Feelings as evidence of reality

Ruv Draba · Sep 29, 2010

Diana Hignutt said:
And I thought we were friends, but your strawmen always tend towards offensive.

We are friends and I accept and embrace your gender identity, which apparently is more than you do for any emotional or cognitive differences we might have.

The 'strawman' is downright offensive, Di, but it's not mine. It's plucked from the abundant ignorance and bigotry of our world; it's something I've heard before and I'm sure you've heard it too. It's crap when someone who has little or no experience of us or our lives decides what range of thought or feeling humanity can take, and therefore how our minds or bodies might work.

It is absolute crap and I'm very sorry for every moment of that you've ever experienced, including whatever echoes my parallel must have brought up for you.

I also invite you to extend the same consideration to me.

Shadow_Ferret · Sep 29, 2010

Maxx said:
Are you responsible for feelings that other people's words trigger in you?

If I allow someone else's words to trigger some feeling, yes, I'm responsible for that reaction.

Ruv Draba · Sep 29, 2010

Maxx said:
Are you responsible for feelings that other people's words trigger in you?

It seems to me that when we have basic tangible necessities like food, shelter, safety and health, and a couple of social necessities like the freedom to choose our work and our friends, we can't really lay our misery at other folks' doors. Others are responsible for treating us fairly and courteously, but we are responsible for sustaining our own dignity and happiness.

Gehanna · Sep 29, 2010

Ruv Draba said:
Often, qualities that are strengths when all is going well are terrible weaknesses when things are going badly.

My qualities are ~~weaknesses~~ (I call them personal preferences) when all is going well and sought after / looked to strengths when all hell breaks loose.

Ruv Draba said:
People who are normally right won't admit their part in things are wrong;.

I seek rightness and I am willing to do battle with others and my own ego to gain it. Seldom do I find tolerance from others for my seeking, but that is my consequence. I am not willing to trade one for the other.

Ruv Draba said:
people who are good at being liked won't confront problem behaviours; people who are good at creating comfort won't take on discomfort to fix the problem;.

How might I best respond? Ah, I know. I will answer the question surrounding the fruit tree. Do I go for the low hanging fruit or the fruit higher in the tree?

Neither. I eat vegetables and take charge, if necessary, when the fruit begins to spoil.

Ruv Draba said:
and people who like to be in charge won't hand over the reins to someone more competent.

Until all hell breaks loose.

Sincerely,
Gehanna

Ruv Draba · Sep 29, 2010

That part wasn't a quiz so much as a digression Gehanna, but yours were still interesting answers anyway so thank you.

You mentioned a quest for rightness... Do you mean truth, or something else (and if so, what)? To what extent do your feelings play a part in your acquisition or recognition of rightness? You mentioned battling ego -- are some feelings a creation of ego? Are some feelings not a creation of ego -- how do you tell them apart? You said your strengths were prized in times of crisis -- what are they, and why are they prized at those times? And just as interestingly, why are they valued less at other times?

For myself, the things I rely on most for strengths seem most useful for people when they have a 'how do I' question -- 'how do I accomplish this?' 'how does this work?'. But I don't actually go around collecting answer to 'how' questions. They're a by-product of my 'why' questions: 'why are the main characters of most stories so virile?' 'why do we still shake hands?' In exploring such questions I might learn how strong main characters are constructed, and how ritual physical contact is used sublingually to establish a pecking-order.

But the same 'why' and 'why not' questions can make me very disagreeable at times. Neither convention nor diplomacy offer me compelling reasons for 'why' or 'why not'; the only answers that satisfy me are based on necessity, utility, efficiency or benefit. Sacred cows are just roadkill to my iconoclasty, while paradoxes and contradictions lure me like a moggy to catnip. Meanwhile I'm decisively opinionated on the outside, and constantly wrestling with doubt on the inside. Perhaps if my feely-glands were stronger or my thinky-filters were weaker, I'd be less opinionated, or less doubting or both; I'm not sure. I'd probably be more agreeable though.

Maxx · Sep 30, 2010

Shadow_Ferret said:
If I allow someone else's words to trigger some feeling, yes, I'm responsible for that reaction.

Ruv Draba said:
It seems to me that when we have basic tangible necessities like food, shelter, safety and health, and a couple of social necessities like the freedom to choose our work and our friends, we can't really lay our misery at other folks' doors. Others are responsible for treating us fairly and courteously, but we are responsible for sustaining our own dignity and happiness.

