I just read a little about one of Dreyfus's lectures. It seems more concerned with lack of commitment and connection to society. I see his point. My little life and its effects become irrelevant in the larger relativity of cyber space.

right right....itz all good...

studying? no, i graduated...........

but um....i dunno, i studied like the Philosophy of the Mind which had all kinds of interesting things......apart from dualism, epiphenomenalism, behaviorism, etc....it covered sentience, learning, language, emotions (briefly) and some shit like that...

the best book i've read pertainin' to emotions was The Moral Animal by Robert Wright.....purdy interesting stuff

So what are you going to do now if you aren't studying? Going to get your masters? What would you do your thesis on? What fields are there for you to get work in?

jesus....one question at a time

i'm currently workin' on writin' (fiction) and the such, and am in a band....i got no job, which sux........

i would like to go back to school some day, but right now i'm just chillin'.......i've done nuttin' but school all my life, so i'm just seein' what the world's like i guess.....but i will go back eventually........

i plan to get a masters in both English and Philosophy....maybe one day a PhD in philosophy.....

as for the thesis....i dunno.....probably sumtin' real off the wall like....maybe this topic "Philosophy of Emotion" might be fun....

fields for a Philosophy major? absolutely fuckin' nil..........every philosophy proff. i ever had would say "You're nuts! Go be an accounting major or sumtin'!".....about the only thing you can do is get a masters and/or a PhD and hope to teach it....even then you ca really only do it on the college circuit......no one cares about philosophy anymore save for intellectuals and the such.....because they're is really no money in bein' able to think abstractly and reason through problems......but, at the same time, itz very rewardin' personally......all i know is that before i studied philosophy i was one kinda person and now i'm completely fuckin' different and see the world differently....the only problem is that philosophy majors and philosophers can really only talk to one another.....try talkin' to someone who knows absolutely nuttin' about philosophy, or even just minimal perspectives, GAH!!!!! so aggravatin'

Oh no, am I aggravatin'?????? Philosophy of emotion is a pretty broad field.

If it wasn't for philosophers we wouldn't have a separation of religion and state. Philosophers are just as vital today as in the past. Maybe the forums have just changed. Our western world is becoming so wealthy people are returning to the arts and philosophy. All these 'self help' books are just basic philosophical principles presented in a package for the laymen. The world will always need great thinkers.

While reading this interminably long thread, I did the following:
1) had breakfast
2) had lunch
3) watched someone play Legend of Zelda: WindWaker
4) cuddle with significant other
5) debate on the important or relevance of gaining post-secondary education in the field of liberal arts
6) checked my Livejournal

Now that I'm done, I will attempt to touch on all the subjects in this thread very briefly, as a matter of principle, and because I fucking worked for it, dammit!

1) Original topic: emotions.
As others in this thread have already stated, I do believe in the Mind --> stimuli --> bodily reaction (eg. so-called panic attacks and certain disorders occur because the mind is making the body react when there doesn't seem to be an appropriate triggering stimulus). However, there seems to be much evidence that it's a two way system, so that Body --> stimuli --> mental reaction also works (hence the rise of pharmapsychology). I also believe that humans have evolved past simple reactions to stimuli, and that trying to study the human mind while being a human mind is like trying to cut off your right hand using your right hand with a butter knife. SO! Emotions may have begun as simple reactions (which was already pointed out), but because humans have a tendency to warp and evolve past "natural" or "logical" bounds, then emotions have become far more than just what they had started off with, such as the difference between sex for procreation and sex for erotic/fetish/s&m purposes. Because I'm reading Rousseau right now, I'm going to bring that crazy French bastard up. He has this very strange theory that emotions are what connected human beings together, that if we saw others in pain, and distress, we empathize with them, we connect with them, and we seek to help them. Or if others are happy, we may be happy too, or infuriatingly jealous.
It makes sense that some emotions can be "taught", since they seem to transcend language and was probably the first way of communication when they caused facial and bodily reactions. However, Rousseau continues that in civilized society, people are now being alienated from each other, and emotions are being destroyed, replaced with apathy, or not understood, or, and I take it a step further, being replaced by drugs and artifcial means to control euphoria and depression. We have so little understanding of that which connects us as human beings because of the worship of Reason for millennia in the field of philosophy and even religion, and most definitely science, whose scapegoat was inevitably "the Passions", the extremes of what we know was emotions and feelings.

