Which came first? emotions or thoughts?

[squidbreath]

Or rather: which drives which one first? (subconscious thoughts count too, although I'm sure there are other factors)

e.g. If I think about muffins, I'm likely to feel happy.
If I wake up cranky, I'm likely to think about swearwords.



Except I woke up confused with this question this morning, help please?

[DraPrime]

Is it necessarily an either/or sort of thing?

[factotum]

Yeah, I'm with Dragonprime here...seems to me it can be either way round depending on circumstances. If you're feeling unhappy to start with then you're likely to have negative thoughts, but it's just as possible that having negative thoughts could drive you to feel unhappy.

[Dr. Bath]

Depends what you think of as thoughts. Because the most basic ones such as eat, sleep etc that direct the body would inevitably come before emotions which are really just a very complicated form of thought (probably subconcious? Not so sure)... wait we're not talking about the production of sentience are we? Wooops.

Uh I dunno they both effect each other really. You can't really have a 'first' because emotions are underlying all other thought. Your thoughts can then alter the emotion, and vice versa, but they don't always. I don't think there's much more than a broad relationship between the two.

[Mikhailangelo]

Intelligence is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions.


Emotion tells you what you want. Intellect and thought tells you how to get it.

[Lord Raziere]

Intelligence is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions.


Emotion tells you what you want. Intellect and thought tells you how to get it.

Aye, denying your desires is denying your soul.

as for the op's question….well we will have to look animals to figure out that question.

we know that animals feel

we know that animals also think, not as complex as us, but still they think.

question is, can you have feelings without thought? can you have thought without feelings?

well for that we have to observe that one can suppress and turn off their emotions to look at things purely analytically, which humanity does surprisingly often.

the question becomes however, when someone is at their most emotional and impulsive, do they stop thinking?

[Morph Bark]

The way you phrase the thread title question suggests you mean it in an evolutionary way, but the way you phrase the OP suggests you mean it in an everyday life way in the here and now. The answer heavily depends on which of the two you wish to inquire more about.

[Ravens_cry]

Both, though emotions tend to come before thought, at least in my experience, though the reverse, thinking about something and getting an emotional reaction, is hardly unknown either.

[Devils_Advocate]

Intelligence is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions.

Aye, denying your desires is denying your soul.
COUNTERPOINT. (http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=1560)

[Karoht]

Flight or Fight response probably came first in our evolutionary progression. Built into survival instincts and whatnot.
Instinctual actions light up a different part of the brain than conscious thought.
Therefore the instinct and response to stimuli probably comes before the conscious thought.

You feel fear before you are consciously aware of why you might be afraid, you just know that it's time to GTFO and run for it.

[Othesemo]

Why should one necessarily come first? A fair number of non-western cultures don't even draw a distinction between them.

Regardless, I'm with Hume here. I consider emotions necessary to use one's intellect and intellect necessary to use one's emotions. I do not believe that it is possible to act solely on one or the other.

[Morph Bark]

Personally, I think hormones came first. :V

[thubby]

i would argue emotions are thoughts.

[tensai_oni]

Intelligence is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions.


Emotion tells you what you want. Intellect and thought tells you how to get it.

More like, emotions want a billion things at once, and it's for intellect to sieve out things that are useless or put you in trouble, and then pick from what little remains.

[Toastkart]

The human brain is a very complex organ. There isn't really an easy answer to the question posed.


The James-Lange theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James-Lange_theory) says that emotions are the result of physiological changes caused by the environment. There are a lot of criticisms of this theory and it is generally considered outdated by a large portion of the field of psychology.

The two-factor theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-factor_theory_of_emotion) says that emotions are a combination of cognitive thought processes and relevant environmental cues. It's not without its criticisms.

The Cannon-Bard theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannon-Bard_theory) states that emotions are the function of the thalamic region and limbic systems in the brain and that physiological responses and emotions can and do occur separately from each other.

