Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Gee]

Do you know what the difference is between spirituality and non-religious spirituality?

I think that's one of the core questions this topic poses, isn't it? What *is* spirituality?

Yes. This reminds me of a problem that I ran into many years ago. My grandchildren were staying with me, and my granddaughter came home from school with a class assignment. She was about nine years old and wrote a story about a small animal that lived in the woods by a waterfall, but now she was supposed to draw a picture about her story. She could not seem to draw a waterfall, so she asked for my help.

I said, "Sure." How hard could it be? What I drew looked like the ugliest shower curtain anyone could ever imagine. So her older brother, about 10 years old, was a pretty good artist and I asked him if he could draw it. He agreed and it took him about two minutes to draw a little hill with a waterfall that emptied into a little pool. Then he gave it back to her, and she put in the animals and plants.

Have you ever tried to draw water? Paint, yes; you can paint it, but you can't draw it. Later that night, I looked at the picture to learn where I had made my mistakes. After studying the picture, I realized that he did not draw the water, he drew the parameters of the water, or what contained it. Afterward, I realized that if I want to draw a glass of water, I always make it a glass, see through, and then add a line to show how full the glass is.

When the question is, What is spirituality?, we do the same thing. We answer with everything that is associated with it, its parameters and everything that surrounds the idea, but not spirituality itself.

Gee

[Lagayascienza]

Do you know what the difference is between spirituality and non-religious spirituality?

I think that's one of the core questions this topic poses, isn't it? What *is* spirituality?

Yes. This reminds me of a problem that I ran into many years ago. My grandchildren were staying with me, and my granddaughter came home from school with a class assignment. She was about nine years old and wrote a story about a small animal that lived in the woods by a waterfall, but now she was supposed to draw a picture about her story. She could not seem to draw a waterfall, so she asked for my help.

I said, "Sure." How hard could it be? What I drew looked like the ugliest shower curtain anyone could ever imagine. So her older brother, about 10 years old, was a pretty good artist and I asked him if he could draw it. He agreed and it took him about two minutes to draw a little hill with a waterfall that emptied into a little pool. Then he gave it back to her, and she put in the animals and plants.

Have you ever tried to draw water? Paint, yes; you can paint it, but you can't draw it. Later that night, I looked at the picture to learn where I had made my mistakes. After studying the picture, I realized that he did not draw the water, he drew the parameters of the water, or what contained it. Afterward, I realized that if I want to draw a glass of water, I always make it a glass, see through, and then add a line to show how full the glass is.

When the question is, What is spirituality?, we do the same thing. We answer with everything that is associated with it, its parameters and everything that surrounds the idea, but not spirituality itself.

Gee

That is a nice story, Gee. I'm happy that your granddaughter got her waterfall. As you story shows, creating good art is as much about what is left out as what is included.

And I think what you say about spirituality is true.

I, too, wonder why people "answer with everything that [they think] is associated with it... and everything that [they think] surrounds the idea, but not spirituality itself"?

And I wonder why we don’t seem to have epistemic access to the “spiritual” the way we have epistemic access to everything else? We have epistemic access to earth, fire, water and air, even though we cannot see the latter. I have epistemic access to my dog greeting me at the door. But what is spirit? What does it consist of? Where is spirit? Does it occupy space?

When asked these sorts of questions, people will say things like: "No, don’t be silly! Spirit is not like other stuff. It’s not experienced in the same way." But when I ask: Well, what is it like? and How can it be experienced? I can never get any sense out of them. When I express dismay, they might say something like: You can’t experience spirit like you experience matter or speed or space or time. You have to plug into it with prayer, meditation, or maybe with a medium." My experience of mediums tells me they are all charlatans and prayer doesn’t do anything more than what I might expect from pure chance or what I'm able to make happen through my own efforts. So I can’t say I’ve come even close to experiencing spirit through prayer.

However, I think there is something to meditation. I don’t think by doing it that I plug into some sort of spirit realm. I just feel at one, and yet unconcerned, with whatever else might exist. I’ve had a couple of “peak” experiences where I’ve felt utter loss of “self” There’s nothing there, no spirit stuff floating around. There’s just a loss of self and disembodied peace. And perhaps astonishment and wonder. There’s no La Gaya Scienza/ Die fröhliche Wissenschaft -, he’s not there. So, I wonder, what/who is experiencing the peace, astonishment and wonder?

