Posted: Dec 07, 2016 2:19 pm
Fallible wrote:crank wrote:I see where you are coming from, I think it's in definitions that we differ. I'm going with the way an argument I had with a psychologist over this went, not good to argue with someone in the area of his expertise, but why let that stop me? To me, and the way the shrink was arguing, 'cognition' would mean, or at least take on the connotation of, a conscious thought process where you had enough time to at least minimally consider options and then make a decision, like 'this makes me angry' or sad, etc. If this were what lies behind how we feel, react, to situations, triggers, etc, then we should have control over our emotions to a significant degree, and we just don't, not in many many situations. Looking at it this way is at odds with saying "Surely it makes sense that a thought process of some kind has to occur before you know how to feel about the event." I just can't grasp this is what happens, not to me I can say. We can all struggle to control our emotions, if we are "deciding" how to feel, why would we ever struggle?
As I said, I don't call myself an expert, but still, I suppose I see it slightly differently from your psychologist. Cognition is a catch-all term for thought processes both conscious and non-conscious; my previous example of the fight or flight response is an instance of non-conscious cognition. It's a psychological response to perceived threat. At least enough thought is going on here in order to process the threat value of a situation, but we're not aware of that happening. It takes place so quickly. In the model I am talking about, it's similar. The cognition which takes place in response to an activating event is known as an automatic thought, and often the first sign that we've had one is the emotion that follows. So with this model, we don't have control over the emotion we experience. However, once experienced, we can change that emotion by discovering what the thought was which flitted through our head the instant before we became aware of the emotion and altering it; this is how anxiety, depression and anger are treated. What I am saying is that we don't 'decide' how to feel, but that automatic thoughts, processes of cognition over which we don't have conscious control in the first instance, inform our emotions.With your infant example, surely a baby has hunger before it can have rational thought processes?
Of course, but hunger isn't an emotion. It's a physiological sensation which we experience when our bodies need food. In this model, though, that sensation is the activating event which then triggers a thought which then triggers the emotion, eg. hunger -> psychological awareness of hunger -> emotion, eg. anticipation -> behaviour (seek food).Emotions are thought processes of some kind, but they're not a rational thought process as in one that employed reasoning before making some kind of decision.
In my view they're not thought processes at all, rational or otherwise. They're the result of un-/pre-/non-conscious thought processes.Emotions are evolution's solution for how to drive a critter to do what needs to be done. Isn't that a fairly well accepted idea?
It is, yes, and nothing I've said contradicts that idea.I think of our conscious minds as a kind of restricted subset of our minds, and not generally the part in control. It isn't that conscious, rational thought processes can't change how we feel, though that is far from the norm, and usually requires a considerable effort.
Yes, I agree with that. Those conscious, rational thought processes can change how we feel, that's the principle that CBT is based on. We can do it; most of the time we don't need to, because our cognitions work as they 'should' and don't cause us any problems, so they continue to do their thing without intervention, or even awareness, from us. When they do cause us problems, it requires a conscious effort to re-shape them in that instance (when we become aware of them), which in turn alters the emotion attached.In the 7th grade when I started lusting after the boys and not the girls, I surely didn't think about that, it's what happened to me, that's how it felt.
Yes, you experienced the feeling of lust. My point is that it didn't arise spontaneously in you, devoid of any kind of thought process. It's true that you weren't aware of that process, but neither can you be said to be aware that you have just perceived a loud noise as a threat to your life and decided to get yourself ready to run before you jumped out of your skin and your stomach leapt into your mouth. As far as you are aware, you just heard the noise and felt scared or shocked. Only after that did you begin to consciously form an idea or narrative about what just happened.Emotions aren't something you do, they are something that happens.
Yes, they are something that happens as a result of cognition - I don't know if you read my post above, but I think the example I use there is quite useful in elucidating what I'm on about. You feel lust when you look at men, but why doesn't a straight man? It's the same stimulus. Same stimulus, different emotional response. Is that just random, or might cognition explain it?I don't see how babies thinking before they talk could be contentious either. I tend to go with Chomsky who posits language could very well have come long before anyone ever tried to communicate with anyone else. The advantages of having an internal language are vast, e.g., memory aid, categorizing/organizing aid, etc. Who do we 'converse' with by far the most? It's ourselves. The species may have gone for a long period before they managed to develop an external mechanism, a language, allowing for the added huge benefit of communication. Babies thinking before they speak makes perfect sense to me. I'm really curious to hear what you think of Chomsky's idea.
Well, from my pretty ill-informed position, I appear to be in general agreement with it. There was a thread here, though, where people disagreed that thought came before language.
They argued no thought before language? Well, I have to call that daft also. Really daft. They must have some rather unusual definition of 'thought' What exactly were our pre-language brains doing while awake and never having a 'thought'?
I think mostly we disagree on whether emotions are derived from some kind of reasoned choice. You say, "Only after that did you begin to consciously form an idea or narrative about what just happened." That is probably true, but does it have any certainty of being correct, or is it an ad hoc thing the brain does to make sense of what it has already done? Split brain folk do some really weird unbelievable rationalizing in their half of the brain that wasn't responsible for some action that it perceives the whole person did in fact do. Some of the problem as I think I see it, is the uncertainty over whether an unconscious behavior is the result of some reasoned choice by the unconscious mind that we can recover consciously later and even alter, like CBT. CBT works, for some people, but others seem unable to make it work. It's usually blamed on their not having tried consistently enough, but there is also evidence that it just isn't workable for other. I think, I've only seen limited information about this topic. You seem to imply, though, that you should be able to change your sexual orientation through something like CBT? I don't think you would say that, but it seems the implication of what you wrote. I would say that a lot of our emotions are not amenable to control, not changing them thoroughly.
This is one of those arguments that is too hard to do well like this, it really requires a face to face exchange.
It's really down to your statement:
In my view they're [emotions] not thought processes at all, rational or otherwise. They're the result of un-/pre-/non-conscious thought processes.
and what it means. What are un/pre/non-conscious thought processes? Since no one really has any idea, we probably shouldn't be arguing too much about it. I'm now at a point where I don't even know what I think anymore, maybe because it's 4:30 am and haven't gotten t sleep yet.