Alex:
Quote:
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Free will JUST IS a certain kind of causation.
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Yeeeeeessss.
Behavior has cause. Obvious, no? Emotion is what I propose as the functional cause of behavior. (That is my very broad definition of emotion.)
Our awareness of emotion (feeling) is secondary. It (feeling) can cause us to think about our behavior - propose alternatives, evaluate them logically, etc.
But, the emotion itself (without the feeling) can cause us to do that as well. We can just find ourself considering various college choices, for example, not really seeing the TV show we are watching at the time - without noticing that we are feeling anxious because we haven't made a decision yet - without realizing that our thoughts were generated to eliminate that anxiety.
Strange coincidence (Cue Rod Serling's voice here): Another Alexandra (last name Doonesbury) just went through an agonizing college choice dilemma in May that was only resolved in favor of MIT by the votes of over 152,000 concerned fans. Most of the fans' comments took the form of
logical justifications for their various alma maters - an obvious emotional choice emanating from their identity beliefs IMO
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There were strong suspicions that MIT computer science students had hacked the vote in the best Diebold tradition. Another indicator of the strong ideological emotions involved in this historic event.
Margaret