Why are emotions so bad? Hmm?

[sprinkles]

Nawh, I dont agree, that "hydrolic" or "pressure valve" analogy for human nature, or even animal nature since it was popular with Konrad Lorenz, I think is seriously mistaken.

In its place I'd substitute some character theory or analytical theory, obviously the tendencies to emoting and capacity for self-regulation of affect will be a consequence of chacteroogy, or if you like typology, to the point were some people will need to emote and others will not.

It may not be true for all but it is true. I don't see how one can say with a straight face that it is not.

Are you telling me that you have never suffered an annoying thing, and said "don't react to this, it's not worth it" then it comes again but is a bit more annoying to you this time, but yet again you say "don't react to this, it's not worth it".

Don't you ever just progressively get sick of something, to the point where your final reaction is greater than what your initial discomfort warranted? It doesn't even have to be a full blow up, just an increased annoyance would prove the rule.

 

[Lark]

It may not be true for all but it is true. I don't see how one can say with a straight face that it is not.

Are you telling me that you have never suffered an annoying thing, and said "don't react to this, it's not worth it" then it comes again but is a bit more annoying to you this time, but yet again you say "don't react to this, it's not worth it".

Don't you ever just progressively get sick of something, to the point where your final reaction is greater than what your initial discomfort warranted? It doesn't even have to be a full blow up, just an increased annoyance would prove the rule.

No, I'm not saying that I've not experienced that ever but I can honestly say that I've been trained, pretty successfully and its not simply "its not worth it" so that I dont react in the typical outburst manner, or deferred outburst, mainly through insights into what is going on there and making a conscious choice.

So it cant be intrinsically true, this being the case.

I'm not as articulate as the sources I've read on this, I just know that the old hydrolic notion, which I thought was persuasive for a long time isnt persuasive to me anymore knowing what I do now.

 

[sprinkles]

No, I'm not saying that I've not experienced that ever but I can honestly say that I've been trained, pretty successfully and its not simply "its not worth it" so that I dont react in the typical outburst manner, or deferred outburst, mainly through insights into what is going on there and making a conscious choice.

Yet you emote, do you not?

Anyway. Yes, the case actually is that you can train yourself to not outburst. I'd say that this training is the exception that proves the rule.

So it cant be intrinsically true, this being the case.

If you take a tree and make it into a table, it was still at one point a tree.

 

[AphroditeGoneAwry]

I've just realized that ego can also use perceptions and intuitions as well as thoughts and feelings for its purposes of maintaining the status quo and equilibrium of the self.

Meaning that not just thoughts and feelings can be skewed, but that perceptions and intuition can be skewed too. Hardest is when our dominant function is used by ego to perpetuate a false ideology that is not in sync with the psyche.

An example of each function gone awry by ego's influence might be:

feeling: If I am honest, I will hurt their feelings and that is bad.

thinking: If I am honest, this will happen and then that will happen and I know I do not want that.

perception: I see what will keep my worldview intact (like a vision of an angel or ufo or spirit)

intuition: I know what will keep my worldview intact (like leaps of faith that have no objective basis in fact whatsoever)



So MBTI/JCF and enneagram (being about the ego) teach us about ourselves, but do so in a superficial realm. Enneagram is a bit 'deeper' and judgmental (allowing for the ability to make judgments about how we are existing) because ego is the tool our minds use to manipulate data, brought to us by our cognitive functions. Cognitive functions are simply the building blocks that make us us.


All of it is superficial to emotion and the unconscious however. If we can tap into our unconscious self (through meditation, contemplation, ministry) then we are doing a lot more for growth than any amount of philosophizing here.

 

[sprinkles]

[MENTION=6336]AphroditeGoneAwry[/MENTION]

Yes, I think so.

 

[garbage]

From one perspective: They're great when we use them as guiding signals. They're not so great when we're conditioned to assign causes to them in a useless way--that is, when we take them too far or when we attribute the wrong causes to them.

For example, that whole "fight or flight" deal is more useful when it's actually triggered by some short-term stimuli that we can take or leave, rather than by some long-term, sustained, or complex situation.

 

[sprinkles]

From one perspective: They're great when we use them as guiding signals. They're not so great when we're conditioned to assign causes to them in a useless way--that is, when we take them too far or when we attribute the wrong causes to them.

For example, that whole "fight or flight" deal is more useful when it's actually triggered by some short-term stimuli that we can take or leave, rather than by some long-term, sustained, or complex situation.

Very true. This is why when I react adversely I come to look at it later on and usually come to find that it was entirely unnecessary.

I'm actually really self aware and self critical - I just need to be less post mortem about it. It's something I'm working on.

 

[Mole]

Emotional restraint is a sign of intelligence, so no wonder the New Age encourages us to express our emotions because the New Age targets the unintelligent.

 

[UniqueMixture]

The whole t/f dichotomy is a bunch of bull. This seems structures in the prefrontal cortex which deal with morality also deal with increased executive function, higher order mathematical abilities, etc. The idea that emotions cloud reason is a holdover from cultural crap going back to Plato

 

[xisnotx]

Because they can make you want to die without killing you.

 

[Coriolis]

of course, thanking someone genuinely for helping you out, or apologizing to someone in a heartfelt manner after screwing them over are a completely DIFFERENT kettle of fish... those are essential emotional expressions that even the most unemotional person should get a grasp of in order to live effectively in society

Why? Why are the words themselves not enough, or better yet, the actions one takes to make things right, or do something helpful for the other person? Emoting seems to have little value added on top of these.

 

[Mole]

those are essential emotional expressions that even the most unemotional person should get a grasp of in order to live effectively in society

If you want to live effectively in an exploitive society based on propaganda, we need to make the essential emotional expressions. MBTI will help us live effectively in such a society.

