We can explain how serotonin is released by the brain and creates happiness, but that answer does not throw away the problem of emotion. When serotonin is released, it gives us happiness. But can science locate or detect the feeling itself? So, the argument goes like this… Science can’t prove the existence of emotions, therefore they don’t exist. Yet we know they do exist. This kind of reasoning is logically flawed. Science can’t prove emotions because emotion is experiential. So it is kind of a problem because they are two separate things and it is unreasonable to ask science to address something that is experiential. I bring this up because many people use the cold fist of science to attack anything they wish. From my conclusion, our current scientific way of thinking has restrictions. I think we can’t understand the world if we throw out the experiential aspect of it. Yes, rationality and emotion work hand in hand, but we can’t abandon either. We can heighten our understanding of the world through experience. The experiential aspects of life are as real as the chair you are sitting on.
If everything in this universe is made of energy then emotion is a form of energy. I think that picturing matter as dead and lifeless is incorrect. Matter is a trapped form of emotion; emotion and matter are both forms of energy. I think our way of thinking has to be modified to include this aspect of reality. I know not all people use science as a bible but some do. I have come across many people that say that science can explain everything. How can science explain something that is experiential? I find that that kind of thinking only allows us to get so far in our understanding of the universe. To think that there is no beauty in this universe is something I can’t understand. Some things can only be proven through experience. This is merely my opinion…
There are things about the universe that like you said we know that exist, but can´t be proven scientifically. The scientific method would classify then as non-empiric, and then, they would say they do not exist. Surprisingly there are places in science where they arrive at such conclusions like emotions do not exist and still believe it makes sense. I mean if you arrive at something that is contrary to what is obversed, it can´t be right. To ignore observation is to ignore data.
I think this problem arises from the fact that the scientific method and the epistemology behind science are just beliefs, but people usually think it is something proved like a scientific theory. The scientific method is philosophy not science and is only sustained by belief.
The only way to solve this problem is if people one day decide to rethink the epistemological basis of science. But today they can´t even see that the problem doesn´t lead to a logic contradiction.
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Last edited by Atlantis001 on Mar 13th, 2007 at 11:57 PM
We can't prove black holes actually exist either, but apparently they do, according to Stephen.
The Universe and the non living things it's made of may be made of matter, energy, dark or not, but it's things like Life itself, and the sentient Mind which we can't explain. Not its origins or nature anyway.
What is the Mind made of? Who knows. What are the emotions that it creates made of? Who knows. That's when you bring in God and extra planes of existence, irrelevant really.
Or perhaps emotions really are just chemical results produced from the brain that our human consciousness defines as feelings, ideas etc. in order to comfort ourselves by telling each other we understand such boggling concepts.
Who knows?
__________________ Recently Produced and Distributed Young but High-Ranking Political Figure of Royal Ancestry within the Modern American Town Affectionately Referred To as Bel-Air.
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Re: The place of emotions in the universe
Emotion is the brain's interpretation of states of physiological arousal, it is a portion of the response cycle, or chain, from stimulus to overt response. The degree to which reinforcement and punishment are probable combined with contextual cues. Emotion is simple.
I don't think you understand what I am saying. Yes, we can explain what chemicals get released to create emotion but that does not really address what emotion is. I'm not talking about the chemicals responsible for emotion, I am talking about FEELING itself. Science can't prove the feeling itself exists.
I am not very educated in this area but this is what i got from wikipedia,
"Although a widespread word, it is not easy to come up with a generally acceptable definition of emotion." From what I understand, emotion is not very simple, correct me if I am wrong.
So…
You are questioning the scientific community on information you admit that you are not educated in. You are critical of psychology, yet I'd be willing to bet "serotonin" is as far as your familiarity with the topic goes.
To begin with, no self respecting scientist (especially those who specialize in psychology) would say any of the following things:
"Serotonin is the cause of happiness"
"Emotions don't exist"
"We cannot study experience"
"The scientific method is not a philosophy"
"The scientific method is perfect"
"Science is truth"
"There is no beauty in the universe"
"There should be no change in our perspective"
The first three of these pertaining more to the initial question of the thread and the last the other complaints.
