Principia Discordia

Principia Discordia => Think for Yourself, Schmuck! => Topic started by: Kaienne on September 27, 2007, 03:19:53 AM

Title: Spinoza's Emotions
Post by: Kaienne on September 27, 2007, 03:19:53 AM
If this is something that's well known of around these parts, I apologize for posting it unnecessarily, but this dude Benedict de Spinoza did a real darn fine job at quantifying the human emotions and boiling them down to their base elements. Granted that it takes a certain degree of psychology to break down the walls people put up, I thought it might be in the spirit of the BIP to make notice of it.

http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/spinozasemotions.html
Title: Re: Spinoza's Emotions
Post by: Cramulus on September 27, 2007, 01:39:42 PM
que aristotelian
Title: Re: Spinoza's Emotions
Post by: Payne on September 27, 2007, 01:47:25 PM
I thought so too. Where's all the middle ground at?
Title: Re: Spinoza's Emotions
Post by: LMNO on September 27, 2007, 03:02:30 PM
I had to stop at :

QuoteJoy is man's passage from a less to a greater perfection.  [We feel joy when we improve our abilities to deal with what life hands us.]

I feel joy when I listen to the Stooges "Funhouse".


And I ain't passing through shit.
Title: Re: Spinoza's Emotions
Post by: The Littlest Ubermensch on September 27, 2007, 08:34:18 PM
Quote from: Professor Cramulus on September 27, 2007, 01:39:42 PM
que aristotelian

Indeed. Emotions vary too much between people to be effectively reduced to a one sentence axiom.
Title: Re: Spinoza's Emotions
Post by: Kaienne on September 27, 2007, 09:22:30 PM
Quote from: LMNO on September 27, 2007, 03:02:30 PM
I feel joy when I listen to the Stooges "Funhouse".

Why do you feel joy when you listen to that?

The human mind is a calculatable and quantifiable entity. Every effect has a cause, which has an effect, which has a cause, and so on and so forth. Break it down into it's most basic methods, and you can reduce that particular cause or effect to a one-sentence axiom.
Emotions have archtypes.
Title: Re: Spinoza's Emotions
Post by: Cramulus on September 27, 2007, 09:30:49 PM
Quote from: Kaienne on September 27, 2007, 09:22:30 PM
The human mind is a calculatable and quantifiable entity. Every effect has a cause, which has an effect, which has a cause, and so on and so forth. Break it down into it's most basic methods, and you can reduce that particular cause or effect to a one-sentence axiom.
Emotions have archtypes.

[ ] strongly agree
[ ] agree
[ ] neither agree nor disagree
[ ] disagree
[x] strongly disagree
Title: Re: Spinoza's Emotions
Post by: AFK on September 27, 2007, 09:34:41 PM
Even the latest brain research hasn't been able to crack more than 10 to 15% of the human mind.  There is still much that we do not understand. 
Title: Re: Spinoza's Emotions
Post by: tyrannosaurus vex on September 27, 2007, 10:28:42 PM
it might be true that every person might, if pressed or interested enough, find a way to reduce each of his emotions to a single-sentence axiom.

but you'd never find any two people who
a) categorize emotions the same
b) use the same axioms

so even if it's possible to reduce *your* emotions to a one-sentence axiom, and it's possible to reduce *mine* to that as well, it's still meaningless because your axioms and my axioms will be incompatible.
Title: Re: Spinoza's Emotions
Post by: Iron Sulfide on September 27, 2007, 11:01:14 PM
and thus, we have religions.
Title: Re: Spinoza's Emotions
Post by: Sir Squid Diddimus on September 28, 2007, 06:46:42 AM
cake brings me joy.


cause its full of sugar and covered in FROSTING!!!!

SWEEEET SWEEET FROSTING!!!
:fnord: :fnord: :fnord:
Title: Re: Spinoza's Emotions
Post by: Triple Zero on September 28, 2007, 01:11:00 PM
Quote from: Professor Cramulus on September 27, 2007, 09:30:49 PM
Quote from: Kaienne on September 27, 2007, 09:22:30 PM
The human mind is a calculatable and quantifiable entity. Every effect has a cause, which has an effect, which has a cause, and so on and so forth. Break it down into it's most basic methods, and you can reduce that particular cause or effect to a one-sentence axiom.
Emotions have archtypes.

[ ] strongly agree
[ ] agree
[ ] neither agree nor disagree
[ ] disagree
[ ] strongly disagree

[x] plain and simply false

(except the bit about emotions having archetypes, but point me at one thing that doesn't have an archetype and you'll break your finger)
Title: Re: Spinoza's Emotions
Post by: LMNO on September 28, 2007, 03:18:01 PM
Quote from: Kaienne on September 27, 2007, 09:22:30 PM
Quote from: LMNO on September 27, 2007, 03:02:30 PM
I feel joy when I listen to the Stooges "Funhouse".

Why do you feel joy when you listen to that?

Because Iggy and the Stooges fucking rock, that's why.

QuoteThe human mind is a calculatable and quantifiable entity.
Wrong.  The brain, maybe.  Someday.  Certainly not yet.