 

[Lark]

Yet you emote, do you not?

Anyway. Yes, the case actually is that you can train yourself to not outburst. I'd say that this training is the exception that proves the rule.


If you take a tree and make it into a table, it was still at one point a tree.

Perhaps, and a baby and an adult are both human beings but obviously very different.

The training that I talked about was very interesting but it takes with one person and does not with another, I put that down to underpinning, pre-existing character traits, I would not say that one is more in tune with a "natural" state of being and the other is not but they have developed differently and I do think of it in developmental and growth terms.

 

[Lark]

From one perspective: They're great when we use them as guiding signals. They're not so great when we're conditioned to assign causes to them in a useless way--that is, when we take them too far or when we attribute the wrong causes to them.

For example, that whole "fight or flight" deal is more useful when it's actually triggered by some short-term stimuli that we can take or leave, rather than by some long-term, sustained, or complex situation.

I do like the "signals" theorising about affect regulation, although what if you are, by all accounts, capable of perceiving and responding to signals in others but they are not? What if you possess insight and the other does not?

I've met a lot of people who are a particular character which should handicap or imped their interaction with others under normal circumstances but who fall in with people willing to over look their character for one reason or another, perhaps believing they can not do better or prefering the path of least resistance when dealing with others.

Those people can create cultures or norms surrounding themselves, in their workplaces or households or neighbourhoods which subvert or substitute for signals, social classes, status groups, subcultures and professions all do this. When inevitably conflicts arise it is reason which most people fall back upon or the objective appraisal of third parties rather than feelings or signals.

 

[miss fortune]

Why? Why are the words themselves not enough, or better yet, the actions one takes to make things right, or do something helpful for the other person? Emoting seems to have little value added on top of these.

whether or not an individual feels the need to emote while expressing these emotions, society deems that they should as a general thing, so if they want to live effectively in society they should probably learn to play nicely

for instance, funerals don't really make me sad most of the time... the person's already dead and in some cases they're not even sad about it... I look sad or at least pretty damned solemn the entire time I'm there though, because some things are nice to do, and sometimes it's nice to do nice things

 

[Glycerine]

They tell you when something is wrong even if a person tries to be in complete denial about them. Other than that, I find them annoying and feel ashamed when I get too caught up in them.

 

[Coriolis]

I've met a lot of people who are a particular character which should handicap or imped their interaction with others under normal circumstances but who fall in with people willing to over look their character for one reason or another, perhaps believing they can not do better or prefering the path of least resistance when dealing with others.

Those people can create cultures or norms surrounding themselves, in their workplaces or households or neighbourhoods which subvert or substitute for signals, social classes, status groups, subcultures and professions all do this. When inevitably conflicts arise it is reason which most people fall back upon or the objective appraisal of third parties rather than feelings or signals.

Can you be more specific about this? What particular kind of character are you describing? What do you mean by creating "cultures or norms surrounding themselves, in their workplaces or households or neighbourhoods which subvert or substitute for signals"? Are you referring to things like workplace customs or professional jargon, or something deeper?

 

[C.J.Woolf]

Here's a post on another forum arguing that emotion is an essential part of our minds:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=14276508&postcount=13

Nope. There are people who suffer the loss of one or all emotions due to brain damage or birth defects and that isn't what happens. For one thing, they don't care about their own best self interest; that too is an emotional impulse. Without emotion they care about gratifying their senses since that's all they have left as a motivation; and they don't care about the future consequences to themselves or anything else. They'll spend all the money they have on food, liquor, drugs & prostitutes because those things feel good right now, even if they know that they are going to run out of money in the future, since they aren't capable of caring about the future. They can't even win a game; they can tell you how to win if asked, but they themselves will just fiddle around aimlessly since they don't care if they win or lose. Interestingly, they also tend to get stuck in "loops" oscillating between several choices; unlike a normal person they just keep going round and round until hunger or some external influence breaks them out of the loop since they don't get frustrated.

Now, a high functioning psychopath might act like you describe; but they still have some emotions, they are just all self interested ones.

Human minds ultimately are built with the "design assumption" that emotions are part of the reasoning process; without emotions our minds are crippled. Some artificial intelligence built from scratch might be able to get by on pure intellect, with the functions we use emotions for replaced by some form of reasoning; but we can't.​

(Emphasis mine.) I wish the poster had supplied a cite, but his argument makes sense to me.

Emotions: Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em? Or is it simply can't live without 'em?

 

[Fluffywolf]

I never thought as emotions as being 'bad' myself.

Annoying, yeah. Frustrating at times, sure. Sometimes in the way, of course. But never bad.

The difference between feelers and thinkers, is that when thinkers experience emotions they tend to be much rawer and immature. Simply because they never face the consequences of their emotions by focusing on their rationality. Whilest feelers, who do face the concequences of their emotions, end up with much more well-rounded emotions that can deal with many a situation maturely.

Problems only tend to arise when thinkers attempt to ignore to rationality and let their emotions run their course or vice versa.

 

[Standuble]

I enjoy emotions. I see it as "filling the container" and the more I have the more I have to feast on. Heck, even when I'm in agony from suicidal thoughts part of me is enjoying every second of it, it sees it as a euphoric all you can eat buffet. It loves the sickly feeling of having suicide desire and intense despair running through my head, its delicious. There is a hunger in me and it can only be sated (just barely) by emotion.

Addendum: I think there may be something seriously wrong with me after reading the above.

As for society: It deems emotion bad because it feels it clouds reason. I would agree with this statement, whim supercedes plans and the pros and cons are not properly weighed. There is also a little issue that most people cannot understand emotion or when it occurs be incapable of controlling it. Thats bound to have it blacklisted.