Okay this is a rather bizzare subject, but I could really really use your help.
I can't explain many things right now, I have to keep quiet about the whole idea, but this is for my PhD, so any help would be greatly appreciated.
What I want:
I'm trying to figure if I can categorize all the feelings a human can have. Eg. Anger, Happiness, Sadness and so on... But I'm not sure if I'm forgetting something or I'm missing something out, or whatever.
I have figured that every emotion, or feeling must have its oposite, like happiness-sadness. And that I need the most basic ones. Jealousy is an emotion, yes but it would be something like anger, fear and sadness at the same time.
So how many emotions/feelings can you think of that are most basic and can't be broken into other catoegories? And do they have an oposite feeling/emotion?
Please if possible keep this thread clear of questions and stuff. Feel free to PM me for any questions or swearing or flamming you may have or wish to. :)
As far I have found 4
happy - sad
angry - calm
Any more?
As I said all help much appreciated.
And thank you!
Nikolas
I don't really understand, but that made me think - confused?
Mind you, that's not really an emotion I guess.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emotions
Leave it to SSH to answer a philosophical question of introspection with a wikipedia link... :P
And Nik, I don't think calm would be the emotional opposite of angry. Calm is kind of like the absence of emotions, yeah? Perhaps angry <=> grateful or something along those lines.
Also, I'd say you can include Love <=> Hate. Maybe Desire <-> Disgust...
Ugh, feelings don't work that way in my opinion. Really, you made me think about it, but I don't think that there is a way of describing emotions at all.
dkh: You mean musical describe or gneerally. Cause if you can generally I can shape it musically (hoping to anyway).
But generally I think that you can identify a music track like being happy (think of smurf music for example), or sad (think Presnier) or angry (think KoRn or whatever else) and so on...
Vince: Thanks mate. Calm is the absense of emotions? I didn't know that! hmmm... But thnak for the other ones, good ideas too. And SSH did help wit hthe wikipedia link (I never think of looking there, I've got to start using it more).
SSH: Thanks mate! Usefull link!
Kinoko: Confused? Not really an emotion, but bizarly enough I think it could work with what I want it to. So THANKS! Cause now I have to search for other stuff as well. It's not only emotions I'm looking for...
Well... Anyway more please, more...
The only thing is that I can't explain right now, what I will do with these, but it has to do with my PhD, and your ideas have been very useful so far! Thanks everybody.
Quote from: Nikolas on Tue 28/03/2006 12:43:45
dkh: You mean musical describe or gneerally. Cause if you can generally I can shape it musically (hoping to anyway).
I DO believe that you can recreate a feeling musically (and you are definately able to do that very well, Nikolas), but I don't think that a counter-feeling to angry for example can be found. Is it happy? Glad? Nice?
To me it seems that feelings are unique for everybody and our words do not give us the possibility to describe them correctly for everybody. You CAN however - as said before - let other people know how sadness or anger feels for YOURSELF (for example you could express that musically or lyrical or whatever).
EDIT: Additionally, I think that there are infinite feelings, because do you really think that its the same sadness I feel after losing my girlfriend and after my mother died? No, those feelings aren't even comparable (although they might be wrongly categorized as "sad" both). In order to have a correct and complete lists of feelings or emotions, you'd need to seperate them like this: "sadness-after-losing-girlfriend", "sadness-because-close-person-died" etc. and of course there are infinite situations in ones life in which one can feel sad. Thus there are infinite emotions... ;)
If you want to be really serious about it, you have to take into account that many different languages have many different words for emotions others don't. There's a crapload in Japanese alone that there are no English equivalents for.
Yeah, like eskimoes having 30-something words for snow, but if you take it too far, it will become pretentious or hard to distinguish (like wine-experts who claim that this thing has a rich wooden aroma and a hint of licourice to it) and I believe it is a good idea to have only a few selected that can describe the rest, some that are universal or primal emotions.
If you go a little further from the caveman/ape emotions you could consider emotions (eg. pride, insecurity) that society wouldn't do without.
