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| Emotions: Human/atevi (also Just Human) | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Dec 12 2006, 08:35 PM (1,441 Views) | |
| moira | Dec 12 2006, 08:35 PM Post #1 |
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Senior Bujavid Security
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human and atevi relations --- an ill-fated continuous misunderstanding of behavior caused by the difference between love and man'chi? I would say, not necessarily so. given: love is not man'chi, and man'chi is not love. and the Mospheirans might not understand what man'chi is or how it influences behavior, and the atevi in general might not understand love or how it influences behavior. but ask the atevi to explain man'chi, or the humans to explain love, and who can answer? even those who experience the emotion have a hard time understanding it. recently I have been thinking more about emotions and what they are, really. and here is something that I was not really aware of before: the idea that not even all *human* peoples experience the same emotions. quote:My third predilection is a bias toward history. Not only do I think the history of thinking about emotions is fascinating and revealing, but I believe that the emotions themselves are historical. This means, first of all, that they are processes, not discrete forms of momentary experience. But it also means that emotions change over time, that the emotional experiences of one generation or one epoch or one culture are not necessarily the same as those of another. /quote [source] [readings] he actually says "let me finesse the question" I can give an example, but for the moment suffice it to say that not all human cultures have all the same emotions (as identified by their emotional experiences) as the rest. sometimes a word from another language might be translated as "joy" but mean something more specific that just doesn't translate because we don't have that word or concept. rather like "schadenfreude". there's no word for that in English, although in this instance we do indeed understand that feeling, once you point it out. we just didn't have a name for it. but sometimes we don't have a name for an emotion because we don't experience it. and even if we do have the same basic word "grief" or "anger" etc, that doesn't indicate that it means the same thing or implies the same feelings or experiences. this varies from culture to culture. my point basically is that human beings are the same, physically, to a great extent: we don't have incredibly various brains from one to the next. and yet, based on culture, we can have profoundly different recognized emotions and/or awareness of emotional experiences. these differences are learned, not innate. based on that basic idea, if a human child were raised in atevi fashion by atevi, he'd probably turn out much more ateva-like. I'm not saying that he would automatically have man'chi or anything---and this is because maybe there is some fundamental unsurmountable difference in the ... er... working of atevi brains or glands or etc compared to human? this, I leave as unknowable---but I'm saying that by being enculturated by the atevi, the child would have emotional experiences shaped by atevi understanding, and therefore would understand and identify with the Ragi culture *and therefore the Ragi emotional experiences*. and if an ateva child were raised by Mospheiran fashion by humans, vice versa. now of course that implies that nobody would treat the said child as an outsider and therefore not part of the culture etc etc... it assumes a great deal, actually. but *if* it could be done, then the result would be that the child would not be completely confounded by the society they grew up in. meaning that the misunderstandings between mospheiran humans and ragi atevi are primarily cultural, and have actually little to do with emotional differences by themselves, biological or no. if humans adopted ragi culture, or if atevi adopted mospheiran culture, the differences between them would not seem so glaring. not that either side is ever likely to just up and forget their own culture to absorb an alien one... but perhaps over time if the two societies learn more about the other's culture, and if music/art/fashion and other cultural influences continue to flow back and forth across the strait, then the misunderstandings will be less and less. so, the situation is not fated or doomed to eternal mind-boggling conflict. (of course neither is any cross-cultural situation on our planet, and yet look how well we handle things here. :blink: ) |
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| griffinmoon | Dec 12 2006, 09:43 PM Post #2 |
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Ranger
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Moira nadi: One wishes to inquire: is this a new thought on this topic or is it in addition to an ancient thread? For myself: all *humans* feel the same gamut of emotions. It's the method of expression that differs from generation/culture/etc to generation/culture/etc . The idea that various humans "don't feel things the way we do" has lead to all kinds of troubles. |
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| moira | Dec 13 2006, 12:32 AM Post #3 |
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Senior Bujavid Security
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griffin-ji, the idea that diff peoples "don't feel things the way we do" is not the same as the idea that diff cultures emphasize and downplay diff emotions with the result that they understand *and experience* emotions in a dissimilar way compared to other cultures. the history of that whole "don't feel things the way we do" is based on a gross misunderstanding (or worse, in some cases def worse) of this concept. I don't know; maybe I could say it differently... I mean it more like this: http://www.sil.org:8090/silebr/2004/silebr2004-009 |
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| Reading_fox | Dec 13 2006, 10:16 AM Post #4 |
