Human Consciousness: emotions are learned (Humans)

by dhw, Friday, February 17, 2017, 14:27 (2834 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: This is a new theory about the development of emotions. Consciousness does not come with them onboard:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-02-emotions-cognitive-innate.html

I find it hard to believe that this is a new theory, but I’m not sure whether that is my fault or the fault of the arguments offered.

QUOTE: Emotions are not innately programmed into our brains, but, in fact, are cognitive states resulting from the gathering of information, New York University Professor Joseph LeDoux and Richard Brown, a professor at the City University of New York, conclude.

You won’t have an emotion unless you have something to be emotional about (information), just as you won’t have a memory (information) unless you have something to remember. Has anyone ever argued the contrary?

QUOTE: "'We argue that conscious experiences, regardless of their content, arise from one system in the brain," explains LeDoux, a professor in New York University's Center for Neural Science. "Specifically, the differences between emotional and non-emotional states are the kinds of inputs that are processed by a general cortical network of cognition, a network essential for conscious experiences."

If consciousness arises from a general cortical network (the “one system in the brain”), then it’s not exactly a revelation that all states (emotional and non-emotional) relating to consciousness are processed by a general cortical network in the brain which is essential to consciousness. This seems to me to be talking in circles.

QUOTE: “As a result, LeDoux and Brown observe, "the brain mechanisms that give rise to conscious emotional feelings are not fundamentally different from those that give rise to perceptual conscious experiences."

Emotions are reactions to perceptions, whether sensory or psychological, so of course there is no “fundamental” difference – they are both perceptions which can also be called experiences.

QUOTES relating first to existing theories: “In other words, emotions aren’t a response to what our brain takes in from our observations, but, rather, are intrinsic to our makeup.” But the new theory sees “emotional states as similar to other states of consciousness.”

The existing theory as reproduced here simply conflates reaction with the nature of the reaction. The emotions we feel, just like our decisions, our social behaviour and all our other “states of consciousness” ARE a response to perception/experience. But the WAY we respond is intrinsic to our makeup. All our states of consciousness follow the same obvious pattern: experience precedes reaction. Is it really possible that nobody thought of this before?