English has words for the abstract and the specific. So while "sad" is correct for someone mourning and someone dumped it is hardly the whole story. But that doesn't make it wrong.
I need to clarify somethings!
I don't care about the different meanings of the word 'sad', or how mayb words for sadness can someone come up with.
I may needed to have said this earlier, but
what I'm looking for is the basic emotions that can be detected by someone else.
dkh, sadness is different of course when loosing a gilr or you mother, but for someone who does not know what's happening it's all sadness, at different levels of course.
Is happiniess any different than excitmenet? I know that it may have different meanings and different applicatios, but the output of an exiceted person and a happy person, can be quite the same.
So I'm trying to distinguish the basic ones, that are completly different. There is no way to describe sadness using other emotions, where you can easily descirbe drousy, blue, sorrowfull, pityful, with a couple of other emotions, including sad (at least that's what I think).
What I'm trying to do is to find a (medical probably) way for a person to give an output of his/her feelings at real-time. But before I can start discussing seriously with a doctor (I have actually started to discuss with a couple of doctors), I need to tell them what emotions I'm looking for, what is theuir job. I can't give them a catalouge of 500 emotions and tell them to distinguish between them. But I can give them 6-10 and tell them the differencies between them...
Okay, I haven't given out too much, at least this is how much I can give away without feeling uncomfortable...
I think the problem here is in defining the opposites. (Using your words) when you do the parallel happy - sad the word happy is narrowed down. You could as well say happy - angry which gives happy a new meaning. Many of these words are so abstract that they are interchangeable and can be understood differently by a person who says I am sad and the person who is listening. It cannot be done without overlapping words, and no matter how many words you use, a current state of emotion cannot be expressed perfectly. In a simplified example, all emotions can be placed somewhere on a happy - sad scale (calm is in the middle, angry is towards sad), like political parties can be placed from left to right. The thing you should have immediately posted was the amount of words you were aiming for to describe a state (6-10), which makes it easier for us to help you. I'll try to think about it and maybe post a set later.
You know what I don't see anywhere?
Apathy.
That's what I'm feeling right now. Apathy.
Nik, you know in greek we say 'esthimata' for feelings, and 'sin-esthimata' for the higher type, a combination of esthimata. Lower type is usually anger or fear etc. very primal biochemical effects that we share with most mamals and generally most of the more evolved animals actually. Sinesthimata accur in relation with self-awareness or something. Think about it, I guess.
But.
I strongly urge you to not look at feelings in couples of dialectic oppositions. I suspect it doesn't work that way. This sort of dualism is antiquated and will not provide a good toolset for you to understand the world. But it might help with art because art isn't exactly about proper interpretation of the world. We feel a whole lot of things at any given time, and the coorelations are more three-dimensional and complex and everything influencing everything. We are not sims with ANGER - HAPPINESS negative to positive sliders.
That is to not to say it is difficult for a person to achieve an emotional state, if he were to have all the right resources at hand - give me the woman I need, give me the comforts I need, give me the time I need, give me the context I need and I will be a most happy person... with the only lingering fear being the omnipresent threat of mortality, I guess. What people need is pretty simple, I find. How they come to need it, how it works internally, how desire and ambition and self-esteem and irrational fears, and existential awareness and all that relates to create the psychological makeup of a given modern human being, is very, very difficult to model.
I don't think you'll gain anything as a person from trying to codify emotion, besides arbiterate resolutions that you can use as party tricks and a friendly, certain, but also sheltered and wrong point of view of humans where you look at them and you go 'oh, he fits into my model in this and that way' where there's no risk-taking and you don't actually experience other people at all, just your preconception of them.
I have three. A bit dusty, as they've been lying around for a while, but in prime order anyhow. They're all green and round. And not for sale.
Ishmael and Pesty: Thanks guys! Ishmael, I have no idea what you're talkig about, and Pesty, I don't know what you tried to say but even without trying you helped :D
Helm: If I"m not mistaken in greek esthima is what we get with our esthiseis. What we get from hearing, seeing and so on. Everything else is sin-esthimata. But I dunno I will give thought to what you said. I do have my reasons for trying to codify emotions, I'm not pretty sure that I will do a good job, I'll try to though and of course I won't judge anybody for anything. I will just use the results from this coding. But really thanks. You did made me think. About lower type feelings? What are they? Which are they? What are these basic types of emotions. Because I could, for instance, 'explain' a higher type of emotion with a combinatin of some lower ones. Pressumably speaking...