I don't understand the interest in responsibility in relation to feelings. It seems the whole point of feelings is that they have nothing to do with responsibility and judgement. Indeed you can think of feelings as inherently irresponsible and being centered on a moment, or a passion, or a person or a single situation or a group, whereas responsibility and judgement and reason and rationality take a wider view.
If one's feelings don't range freely, then how can one's judgement be sound? If you are responsible for your feelings then how can you be responsible in general?

Ruv Draba · Sep 30, 2010

Maxx said:
If one's feelings don't range freely, then how can one's judgement be sound?

I evaluate soundness of judgement based on one's ability to predict consequences I consider important. I'm aware that some people use feelings predictively, but mine have very little to contribute. My empathy for instance, works through my intense observation of peoples' behaviour; feelings don't play a part. My sympathy is based more on my understanding of what people need than any feelings they might provoke in me. If a friend has a hangnail and a stranger has a broken leg, I'll be much more interested in helping the stranger than comforting the friend.

So mainly I treat feelings the way one might treat hayfever -- usually one doesn't have any; but sometimes it's a mild inconvenience, sometimes debilitating; and when one has a serious bout of it, one knows one's senses are impaired and to avoid further provocation.

If one's feelings don't range freely, then how can one's judgement be sound?

When I read that I see: if we don't allow our allergies full rein, how can we function? I can sort-of understand that we could use allergies as a sense -- if I'm sneezing it must be pepper; if I'm scratching it must be peanuts. But I still don't know why we'd ever want allergies.

But that brings me back to the motivation of my original question: for people who do use feelings to help judge the external world, how does that work?

Maxx · Sep 30, 2010

Ruv Draba said:
I evaluate soundness of judgement based on one's ability to predict consequences I consider important. I'm aware that some people use feelings predictively, but mine have very little to contribute. My empathy for instance, works through my intense observation of peoples' behaviour; feelings don't play a part. My sympathy is based more on my understanding of what people need than any feelings they might provoke in me. If a friend has a hangnail and a stranger has a broken leg, I'll be much more interested in helping the stranger than comforting the friend.

So mainly I treat feelings the way one might treat hayfever -- usually one doesn't have any; but sometimes it's a mild inconvenience, sometimes debilitating; and when one has a serious bout of it, one knows one's senses are impaired and to avoid further provocation.

When I read that I see: if we don't allow our allergies full rein, how can we function? I can sort-of understand that we could use allergies as a sense -- if I'm sneezing it must be pepper; if I'm scratching it must be peanuts. But I still don't know why we'd ever want allergies.

But that brings me back to the motivation of my original question: for people who do use feelings to help judge the external world, how does that work?

I guess I would say that to me feelings are ultra-clear snapshots, maybe even in gratuitous infrared and useless ultra-violet. They may offer in an instant what might otherwise be unclear for centuries.

Judgement is more like a film, all edited and constructed with an audience in mind.

Ruv Draba · Sep 30, 2010

Maxx said:
I guess I would say that to me feelings are ultra-clear snapshots, maybe even in gratuitous infrared and useless ultra-violet. They may offer in an instant what might otherwise be unclear for centuries.

That's close to what I wanted to explore, Maxx: clarity about what? Clarity how?

Judgement is more like a film, all edited and constructed with an audience in mind.

Judgement to me isn't censored, nor is it contrived to appease or impress. It's weighed, examined, questioned against a spectrum of purposes and perspectives. What's left after we remove ignorance and self-interest tends to be very robust, but still requires periodic re-examination.

2Wheels · Sep 30, 2010

Ruv Draba said:
But that brings me back to the motivation of my original question: for people who do use feelings to help judge the external world, how does that work?

Well let me see. Scenario: Someone breaks into my home at night, and I wake up to find a hand over my mouth and a knife at my throat.

In your world, you've indicated that your reaction would be a total non-reaction because you didn't feel anything (and I am very much equating feeling with emotion), and therefore judge the situation to not require action. You don't feel a need to negotiate, to protest, to fight back. I suppose if your attacker is a sadist who's bitterly disappointed (oh, darn look, the attacker feels disappointed), that you didn't react, and so proceeds to cut your throat out of spite, then that begs the question of how are you going to feel about that?

In my world I experience fear, possibly anger, but I suspect mostly the former. I feel scared. That feeling is going to evoke a strong autonomic nervous response that will heighten my senses and possibly assist me with some way to get out of this. I have judged the immediate world around me to be a dangerous place, that requires some reaction.

Using fear as a motivator, is of course, fairly extreme on the feeling scale of things, but it served its purpose. If we don't feel things about the world around us, then we can't filter things in a way that's conducive to perpetuation of the species.