It's all a great mystery. Maybe like art, it's what is left out that is important. But I don't think it has anything to do with plugging into some ideal spiritual realm that exists in some dimension separate from us. Brains are incredibly complex things and so t's probably just a different state of consciousness that can be cultivated. But I'm happy it's available.

[Pattern-chaser]

As stated, science does address emotion, and extensively - in psychology, psychiatry, medicine, neuroscience.

...so tell me, what are the properties of emotion? What is it? Is it physical? What does it do? Where does it come from? How does it work? What can you tell me except a little psychology and about the brain. Is emotion the brain?

It appears that brains are needed to feel emotions...

This seeks to bypass Gee's question, one that many of us have posed over the years. And it is unanswerable. Science has no means to observe or detect emotion. Electrons are very much within the purview of science, but there are (as far as we know) no 'emotons'. There is no aspect of emotion that science can directly detect — emotion is invisible to science. And with no observations of any sort to work with, science cannot "address emotion", even though you claim (above) that it "does".

Isn't this just 'common sense'?

[Pattern-chaser]

Do you know what the difference is between spirituality and non-religious spirituality?

I think that's one of the core questions this topic poses, isn't it? What *is* spirituality?

Yes. This reminds me of a problem that I ran into many years ago. My grandchildren were staying with me, and my granddaughter came home from school with a class assignment. She was about nine years old and wrote a story about a small animal that lived in the woods by a waterfall, but now she was supposed to draw a picture about her story. She could not seem to draw a waterfall, so she asked for my help.

I said, "Sure." How hard could it be? What I drew looked like the ugliest shower curtain anyone could ever imagine. So her older brother, about 10 years old, was a pretty good artist and I asked him if he could draw it. He agreed and it took him about two minutes to draw a little hill with a waterfall that emptied into a little pool. Then he gave it back to her, and she put in the animals and plants.

Have you ever tried to draw water? Paint, yes; you can paint it, but you can't draw it. Later that night, I looked at the picture to learn where I had made my mistakes. After studying the picture, I realized that he did not draw the water, he drew the parameters of the water, or what contained it. Afterward, I realized that if I want to draw a glass of water, I always make it a glass, see through, and then add a line to show how full the glass is.

When the question is, What is spirituality?, we do the same thing. We answer with everything that is associated with it, its parameters and everything that surrounds the idea, but not spirituality itself.

Beautifully described. I think this is drawing close to an idea I have had for many years, but which no-one else seems to find useful. There are 'imperfectly' defined words that are necessarily so. They are general words that apply to general things, and that is why their definitions lack precision — because the concepts they describe also lack precision. But we find them useful nonetheless, so we continue to use them. And we all know and understand what they mean, in general terms, of course.

And there are many such words, truth, God, beauty, emotion, ... and maybe "spirituality" too?

[Belindi]

I forget how to make a quotation box.

If you can't use the quotation button, surround the quoted text with "Quote" and "/Quote", but change the double quotes to square brackets.

Emotions can be studied subjectively as in when you introspect, and hypothetically a neuroscientist can look at your brain's behaviour while you feel an emotion...

Yes. The point here is surely that science (or something similar) can only observe emotions indirectly. A 'black box' approach. We don't know what's going on inside the box. We have to try to work it out from what we observe from the outside. Heavily indirect. Too indirect to produce the standard of evidence that science (etc) needs to do its work. So science can't really help us very much with things like emotion, mind, and (veering back on-topic) spirituality.

Thanks for jogging my memory;it's so long since I posted here.

As far as I know, statistical techniques can discover significant correlations between subjective experiences and publicly observable data. The sample does of course have to be culturally relevant, and as large as possible.
I don't see a problem with statistical evidence, because it's a sophisticated refinement of inductive reason which animals with central nervous systems use all the time.

[Sy Borg]

As stated, science does address emotion, and extensively - in psychology, psychiatry, medicine, neuroscience. You might have been too distracted to notice.

