From: Elizaphanian (elizaphanian@tiscali.co.uk)
Date: Sun Jun 15 2003 - 16:03:48 BST
Hi Scott,
> I would say yes, but argue that the fourth level is about responding to
> different emotions. Different enough that they are not considered by most to
> be emotions. One is reason. (Another might be curiosity.) Just as the
> feeling of shame happens immediately, so does the ability to distinguish
> between what appears to one as rational or irrational. Almost all the time,
> we don't feel reason *as* emotion because we are only dealing with familiar
> static patterns. The exception is the Aha experience. That is a uniquely
> fourth level emotion.
> So, yes, emotion is at work on the fourth level, but it is important to see
> that the 3rd and 2nd level emotions do not. Rather, they impede.
Damasio distinguishes between "emotion" and "feeling" (I haven't followed that distinction in
previous posts, although I now shall). Damasio writes, "I separate three stages of processing along
a continuum: a state of emotion, which can be triggered and executed nonconsciously; a state of
feeling, which can be represented nonconsciously; and a state of feeling made conscious, ie known to
the organism having both emotion and feeling." So emotions are publicly observable (partly), whereas
feelings are purely internal. So let's agree that (defined this way) emotions are the level 2
processes, ie bodily, whereas feelings operate at level 3 and, I would argue, at level 4, ie your
sense that theory A is true and theory B is false is a *feeling*. A DH Lawrence quote sums it up for
me:
You must fuse mind and wit with all the senses
before you can feel truth.
And if you can't feel truth you can't have any other
satisfactory sensual experience.
(DH Lawrence, 'Sense of Truth')
>
> This, by the way, is what I find objectional in much modern Christian
> theology. It seems to try to preserve 3rd level emotion, by treating
> religion as a way to respond to them, rather than learning to change one's
> ideas so they don't arise. Not that it is that simple.
Do say more! (I probably agree, it sounds like what I object to in the cult of mystical
'experience')
Sam
"Phaedrus is fascinated too by the description of the motive of 'duty toward self' which is an
almost exact translation of the Sanskrit word 'dharma', sometimes described as the 'one' of the
Hindus. Can the 'dharma' of the Hindus and the 'virtue' of the Ancient Greeks be identical?" - The
Eudaimonic MoQ says yes. "Lightning hits!"
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