You can't live without emotions...

vs.

How people choose to feel about things is highly dependent on the context of their societies, making their worth totally questionable.

Posted By Zsych on 07 Mar 2010 11:03 PM

 You can't live without emotions...

 

vs.

 

How people choose to feel about things is highly dependent on the context of their societies, making their worth totally questionable.

^^^^^ that is the most horrible thing I've read all day, well that and Avatar not winning for best picture.  And yet, I can't help but be curious about your logic. 

How people choose to feel about things is highly dependent on the context of their societies, making their worth totally questionable.

what do you think of ethics?

Posted By Zsych on 07 Mar 2010 11:03 PM

 You can't live without emotions...

 

vs.

 

How people choose to feel about things is highly dependent on the context of their societies, making their worth totally questionable.

Hm.

“How people choose to feel about things” assumes one has a choice (vs. ‘that people choose to feel’ as if it were as easy as flipping an on/off switch), inferring that feelings/emotions are always there, it’s just a matter of which one...meaning that one can not live without emotions..sooo XNTJ’s agree that “you can’t live without emotions”?

Well, I was just summarizing the basic idea of the argument that was taking place in front of me.

The XNTJ was pointing out that what has mattered to people across time, and what matters in different cultures, or in different parts of societies varies. People learn expectations and what to feel... like lets say in the 1950s, people didn't think love was a hugely important component of a stable relationship, but now, with romance novels and the stuff tv stuffs down your throat, you have wholly different expectations, and a lot of the views people have nowadays aren't necessarily positive or beneficial to the world... and he was commenting about how because people's beliefs and emotions are molded by experience - you should want to create art and music that promotes more positive feelings and ideas and not stuff like pop singing (as musical art), because promoting base emotions and ideas and setting those up as the most important things to people, is not necessarily a great idea... exactly because what people feel is not a truth, its a choice (and one often made by people and things outside of the person in question himself)

Not hugely different from how I view things, although I wouldn't consider art particularly important to begin with

I agree with the idea that human emotions have little actual truth to them. People make too much of a fuss over what they want and how its so important that they get it (often hurting other people in the process), when its really more something they've learned, and with a different life, they could've learned something different.

---

@TheJan: What do I think of ethics?
I think societies cannot function properly without people acting in ways that take the common good into consideration. I believe that honesty, holding to your agreements, not causing needless harm, supporting overall improvement - are all good things, and help create a world where your life is also better. Being ethical when most other people around you aren't - is inconvenient though. Since being ethical requires sacrificing some of your freedom of choice.

@Esquilax: Sister, you just lack experience. Emotions are completely controllable. You just need to be more aware of how your mind works, and actually choose to manage some of the lower level processes... Then again, there are no great guides on it, and taking conscious control of some of the underlying systems without fully understanding them can become a bit problematic

As for human emotions being less subject to society than human thought - I think that for the average human, who thinks little for himself and doesn't really question the ideas he develops, both thought and emotions are just a natural extension of their experiences. When you question things though, you have a better chance of being able to find flaws, and find a better path. So thought can have more validity.

@sbalbom: Emotions are a decision making system - a method for allowing things to be prioritized. A way of judging the worth of choices... except that with people's experiences, what events create emotions change, and the emotions can get attached to things that are not always meaningful.
Like taking drugs... you could say that you feel your life is so much better, and if emotions are to be considered the real basis of the value of your life, then yes, your life is better. But the drugs don't actually improve your life any, its ultimately just a hack into your brain to activate the "Yes, success has been achieved" state, even though nothing worthwhile has occurred in the real world.

How are you sure a life with less emotions is less worth living? Is the life of a wolf on the hunt, more worth living than yours, if it experiences more emotional highs?

@ashla: I think you can correlate most underlying mental states to some emotion - even if it were just being calm. They're part of the overall system that allows our minds to exist, and I rather suspect, not that separate from what thought is.
What causes people to feel, and how much though, is largely a learned thing, even if you don't learn to specifically control your mental (emotional) state. Its usually just a type of learning similar to lets say being afraid of getting burned by an iron. Its a fear that might be incorporated in your subconscious thought processes and no longer require further thought.

Lets say you're facing a problem that requires a more physical approach and you get your body into a more empowered, ready to fight state - if you want to classify how you're managing your body in terms of emotions, you may describe it as reacting with anger... even if its a conscious choice to act that way. Since anger - the emotion - is a mental state.