Even animals don't like being laughed at ...

Gehanna · Sep 30, 2010

Ruv Draba,

I used your words to quiz myself.

You mentioned a quest for rightness... Do you mean truth, or something else (and if so, what)?

I mean rightness as in accuracy, precision, absence of error.

To what extent do your feelings play a part in your acquisition or recognition of rightness?

Good question. I do not know. Is there a way to measure it with any reliable accuracy?

You mentioned battling ego -- are some feelings a creation of ego? Are some feelings not a creation of ego -- how do you tell them apart?

I speculate the ego to be a side effect of emotion.

You said your strengths were prized in times of crisis -- what are they, and why are they prized at those times? And just as interestingly, why are they valued less at other times?

Operative detachment, determination, analytical, detail oriented, assertive, atypical perspectives, accountability.

I hope the value / lack of value reasons are apparent.

You said:

Perhaps if my feely-glands were stronger or my thinky-filters were weaker, I'd be less opinionated, or less doubting or both; I'm not sure. I'd probably be more agreeable though.

For purpose of clarification (not insinuation), are you saying your lack of agreeability bothers you?

Gehanna

Ruv Draba · Sep 30, 2010

2Wheels said:
Well let me see. Scenario: Someone breaks into my home at night, and I wake up to find a hand over my mouth and a knife at my throat.

In your world, you've indicated that your reaction would be a total non-reaction because you didn't feel anything (and I am very much equating feeling with emotion), and therefore judge the situation to not require action.

No, I've been in situations of violence and have reacted, and I've felt fear too but my reaction isn't much tempered by any fear I've felt. For example, I was mugged once by four young men on a train, and attacked them rather than appease them or flee. I had only $10 in my wallet, and obviously I was afraid for my safety, but I attacked them because I felt that they should not feel emboldened to intimidate people on trains. Foremost in my mind was not their encounter with me, but possible future encounters with other people.

The outcome of that conflict was not one I could predict but at the end I had some injuries and they left without my wallet. There have been two or three other examples like that... It's not bravery, it's just that my feelings don't much count in my decision-making.

Gehanna said:
I do not know. Is there a way to measure it with any reliable accuracy?

I don't know, G. What's your guess?

I speculate the ego to be a side effect of emotion.

It might be, but it might be more than that too... and some might argue that some emotions aren't egoic (love, for example). I'd be interested in opinion about that.

I hope the value / lack of value reasons are apparent.

Yes, I can imagine some jobs where those would be valuable most of the time; and some situations where they would be very valuable, and some situations where that's not really what people want.

For purpose of clarification (not insinuation), are you saying your lack of agreeability bothers you?

I think trust is important. Some feel that you can only trust people who are agreeable (though that's not my idea of trustworthy), so to that extent it sometimes matters. On the other hand, I won't fake agreeability just to win trust so there's not much I can do about it.

Maxx · Oct 1, 2010

Ruv Draba said:
That's close to what I wanted to explore, Maxx: clarity about what? Clarity how?

Judgement to me isn't censored, nor is it contrived to appease or impress. It's weighed, examined, questioned against a spectrum of purposes and perspectives. What's left after we remove ignorance and self-interest tends to be very robust, but still requires periodic re-examination.

2Wheels said:
Well let me see. Scenario: Someone breaks into my home at night, and I wake up to find a hand over my mouth and a knife at my throat.

I guess one of the most useful things about feelings is that they offer a quick assessment of your internal state (physiology, situational awareness) versus some problematic circumstance. For example, the decision to turn back when hiking perhaps too fast up a mountain in problematic weather. I've turned back on one fairly dangerous trail on the strength of a pure feeling and I'm still here whereas other people have used their judgement and talked themselves into keeping on and died from hypothermia on the upper slopes on what seemed to be only moderately dangerous days.

Shadow_Ferret · Oct 1, 2010

Maxx said:
If one's feelings don't range freely, then how can one's judgement be sound? If you are responsible for your feelings then how can you be responsible in general?

Not sure what feelings have to do with judgement. Judgement should be based on logic and facts, not feelings.

I'd think if someone lets their feelings get in the way of judgement, they'd be unsound.

Maxx · Oct 1, 2010

Shadow_Ferret said:
Not sure what feelings have to do with judgement. Judgement should be based on logic and facts, not feelings.

I'd think if someone lets their feelings get in the way of judgement, they'd be unsound.

And, similarly, if you take responsibility for your feelings, your judgement is not getting a very clear picture of what's going on in the area of feelings.

