7-15-12 WHAT IS EMOTION?
Posted by Vincente E. Woodward on Sunday, July 15, 2012
It is proverbially said that some are "ruled by their emotions".
Until recently the idea of "emotion" evoked mystery.
No one knows what it is or where it comes from.
It seems to have the most extreme, and powerful effects, imaginable over humans.
A man may have strong "feelings" of attachment to a woman,
and then turn around and murder her in cold blood
(crude or primal re-attempt at individuation from his mother?).
That is emotions.
One man may do the most heroic of feats while under the influence of "emotions", while another will commit one heinous violent crime after another under the influence of the same thing.
Extreme violence and extreme attachment.
Emotions can be VERY volatile.
I can be in the best of moods one moment, and literally explode into a rage in the very next moment, given the right stimulus or circumstance.
I can't help but be reminded of the old law which says that when you catch your wife in adultery you cannot just kill the guy who you caught in the act.
You have to kill her also, in order to avoid a charge of cold blooded murder.
That is emotions.
One can only imagine how many emotions, running the full gamut, there will be as the case proceeds through the courts.
How many visceral emotions will be raised?
By how many people? Lots!
So, what in the world is it that connects all of this together?
THE LIMBIC SYSTEM
But of course, that wonderfully ubiquitous group of various organs which are designed to motivate and cause and initiate locomotor actions with extreme rapidity.
Look out! ---
Those are the words which turn that system on within milliseconds of hearing those words.
The same system seems to serve multiple purposes.
It is hard to think of the feelings associated with "falling in love" with those feelings associated with dread and fear and anticipation of some horrible thing which is just about to happen (or not).
But, you guessed it, our Creator has seen fit, probably in the name of compactness (remember the laws of conservation of momentum in physics? this looks like the same in another form) to use the same glands, organs, and chemistries for both.
That would leave quite a few VERY SCARY ways which the circuits could get crossed up and overlapped.
I think we may see many of those crossed up circuits playing out in action just before they come to or are sent to me for criminal defense.
Let's take a quick look at an example.
Dopamine.
Now here is a drug which we, in the field, considered to be a wonder drug.
It works on kidneys, causing perfusion, which is a big deal in volumetriic shock situations.
It works on the lungs, opening them up so that one may breath in more oxygen.
This is also a big deal during fight/flight, or when one is seriously injured.
Just ask anyone who has ever had "air hunger"
(that would include me, any number of times ---
and I can tell you, without equivocation,
I do not like it, even a little bit!).
Oh, oh.
Surely you can feel it.
There must be a problem headed our way.
Yes?
Yes.
Dopamine makes you feel REALLY GOOD!
Now, you should be asking yourself, if you are paying any attention whatsoever, what could possibly be wrong with feeling good?
As Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes
"--- to everything there is a season".
That means that there is a time for dopamine to flush the brain in what I like to call a "dopamine bath".
And there is a time not to flush the brain with a "dopamine bath".
One "feels" really good.
The other "feels" really bad.
Unless you are into feeling really bad,
in which case it must feel really good.
At least that is what I am told by some whom I am uncertain whether or not to believe - the so-called "cocaine comedown", better known to me as "crash and burn".
So, the mentally healthy individual is now confronted with sometning which, by it's very nature, is going to cause them never to be mentally healthy again.
They will now begin to learn and understand just how difficult conflicted emotions really can be and why the suicidal persons kills themself, apparently with no remorse whatsoever.
This is all because you felt really good, and then didn't.
If that sounds like the huge comedown during a relationship breakup, it is.
Literally.
In physio-chemical terms these "feelings" are all being caused by the same organs acting in different ways by making "neurotransmitter cocktails" of vaying different proportions of several primary chemicals and several secondaries, along with numerous related chemical reactions.
So, this gets even scarier to me as I contemplate the matter, because
"I love you" comes from cocktail recipe number one.
And "I am going to kill you" comes from cocktail recipe number two.
Same bartender.
Just how can I be sure he did not just give me cocktail number two, instead of cocktail number one?
Might be a nice thing to know before I go on the date with you,
what do you think?
And what if the bartender starts off as a pretty good bartender, but over time he changes, until he becomes a baaaaad bartender.
Oh no, is nothing sacred anymore?
Gotta take a break.
Hope to return soon with information on the actual workings of the limbic system.
Is already in my head.
Just a matter of getting it onto paper.
But, that is not always so easy to do in these difficult and trying times.
w/love
vw
8:33 a.m.