I'll do the last ones first. These are all straw man arguments. Many of them are common criticisms of science, and many scientists have gone to great lengths to dispell them. Dawkins' introduction to "The God Delusion" explains in great detail how science can be beautiful, I suggest it as a read, it’s fantastic. All scientists accept that they are ignorant of pretty much everything, and have way more questions themselves than answers. All parts of science, including it's methods are open to revision. However, the revisions must have adequate evidence behind them. For instance, you would have to prove why experience SHOULD be credible evidence. You would have to do it in such a way that your evidence outweighs the thousands of experiments that have found otherwise.
The ones involving serotonin and other neurology specifically are different.
1) Saying that serotonin is responsible for happiness is like saying that the gasoline moving from the tank to the engine is responsible for the performance of a driver in a race. My suggestions would be looking into the role of the hypothalamus and amygdale in information processing, and into the really weird disorder called agnosia, where a person is unable to attach emotion to stimuli.
2) Emotion clearly exists. Regret's explanation is pretty much it. There is also evidence that emotional processing is related to cognitive attentional resources, and people's emotional responses to stimuli can be manipulated by specific attentional allocations. There is also a lot of evidence that we are not as consciously aware of the reasons behind our emotional experience as we think we are. There is a really detailed explanation for this that I can explain. I believe I somewhat outlined it in the "I am immortal because my soul is..." thread.
3) I work as a research assistant in a cognitive perception lab. We study experience EXCLUSIVELY. Your point that psychology doesn't integrate experience into its explanations was one that was made by the psychological community itself 30+ years ago. Then the aptly named "cognitive revolution" occurred, and the study of conscious experience is an exploding field in psychological research. However, every single experiment looking into experience shows that our perception is VERY susceptible to error. It is for that reason alone that science can not accept experience as evidence.
EDIT: changed a couple of words for semantic reasons
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Last edited by tsilamini on Mar 16th, 2007 at 07:52 PM
All these points are examples of the opinions of some people I have met, not the opinions of scientists. I never said that scientists believe “science is truth”, I said that many people that I have come across believe that our current scientific way of thinking can explain everything. And my comment about there being beauty in the universe is merely an opinion and has nothing to do with the scientific world.
You seem very educated in this field. I admit that I am not very educated in this area. I’m mostly looking for an answer to my questions. Even though I have read your post, there are still a few things that are troubling me.
I said earlier, “How can science explain something that is experiential?”
I still ask this question because I don’t think it has been answered. Yes, we can explain “scientifically” what is going on in our bodies. We can explain what is responsible for emotion but my question still stands here. At the moment when I experience, when I am FEELING happiness, is science able to locate the experience? (the result). Is science able to prove that “I feel” as a result of complex activities going on in my mind? What I am saying is, we can only understand happiness, sadness, love, hate etc through experience it. We know these feelings exist but by following your logic, they can’t exist because thousands of experiments have found otherwise. Say there was an emotion that we hadn’t experienced, a scientist could locate the area in the brain that is responsible for it, but if the scientist himself had not experienced that emotion, he can’t understand it. True emotion can only be understood by experiencing it. Real emotion is beyond science. Yes, emotion does exist, but it is not known through science but through experience.
So my original question still remains, “Can science locate or detect the feeling itself?” Could you clear this up because I am still a bit puzzled. Thanks
I agree. There are scientists that consider the possibility of reviwing the methods of science. Something that is not a big deal since the methods are really open to revision and do not imply in contradiction. But in practice I think it is not so simple to find a situation where scientists accept a change in perspective to accept a new theory for example. But it is becoming more common today I think, at least in physics.
Gender: Male Location: Drifting off around the bend
I must begin by stating my position. I am a Skinnarian Behaviorist. This may have little meaning to someone unknowledgable as to the overall history and philosophies that combined are the broad field titled psychology, but we are, imo, almost an entirely separate field of study from the cognitive and internalist schools of thought. I have actually considered entering the university teaching area of the field to begin shaping the population of psychology into a split in the field so that behavior analysis would be an entirely separate degree from psychology, but the concepts of internally based schools can be viewed entirely from a behavioral perspective if one does an in depth study into the methods and results while avoiding the discussions until a thorough assessment can be made. The difference between the cognitive and the behavioral is our statements as to locus of origination and the variables we choose to view as important.
