Yes, that's what I'm saying.brokenhead wrote:Dan, are you saying that every emotion is a delusion?Dan Rowden wrote:When I speak about "emotions" I am very specifically referring to non-rational responses to stimuli filtered through the self/ego framework.
Transcended yes, but the only way to do that is to be rid of the forces that generate it. We can see the way emotional states can be created, modified and even nullified by belief states - you think your wife is screwing the milkman so you feel anger, resentment, envy and whatever else, all generated by the belief set. Then you find out that the milkman is gay and all the emotions stop. I'm saying that the ego essentially is the belief that your wife is screwing the milkman.I believe Laird would agree with me that a delusion by definition is a negative thing, one to be avoided, and transcended if it has been heretofore harbored.
Well, no, to suggest the latter would be a serious logical fallacy, obviously. But it doesn't mean much to say not all emotions are delusional unless you show how and why some might be and that not all emotions arise from the same source.Speaking for myself, I don't think every emotion is a delusion, nor is every delusion an instance of emotion.
And necessarily so, because I assert that the source of all emotions - as I've defined them - is false.Once you make that distinction, you open the door to the possibility of beneficial emotions, which is one door that I think you have your foot firmly against.
And/Or that which arises from mistaken beliefs.A delusion is simply a mistaken belief.
Well, not explicitly. That's more heading in the direction of cognitive dissonance. I wouldn't place emotions in that category, really. They are manifestations of a natural, developmental mindstate that just happens to be grounded in illusion. It really only becomes "delusional" when you start to consciously believe in it. Ego is almost too basic to be called a "belief" and therefore a delusion. To be fair to people and more technically correct, people haven't necessarily gotten to the stage of genuine delusion regarding ego and its manifestations. They function too spontaneously in their egotistical mode to be considered delusional because no "belief" has yet arisen. They are certainly caught up in an illusion, but genuine delusion only really begins when some sense of "self" and "soul" that is believed in arises. You can decide for yourself who and how many are in which category (or if what I just said makes any sense to you at all).It is a notion held despite evidence to the contrary.
One would like to think so, but that will only happen if the goal is specifically to do so and that can only be if the goal is wisdom.An aggressively rational mind will root out delusions as a matter of course, since they grow like weeds in one's mind.
Yes it does. Enlightenment is such a state. Some people have false ideas about what false ideas really are.The QRS philosophy does not, as I understand it, claim it is possible to have a mind in which those weeds cannot grow.
This depends on what you intend by a "mistaken notion". For example, a wise person may hypothesise a scientific view that is wrong, but this is not a "mistaken notion" unless he holds it to be true. Not all mental errors are delusions.It requires vigilance at all time to keep the mistaken notions to a minimum.
Well, I'm sorry if I'm sort of bursting that particular bubble on you. I limit my concept of "delusion" to believing things that are logically contradictory or incoherent. I don't believe any empirical viewpoint, for example, can be delusional; mistaken - yes, limited - yes, contingent - necessarily, but not delusional as such. However, what would, for example, make an empirical view delusional, would be if it were to be held to be something it cannot logically be, such as objectively real or absolute. Do you see the distinction I'm making here?I would agree with that. And since this thread is "Common ground," I should say that in so far as the QRS philosophy is rigorous, I tend to agree with it.
Neither do I, though I think extolling their virtues can be and mostly is. Though, evil is a strong word - there may be less loaded terms more suitable. But then, screw it, I haven't called something evil in a while so I'll go with it for the sake of emphasis.Where I diverge is with the definitions. I do not think emotions are either good or evil.
See, judging the benefit of a thing is a slippery matter as it is entirely relative to values and purpose. Many people argue for example for the evolutionary benefit of emotions, but I find that line of thinking problematic for the following reasons. I'm hoping, btw, that what I'll say here will cover the concerns and desire for explication from a few different people on the issue of emotion:I view them as either productive or counterproductive. For instance, most people allow themselves anger. To me, this is a false emotion. If anger is not 100% intentional, controlled, and goal-oriented, it is worthless at best and, more often, counterproductive.
Emotions: the evoutionary benefit argument.
The problem of non-replication and hypothesis dichotomy - one of the dilemmas of hypothesising "benefit" in evolutionary terms is that you can't replicate evolutionary history in a lab. The argument for the evolutionary benefit of emotions amounts to little more than scenario building, hypothesis and a sort of "if they didn't help we wouldn't be here" kind of platitude. The problem with building hypothetical scenarios in which we might proffer a cogent (and potentially even correct) argument is that this doesn't show that it's true or that things happened that way. One could easily built a cogent argument that says we are here despite having to deal with emotions and that we'd be far more evolutionarily advanced without them. Interestingly, I think you'd be hard pressed to find too many people who'd happily argue that emotions will be the key to human survival and longevity, as opposed to the probable key to our demise. The argument for evolutionary benefit also doesn't take into account time frames. What was beneficial and helpful at one stage in our development needn't continue to be so, and may well become something altogether different. Perhaps the rise and development of consciousness itself is making emotions redundant.
