[Xmca-l] Re: Questioning universal core emotions
Douglas Williams
djwdoc@yahoo.com
Sat May 10 12:10:37 PDT 2014
Hi--
I am curious as to how cognitive linguistics and Gibson's affordance would fit into this meditation on idealism, as well as the Gestalt perceptual discoveries. The implication for language is that semiotics generally are constrained by certain universals of perception, action, and sensation. For example, anger in language generally is described using "heat" terms, not because of individual subjective experience, or cultural history, but rather because of a common human subjective experience of blood flooding into capillaries. We see the world in certain common ways, and ascribe to others similar perceptions, which are correct far more often than wrong. Red and green have a degree of hardwired perceptual value--indeed, the fact that we see a certain range of colors relevant to us in our development as a species, and not others (such as the ultraviolet patterns bees see in flowers--important for them, but not for us) provide a commonality of meaning.
Objects afford particular kinds of activities and interpretations based on human physiology and senses. Ideas--invisible, intangible things--become available to us for use when we "grasp" them, not when we step on them. Our ability to exist and interact in communities requires the ability to attribute certain common perceptions and sensations to one another.
I don't think anyone could say that the activity of a subject is not constrained uniquely or through sociocultural experience. But surely the commonality of physiology and perceptual experience must be very deep for cooperative human activity to have been successful, and for cultures with little or no points of sociohistorical contact (admittedly a hard experiment to do these days) to understand each other at all. Beethoven and Smetana's hearing did not isolate them from being able to express meaning to others. Perhaps a better example is Scriaben, whose synesthesia placed him in a state of a high degree of idealism in his perception of music. Perhaps no one has ever perceived Scriaben's music as he perceived it. But the points of commonality between any human (and of course the cultural constraints of the musical culture in which he composed) make it available to anyone, even if one is outside of the particular activity of practice in which he lived.
Surely the commonality of physiology and innate activity (eating, breathing, the biomechanics of emotional response at least, at the least) provide a foundation for interaction, even for spheres in Flatland, so to speak, such as Scraben.
Regards,
Doug
________________________________
From: Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, May 7, 2014 6:38 PM
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Questioning universal core emotions
You are very confused, David. My apologies for any contribution I have
made to that.
Firstly, tinnitus. Tinnitus is a condition of the audial nerves and
although it can be acute and transitory, the case I have is permanent.
My audial nerves are always in this condition. This is a physiological
fact. But my consciousness of it, including my feeling of it and even
the sensation of ringing in the ears is dependent on other aspects of my
consciousness, i.e., my attention. Consciousness is different and
distinct from physiological conditions. I cannot abolish the ringing. It
is always there, but I can ignore it so that it does not exist /within
my consciousness/. This is, I know, something which the advocates of
"embedded consciousness" and "thoroughgoing materialism" and all the
enemies of "Cartesianism" deny. But I experience it every day.
Secondly, torture. Torture is /an activity/ in which one or a number of
people engage when they purposively inflict pain on another person. This
usually involves inflicting physiological effects on the subject. These
are facts, objective existences, which cannot be overcome by
interpretation, either of the subject or paricipants, or by George Bush
or right-wing journalists. But the consciousness arising from this
activity in both subject and torturer is dependent on their overall
psychological condition, their consciousness. As Franz Fanon has shown
it is often the torturer who goes insane and the subject who flourishes.
But I am sure in all case, the subject experiences sensations of pain
(unlike my experience with tinnitus). But this will have /very different
qualities/ according to how it is interpreted. I am sure that living
there in Korea you have had plenty of opportunity to observe how the
experience of pain can be "overcome" and under appropriate conditions,
and up to a point, even be enjoyable. If you are not a martial arts
practicioner, just have a good stretch for example.
The point is that consciousness arises from the activity of the subject,
not physiology as such, even if this distinction is often immaterial.
That is why Marx said, in the very first words of "marxism": "The main
defect of all hitherto-existing materialism - that of Feuerbach included
- is that the Object, actuality, sensuousness, are conceived only in the
form of the object, or of contemplation, but not as human sensuous
activity, practice, not subjectively. Hence it happened that the active
side, in opposition to materialism, was developed by idealism - but only
abstractly, since, of course, idealism does not know real, sensuous
activity as such. " and it is in that sense, that I am happy to wear the
label of "idealist."