Now, are you sure that this "feeling" exists? Or is the experience termed as "feeling" merely a description of physiological activity that has, given a previous ignorance as to the physiology of Man, been given improper terminology? Do you "feel" hate, love, despair, etc. or do you only feel the arousal and then, given a history of improper terminology and belief, label the arousal combined with context such? The "emotion" is a term used and widely accepted, but what that actually is is in question. Man has a tendency of assigning spectacular explanations to himself at times due to lack of information on a subject.
Now, as to localization, we know of areas that are fairly localized for a few concepts, but overall at the present time localization is minimal at best. The brain is complex and a very wide range of areas are implicated in much of our neural activity, we have specific areas we know play important roles in various functions, but to say that "love" occurs here or there, is still very much premature. We do know of areas implicated, as I said earlier, in emotion, but we cannot state this area or that area is where "love" occurs.
Gender: Male Location: Drifting off around the bend
Those have been defined, your statements lead to the conclusion that you are speaking of something beyond the physiological response that is the "emotion". I am skeptical about the existence of such.
We know, personally that we experience. How can you be skeptical of something that is known? I know I feel, I can call these sensations whatever I like, but I still experience. I am 100% certain that I experience. I am 100% sure that I can only experience through experience.
__________________
Imagination is more important than knowledge... --Albert Einstein--
The center of this question seems to lay in the nature of experience. As far as stimuli are involved, Regret has it. I wouldn't go as far as saying we behave in "Skinnerian" ways, but that can just depend on what you define as the nature of stimuli. Anyways, this isn't a discussion of behaviorism.
So, what is experience? Well, I'm going to make some assumptions. The first is that experience in this case is limited to conscious perception. And secondly, that by "experience" we are talking about reportable and evaluated memories or thoughts, ie, what you are thinking about. Meaning that our experience is based upon the conscious perception of external stimuli and our couscous evaluation of it. This isn't a scientific definition by any means, as "experience" isn't really a scientific idea. Experience could mean so many things really, it is almost useless as a concept for rational discussion. In fact, even the term "conscious" runs into this same problem, but not so far as this post is concerned.
Alright then, conscious perception of stimuli is really interesting, and poses what is called the "binding problem" in cognitive psychology. Basically, we have evidence of how all the stimuli gets into our brains via receptors, and where certain values are attached to it for various evaluative properties, but we can't pinpoint any location where all the stimuli "meet" to become our overall "experience". Stimuli does not become conscious until it has already received emotional and evaluative processing. This is show by the existence of conditions like agnosia and in the effects of optical or other sensory illusions. Agnosia is a break in the pathway that processes emotional information of stimuli. Once that is done, the victim is unable to attach emotional value to objects. And in the case of optical illusions, we are unable to make ourselves "not see" them, even when we know the processes behind them consciously. Both of these points are proof that our conscious perception of stimuli is built upon underlying unconscious processes that we have no control over (this is a lie, we can have some priming effects, but I am being very general).
alright. Moving on we deal with the way we think about the stimuli that have just come in. Well, to begin with, what ARE these stimuli now? the best estimate (in my opinion) is that they are represented as a pattern of neuron activity. This pattern of activity must be processed through a part of the brain aptly named "the interpreter" that is responsible for our semantic and linguistic (reportable) experience of an event. In epilepsy patients, sometimes a part of the brain known as the corpus callosum is cut to prevent seizures. This unfortunately prevents any information from the right side of the brain from being processed by the interpreter, as the corpus callosum carries information from one side of the brain to the other, and the interpreter is on the left side of the brain. Subtle experiments in a laboratory can elicit various arousal states based on the subconscious processing of information presented only to the right side of the brain, and the subject will have no explanation at all for their arousal, simply because the interpreter has no idea what information is being given to the brain. For instance, women were shown erotic images to their right brain, got all hot and flustered, but couldn't consciously conceive why they had, attributing it to what was available to their left brain.
