In my mind, there’s a difference between “conversation was valuable” and “conversation was fun”. They often go together, but not necessarily so.
Valuable: The best thing I can come up with is something like: my understanding has grown thanks to this conversation, or I have seen a bigger picture (not necessarily being able to legibilize/verbalize this new piece of my understanding). I feel like my mind is drawn to the inquiry, especially when it’s challenging, but I’m having some minimum of traction to keep me going and retain mostly positive valence.
Fun: Some sort of intellectual/cognitive camaraderie (“meeting of minds”) is often a big part of the fun. Not even super high-falluting bluesky conversations, I can bond with someone by helping them fix a pernicious bug in code. Something something, we are acting a bit more like one superagent that is trying to do something through conversation or spread one part’s understanding to other parts?
Part 2
I mostly don’t feel emotions in my body that much, at least much less so than other people, and when I do, it’s usually either clearly negative emotions (strong stress, panic) or “raw”/ambiguous excitement/arousal. (If it feels like part 1 doesn’t quite answer your question, that’s why (though it might also be some sort of skill issue on my side, lol).) So, no, no warm fuzzy feelings in my chest.
There’s two main categories, but they both have in common a kind of “flow state” where attention and awareness are focused onto the other person. The two categories are:
Flirting, where the back and forth comes from signalling sexual/romantic interest
Productive intellectual discussion with an equal, where the back and forth comes from sharing evidence and updating
The qualia for me for conversations is usually not pronouncedly “a warm feeling in chest” (it is noticeably different from what I call “Deep/Meaningful Limerence” which I think you’re pointing at).
Three distinct flavor of good conversation:
alive, creative, magnetic vibrant conversation (I think I might describe part of this as slightly warm chest, I don’t quite remember, I haven’t had it recently. But it’s more the qualia of traditional excitement than warm connection”. (I bet you have these conversations occasionally, or at least ever have, and they correlate more with obvious John values)
slightly nice sitting-around-living-room or restaurant/bar or campfire vibes (shallow)
somewhat-more-nice sitting around living-room/campfire vibes where the conversation is sort of “deep”, in a way that multiple people are talking about something either emotionally confusing, or psychologically fraught, or “meaning-making”-ish.
I expect #3 (less confidently than #1) to be somewhat obviously valuable to you in some circumstances regardless of qualia. But, it does have some particular qualia that’s like (hrm, probably can’t remember actual biological phenomenology right now), but, like, spacious, relaxed, I think there’s maybe some kind of feeling in my chest but I don’t have a good word for it.
#2… I think might have a very mild version of “warm feeling in chest”. Or, I think it does feel warm but I think it’s more distributed throughout my body.
But I think #2 more importantly for me is like: “there is an actively (slightly) bad qualia to not-having-had-nice-livingroom-conversations lately” which is, like, feeling sort of blah, or just somewhat less vibrant. If I have something to be socially anxious about, lack of recent #2 makes it worse.
It’s different: sometimes it’s spacious calmness of being able to sit in silence together; sometimes warm feelings of seeing and being seen, when discussing something private with a good friend; or just listening to a really good story. IIRC I also included dates into conversations back then, they have a different dynamic, where a lot of pleasure is feeling a young beautiful woman being with me.
— this is a very particular feeling you have and those differ a lot in where they appear for different people, how they feel and what they’re about. Not having seen other people’s answers I‘d bet your hypothesis to be wrong.
I’m returning to this thread to check a new hypothesis.
For those who said top ~10% of conversations are high value: what’s the felt experience during those conversations?
In particular (this is a question about a specific hypothesis, please read it only after considering the first question in order to avoid anchoring):
is there a sort of warm fuzzy feeling in your chest directed at the other participants, and does the bulk of the value derive from that feeling?
Tagging people who had useful answers previously and whose answers to this question I’d like to hear: @Selfmaker662 @Elizabeth @J Bostock @Mateusz Bagiński
Part 1
In my mind, there’s a difference between “conversation was valuable” and “conversation was fun”. They often go together, but not necessarily so.
Valuable: The best thing I can come up with is something like: my understanding has grown thanks to this conversation, or I have seen a bigger picture (not necessarily being able to legibilize/verbalize this new piece of my understanding). I feel like my mind is drawn to the inquiry, especially when it’s challenging, but I’m having some minimum of traction to keep me going and retain mostly positive valence.
Fun: Some sort of intellectual/cognitive camaraderie (“meeting of minds”) is often a big part of the fun. Not even super high-falluting bluesky conversations, I can bond with someone by helping them fix a pernicious bug in code. Something something, we are acting a bit more like one superagent that is trying to do something through conversation or spread one part’s understanding to other parts?
Part 2
I mostly don’t feel emotions in my body that much, at least much less so than other people, and when I do, it’s usually either clearly negative emotions (strong stress, panic) or “raw”/ambiguous excitement/arousal. (If it feels like part 1 doesn’t quite answer your question, that’s why (though it might also be some sort of skill issue on my side, lol).) So, no, no warm fuzzy feelings in my chest.
Spoilered to avoid anchoring:
There’s two main categories, but they both have in common a kind of “flow state” where attention and awareness are focused onto the other person. The two categories are:
Flirting, where the back and forth comes from signalling sexual/romantic interest
Productive intellectual discussion with an equal, where the back and forth comes from sharing evidence and updating
The qualia for me for conversations is usually not pronouncedly “a warm feeling in chest” (it is noticeably different from what I call “Deep/Meaningful Limerence” which I think you’re pointing at).
Three distinct flavor of good conversation:
alive, creative, magnetic vibrant conversation (I think I might describe part of this as slightly warm chest, I don’t quite remember, I haven’t had it recently. But it’s more the qualia of traditional excitement than warm connection”. (I bet you have these conversations occasionally, or at least ever have, and they correlate more with obvious John values)
slightly nice sitting-around-living-room or restaurant/bar or campfire vibes (shallow)
somewhat-more-nice sitting around living-room/campfire vibes where the conversation is sort of “deep”, in a way that multiple people are talking about something either emotionally confusing, or psychologically fraught, or “meaning-making”-ish.
I expect #3 (less confidently than #1) to be somewhat obviously valuable to you in some circumstances regardless of qualia. But, it does have some particular qualia that’s like (hrm, probably can’t remember actual biological phenomenology right now), but, like, spacious, relaxed, I think there’s maybe some kind of feeling in my chest but I don’t have a good word for it.
#2… I think might have a very mild version of “warm feeling in chest”. Or, I think it does feel warm but I think it’s more distributed throughout my body.
But I think #2 more importantly for me is like: “there is an actively (slightly) bad qualia to not-having-had-nice-livingroom-conversations lately” which is, like, feeling sort of blah, or just somewhat less vibrant. If I have something to be socially anxious about, lack of recent #2 makes it worse.
It’s different: sometimes it’s spacious calmness of being able to sit in silence together; sometimes warm feelings of seeing and being seen, when discussing something private with a good friend; or just listening to a really good story. IIRC I also included dates into conversations back then, they have a different dynamic, where a lot of pleasure is feeling a young beautiful woman being with me.
— this is a very particular feeling you have and those differ a lot in where they appear for different people, how they feel and what they’re about. Not having seen other people’s answers I‘d bet your hypothesis to be wrong.