Affective Field Theory of Emotion

 "Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love. Albert Einstein"

While developing a philosophical understanding of emotion it has come to mind that research over the years has provided a model consideration for understanding the valence affect. This valence affect with regard to the Decision making process that from a cognitive standpoint is inclusive of logical and emotive forces. This process was a long one in which I thought to place ourselves,  in terms of a self evident point of expression,  so as to suggest,  the next question rests on a Inductive realization with which the history has thus far been explained.

So the totality of this entry is an examination with regard to emotion and its necessity in the logic analysis approach to such a question. To what is self evident. To what is decisive.

The next step is always important.  So I had to demonstrate the current historical examination for what has been done with regard to emotion so that I could reveal some of the work that I had done in the years past.

 This work then is a stepping point toward a new and entertaining thought about what the next technologies might reveal about our emotive and logical state of being as we make our decisions with all that we had gained with in experience. So the next step is a series of posts that will reflect this attempt by me to objectify what has thought to been totally subjective and without regard.

"No aspect of our mental life is more important to the quality and meaning of our existence than emotions. They are what make life worth living, or sometimes ending. So it is not surprising that most of the great classical philosophers—Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza, Descartes, Hobbes, Hume—had recognizable theories of emotion, conceived as responses to certain sorts of events of concern to a subject, triggering bodily changes and typically motivating characteristic behavior. What is surprising is that in much of the twentieth-century philosophers of mind and psychologists tended to neglect them—perhaps because the sheer variety of phenomena covered by the word “emotion” and its closest neighbors tends to discourage tidy theory. In recent years, however, emotions have once again become the focus of vigorous interest in philosophy, as well as in other branches of cognitive science. In view of the proliferation of increasingly fruitful exchanges between researchers of different stripes, it is no longer useful to speak of the philosophy of emotion in isolation from the approaches of other disciplines, particularly psychology, neurology, evolutionary biology, and even economics. While it is quite impossible to do justice to those approaches here, some sidelong glances in their direction will aim to suggest their philosophical importance. de Sousa, Ronald, "Emotion", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.),"

"If the view that emotions are a kind of perception can be sustained, then the connection between emotion and cognition will have been secured. But there is yet another way of establishing this connection, compatible with the perceptual model. This is to draw attention to the role of emotions as providing the framework for cognitions of the more conventional kind. de Sousa (1987) and Amélie Rorty (1980) propose this sort of account, according to which emotions are not so much perceptions as they are ways of seeing—species of determinate patterns of salience among objects of attention, lines of inquiry, and inferential strategies (see also Roberts 2003).de Sousa, Ronald, "Emotion", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), Emotion"

.

"Under the Heading of #6. Perceptual Theories-A crucial mandate of cognitivist theories is to avert the charge that emotions are merely “subjective.” But propositional attitudes are not the only cognitive states. A more basic feature of cognition is that is has a “mind-to-world direction of fit.” The expression is meant to sum up the contrast between cognition and the conative orientation, in which success is defined in terms of the opposite, world-to-mind, direction of fit (Searle 1983). We will or desire what does not yet exist, and deem ourselves successful if the world is brought into line with the mind's plan

The exploration of questions raised by these characteristics is a thriving ongoing collaborative project in the theory of emotions, in which philosophy will continue both to inform and to draw on a wide range of philosophical expertise as well as the parallel explorations of other branches of cognitive science. Conclusion: Adequacy Conditions on Philosophical Theories of Emotion -de Sousa, Ronald, "Emotion", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), Emotion"

"Thus, secondary reflection is one important aspect of our access to the self. It is the properly philosophical mode of reflection because, in Marcel's view, philosophy must return to concrete situations if it is to merit the name “philosophy.” These difficult reflections are “properly philosophical” insofar as they lead to a more truthful, more intimate communication with both myself and with any other person whom these reflections include (Marcel 1951a, pp. 79–80). Secondary reflection, which recoups the unity of experience, points the way toward a fuller understanding of the participation alluded to in examples of the mysterious.Primary and Secondary Reflection-Treanor, Brian, "Gabriel (-Honoré) Marcel", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), forthcoming Marcel Gabriele."

