Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu!ap1i+ From: ap1i+@andrew.cmu.edu (Andrew C. Plotkin) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: Feeling and thought: which comes first? Message-ID:Date: 8 Dec 88 16:54:46 GMT References: <17770@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <5626@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU>, <2609@datapg.MN.ORG> Organization: Carnegie Mellon Lines: 37 In-Reply-To: <2609@datapg.MN.ORG> / Emotions and feelings are a "natural byproduct of" how our Terran bodies / and minds function. Smell and internal chemicals (ie, "hormones") / trigger neuronal activity which humans interpret as emotions. The / limbic system seems to report many things which we interpret as / "emotional feelings". / Some "feelings" are also triggered by instinct or feedback. The / "fingernails on blackboard" sound appears to be a primate warning cry which / instinctively causes uncomfortable feelings in many humans. I beg to differ (actually, I've already differed once, but I might as well multiply differentiate) I make a distinction between the feelings resulting from an emotion (which are certainly related to internal biochemistry) and the emotions themselves. Excitement produces a variety of sensations resulting from fast heartbeat, etc. However, there must have been something to the "excitement" before those sensations; something must have caused the physiological changes. There must be something in common between failing a test, losing a possession, becoming alienated from a friend, since they all cause similar feelings of depression. But that common factor can only be in the mind, since there's no physical similarity between the cases. Fingernails on a blackboard cause an uncomfortable sensation, but it's not an emotion. / Feedback / can cause feelings either due to memories triggering neuronal activity / which are a "memory" of past feelings, or due to thoughts causing / limbic-detected chemicals ("hormones") to be produced. I would say that those thoughts are the emotion. (All right -- I would -define- the emotion as those thoughts.) This all sounds somewhat testable. Does anyone know of any cases where a human's adrenal glands or whatever were removed? If so, did the person continue to feel excited about exciting things, regardless of lack of physiological symptoms? --Z