Personally, I think this theory is the most accurate based on our current understanding. We can think about our environment and our physiological responses to it, we can think about our emotions. Our emotions can influence our thought processes and our actions in our environment.

Now, that's all before you get to the fiddly bits. Activation of the sympathetic nervous system (the fight or flight response) throws all of that out of whack. Reactions are based purely on stimulus, there isn't a lot of thinking or emotions going on.


You feel fear before you are consciously aware of why you might be afraid, you just know that it's time to GTFO and run for it.

While I don't have any specific evidence to back this up, I would think that, at least initially, you aren't thinking or feeling anything. The sympathetic nervous system is kind of like a reflex in that way. It's only later that you interpret it as fear.

Thinking is something that is still not well understood. Libet's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Libet) work with readiness potentials suggest that the impulse to act occurs approximately .35 seconds before we're consciously aware of it, however, criticisms of his methodology point out that there is a huge incongruity between when he can objectively measure a readiness potential and when a person can subjectively report it.



i would argue emotions are thoughts.
This isn't really substantiated by what we know of neurophysiology. The thalamus, the limbic system, the amygdala and a few other areas in the frontal lobe are the areas most responsible for emotion. By contrast, conscious thoughts and decision making seem to be mostly influenced by the orbito-frontal and prefrontal areas of the cortex. Very close together, but through the infliction of lesions or brain damage in specific areas, you can be left with impaired function of one or the other.

[Moonshadow]

The chicken came first.

[Lord Raziere]

COUNTERPOINT. (http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=1560)

Counter-Counterpoint:
And if your desires are bad, then clearly your soul is bad too, and needs healing.

in short? be true to yourself, but also make sure that your self is a good self.

[squidbreath]

Love your responses, I'm definitely more enlightened now. :smallwink:


...

Thanks, now I've got science to read :D (So basically it depends on the complexity of the emotion e.g. secondary / primary etc?)


The way you phrase the thread title question suggests you mean it in an evolutionary way, but the way you phrase the OP suggests you mean it in an everyday life way in the here and now. The answer heavily depends on which of the two you wish to inquire more about.

Both, but probably the second.


i would argue emotions are thoughts.

Why would you say that? *curious

[Mx.Silver]

Intelligence is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions.

Emotion tells you what you want. Intellect and thought tells you how to get it.
Yeah, no. While that's all very well for harmless or pro-social passions, the problem is quite a lot of passions don't run in that direction.
Without subjecting passions to some form of intellectual scrutiny - which pretty much requires putting intelligence ahead of passion - there's no real way of determining whether or not your desires are ones that should be acted upon. There's also the fact that passions tend not be driven by much in the way of long-term considerations.

[valadil]

I've been reading Mind's I, which is a collection of essays and stories on consciousness. The most recent one was relevant. It asserted that the human mind cannot possibly be logically consistent as it's developed ad-hoc with no way to ditch components that no longer make sense. The way your consciousness deals with this is with emotions, which are basically subsets of logical rules. Within a subset the rules are probably mostly consistent.

To me this implies that thought would come first and only when you had enough thought did your consciousness subdivide. But when I say thought, it's probably something more primitive and closer to emotion. If "hungry" is the extent of what your consciousness is capable of, that's neither thought nor emotion. Maybe "impulse" works better as a common ancestor to thought and emotion?

[Worira]

Counter-Counterpoint:
And if your desires are bad, then clearly your soul is bad too, and needs healing.

in short? be true to yourself, but also make sure that your self is a good self.

Countercountercounterpoint: That makes no sense.

[Lord Raziere]

Countercountercounterpoint: That makes no sense.

It makes complete sense. You don't be true to something of poor quality.

Being true to yourself, does not mean not improving or striving to become better. I argue, that being true to oneself requires you to do so. That you challenge yourself to rise above, that being yourself is improving yourself, that to do anything less than keep facing each challenge in life and expand your capabilities and improve your soul, is to not be true to yourself at all, for if you do not undertake the challenge to be something better, are you not denying yourself a chance to improve and expand your capabilities, thus making the self better?