I actually maintained anger as an experiment for several days once. If it hadn't been putting my body under strain, I think I would've just kept it that way

that is the most horrible thing I've read all day, well that and Avatar not winning for best picture

@Zsych:
I cannot speak for all ENFPs, BUT for me i noticed the following:

You, as an NT, use T, while we use F. Both are rational processes. Yes, F is rational. The difference between both of them, is that T comes from logic, while F is more like... you don't really know where it comes from. Out of the depth of your soul, i would think (at least for Fi)
When i sit and 'think' through issues in my life', i actually connect to my subconscious. Then i translate what it is saying - and that is the answer. I cannot tell you WHY it is the answer, i just... well 'feel', for lack of a better word, that that is the answer.
I might add, that research shows that we use 10% of our mind conciously. What do the other 90% do? I believe they maintain our subconscious. The subconscious knows many thinghs - for example EVERYTHING you see in your whole life is stored in your subconscious. You cannot access all of it the whole time - there is a kind of filter, or the 10% of your brain that are there fore the conscious would just get an information overload and you wouldn't be able to think. There was an experiment where they removed that filter with magnetic fields, and the people just saw alot of flashes what they saw in their lives - they could not control what they saw. And also, they could not see the whole picture, just saw details, as the conscious was trying to somehow manage the information flood.
There is also another neural complex - in the belly. It is believed that it is responsible for thinghs like 'butterflies in your stomach' and 'gut feelings'. It can do alot of thinghs, like tell you what to eat (it seems to know what is best for your health!) and it also has a lot to do with emotions. It is also in contact with your brain.

What i want to tell you is that emotions are windows to your subconscious, and therefore the information that contributes to those emotions is actually a lot more than what you can actually access with conscious thinking.
Therefore it is possible for emotions to outperform conscious thinking in terms of 'good decisions', as a lot more information can be used to evaluate the decision.

The drugs issue is a different thing - there is also a kind of 'emotional hangover' i often experience when i was drunk, in that the next day i am emotional wreck. I often have an at least mild depressive mood, don't want to do anything etc. That alone is so terrifying i am not sure if the 'feeling good while it lasted' is worth it. I am not drinking any alcohol at the moment (because of lent), and it is great - no more emotional hangovers after parties, and i found i can also do alot of crazy stuff even if i am not drunk - only this time i can be proud of it, because i did it because i was being totally myself, and it wasn't in some way drug induced. I think if i'd take any 'harder drugs' which induce 'heavier' emotional states than alcohol, the emotional hangover would also be much worse. Uahh, i don't want to try it.

Also, with the ethics, i disagree. The ethics you describe are a low form of ethics - an ethics that just acts without thinking. Ethics really begins when people begin to think about what is right and what is wrong. You are describing it so that society teaches what is ethics, that it somehow 'cuts away the freedom' by telling you how to act. That is, as i said, a low form of ethics.

A low form of ethics has rules. For example, the law-ethic. You do those thinghs because they are the law, or because society wants you to do it (which is a kind of law too). Or you say, for example, "honesty above anything else". That would also be a low form of ethics, where there are values, but no weighting of values and certainly no balance of values - so there cannot be a balance of decisions and you will certainly make bad decisions - if you base your decisions on your ethics, that is.
A high form of ethics has guidelines. "Behave towards others as you want others to behave towards you" for example, or "You cannot demand others to do something you wouldn't do yourself."

Passing a red light or not can be an ethical question. If you have a low form of ethic, you will for example think: I don't pass the red light because the law states it so. So, in fact, you didn't even think.
You may also think: The law says i am not allowed to pass it, and i get a fine if i get caught, but i don't want to. I will pass the red light. This, even if it may be endangering to yourself and possibly others, is way better than the preceeding. Because you thought, and you made your decision, not just taken someone else's decision and went with it. If you are getting caught you have to pay the fine, but that was your decision. If you don't want to pay the fine, then think again.

I'd like to present you my thinkings of a red light on a crossroads, with houses left and right so i cannot look around the corner:
a) i am going over a red light as a pedestrian. For that situation i can walk over. I am not stupid, and will look before i walk over, and if noone is in sight, i will walk over the red light. This is viable because the danger i am in if i indeed crash with a car is much much higher than the danger i place the car passangers in.
b) i am a car driver. In this situation i wait, because i don't want anybody to drive over me if i were a pedestrian.
c) i am am riding my bike at the street. The danger i put the car drivers into is low, but for me the danger is really high. I could easily end up in hospital if i crash with a car, and i cannot look around the corner because of the houses. So i wait until the light is green.

It does not really matter which decision you make, it only matters that you make the right decision for yourself. And that you have a kind of 'balance of values', so that you can make the best decisions.

Well, again, i am an ENFP, and you are an INTJ, so maybe we have different ways of thinking, and maybe you have problems relating to that. I don't understand that much of what you say, too. (I mean i cannot relate to it, for me that's like i cannot understand it) I hope i made sense to you.

Hm... all this Fi-ing is a bit exhausting... need more Ne activities tomorrow. Going ot bed now.

Hehe sorry, I understood the question, but was kind of joking around. In response to the title of the thread “Seeing an XNTJ and an ENFP discussing emotions”, I tried to imagine my INTJ friend had just asked me this, and the way I would respond (and I doubt this would be the same for my non-INTJ friends):

- “What?! That’s horrible (as Charlie said)...and silly” (because of course we all know you can’t live without emotions )
- but knowing how he loves a good debate, think “oh dear, here he goes again...well, ok why not, I’ll oblige” *mischievous internal grin*
- as an aside, I like to push my INTJ friend’s buttons by poking fun at his serious/rational side. I actually love the logic, just want to show him it's ok to loosen up sometimes, too. So that’s where my original response came from - using semantics to show very simply - “silly, my view is right, so there’s no point in this debate”. I WIN heh  

Posted By Zsych on 08 Mar 2010 02:02 PM

lets say in the 1950s, people didn't think love was a hugely important component of a stable relationship, but now, with romance novels and the stuff tv stuffs down your throat, you have wholly different expectations

 

Joking aside, I think the second half of the first statement just seems to leave the door wide open for too much subjectivity – who is to assign the worth, what is the benchmark – and ultimately, why does it matter? (Unless perhaps, one is trying to discount emotions as a valid measure of, well, anything else, but I digress.)

