I am a semi retired businessman, neither philosopher nor psychologist. My self created retirement job is executive coaching/business consulting. I use a tool called the Judgment Index, based on the field of axiology, or the study of value/good. It measures how people value tasks, people, and strategy relative to one another, with each posed in a different dimension (intrinsic/extrinsic/systemic) into a forced ranking system. It thus reveals one's motivation to choose this over that and so on.
I loved your paragraph about emotions measuring and motivating. But people's reactions to the same fear, let's say, are so different. I work with some pretty high level athletes for example. The guy who gets fouled with 2 seconds left in the game and his team behind by 1 might be positively motivated to win the game or afraid of losing it. Those inner feelings then affect his likelihood of making the free throws. I think those inner feelings even motivate how the guy plays, meaning he either tries to get fouled so he can be "the man" or he tries to avoid the ball in order to avoid being the potential goat. One runs from the tiger, the other feels he can defeat it.
The interesting question to me is always where do those inner feelings come from? Some combination of nature and nurture I suppose.
I keep trying to relate your thinking back to data derived from the Judgment Index.
For instance, I would relate Fear to the portion of the report called the Self Side, or character layer. When this is strong,, people handle fear or risk far more confidently.
Pride would relate to good old self esteem vs.arrogance perhaps?
Disgust and shame seem to be two different shades of the same paint to me. Disgust at another vs. shame toward ones self? And both might relate to the degree of self criticism one experiences.
Thanks for writing. You have me thinking, and that always seems to be a positive indicator of the quality of work done by people like you.
Interesting, thanks for the comment. I agree that there are tremendous individual differences in what elicits different emotions. The other two Fossils will know better than I about phobias and other examples of extreme individual differences. In terms of your other thoughts, Josh and I are preparing a little dialog on self-esteem which we’ll post before too long. At some point, I’ll try to think about shame. In terms of disgust, I wrote about this with some collaborators a while back (see link). Thanks again for the interesting remarks! (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23205888/)
just read your 'thief of joy' piece, I've always loved that line.
You write about a lot of things I think about, and I am always trying to use what I learn when I talk to people. I think I can learn a lot from you.
Dr. Robert S. Hartman was the brains behind axiology. He thought something achieved "good" status when it became all of whatever it was meant to be. Given that human potential is infinite, we never actually achieve goodness, but we should always be working to advance ourselves along the spectrum.
I believe telling a child he/she can be anything they want to be is terrible advice. It simply isn't true. When I talk to athletes, I point out that even when I was their age, if I practiced all day, I was never going to be the athlete they are right now. But what I can strive for is to be all of whatever I was meant to be.
It's my way of trying to get them to compare themselves to their potential rather than comparing to LeBron or Tom Brady. I will not claim a high success rate yet. 🙂
Friends and family think they're the greatest ever.
They all think they're going to "the league."
So to me, it's the need for a balance between constructive tension and destructive tension.
The former being the necessary stress induced when you strive to be something greater than you are now.
The latter being the unnecessary stress induced when you are using an unrealistic comparison as your goal.
Yes, the balance is hard, It's a common conversation I have, but not only with athletes.
I think it applies to the superwoman/superman group as well, another comparison afflicted bunch.
Ah, interesting. Thanks for the additional thoughts. I’ll be interested to see what you think of a piece on the feeling of “contentedness” that I’ll have up before too long. It hits some of the points you raise here and I hope speaks to them in a bit more detail: When and why do we feel contentedness, and can we cultivate that feeling? And, yes, the question of comparison seems really important in terms of well-being. My sense is that one area of the scholarly literature on happiness that has borne up well is the role that gratitude plays. And for me, at least, gratitude forces focus on the good, rather than the hypothetical, which is, as you intimate, part of the theft of joy. Thanks again for the remarks!
> What we can say, with some confidence, is that people have experiences, sensations, phenomenology, qualia (if you’re a philosopher), consciousness…. whatever you want to call it.
Respectfully, what _I_ can say with confidence is that _I_ have qualia. Whether _other humans_ have them is absolutely outside of my sphere of observation and is pure speculation. To attribute qualia to other human beings on the basis that some of them can speak English to say things like “I am having a subjective experience now”, or that they look like me, or that some of their organs (eg, brains) look similar to mine is neither here nor there, as I have no evidentiary basis that any of these things is related to my own ability to have subjective conscious experiences.
I agree with the philosophy (starting with Descartes) that each of us can only know, for certain, our own experiences/consciousness/qualia. Still, I think it’s likely that if I have qualia, other members of my species do as well since we share an evolutionary history (see, e.g., Dennett). I was heavily influenced first by Searle and then by Dennett, on these topics For purposes of this series, I’ll assume that everyone has qualia while, of course, I cannot strictly ever know that for sure.