ColoradoGuy · Oct 1, 2010

I find that I use what you could call my feelings quite a bit in my daily job. I've been doing critical care medicine for 30 years, and I find that I can trust my feelings (or intuitions, or whatever) in figuring out what families are really saying or mean to say without doing so. I suppose an empiricist would say I'm just using data I've accumulated over the years from experience, but I think it's more than that: I am using my feelings to discern reality.

Ruv Draba · Oct 1, 2010

ColoradoGuy said:
I find that I use what you could call my feelings quite a bit in my daily job. I've been doing critical care medicine for 30 years, and I find that I can trust my feelings (or intuitions, or whatever) in figuring out what families are really saying or mean to say without doing so. I suppose an empiricist would say I'm just using data I've accumulated over the years from experience, but I think it's more than that: I am using my feelings to discern reality.

I use intuitions in project management too; definitely they're experienced-based because they work better now than they did when I was starting out. But for me at least there's no emotion attached to them. I've always assumed that when we say 'feelings' in that way it's just linguistic imprecision... But I think your emotional side is way more developed than mine CG -- do your intuitions come to you literally as emotion?

[Di, if you're still participating you'd be another person I'd be keen to poll on that -- do your intuitions come as emotion?]

Ruv Draba · Oct 1, 2010

Maxx said:
I guess one of the most useful things about feelings is that they offer a quick assessment of your internal state (physiology, situational awareness) versus some problematic circumstance. For example, the decision to turn back when hiking perhaps too fast up a mountain in problematic weather. I've turned back on one fairly dangerous trail on the strength of a pure feeling and I'm still here whereas other people have used their judgement and talked themselves into keeping on and died from hypothermia on the upper slopes on what seemed to be only moderately dangerous days.

Maxx I'm appalled at the thought that you might have lost someone to such a circumstance, but thank you for offering such an interesting example.

I mentioned in my last post that my intuitions can be quite strong -- but they're not tied to my feelings. My emotions give me a good picture of my physical and mental state, but no intimation of the possibilities in a situation. When my intuition thinks I'm headed for disaster, I don't get a sense of foreboding etc... I get a sense of absence, like I'd skipped a step in a mathematical problem, or left something behind at a train station. I've learned that if I ignore that cue, I'll usually discover some oversight later on.

There is one time when my emotions factor into my external perceptions, and it's a negative sense -- if I ask myself the quesion 'how am I doing' on a task, I can't always tell when I'm doing well, but if I'm happy, sad, angry or scared it tells me that I'm not engaged properly. Happy means that I've narrowed the task down until it's pleasurable -- which usually means that I'm missing what other people want; sad usually means that my mind is not on the task at all; angry indicates that I don't see the implications of my actions; scared means that I'm bringing the wrong part of myself to the task. So if I feel strong emotion it means I need to adjust myself, see more and re-engage more effetively -- or else set the task aside and see what's really bothering me.

Shadow_Ferret · Oct 1, 2010

Maxx said:
And, similarly, if you take responsibility for your feelings, your judgement is not getting a very clear picture of what's going on in the area of feelings.

Which is contradictory to the whole Vulcan way of life anyway.

ColoradoGuy · Oct 1, 2010

Ruv Draba said:
. . . do your intuitions come to you literally as emotion?

Occasionally they do, particularly when I feel frustrated or irritated. I never show these emotions, of course. But when I feel them it often is evidence that something isn't quite right with the situation.

Maxx · Oct 1, 2010

Ruv Draba said:
Maxx I'm appalled at the thought that you might have lost someone to such a circumstance, but thank you for offering such an interesting example.

I mentioned in my last post that my intuitions can be quite strong -- but they're not tied to my feelings. My emotions give me a good picture of my physical and mental state, but no intimation of the possibilities in a situation. When my intuition thinks I'm headed for disaster, I don't get a sense of foreboding etc... I get a sense of absence, like I'd skipped a step in a mathematical problem, or left something behind at a train station. I've learned that if I ignore that cue, I'll usually discover some oversight later on.

There is one time when my emotions factor into my external perceptions, and it's a negative sense -- if I ask myself the quesion 'how am I doing' on a task, I can't always tell when I'm doing well, but if I'm happy, sad, angry or scared it tells me that I'm not engaged properly. Happy means that I've narrowed the task down until it's pleasurable -- which usually means that I'm missing what other people want; sad usually means that my mind is not on the task at all; angry indicates that I don't see the implications of my actions; scared means that I'm bringing the wrong part of myself to the task. So if I feel strong emotion it means I need to adjust myself, see more and re-engage more effetively -- or else set the task aside and see what's really bothering me.

