m The inherited ability to feel the emotions is one thing, but the learned value of the emotions in application is indeed a part of an individual's learning in the world. (e.g. a young animal learns to fear the specific other animals or things that can harm it in its habitat.)
[Krimel] I hope I have not suggested that this is one of those nature versus nurture either/or kind of deals. The emotions are biological but obviously their expression and what arouses them is modulated by experience. Never-the-less learning has a lot to overcome. It seems that we are programmed to fear some things more than others. For example people are much more likely to have phobias of spiders, snakes and high places than of handguns, automobiles or electricity. m You sandwiched the word 'nearly' into your third line. It implies exception. Thinking about it I must admit that physical expression of emotion is in some sense mediated or controllable. This is another case where there may be learned abilities that trump the expression through awareness. (e.g. Poker players supressing their 'tells,' The common reaction of Western Hemisphere 'Indians' of flat aspect in the presence of strong emotion.) [Krimel] I sandwiched in "nearly" because there is nearly always an exception to any unqualified statement. Paul Ekman is the authority in this field. He showed photos of people expressing a variety of emotions to other people all over the world and found that people, regardless of culture, could correctly identify the emotions being expressed. Ekman's work is covered nicely in Malcomb Gladwell's book "Blink". Ekman is not the sort of guy you would want to play poker with. He is able to read people's faces extraordinarily well and points out a whole system of microexpressions that last only about a quarter of a second but can reveal whether someone is lying or not. Certainly, the context of emotional expression is mediated by culture. After all isn't the role of culture to provide us with appropriate ways to express biological functions? m Our experience of emotions is heavily and profoundly physically. It does not follow, however, that they are restricted to only that. I believe that it can be shown that we CAN choose to feel at least some emotions. (e.g. Horror movies, romance novels, symphonies, arts in general) [Krimel] We can choose to seek out experiences that in the past have produced certain emotions in us. We can activate various muscles to mimic the expression of emotion but as I said emotions involve a host of involuntary responses that are not under conscious control, blushing, elevated heart rate, electrical conductivity of the skin, suppression of digression, and secretion of hormones, to name a few. The great director Alfred Hitchcock once speculated that if we could develop machines to directly stimulate the emotions we could do away with the messy business of plot and character in movies. Artist of every stripe manipulate their media in such away as to evoke these autonomic responses. m Sensation of an experience for us as corporeal beings will reflect in that wonderful nervous system that we have. It does not follow that the meaning of an emotion will remain 'locked' in just that location. Its experience and meaning will spread throughout the brain and emerge as motivation or 'richness' added to other functions of mind. [Krimel] Some simple memories can be shown to be localized in the cerebellum. But complex memories are thought to be spread out over the cortex. This is not very surprising since any memory is a composite of the various senses involved, the patterns of association that have been learned by the individual and the emotional content overlaid upon each remembered incident. We can learn to overcome emotional responses and we can learn to be carried away by them. m Proof of the innate capacity and of the unfortunate conditions that can arise interfering with the synthesis and integration or ourselves as complex beings. Getting back to experience for a minute. I don't know what activities you may engage in physically, but in some of the recreation I've engaged in over the years there is a very mind-opening balance that can emerge that seems to at least rhyme with DQ. Skiing, climbing (years ago), swimming (attention to stroke), and kayaking (now), all share a place where you can suspend emotion or active thought and simply seek balance in the unfolding of the physical mixture of the "doing." It's the place where you let-it-go and "merge" with the activity. These points of suspended-balance-of-experience are brief and very clearly different from the ordinary when you are in them. [Krimel] Certainly there is an interaction between what we do and what we feel. A much simpler example is an experiment were subjects were asked to look are cartoons and rate how funny they thought the pictures were. One group of subject did their ratings while holding a pencil with their lips, which activated facial muscles, associated with frowning or pouting. The second group did their ratings while holes a pencil in their teeth, activating muscles associated with smiling. The smiling group consistently rated the cartoons as funnier than the frowning group. I think "Emotion's Place" is bigger than our collective effort to elucidate it has been to date. I hope this helps expand things as we find the Static and see where the less static begins to depart (vector) from it. thanks--mel Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/ Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
