Emotion, Feeling and the Mind

Emotion research
Neuro science of emotion

Century of neglect … research of emotion starts with Aristotle.. end of 19th century we have William james , but also Darwin and freud after james… all of this success was cut short in the 20th century… emotion was given the cold shoulder especially in science..
comes from the fact that in the 50s we have the cognitive revolution … what have now is an emotional revolution which give a different perspective … in terms of reason … emotion is not inferior to reason… emotion is the basis of reason the first mechanism of reason… primal necessity
we have multiple roots… we have a fast route of decision making which is biologically entrenched and powerful.. and the reason , traditionally understood ( slow root) … not opposed to each other…
knowing about how the emotional system works is crucial for stroke, mood disorders etc..
practical medical importance … application in the social space, How we produce moral behaviour entirely tied to emotional system in an evolutionalry sense… what goes on economically , elections etc. jury system decisions … rational processes ?? emotional processes have an immense role to play in our decisions…
medical and social ills can be illuminated by emotional studies
What is an emotion ? What is a feeling?
reedefning the description of emotion by amplifying the description phenotype… basic emotion, fear, anger happiness studied by darwin and others , these are universal, even without the same name they are represented by the same behaviour

Also we have background emotions which are are actually the most prevalent emotions wew have : discourage ment or enthusiasm … we are always in an emotional state .. if we are concioiuss we are in an emotional state…. new group of emotions (secondary or social emotions) compassion, shame , contempt, pride , jealousy … entirely tied to socoiet and others toward whom we act (group)
was thought of a purely cultural … but this is not quite so… as much a part of our biological make up, as the primary emotions … but of course culture , education tunes … plays a role of directing the specifics of these emotions are applied.
How do we know this ?? research in animals that a number of these emotions are plresent in primates who rejects unfair behaivouer … chimps have behaved compassioately towards even other animals … genetics
physiology of the emotion/feeling cycle … James contributed ( made a mistake in terms of language )”our natural way of thinking about emotions is that hte mental perception of some facts of some facts excites the mental states of emotion and this gives rise to a bodily change .” , James : you percieve something that ought to cause fear in you bodily chages proceed directly after the prception… and our feeling IS the emotion…
James inverts the trad view : things go to a bodily reaction and then ther is an interpretation … and this is borne out by research …
then James interposes the body btween the causative stimulus and the emotive mindstate … cant separate mind and body… body is representd in the brain.. either directly or indirectly … brain can map the body… also a critical step
but james left out the possibility of an appraisal of the the stimulus, generally there is no appraisal but it does happen, fear may cause a direct body state but this does not happen all the time
conflated emotion and feeling … gives the ipression athet emotion is a vaiety of reactive behaviours but then says that the perception that we get from the recation is the emotion
this was shown to be inconsisten by the psyiologists in the early 20th century
emotion and feeling are separate …feeling is cognition over what has happened … human emotions are largely unlearned programs of aoutomatic actions and cognitive strategies aimed at the management of life… not 100p unleanred ,, automatic .. can have a measure of contreol but not 100p … even if facial expression is supressed etc… all of these programs are aimed at the management of life … you cannot do without emotions… evolutionary role ..for the self or for the group… 2 emotions are triggered by objects or situations that act on the mind (wether real or in the mind as a recollection that act on brian deviceds implemented by evolution) within certain ranges you need the stimulus wether apriori or not … seem to be the similar across many species … amygdala : is present in many other species … does fundamentally the same thing in all species … helps to trigger the appropriate response ( mostly concerned with fear) … defects in particular aspects of emotion can be traqced to lesions in certain parts of the brain.
amygdala
ventri medial frontal cortex
anterior cingula … disgust : rejection of abnormal poisonous protiens
triggering of emotion

4levels : appraisal of stimulus, tigger of emotion , excecution of emotion anf then emotional states
4 structure: trigger ––neeed brain structures , set of changes in the internal chemical changes which create changes in the viscera
central nervous system as you have an emotion you have a varity of changes in cognitiv resources … learning changes … do not attend to the world in the same way … changes the way we reason … emotions change how we recall
emotion is associated with subcortical to the … associated with lifife … emotional programs have , the regulation of life … built from simpler programs .. emotions don’t appear de nuovo … develop out of complex mechanisms of reaction that are built out of many other processes : reward and punishment , scaling of internakl needs… pain and pleasure … eary creatures had mechanisms of reward or punishment before emotions … and they were tied to survival.. long before happiness, sadness etc..
Emotions and thier components excersice homeostatic (bodily regulating goals )
when you have an emotion you recruit a long history of elements that came in the history of evolution with are about how an organism manages it’s life cycle
during our life cycle ther is a mandate in our genome with makes us persist and prevail … the desire to prevail… all of theis emotioal sysytem is the latest experssion inthe blind desire to stay alive … all the cells have this desire to stay alive and be home ststic… mam]nage the process of energy aquisition , process of transformation of energy … and tit is here that you find the genesis of emotions … whith pleasure , pain, punsishment an reward,
we have some controll over this, fear can go wrong , emotions can go wrong… but fear has saved more lives that it has destroyed

feelings are composite perceptions of: 1 a partcular states of the body that are real or simulted 2. state of altered cognitive resouces 3. the dply ment of certaimn scripts descriptions which can be really in the body or generated in the brain (desctiption of happiness) different states of cognitve ability in different body states.. time, learning attentiveness etc but all of this i connected to a causative state which is intentionality
psysiological changes : is waht james had in mind but did not distinguish between feeling and emotion …
“as if ” body loop: as if the body was actually senseing or undergoing this or that experience recreates internally stses of our own body … compassion for others.
brain exisst because there is a body … musty manage the internal economy … somatosensing ares bring the news of the body … feelings are always tied to the body , directly or indirectly
information about the body is so selective that it goes to specialised channel in the brain …
can have chemical markers for the pats of the brain that have to do wit tht einterior…
James, since … percieve stimulus, evaluate it … cortex carries out the somatic perceprion… depending on the contecxt the emotion will be different (appraisal of stimulus) … new! internal simulation… transfomations in the representations in the brain
… emotions are action programs which pereceed feelings… which are the perception of these programs … they operate in multistage cycles …never about one area that is a center for this or that … modified by context … socialisation plays an important role … emotions reflect the ongoing manage ment of life inside the organism … feelings give us a window into this internal life

early on as a result of certain gene traits we have been able to employ a scaling mechanism of reward an punishment , of need…. role in social processes leads to social home stasis as well… internal needs cannot be repressed , like food, body declares a state of hunger because it wants to make homeo stasis … lets this situation come into consciousness

but to social homeo stsis … managing social relationships … most of our engagements social lly the projections into the social space of our bio needs …. we have to deal with these things or else we die … how do we transfer this into the social realm… high pitched reject cost benefit analysis in which conflict situations(throw the guy off the raft) … so everything we say av.=bnout emotion needs to be put into context …