And even if I were telepathic, I wouldn’t know for sure that what I sensed other people as feeling was really how their feelings feel to them, as opposed to just how my telepathy interprets how their feelings feel to them. For that matter, I don’t even know for sure that my emotions feel the same from moment to moment; it might be that when my emotions change my memories also change.
And there’s some precedent here. I’ve had the experience of thinking that my emotions were similar to other people’s emotions, and then later changing my mind. For example, before my first experience with grief, I saw people experiencing grief and understood them to be experiencing what I thought of as sadness, and figured they just called it grief because someone they loved had died and that’s what we call sadness under those circumstances. Then someone I loved died, and I realized that no, grief is a different feeling… and have since then had the experience of feeling grief in unexpected situations.
So, maybe you’re right. Heck, maybe there are thousands or millions or billions of distinct human emotions that we call “sadness”, but no one person ever experiences more than one of them, so we mistakenly conclude that we’re all experiencing the same emotion.
But in the absence of evidence indicating that, I’ll probably go on assuming there’s just one entity.
For that matter, I don’t even know for sure that my emotions feel the same from moment to moment; it might be that when my emotions change my memories also change.
While not impossible, that seems a bit of a stretch. Emotions can change, memories can change; but that they do so in sync seems rather unlikely.
But in the absence of evidence indicating that, I’ll probably go on assuming there’s just one entity.
I think you’ve provided evidence in that very same post:
For example, before my first experience with grief, I saw people experiencing grief and understood them to be experiencing what I thought of as sadness, and figured they just called it grief because someone they loved had died and that’s what we call sadness under those circumstances. Then someone I loved died, and I realized that no, grief is a different feeling… and have since then had the experience of feeling grief in unexpected situations.
That is to say, you thought you understood the emotions of others; then you realised that your understanding of emotions had been incomplete, and updated it.
The emotions of others didn’t change in that interval; what changed was that you had experienced grief.
...
Mind you, I’m not sure it really makes all that much difference, whether you think other people’s emotions are the same as yours or not. Other people’s emotions are presumably as important to them as yours are to you; though the fine shading of exactly what they feel like may be different, sadness is still unpleasant and happiness is still pleasant. (Fright is an interesting one; I personally find it very unpleasant, but I notice that some people choose to go and watch horror movies).
Emotions can change, memories can change; but that they do so in sync seems rather unlikely.
Oh, I don’t know. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to speculate that, rather than store a complete representation of my subjective emotional experiences in memory for every moment I remember, what my brain actually does is store references to my range of possible emotional states, such that when my range of possible emotional states changes I experience all of those memories differently.
But I certainly agree that it’s not a parsimonious explanation. Simpler to posit that my brain only has one set of emotions which it uses at all times. Similarly, simpler to posit that for a set of two brains that share an architecture.
That is to say, you thought you understood the emotions of others; then you realised that your understanding of emotions had been incomplete, and updated it. The emotions of others didn’t change in that interval; what changed was that you had experienced grief.
Right, absolutely. I received evidence that my previous emotional range didn’t actually map effectively to someone else’s, and I updated my beliefs accordingly. There are other cases of that as well… for example, I’ve never been a parent, but from watching the behavior and self-reports of my friends who have children, I’m pretty sure that the emotional relationship between parents and their children, though we call it “love”, is not really the same thing as the other emotional relationships we call “love,” and is probably something I have never experienced.
But I don’t conclude from that that none of my emotional experiences map to anyone else’s. In the absence of any evidence that my experience of sadness is different from other people’s, I go on assuming that there’s just one entity.
Mind you, I’m not sure it really makes all that much difference
Agreed. But you asked me why I believe what I believe, so I tried to answer.
Oh, I don’t know. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to speculate that, … what my brain actually does is store references to my range of possible emotional states
Huh. That sounds… very reasonable, really. Of course, it requires that your emotional states be quantised, seperatable into neatly labelled boxes.
It’s possible.
But I certainly agree that it’s not a parsimonious explanation. Simpler to posit that my brain only has one set of emotions which it uses at all times. Similarly, simpler to posit that for a set of two brains that share an architecture.
Hmmm. There is a lot of evidence that other people’s brains do not, as a rule, share the same architecture. See Generalising from one example for a brief discussion of the matter; or have a look at this comment thread in which Baughn and I try to find out just how different the way we think is. It’s very different, to the point where we both appear to have some trouble understanding how someone can think like that.
There’s certainly enough evidence to satisfy me that a lot of people’s brains work in different ways; I’d go so far as to think that the way human brains work probably varies more-or-less about as much as people’s faces do; that is, there are certain features all arranged in more-or-less the same manner, and you might find one or two who are very similar, but no-one’s ever exactly the same.