2) I've watched "What The Bleep Do We Know?" It offers an interesting array of perspectives on quantum theory. Some of the hardcore science and engineer major kids I was watching it with found that the movie was either generalizing it too much or applying quantum theory where it doesn't belong (i.e. religion, or that one can change one's reality through thought/prayer), while others found that it touched them deeply and made a shitload of sense. I also recomment "I Heart Huckabees", a film about an existential detective agency. It's a kickass philosophicaly comedy.

3) Ah, Aquinas and Aristotle. Those crazy bastards. Aquinas ripped off most of Aristotle and Plato's shite and Christianized it, as in gave the Prime Mover an actual interest in human affairs, as well as a Son that came down to save our fucked up souls. I don't think they'd really help much in the quest for emotion, but perception and the faculty of the mind, as well as the substance of reality, they'll give you some interesting ideas. Hume also was an epistemological inquirer, despite other things. Camus, as far as I can tell, critiqued classical philosophy and seemed like an atheistic existentialist, but I've yet to read his stuff, as well as Heidigger, which I'll be getting to in my last year at uni.

4) I'm not a philosophy student, I'm an eternal student, doing a B.Hum. (a Bachelor of Humanities, which is this freakish mutant hybrid of a degree, the only one in Canada, there may be some in the States, that mixes literature, philosophy, history, theology, political science, and the rest of the liberal arts). A smorgasbord of pseudo-intellectual delight. I also plan to get a Masters and a Ph.D. in this stuff. Anyone who wants a good background in this, can go get a Great Books collection (made by Encyclopedia Britannica), or find the list of authors they have in the Great Books collection, and check them all out one by one on the Internet. The Great Books are about 60 in total, and have almost all of the greatest thinkers in the Western Canon. Luckily my program also does Eastern Thinkers, but the Great Books help a lot on the Western front. As to the teacher and student thing, I agree that one should always be a student, though one can also be a teacher. I always want to learn, and I can impart what I've learned to others, but for me, it's never enough. KInda like a learning junkie. Whoa.

5) Dreyfus sounds like a doofus. But he's got some points about the alienation that the internet causes. Still, it also brings people closer together. I figure it's like a tool, and like all tools, people can use it well, or abuse it greatly.

6) One of the programs I got into but didn't go, was Philosophy Co-op, because how the fuck do you do co-op in philosophy?! I just found the name funny. Another program I applied for was because they had a Star Trek course second year. Ah well. My program is pre-Law, and pre-Med, and pre-Grad. My eventual career choice, when I don't make it big as a musician, singer, writer, artist, poet, playwright, actor, or director, is a university prof, teaching other people that "higher learning" isn't about getting money, getting a fucking job, and being a well-oiled cog in the capitalist machine, but about actually learning about what it means to be human, what it means to be part of society, what it means to feel, and think, and to be.

Ah, but what do I know. I'm just a fucktard.

An interesting fucktard though.

those are valid questions...but you ask it like there has to be a philisophical answer to it. but to answer as best as i can i would say that yes society has alot to do with how we acknowledge emotions. for instance society has told us that sorrow, anger, and pain are bad. but without those love, happiness, and pleasure would not be good. that is how they are linked, in my opinion. society does not want one to experience the bad emotions and senses, but without the bad how can we enjoye the good?
as far as moods go...your body releases hormones and endorphines as you interact with other people or objects based on how much of what you get, that determines a mood.
i hope i have shed some light on the subject. this is what i believe so yeah...