This poses a major issue for memory and where I think your question may be better answered. I really want to stress that this is not my area of expertise, and I am making a couple of assumptions that I am 90% sure of. However, I digress. Generally speaking, there are two kinds of memory, working and long term. Working deals with what we are currently experiencing and how it relates to our goals, long term is more to what we remember and how we feel about things. A very important point to make here is that Working memory is based more on evaluative and stimuli based processing whereas longterm is based more on emotion. An example of this would be in the type of error made by each type of processing, in short term it is more likely to be stimuli based errors (so, when trying to say the word six you say the word sex [no, it doesn't mean you have a dirty mind, just sloppy working memory]) whereas longterm memory errors are more along the lines of misjudging the recency of favorable events or remembering events that support various ways you "feel" about an object, idea, or person.
The real significance of this is that, for memory to move from the working memory, where it is forgotten very soon, to the long term, it must have an "interpreter" interpretation to go along with the emotional arousal state. This means that, in the future, the "interpreter" will associate brain activity that you had previously given the linguistic label "happy" to as you being "happy". The more often this occurs, the more readily you will associate those patterns with "happy".
This sort of leads to how the "binding problem" of experience is solved, imho. Basically, I don't believe that the mind does bind things anywhere (specifically because there is no evidence of this) but instead forms very complex associations between each of its senses and emotional processes based on certain predetermined genetic dispositions. Basically, at a basic physiological level, we think pain is bad but soft touch is good, and other weird instinctive things. As we develop, those predispositions to certain behaviours allow us to form bonds between what we see and what we hear, and where we are in the world. To the interpreter, this would seem a continuous experience, not segregated functions because our memories would be such that certain visual stimuli would always be associated with certain smell stimuli. This is clearly evolutionarily advantageous because creatures that saw themselves as an individual would be able to make much better long term plans than those who had to respond to each receptor channel individually, without associating sight and touch.
So... happy....
There are certain "things" that can fall upon our receptors in any of our "senses". These receptors will produce natural genetic reactions that have, through evolutionary processes, been hardwired into us to have some idea of what will or wont be good for ourselves (ie, those organisms that were not able to dictate "pain" as "bad" naturally were less likely to pass on their genes than those who could). Those things that have, over time, proved to be beneficial to humans will release things that make us "happy".
This is the best answer I can give you. However, I think you are asking the question in the wrong way. You seem to have a top down approach to the problem at hand saying "I experience happiness, therefore where is it?". That question assumes a couple of incorrect things about the brain. To begin with, the brain is not the liver. You can look at the actions of a liver and pretty much figure out what is going on. You can't with a brain. Every "experience" is based upon billions of neurons firing in specific patters to elicit specific memories based on past experiences with the perceived stimuli. You can't just look at a brain and say "Oh, that lad is happy" and more than you can say "that guy is good at math". Thought is based on patterns of firing, that for each individual will be specific and unique.
Lastly, you are presuming that because we have a "word" or "symbol" for something that is used in colloquial, that is how the brain works. "Happy" is not a measurable phenomena in the brain just because we have a word that seems to insinuate that it should be. Just because we use terms like "consciousness" or "self" or "experience" does not mean that they are accurate terms for what is occurring. You can't start with the assumption that humans "experience" "happiness" without proving that they do. To say they do because we all feel happy is a tautology, making it a logical fallacy. Humans to not experience "happiness" as we would commonly use the word on the street.
Interesting. I think that clarified much about the subject.
But I didn´t get exactly what was you saying in the end. Was you saying that we can´t prove that emotions do not exist there in the last paragraph when you said that the state "happy" is not a measurable phenomena in the brain, and therefore we cannot say that "happy" is just the physiology of the brain working? Anyway thats what I think.
We can say that there are two kinds of "happiness". There is a physiological happiness which involves serotonin, action potentials and biochemistry but which is only mechanical. The experience of happiness does not fit into this description. The experience of happiness itself is another kind of happiness and is not mechanical. Just the word used is the same.
Experience is not something we analyze logically to see if it exists. It is a perception, you perceive emotion in the same way you perceive that you are sitting in a chair. Science is based on perception, or observations if you like. Why science can state that the brain exist ? Because they can see it. Everything in our world is a experience. Science works based on experience. Emotion is something that you reject or accept based on experience too. We can´t deduce emotion.
If we question emotion then we can question consciousness, or experience too, and we know that we exist and are conscious here and now. We know that we have emotions in the same way we know the color of the walls in the room we are in. We don´t have to think about it.