Bio and Helm: I think that you are right and maybe there is a problem in trying to couple possitive and negative feelings. There may be not possitive and negative feelings or emotions but simply emotions or feelings.
bio: You're right, I should be clearer fro mthe begining. But I'm not exactly sure of the number and well 6-10 is just a number, I don't mind if they come up 12, but I do mind with 500, where I've seen something. But thanks, do repost.
I recall from my psychology classes that there were five (or maybe that was six?) basic facial expressions that were recognizably near-identical in (nearly) every human society, and that corresponded to five basic emotions. IIRC the list goes happiness, fear, anger, surprise, and sadness. HTH.
Quote from: Radiant on Tue 28/03/2006 19:35:14
I recall from my psychology classes that there were five (or maybe that was six?) basic facial expressions that were recognizably near-identical in (nearly) every human society, and that corresponded to five basic emotions. IIRC the list goes happiness, fear, anger, surprise, and sadness. HTH.
I believe disgust is one of the universal facial expressions as well (I'm majoring in psych, so I SHOULD know, but this really isn't my area ^_^)
There's been a lot of work done in psychology pertaining to making a catalogue of emotions. Although I'm pretty sure there's no definitive answer, you might want to take a look at the literature in this area for ideas. You can also check out the basic emotional expressions thing mentioned above.
Good luck! ^_^
I don't really know if I want to assist you with yet another "I have this idea and I need your help but I can't tell you what it is" projects. Just like it's insulting to put a big "I made this picture" logo on something you post in the critics' lounge, it's kind of disrespectful to ask us to help you without telling us what it is for.
That said, I think your approach is extremely ill-founded. You are confusing the concept of emotions as a subjective internal state (I feel sad, etc.), with expressions that can be interpreted by others. This kind of behavioralism has been discredited for decades. You are conflating the idea of basic emotions vs. complex emotions (itself a distinction open to criticism) with the idea of consistent or reliably interpreted expressions (there's no reason to assume that the expressions that are most unambiguous represent the most basic emotions). Also, like Helm says, you're assuming a very dubious dualism of emotions without any basis at all (except presumably some misguided ideal of symmetry). You have omitted all physical sensations and feelings (pain, exhaustion, excitement, arousal, etc.), but the line between an emotion (or an expression signalling an emotion) and a physical feeling (or an expression signalling a physical state) is often blurred.
Paul Ekman did research on expressions that are interpreted as the same emotion across all cultures. That sounds like about the most useful place for you to start. In his book Blink, Malcolm Gladwell describes an experiment that analysed the health of relationships by looking at the emotions partners expressed to each other from second to second (apparently, the number of times they express disgust with each other is the main predictor of breakups). You might find that to be an interesting introduction to these questions.
Quote from: Snarky on Tue 28/03/2006 23:22:02
I don't really know if I want to assist you with yet another "I have this idea and I need your help but I can't tell you what it is" projects. Just like it's insulting to put a big "I made this picture" logo on something you post in the critics' lounge, it's kind of disrespectful to ask us to help you without telling us what it is for.
I did say that it is for my PhD, but I can't really explain in detail what I want to do, the whole idea behind things. I don't think it's that bad...
Now on what you said I have to find something subjective to stand on, otherwise everything will simply collapse! And physical sensetaion is something I have in mind, that could blur things a little.
Basing your PhD on an unsound idea is probably not a good idea. If I were you, I would take the concerns about the validity of your assumptions extremely seriously. In fact, I think you should consider abandoning this line of approach and start over from scratch. You really need to delve into the actual psychological research on this subject. A "canonical" list of "emotions" gathered from a web forum for an adventure game engine is not a strong foundation for a thesis.
I hope you mean something objective, not subjective.
