0.1 The will and its relation to feelings  (Page 2/2)

While feelings can be complicated, and thoughts can be complicated, drives are often simple because they are basic emotions that are driven by simple thoughts - such as the drive that most humans and animals have to eat food - it is a strong emotion or feeling that is powered by cognition, i.e., the idea that they are hungry.

Experiencing feelings

Humans experience feelings all of the time.

How could a feeling be described? It is basically something that someone feels - different things in life evoke different feelings. Therefore thought is really an insignificant component, because feelings occur continuously with human beings.

If a feeling isn't continuous, then it could get interrupted suddenly. Feelings mix in complicated ways, and if it is complicated it might create a weird feeling because simple feelings are easy to understand. If it isn't simple then you might not know what is going on or it could be strange, which could cause the feeling to be weird. This could be compared to other weird feelings or things in life that are also weird. However there is a difference between something being weird because it is unknown, and it being weird because the feeling is unknown.

Normally someone would just describe something weird as being strange or unusual - however then it is possible that the unusual feeling is more powerful because it is different from what the person is accustomed to. New and different feelings or stimulation could be more powerful because the mind hasn't experienced it before and needs to adapt.

Feelings that are powerful could be considered to be tangible components of the mind, or be part of life experiences, life experiences that generate feelings are called 'experiential' phenomena.

Feelings that are the result of experiences are different from feelings that are the result of someones inner thoughts. Humans can think to themselves all of the time, and this inner type of thinking can also cause feelings. However, experiences can cause a different type of feeling because it is stimulation, and stimulation is more of a physical feeling. Thoughts are just thoughts in your mind, while stimulation from the world or from the external senses could seem more 'real'.

Thinking of things in terms of if they are strange could also help to identify what the feeling is or what it is like. Would an external feeling from the world feel more strange than someones thoughts? How could a thought seem strange, and, how would that be different from stimulation from outside in the world seem strange? What does that mean exactly - a thought being strange? That wouldn't seem to make any sense because people think to themselves all of the time, so it wouldn't seem like thinking would be out of the ordinary, and it is usually strange types of stimulation or things in the external world that are different - not someones internal cognitions or thinking.

Feelings and drives

I stated previously that emotions could have any cause while drives could be driven by thoughts. Emotions could also be the result of thoughts, or drives could be the result of thoughts. However drives come from powerful emotion so it is unlikely that simple thoughts would cause a strong emotional drive.

I also basically stated that you can look at how strange a feeling is in order to understand it better. However, what about the strength of feelings? If drives come from strong emotion, then the drive would probably not be a strange feeling because drives are basically never strange. That is because people are only motivated by selfish desires, and there is nothing strange about a selfish desire. Either that or the 'strange' feeling is a feeling and not a strong emotion.

Feelings are shallow - when you touch something you get a feeling that is simple (and tactile), however emotions are strong and deep and more related to thoughts because thoughts are intellectual. What about drives? If drives are strong then they too would be intellectual. That makes sense because it is something that you are driven by - hence the word 'drive'.