That's fine, you're free to make whatever speculations you like. I guess your theory is that qualia have some connection with being alive, being made out cells, sharing some of your genome with other organisms, etc. That's an interesting theory. I just have never encountered any evidence for it. I don't know why I experience qualia from the point of view of this particular primate body. But I have no idea whether chairs, rocks, planets, galaxies, etc. do or do not have qualia. Or, for that matter, whether other beings have qualia from the perspective of this particular primate body, either with or without having the subjective experience of having conscious control over this particular primate body.
It was quite eye opening to say the least to reframe human feelings as measurements in terms of motivation and decision making. As someone who tends towards the extreme end of neuroticism, I do enjoy reading up writings on the area of human emotions.
I found your suggestion of asking: what is this emotion measuring, and what it is motivating to be really useful tool to keep my emotions regulated. It is interesting to understand fundamentally the evolutionary advantages of being high in neuroticism, though it does seem to be more of an disadvantage in the modern day.
What's your viewpoint on this? Have you came across individuals with the same issues and from a psychologist's perspective, what is the best way of overcoming the barriers of an overly active mind?
Thank you for the kind words! Neuroticism, in my understanding, is an individual difference variable, so if you’ll allow me, I’ll recast your question slightly. People high in neuroticism, to my understanding, tend to experience more anxiety. On this topic, I probably side with the sort of view endorsed in Randy Nesse’s book, Good Reasons for Bad Feelings. There’s probably some optimal level of anxiety for any given context—as Randy would say, if you’re a mouse, you do want to be anxious if there are signs of a cat—but, having said that, it does seem like in the modern moment, many people experience “too much” of it. I think both Shani and Josh will have more to say about that in coming posts, based on their expertise. For my part, I understand anxiety to be something like: measure-danger motivate-vigilance. As always, that might be wrong, but I think that’s a useful place to start. Then questions arise about how to properly calibrate these feelings, which is complicated. For me, I have found Mindfulness the best antidote to anxiety, but I suspect there are strong individual differences in what will work best.
Thank you for the book recommendation, will definitely give it a read. I'll be looking forward to reading the upcoming posts on substack! By mindfulness do you mean the practice of meditation or actively being more present and aware of your surroundings and emotions?
The way I think about it, the practice of Mindfulness mediation, as a practice, helps one be more present as one goes about daily life. So I think my answer would be a bit of both. But it’s always an on-going journey of exploration.
I am a semi retired businessman, neither philosopher nor psychologist. My self created retirement job is executive coaching/business consulting. I use a tool called the Judgment Index, based on the field of axiology, or the study of value/good. It measures how people value tasks, people, and strategy relative to one another, with each posed in a different dimension (intrinsic/extrinsic/systemic) into a forced ranking system. It thus reveals one's motivation to choose this over that and so on.
I loved your paragraph about emotions measuring and motivating. But people's reactions to the same fear, let's say, are so different. I work with some pretty high level athletes for example. The guy who gets fouled with 2 seconds left in the game and his team behind by 1 might be positively motivated to win the game or afraid of losing it. Those inner feelings then affect his likelihood of making the free throws. I think those inner feelings even motivate how the guy plays, meaning he either tries to get fouled so he can be "the man" or he tries to avoid the ball in order to avoid being the potential goat. One runs from the tiger, the other feels he can defeat it.
The interesting question to me is always where do those inner feelings come from? Some combination of nature and nurture I suppose.
I keep trying to relate your thinking back to data derived from the Judgment Index.
For instance, I would relate Fear to the portion of the report called the Self Side, or character layer. When this is strong,, people handle fear or risk far more confidently.
Pride would relate to good old self esteem vs.arrogance perhaps?
Disgust and shame seem to be two different shades of the same paint to me. Disgust at another vs. shame toward ones self? And both might relate to the degree of self criticism one experiences.
Thanks for writing. You have me thinking, and that always seems to be a positive indicator of the quality of work done by people like you.
Interesting, thanks for the comment. I agree that there are tremendous individual differences in what elicits different emotions. The other two Fossils will know better than I about phobias and other examples of extreme individual differences. In terms of your other thoughts, Josh and I are preparing a little dialog on self-esteem which we’ll post before too long. At some point, I’ll try to think about shame. In terms of disgust, I wrote about this with some collaborators a while back (see link). Thanks again for the interesting remarks! (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23205888/)
just read your 'thief of joy' piece, I've always loved that line.
You write about a lot of things I think about, and I am always trying to use what I learn when I talk to people. I think I can learn a lot from you.
Dr. Robert S. Hartman was the brains behind axiology. He thought something achieved "good" status when it became all of whatever it was meant to be. Given that human potential is infinite, we never actually achieve goodness, but we should always be working to advance ourselves along the spectrum.
I believe telling a child he/she can be anything they want to be is terrible advice. It simply isn't true. When I talk to athletes, I point out that even when I was their age, if I practiced all day, I was never going to be the athlete they are right now. But what I can strive for is to be all of whatever I was meant to be.
