"One of the typical characteristics of emotions is their relative great intensity. Emotions are intense reactions. In emotions the mental system has not yet adapted to the given change, and owing to its significance the change requires the mobilization of many resources. No wonder that emotions are associated with urgency and heat. One basic evolutionary function of emotions is indeed that of immediate mobilization. This function enables us to regulate the timing and locus of investment in the sense of allocating resources away from situations where they would be wasted, and toward those where investment will yield a significant payoff.
Low intensity of the feeling dimension, as well as of other mental components, usually expresses neutral or indifferent states of the mental system. Emotions are the opposite of such states. Accordingly, it is preferable to consider low-intensity states as nonemotional or nontypical. Although it is impossible to delineate the precise borderlines of emotional intensity, we can say that typical emotions have such an intensity which influences our normal functioning but not in a way that disables us completely—as is the case in affective disorders.
In the emotional domain there is no such thing as a minor concern; if the concern is minor, it is not emotional. A typical characteristic of emotions is their magnifying nature: everything looms larger when we are emotional. The fact that our colleague earns 2 percent more than we do is not a minor issue in the eyes of envious people: it is perceived to reflect the undeserved inferior position in which we are now situated. Similarly, the slightly smaller size of a woman's breast is not considered a minor imperfection by the many women who undergo breast implants. Every emotional concern is perceived to be a profound one.
The above considerations may explain why it is easy to evoke emotions although they express our most profound values. We do not need a profound argument to generate emotions; on the contrary, what seem to be very superficial matters easily induce emotional reactions. An external observer may evaluate such matters to be superficial, but for the person experiencing the emotions, these matters are perceived to be very profound, hence eliciting an intense emotional reaction. Another reason for the ease of evoking emotions is that because of their depth, emotional values are comprehensive and relate to many events in our life."
''One of the typical characteristics of emotions is their relative great intensity. Emotions are intense reactions.''
AntwortenLöschenEmotions are relatively intense or just intense*
relatively or diversely.
I believe emotion is a way to increase the sensitive-perceptive judgment. We look or feel reality with our senses and we judge it via emotion from the inertia to the histeria. Emotion is also used to judge cognitive perception and not just purely affective ones.
AntwortenLöschenI am not sure if it makes sense to label emotions as judgments.
AntwortenLöschenI look for a beautiful flower and i become extremely enchanted by its beauty, what it is*
AntwortenLöschenPleasure? Excitement?
AntwortenLöschenAlso a judgment of its/ the value, giving a value. Indeed pleasure and excitement or any other affective emotion are themselves types of judgments. I'm valuing/judging the flower as a beautiful thing to see [to touch, to dance a tango with her/its in the mouth, whatever]
LöschenRemember that we have the curious tendency to invent many words which we call synonyms, because they are very similar each other or even basically within a same ''thing', a different dimension within a same conceptual domain. Or not.
Perhaps, regarding your flower example, you are really experiencing a judgment. I don't know. But I would say, one the whole, if you can't get enough at looking at something. It's pleasure or excitement that makes looking at that something so addictive.
AntwortenLöschenWe are all the time judging the reality we live and often changing it into our truth. It's not just a isolated example of excitment. Emotion is just like a re-judgement [i like it, i dislike it, i'm indifferent...]
LöschenOur judgment capacity starts from the basic perceptive interaction with the reality we are.
I would say in these cases judgment reflects our liking, disliking, or indifference. Certainly it could be said, that liking, disliking or indifference reflect (biological or implicit?) judgments. But liking, disliking or indifference aren't reflecting something which we usually, in our common language, label as judgment. This is my opinion regarding this topic.
AntwortenLöschenExactly one of my points, it's not common to think emotion as a judgment because the relatively false dichotomy between this and reason. What i already said, emotions reflects our judgment capacity but at very basic or primary levels, at priori. But i think when the concept of judgment is correctly applied, i mean, generalized, our emotional reactions will be easily understood as part of it. Often we restrict excessively the meaning of some or many words and creating false barriers which in correct approach both would become part of the same domain and not in antagonistic ones.
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