Andy
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
http://home.mira.net/~andy/
David Kellogg wrote:
> Andy--
>
> Sorry--I'm not following. You are saying that your tintinnatus only
> exists when you are interpreting it, yes? And the same thing goes for,
> say, Smetana's tintinnatus, which appears, without his knowledge, in
> many of his operas and which eventually drove him mad?
>
> What about torture? You are arguing that torture only exists when we
> interpret it as torture? I can tell you--from some first hand
> observations made in the early eighties--that it ain't so.
>
> David Kellogg
> Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
>
>
> On 7 May 2014 10:35, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net
> <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
>
> David, I have tinnitus. That is, 24/7 there is a ringing in my
> ear. You could ask me any moment if it is there and I would have
> to confirm, I hear it. (I hear it now, as I write). But 99.99% of
> the time "it does not exist for me." Obviously what is happening
> on my auditory nerves is the same all the time, but according to
> whether my attention is on it, it exists or doesn't, for me.
> (Thank Christ! Some people find it hard to ignore and go into
> therapy to learn how to ignore it).
> You call that idealism? OK. Then I am happy to wear the label.
> https://www.academia.edu/1968768/Hegels_Psychology_-_The_Subjective_Spirit
>
> And on the matter of emotion and feeling. I was just following
> Manfred Holodynski's usage of these terms.
> http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Journal/pdfs/20-1-holodynski.pdf
> Admittedly, different writers use "feeling" and "emotion" in
> opposite senses. "Expression" is something else again.
> Andy
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *Andy Blunden*
> http://home.mira.net/~andy/ <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/>
>
>
> David Kellogg wrote:
>
> I think that Barrett is taking an easy pot-shot at the founding
> fathers--Titchener, James, and Wundt--who believed in six
> fundamental,
> irreducible emotions and who set out to isolate them in
> laboratories and
> describe them in minute detail. But as Mike says, I think the
> problem is
> methodological, or even definitional.
>
> And to me the real problem is not the word "sensation", or
> "feeling", or
> "emotion". I am perfectly willing to accept that for example
> pain is a
> biological universal (something we share with other species,
> in fact), and
> that "sensation" is somewhat less so, at least biologically
> (although I
> think Andy's idea that nothing remains when we abstract away the
> interpretation of sensation is almost chemically pure
> idealism, on a par
> with his statement that material reality is "what is given to
> us"). I agree
> with Elinami: there are higher emotions which are highly
> mediated by
> language (Elinami reminds me of this by including a snippet of
> Fet that I
> once translated into English at the bottom of her email, and
> when I read it
> I experience almost the exact feeling I had while translating
> it, including
> a certain dissatisfaction with the facile sing-song of the
> second line).
> But I am not at all sure that the fact of language mediation
> means that
> they are somehow more subjective and less universal.
>
> For most people, as soon as we say something is mediated by
> language, this
> implies that it cannot be universal. For example, even I find
> myself
> shaking my head when I read that Barrett and her group went
> through several
> translators in the course of their fieldwork. If you are using a
> translator, and you are doing linguistic research, in what
> sense are you
> doing fieldwork? (I know, in the sense that you are in the
> field and you
> can tell what people are feeling by their intonation--but of
> course that's
> exactly what this fieldwork is trying to disprove!)
>
> Vygotsky says (in Lecture Number Two of his "Lectures on
> Pedology", which
> we are currently translating) that what distinguishes speech
> from every
> other sound in nature is signifying. That seems rather banal
> until you put
> it in context. We know that children often assume that animals
> that make
> noises are "talking" to each other, and even Binet and Ribot
> believed that
> if somehow we knew the grammar and vocabulary then we could do
> as Doctor
> Doolittle did (or perhaps do as Doctor Ouch did in Chukovsky's
> version of
> the story for Russian children) and "talk to the animals".