Anyway I don´t want to look like if attacking someone. Sometimes perhaps I think I can pass that impression. Sorry if I do that.
__________________
Last edited by Atlantis001 on Mar 19th, 2007 at 05:16 AM
Gender: Male Location: Drifting off around the bend
Perhaps I should clarify my objection to the claim (and similar claims):
There is no evidence of such. My experience of happiness, if placed in another individual, may be perceived as hate or pain or anything else. I disagree with the assumption that claims of personal internal experience and perception is necessarily similar to any other individual's experience and perception. Thus, we have language to translate our internal experience, perception, and organization into a mediating form that can be communicated to another. Language has always been flawed, no language currently known is wholly adequate to the task of conveying completely the entire internal experience, imo. Thus, to discuss the experience of "happy" adequately is also impossible, the only semi-adequate method of discussing a subject of the type similar to emotion is scientifically and objectively through observables.
I think that inamilist has presented the state of affairs well. It is interesting to read his description as I myself have never had an interest in the cognitive and have, as of yet, been able to take the time to read much cognitive literature aside from the required coursework when I was pursuing my documented education.
Notice how you used the word experience. We know we experience, we may label those experiences whatever we like. By saying, “My experience of happiness, if placed in another individual, may be perceived as hate or pain or anything else” you are already stating yourself that “experience” exists. It is kind of off topic if you say that there is no clear definition of happiness and leave it at that, the experiential aspect still exists, you have said so yourself. I think you are misinterpreting what Atlantis is saying. I completely agree with what Atlantis is saying (that’s if I understand him correctly). Yes, there can’t be any evidence of such because “experience” is experiential, there can’t be evidence, yet we know it exists. What Atlantis is saying does not require evidence or proof; it is just an obvious conclusion.
I totally agree. I don’t see anything that is incorrect with that statement.
__________________
Imagination is more important than knowledge... --Albert Einstein--
I understand your perspective. I think we can´t prove that all people
experience the same, so when talking about happiness we can only do that in ways we can analyze like behavior and physiology. So I do not claim that our experiences are all the same. Until now someone can only assume that to be true.
But what I am more concerned in about the existence of internal experience itself. Even if we can´t communicate or measure then to make sure they happen in the same way to every human. We know that our own internal experience exist because we have then. I like to think that is what Descartes meant by "I think therefore I am". To complete my reasoning I think our personal internal experience is the evidence for their existence, like for example, the sky itself is the evidence for its existence. But their existence doesn´t make then communicable so we still cannot say that all humans experiences the same.
Good to know
I understood what you meant. But I think it is not that there can´t be evidence but I think its better if we say that because "experience" is experiential it is already a evidence. We just can´t infer then. In the same way we can´t infer observations in a laboratory. We just see then.
Perphaps the problem here is more at an epistemological level. We are working at the level of defining what truth(or at least scientific truth) is. So I think the question we have is if those internal experiences are real things like real phenomena. But if they are not real, what means to say that something that can be experienced is not real ? Like for example what means to say that the sky that I can see is not real. I think thats the type of question we have.
It just came to my mind, if in fact all humans have different experiences like Regret pointed. Then perhaps we can have this discussion at all. Perhaps some of us actually have the perception of internal experience while others work more at a physiological level and don´t have that kind of experience.
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Mar 13th, 2007 05:10 PM
alright. Moving on we deal with the way we think about the stimuli that have just come in. Well, to begin with, what ARE these stimuli now? the best estimate (in my opinion) is that they are represented as a pattern of neuron activity. This pattern of activity must be processed through a part of the brain aptly named "the interpreter" that is responsible for our semantic and linguistic (reportable) experience of an event. In epilepsy patients, sometimes a part of the brain known as the corpus callosum is cut to prevent seizures. This unfortunately prevents any information from the right side of the brain from being processed by the interpreter, as the corpus callosum carries information from one side of the brain to the other, and the interpreter is on the left side of the brain. Subtle experiments in a laboratory can elicit various arousal states based on the subconscious processing of information presented only to the right side of the brain, and the subject will have no explanation at all for their arousal, simply because the interpreter has no idea what information is being given to the brain. For instance, women were shown erotic images to their right brain, got all hot and flustered, but couldn't consciously conceive why they had, attributing it to what was available to their left brain.