Oh well! I must have missed that, so tell me, what are the properties of emotion? What is it? Is it physical? What does it do? Where does it come from? How does it work? What can you tell me except a little psychology and about the brain. Is emotion the brain?

Gee

It appears that brains are needed to feel emotions.

I seriously doubt this. It appears you are using the logic that was used in the 1600's to prove that anyone who did not have language did not have consciousness -- there is no evidence to support this position. All life forms, ALL of them, have survival instincts and all of those survival instincts use hormones to work the instincts and all of those instincts are initiated by a feeling and/or emotion that is prompted by said hormones.

It is possible that one would need a brain to write a sonnet about their emotions.

No, emotions are emergent. Before emotions were reflexes.

Jellyfish don't display anything that appears to be emotions,

So they don't mate? Produce offspring? Get hungry or tired? Try to protect their lives? etc.

but another goopy marine species - the octopus - certainly has emotions.

Of course. What does it do that the jellyfish does not?

Jellyfish don't mate. They just spit their eggs out. Jellyfish don't get hungry, they just run low on energy. They don't get tired because all they do is float around and digest whatever unlucky creatures get caught in their stingers. They do not try to protect themselves because their arms tend to be covered in deadly stingers.

They don't need emotions. There's nothing a jellyfish can do with emotions other than to orient themselves towards or away from light. Unlike many, I do think very simple animals experience their lives to some extent, but it's very basic, raw sensations rather than than emotions.

I think emotions are the bridge between the intellect and the body, the language through which mind and matter communicate via electrical signals.

I agree that emotion is the bridge between the mental and the physical, and there are some that believe it is also the source. I don't think the communication is "via electrical signals"; if anything, that seems to be a byproduct of the communication not the source. The Frankenstein thing did not work.

You can't escape electrical and chemical signals. These are the alphabet of the inner language of emotion. Without them, there is no emotion.

[Pattern-chaser]

As far as I know, statistical techniques can discover significant correlations between subjective experiences and publicly observable data. The sample does of course have to be culturally relevant, and as large as possible.

Statistics enables science to look at things that are uncertain or variable, and recognise the average or typical 'values'. This has great value in many cases. But emotion, or spirituality? Not so much. I think the problem revolves around what you describe as "publicly observable data". Your description makes it sound like the data is there, just waiting to be observed, but it isn't.

It looks a bit like wave-particle duality in physics, where you tend to find what you look for. If you look for particles, you find particles; if you look for waves, you find waves. But it's worse than that when we try to investigate what's going on inside a human mind. Another parallel is 'statistical' surveys or polls, where what you discover depends on the question(s) you ask, and the exact wording of those questions. Such things also seem to apply to emotion and spirituality.

So no, I don't think it is useful to describe the data as "publicly observable". It's not that the data isn't publicly observable, it's that the data is not repeatable (in a scientific sense), and similar issues. When you're investigating emotion, you'll get different answers to the same questions, from the same person, because of a difference in mood, or outlook, or because of something apparently unrelated, like flux in personal circumstances, or what's going on at work, whether my team won their last game, or whether I recently have been thinking about a particular issue or not.

The data exists, I don't think that can seriously be challenged. But the data is not just there, lying around for us to find. Obtaining that data reliably is close to impossible. I've skimmed the surface of the problems here, but it all comes down to one thing — science has no direct access to emotions, or to spirituality. We can only ask people questions, maybe statistically-valid numbers of people, and try to interpret their highly-variable answers... A very difficult problem, perhaps even an insoluble one?

[Pattern-chaser]

You can't escape electrical and chemical signals. These are the alphabet of the inner language of emotion.

If emotions are what we believe them to be — a very big "if"! — then the "electrical and chemical signals" are not so much the alphabet, the letters, as the paper they're written on. My point in saying that, recognising your use of analogy, is that the abstract distance between those signals and emotion is vast, and bridging that abyss has so far proved impossible. Maybe it will remain so?

[Belindi]

As far as I know, statistical techniques can discover significant correlations between subjective experiences and publicly observable data. The sample does of course have to be culturally relevant, and as large as possible.

