It's an emotional issue (ritual, punishment, evolution, experience, spiritual)

[coberst]

It’s an emotional issue

What are the emotions? The primary emotions are happiness sadness, fear, anger, surprise and disgust. The secondary or social emotions are such things as pride, jealousy, embarrassment, and guilt. Damasio considers the background emotions are well-being or malaise, and calm or tension. The label of emotion has also been attached to drives and motivations and to states of pain and pleasure.

Antonio Damasio, Distinguished Professor and Head of the Department of Neurology at the University of Iowa College of Medicine, testifies in his book “The Feelings of What Happens” that the biological process of feelings begins with a ‘state of emotion’, which can be triggered unconsciously and is followed by ‘a state of feeling’, which can be presented nonconsciously; this nonconscious state can then become ‘a state of feeling made conscious’.

“Emotions are about the life of an organism, its body to be precise, and their role is to assist the organism in maintaining life…emotions are biologically determined processes, depending upon innately set brain devices, laid down by long evolutionary history…The devices that produce emotions…are part of a set of structures that both regulate and represent body states…All devices can be engaged automatically, without conscious deliberation…The variety of the emotional responses is responsible for profound changes in both the body landscape and the brain landscape. The collection of these changes constitutes the substrate for the neural patterns which eventually become feelings of emotion.”

The biological function of emotions is to produce an automatic action in certain situations and to regulate the internal processes so that the creature is able to support the action dictated by the situation. The biological purpose of emotions are clear, they are not a luxury but a necessity for survival.

“Emotions are inseparable from the idea of reward and punishment, pleasure or pain, of approach or withdrawal, of personal advantage or disadvantage. Inevitably, emotions are inseparable from the idea of good and evil.”

Emotions result from stimulation of the senses from outside the body sources and also from stimulations from remembered situations. Evolution has provided us with emotional responses from certain types of inducers put these innate responses are often modified by our culture.

[eudaimonia]

Excellent post. It was so good, I don't really have much to add.


eudaimonia,

Mark

[Hema]

That’s a very good interpretation! I think different emotions also depend on one’s level of spiritual advancement. I don’t know if you heard about chakras. Chakras are seven spiritual centers along the spine, with the lowest at the base and the highest at the top. When we become more spiritually conscious, more of the higher chakras become open, allowing for greater expression of certain emotions. For example, when the heart chakra is open, people tend to express more love to others.

[Willamena]

I can't see "calm" as an emotion --it's more like the lack of any emotions.

I once experienced a loss (or disassociation) of emotions that resulted in a slow return of them in gradual stages, so I actually identify a lot more emotions than are listed here, including "normal". Normal is a very good feeling.

[methylatedghosts]

I think genetically we have a base determinant for general emotional status, but many things influence this, so it is really hard to tell. One can also "train" to feel certain emotions for different situations.

[CDRaider]

May I recomend the book On Desire: why we want what we want by Dr. Irvine

Good book and if this is the kind of thing you are interested in, it will bring up topics that you have never even thought of.

Also recommend Tao Te Ching for this topic as well as Candide and erm... i forgot the name of the last one.

Anyways, they are all very good resources for such discussions. Very interesting post!