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I wouldn't be suprised to learn that people experiance things differently. After all one of the hardest physcological problems is colour. As a scientist I could measure the wavelength of the emited red light at x m, and I call it red. You would also recieve the same light but is your red the same as mine. Current indications are that the answer is no. So if we can't get a common agreement on the hard and fast physical objects we are surrounded by, how on earth are we going to agree on "soft" ill-defined things such as emotions. Its pretty obvious that people respond emotionally differently to the same stimuli. I find caving gives me an adrenaline buzz, its enjoyable. If you don't find caving enjoyable but do find knitting so, how can we compare your enjoyment to mine. Ditto, love anger etc etc. Different people certainly don't feel things the way I do. However its a very gross generalisation to say that a whole peoples feel differently - some will and some won't. |
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| griffinmoon | Dec 13 2006, 02:33 PM Post #5 |
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Ranger
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Nadiin: Exactly my point, both of your insights. |
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| moira | Dec 13 2006, 07:29 PM Post #6 |
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Senior Bujavid Security
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nadin-ji surely you understand that I personally do not mean that all people belonging to a certain culture are mindless cookie-cutter cut-outs of the cultural standard with no other possibilities. if anybody values the sometimes quite striking differences between individuals, and individuality itself, it's me. sometimes one speaks in generalizations to siimplify an idea: blueberries are sweet. this does not mean that all individual blueberries everywhere are sweet. some are sour, some can be bitter, some can be rather tasteless... but as a generalization, they do tend to be sweet. it might be necessary to generalize that in order to compare blueberries to something else. if one did not use generalization, then how could one possibly compare one group of humans to another? the point I was relying on is Quote:the emotional experiences of one generation or one epoch or one culture are not necessarily the same as those of another. I was rather pushing one point of view on the whole emotion debate, but there is actually plenty of biological and/or neurological evidence that the more basic and more universally cross-cultural human emotions *are* innate, and not based on culture (except for how you deal with them). Paul Ekman esp has pushed this idea and the research behind it. http://www.paulekman.com/ I was kind of waiting for someone to bring that up. the entire field of the study of emotions has really picked up pace in recent times. affective science is the new cognitive science, they say. people have their ideas, their theses, their hypotheses, but the matter has not been settled yet, by any means. people still argue over what an emtion is, much less how it comes about and if it varies from culture to culture or no. |
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| Eupathic Impulse | Dec 14 2006, 07:07 PM Post #7 |
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Senior Bujavid Security
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Feeeeeeelings, Talkin' 'bout Feeeeeeeelings |
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| barleysmama | Dec 15 2006, 05:43 AM Post #8 |
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willing slave a a very bouncy kitten
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Sometimes I wonder if my idea of "love" is the same as others'. When I was growing up my parents always said "of course you love us and your brother". We are told that we love family from our earliest memories. But what is love? I would be sad if my mother were to die tomorrow. Or my brother. But life goes on and my life would just make new patterns to replace the old patterns of seeing my mom or brother every few days. I'd make new patterns to get me past the holidays/ birthdays ect. I know I would cry at the funerals and while finding a home for their stuff, but I'm also sitting here thinking "I'm would be angry that my time has to be used up taking care of so- and- so's estate/ finances ect." Don't think me cruel or "broken" because I can't seem to feel absolutely broken- hearted at the idea of a family member that I "love" being dead. I've had family I "loved" die suddenly (heart attacks ect) and after a few days I've just gone on with my life. I feel more sorry for them that they are not here to see this or that than I am sorry for myself at losing this person. I think every person has a different idea/ emotional aspect of "love" and how one person reacts will not be the same as that persons' siblings. I think it is formed by life experiences and just how well one wants to "feel" about another. There is no one definition/ idea/ emotional aspect of "love" just as there most likely is no one definition/ idea/ emotional aspect of "man'chi". For each person it just is so it can be hard to describe to someone from anothe culture/ background. |
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| Zen | Dec 19 2006, 12:15 AM Post #9 |
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TaCom Quality Theoritical Studies Commander
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What is love? Like a kind of magnet in the heart, drawing one to certain people, and them in turn to you. A kind of interal pull, 'love' is not 'like', its close to hate, a kind of madness, a breaking down of internal barriers exposing the core of a humans soul to themselves and if reciprocated to the one they 'love'. Its that exposure that makes of us childeren again, how easily hurt we are, how easily pleased. In the final analysis Atevi would conclude love is the closest emotion to man'chi, in that one who is in love will be more likely to protect with their lives those they love. But of course it is different to man'chi as we know. |
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| shlinas | Dec 20 2006, 05:49 AM Post #10 |
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Queen of All Things Cute
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Barleymama-ji: I think this is the way one remains sane after a loss. Everyone compliments me for "recovering" quickly from my loss. In the real scheme of things, my life did not change after losing Cora. I did not have a child before and I did not after. I just wasn't pregnant anymore. I continued on with my life. Does this mean I didn't love her? Does this mean I don't miss her or mourn the plans I had for her? No. Meh, I don't know where I'm going with this...
