Emotions and causation
June 5th 2007 03:34
When a person weeps, why assume they can give you the reason? -- What if, even on a conscious level, just prior and during, there's too much that goes into it? Too many memories, sensations, perceptions, thoughts.
What do you experience while weeping? And do you even know?
Is it ever a single thing -- given that the weeping has duration, has beginning, middle, end, has shape?
Is it ever a single thing even at its onset?
"Belief", "pain", "perception" -- is any of the traditional mental states a simple event (and in what sense simple)?
And for any of what we designate as "emotional" -- for tears, shouts, shivers, smiles -- does any of it have a simple trigger?
"Why are you weeping?" -- Well, why assume that an answer is even expressible?
Tears of frustration, of humiliation, of despair, of anger, of disappointment... Are these words that neatly divide, or that adequately catch? And even together, even jointly, can they adequately catch?
The suspicion of objects in glass cases -- that words circle only, and never touch...
"Too many memories, sensations, perceptions, thoughts." -- And too many meanings, interpretations.
To see through a prism... To see how this event (any event, the event of reading this right now) would look were you watching it on a film screen, or hearing it in a song -- or to see how it fits into patterns of your history, or how it sits in the context of... what? Politics? psychology? sociology? biology? ...
-- The meaning is open-ended -- even more so than the question of cause, or the question of consequence. Old scenes are played and replayed in the memory, told and retold to strangers -- re-used without exhaustion.
For even in the case of a single object, how can you exhaust how you probe it, or what it relates to, or what it suggests or forebodes, or what it can symbolize?
Note: This post is a correction of something I wrote a while back...
What do you experience while weeping? And do you even know?
Is it ever a single thing -- given that the weeping has duration, has beginning, middle, end, has shape?
Is it ever a single thing even at its onset?
"Belief", "pain", "perception" -- is any of the traditional mental states a simple event (and in what sense simple)?
And for any of what we designate as "emotional" -- for tears, shouts, shivers, smiles -- does any of it have a simple trigger?
***
"Why are you weeping?" -- Well, why assume that an answer is even expressible?
Tears of frustration, of humiliation, of despair, of anger, of disappointment... Are these words that neatly divide, or that adequately catch? And even together, even jointly, can they adequately catch?
The suspicion of objects in glass cases -- that words circle only, and never touch...
***
"Too many memories, sensations, perceptions, thoughts." -- And too many meanings, interpretations.
To see through a prism... To see how this event (any event, the event of reading this right now) would look were you watching it on a film screen, or hearing it in a song -- or to see how it fits into patterns of your history, or how it sits in the context of... what? Politics? psychology? sociology? biology? ...
-- The meaning is open-ended -- even more so than the question of cause, or the question of consequence. Old scenes are played and replayed in the memory, told and retold to strangers -- re-used without exhaustion.
For even in the case of a single object, how can you exhaust how you probe it, or what it relates to, or what it suggests or forebodes, or what it can symbolize?
***
Note: This post is a correction of something I wrote a while back...
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Comment by David
I know why I weep. Every single time. Sadness.
It might be sadness over different events or memories, but it is always sadness which produces tears.
Why complicate things?
Anger produces different effects to sadness.
If you don't believe me? Go out to a really rough pub and make someone angry. Pick a real mean-looking dude. A member of a bikie gang, preferably, and tell him he's a bonehead or a meathead, and that only mummy's boys get tattoos because it's their way of dealing with their fucked-up childhood. Get him really angry. Smash a bottle over his forehead. That should do it.
I bet you he doesn't cry.
Afterwards? If you're still alive? Let me know if you've changed your philosophical stance.
David ... (Of the tongue-in-cheek and spoon).
Comment by Kleonaptra
Kalikapsychosis
I resist crying. I dont like it. Because when it happens, I just dissolve into grief and frustration and all sense of self is lost in the wave of terrifying sadness.
Comment by postmoderncritic
Postmodern Critic
Relativity Watch
Padsoc
I think you just have to start somewhere - you can fill in the gaps and silences to your desire later. Don't worry about articulating things in a finite, definitive way and just go with what your mind and heart tells you about you ability to compose language to commemorate the moment. When the moment changes, so will your ability/interest in articulating it further. Just like you began to articulate your thoughts in 'crying' and here you are now refining your thoughts - it doesn't make the original invalid, but adds texture and depth to it in hindsight.
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
Kleonaptra -- I like the idea of loss of sense of self. There's mysteries to be explored there, you see. About what sense of self is, what things suppress it, etc.
just a random thought you made me think... Drop by JohnDoe's blog and have look at the trailer for Cool Hand Luke. I think it's an interesting example of relatively controlled crying.
Comment by Damo
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
Random thought in reply...
One can never step into the same river twice, and ditto with reading. And an example of where this is strikingly true is when one is researching an essay. If I have a particular essay question on Nietzsche, then I'll read him in the light of that question, I'll specifically pay attention to how he can be interpreted in ways that are relevant to my question, and I'll ignore other interpretations and any extraneous detail... And then I'll come to him another time, with different concerns, and see something new...
Anyway, perhaps one way to put one of your points is that you never write the same thing twice either...
