From: Jonathan Standley (standley@rcn.com)
Date: Fri Feb 07 2003 - 16:29:03 MST
Greetings, Durant
you wrote:
> I think of emotions as putting people into states, like we're big fuzzy
> Finite State Machines, and in these states, the likelihoods of various
> behaviors are increased or decreased. Emotions may be compounded where
> various states might exist simultaneously with varying degrees of
> activation.
>
> In this framework, new emotions could either come from new structural
> additions to one's mind, or perhaps a novel combination of already
> known emotions could be considered a new emotion. Or perhaps there
> are emotions you haven't felt yet.
I agree w/ what you said about emotions putting people into states. I
personally view the functional purpose of emotional states as being
primarily vectors acting upon mental states, which can result in behavioral
changes.
>> Hmm, if you really don't want a technical discussion of neuroscience,
> this might not be a good paragraph :) I read The Chemical State of
> Consciousness and from hearing about things like Prozac and other
> "mood altering drugs" I'm sure there's a correlation with chemicals.
> I saw a documentary about alcohol delaying the synapse fining in the
> brain, so there is evidence (if it is right) that chemical and
> electrical activity are both involved in mood regulation.
Indeed chemicals and electrical activity are involved in mood regulation.
Take the example you gave about alcohol delaying synaptic firing: these
delays are what you feel, not the alcohol itself. If one were to devise a
way of creating such delays using a totally non-chemical means, you would
feel the same way as you would if those delays were caused by alcohol.
That's what I mean by emotions not being intrinsic to chemical effects.
IMO, emotions are states and changes in brain activity patterns - and that
the whole of brain activity is what gives rise to the 'mind'. As such, what
causes a given shift in activity is essentially irrelevant to the subjective
experience of emotion. The change is what you feel, not the underlying
mechanism(s)
keep in mind that my original post was a re-post of a message I posted on
the wta-arts group, which is not a technically oriented group. :)
J Standley
http://users.rcn.com/standley/
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