Moira-ji: Doesn't Bren himself come quite close to what you are talking about? It's not ingrained in him from childhood, but he himself has to "remind" himself what human emotions he's supposed to feel. I think that is why Bren has done so much for the connection between cultures. He is the closest a human has come to be accepted into atevi society, and the closest a human has come to "feeling" atevi emotions. |
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| Neco the Nightwraith | Dec 22 2006, 12:00 AM Post #11 |
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Living the Right Life
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Humans are quite adaptable I think. Though insticnts cannot be duplicated, if the human child was raised by atevi, I think they'd mesh as well as society trained them. The only problems the atevi might encounter is when the the child reaches puberty, or whenever that jaded, lost-innocent state begins, and awkward questions start cropping up. |
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| moira | Dec 23 2006, 01:33 AM Post #12 |
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Senior Bujavid Security
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quote: Moira-ji: Doesn't Bren himself come quite close to what you are talking about?.... yes I do think that Bren is acclimating. I remember that when I came back from Egypt one time, I went around kissing everyone on both cheeks for... at least a week. and I didn't even realize I was doing it. and I found what had previously been "normal" to be awfully strange there for a long while too. considering that I had only been in Egypt for three months that time, I can hardly imagine spending decades immersed in another significantly different culture without that changing the way I thought and even felt about things. surely from what we read we are given this impression. really they should have immersed the paidhiin from the very beginning of the tradition, if they wanted a paidhi to actually be a bridge between the two races like that. :atwink re: love and loss in agreement with what has been said |
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| Shevek23 | Dec 26 2006, 01:39 PM Post #13 |
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Mad Naturalist in Exile
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This is sort of the essential "human-atevi" thread. I think it is well to consider that actually, emotions and even hard-wired neurological/hormonal reflexes are themselves a form of "thought." That is, it is all data-processing, all evolved behaviors which by their nature take in information about the actual environment and respond to it in ways that tend to enhance the survival of the organism. Thus emotions have their rational content, and the most sublime reasoning occurs in the context of individuals who exist for perhaps completely arbitrary reasons. Or do we? As Tabini says in the opening pages of Defender, speaking of the ability of atevi to accept and adapt human technology, "...because these inventions, like all real things, come of true numbers, he saw that they use the natural universe, he saw that they were good, he saw that if we did invent them they would be much the same." Similarly, humans and atevi have evolved to be physically and mentally much the same, compared to possible alternatives. What is love, anyway? I like Robert Heinlein's attempt at a "definition;" "When another person's happiness and welfare are essential to your own." By that kind of definition, I'd say atevi definitely do love. In a different pattern than we do, but both species have evolved in a way that involves our individuals with others to the hilt. We have both bet our survival in the cosmos on cooperation with others of our kind, and on imagination and sympathy. The details of hormonal and neurological hard-wiring and layers of experiential and social programming on top of that are two different approaches toward a similar goal, evolutionarily speaking. The differences should not be papered over or ignored of course! But the similarities mean that the effort to communicate and share enterprises is worthwhile, because while few single words, few "defined" emotional states, and few particular situations, if any, will correspond exactly or even closely, the whole ensemble of human and atevi actions will tend toward similar overall patterns and toward mutually intelligible results and goals. Intelligent humans and atevi who learn to understand each other's ways will be able to find common ground in the larger patterns of what they do, and this will not necessarily be a mistake or delusion. There is grave danger of mutual interference between the two species, of misunderstanding and mistrust feeding back and proliferating until they are at total war. But there is the corresponding hope of mutual reinforcement as well--that with intelligent tolerance for difference and the hopeful expectation of overall harmonization of interests and actions, that the divergent approaches of the two species will solve problems more effectively than either species would alone, and so those associations of humans and atevi that best facilitate cooperation between them will tend to prevail over those that don't. I love that on the whole, the whole arc of the novels has been exploring this evolving mutual understanding and success is built on increasing levels of cooperation and integration. |
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| moira | Dec 27 2006, 06:45 AM Post #14 |
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Senior Bujavid Security
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bravo nand'shevek! |
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| griffinmoon | Dec 27 2006, 02:08 PM Post #15 |
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Ranger
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I also, Shevek nadi: bravo! *...polite patter of fingertips against palm...* |
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