Wavedave 11 Mar. you wrote:
> You are "profusely happy to agree with" me when I say that it appears > that emotions are BOTH biological and social, but the go on to say > that "Emotions is a purely social level phenomenon." ??? One of the > most basic emotions is the shot of "fear" known as the "startle > reflex." Newborn fish, birds, mammals, and humans all react > biologically to loud noises. (without groups being present or without > social learning). But as far as we know fish do not fall in love. I > have, however, heard of cases of fish swimming in the seas off Norway > using SOL logic :-) Guess that's why it sound fishy to me. Your have a weird notion of what "social value" is, almost as weird as Andre's "public", and also a weird notion of what emotions are. "Startle reflex" is just what it says, a reflex or instinct, part of the countless biological survival strategies. Nothing "mere" about biology it is as high above "inorgany" as the social is above biology. > Interestingly I'm in the chapter in "Blink, The Power of Thinking > Without Thinking" by Malcolm Gladwell where he talks about the life > long work of Silvan Tomkins and Paul Ekman on the reading of emotions > and motivations in faces. > "Tomkins believes that faces-even faces of horses-held valuable clues > to inner emotions and motivations." A horse is a mammal organism with a well developed brain and neural apparatus, we all know the fantastic things a horse can do, it even has the capacity to become neurotic what we call being "afraid", but it is a reflex that occurs as at the sight of, hearing ..., smelling ... i.e. released by some sense impression. It's not capable of standing in the stable imagining situations and becoming mentally ill. Nor of love, regret, blame, remorse ...and the host of true human social emotions. > They went on to map all human facial muscles and how they can move > separately and in groups and what interpretations of emotions can be > gleaned from these patterns. They also trained themselves to be able > to consciously move these facial muscle group individually and in > groups. Some are so hard to move consciously they actually had doctors > help by electrically stimulating muscles so they could learn how to > control them. Now what is really interesting is that they found out > that by consciously performing certain facial groups that indicate > sadness, fear, anger provoked biological responses such as increased > heart rate, flushing, sweating hands, etc. And if held long enough > elicited the felt emotion in them. By making a "happy face" and > holding it long enough they actually felt happy. Different research > groups around the world have done large scale studies and confirmed > many of their findings. Very interesting, but it does not go against "emotions as the social expression", it only disproves SOM in which view emotions are mental and not supposed to have any effect on the material body. In the MOQ the levels interact freely upwards and downwards, no material/mental border to be crossed .... BTW another proof that Pirsig's about inorgany and biology = material and society and intellect = mental is faulty . Bodvar 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/md/archives.html
