we are wired, the way we respond to a certain stimulus.

When we talk about emotions we're talking about the mechanics of our psychology. It's often an indirect form of saying you managed to achieve a new greater understanding of what experiences you can enjoy, and what direction you want to take on your journey.[1] It doesn't have to be a call to the primitive, so much of workplace organisation theory[2] now is concerned with allowing employees to be authentic and achieve their maximum potential without having to be weighed down by the stress of putting on a false pretense.

The alternative is as you said chasing only good emotions because you think you can sustain that high by structuring your life towards comfort,[3][4] or chasing only negative ones because you think it gives you a more realistic appreciation of the gritty bare bones of reality.[5][6]

References
1. Jay Michaelson – The Gate of Tears: Sadness and the Spiritual Path [Buddhism/game theory] - http://www.jaymichaelson.net/gateoftears/
2. Emotions and Emotional Labor at Worker-Owned Businesses -https://toleratedindividuality.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/emotions-and-emotional-labor-at-worker-owned-businesses.pdf
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill
4. Boredom / happiness studies; Adorno on the fetishism of sustaining & schopenhauer -https://www.theeveningrednessinthewest.wordpress.com/2009/12/28/boredom-happiness-studies-adorno-on-the-fetishism-of-suntanning-schopenhauer/
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism
6. i am no hero, and neither are you thoughts on how our histories of abuse inflect our anarchist practice - https://toleratedindividuality.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/i-am-no-hero-and-neither-are-you-thoughts-on-how-our-histories-of-abuse-inflect-our-anarchist-practice.pdf

[PsYcHo]

I suppose I would have to look at it from this perspective. Suppose it is (hopefully) many years in the future and your friend is near the end of his life. This particular experience didn't end in joy, but it was a combination of emotional highs and lows throughout. Without the emotion, what power does the experience really have?

A child born to a rich family may have the experience of flying to the coast to watch the ocean every week. For him, this experience elicits little to no emotion, because he does it often. A poor child in the middle of Arkansas (or whatever is the landlocked European equivalent) travels to the ocean only once in his life for a family visit. This is a sight he has never personally seen, and will never see again. This child would likely have a much more emotional response to the same experience the rich child takes for granted. If you take it at just the experience, it is just two people who have seen the ocean.

Nice topic! (apologies if my response is a bit non-sequitur; too much work lately, not enough sleep!)

[DarlBundren]

Without the emotion, what power does the experience really have?

Oh, it doesn't have any. Without emotions you would not probably be interested in pursuing anything at all. All I am saying is that I don't think we can trust emotions and intuitions too much. It would be wrong, that is, to pursue the emotion en lieu of the experience as it would be wrong to pursue what we intuitively believe to be good without appealing to reason. That's what I meant when I used that analogy. Your car needs fuel to move, but you should not mistake the fuel for the journey. Don't look for emotions, look for experiences. If I have driven to the ocean, what really matters should be the ocean, not how I got there. I say 'should' because, of course, emotions and experiences cannot be separated. As you have said, people have different emotional responses to different experiences. Does that child love the ocean then, or does he love the pleasure he gets from looking at it? Probably both, but what is the most important one?

[brimstoneSalad]

Your car needs fuel to move, but you should not mistake the fuel for the journey.

That's a good analogy. Experience doesn't really cover it, though; what you're after is realization of interests. One of those interests many people have is curiosity or a desire to experience the world.

I think the problem you're having is that experience doesn't qualify well enough what is really sought after, because we want things we won't experience too (like after we die, we want our loved ones to be well off, or to be remembered, or to change the world in a good way despite it being impossible to experience that).

It sounds like your friend is approaching life in a very hedonistic way, but I don't think arguing for a vague middle ground of experience will be very convincing.

[DarlBundren]

I think the problem you're having is that experience doesn't qualify well enough what is really sought after, because we want things we won't experience too (like after we die, we want our loved ones to be well off, or to be remembered, or to change the world in a good way despite it being impossible to experience that).