Statistics enables science to look at things that are uncertain or variable, and recognise the average or typical 'values'. This has great value in many cases. But emotion, or spirituality? Not so much. I think the problem revolves around what you describe as "publicly observable data". Your description makes it sound like the data is there, just waiting to be observed, but it isn't.

It looks a bit like wave-particle duality in physics, where you tend to find what you look for. If you look for particles, you find particles; if you look for waves, you find waves. But it's worse than that when we try to investigate what's going on inside a human mind. Another parallel is 'statistical' surveys or polls, where what you discover depends on the question(s) you ask, and the exact wording of those questions. Such things also seem to apply to emotion and spirituality.

So no, I don't think it is useful to describe the data as "publicly observable". It's not that the data isn't publicly observable, it's that the data is not repeatable (in a scientific sense), and similar issues. When you're investigating emotion, you'll get different answers to the same questions, from the same person, because of a difference in mood, or outlook, or because of something apparently unrelated, like flux in personal circumstances, or what's going on at work, whether my team won their last game, or whether I recently have been thinking about a particular issue or not.

The data exists, I don't think that can seriously be challenged. But the data is not just there, lying around for us to find. Obtaining that data reliably is close to impossible. I've skimmed the surface of the problems here, but it all comes down to one thing — science has no direct access to emotions, or to spirituality. We can only ask people questions, maybe statistically-valid numbers of people, and try to interpret their highly-variable answers... A very difficult problem, perhaps even an insoluble one?

Well ,I am so accustomed to believing "emotions" applies to physiological processes that for me, "emotion" denotes some identifiable process pertaining to endocrine organs and their secretions or lack thereof.
"For me, "spirituality" is not in my lexicon and I never know what the word denotes for anyone else.

[Sy Borg]

You can't escape electrical and chemical signals. These are the alphabet of the inner language of emotion.

If emotions are what we believe them to be — a very big "if"! — then the "electrical and chemical signals" are not so much the alphabet, the letters, as the paper they're written on. My point in saying that, recognising your use of analogy, is that the abstract distance between those signals and emotion is vast, and bridging that abyss has so far proved impossible. Maybe it will remain so?

Is it such a gulf?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6520172/

Avoidant behavior is a characteristic feature post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and is modeled in mammals with predator odor. Light avoidance is a hallmark behavioral reaction in planarians. We hypothesized that planarians exposed to frog extract would display enhanced light avoidance that is prevented by fluoxetine. Enhanced light avoidance (i.e., less time spent in light compartment of a dish split into light and dark sides) after a 30-min frog extract exposure (0.0001 – 0.01%) manifested 15 min post-exposure, persisted for at least 24 h, and was counteracted by fluoxetine (10 μM). These results suggest conservation of an anxiety- like behavioral phenotype.

Now consider the flatworm's fear response, which was nullified by fluoxetine (Prozac). Its tiny brain sensed a problem and certain chemicals and signals would have been sent to elicit an avoidant response, which is a little more sophisticated than purely reflexive avoidance.

[Pattern-chaser]

Well, I am so accustomed to believing "emotions" applies to physiological processes that for me, "emotion" denotes some identifiable process pertaining to endocrine organs and their secretions or lack thereof.

OK, but I'm not sure this is a common viewpoint...?

You can't escape electrical and chemical signals. These are the alphabet of the inner language of emotion.

If emotions are what we believe them to be — a very big "if"! — then the "electrical and chemical signals" are not so much the alphabet, the letters, as the paper they're written on. My point in saying that, recognising your use of analogy, is that the abstract distance between those signals and emotion is vast, and bridging that abyss has so far proved impossible. Maybe it will remain so?

Is it such a gulf?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6520172/

Avoidant behavior is a characteristic feature post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and is modeled in mammals with predator odor. Light avoidance is a hallmark behavioral reaction in planarians. We hypothesized that planarians exposed to frog extract would display enhanced light avoidance that is prevented by fluoxetine. Enhanced light avoidance (i.e., less time spent in light compartment of a dish split into light and dark sides) after a 30-min frog extract exposure (0.0001 – 0.01%) manifested 15 min post-exposure, persisted for at least 24 h, and was counteracted by fluoxetine (10 μM). These results suggest conservation of an anxiety- like behavioral phenotype.

