| World of Emotion |
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New Ideas in Psychology
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This term is my name for emotions that can be grouped into complementary pairs. This pairing is not arbitrary but is based on the opposite natures of the two major feelings. An emotion is an unconscious idea powered by feeling. The negative feeling turns the unconscious idea into a particular emotion, and the positive feeling turns the same unconscious idea into the complementary emotion.
For example, vanity and self-pity
form a binary.
When an emotion is a compound one, then each of its factors can
form a binary with the factors of other compound emotions. For
example,
Guilt = self-pity + self-hate.
Pride = vanity + hatred of other people.
Jealousy = love + self-pity.
Guilt consists of the two simpler emotions self-pity and self-hate ; the self-pity factor can form a binary with the vanity factor of pride, and the self-hate factor can form a binary with the love factor of jealousy.
The psychological model that I use most of the time is a static one. This has three levels of activity: conscious, subconscious, and unconscious. However, when I need to describe agency I use a dynamic model.
Static model : consciousness is a state of being that has three modes, those of will, mind and feeling. Therefore, for me, consciousness is not the same as mind (and neither is mind identical to the brain). This model is for understanding how the various factors of consciousness relate together, in ways that are independent of agency.
Dynamic model : consciousness is a state of being that can act as a channel for agency. This model is for understanding the purpose of consciousness. Consciousness contains an agent, the ego, that can make choices.
Self-consciousness implies that agency is internal to the state of being, as in people and some of the higher animals. When consciousness has no aspect of self, as in insects and plants, then agency is external and utilises instinct (for example, such agency may be a group mind, and so consciousness would be a group consciousness).
Functional model : consciousness is a state of being that constructs a paradigm of reality from the results of awareness. This model describes what consciousness does. Awareness is that aspect of mind by which the agent develops consciousness.
The mechanism of this construction is thought. Thought is a sequence of awareness states, or thought is the activity of awareness. The content of thought can be images or words. Images are either images of something or an image of nothing (mental silence). Attention or concentration is the means of emphasising some states of awareness rather than other ones.
Definitions - see bottom of page
This is the personality ; it is the conscious aspect of the person, and excludes the subconscious and unconscious minds. It is agency, or the agent of consciousness. The ego has to make choices, and these produce effects. So the realm of the ego is the realm of cause and effect. See also Consciousness.
A person can either act on his desires, using his will, or else follow his emotional responses. When he is focusing on his emotions, then his current state of consciousness has two main factors to it : a particular belief about some aspect of life, together with an emotional mood that is generated as the response to that belief. When the belief is not a conscious one, I call it an unconscous idea, whilst the mood is the emotional dynamic that maintains the influence of that particular belief or unconscious idea. The intensity of the state of consciousness depends upon the intensity of the mood.
When the mood is active, then the particular belief (whether conscious or unconscious) is active as well. When a different mood becomes active, so the belief changes to a different one, corresponding to the new mood. If the person no longer attaches any importance to a particular belief, then the corresponding emotional mood ceases to have any power over him. The mood loses its intensity.
Some emotions are compound ones and consist of two simpler emotions (these two emotions are factors of the compound emotion). The factors do not exert their influence simultaneously ; only one is dominant at any particular time. I use the term mode to indicate which factor is being dominant at that time, that is, to indicate the manner in which the compound emotion is being experienced.
A summary of the factors of some important emotions is :
Guilt = self-pity + self-hate.
Pride = vanity + hatred of other people.
Narcissism = love + vanity.
Jealousy = love + self-pity.
Anxiety = fear + vanity.
Paranoia = fear + pride (mode of vanity).
Resentment = guilt + idealism.
Bitterness = pride + idealism
The process of making value judgements depends upon the psychological mechanisms of projection and introjection. Equanimity is the state of mind attained when the person ceases to make value judgements, and hence ceases to use projection and introjection. However, equanimity is extremely difficult to attain. The most effective way of stopping projection and introjection, at least temporarily, is to step outside of all value systems. The traditional Buddhist method of doing this is to practise mindfulness.
Insight - See Intuition and Insight.
This has two parts: rationality and intuition.
These two parts work together in conceptual analysis, that is, when we try to analyse something, when we think about concepts and their meanings. Conceptual analysis can be split into three modes:
Intelligence and Intellect
Intelligence expresses the activity of the mind, whilst intellect is an indication of the degree of maturity of the mind.
One way of defining intelligence is that it is the ability to learn from experience, the ability to apply logical thought to experience. Whereas intellectuality is a mental trait that is cultivated by applying that intelligence to problems in order to generalise the answers. Intellectual capability is the intelligent application of theory, the ability to see beyond the immediate problem, the ability to think at the level of abstraction.
In the articles in this ebook I treat these two terms as being equivalent. However, I separate them in my philosophy articles on my website A Modern Thinker. The difference is :
Insight is an inference that is validated by reason.
Intuition is an inference that is validated by the thinker’s belief systems.
I use this term partly to denote intellect, and partly to denote the way that it helps to give rise to desires and emotions. (See also Consciousness for a definition of thought).
