From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Tue Sep 03 2002 - 22:55:29 MDT
gts writes
> [Rafal wrote]
> > ### Better, I'll give you 23 (so few only because I didn't
> > feel like quoting all). Basically, the cortex is intimately
> > involved in emotional responses,
>
> No one disputes that the cortex is "intimately involved" in every
> conscious process, including the reward experience. The question
> (actually Rafal's original question to me) concerns the biological
> correlates of the reward *experience*. The *experience* is not the same
> as the cerebral *recognition of experience*, and this fine distinction
> is I believe the source of Rafal's misunderstanding.
I think that there is a 40% chance that one of you is
right and the other wrong, and a 60% chance that the
inherent trickiness when talking about "experience"
has claimed more victims. (Of course, that's easy
enough to say from the sidelines.)
> > ###as evidenced by lesion studies, fMRI studies, as well as
> > brain structural and (even) single cell recordings. To claim
> > that the cortex is a "cold calculating organ" (as gts wrote,
> > or something to that effect) is plainly silly.
>
> Again, I think Rafal is confusing the *conscious recognition of
> emotional experience* with the *experience itself*.
The probability has just gone up to 70%.
> As [Lee] and I agree, emotional experiences are known to
> have their origin in the emotional centers of the brain
> (the mesolimbic system). The *conscious recognition* of
> that experience arises in the areas of the brain associated
> with consciousness and reflection (the cortex), but the
> conscious recognition or acknowledgment of an experience
> is not the experience!
You are separating what some people would view as a single
experience into two experiences. But I don't disagree with
you because I think your phrases well-describe what is going
on in the brain.
> As evidence, consider people with severe mental disabilities
> As anyone who has ever worked with mentally
> challenged individuals will tell you, (including myself),
> people with mental handicaps tend to be happier and more
> loving and gleeful than those with superior cortexes.
If you say so.
> The same is evidenced by the nature of young healthy children, whose
> cortexes and logical faculties are not yet fully developed. Can anyone
> doubt that small children have a greater capacity for joy and happiness
> than fully grown "intellectually mature" adults?
Yes, I doubt it. Children are just much more open about
their emotions, and it's somewhat easier (and more accepted)
for them to display it through dance. They cry often too,
and are often much, much more inconsolable than adults.
While on the one hand adults have more control over their
circumstances and are wiser in their efforts to create
happiness for themselves, on the other hand, over a
protracted period adults often have to go through a learning
curve coping with infirmities that usually get worse and
seldom get better.
I do have a question about one of the refs posted, although
when I re-read the ref a bit yesterday, I couldn't remember
my concern. I'll post it if I do. This thread isn't quite
dead yet.
Lee
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