QuoteEvery effect has a cause, which has an effect, which has a cause, and so on and so forth. Break it down into it's most basic methods, and you can reduce that particular cause or effect to a one-sentence axiom.

That has nothing to do with the definition of "joy" that is given as it applies to my joy at listening to the Stooges.
Title: Re: Spinoza's Emotions
Post by: B_M_W on September 28, 2007, 03:25:05 PM
The human brain is one of the most complex biological organs science has ever come across. The problem with reducing its processes to single sentence statements is that its very synergy makes it so much more than the sum of all the parts. Plus, you can't just generalize about these thing.

You already know how I feel about this though.
Title: Re: Spinoza's Emotions
Post by: Cramulus on September 28, 2007, 04:13:26 PM
I just read a passage in Black Swan in which the author is talking about causality. The passage is about how things happen, then afterwards we come up with a neat explanation for "why" they happened that way. But in fact, nothing is so simple.

Even if you try to figure out why you got a sesame bagel this morning instead of your usual cinnamon raisin bagel, there are a variety of tangled "causes" and no singular answer accurately sums it up. The human mind uses a mechanism which Taleb calls "Retrospective Determinism" (what a great phrase!) to construct a story.


Title: Re: Spinoza's Emotions
Post by: LMNO on September 28, 2007, 05:05:53 PM
Yeah, I'm really going to have to get that book.
Title: Re: Spinoza's Emotions
Post by: B_M_W on September 28, 2007, 05:20:59 PM
Yeah, I think I will too.
Title: Re: Spinoza's Emotions
Post by: Cain on September 28, 2007, 06:00:37 PM
I've always called that post-rationalization done by determinists, but I suppose that phrase will do....
Title: Re: Spinoza's Emotions
Post by: Cramulus on September 28, 2007, 07:20:10 PM
I posted this in Cain's thread but I'll post it here too.

I scanned & uploaded the prologue
http://www.cwyohba.org/noexit/Black%20Swan%20Prologue.pdf

but it's rotated 90 degrees for some reason
YUO HAVE BEEN WARNED
Title: Re: Spinoza's Emotions
Post by: Iron Sulfide on October 03, 2007, 08:12:05 AM
i think i read something in the old POEE archive about the assembly method. sounds similar.

maybe it was RAW. doesn't matter.

the experiment in question, a bunch of college kids were invited to take part in an experiment, in which they went into a booth and asked questions of a yes/no variety. an anonymous answer came from the other side via revealing a yes/no.

the kids were asked to explain the results afterwards, or something. in most cases, they seemed to assemble a meaning behind the advice give. all the yes/no replies were randomly generated.
Title: Re: Spinoza's Emotions
Post by: Epimetheus on January 01, 2008, 04:20:11 AM
So, Spinoza's saying the following:
If I feel joy, then that makes me a better (more perfect) person than I was before. Or if I feel sorry about something, I'm a less perfect person.
If I feel sorry for a homeless person, then I hate them.
If I think I'll feel sorry for someone when I see them, then I fear seeing them.
Wtf?
Frankly, bah, humbug.
Title: Re: Spinoza's Emotions
Post by: Pope Lecherous on January 28, 2008, 12:49:59 AM
Most of our emotions can be broken down in a far easier and more simple way.  Biological.  Animals have basic emotions that promote survival, such as anger, fear, happiness, and sadness.  When we do something like eat food>live longer>feel good.  Mate>pass on genes> feel good.  Something wants to kill you> get scared or angry> survive.

Beyond those basic feelings, for explaining more complex emotions... consult the law of fives...  Someone will come up with some way to rationalize ANYTHING.  Explaining such things=Retrospective whatnot.  Mental masturbation
Title: Re: Spinoza's Emotions
Post by: LMNO on January 31, 2008, 04:21:49 PM
So everthing is first circuit?



I'm not buying it.  Especially when you look at the things that are biologically harmful that people gravitate towards.
Title: Re: Spinoza's Emotions
Post by: Triple Zero on February 03, 2008, 10:23:13 PM
you gotta hand him, there's maybe a tiny hint of 2nd circuit in his description :-P

but he forgot about language and communication, mostly.
Title: Re: Spinoza's Emotions
Post by: The Littlest Ubermensch on February 03, 2008, 10:29:08 PM
Quote from: LMNO on January 31, 2008, 04:21:49 PM
So everthing is first circuit?



I'm not buying it.  Especially when you look at the things that are biologically harmful that people gravitate towards.

If you look at it from the standpoint of Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene, everything is motivated from a desire to preserve our genes (and memes), not necessarily individual survival, which still keeps with the concept of all our actions being first circuit at their base. I don't entirely agree, but he makes a good case.
Title: Re: Spinoza's Emotions
Post by: Cain on February 03, 2008, 10:34:34 PM
I have quibbles about individual survival.  Often that is the case, but when the magnitude of threat seems beyond that, as threatening the entire genetic population of a certain group, then it seems most cultures agree that sacrafice of a sample of that, for the greater good, is permissable.

Evolutionary psychology and studies on altruism probably shed more light on this.