The argument from necessity.
Most people I've met think emotions are necessary for humans to function. The arguments on this score are many and varied, running the gamut from the scientifically sophisticated to the purely sentimental. I don't find any of them remotely convincing. What I would concede is that an absence of emotion would render a person dysfunctional if not accompanied (and indeed caused by) by a heightening of consciousness and reason. For an absence of emotions to occur it really necessitates either that very heightening of consciousness or some form of mental disease and dysfunction. I don't think there's a third option there. Let's look at a specific emotion in the sense of this line of argument: fear. The functional benefit of fear seems patently obvious, right? If you didn't experience fear you'd get eaten by nasty critters and so forth. But this is a half-baked argument to me. If it wasn't for the drives that cause us to overcome fear, we would surely not have endured and developed. In specific evolutionary circumstances, fear could be as powerful an extinction instinct as a survival one. Fear is not predictive, it is purely reactive. This non-predictive dimension of fear makes it an automatically risky response as we cannot predict the outcome and have no basis for doing so. To me the emotion of fear is no competition in evolutionary, or any other terms, for reason and information and the heuristic dynamics these functions grant us. Rational engagement and information are vastly superior functions to "fear of the unknown" type responses. The development of consciousness has given us a superior model by which to function. We don't need to fear something when we can rationally conclude that we must have information to know how best to engage it. Evolutionary psychologists develop all sorts of hypothetical models of how certain emotions have functioned in human society, but these are models that really just show how human society and behaviour has been shaped by emotions; they are not arguments that emotions are necessary for human function or survival. That's a proposition that can only be tested at an individual level.
The irrelevance of evolutionary arguments.
How emotions have functioned in terms of our evolutionary development, and what benefit or deficit we may be able to surmise in them, are ultimately rather irrelevant considerations to the person interested in what is true in a more fundamental, philosophical sense. Lots of things appear necessary to proper human function. There are theologians and psychologists alike who will argue that God beliefs are fundamental to human consciousness and necessary for adaptive function, regardless of their truth value. Should we extol the virtues of theistic beliefs because some people hold this view? Via experience, those of us who have placed reality and truth foremost in our value framework have come to understand that despite such mental outpourings being a rather natural thing for humanity, they are merely strong inclinations and not functional necessities. Emotion falls into the same category. We have a strong evolutionary disposition towards them; they run deep. This does not, however, either make them true or necessary. If, upon examination, we find that the source of emotions is an illusion that is possible to comprehend and transcend, then it follows that emotion itself may be set aside by the transcendent mind. i.e. emotions don't arise when the source is no longer there to generate them (or when the filters that generate certain types of responses to stimuli are removed and therefore different responses manifest). There are innumerable analogies that might be offered to illustrate this point. I won't bother going there because it's almost kind of kindergartenish to do so. You can insert your own as you see fit.
We don't really form attachments to emotions, though we may form attachments to the mental or physical states that are consequent to them. But I'm glad you raised the issue of attachment because that is quite important. The problem is not so much that we are attached to emotion but rather that emotions are manifestations of attachment, the primary one from whence all emotions arise being the idea of an inherently existing self (ego). All attachments derive from this primary source. Specific emotions manifest themselves when certain forms of egotistical engagement and attachment to states of affairs occur (sometimes producing multiple simultaneous expressions of emotions). Let's look at how I make this point to see if helps people see where I'm coming from on this:What makes emotions dangerous is a person's attachment to them. It is much the same as attachment to a thing, or an attachment to money. Since money, emotions, and objects only truly can be known to exist within us, as manifestations in the mind, they are all subject to the same laws. One of those is the tendency to form attachments.
Ego=attachment=emotion.
The grandest of illusions - In humans the ego is the primary force of engagement with the world, embodied in a deep and usually unconsidered sense of self/other dualism, which is what the ego essentially is. To delineate these dynamics properly would take an entire, poisonous to the heart, book, so you'll have to forgive my cursory pronouncements here: when the ego develops around the time when self-differentiation occurs, emotions, as we conventionally understand them, begin to develop. They develop in their type and scope as our sense of self and other emerges - driven by practical experience of the dynamics of the world around us. [Now, in passing I'll note that this can actually happen down cultural lines to some extent. There are emotions that may not develop in some cultures that appear quite strongly in others because of the values and social dynamics that drive them. Now, this will probably be a matter of degree rather than one of brute existence or potential for existence, but my point in making that passing observation is that emotions don't develop in a vacuum, but can be influenced and modified by value and belief systems. In a broader sense, emotions as a general category are inevitable where ego development is inevitable, and that is universal but, itself, not entirely without certain differences - i.e. humans may all wear a dress but it may not have the exact same pattern.] As the ego develops and self/other perceptions inform and modify behaviour and responses, our emotional natures grow and flower in all their variegated splendor. Conventional human life and experience flourishes.
