Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑October 14th, 2024, 7:23 am
Sculptor1 wrote: ↑October 13th, 2024, 11:06 am
I am talking about "feeling"; sensation, perception, and pain. It's a neural phenomenon. Ordinary nerves carry electrical impulses, the neural matter interprets, and this interpretation is the "feeling".
I wouldn't've expected "feeling" to refer to sensation and perception. Isn't the word more normally used to refer to emotions, not perception? Sorry for my confusion.
Seems to me that our language is weak when it comes to mental phenomena.
The root of language is pointing at a dog and saying "dog". Show-and-tell. And all the more abstract words and concepts are somehow built on that.
Because mental activity is much harder to point to, language about it seems less well-developed.
For example we mught say that we "feel tired" or "feel sad". But while sadness is an emotion, I'd suggest that tiredness isn't.
Saying that you feel tired or feel sick is to report a perception of the state of your body.
We're talking on another thread about justice, and how we can feel that some act or situation is unfair.
We might also say that we feel that some outcome is unlikely.
So maybe in common usage "feeling" is wider than emotion ? Encompassing perceptions and judgments also ?
A good psychological model - a brief, simple but adequate standard description of mental activity - would be helpful. Does anyone know of such ?
"Opinions are fiercest.. ..when the evidence to support or refute them is weakest" - Druin Burch