Now consider the flatworm's fear response, which was nullified by fluoxetine (Prozac). Its tiny brain sensed a problem and certain chemicals and signals would have been sent to elicit an avoidant response, which is a little more sophisticated than purely reflexive avoidance.

I don't know what it's like to be a flatworm, or a bat, but I do know that what I see as anger, sorrow or joy has little to do with biochemistry, even if it should prove that emotion are founded in this way. The abyss is vast, I repeart and believe.

[Belindi]

Well, I am so accustomed to believing "emotions" applies to physiological processes that for me, "emotion" denotes some identifiable process pertaining to endocrine organs and their secretions or lack thereof.

OK, but I'm not sure this is a common viewpoint...?

You can't escape electrical and chemical signals. These are the alphabet of the inner language of emotion.

If emotions are what we believe them to be — a very big "if"! — then the "electrical and chemical signals" are not so much the alphabet, the letters, as the paper they're written on. My point in saying that, recognising your use of analogy, is that the abstract distance between those signals and emotion is vast, and bridging that abyss has so far proved impossible. Maybe it will remain so?

Is it such a gulf?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6520172/

Avoidant behavior is a characteristic feature post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and is modeled in mammals with predator odor. Light avoidance is a hallmark behavioral reaction in planarians. We hypothesized that planarians exposed to frog extract would display enhanced light avoidance that is prevented by fluoxetine. Enhanced light avoidance (i.e., less time spent in light compartment of a dish split into light and dark sides) after a 30-min frog extract exposure (0.0001 – 0.01%) manifested 15 min post-exposure, persisted for at least 24 h, and was counteracted by fluoxetine (10 μM). These results suggest conservation of an anxiety- like behavioral phenotype.

Now consider the flatworm's fear response, which was nullified by fluoxetine (Prozac). Its tiny brain sensed a problem and certain chemicals and signals would have been sent to elicit an avoidant response, which is a little more sophisticated than purely reflexive avoidance.

I don't know what it's like to be a flatworm, or a bat, but I do know that what I see as anger, sorrow or joy has little to do with biochemistry, even if it should prove that emotion are founded in this way. The abyss is vast, I repeart and believe.

The objective and publicly viewable signs of emotions are physiological eg pallor, enlarged pupils, rapid breathing, trembling , rise in blood pressure, erect penis: the signs of emotions that have been moderated by a human central nervous system , and moderated into feelings, are variously interpreted e.g. fear may be moderated into jealousy or anger or avoidance, romantic love. I.e. by their visible voluntary acts you shall know how they feel -- a rutting stag ,if it could speak rationally ,would say it feels anger and jealousy. It does not need to learn this reaction to the threat of the other stag. Its emotion is basically and physiologically, fear, and its reaction to the perceived threat is biological anger and aggression.
So a clinician may ask a trembling psychiatric patient "how do you feel? What is going on with you? "

[Pattern-chaser]

Well, I am so accustomed to believing "emotions" applies to physiological processes that for me, "emotion" denotes some identifiable process pertaining to endocrine organs and their secretions or lack thereof.

OK, but I'm not sure this is a common viewpoint...?

...

I don't know what it's like to be a flatworm, or a bat, but I do know that what I see as anger, sorrow, or joy has little to do with biochemistry, even if it should prove that emotions are founded in this way. The abyss is vast, I repeat and believe.

The objective and publicly viewable signs of emotions are physiological eg pallor, enlarged pupils, rapid breathing, trembling , rise in blood pressure, erect penis: the signs of emotions that have been moderated by a human central nervous system , and moderated into feelings, are variously interpreted e.g. fear may be moderated into jealousy or anger or avoidance, romantic love. I.e. by their visible voluntary acts you shall know how they feel -- a rutting stag ,if it could speak rationally ,would say it feels anger and jealousy. It does not need to learn this reaction to the threat of the other stag. Its emotion is basically and physiologically, fear, and its reaction to the perceived threat is biological anger and aggression.
So a clinician may ask a trembling psychiatric patient "how do you feel? What is going on with you? "

I'm sorry, the signals you describe can be observed, and they might provide useful indications of emotion ... or they might not. Human emotion is mostly recognised and communicated via language — speech and 'body language'. I think it would be very discourteous of me to require you to monitor my penis to see if I am attracted to you. There are many linguistic ways I could communicate this to you that are much more common, and (usually) more acceptable. You seem to be referring to this linguistic recognition yourself, in your final sentence.

