Well, I'm glad I asked. Here's an ontological view of this.
There is this hypothesis that psychologists call the neural correlate of content experience. Certainly a mouthful, but the idea is simple. Every emotion--love, anger, hate--corresponds to an unique neurological configuration inside your brain. So a state of mind is really a state of the brain. If you identify yourself philosophically as a materialist, this point of view should seem natural to you, i.e. mind is really matter. They are not distinct.
It follows that every state of mind--which an emotion really is--can be ultimately reduced to and described in terms of matter, because every state of mind or emotion has a direct neural correlate.
All the neural correlates taken together forms the neural correlate of consciousness. It defines, in a definite structural and material fashion, what you think of as your conscious mind.
Electrochemical disturbances. That's all there is to it. Every emotion someone feels, every stupid fucking emotion that anyone has ever felt, is nothing but a sublime, subtle, electrochemical dance inside the head. Boo-ya.
Have we found the neural correlates yet? I believe we are trying.
Many disciplines have a central problem. Physicists face the problem of reconciling general relativity with quantum mechanics. The Holy Grail for physicists is the union of the world of the gargantuan with the world of the microscopic under one Unified Law.
Similarly, a central problem in psychology is finding and mapping the neural correlates. Much as we have mapped the human genome, I suppose it will be a day of triumph for psychology when every human emotion is mapped and formulated into balanced valence equations. Equations of love, hate, faith, loyalty. Equations that solve for sudden liking. Equations that solve for chronic dislike.
I wish them luck and god speed. Find them correlates. Map them correlates.
And then just give us the fucking antidotes.
2 comments:
sougata, my friend, my wishes are working against you. i hope the correlates remain forever hidden. the mapping of such mysteries may destroy the very surprises that make life tolerable.
Push-button-peace Sir? For those aching, yawning hole-in-your-soul days?
I'd stick with the ache, I think. At least that way, I'd know when it's over.
And ummm...thank you for linking. :)
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