Tell me about it *sigh*. Overcoming our animal nature, letting our intellect not getting fooled by it - that's the main purpose.vicdan wrote:Even rats can have their fundamental drives function in a very different way from humans, though rats have emotions too, albeit more basic ones.
But that's the point, people don't turn to Buddhism because of any amount of suffering. At least, not that I know. Even the founder, Gautama Buddha, who sets the tone seemed rather well off in life. It's an existential drive, a craving for insight into ones own nature, a growing dissatisfaction that seems to draw people to these ideas. As for converted Christians I met, they all had quite successful lives before they shifted perspectives. This is all just a weak echo from the underlying search for truth, an attempt to answer the seeming idiocy of existence - for those so inclined.Yeah. if my life was unrelentingly full of shit, I might turn to buddhism too; but this suggests that the buddhist prescription is, at best, a rather narrow one, that buddhism does not speak of the human condition in general.The joys and happiness made the suffering worth it, then?
Which I never suggested. How would you know what you don't know you don't know? Sorry, I borrowed that from Rumsfeld, in case you understand political spin better.i was pointing out that I am not ignoring the suffering I underwent.
It's meant as simple definition to use in further dialog based on his observations. What you mean is that you don't agree with the definition. But that doesn't make it dogma, only to those who treat it as such. To me there's a difference between wisdom and the tradition where it's embedded in. It's like excavation.First Noble Truth is religious dogma.
Because they cannot be separated. And even if it might seem one can enlarge happiness in a certain frame of time for a certain person, or group of persons, it's directly related to suffering in another time or group.Please give me one single reason to treat both joy and suffering equally, uplifting both or rejecting both.
Of course this is all about awareness; it won't suddenly change our natural tendency to chase after joy and avoid suffering, as that's just how they manifest in life. If someone loves pain, it becomes joy to him (a desire) and if someone hates joy, it becomes suffering (a rejection).
So we can see the desiring and rejecting have become the universal currency. If it's joy or pain - it doesn't matter. You might end up with incomplete ideas like 'functionality'.
It was not meant as warning, just a remark to highlight how common David's idea was in the context of Buddhism. What did I try to accomplish with that remark? That you'd address this Buddhist 'edifice' with your 'critical analysis' because it might force you to think a bit more instead of just hinting at the physiology of one single person.You said that to me to warn me of the mighty edifice of knowledge i am attacking. Guess what? Xians had built up such an edifice as well, yet it crumbles at the slightest touch of critical analysis.Diebert wrote:The Buddhists have already a few centuries thought, written and debated about the role of desire, passion and emotions by experimental and existential research.
No, a phrase like "I've a bad feeling about this" does not point to an emotion proper. No wonder we're not having much of a meaningful discussion. We're including here all kinds of notions that suddenly are titled 'emotion' and live on equal footing with fear, anger, disgust, sadness and happiness. I know there's no agreement really in the literature what to include in the term emotion but in such cases one has to go by context.'Feeling' as in 'I feel bad about it', yes. That's emotion.No, but this is commonly called intuition or feeling.Did you know that emotional decisions often approximate very complex utilitarian heuristics?
Hey, you quoted the examples. It would be stupid to quote examples one doesn't remember the details from. Anyway:You want me to remember the paper I read at a seminar nearly a decade ago?..I'd like to see a source that explicitly links higher emotions to something utilitarian.
A feeling of disgust is not a primary emotion. Closer to a reflex, perhaps on the level of a drive or impulse. Strong memory ties can even result in false reflexes like this, thereby leading us on mindless ways, rejecting perfectly healthy substances for no reason. On that level I might start to consider it to become emotional.The feeling of disgust often reflects health hazards of a substance
I had some slight disagreement with Kevin Solway about this in the past (here it is, it might show you more clear where I'm coming from in these discussions). No doubt pumping of adrenaline facilitates action but what do we experience exactly during this state? Does it need to be fear, when does it turn into courage or 'kick'. The emotion of fear might only arise when we identify with the danger (OMG I might suffer). As I also wrote in the post I linked to: this subtle difference revolved around defining emotion as the physical action or the mental processing around it.Fear has an obvious utilitarian function, including physiologically
See above. Some people might experience 'courage' or 'fearlessness' in exactly the same situation and sequence of actions. The neuro-chemical responses would be largely the same but the emotion experienced and reported upon differ wildly. This is why a more subtle approach on emotion is needed than just assuming everyone responds the same on similar impulses.But fear in danger does force a more efficient decision -- and primes the organism for a more efficient response, too.And not in the sense that they appear in utilitarian situations (like anger during a fight) but if they need to arise to force a more efficient decision