0.8 The psychology of emotions, feelings and thoughts  (Page 30/89)

The other emotions don’t occur as much as well. You can easily be happy or sad all the time, no matter what you are doing, but the other emotions need to fit into what you are doing. Like the emotion curiosity needs something to be curious in, and the emotion disgust needs something to be disgusted by. When you are doing nothing the emotion you are going to feel most of the time is just plain happy or sad, thus those two emotions are also our “idling” emotions (when we are idle we have them).

If the other emotions don’t occur as much, then why would someone be happy or sad in the first place? Are the emotions happy and sad simply the result of other emotions in your body? If that is the case, how is it possible for someone to become manic or depressed? Mania and depression are such extremes of happy and sad that other emotions can’t be experienced as well. What then is the source of that extreme happiness or sadness?

Either it seems like life has enough in it to justify being manic or depressed or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t then the mania and depression would arise from people just being unstable and fragile creatures, easily upset and disturbed. If it does then by a logic process one should be able to figure out the cause of their mania or depression is and solve it.

How This Chapter shows how Intelligence is intertwined with Emotion:

• It could be viewed that emotion is entirely driven by intellect, that everything that you feel you feel because you are who you are, and who you are is determined by your thoughts and your own intelligence. Or it could be rephrased the opposite way, that intelligence is entirely driven by emotion for the same reasons, those viewpoints are obvious when you take emotional highs where it seems like you are acting out of control - because then you realize why it is you are having those emotions, and you are having them because of something you did (which was driven by your intellect) or something you were feeling (which is driven by your emotions). Your intellect determined how you felt the emotion, because you are your intellect, and that (you) would then determine how you feel about something that happens. Someone’s emotional template (who they are, how they respond to the world) could be viewed as being an intellectual template because intellect is understanding real things, and your emotions determine what it is that you process and how you process them.

Emotion and attention

How does emotion influence attention? If you think about it, humans probably have a complicated mix of emotions occurring all of the time, and this emotional make-up is somehow going to impact their attention. If someone is in a state of pure pleasure, then they probably aren't going to be paying as much attention to their environment then if they are in a normal or negative state. That I think is because there is no reason for the person to pay attention to their environment because they are satisfied within their own minds.

The sensory input that a person is receiving is going to be related to their emotional state as well. People can be in touch with their senses, with their thoughts, or be focused on their external environment. People often look to sensory stimulation in order to relax themselves - such as taking a bath or eating food. My guess would be that this changes their focus from their own internal thinking to their environment or their senses. There is a complicated mix of emotions, senses, and thoughts occurring all of the time.