Therefore would it not make sense, that making the self better, is being true to yourself? That to deny improvement and change, is to deny your chance to make you and your soul stronger? to refine your own definition of being into something greater? The best thing you can do for anything after all, is to improve the thing correct? Make it better? Therefore the best thing you can do for yourself, is to improve yourself, and therefore be true to yourself.

[Mx.Silver]

-snip-.
Thing is, for reasons I explained in my earlier post, the idea of improving yourself by altering your passions/desires/emotions presents a problem if you're coming from this perspective:

Intelligence is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions.


Emotion tells you what you want. Intellect and thought tells you how to get it.

You might remember this as the position you came into the thread supporting. Not saying you have to stick to it or anything, mind you.


More to the point however:


Therefore the best thing you can do for yourself, is to improve yourself, and therefore be true to yourself.
That second 'therefore' is a problem, because that entire reasoning rests on conflating 'doing what's best for' with 'being true to'. However, these are not the same thing.
An example: suppose someone is put in charge of a struggling group dedicated around a particular cause. In the process of trying to do what's best for the cause, they realise that the actual aims of the cause are wrong, or at the very least unhelpful. If they then decide to change the cause to focus on something else however, they are no longer being true to the cause - because they're no longer following the ideals that defined the cause in the first place.

A similar thing applies to personal improvement and change, mostly because you've already defined passions as being integral to the idea of self (see your first post in the thread). This is problematic because if the improvement involves abandoning, surpressing or altering your passions and desires, pretty much by definition that can't be classed as being true to yourself. If improving requires changing yourself to the point where you can legitimately claim to be a different person at heart then you can't effect that change while at the same time remaining true to yourself as you were before you undertook it. In much the same way as if an adaptation drastically changes the themes, plot and characters it is not being true to the source material, even if it ends-up being better than it.

[Trog]

Flight or Fight response probably came first in our evolutionary progression. Built into survival instincts and whatnot.
Instinctual actions light up a different part of the brain than conscious thought.
Therefore the instinct and response to stimuli probably comes before the conscious thought.

You feel fear before you are consciously aware of why you might be afraid, you just know that it's time to GTFO and run for it.
Came here to say this. Didn't have to. Now, instead, Trog has time to make various smileys.

~(^.^ ~) ^( ^.^ )^ (~ ^.^)~ (©-©¬ ) ( °¬° ) ( ;O.o)

[Lord Raziere]

Thing is, for reasons I explained in my earlier post, the idea of improving yourself by altering your passions/desires/emotions presents a problem if you're coming from this perspective:

You might remember this as the position you came into the thread supporting. Not saying you have to stick to it or anything, mind you.


More to the point however:

That second 'therefore' is a problem, because that entire reasoning rests on conflating 'doing what's best for' with 'being true to'. However, these are not the same thing.
An example: suppose someone is put in charge of a struggling group dedicated around a particular cause. In the process of trying to do what's best for the cause, they realise that the actual aims of the cause are wrong, or at the very least unhelpful. If they then decide to change the cause to focus on something else however, they are no longer being true to the cause - because they're no longer following the ideals that defined the cause in the first place.

A similar thing applies to personal improvement and change, mostly because you've already defined passions as being integral to the idea of self (see your first post in the thread). This is problematic because if the improvement involves abandoning, surpressing or altering your passions and desires, pretty much by definition that can't be classed as being true to yourself. If improving requires changing yourself to the point where you can legitimately claim to be a different person at heart then you can't effect that change while at the same time remaining true to yourself as you were before you undertook it. In much the same way as if an adaptation drastically changes the themes, plot and characters it is not being true to the source material, even if it ends-up being better than it.

You see separation where there is none.

