[From Bruce Abbott (2000.08.27.2245 EST)]
Bill Powers (2000.08.26.2120 MDT) --
Bruce Abbott (2000.08.26.1430 EST)
Yes. Which reminds me: I wonder how crying with happiness fits in. Crying
occurs not only with distress, but also in some cases with relief.
I think there is somewhat of a consensus that crying tends to relieve
stressful somatic states when they are no longer called for by active error
signals. My naive interpretation is that it somehow uses up the body's
preparation for action when the action doesn't take place. Crying in grief
seems to occur most freely once one has ceased to fight the idea that the
loved one is gone. Ceasing to try to resist an uncorrectable error removes
the drive that is maintaining a heightened body state; crying then
(somehow) brings the body state back toward normal. Strenuous physical
activity can have the same effect.
Yes, crying seems to have several functions. I read somewhere the
speculation that crying may serve to remove excesses of certain
neurotransmitters; evidently these or their byproducts have been discovered
to be present in tears. It is also possible, of course, that this is simply
a side effect having no particular functional significance.
Crying for joy doesn't, in my experience, occur when one is simply pleased
or even delighted with what happens. I think it occurs mainly when a large
error has been corrected, as when you are reunited with a loved one after
fearing the worst, or finally accomplish something that you have been
trying very hard for a long time to accomplish, like winning a Gold Medal
at the Olympics (lots of tears at the medal presentations!). Whatever body
state has been created by that long drawn-out error seems to (a) feel
really good when it begins to be reduced toward zero, and (b) seems to be
reduced, sometimes, by crying, once the error has been removed. This all
suggests that the somatic changes we lump under the term "crying" may be
symptoms of rather profound changes happening at the somatic levels, while
the eye-dripping and sniffing and boo-hooing are more or less irrelevant
surface effects. Of course the surface effects do have their uses as
communications with others (I don't mean that cynically; communicating
one's grief, or from the other direction one's understand of grief, can be
most helpful).
So we've got at least four conditions under which crying occurs: in
newborns, distress or discomfort of just about any kind; in older children
and adults, severe distress for which the usual modes of control have
failed; following loss, when crying is part of the process of grieving, and
after large error has been corrected (strong relief). Only the first two
seem to include crying as an output mechanism that could possibly lead to
correction of the error (via the help of others who come to the crier's
aid), although in grief there is often "support" offered which helps one to
deal with the situation. I agree that communication is an important aspect
of the emotional display, as Darwin noted.
This sort of introspective analysis is helpful in suggesting hypotheses for
research. The problem is, how to test them. One of the difficulties of
doing research on such systems is that of creating the conditions under
which genuine emotions will be aroused, without committing ethical
violations. If we try a naturalistic approach and simply wait for such
conditions to occur, then there is the problem of being able to measure the
necessary variables. I doubt that many folks would appreciate being asked
to submit to a process of scientific measurement while in the throws of an
emotional upheaval, such as grief upon the loss of a loved one. I'm not
saying that such research is impossible, but rather that there are some
rather difficult problems that arise in that context.
As to the role of testosterone, I suppose my conjectures above are not
inconsistent with your ideas, since I don't know what "profound changes" in
biochemistry I'm talking about. But the connection between chemicals and
functions of the brain is so circumstantial, and so uninformative to the
modeler, that I can't get very excited about such proposals. I think
they're just as likely to be wrong as right. We just need to know a lot
more before we can make any useful guesses.
Yes. Certainly these are not hypotheses that can be resolved simply by
debating them on CSGnet.
A good friend of Mary's and mine died this morning after a long struggle
with breast cancer. So we've both been reminded pretty forcibly that this
discussion is about something all too real, and that crying isn't just
something to be analyzed from a distance.
Yes.
Bruce A.