"Early decision theorists recognized the importance of emotion and discussed it in detail (e.g., Bentham, 1789; Jevons, 1871; Smith, 1759). Nevertheless, emotions did not make it into decision research because they were seen as intrinsically unstable and unpredictable, partly because they could not be measured objectively. Today, most problems with unpredictability and immeasurability of emotions have been solved. Emotions can be reliably measured in various verbal (e.g., via rating scales) and non-verbal ways (e.g., via FACS or facial EMG’s; Larsen & Fredrickson, 1999; Parrott, & Hertel, 1999). More- over, the impact of emotion on behavior is actually sim- pler and more systematic than previously thought. Emo- tions behave lawfully (Frijda, 1988, 2006), and their con- sequences are clear, stable and quite predictable. This has opened up opportunities for an integrative account of the different emotional influences on decision making. We present such an account in this article.On emotion specificity in decision making: Why feeling is for doing-(PDF) Marcel Zeelenberg∗1, Rob M. A. Nelissen1, Seger M. Breugelmans2, & Rik Pieters3 1 Department of Social Psychology and TIBER, Tilburg University 2 Department of Developmental, Clinical and Cross-cultural Psychology, Tilburg University 3 Department of Marketing and TIBER, Tilburg University"

 

"We can now restate our opening questions. Is the special felt qualitative tendency in valence, as it is structurally represented in descriptive theories, an intrinsic feature of emotion experience as such; that is, something that exists prior to the self-reports that describe it? Or is it instead created and structured by features of second-order awareness, such as these self- reports? The argument here is that valence is created by attention in sec- ond-order awareness. There is nothing scientifically objective or precise that we can say about valence apart from its elaboration in second-order awareness. Second-order awareness does not create the underlying phenomenology of emotion experience, but it does shape and articulate what exactly it means to us. This conclusion would appear to threaten the scientific foundation of descriptive theories of affect, because it undermines the objectivity of the phenomenon they claim to study. It also contradicts the driving assumption of several dominant neuroscientific theories of valence, according to which valence is an intrinsic objective property of affective experience.Emotion Experience and the Indeterminacy of Valence by LOUIS C. CHARLAND"

 "Emotions are the key to the human decision making processes since decisions and actions are primary irrational and not cognitive-The Emotions in Emotions Analytics"

" The sort of mental processes described as cognitive are largely influenced by research which has successfully used this paradigm in the past, likely starting with Thomas Aquinas, who divided the study of behavior into two broad categories: cognitive (how we know the world), and affective (how we understand the world via feelings and emotions)[disputed ].[citation needed] Consequently, this description tends to apply to processes such as memory, association, concept formation, pattern recognition, language, attention, perception, action, problem solving and mental imagery.[14][15] Traditionally, emotion was not thought of as a cognitive process. This division is now regarded as largely artificial, and much research is currently being undertaken to examine the cognitive psychology of emotion; research also includes one's awareness of one's own strategies and methods of cognition called metacognition and includes metamemory. 

Research into cognition is usually scientific and quantitative, or involves creating models to describe or explain certain behaviors. Cognition"

***

 The part of the body in which the soul directly exercises its functions is not the heart at all, or the whole of the brain. It is rather the innermost part of the brain, which is a certain very small gland situated in the middle of the brain's substance and suspended above the passage through which the spirits in the brain's anterior cavities communicate with those in its posterior cavities. The slightest movements on the part of this gland may alter very greatly the course of these spirits, and conversely any change, however slight, taking place in the course of the spirits may do much to change the movements of the gland” (AT XI:351, CSM I:340). The Passions of the Soul "

 "The word endocrine derives from the Greek words ἐνδο- endo- "inside, within," and κρίνειν krinein "to separate, distinguish".Endocrine system -"

 "The thymus was known to the ancient Greeks, and its name comes from the Greek word θυμός (thumos), meaning "anger",[22] or "heart, soul, desire, life", possibly because of its location in the chest, near where emotions are subjectively felt; or else the name comes from the herb thyme (also in Greek θύμος or θυμάρι), which became the name for a "warty excrescence", possibly due to its resemblance to a bunch of thyme Thymus -"

