Do we really know what goes on in our head?
Many people feel like they can control their emotions well as they think that their experiences are sufficient to know about what a good and bad decision is. Throughout our lifetime we experience many different things and the original experience plays a big part in future experiences, and the decisions we make. Many people don't realize this as most of our decisions to this are subconscious until they are obviously shown. The person who wrote this gave a very good example. She had a 'gross foods party' for her daughter's 12th birthday party. She served normal food, and drink such as pizza, and juice except that she smeared cheese with green fruit coloring, giving it a moldy look. The juice was also served in urine sample cups. She even served mashed food onto baby diapers for an extra stimulation. Even though the children were supposed to like pizza, mashed potatoes and juice (as that is the normal reaction). Many kids didn't touch the food, and drink as it stimulated different tastes and smells that weren't there. This experiment was redone by BBC Future, in an attempt to test this with adults, and it was a success.
This article actually also brings out a good point. How can we distinguish different feelings depending on the situation? For example, at the start of the article the author talks about a colleague of hers from graduate school who was asked out on a date. She accepted even though she didn't really want it. While she was in the coffee shop with her date she felt a churn in her stomach. Her face also became flushed, and she felt a bit dizzy. She mistook these symptoms for love even though it is clearly her being sick. This is interesting since in most other situations she would have noticed this and would also have come up with a different conclusion (that she was sick). In some situations there could have been many different conclusions too. For example if she was far away from her parents or family for the first time, then she would probably mistake this for homesickness. This raises an important question, which is how does our brain come up with different conclusions depending on different situations based on your upbringing? Depending on your past experiences you could have very different reactions to certain things.
Does this mean that it is impossible to accurately distinguish emotions properly since everyone has had their own experiences, and their own reactions? Personally, I don't think so. I think that naturally we can have at least a general sense of what others are feeling. I think that even though everyone is different and everyone has different experiences, we are all human, and therefore even with different pasts and upbringings we still share many similarities in the way we convey specific emotions. Finally, I find myself agreeing with Barrett's theory that some general emotions aren't necessarily pre-determined as there are eskimos with no clear definition for anger, and some Tahitian people who don't have one direct meaning for sadness.
This article actually also brings out a good point. How can we distinguish different feelings depending on the situation? For example, at the start of the article the author talks about a colleague of hers from graduate school who was asked out on a date. She accepted even though she didn't really want it. While she was in the coffee shop with her date she felt a churn in her stomach. Her face also became flushed, and she felt a bit dizzy. She mistook these symptoms for love even though it is clearly her being sick. This is interesting since in most other situations she would have noticed this and would also have come up with a different conclusion (that she was sick). In some situations there could have been many different conclusions too. For example if she was far away from her parents or family for the first time, then she would probably mistake this for homesickness. This raises an important question, which is how does our brain come up with different conclusions depending on different situations based on your upbringing? Depending on your past experiences you could have very different reactions to certain things.
Does this mean that it is impossible to accurately distinguish emotions properly since everyone has had their own experiences, and their own reactions? Personally, I don't think so. I think that naturally we can have at least a general sense of what others are feeling. I think that even though everyone is different and everyone has different experiences, we are all human, and therefore even with different pasts and upbringings we still share many similarities in the way we convey specific emotions. Finally, I find myself agreeing with Barrett's theory that some general emotions aren't necessarily pre-determined as there are eskimos with no clear definition for anger, and some Tahitian people who don't have one direct meaning for sadness.
This is an interesting response, however I feel that we can't always relate to other peoples emotions because by physical response we know they might be sick, but what if they're feeling something completely different in their minds and are simply unable to express themselves due to the complex nature of emotions.
ReplyDeleteAlright Abder, personally I enjoyed reading your blog. It made me think about emotions, which is what TOK is all about. I personally also found the birthday party experiment very interesting. Although I am aware it's an experiment, I still find it disgusting; So I can see my subconscious acting there as I am aware of the experiment and that it's being made as such on purpose, yet still, even though I know it's supposed to be disgusting, as in to prevent the feeling of being disgusted, I still cannot stop myself from being disgusted by the experiment. As well as making me doubt emotions after reading that paragraph in which you talked about accurately distinguishing emotions. Yes we are human, so as obviously, we should all have similar aspects based on emotions. Yet still, there's still differences.
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