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
Why should one care about water out of the eyes anyway? You can cry because of onions or dirt. So what's the big deal?
Comment by KylieW
Celebrity Obsession
Oooh, thought provoking, I like it. I've never really thought about crying much.
I'm not a crier at all. But should I succumb to tears, it may be because of sadness, but usually is frustration (right after I'm done swearing, kicking things, yelling and throwing stuff around).
While I hardly ever cry, I tear up all the time. That's usually because I find something very funny (and I'm almost crying in anticipation) or if I see something particularly touching. Oh and watching things like the goddamn Olympic games. People win, everyone's happy, and for some reason my eyes are all watery and I'm holding back tears. Weird.
Kylie
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
Two thoughts in reply:
-- One complication when talking about causation generally, and when speaking of sadness and tears in particular, is that sadness is not always a "sufficient condition". You know what I mean? You can be sad without crying -- plenty of people are. You can be in Auschwitz and not cry. So, to take a point up from Epiphanie's comment above, it may be true to say that a person cried "because of sadness" or "because of happiness" or "because Kazakhstan just won a gold medal", but there's always gotta be more to it than that. More in the physical causation, and presumably more in the mental experience.
Another example: if you cry at a movie, sometimes you need the whole of that movie to have brought you, to have builded you, to the point when you cry. And so there's a sense in which the entire previous part of the movie are the causation of the tears.
And another example: it's strange how, in memory, if there's a sensation that comes close to being identifiable as what triggers watery eyes, it's often a specific detail. A smell, a gesture, a look, etc. And yet it can't be that detail in itself that triggers, but all of what's behind that detail, all that it stands for, etc.
-- You list a couple of reasons why you personally cry... Well, in my earlier post, I think I claimed to reduce causes of crying to two general categories: need (a baby cries to get attention), and "release of emotion" (which could cover happiness, sadness, Olympic games, etc). Looking back now, I wasn't at all careful about using the word "cause". And I'd probably need at least a third category, to cover allergies, colds, pollen, dust, smoke, damage to eyes, onions, etc. And someone pointed out to me, shortly after I wrote that earlier post, that I was making false assumptions about evolution. Not everything in us can readily be ascribed a function.
But I suppose my point in THIS post (probably overstated) is the difficulty of explaining your crying when someone asks you -- how, at any rate, it's not always a straightforward matter. So I sort of wanted to get away from making a list, and to talk more about the practical matter of trying to look into yourself and explain why you're crying.
And I do think that it's not at all an easy thing to grasp. Say your father dies, and you cry. Well, it's true you can say you're crying "because I'm sad", or "because my father died" -- and you CAN give these sorts of answers, and this is sort of David's point -- I'm overcomplicating things. But I do think these "becauses" are somewhat crass. There's a sense in which they don't really do justice to the experience, don't explain it properly or communicate it to anyone.
One reason I wrote this post was that I had a watery-eyed moment last night, and it really was difficult to explain why, exactly, there was water. -- "Was it this, was it that?" -- "Well, sort of yes, sort of no, a little bit, not exactly..." -- To explain in a way that identified the causation specifically...
Comment by David
I used to. Then I joined Orble.
David ...
Comment by D. Armenta
The Florida Keys and Everglades
The Black Sheep Chronicles
What constitutes bad manners?
The male mystique
Debate Fan
L.A.M.P.
Works really well in bright sunlight...
Comment by Kleonaptra
Kalikapsychosis
Im very keen to define myself. I understand to gain true power in a real or spiritual sense the ego must be released, but by the same token a large ego is required to contain a highly educated and old soul. I fear a loss of individuality, and hate the powerlessness of crying. Ive never felt joy keenly enough to cry over it, only grief and frustration - perhaps thats why I hate it so much!
Comment by Miswanderlust
Killer Beats
Ramble On
Hipnotherapy
Damo
I am with you...group hugs suck. What about group beat downs? That willl make some cry!
Mis
Comment by Henrah
I find that crying is the overwhelming sensation of emotion, sometimes grouped (sadness and grief) and sometimes singularly (pain). It is usually when thoughts are racing and more and more things come to mind to aggravate the emotion that I cry.
In regards to films --
The Lion King made me cry when I saw it about a year ago. When Mufasa had died and Simba was nudging him and saying "Wake up daddy!" my eyes were filling up with tears, and it was only when the music chimed in - hitting a climax I think - that the tears welled out of my eyes and I felt overcome with surges of emotion.
Finding Neverland was a different experience however. I could feel my eyes were hot as the last few scenes played out and tears slowly built up in my unblinking eyes. Then, when the credits rolled, all the water that had built up poured out. But I didn't feel an extended emotional feeling, i.e. I didn't continue to cry. In fact I don't think I cried at all. I merely 'ejected water' from my eyes.
But then I watched it again a couple of weeks ago, and I had at the very least 3 moments of crying. I am pretty sure that by the end of the film I was closer to actually crying than I have been in any other film. I was experiencing the muscle quivers around the chin and mouth and the hyperventilating which is commonly associated with general crying.
D.Armenta -
I love when that occurs! I find it fascinating and beautiful, and I forget the moment before it that was the cause of the water creating the effects