[From Bjorn Simonsen (2010.01.26.1110 EU ST)]
From Bill Powers (2010.01.23.1516 MST)]
I am sorry I am answering so late.
My proposal was almost the opposite: that feelings (that is,
sensations from the body) are at the lower levels, while the
goals (flee, attack, hide, freeze) are reference signals/perceptions
at the higher levels. I take the word feelings here to mean,
literally, getting sensations from neural receptors. An emotion
as a whole then consists of the combination of goals and feelings.
Different conditions have their names. You say that feelings are sensations from the body and that emotions are goals for feelings and feelings. For me it is indifferent what name we give different conditions provided we agree. But I think it is rational that we use a name where the linguistic history tells us it is an ancestral form in an ancestral language.
Merriam-Webster indicates: :
emotion = the affective aspect of consciousness : feeling b : a state of feeling c : a conscious mental reaction (as anger or fear) subjectively experienced as strong feeling usually directed toward a specific object and typically accompanied by physiological and behavioral changes in the body.
I think Meriam-Webster indicates that the perception of a feeling consists of perceptions of emotions.
When I read reports written by Antonio R Damasio he says that a feeling is a perception of a certain state of the body and a perception of a certain way of thinking and thoughts of certain themes.
Wikipedia tells me that no definitive taxonomy of emotions exists.
It is OK for me after some days thinking to follow your thoughts. But best of all I would replace both the word feeling and the word emotion with the word perception. Perceptions are at the lower levels and at the higher levels. And a perception are combinations of goals and other perceptions.
bjorn