X-Message-Number: 12676 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: still more on feelings and goals (with a bit on consciousness, too) Date: Sun, 31 Oct 1999 00:29:02 +1000 (EST) Yet more on feelings and goals: By now we have lots of ways of getting some insight into what someone (other than us) may be feeling, and again what their goals may be. Scott Badger has argued that both can exist independently, bringing up people with manic depression or simple depression as examples. He also brought up the case of someone who has feelings he/she cannot explain. These are good examples. I would say that in each of these cases those feelings ARE associated with goals, though the goals may not be very elaborate. When someone is depressed (in the medical sense) their goal may very well be not to exist (having a goal and being mentally able to implement it aren't the same). Someone with depression has a very poor opinion of themself or of their situation (depression can be realistic, after all). The very existence of such a poor opinion suggests that the person holding it has ideas about the goals he/she should have (such ideas are goals themselves) together with a total lack of belief that he/she can attain them. Again, if someone has a feeling they cannot explain when they feel it, they may simply not want to trace down just why they feel that way, for good reasons or bad. (We cannot spend all our time on introspection; but on the other hand, if a feeling repeats several times, it may be wise for us to try to work out why we feel that way). I will say that Scott can probably find cases of pathology in which the connection between goals and feelings simply fails to exist. If nothing else, some kinds of brain injury might produce such conditions. I'm happy to make them exceptions to my suggestion for a general rule. Moreover, so far as I understand how brains work, I don't know of any case in which a brain injury has separated the two... but that is hardly proof that such injuries are impossible. This connection may come from the simple fact that the brain regions causing our feelings lie very close to (and sometimes may even coincide) with those causing our goals. I do not mean that our feelings must always be strong ones (though strong feelings and strong goals go together). Even if we have a mild desire to succeed in a minor game, that minor goal will come with similarly mild feelings. For general interest, one popular (among neuroscientists, not in the population at large!) theory of how consciousness works postulates the involvement of special areas in our thalamus. We know that we aren't conscious of most of the workings of our brain (after all, our brain has many neurons working IN PARALLEL, while our consciousness is SEQUENTIAL, so that such awareness would be quite impossible). Not only that, but we can often act before our consciousness becomes aware of that action. Our consciousness may actually have the major role of sorting among various feelings and goals to choose the one which we shall attempt at that time: one function which by its nature cannot be done in parallel. So this theory suggests that even our consciousness depends on the presence and close matching of our feelings and goals. Yes, I can identify the areas of thalamus involved, and discussed this theory in PERIASTRON a few years ago. Anyone wanting to know more need merely ask. Best and long long life Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=12676