anyway
'Some variation of pleasure or pain is a consistent
content of the perception we call
feeling.'
in common parlance we say people perceive and they feel
two different activities - though related
I perceive a work of art
I feel uplifted by it
we don't normally say I perceive pleasure
I feel pleasure - and often as a result of a perception
the feeling is a consequence of
not the object perceived
cause and effect - if you like
it seems that for Damasio the cause (perception)
is the effect (feeling)
'Feeling is the perception of a certain mode of the
body along with the perception of a certain mode of
thinking with certain themes.'
a feeling - if we have to keep using this term -
is a description of a unified state of consciousness -
meaning - when I feel good - it's just that -
it's not that yes my body feels good - I have
good thoughts -
that may be an explanation - but it is not the
phenomena - or how we report the experience to ourselves
strictly speaking - feeling is without content
the experience is without content - that is until
we analyze it - break it down
these break downs actually add nothing to the experience
- only to the understanding of it
and - that is - if understanding is required
'Feeling is a consequence of the ongoing homeostatic
process - the next step in the chain.'
homeostasis
I don't know - I think we're being dazzled here
with a motherhood claim
when we explain - we look for regularities
the regularities will be found
it's what explaining is about
finding regularities is about theory construction
it's the imposing of theory on phenomena
pre-theory construction - the phenomenon - any phenomena -
is what it is - at this stage - essentially unknown
to find regularities - is to systematize to theorize
so homeostasis in this sense is the presumption of theory
it's there before you look
just another point -
I think Damasio wants this concept to be all things
to all men
biological meta-scientific - and metaphysical
as a metaphysical concept - it is as I said a motherhood
statement that has more to do with theory construction
than what a theory is about
but if it's meant as an empirical statement -
where the empirical content?
we know it can be verified - every time you open your eyes
but can it be falsified?
what observations would - could lead to its rejection?
is it possible that we could observe a fundamental process
that is not moving to regularity
and how would we know - identify such?
'The above hypothesis is not consistent with the view
that the essence of feelings (or the essence of emotions
when emotions and feelings are taken as synonymous) is a
collection of thoughts with certain themes consonant with
a certain feeling label, such as thoughts of situations
of loss in the case of sadness.'
feeling as I am going to use the term - is undefined -
contentless
not to say - it is not a real phenomena -
so yes - feeling is not just a thought
a thought here
the thought of sadness -
is a reflection on - feeling
it is one step removed
an attempt at - objectivity
it is a thought about....
a feeling
and this characteristically occurs when people
do not understand - what they are feeling - or why -
they reflect on it
think about it
a sad thought - is what?
is there such a thing
you can think about sadness
you can feel sad - and think about it
but a sad thought?
I don't know about that
I guess I am putting here that thinking is always a
reflective action
after the fact - of experience -
which prior to thinking is essentially unknown -
an unknown reality had - but not known
in practice of course it is generally not this
black and white
'If feelings were merely clusters of thoughts with
certain themes, how could they be distinguished from
any other thoughts?
feelings per se are not thoughts
feelings are if you like raw experience
that are objects of thought
'How would they retain the functional individuality
that justifies their status as a special mind process?'
this special mind process
yet to be established Antonio
in fact if what I say is on the mark - feeling is not
a process or special - or for that matter - of the mind
feeling is raw experience - undefined - the object of -
thought
'The particular state of those body components, as
portrayed in the brain's body maps, is a content of the
perceptions that constitute feelings.'
'the particular state of those body components' -
is to say nothing
'The immediate substrates of feeling are the mappings
of myriad aspects of body regions designed to receive
signals from the body.'
this 'substrates of feeling' - makes its appearance
perhaps next - we will find substrates of substrates
that might explain things even better!
'Some might object that we do not seem to register
consciously the perception of all those body-party states.
Thank goodness we do not register the all indeed.'
look - what we experience is what we experience -
it is unified and undefined
you can break it up into body parts if you have a mind to
that is explanation
you do not 'experience' - the explanation of your
experience
'Obviously, we do not 'experience' the blood level of
glucose dropping...'
well we experience something when that happens
science and medicine give us an explanation of that
something
the experience is not effected - by the explanation
it would be the same without it
'Experiencing a certain feeling is experiencing the body
in a certain way......'
again - if you say so - if you want to explain it that way
we do recognize different kinds of experience
firstly just because the experiences are different
and we then go on to think about what that might mean
'I caution that the emergence of mental images from neural
patterns is not a fully understood process.....'
it has only ever been proposed - never understood
it's at this point one wonders whether we are dealing
here with a genuine argument or just some kind of a con
'In brief the essential content of feelings is the mappings
of a particular body state....'
the map is a map
a picture -
the content of feelings is always a theoretical issue
feelings do not come with their content on their sleeves
apart from the content we give - them - they have no content
'A feeling is in essence an idea - an idea of the body and,
even more particularly, an idea of a certain aspect of the
body, it's interior, in certain circumstances.
yes well we can elucidate feeling in such a way
but I think really at this point Damasio should try to get
in touch with or reconnect with his feelings
'A feeling of emotion is an idea of the body when it is
perturbed by the emoting process.'
not what I had in mind - a feeling is an emotion caused
by emotion
here we are again
the cause is the effect
very scientific