Ok, I like it. How would you read a romantic relationship from that point of view, though? Would you simply say that a past relationship is good if you are interested in...retaining those memories? Or maybe if you are interested in the things it gave you?

What do you think of the pleasure/interest problem? Do we like the ocean because we are interested in it or we are interested in it because we like it? I think that if emotions are fuel, pleasure says 'go ahead' and pain says 'stop'. I find it unlikely that we do things only because they are pleasurable. If that were the case (and if pleasure was not a finite thing) we would do nothing but masturbate all day. It is obvious that we pursue things that make us feel good and we stay clear from those that hurt us, but there are probably situations in which we choose something that hurts over something else because we know it's the right thing to do.

[brimstoneSalad]

Ok, I like it. How would you read a romantic relationship from that point of view, though? Would you simply say that a past relationship is good if you are interested in...retaining those memories? Or maybe if you are interested in the things it gave you?

People have hedonistic interests too, but they're just one subset of total interests.

Relationships usually have purpose, though, like starting a family.

[NonZeroSum]

It is obvious that we pursue things that make us feel good and we stay clear from those that hurt us, but there are probably situations in which we choose something that hurts over something else because we know it's the right thing to do.

In the psychology of parenting this is called being 'mind-minded'. "Parents who are 'mind-minded' treat their children as individuals with minds. When in doubt, they act as if their children's acts are meaningful—motivated by feelings, thoughts, or intentions."

There is a great Pixar film that demonstrates this neuroscience at work, in 'Inside Out' the parents think their job is to keep their kid - Riley - happy or they're doing a bad job as parents, Riley internalizes this and thinks her role in the world is to be happy in order to keep her parents content that they're fulfilling their role. When the family move house and everything goes tits up, Riley becomes angry. Feeling a failure, she runs away. When she recognises that her parents accept her feelings of sadness, she demonstrates theory of mind, and this develops/adjusts her internal working model.

So, the film acts as a critique of our neo-liberal society which doesn't allow anyone in the family to sit with feelings of sadness (although it is obvious they feel it). It is more acceptable to express it through blaming expressions of anger or disgust. Interest consequentialism would encourage us to progress towards assimilating more and more peoples welfare till you have a social democratic system like Sweden. But 'Plato argued that happiness wasn't the mere pursuit of pleasure but rather the pursuit of virtue and justice'.[1] This is where meta-ethical moral ontologists (libertarian socialists/ intersecitionalists) come in,[2][3] and are perceived as a giant pain in the ass for muddying the water. This is because, although having a strong economy where unions and government agree that workers rights should be at the forefront of where investment goes, the reality is that our regime only serves to reinforce the wage based society and ingrain the class system. So the underclass should see their struggle as being in unison with the global south who are having their resources plundered by land grabbing multinational corporations.

_________________________

References:

1. Inside Out: Is Joy the VILLAIN? – Wisecrack Edition
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SH0yN2DS1pI
2. Buddhism and Modern Psychology by Robert Wright - Delusions about Ourselves
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZF_UBVTaUs&index=15&list=PLXRGPjh6kmaNs-PqEIcX0xafTirZl-0-d
3. Revolutionary Self-Theory by Larry Law
- https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/larry-law-revolutionary-self-theory

[DarlBundren]

So the film acts as a critique of our neo-liberal society that doesn't allow anyone in the family to act as though being sad is okay (although it is obvious they feel it, it is expressed through anger or disgust).

Sure. I am not arguing against emotions. Emotions are there for a reason, they provide information from our unconscious appraisal of a situation. There is nothing wrong with sadness per se. However, sometimes this is information is reliable, sometimes it isn't. If I am angry because of something that happened to me on my way to work and I am still angry when I meet you 4 hours later, the chances are that it's not you the one who is making me angry. We often don't reason that way though. If I am talking with you and my brain says 'kid, you are angry' I am likely to think you are the culprit. Emotions, that is, affect the way we think, we should be aware of this and trust them only if they are based on reliable information. Take the famous trolley problem. There is no reason why pulling the lever should be any different than pushing the person, but our brain doesn't agree.