The self is not a constant fixed thing; it is in many ways its own progression, a work in progress. The self is not just what you are, its what you were and will be. I am not just me in the moment, I am the the Me in all times. I of course, choose what I will be and build upon myself. The self is not a point, a destination. It is a journey, a path. Who ever said that I am merely one thing in one moment and only one thing in the next? I am both. I am not a man exchanging one mask for another, I am a man adding another facet to a diamond, I am a man building a bridge with whatever material I need and go whatever direction the bridge needs to go, so that when I am finished, a masterpiece of a path, a bridge stands before or behind me depending upon your point of view, and I will know that I am not a point, I am a path, and I am equally all things I was at the beginning, as I will be at the end.

[Mikhailangelo]

COUNTERPOINT. (http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=1560)

Oh indeed. Hence conflicting passions arise. A murderer may wish to be true to himself and, being guided by his emotions, he may utilise his intellect in such a way that his perverse goals may be realised. However, equally, the detective desires to stop him.

I do not agree with the statement 'be true to yourself.' I simply stated what I believe to be objective fact - emotion creates desire, intellect acts to realise said desire.

[Mikhailangelo]

Yeah, no. While that's all very well for harmless or pro-social passions, the problem is quite a lot of passions don't run in that direction.
Without subjecting passions to some form of intellectual scrutiny - which pretty much requires putting intelligence ahead of passion - there's no real way of determining whether or not your desires are ones that should be acted upon. There's also the fact that passions tend not be driven by much in the way of long-term considerations.

Hence intellect and passion are intertwined. Emotions may conflict, and when this occurs intellect acts as arbiter. Emotion determines what is desired, intellect determines what desire is to be acted upon and how best to achieve it.

I should also clarify, I mean here that 'desire' is to be interpreted at the most base level - The delicacies of 'long term' and 'short term' do not enter into it. Passion may lead one to decide that one is in love and thus the intellect may formulate a long term plan to realise that love. So too may passion make one desire cake, and here the intellect reasons that it's best to go buy a cake and then eat it. There is nothing long term about the latter, but here, nevertheless, passion dictates a want and the intellect acts to realise it.

[Mikhailangelo]

More like, emotions want a billion things at once, and it's for intellect to sieve out things that are useless or put you in trouble, and then pick from what little remains.

It is possible to want something, yet not act upon this desire, is it not?

EDIT: Apologies for the triple post... I answered counterpoints as I read them, not as presented.

[thubby]

Why would you say that? *curious


well, how do we define "a thought" such that it includes subconcious thoughts but excludes emotions?
thoughts can encompass sights, sounds, or other senses, and emotions are quite literally felt from what i understand.

[Eldonauran]

Thats a good one. Hmm. My knee-jerk answer would be emotions, simply because they are tied to our subconcious and whatever else is tied into our instinctive feelings.

The human mind is malleable, yet strong. Certain thoughts or ways of thinking can, and do, change how you feel about some things. Other things are so deeply ingrained that you aren't going to change them.

[An Enemy Spy]

Emotions are more primal than thoughts. Humans would have develpoed emotions before complex thought above normal animal intelligence. After all, many animals are highly emotional.

[Mikhailangelo]

Emotions are more primal than thoughts. Humans would have develpoed emotions before complex thought above normal animal intelligence. After all, many animals are highly emotional.

And many animals are also highly intelligent.

It comes back to what I've been saying - Emotions dictate what is wanted, intelligence determines whether that thing should be gained/attempted, and if so, how that end is to be realised.

This is a distinction which can be made between human and animal intelligence; many animals will not attempt to rationally determine the desirability of the end sought and instead simply try and try to achieve that end - Like a puppy who keeps trying to jump on the table and eat your chocolate, which is poisonous to it.

Humans, on the other hand, may be guided by their emotions to want something, but use their intelligence to determine that it is presently unattainable - vis, you may want to ask that girl that you like out, but knowing that she has a boyfriend leads you to defer or even abandon that plan.