Sunday
7-15-12
Ventura, California, USA
Until recently the idea of "emotion" evoked mystery.
No one knows what it is or where it comes from.
It seems to have the most extreme, and powerful effects, imaginable over humans.
A man may have strong "feelings" of attachment to a woman,
and then turn around and murder her in cold blood
(crude or primal re-attempt at individuation from his mother?).
That is emotions.
One man may do the most heroic of feats while under the influence of "emotions", while another will commit one heinous violent crime after another under the influence of the same thing.
Extreme violence and extreme attachment.
Emotions can be VERY volatile.
I can be in the best of moods one moment, and literally explode into a rage in the very next moment, given the right stimulus or circumstance.
I can't help but be reminded of the old law which says that when you catch your wife in adultery you cannot just kill the guy who you caught in the act.
You have to kill her also, in order to avoid a charge of cold blooded murder.
That is emotions.
One can only imagine how many emotions, running the full gamut, there will be as the case proceeds through the courts.
How many visceral emotions will be raised?
By how many people? Lots!
So, what in the world is it that connects all of this together?
THE LIMBIC SYSTEM
But of course, that wonderfully ubiquitous group of various organs which are designed to motivate and cause and initiate locomotor actions with extreme rapidity.
Look out! ---
Those are the words which turn that system on within milliseconds of hearing those words.
The same system seems to serve multiple purposes.
It is hard to think of the feelings associated with "falling in love" with those feelings associated with dread and fear and anticipation of some horrible thing which is just about to happen (or not).
But, you guessed it, our Creator has seen fit, probably in the name of compactness (remember the laws of conservation of momentum in physics? this looks like the same in another form) to use the same glands, organs, and chemistries for both.
That would leave quite a few VERY SCARY ways which the circuits could get crossed up and overlapped.
I think we may see many of those crossed up circuits playing out in action just before they come to or are sent to me for criminal defense.
Let's take a quick look at an example.
Dopamine.
Now here is a drug which we, in the field, considered to be a wonder drug.
It works on kidneys, causing perfusion, which is a big deal in volumetriic shock situations.
It works on the lungs, opening them up so that one may breath in more oxygen.
This is also a big deal during fight/flight, or when one is seriously injured.
Just ask anyone who has ever had "air hunger"
(that would include me, any number of times ---
and I can tell you, without equivocation,
I do not like it, even a little bit!).
Oh, oh.
Surely you can feel it.
There must be a problem headed our way.
Yes?
Yes.
Dopamine makes you feel REALLY GOOD!
Now, you should be asking yourself, if you are paying any attention whatsoever, what could possibly be wrong with feeling good?
As Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes
"--- to everything there is a season".
That means that there is a time for dopamine to flush the brain in what I like to call a "dopamine bath".
And there is a time not to flush the brain with a "dopamine bath".
One "feels" really good.
The other "feels" really bad.
Unless you are into feeling really bad,
in which case it must feel really good.
At least that is what I am told by some whom I am uncertain whether or not to believe - the so-called "cocaine comedown", better known to me as "crash and burn".
So, the mentally healthy individual is now confronted with sometning which, by it's very nature, is going to cause them never to be mentally healthy again.
They will now begin to learn and understand just how difficult conflicted emotions really can be and why the suicidal persons kills themself, apparently with no remorse whatsoever.
This is all because you felt really good, and then didn't.
If that sounds like the huge comedown during a relationship breakup, it is.
Literally.
In physio-chemical terms these "feelings" are all being caused by the same organs acting in different ways by making "neurotransmitter cocktails" of vaying different proportions of several primary chemicals and several secondaries, along with numerous related chemical reactions.
So, this gets even scarier to me as I contemplate the matter, because
"I love you" comes from cocktail recipe number one.
And "I am going to kill you" comes from cocktail recipe number two.
Same bartender.
Just how can I be sure he did not just give me cocktail number two, instead of cocktail number one?
Might be a nice thing to know before I go on the date with you,
what do you think?
And what if the bartender starts off as a pretty good bartender, but over time he changes, until he becomes a baaaaad bartender.
Oh no, is nothing sacred anymore?
Gotta take a break.
Hope to return soon with information on the actual workings of the limbic system.
Is already in my head.
Just a matter of getting it onto paper.
But, that is not always so easy to do in these difficult and trying times.
w/love
vw
8:33 a.m.
Sunday
7-15-12
Ventura, California, USA