The key to these dynamics and of my argument about the falsity of emotions lies in the ultimate falsity of the self/other dualism. As I argued in another post, there is no basis to the belief in the inherent existence of any given thing; this necessarily includes ourselves. There is no true self/other dualism - at least not in any objective, inherent sense. But this is exactly the false construct from which emotions arise. Indeed, emotions wouldn't happen without it. Our sense of inherent selfhood - the ego - is intimately tied to perceptions of loss and gain, having and lacking. Our sense of identity is produced via our attachment to things that are part of the "other" part of our self duality. Whilst the sense of self produces a feeling of separate, inherent existence, it is nevertheless too nebulous to grant itself a sense of secure identity. To achieve this we then identify with, or attach ourselves to, other forms. This can be physical objects, people, ideas, ideologies or a mixture of all or any of these things. If you want to know who or what you really are, look to your attachments, because that's where you'll find your identity. This reinforces the illusion of self and ties all that happens to it. Everthing that happens is happening to this self that doesn't actually exist (like the previously mentioned adulterous behaviour with the milkman).
# When we "fear", what is at threat? Remember too that human fear is a far more complex and sophisticated thing than basic self-preservation instinct we see in other animals. Human fear incorporates the conceptual realms in the from of circumstances that we can project and imagine. Indeed, this fact is very instructive in an investigation of human emotion. We can actually generate emotions via projection and imagination, even though these circumstances don't exist and may never exist. This is an important element of what emotions are and how they arise. They arise out of perceptions that must relate back to something, and relate back in a very particular way - that being within the framework of loss or gain, benefit or deficit, validation or rejection.
# When we "envy", what is it that experiences lacking?
# When we "hate", what is it that experiences events and circumstances that don't meet its needs or preferences?
# When we feel "pride", what is it that required acknowledgment and validation?
# When we "love", what is it that requires relation or the need to attach to one thing above another?
# When we feel "sad", what is it that is lacking or thinks things should have been different for its sake?
When and if the realisation comes that there is no actual self to experience such things, these emotional responses no longer make any sense. They literally have nowhere coherent from whence to arise. It seems somewhat obvious to me how one connects ego with emotion. Ego represents the active body of our false perceptions of reality, therefore, it represents the active source of our delusional emotions. Take away the false perceptions of reality and I can't think of a single emotion that could possibly remain (or arise).
The false and true self.
A self exists. You can't doubt this because if something appears, it exists. But the trick is to know in what way the self exists, and that entails understanding the nature of existence, per se. The appearance we designate "me" doesn't have some miraculous properties and nature that distinguishes it from all other things that we say exist. What we experience as a self, as an apparent seat of consciousness and experience is just like all other things - an appearance whipped by causality (Nature) that lacks inherency. Now, this self is perfectly real, as real as anything else; it's just not an appearance that can generate the sort of psychological output we see in/as emotion. There's isn't the false dualism of self/other and the attachments that accrue as a consequence. There's nothing that loses and gains; nothing that needs security and validation and therefore experiences "rejection"; nothing that desires things be other than how they are or that can be attached to outcomes (being attached doesn't mean you don't work towards them, since purpose and values are hardwired into discriminative consciousness - in much the same sense that a tree isn't attached to the fact that it spreads its roots, it's just part of what trees do).
Actually, emotion doesn't so much imply subsequent attachment as it does the existence of attachment, because that's where emotions come from. Without attachments (which are fundamental to how ego functions and a marker for its presence), emotions couldn't possibly arise as there'd be nothing to get emotional about.I think that only when you sever attachments can you be free. Experiencing an emotion is not the same as being attached to it. Emotion does not imply attachment, just as swimming does not imply drowning.
Yes, that's true, be it your physical life or your mental life. Many people arrange their conceptual life so as to experience as often as possible the emotions attached to, say, moral indignance. Moral indignance is as addictive a drug as any opiate. Religion is one of the greatest suppliers and peddlers of that particular addiction.But if you arrange your life so that you can keep experiencing an emotion because it gives you pleasure, then you are becoming a slave to the emotion just as if it were an addictive drug.
Ok, well, this is getting into correlated territory of the nature of desire. But this is already complex enough so I'll just leave that sitting out there for now...You are becoming attached. Falling in love is one such emotion. People get addicted to it and want to keep repeating it, then they wonder why their lives are in such disarray and why they cannot form solid relationships.