It's my way of trying to get them to compare themselves to their potential rather than comparing to LeBron or Tom Brady. I will not claim a high success rate yet. 🙂
Friends and family think they're the greatest ever.
They all think they're going to "the league."
So to me, it's the need for a balance between constructive tension and destructive tension.
The former being the necessary stress induced when you strive to be something greater than you are now.
The latter being the unnecessary stress induced when you are using an unrealistic comparison as your goal.
Yes, the balance is hard, It's a common conversation I have, but not only with athletes.
I think it applies to the superwoman/superman group as well, another comparison afflicted bunch.
I appreciate you reading my comments.
Ah, interesting. Thanks for the additional thoughts. I’ll be interested to see what you think of a piece on the feeling of “contentedness” that I’ll have up before too long. It hits some of the points you raise here and I hope speaks to them in a bit more detail: When and why do we feel contentedness, and can we cultivate that feeling? And, yes, the question of comparison seems really important in terms of well-being. My sense is that one area of the scholarly literature on happiness that has borne up well is the role that gratitude plays. And for me, at least, gratitude forces focus on the good, rather than the hypothetical, which is, as you intimate, part of the theft of joy. Thanks again for the remarks!
your sister was a GENIUS
> What we can say, with some confidence, is that people have experiences, sensations, phenomenology, qualia (if you’re a philosopher), consciousness…. whatever you want to call it.
Respectfully, what _I_ can say with confidence is that _I_ have qualia. Whether _other humans_ have them is absolutely outside of my sphere of observation and is pure speculation. To attribute qualia to other human beings on the basis that some of them can speak English to say things like “I am having a subjective experience now”, or that they look like me, or that some of their organs (eg, brains) look similar to mine is neither here nor there, as I have no evidentiary basis that any of these things is related to my own ability to have subjective conscious experiences.
I agree with the philosophy (starting with Descartes) that each of us can only know, for certain, our own experiences/consciousness/qualia. Still, I think it’s likely that if I have qualia, other members of my species do as well since we share an evolutionary history (see, e.g., Dennett). I was heavily influenced first by Searle and then by Dennett, on these topics For purposes of this series, I’ll assume that everyone has qualia while, of course, I cannot strictly ever know that for sure.
That's fine, you're free to make whatever speculations you like. I guess your theory is that qualia have some connection with being alive, being made out cells, sharing some of your genome with other organisms, etc. That's an interesting theory. I just have never encountered any evidence for it. I don't know why I experience qualia from the point of view of this particular primate body. But I have no idea whether chairs, rocks, planets, galaxies, etc. do or do not have qualia. Or, for that matter, whether other beings have qualia from the perspective of this particular primate body, either with or without having the subjective experience of having conscious control over this particular primate body.
Thanks for the interesting piece!
It was quite eye opening to say the least to reframe human feelings as measurements in terms of motivation and decision making. As someone who tends towards the extreme end of neuroticism, I do enjoy reading up writings on the area of human emotions.
I found your suggestion of asking: what is this emotion measuring, and what it is motivating to be really useful tool to keep my emotions regulated. It is interesting to understand fundamentally the evolutionary advantages of being high in neuroticism, though it does seem to be more of an disadvantage in the modern day.
What's your viewpoint on this? Have you came across individuals with the same issues and from a psychologist's perspective, what is the best way of overcoming the barriers of an overly active mind?
Thank you for the kind words! Neuroticism, in my understanding, is an individual difference variable, so if you’ll allow me, I’ll recast your question slightly. People high in neuroticism, to my understanding, tend to experience more anxiety. On this topic, I probably side with the sort of view endorsed in Randy Nesse’s book, Good Reasons for Bad Feelings. There’s probably some optimal level of anxiety for any given context—as Randy would say, if you’re a mouse, you do want to be anxious if there are signs of a cat—but, having said that, it does seem like in the modern moment, many people experience “too much” of it. I think both Shani and Josh will have more to say about that in coming posts, based on their expertise. For my part, I understand anxiety to be something like: measure-danger motivate-vigilance. As always, that might be wrong, but I think that’s a useful place to start. Then questions arise about how to properly calibrate these feelings, which is complicated. For me, I have found Mindfulness the best antidote to anxiety, but I suspect there are strong individual differences in what will work best.
Thank you for the book recommendation, will definitely give it a read. I'll be looking forward to reading the upcoming posts on substack! By mindfulness do you mean the practice of meditation or actively being more present and aware of your surroundings and emotions?
The way I think about it, the practice of Mindfulness mediation, as a practice, helps one be more present as one goes about daily life. So I think my answer would be a bit of both. But it’s always an on-going journey of exploration.
Talking of Mysteries and the dumb/clever things that little girls come out with: https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/whats-a-mystery