>
> It wasn't until Wittgenstein that anybody made the point that
> if a lion
> could talk we would simply not be able to understand it,
> because we would
> not be able to grasp the experiences to which the lion's
> speech referred
> (e.g. when the lion refers to your or me, his "meaning"
> probably includes
> an attractive meaty odor). One of the less pleasant features
> of the
> domestic life of the lion is that after giving birth to cubs,
> the lioness
> has to keep the the male lion from devouring the cubs. We may
> share pain
> with lions, but we do not share emotions.
>
> For Vygotsky--who was working in the great tradition of
> Spinoza and
> Vico--the fact of signifying did not mean that language was
> somehow
> "subjective" and thus not even potentially universal. Quite
> the contrary. I
> think that for Vygotsky signifying is even more objective
> than, say,
> seeing. This isn't simply because unlike seeing (and unlike pain),
> signifying MUST be shared. As Halliday says, what
> distinguishes language as
> language is that language does not contain the conditions for
> its own
> understanding; unlike a scream of pain or a giggle of laughter
> or a sob of
> unhappiness, the social relations by which language functions
> as language
> are quite external to it, like money (what makes gold a metal
> is in the
> gold, but what makes gold money is not, as we can clearly see
> in the
> example of paper money).
>
> To me, what this suggests is that higher emotions are not,
> potentially,
> less universal than lower ones. On the contrary--as the
> example of Himba
> ancestor worship indicates--it suggests that higher emotions
> are actually
> more universal, precisely because they are intrinsically
> sharable. It seems
> that all human cultures treat ancestors as important in some
> way (and no
> lions do; lionesses also have to guard against hungry
> grandmothers). So I
> think reverence for ancestors, like language, may be a
> precondition for
> culture. Together with language, it is rather like the other great
> bifurcations in phylogenesis: inanimate-animate, vegetable-animal,
> nonarticulate animal-articulate animal. Each great bifurcation
> is messy,
> non-empirical, but ultimately quite universal as far as the branch
> concerned goes in time and in space. It is, of course, true
> that there is
> no universal language, but that is simply our way of ensuring
> that language
> is universally human.
>
> David Kellogg
> Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
>
>
>
>
> On 7 May 2014 07:15, Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com
> <mailto:greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>
>
> and speaking to my previous point about problems with
> methods for studying
> this kind of thing, consider the following from the Psy
> Science piece that
> Mike forwarded:
>
> "Himba participants appeared to have a cultural tendency
> to describe
> vocalizations in behavioral terms initially; that is, on
> most trials, they
> first identified the action instead of making a
> mental-state inference….
> For example, instead of describing a vocalization as
> fearful, they often
> used a term that translates to 'scream.'" (p. 913).
>
>
> Woohoo!
>
> -greg
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, May 6, 2014 at 3:03 PM, mike cole
> <lchcmike@gmail.com <mailto:lchcmike@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>
>
> Hi Ed.
>
> I started the trouble here by posting the following
> story which purported
> to report on the work of Lisa Barrett.
>
>
>
>
>
> http://www.psypost.org/2014/03/the-six-universal-facial-expressions-are-not-universal-cross-cultural-study-shows-23471
>
>
> That post started a discussion that began with
> methodology and appears to
> have morphed into personal views of the matter.
>
> I promised in the original post to find the article
> referred to in the
> story, but got caught up in other matters and let it
> go. I should have
>
>
> done
>
>
> so BEFORE I posted the story, which was, in my view
> now, misleading with
> respect, at least, to this published paper. The paper
> in Emotion has not
> appeared so far as I can tell.
>
> Back to methodology?
> mike
>
>
>
> On Tue, May 6, 2014 at 1:19 PM, Ed Wall
> <ewall@umich.edu <mailto:ewall@umich.edu>> wrote:
>
>
>
> Perhaps of interest is Amelie Rorty's edited
> volume Explaining
>
>
> Emotions.
>
>
> In any case, emotion is a large category as is
> expression.
>
> In any case, I admit to some confusion. Is the
> ongoing conversation
>
>
> about
>
>
> 'expressing' emotion or about 'feellng' or,
> perhaps, 'experiencing'
>
>
> emotion.
>
>
> Ed Wall
>
> On May 6, 2014, at 2:28 PM, Elinami Swai wrote:
>
>
>
> I believe that pain, just like feeling is
> universal. But I also
> believe that emotion (which we can also call
> expression) is learned
> and thus may differ from one individual to
> another. We make
> interpretations of emotion and expression from
> our own points of
>
>
> view.
