> -----Original Message-----
> From: MindBrain@yahoogroups.com
> [mailto:MindBrain@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Robert Karl Stonjek
> Sent: Sunday, 12 July 2009 1:07 PM
> To: Cognitive NeuroScience; Evolutionary-Psychology; Mind and Brain
> Subject: Re: [Mind and Brain] Essay: Love ~ Beyond the cliché
>
>
>
> Lofting: 'anger/fear (fight/flight)'
>
> RKS:
> This does not appear to be accurate even within your own
> paradigm. Anger rises in response to obstruction ~ an
> increased level assertiveness is needed to overcome some
> obstacle and move forward (in whatever domain in which the
> obstacle is encountered eg obstacle on the road, person
> obstructing progress, mathematical or programming problem
> encountering difficulties etc).
>

Your comments validate my perspective re anger(fight) covering replacement
of existing context with something considered 'better' - the expanding
nature of differentiating covers positive feedback, discretisation and
amplification, the competitive takes over the cooperative and the 'push
away' nature covers pushing one's own context 'outwards', to make room for
'self' etc

Fear on the other hand covers integrating with the existing context, to
blend-in (disappear) rather than blend-out (stick out, be noticed). It
covers a protection focus on using the existing to hide.

In the order of primary emotions anger and joy (to become sexual love, one
part of passion etc) share the same foundation in the form of context
replacement.

> The opposite of fear is confidence.

The generic category of 'anger' gets refined to include self-confidence,
single-mindedness etc etc so I see no issue with what i have categorised -
confidence falls into self-respect, single-mindedness, persevering etc etc
etc

The generic categories of emotions cover CLASSES of such where the class of
'anger' is refined as the core dichotomy of fight/flight undergoes recursion
(the resulting interdigitation indicating recursion at work is 'across' the
amygdala and brought out with invasive studies)

The movement from general to particular, from vague to crisp, covers the
development of classes of meanings where the initial, XOR nature of
fight/flight gets refined over time - white light breaks down into a
spectrum (and emotions are tied to spectra).

> In evaluating fight or
> flight one must measure confidence: low, run; high, defend.

No - not at the generic level. fight/flight is very XOR. Recursion
introduces refinements, makes finer distinctions and so adds colour to the
black/white of fight/flight. Reptilian emotion is VERY XOR - a snake will
strike with the same intensity and makes no distinction of 'for real' or
'for play'. The emergence of mammals introduces context sensitivities and so
a range of emotional expressions of a primary emotion. (for the
chaos/complexity theory application see the work in the late 70s covering
catastrophe theory application to studying fight/flight)

For the spectrum of emotions that are derived from fight/flight see the
details in the first section of "Categories of Mediation - practice" -
http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/categoriesPractice.pdf or see
the discussion on the nature list covering the Taxonomy of Emotions:

http://network.nature.com/groups/bpcc/forum/topics/4996?page=1

The single context realm covering emotions development 'starts' with context
issues (fit-in or replace) and develop into communication of intent and from
there finer levels of distinctions, thus generic 'anger' gets fleshed out
both horizontally (classes of anger) and vertically (intensities,
magnitudes, scalars associated with expression of each class)

The set of all POSSIBLE representations of emotions is open to local context
customisations through interaction of the 'regular network' of possibles
with the 'random' network of local context to give us a 'small world
network' of actualisations. This leads into nurture influencing emotional
intensities as well as nature).

AS covered in the IDM focus on the dimension of precision in our brains,
each point on that horizontal dimension allows for vertical development
manifest as magnitudinal differences - scales of intensities of expression
etc.

Chris.