Re: [xmca] Emotion and Cognition

From: Wolff-Michael Roth <mroth who-is-at uvic.ca>
Date: Mon Jul 23 2007 - 21:33:45 PDT

   It does not seem reasonable (to me) to assume that the high school
graduate is really associating the fate of his research program with
his ability to feed and clothe himself, not least because the
evaluation of the emotional consequences of his rejection seems to
precede his consideration of the physical consequences. The same goes
for the college graduate. Everytime I try to assume this I end up
with a long and vulgarly associationist chain.

Hi david, you are writing about many things and I don't know whether
you expected anyone including me to comment on any of it. There are
two things that I seem to sense. First, the way your lines read is as
if all is conscious, and this does not have to be in this way. The
male worker may have a general but unarticulated sense about what is
going on, like I put in my day and go home and do something for
myself, but it is not really "consideration". Second, there are
feedbacks across systems and levels. Thus, doing something and
succeeding, thereby increasing your room to maneuver, leads to a
sense of elation; knowing that one was successful is more or less
conscious, but this knowing mediates bodily states, and the bodily
states give rise to performances that can be far beyond normal----as
I know from having rowed among the top singles/teams in the world.
THe same happens, too, with academics, where the two levels can
mediate each other. Which is first? Chicken and egg!

He sticks with his job, because it pays the bills; but at the same
time, the emotional feedback that previously came from his work now
comes from running a little farm and having a secondary income by
selling veggies, from building his own home from scratch etc. And it
doesn't have to be reflected on a lot, it is more like a general
sense of well being in one place and of ill feeling in the other.

It is us academics that all too frequently intellectualize it all.

Just a few comments,
THanks for reading and beginning the discussion,
Cheers,
Michael

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Received on Mon Jul 23 21:36 PDT 2007

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