"The James–Lange theory has remained influential. Its main contribution is the emphasis it places on the embodiment of emotions, especially the argument that changes in the bodily concomitants of emotions can alter their experienced intensity. Most contemporary neuroscientists would endorse a modified James–Lange view in which bodily feedback modulates the experience of emotion." (p. 583)James–Lange theory -"

"Phillip Bard contributed to the theory with his work on animals. Bard found that sensory, motor, and physiological information all had to pass through the diencephalon (particularly the thalamus), before being subjected to any further processing. Therefore, Cannon also argued that it was not anatomically possible for sensory events to trigger a physiological response prior to triggering conscious awareness and emotional stimuli had to trigger both physiological and experiential aspects of emotion simultaneously.[33]Cannon–Bard theory -"

"Maranon found that most of these patients felt something but in the absence of an actual emotion-evoking stimulus, the patients were unable to interpret their physiological arousal as an experienced emotion. Schachter did agree that physiological reactions played a big role in emotions. He suggested that physiological reactions contributed to emotional experience by facilitating a focused cognitive appraisal of a given physiologically arousing event and that this appraisal was what defined the subjective emotional experience. Emotions were thus a result of two-stage process: general physiological arousal, and experience of emotion.Two-factor theory -"

 ***

TEDxSF - Roz Picard - Emotion Technology -http://youtu.be/ujxriwApPP4

Empatica is an affective computing company, focused on human data analytics. We develop groundbreaking wearable devices with medical quality sensing.- "  Skin conductance response in regular subjects differs when given fair and unfair offers, respectively. However, psychopaths have been shown to have no difference in skin conductance between fair and unfair offers.[2] This may indicate that the use of lie detectors relying on skin conductivity gives psychopaths an advantage that non-psychopaths do not have in criminal investigations.-"  "Whether scientific method is at all suited for the study of the subjective aspect of emotion, feelings, is a question for philosophy of science and epistemology. In practise, the use of self-report (i.e. questionnaires) has been widely adopted by researchers. Additionally, web-based research is being used to conduct large-scale studies on the components of happiness for example. Alongside this researchers also use fMRI, EEG and physiological measures of skin conductance, muscle tension and hormone secretion. This hybrid approach should allow researchers to gradually pinpoint the affective phenomenon. There are also a few commercial systems available that claim to measure emotions, for instance using automated video analysis (nViso) or skin conductance (Affectiva).Affective Science -" " Founded in 2011, Nymi is a spinoff from the University of Toronto, focused on delivering unique and usable digital identity solutions. The company's first product is the Nymi Band, a wearable technology device that delivers Persistent Identity experiences by using the wearer's unique electric cardiac signature as a biometric. Nymi is proudly based in Toronto and is privately-funded by Ignition Partners, Relay Ventures, MasterCard and Salesforce Ventures. http://www.nymi.com/news/now-nymi/" "Affective computing is the study and development of systems and devices that can recognize, interpret, process, and simulate human affects. It is an interdisciplinary field spanning computer science, psychology, and cognitive science.[1] While the origins of the field may be traced as far back as to early philosophical enquiries into emotion,[2] the more modern branch of computer science originated with Rosalind Picard's 1995 paper[3] on affective computing.[4][5] A motivation for the research is the ability to simulate empathy. The machine should interpret the emotional state of humans and adapt its behaviour to them, giving an appropriate response for those emotions.Affective Computing -" The advances made and put forth here paint a different picture then the one assumed here in regard to the development of emotions that work toward identifying innate characteristics of the person? As well, as factors that are now discernible physiologically with regard to the economics of barter and trade. This observation goes back to principle inherent in wireless communication(as fractal antennas) and the work of Benoit Mandelbrot who brought forward through recognition, its utilization of fractals and development by Seth Cohen.  *** " In view of the proliferation of increasingly fruitful exchanges between researchers of different stripes, it is no longer useful to speak of the philosophy of emotion in isolation from the approaches of other disciplines, particularly psychology, neurology, evolutionary biology, and even economics.  