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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!mcnc!rti-sel!wfi
From: wfi@rti-sel.UUCP (William Ingogly)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: Responsibility and blame
Message-ID: <317@rti-sel.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 30-Jul-85 12:31:58 EDT
Article-I.D.: rti-sel.317
Posted: Tue Jul 30 12:31:58 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 2-Aug-85 00:39:26 EDT
References: <750@ihuxa.UUCP> <1637@hao.UUCP> <882@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP> <287@tove.UUCP>
Reply-To: wfi@rti-sel.UUCP (William Ingogly)
Organization: Research Triangle Institute, NC
Lines: 59
Summary: 

In article <287@tove.UUCP> israel@tove.UUCP (Bruce israel) writes:

> ...
>I don't consider the statement "you yourself cause your emotions" to be
>"quite obviously" wrong, and in fact, I consider it "quite obviously"
>correct!  After all, these emotions don't come from anywhere external to
>your physical being, so obviously they must stem from you internally.  Now
>what I'm saying is a far cry from saying that you CONSCIOUSLY decide on
>your emotions.  We obviously don't wake up in the morning and say "Hmmmm, I
>think that I'll be depressed today!" :-) ...
>Anyone know anything about a concept called General Semantics?

The extent to which people writing in this group get balled up in
semantics always astounds me. Think about the assumptions you're both
making when interpreting the statement

             you yourself cause your emotions

For starters, what is `you'? What exactly does `cause' imply in this
context? And what precisely are `emotions'? The definitions of these
concepts are not necessarily obvious or universally accepted. For
example:

     you      - Some people might argue that `you' are defined
                by the stimuli your organism is receiving and
                the responses to those stimuli. Don't assume
                that everyone reading your posting agrees that
                a little thing called Free Will exists (this
                debate is older than our civilization, people).
                How do YOU define `you', and how do you defend
                that definition?

    cause     - What is it exactly that's doing the causing?
                Are you assuming there's a little man/woman in
                your head that's making you do the things you
                do in response to some secret and mysterious
                agenda, or that your actions are the result of
                some internal random response generator (i.e.,
                so-called `Free Will')? Or do you agree perhaps
                that there's a causal chain or network of events 
                that leads from your recent experiences and not-
                so-recent experiences to your current responses 
                (including emotions)?

  emotions    - What exactly are emotions? They're internal states,
                but how do they differ from other internal states?
                Why separate internal responses/states from behaviors
                that have an external effect? Is feeling the internal
                sensation we call anger different qualitatively from
                a striking out with the hand when a physical attack
                occurs (or replace with an example using your favorite
                emotion/physical response)? Or is the difference
                merely an arbitrary distinction we've learned to
                make?

I don't think there are any quick and dirty answers to these
questions; they involve our nature and have been debated for thousands
of years. 
                           -- Cheers, Bill Ingogly