Finally, you seem to be looking at emotion in a medical, and not human, context. I think that might be unhelpful...? [Because, after all, emotion is as invisible to medical science as it is to any other branch of science. The presence of emotion can only be inferred, indirectly and remotely, which is next to useless, in scientific terms.]

[Belindi]

Well, I am so accustomed to believing "emotions" applies to physiological processes that for me, "emotion" denotes some identifiable process pertaining to endocrine organs and their secretions or lack thereof.

OK, but I'm not sure this is a common viewpoint...?

...

I don't know what it's like to be a flatworm, or a bat, but I do know that what I see as anger, sorrow, or joy has little to do with biochemistry, even if it should prove that emotions are founded in this way. The abyss is vast, I repeat and believe.

The objective and publicly viewable signs of emotions are physiological eg pallor, enlarged pupils, rapid breathing, trembling , rise in blood pressure, erect penis: the signs of emotions that have been moderated by a human central nervous system , and moderated into feelings, are variously interpreted e.g. fear may be moderated into jealousy or anger or avoidance, romantic love. I.e. by their visible voluntary acts you shall know how they feel -- a rutting stag ,if it could speak rationally ,would say it feels anger and jealousy. It does not need to learn this reaction to the threat of the other stag. Its emotion is basically and physiologically, fear, and its reaction to the perceived threat is biological anger and aggression.
So a clinician may ask a trembling psychiatric patient "how do you feel? What is going on with you? "

I'm sorry, the signals you describe can be observed, and they might provide useful indications of emotion ... or they might not. Human emotion is mostly recognised and communicated via language — speech and 'body language'. I think it would be very discourteous of me to require you to monitor my penis to see if I am attracted to you. There are many linguistic ways I could communicate this to you that are much more common, and (usually) more acceptable. You seem to be referring to this linguistic recognition yourself, in your final sentence.

Finally, you seem to be looking at emotion in a medical, and not human, context. I think that might be unhelpful...? [Because, after all, emotion is as invisible to medical science as it is to any other branch of science. The presence of emotion can only be inferred, indirectly and remotely, which is next to useless, in scientific terms.]

Yes, I prefer to apply the word 'emotion' to a clinical context because it is so useful for any clinician to use 'feelings' and 'emotions' for separable aspects of experience, and potentially beneficial for the non-clinician to enable them to rationally control unwanted feelings. E.g. feelings of romantic love may not be making one happy in which case it's useful to see that romantic love is sexual desire interpreted according to a cultural norm.

[Pattern-chaser]

I'm sorry, the signals you describe can be observed, and they might provide useful indications of emotion ... or they might not. Human emotion is mostly recognised and communicated via language — speech and 'body language'. I think it would be very discourteous of me to require you to monitor my penis to see if I am attracted to you. There are many linguistic ways I could communicate this to you that are much more common, and (usually) more acceptable. You seem to be referring to this linguistic recognition yourself, in your final sentence.

Finally, you seem to be looking at emotion in a medical, and not human, context. I think that might be unhelpful...? [Because, after all, emotion is as invisible to medical science as it is to any other branch of science. The presence of emotion can only be inferred, indirectly and remotely, which is next to useless, in scientific terms.]

Yes, I prefer to apply the word 'emotion' to a clinical context because it is so useful for any clinician to use 'feelings' and 'emotions' for separable aspects of experience, and potentially beneficial for the non-clinician to enable them to rationally control unwanted feelings. E.g. feelings of romantic love may not be making one happy in which case it's useful to see that romantic love is sexual desire interpreted according to a cultural norm.

Your view is too remote and detached for me, when we're discussing something that seems to be intimate and personal, whether we use the label "emotions" or "feelings". As this isn't a medical discussion, your perspective, which seems medical/clinical, puzzles me. How is it helpful?