Part 1
This essay concerns my personal efforts to provide concrete descriptions and quantifications of the human emotional experience. It is based on various sources of information including practiced introspection, discussions with friends and acquaintances, published literature, and my own expertise in mathematical and physical models and model building. Here I am referring to the practice of theoretical physics and the application of predictive mathematical models to describe the physical world of human experiences in quantitative ways. For example, the mathematics of Newtonian mechanics, the mechanics of motion, quantifies and predicts our experience with moving bodies, a falling hammer or the orbital motions of the moon and stars. By analogy we will asking the question: Is there a mechanics of emotion?
The point of view of this discussion will be qualitative, quantitative, and constructive. The goal being the construction of a model. By model I mean a geometrical-mathematical representation of the state-space of the human emotional world, measures of the emotional state under given circumstances at a given time, and perhaps predictive methods that would follow the evolution of emotions and feelings with the passage of time and the accumulation of experience.
The experience of emotion in our lives is a time dependent cognitive phenomenon. As such, it can be described verbally by individuals. We, if asked, can usually describe our awareness of a collection of qualitatively distinct emotions, and an intensity of feeling associated with a given emotion. Here we must distinguish emotion and feeling. We experience emotions in both mental and physiological ways. For example, when we experience the emotion of desire we can experience an associated collection of physiological symptoms. Change of heart rate, muscular tension in the chest and abdominal region, changes in the endocrine system’s function, nervous system activity resulting in sensations in various parts of the body, especially in dermal and sub-dermal tissues, are all symptoms of our mental emotional state and its evolution.
The various bodily sensations, or physiological symptoms associated with a specific emotional state are our feelings. The distinction is that emotion is experienced in the mental world as a mental state, and our associated physical feelings are bodily manifestations of that mental state. Thus we can experience a burning desire as a concrete and intense collection of physiological responses whose magnitude is one measure of the intensity of our emotion, desire. Thus emotions and feelings though distinct are so intimately connected that the distinction may be difficult or unnecessary to perceive in our day to day experience.
Generally, the state of our emotions can be regarded as the cause and the associated physical feelings the response. Because of the close interconnection of emotion and feeling as we describe them here, one can ask if the cause-effect relationship can operate in the reverse direction. The answer is yes. We will discuss this further below. Suffice it to say that the Buddhist concept of the oneness of mind and body has validity in the context of our discussion.
Now we can proceed to the description of the dimensions, or elements, of the human emotional state. The dimensions of the emotional world are the individual distinct emotions. The collection of all possible emotions that we can experience is then a multi-dimensional space. How many distinct emotions are there? Three, eight, eleven, infinity, or what? The answer gives us the number of dimensions in the emotional universe. What are their names? Do we all experience them and do we experience them all? These are some of the questions that we must answer in this section.
First let us collect the various emotions by name. I have often asked professional therapists or other experts, how many emotions are there anyway? And can we name all of the emotions? Though we all experience many of them on a daily basis, it is very interesting and significant that our ability to access cognitive awareness and verbalize this experience can be surprisingly difficult. Nevertheless, it is straightforward to start to collect them.
In the following we will list the words that are attached to particular distinct human emotions.
But before reading on, I would ask the reader to take a moment and a sheet of paper and write down all the emotions you can think of. See how many you can come up with in a few minutes.
Ok, do you have your pen and paper, or an open blank Word document ready? Here is a hint, emotions often come in pairs of polar opposites. Good, now you can start. I shall wait for you here a this paragraph break.
…waiting …. Hmmm ummm da da …. Oook well…. And ….time is up… put your pencils down…
How many did you list? Did you find it difficult, or not?
As I am writing this, I have done the same as I asked of you, gentle reader. Here it is.
My quick stream-of-consciousness list including some duplication and overlap:
QUICK LIST: Love, hate, happiness, sadness, anger, gladness, desire, epiphany, compassion, mercy, caring, joy, horror, treasuring, courage, cowardice, determination, weakness, strength, anxiety, fear, avarice, covetousness, jealousy, rage, serenity, peace, pleasure, pain, empathy, hostility, loneliness, companionship, terror, astonishment, surprise, domination, submission, fulfillment, disappointment, loss, pride, shame, and so on.
A total of 43 words describing particular emotions. I find it difficult to get started, after the first few items I tend to go blank, then more come and so on. Was your experience like mine? Do tell me in this blog section.
And now back to work…
This is a first cut at the problem, almost a guess, as to the composition of a sufficiently exhaustive collection of distinct human emotions. It represents simply a place to start. Ultimately we will need an exhaustive yet minimal list of main distinct emotions to serve as basis dimensions in our model of the human emotional state.
In the following post we will discuss the connection between language, grammar, and the emotional world. In the context of our listing exercise, the dictionary will be helpful in our efforts to refine and extend the quick list above.
I will stop here in my narrative…its time for lunch.
TO BE CONTINUED.
Thursday May 3, 2007
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