Twentieth-century Anglo-American philosophy and psychology tended to incorporate emotions into other, better understood mental categories. Under the influence of a “tough-minded” ideology committed to behaviorism, it seemed easier to look for adequate theories of action or will, as well as theories of belief or knowledge, than to construct adequate theories of emotion. Economic models of rational decision and agency inspired by Bayesian theory are essentially assimilative models, viewing emotion either as a species of belief, or as a species of desire. That enviably resilient Bayesian model has been cracked, in the eyes of many philosophers, by such refractory phenomena as akrasia or “weakness of will.” In cases of akrasia, traditional descriptive rationality seems to be violated, insofar as the “strongest” desire does not win, even when paired with the appropriate belief (Davidson 1980). Emotion is ready to pick up the slack. Recent work, often drawing support from the burgeoning study of the emotional brain, has recognised that while emotions typically involve both cognitive and conative states, they are distinct from both, if only in being significantly more complex. Emotion- de Sousa, Ronald, "Emotion", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)"  "The subjective theory of value is a theory of value which advances the idea that the value of a good is not determined by any inherent property of the good, nor by the amount of labor required to produce the good, but instead value is determined by the importance an acting individual places on a good for the achievement of their desired ends- In the philosophy of decision theory, Bayesian inference is closely related to discussions of subjective probability, often called "Bayesian probability". Bayesian probability provides a rational method for updating beliefs. Bayesian epistemology is an epistemological movement that uses techniques of Bayesian inference as a means of justifying the rules of inductive logic.Bayesian Inference"  "Decision theory in economics, psychology, philosophy, mathematics, and statistics is concerned with identifying the values, uncertainties and other issues relevant in a given decision, its rationality, and the resulting optimal decision. It is closely related to the field of game theory as to interactions of agents with at least partially conflicting interests whose decisions affect each other. Decision  Theory -" "In economics, the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services, emotions are analyzed in some sub-fields of microeconomics, in order to assess the role of emotions on purchase decision-making and risk perception Disciplinary approaches -"   "Broadly speaking, there are two views on Bayesian probability that interpret the 'probability' concept in different ways. For objectivists, probability objectively measures the plausibility of propositions, i.e. the probability of a proposition corresponds to a reasonable belief everyone (even a "robot") sharing the same knowledge should share in accordance with the rules of Bayesian statistics, which can be justified by requirements of rationality and consistency.[2][5] Requirements of rationality and consistency are also important for subjectivists, for which the probability corresponds to a 'personal belief'.[6] For subjectivists however, rationality and consistency constrain the probabilities a subject may have, but allow for substantial variation within those constraints. The objective and subjective variants of Bayesian probability differ mainly in their interpretation and construction of the prior probability.Objective and subjective Bayesian probabilities -" *** "Contemporary analytic philosophers of mind generally use the term “belief” to refer to the attitude we have, roughly, whenever we take something to be the case or regard it as true. To believe something, in this sense, needn't involve actively reflecting on it: Of the vast number of things ordinary adults believe, only a few can be at the fore of the mind at any single time. Nor does the term “belief”, in standard philosophical usage, imply any uncertainty or any extended reflection about the matter in question (as it sometimes does in ordinary English usage). Many of the things we believe, in the relevant sense, are quite mundane: that we have heads, that it's the 21st century, that a coffee mug is on the desk. Forming beliefs is thus one of the most basic and important features of the mind, and the concept of belief plays a crucial role in both philosophy of mind and epistemology.Belief -"  Forming beliefs is thus one of the most basic and important features of the mind, and the concept of belief plays a crucial role in both philosophy of mind and epistemology. The “mind-body problem”, for example, so central to philosophy of mind, is in part the question of whether and how a purely physical organism can have beliefs. Much of epistemology revolves around questions about when and how our beliefs are justified or qualify as knowledge. Belief -  Nevertheless, many contemporary philosophers of science and analytic philosophers are strongly critical of Popper's philosophy of science.[14] Popper's mistrust of inductive reasoning has led to claims that he misrepresents scientific practice. Among the professional philosophers of science, the Popperian view has never been seriously preferred to probabilistic induction, which is the mainstream account of scientific reasoning.Falsifiability - See also: The Logic of Scientific Discovery (PDF)