Helm: Hum, yes. right! Objective not subjective
Snarky: Yes mate, thanks... I'll take it inot account but not too much. Since you don't know what exactly it is I'm looking for, I hardly think that you're validated to judge or even think that I would base my thesis on a web forum opinion. I'm treating this community and this thread while trying to discuss some things and get some ideas. Something like a pub discussion or something I'm sorry you feel it's wrong, but that's what I'm doing and it's been proving to me very helpfull. When I need to check if my idea(s) is/are good, you'll be the first to PM or e-mail.
Similarly, Snarky, taking advice about what makes a good foundation for a music PhD from some random guy on the AGS forums is presumably not a good idea either. I have no doubt Nikolas has a PhD advisor to help him there. Unless you actually have a music PhD, in which case, my apologies.
Fear, Love, Anger & Hate.
The four basic emotions, as I see it.Ã, Any other emotions is just a watered-down aspect of one of these four.
I've pondered this subject at great lengths, on many occassions.
EDIT:
Emotions don't have opposites.
Just to clear things up a little more.
I had a lenghty discussion with a phychologist, who wouldn not accept the breakdown of feelings.emotions. She simply said that you cannot measure the emotions of one, and that there are 1000s of emotions...
This does not mean that I will take my idea and shove it up my A*S (now what's the letter missing here?). But I will have to change phychologist!
Noseriously, that I will have to explain to the phychologist that I'm not trying to make a pjhychology experiment, but a music one ;) Anyhow, I really appreciate all the help from you guys, and have to be sincere, especially Helm as he gave me lots of ideas.. And Snarky and everyboy else...
THANKS GUYS!
Spleen is on to something, at least in phrasing. Fear, Love, Anger and Hate are emotions, while happy, sad, angry and calm are states-of-mind those emotions can lead to. I'd probably add a word for the absence/balance of those four to the list as well.
Actually the first four of the wikipedia article correspond to those quite well. Love seems to narrow, and joy strikes better to me. Same goes with anger/hate that seem to have a similar meaning. So, guess my corresponding list would be straightly stolen from there (fear/anger/sorrow/joy) and the absence/balance of these as the fifth.
What about nausea? It's kind of a feeling all it's own. I suppose feeling "good" is something of an oposite. But happiness isn't the opposite.
Sadness is not a genuine emotion. It's fear of coping without something.
You're not sad that someone's gone, you're scared of coping without them in your life.
Joy is a concept of the Love emotion, you love the way you feel (physically, not "emotionally") whilst experiencing what you classify as "joy".
As I said, there's no opposites, Bio. Absence of something is not an absence. There's no opposite to Green, just a lack of Green. Lack of Green is not a color, though.
Also, I've never consulted wiki. It's mostly meditiation and substance abuse that lead me to those four.
Anger and Hate are different. You can be angry at something, and not hate it. Just as you can hate something but not be angered by it.
Evil: Nausea is not really an emotional thing, it's more of a physical thing.
Spleen:
I like the reasoning behind sadness.
I think Love is understood by most people as an emotion between two people/a nurturing (mother emotion) thing. Looking animally, most species raise their offspring and split up. There are some that stay together (one interesting thing was sea lions, where two individuals that had been dealt bad cards by Darwin met up away from the centre of the yearly sea-lion orgy to mate in peace), but I believe there is not a thing called human love (Hollywood love). It is a product of other emotions and reasoning (initial lust decreases, fear and comfort issues take ower). When we get old it's not the sex that keeps us together. When our partner dies, we get sad, which applied to your ideas would be 'afraid to cope' with every new day alone.
Joy on the other hand can be felt when things go your way, and no-one has to be there to see it. It might be a bad word for that very reason (if a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound).
I didn't mean these to be extreme opposites, more like provide a palette and words from opposite ends of the spectrum. Continuing with the color theme, is a lack of colors invisible or white/black?
White and black are not considered colors, and we cannot ever see true invisble, but the things behind. Still, though white and black ought to be neutral, black is associated with sad and white with happy. Maybe there should be two words for absence of emotions corresponding to these. Apathy seems like a good equivalent to black, but i cannot come up with a snappy "white" corresponding word, so let's say Calmness.
