Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!hao!gatech!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!bbn!rochester!cornell!batcomputer!pyramid!thirdi!sarge
From: sarge@thirdi.UUCP (Sarge Gerbode)
Newsgroups: sci.psychology
Subject: Re: Emotion
Message-ID: <355@thirdi.UUCP>
Date: 19 Mar 88 21:27:47 GMT
References: <44@gollum.Columbia.NCR.COM> <2100@phred.UUCP> <2103@phred.UUCP> <962@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu>
Reply-To: sarge@thirdi.UUCP (Sarge Gerbode)
Organization: Institute for Research in Metapsychology
Lines: 33
Keywords: emotion drives physiology consciousness
Summary: Can there really be "unconscious emotion"?

In article <962@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu> vu0112@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu
(Cliff Joslyn) writes:

>>According to the (poor) definitions that I have found, emotion
>>results when a cognitive drive towards some definite object is either
>>frustrated or satisfied.

That's my view also, but I would be interested in some references to support
it.

>I disagree, and assert that I can have unconscious or at least
>subconscious emotions (not denying that emotion is frequently (usually?)
>associated with self-awareness).  For example, when I slip on the
>stairs, I get a surge of adrenalin, and my emotional state instantly
>changes to one of fear and exhiliration.

I guess to believe in "unconscious emotion", one would have to look upon
emotion as a physiological state, of which one could be conscious or
unconscious.  But supposing that emotion is thought of as an *experience* of
some kind (as, I think, it is commonly viewed).  What would qualify as an
"unconscious experience"?  On the face of it, that would seem to be a
contradiction in terms, since an experience is something of which one is
conscious.

If emotion isn't just a physiological state, and if it isn't part of one's
experience, then I find it hard to understand what it might be.
-- 
"Absolute knowledge means never having to change your mind."

Sarge Gerbode
Institute for Research in Metapsychology
950 Guinda St.
Palo Alto, CA 94301
UUCP:  pyramid!thirdi!sarge