Ghost and chronic emotions

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From the course by Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Emotions: a Philosophical Introduction

169 ratings

Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Emotions: a Philosophical Introduction

169 ratings

Philosophy is like sex: sure you can get some interesting results, but that's not why we do it. Going one step beyond…why do you FEEL pain or pleasure? Do plants have emotions? How is possible that some people do not understand other’s emotions? Emotions seem to be everywhere, giving meaning to all events of our lives. They are the backbone of social activities as well as they drive the cognitive processes of several living entities. Several animals, including humans, have emotions but…what about machines?...Do machine can have emotions? This course will help you to understand and to identify most important philosophical ideas and debates about emotions, as well as it will provide you a rich source of data about neurological, psychological or anthropological analysis of emotions. In a nutshell: this is a course to feel and think about.

From the lesson

What does a plant feel?

Not only humans do have emotions. Other mammals have also them. And even insects. But do plants have emotions? Even bacteria, a so small entity, have also these emotional mechanisms. An evolutionary reconstruction will understand to understand how emotions are spread among living entities.

From nonsense to sense? A bacterial dilemma5:42

Animal emotion8:40

The qualia problem10:17

Conscious vs Unconscious emotions6:27

Ghost and chronic emotions6:11

Meet the Instructors

Jordi Vallverdú
Professor Dr.
Philosophy Department

[MUSIC]

Yes.

We are arriving to the last session of this week in which we will talk about.

What we know.

We, we'll talk about what the difference and

intrinsic analysis on ghost and chronic emotions.

So, what is an ghost emotion?

It's an information.

It's an emotion that is

the processing of information without a real cause,

without a, da, a real justification of it, ex, if, its existence.

Is in an analogy I've created in order to explain emotions.

That happens without a real content, a real, at least,

bodily content that, that justifies the existence of these emotions.

For, for example, our, our, our, can be acti, activated by simulations of the mind

and are really not exactly mental analogies of real actions.

In which I can imagine that something is happening and then even in,

in not real scenario I can imagine that a, a possible scenario and I react to that.

But even at this simulated scenario

I'm really checking real pieces and sets of information.

But I'm talking, I'm not talking about this, I'm talking about when an emotional

disposition emerge without any related elicitor.

No?

So, I can explain you this, with very easy examples.

For example, few cases, when people is logging without real codes, or for

example when we are feeling.

An unexpected and an, inadequate pleasant experiences.

For example, when somebody is crying pathologically

when all these kind of emotional actions are performed.

We cannot identify a real elicitor of these action and

they happen because all them, all the emotional machinery,

all the emotional architecture of our body can be elicitate,

elicited by a very specific and and expected.

Numeral processes.

For example, we have,

we can identify that people that is suffering from Angelman syndrome,

schizophrenia, Kreutzfeld-Jacob disease, Alzheimer dementia, Wilson disease,

multiple sclerosis, traumatisms, Parkinson, you can see the list.

It's unnecessary I read all the, all the list.

All these people suffering from a malfunctioning of their

processing systems can experience some kinds of emotions that

has not a real correlate that could be expected from.

Bodily changes, or social changes, or even internal state.

They're just triggered by non-usual cases.

And this, in that case, they are ghost emotions that happens without this real

explanation, at least from a physical perspective.

Secondly I will try that you think on something like the chronic

pain, the chronic emotions in which we can try, an informa..

Informational process, that has not value for the, for

the person who is receiving this information.

For example, when, when you, we feel pain is because our body is

alerting us of something that is happening to our body.

But if nothing happens to our body, and our body sends the pain,

a signal, then our brain has not an idea what, what is happening?

It's a false positive.

Why do you, are.

Telling me that something happened when it's, it's not the case.

And just, imagine that it, it not only happened one time, but

happens, for 6 months, for 2 years or even for a whole life.

Then, the, these kinds of emotional signals has no value

because the pain, the painful input.

We're designed in order to create some time of, of, of reactions.

But a continuous stream of pain is is not

interesting or useful for the being, because it's really a,

a bad signal concerning all, all the,

all the possible ways by which this kind of information could be e even useful,

or can you even hide moments in which more real.

Pain could happen in our bodies.

Then we could not able to react because of, of more

intense signal, like a chronic pain is a, it's hearing this kind of, of signal.

So.

Unexpectly, we can see that the emotional processing that happens in our,

in our brains sometimes really goes crazy and loses its functionality.

For example, with ghost pain or with chronic pain.

At the same time, we can see that emotional content is even able.

To exist without reasonable,

cost, at least from an evolutionary or social point of view.

Well thank you so much again for being here and

I hope to see you during the next week.

Bye.

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