This is a technique derived from Buddhist meditation that can be used to neutralise the power of desires and emotions. It is an essential component of the practice of self-awareness. It consists in watching states of mind instead of evaluating them or acting on them. Perception is switched into neutral mode, so that no values are projected or introjected. See equanimity. The cessation of judgement means that any state of mind, including madness, can be entered and experienced, without becoming engulfed by that state of mind.
The standard way of formulating mindfulness in a concise manner is :
in the seeing, only the seen,
in the hearing, only the heard,
in the touching, only the touch,
in the smelling, only the smell,
in the tasting, only the taste.
Hence no evaluation is made of sensory impressions.
A compound emotion consists of two simpler emotions (these two emotions are factors of the compound emotion). The factors do not exert their influence simultaneously ; only one is dominant at any particular time. I use the term "mode" to indicate which factor is being dominant at that time, that is, to indicate the manner in which the compound emotion is being experienced.
For example, guilt comprises the two simpler emotions of self-pity and self-hate. So when the self-pity factor is being dominant, I describe this as experiencing guilt (in the mode of self-pity). Similarly, when the self-hate factor is being dominant, this is guilt (in the mode of self-hate).
Morals and Ethics
A distinction needs to be made between moral rules that are adhered to because of the person’s social conditioning and moral rules that are accepted through free personal choice. I call ‘morality’ those rules that are a part of a person’s social conditioning ; these rules are subject to erosion from stress during periods of social change or in times of sorrow. ‘Ethics’ is the term that I use for the acceptance of rules through free choice and understanding. Another way to put this difference is:
Morality implies ideas of right and wrong based on social conditioning.
Ethics implies ideas of right and wrong based on critical reflection.
Projection and Introjection
Projection means that we imagine that our own virtues and vices and attitudes are embodied in other people. We see in other people what is in ourself. This psychological stratagem is particularly noticeable with regard to our vices. We try to escape from our faults by denying them ; we see them only as aspects of other people – it is always other people that are the source of conflict.
Introjection is the complementary process. We emulate the virtues (and vices) in the people that we admire. We incorporate into ourself the attitudes of people that are significant to us. Our own idealised image of ourself can also act as a source for introjection : we can use such an image as an object from which we can introject virtues that we need. It is through introjection that a child absorbs the values of the parents.
For more detailed information, see Appendix 2.
My use of ‘soul’ is equivalent to the term ‘higher self ’. Soul is the source of spiritual idealisms, and it is ‘the silent watcher’. Another common name is ‘the witness’. The soul is a ‘higher self ’ to the ego (this should not be confused with the creation by an ego of an idealised ‘self ’). The soul acts as a guide to the ego, trying to steer it through the confusion of a human life. The ego reincarnates (though in a complicated manner), but the soul does not.
Spirituality
For me, spirituality does not necessarily equate to religiosity. A religious person can also be spiritual, but a spiritual person does not have to be religious. A religious perspective is a self-sufficient belief system containing all acceptable values and meanings within it. It is a belief system that has boundaries around it, since the world of the subconscious mind is excluded from it. A spiritual perspective can be more open and flexible. I view spirituality as the attempt to live in harmony with life. This view entails the necessity to aim for harmony in all of one’s personal relationships and situations.
Emotions are partly derived from ideas or mental concepts that influence us below the level of normal consciousness. The mental concept that is associated with an emotion actually creates the boundaries of that emotion. If the mental concept changes, the emotion does not change ; instead, it fades away and a different emotion arises, one that fits the current mental concept. To work out the underlying concept, the overall theme or motif of the emotion needs to be considered, that is, what the emotion is trying to express.
Emotions are not unique to any particular individual, so the ideas or concepts that underlie them come from the unconscious mind. Since the concepts are unconscious they are extremely difficult to identify. The concept is normally unconscious, so I call it an unconscious concept or an unconscious idea. For a list of some important unconscious ideas and their associated emotions, see the article Unconscious Ideas.
I use the term ‘subconscious mind’ for what is personal to the individual,
and the term ‘unconscious mind’ for what is general to humanity.
Desire is the activity of will
directed into a mental concept.
Emotion is the activity of
feeling directed into a mental concept.
An emotion is an unconscious idea powered by either a pleasant or an unpleasant feeling.
Some emotions have an additional complexity : they are compound and consist of two simpler emotions. Each of the separate emotions within a compound emotion I call a ‘mode ’ of that compound emotion.
A psycho-analysis is the method of intentionally removing anxiety from the subconscious mind.
For the sake of brevity I write of the abreactions of guilt and pride, whereas, in fact it is the anxiety attached to these emotions that is abreacted.
G.E. Moore summarised a certain
perspective in philosophy derived from Immanuel Kant
... just as, by reflection on our perceptual and sensory
experience, we become aware of the distinction between truth and
falsehood,
so it is by reflection on our experience of feeling and willing that we become aware of ethical distinctions.
From Principia Ethica. Cambridge, 1903. (sections 78-79).
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© 2002 Ian Heath
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