Anger is the instant/pure emotion. Hate is the prolonged anger that involves fear as well. Animals don't go around hating each other.
I think human emotion can be divided into two categories:
- Attraction
- Repulsion
This is made on two premises:
- Emotions are a reaction by the mind in response to the perception if a certain event is occurring in a desirable manner or not (are the atoms morphing towards their goal? - see second premise). The emotions are a maneuver by the mind in order to instruct on if a certain path should be continued upon, or whether it should be deviated from.
- Life is nothing more than a series of atoms morphing in order to achieve a goal.
Following on from this, we can categorise any emotion under these two basic categories:
- Attraction: happiness, love, calmness
- Repulsion: sadness, surprise (minds initial perception is repulsion, no matter if surprise is positive or negative), hate, fear
I haven't thought this theory through much, it's just my uncensored mental diarrhea - but I thought I'd post it here just in case it might be of use, or inspire you to think. It's an interesting concept (the breaking down of human emotion).
I can agree with that. It seems like a good way to divide emotions into two opposing ends. Although individual emotions would have no exact opposites, there is a need to place everything somewhere so every emotion can relate to another and they can be defined (like constant motion can only be defined in a coordinate plane that relates to a point/origo). The way individual emotions relate seem to me more like a mind map (with several paths), that can be constructed from different skeletons, but attraction/repulsion should be an excellent base.
It might not have much use in real life (nothing is that simple), but if you (Nikolas) are going for some simplified model, this is the best one so far.
Yep, I will agree this is something that I can really use!
I actually had yet another discussion with someone who did suggest that something rather objective (difficult to contradict really in real life), is the meanings of positive and negative. something we like and something we don't. Exactly as abc123 (lovely name indeed) puts it. But here is where the personality of each one of us, and the different circumstances come in play. Cause something that might be positive at one time, for someone could be immently negative in another situation.
Anyway what I've thought of, is to 'define' (not really but this is why the ' ' are there for), emotions into subcategories, but also with a plus or minus in the side. Cause simply enough, I'm really really fine when I'm nostalgic (although I do miss something), but terrible when I'm mourning my mother, for example. It's loss in both situations, but the first is positive while the second is negative. Also anothe idea is that too much amount of one emotion/feeling could be really bad. Anxiety can help people cope with problems better, and have adrenaline so as to respond better. Panic (too much anxiety), can paralyze.
Guys, I have to say that this is the most helpful thread, ever for me. (I won't say thanks once more... I won't, I won't)
Haven't you learned anything from "Donnie Darko"?Ã, ;)
Emotions aren't rational, or prone to objective analysis, they can't be. By the time someone's done quantifying, categorizing, or comparing them, they've changed anyway. Emotions are simply a means of coping with situations and communicting what we need to effectively deal with those situations.
I see the chain of ANY emotional reaction going something like this:
STIMULUS -> OBSERVATION -> INTERPRETATION -> JUDGEMENT -> LIMITATION -> EXPRESSION[/size]
Example: Someone overhears a piece of conversation. Depending upon how much they see or hear, they will come to a conclusion. Their actual reaction will be a product of personal experience, physical ability to communicate, and the hundreds of bio-chemical factors that make-up their mental state. Let's not leave out education, culture, religion, or mental illness. (and I'm summarizing horribly, so please don't be too critical.)
Now, this discussion has been mostly centered on the other side of emotions. What others observe, and how 'they' interpret the reaction. I see it following the exact same path as above, with one notable addition:
SEMANTICS[/size]
What one person may call 'happy', another may call 'content', or 'silly', or 'manic', or 'in denial'. 'Sad' can become 'depressed' at any moment (especially in our pharmaceutically driven advertising world, at least in the US). How does the observer interpret the emoter's interpretation? How much did the observer see of the original stimulus, and what's their reaction to it? Where did..... this can go on ad nauseum, so I'll stop. I think everyone should get the point.
Anyway you try to divide it up, it's messy. But good luck on the PhD.