>
>
> On 5/6/14, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net
> <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
>
>
> David, although I am sure that sensations
> cannot be taken as
>
>
> universal
>
>
> either, since it is unlikely that there is
> anything remaining after
>
>
> the
>
>
> interprettion of the "sensation" is
> abstracted. However, it is
> nonetheless a different claim to say that
> human sensation is not
> universal, as to say human emotion (by
> which is meant I think
>
>
> "feeling")
>
>
> is not universal. Let's suppose all are
> experiencing pain: they are
>
>
> all
>
>
> clearly feeling different about it.
>
> Or was that your point?
>
> Andy
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> *Andy Blunden*
> http://home.mira.net/~andy/
> <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/>
>
>
> David Kellogg wrote:
>
>
> Suppose I put together a set of
> pictures of people undergoing
>
>
> torture,
>
>
> in
>
>
> which some people appeared to be
> experiencing the torture
>
>
> stoically,
>
>
> others
> with resignation, still others with
> agony, and some with something
>
>
> that
>
>
> appears to be laughter.
>
> I think I could probably crop the
> photographs and pose questions in
>
>
> such
>
>
> a
> way that I could very convincingly
> demonstrate that pain is not a
> universal
> human sensation. Not only that, I
> could probably put together a
>
>
> sorting
>
>
> exercise that would come to the same
> conclusion.
>
> David Kellogg
> Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
>
>
> On 5 May 2014 01:24, Greg Thompson
> <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com
> <mailto:greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>>
>
>
> wrote:
>
>
>
>
> I have a colleague down the hall,
> David Crandall, that has been
>
>
> working
>
>
> among the Himba for almost 30
> years. I also have three students
>
>
> headed
>
>
> to
> do research among the Himba in a
> month. So I've been picking up
>
>
> some
>
>
> interesting details about the Himba.
>
> It seems like it is true that they
> have increasingly had contact
>
>
> with
>
>
> Western culture, as evidenced by
> recent protests in some of the
>
>
> larger
>
>
> cities that were staged by Himba
> opposed to the building of a dam
>
>
> that
>
>
> would cause flooding of some of
> the burial sites of their
>
>
> ancestors
>
>
> (
>
>
> http://www.huntingtonnews.net/84854).
>
> At the same time, they are
> non-numerate people that lack some of
>
>
> the
>
>
> key
>
>
> Western institutions where kids
> learn (oddly enough) about
>
>
> "emotions"
>
>
> (think of those pictures of happy
> and sad faces that Western
>
>
> schooling
>
>
> takes into the classroom as the
> MEANS by which they teach
>
>
> literacy -
>
>
> these
> means of teaching literacy always
> entail certain cultural ends -
>
>
> such
>
>
> as
>
>
> "emotion" - concepts that are not
> emic concepts).
>
> Among the western institutions
> that the Himba lack, the Himba lack
>
>
> the
>
>
> Western model of schooling (one of
> my students is doing research
>
>
> on
>
>
> this
>
>
> very issue). It is only in the
> last 15 years or so that Himba have
>
>
> begun
>
>
> sending their children to school,
> and now only in small numbers.
>
>
> The
>
>
> Himba
> are very skeptical of schools
> since, in their opinion, the schools
>
>
> don't
>
>
> teach their children anything
> worthwhile. Knowing how to count is
> unimportant to them since although
> they are non-numerate they are
>
>
> able
>
>
> to
> keep track of large herds of
> cattle because they know each of
>
>
> their
>
>
> cattle
> individually and can recognize
> when one is missing. But what
>
>
> really
>
>
> matters
> are things like knowing how to
> properly honor one's ancestors. If
>
>
> one
>
>
> fails
> to do that properly, then then
> ancestors will cause bad things to
>
>
> happen
>
>
> to
> oneself. That is much more
> important than knowing how to count.
>
> Carol, I also agree with your
> concerns with the methodology of the
> study,
> it may not be reasonable to assume
> that this research is the same
>
>
> as
>
>
> the
>
>
> Ekman tasks and of-course it is a
> Western-type task (but one might
>
>
> argue
>
>
> that it is less so than the Ekman
> tasks since it is more open,
> arguable).