When we are dealing with a lover there's a lot of brain chemistry involved. It's easy to be misled by our emotions. Just think about how many people find themselves in deeply abusive relationships without being able to call them for what they are. If you asked them, they would probably reply: ' I don't care, I like it'. The same applies for good relationships, of course. That's why I feel (no pun intended) that emotions should be taken with a grain of salt and following them is not always a good idea. If I were to look back at this great relationship I had, I would like to be able to make a distinction between what it has given me, what I have achieved, so to speak, and how I feel about it. Telling myself 'You are feeling good about it' is okay, of course, but only to some extent.

[NonZeroSum]

So the film acts as a critique of our neo-liberal society that doesn't allow anyone in the family to act as though being sad is okay (although it is obvious they feel it, it is expressed through anger or disgust).

Sure. I am not arguing against emotions. Emotions are there for a reason, they provide information from our unconscious appraisal of a situation. There is nothing wrong with sadness per se. However, sometimes this is information is reliable, sometimes it isn't.

Agreed as I said before:

The alternative is as you said chasing only good emotions because you think you can sustain that high by structuring your life towards comfort,[3][4] or chasing only negative ones because you think it gives you a more realistic appreciation of the gritty bare bones of reality.[5][6]

So it's interesting to try to understand why your friend is finding more meaning in net negative experiences, it could be because they are forced to participate in faux happy experiences through work and our modern superficial culture, and a materially negative experience becomes something tangible and real they can hold onto even if it is somewhat reactionary.

Emotions, that is, affect the way we think, we should be aware of this and trust them only if they are based on reliable information. Take the famous trolley problem. There is no reason why pulling the lever should be any different than pushing the person, but our brain doesn't agree.

Agreed so how can we better integrate our emotions to be clear headed and approach situations logically? Interest consequentialism is a good start but I think we can do one better by questioning where these interests derive from in the first place, religion can give us an unhealthy pre-occupation with shame, judging ourselves for how we looked in the moment. So as we practice acknowledging the unhelpful constructions of self-judging and the way it causes our suffering, we can begin to have compassion for ourselves and be able to be empathetic to others. TV adverts can make it seem like being happy is a personal responsibility that you need to self-medicate and consume more to achieve. Meditating and Psychoanalysis can be great ways of unpicking these harmful behavioral habits. But how about what pre-emptive steps you'd like to see put in place to better organize society? More outdoor green leisure spaces, community allotments, free voluntary parenting courses, consent workshops, transformative justice mediation?

Greenpeace actually set a broad legal precedent for 'lawful excuse' that could apply to the shopping trolley example.[1] I'd also hope the obese guy who could stop the train from running over those people would accept a leg up from me to jump on to the track, but I would push if they were unwilling like in times of war, and hope public outrage would be directed at finding the person that tied them to the track, that would also be a demonstration of how logical the society is.

- In 2007, six Greenpeace environmental activists climbed a 639-foot chimney at Kingsnorth coal power plant in England, intending to shut down the plant by occupying the chimney. They planned to write the words, "Gordon, bin it" on the chimney to pressure Prime Minister Gordon Brown to stop the building of new coal power plants, but after writing "Gordon," the six activists were served with an injunction and came down from the chimney. The "Kingsnorth Six," as they are called, were criminally charged for property damage; it cost 35,000 euros (equal to US $53,000 at the time) to remove the graffiti. Jurors in the case found the Kingsnorth Six "not guilty," accepting the defense arguments that the six activists had a "lawful excuse" to damage property at the Kingsnorth power station to prevent even greater damage caused by global warming (McCarthy 2008). The Criminal Damage Act of 1971 allows individuals to damage property to prevent even greater damage—such as breaking down the door of a burning house to put out a fire. James Hansen, a top NASA climate scientist, testified for the defense, and told the jury that carbon dioxide emissions from the Kingsnorth power plant would contribute to climate change.

The Kingsnorth Six Greenpeace activists were acquitted of criminal charges of property damage as jurors agreed that the defendants had a "lawful excuse" for their actions.

- Understanding Social Problems By Linda A. Mooney, David Knox, Caroline Schacht