Wednesday, October 11, 2006

seeing, hearing, feeling

it seems we have little difficulty distinguishing between an actual seeing and hearing event, and an imaginary one — “think about a penguin” vs “look at that penguin (real)”, or listening to a song, vs recalling the song (”hearing in the mind”). Little or no trouble separating the actual event from the memory of it.
However, when it comes to emotions — feeling seems to be much more difficult to separate the actual emotion from a recollection of that emotion, an imagined situation evoking that emotion, and the anticipation of what that emotion would be like in a future event or circumstance. Emotions are more immediate and harder to distinguish what is real (and current, right now) vs a memory or anticipated, or even what one might feel in an entirely imaginary / hypthetical situation… The adrenaline pumps, the heart rate goes up, anger, fear, love, whatever, all come into play, and affect the present like no other.

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