And since emotions are very likely affected by neural architecture, I assume a similar level of variability there. It’s not that my emotional experiences don’t map to anyone else’s; it’s that the map is merely a poor approximation, and not a representation of someone else’s genuine emotional state.
I’m pretty sure that the emotional relationship between parents and their children, though we call it “love”, is not really the same thing as the other emotional relationships we call “love,” and is probably something I have never experienced.
I’ve been told that the ancient Greeks had different words for different types of love; romantic, familial, etc., etc. This strikes me as very sensible.
Agreed. But you asked me why I believe what I believe, so I tried to answer.
(shrug) Naturally, I don’t know for sure.
And even if I were telepathic, I wouldn’t know for sure that what I sensed other people as feeling was really how their feelings feel to them, as opposed to just how my telepathy interprets how their feelings feel to them. For that matter, I don’t even know for sure that my emotions feel the same from moment to moment; it might be that when my emotions change my memories also change.
And there’s some precedent here. I’ve had the experience of thinking that my emotions were similar to other people’s emotions, and then later changing my mind. For example, before my first experience with grief, I saw people experiencing grief and understood them to be experiencing what I thought of as sadness, and figured they just called it grief because someone they loved had died and that’s what we call sadness under those circumstances. Then someone I loved died, and I realized that no, grief is a different feeling… and have since then had the experience of feeling grief in unexpected situations.
So, maybe you’re right. Heck, maybe there are thousands or millions or billions of distinct human emotions that we call “sadness”, but no one person ever experiences more than one of them, so we mistakenly conclude that we’re all experiencing the same emotion.
But in the absence of evidence indicating that, I’ll probably go on assuming there’s just one entity.
While not impossible, that seems a bit of a stretch. Emotions can change, memories can change; but that they do so in sync seems rather unlikely.
I think you’ve provided evidence in that very same post:
That is to say, you thought you understood the emotions of others; then you realised that your understanding of emotions had been incomplete, and updated it.
The emotions of others didn’t change in that interval; what changed was that you had experienced grief.
...
Mind you, I’m not sure it really makes all that much difference, whether you think other people’s emotions are the same as yours or not. Other people’s emotions are presumably as important to them as yours are to you; though the fine shading of exactly what they feel like may be different, sadness is still unpleasant and happiness is still pleasant. (Fright is an interesting one; I personally find it very unpleasant, but I notice that some people choose to go and watch horror movies).
Oh, I don’t know. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to speculate that, rather than store a complete representation of my subjective emotional experiences in memory for every moment I remember, what my brain actually does is store references to my range of possible emotional states, such that when my range of possible emotional states changes I experience all of those memories differently.
But I certainly agree that it’s not a parsimonious explanation. Simpler to posit that my brain only has one set of emotions which it uses at all times. Similarly, simpler to posit that for a set of two brains that share an architecture.
Right, absolutely. I received evidence that my previous emotional range didn’t actually map effectively to someone else’s, and I updated my beliefs accordingly. There are other cases of that as well… for example, I’ve never been a parent, but from watching the behavior and self-reports of my friends who have children, I’m pretty sure that the emotional relationship between parents and their children, though we call it “love”, is not really the same thing as the other emotional relationships we call “love,” and is probably something I have never experienced.
But I don’t conclude from that that none of my emotional experiences map to anyone else’s. In the absence of any evidence that my experience of sadness is different from other people’s, I go on assuming that there’s just one entity.
Agreed. But you asked me why I believe what I believe, so I tried to answer.
Huh. That sounds… very reasonable, really. Of course, it requires that your emotional states be quantised, seperatable into neatly labelled boxes.
It’s possible.
Hmmm. There is a lot of evidence that other people’s brains do not, as a rule, share the same architecture. See Generalising from one example for a brief discussion of the matter; or have a look at this comment thread in which Baughn and I try to find out just how different the way we think is. It’s very different, to the point where we both appear to have some trouble understanding how someone can think like that.
There’s certainly enough evidence to satisfy me that a lot of people’s brains work in different ways; I’d go so far as to think that the way human brains work probably varies more-or-less about as much as people’s faces do; that is, there are certain features all arranged in more-or-less the same manner, and you might find one or two who are very similar, but no-one’s ever exactly the same.
And since emotions are very likely affected by neural architecture, I assume a similar level of variability there. It’s not that my emotional experiences don’t map to anyone else’s; it’s that the map is merely a poor approximation, and not a representation of someone else’s genuine emotional state.
I’ve been told that the ancient Greeks had different words for different types of love; romantic, familial, etc., etc. This strikes me as very sensible.
Quite. This is a very interesting discussion.