>
> So Carol, I wonder what
> conclusions you would draw from your
>
>
> critique.
>
>
> Are
> emotions universal?
> I wonder if there is a further
> possibility that these
>
>
> psychologists
>
>
> are
>
>
> missing. Is it possible that
> "emotions" are not universal in
>
>
> quite a
>
>
> different sense? Perhaps that the
> very category of "emotion" is
>
>
> not
>
>
> universal?
>
> I think this research points in
> that direction - when viewing a
>
>
> picture
>
>
> of
> a face, people do not necessarily
> assume that the person in the
>
>
> picture
>
>
> is
> "emoting". I assume that this
> would be true among Westerners as
>
>
> well,
>
>
> but
> that possibility doesn't present
> itself in the research
>
>
> methodology
>
>
> since
> Westerners are asked "what emotion
> is this?" The task is already
>
>
> defined
>
>
> by
> the domain called "emotion" (with
> which they are already very
>
>
> familiar).
>
>
> Anthropologists have done great
> work to show the problems with
>
>
> taking
>
>
> Western defined domains into
> non-Western contexts (e.g. the domain
>
>
> of
>
>
> "kinship" - David Schneider, the
> domain of "color" - John Lucy).
>
>
> The
>
>
> argument is that even though this
> research turns up results that
>
>
> seem
>
>
> to
>
>
> suggest that the domains are real
> even in non-Western contexts,
>
>
> the
>
>
> findings are plagued by the fact
> that they assume these domains
>
>
> and
>
>
> force
> these non-Western subjects into
> choosing within the pre-defined
>
>
> domain.
>
>
> But then again, perhaps "emotion"
> is a universal category?
> -greg
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, May 4, 2014 at 7:55 AM,
> Carol Macdonald <
>
>
> carolmacdon@gmail.com <mailto:carolmacdon@gmail.com>
>
>
> wrote:
>
> Well Mike
>
> I am here working in Namibia
> for the year, and I would like to
>
>
> know
>
>
> where
> these Himba people are. I
> mean the ones referred to in the
>
>
> article:
>
>
> I
>
>
> am
> not sure they are *so
> *isolated - they are well
> recognised as one
>
>
> of
>
>
> the
> language groups. And I think
> there is also an elephant in the
>
>
> room
>
>
> here.
> This is a western-type task,
> and Luria would have been quick to
>
>
> point
>
>
> that
>
>
>
> out. What makes this woman
> think that this task would be the
>
>
> equivalent
>
>
> to
>
>
>
> the others.
>
> Just a couple of basic
> principles to cast a small
> aspersion on
>
>
> this
>
>
> research.
>
> Carol
>
>
> On 4 May 2014 14:16, mike cole
> <lchcmike@gmail.com
> <mailto:lchcmike@gmail.com>>
> wrote:
>
>
>
>
> Perhaps of interest
> mike
>
>
>
>
>
>
> http://www.psypost.org/2014/03/the-six-universal-facial-expressions-are-not-universal-cross-cultural-study-shows-23471
>
>
> --
> Carol A Macdonald Ph D (Edin)
> Developmental psycholinguist
> Academic, Researcher, and Editor
> Honorary Research Fellow:
> Department of Linguistics, Unisa
>
>
>
>
> --
> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
> Assistant Professor
> Department of Anthropology
> 883 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
> Brigham Young University
> Provo, UT 84602
> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Dr. Elinami Swai
> Senior Lecturer
> Associate Dean
> Coordinator, Postgraduate Studies
> Faculty of Education
> Open University of Tanzania
> P.O.Box 23409
> Dar-Es-Salaam
> Tell:255-022-2668992/2668820/2668445/26687455
> Fax:022-2668759
> Cell: (255) 076-722-8353; (255) 068-722-8353
>
>
>
> http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Womens-Empowerment-Africa-Dislocation/dp/
>
>
> 0230102484
> ...this faith will still deliver
> If you live it first to last
> Not everything which blooms must
> wither.
> Not all that was is past
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
> Assistant Professor
> Department of Anthropology
> 883 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
> Brigham Young University
> Provo, UT 84602
> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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