Oh.No, no. All my fellow hikers always got back alive. We were out of our depth, but we knew it. The people who got into fatal trouble on that set of slopes and trails were either people in such good shape they thought they could get through anything or complete beginners. Wary, out-of-shape people happily harboring feelings of fear seem to have survived with nothing worse than scrapes.

I think if you re-thought some of your intuitions as feelings you'd have an idea what others mean by feelings -- as in fact you did with your "happy" etc. set of assessments. I think most people are in fact suspicious of their own happy assessments and similarly worried by sad and scared and other hints via feelings about overall states.

Ruv Draba · Oct 1, 2010

Maxx said:
I think if you re-thought some of your intuitions as feelings you'd have an idea what others mean by feelings -- as in fact you did with your "happy" etc. set of assessments.

But are they experienced as feelings, or is that just linguistic smoke?

The main thing for me is that emotions are not a gateway to clarity, they're a distraction from it -- my inner world obscuring the outer world; which is why I try and set my feelings aside when I'm trying to observe or understand things.

But if emotions were part of our sensoria of the outer world -- which is how I understand it is for many/most people, I'm still trying to understand how that works. Suppose the first thing I notice about a possible change is that I've become frightened. How can I tell whether there's a genuine threat, or whether it's just me?

Picking a specific example, Maxx... how could one tell whether it was a dangerous hike or one's just not into hiking?

Maxx · Oct 1, 2010

Ruv Draba said:
Picking a specific example, Maxx... how could one tell whether it was a dangerous hike or one's just not into hiking?

Oddly enough, I can remember what those "it's dangerous" moments felt like. We'd all catch up to the first guy at the turn into the potentially scary canyon. He'd be there in a listening sort of posture. We'd look up the canyon. You'd hear everybody around you listening. The wind would be blowing a little and in the moment of stopping the sweat and the wind would cool you fast. The light, the temperature, the amount of wind, the time of day would get read by the group. Then somebody would voice the group feeling or maybe the first opinion would instantly solidify into the group feeling. I think most of our turnings back had to do with the conditions and not much to do with whether we just were feeling like heading home.

Ruv Draba · Oct 1, 2010

Not to doubt the validity of the group decision, Maxx, but I'm wondering if there's any difference between that kind of feeling and a group spooking itself into defeat.

As a project manager I'm sometimes asked to rescue 'impossible' projects -- they're impossible because the team has encountered a problem, can't solve it and decides (as a group) that they want to be released from the project. After I assess the nature of the hurdles, decide that it's feasible and set some priorities, I spend a lot of time trying to change the group's thinking. Most of that thinking is actually 'feeling'-based -- they're feeling uncomfortable and defeated, and so their thinking is all about how the project is worthess and doomed to failure. Sometimes the solution will be under their noses and it'll take a while for them to see it; even longer before they'll believe it.

Your thoughts?

Maxx · Oct 4, 2010

Ruv Draba said:
Not to doubt the validity of the group decision, Maxx, but I'm wondering if there's any difference between that kind of feeling and a group spooking itself into defeat.

As a project manager I'm sometimes asked to rescue 'impossible' projects -- they're impossible because the team has encountered a problem, can't solve it and decides (as a group) that they want to be released from the project. After I assess the nature of the hurdles, decide that it's feasible and set some priorities, I spend a lot of time trying to change the group's thinking. Most of that thinking is actually 'feeling'-based -- they're feeling uncomfortable and defeated, and so their thinking is all about how the project is worthess and doomed to failure. Sometimes the solution will be under their noses and it'll take a while for them to see it; even longer before they'll believe it.

Your thoughts?

I suspect what people claim to be their feelings in the case of an unspoken group decision to be defeated, are, if anything, the opposite of the type of physiological assessment you get when you are hiking. The feeling surrounding an "impossible" project is more of a gap or void that gets filled with rather generic assessments that are in turn interpreted as primary feelings, but the feelings have to do with the assessment rather than being responsible for the assessment. ie, feelings about impossible projects are tacked on at the end of the assessment.
As for defeated hikers, well, if the canyon is scary enough then even a defeat with no serious injuries feels like a win.

Feelings as evidence of reality

Court Jester

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Got the hang of it, here

Anachronista

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Court Jester

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I've seen worse.

Court Jester

I've seen worse.

Got the hang of it, here

Got the hang of it, here

Got the hang of it, here