Q&A: Dear Rabbi Michael, hello — do you think emotions are a discrete thing?
Dear Rabbi Michael, hello — do you think emotions are a discrete thing?
Question
Answer
I think emotions are generally triangular, but there is loneliness in them, or discrete elements. Hyperbolically, I would say that loneliness is an essential and exoteric characteristic of emotions, at least as long as their binary narrative is below the watershed line.
Discussion on Answer
Even so, when asking, one has to formulate and define the question, not just throw something rushed into the air and expect me to write a responsive article.
In short, absolutely not. And not only emotions. No mental phenomenon is measurable. Not pain, not the intensity of light, and not emotions either. The field that deals with this is psychophysics, and there you can see that scientific research in these areas is based on subjects’ reports, not on direct measurement. And not for nothing there are disputes over the question of the relation between the physical phenomenon and the psychological phenomenon. Some proposed different power laws, and some proposed a logarithmic law. Rabbi Shem Tov Gafen already discussed this in his book Dimensions, Prophecy, and Earthiness. More modernly, there is a short book by Daniel Algom, Psychophysics, in the “Broadcast University” series.
As far as I understand, modern brain science also does not basically change this fact. Measurements in the brain, too, are not a measurement of mental phenomena.
A hasty guess: the questioner meant measurable 😅