So let's take your example - I was actually having difficulty with this one because I don't believe it supports the argument, but it works nicely for my point  The argument states "how people choose to feel" whereas the example says "people didn't think love was...". It may be true that they didn't think love was as important (as a result of the 'context of their societies'), but that doesn't mean they chose to feel this way. It was a judgment call. But perhaps it was the lack of this love that made them instill the idea that it was so essential into their children...or in some talented individuals’ cases, to create incredibly romantic love stories/movies/etc. They were trying to fill the void where something was missing (grass is always greener?) So as the new generations started growing and seeing those sweeping dramas (they just don’t make 'em like ‘Gone With the Wind’ anymore), they started believing that love must be grand and over-the-top. At the end of the day tho, I don’t see how the emotions ever changed, but just the judgment applied to said emotion.

Ultimately, I like and agree when Esquilax said that perhaps “how people choose to think about things is highly dependent on the context of their societies, making their worth totally questionable.”

[Tangent - and this is why I love INTJ's so much - they make me think (ooh, puzzles) and can verbalize so easily my roundabout thought processes.]  

I am sorry if it came off in my post like this, but i am not discrediting the act of conscious thinking. A good decision must however come from both sides - "head thinking" and "belly thinking". Now that i slept over it, I think that leaning to much on either side is unhealthy. Now let's do exactly that... need more conscious thinking...
Emotions have the downside that they change rapidly and therefore are not very... well...steady.
So... both sides are required for good decision making.

By the way... even if it may be discomforting for me to voice my thoughts on such matters (my mind won't stop... is this right? is this how i am? What if? etc.), i think it helps me in the long run. It actually is a challenge for me to voice them. But i believe i am already experiencing a bit a of a development within me. I thank you all for this.

I'm in a dangerous mood right now so I'm going to say more on this later. In the meantime, who all agrees with TheJan's view of right and wrong?
@TheJan: You went politically correct there my friend. Its perfectly fine for one person to be more right than the other. Anyway, intelligence and intuition (gut) are not the same as emotions. I've had both my intelligence and my gut tell me something and had my emotions want something else (listening to your emotions then is almost always a bad decision)

@Zsych

I think you miss the scope of my argument.

@sbalbom: Emotions are a decision making system - a method for allowing things to be prioritized. A way of judging the worth of choices... except that with people's experiences, what events create emotions change, and the emotions can get attached to things that are not always meaningful.

Emotions get people attached to things that they shouldn't but so does does logic. Show me a PH.D in economics who is a follower in Keynesian economics and I'll show you an idiot. In this world we always deal with incomplete information. Also, Logic is a formal mathematical system based on laws that are themselves empirical. Human reason is the application of that mathematics using the premise and variables that we detect. Even if your reason was perfect the results will always be flawed and often arbitrary because you are always dealing with incomplete information. Usually decisions will be made worse because of epistemic arrogance or an over confidence in your logic. You never, in any real life application of logic have complete information and if you did you have to assume potential errors (wisdom?). The more complicated the system the faster your microscopic errors will lead to a critical system crash.

Like taking drugs... you could say that you feel your life is so much better, and if emotions are to be considered the real basis of the value of your life, then yes, your life is better. But the drugs don't actually improve your life any, its ultimately just a hack into your brain to activate the "Yes, success has been achieved" state, even though nothing worthwhile has occurred in the real world.

Drugs when taken property do improve your life. A beer every now and then, a rich desert even others harder drugs are ok if taken in moderation. If there wasn't any positive effect people wouldn't take them.

How are you sure a life with less emotions is less worth living? Is the life of a wolf on the hunt, more worth living than yours, if it experiences more emotional highs?

Zsych, you just proved my point. Many philosophers argue that living closer to nature is a way of living truer to the self. A wolf doesn't reason or calculate it acts on instinct and emotion. I'm assuming you have at least been around dogs. I'm glad you picked the romantic example.
Someone who wrote about alienation from society and living a "wolf" like life
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau

I'll let you have the last word. As I have to get to work. Also since you are and INTJ I can be tough on you. I find your logic flawed, understanding of human nature and your sense of history limited. Its painful to me to read your posts. I recommend getting a book on logic. Also here is a great book that I recommend for EVERYONE That will lay the foundation of understanding : The History of knowledge.

http://books.google.com/books?id=v8rTnHG3taYC&q=A+History+of+Knowledge&dq=A+History+of+Knowledge&ei=wb_GSfLVL4yENKTBuOwN&pgis=1