What Came First, Emotion or the Mind?

Emotion is universal. You can travel to any inhabited land across the world and find that people all experience sadness, happiness, anger, jealousy, love, etc., regardless of their culture, education, or social status. In fact, emotion is often one of the easiest ways to connect with another individual. But what creates emotion? According to Damasio in “Of Appetites and Emotion”, we like to think that “the hidden is the source of the expressed” (P. 29). The term hidden refers to feelings. Damasio claims, in his article, that feelings are the source of emotion. My favorite statement by Damasio is “Emotions play out in the theater of the body. Feelings play out in the theater of the mind” (p. 28). This statement puts the ideas of feelings and emotions into perspective and the visual brain. First of all, it seems very logical that feelings are more internal and emotions are more external. Feelings seem much more like thoughts than emotions do, and they are therefore much easier to keep hidden, within the theater of the mind. Emotions, on the other hand, have the connotation of making themselves known much more easily and being much more difficult to hide. This is where the phrase “wearing your emotions on your sleeve” came from. However, which came first, feelings or emotions? Most people think of them as being connected, but does this mean that they are the same thing? Well, this can’t be true; we have established that feelings are more internal and emotions are more external. Damasio argues, in his article, that emotions came before feelings. The reason he gives for this is evolution. This seems to touch also on theory of mind. If emotion came first and feelings second, then this seems to suggest to the brain came before the mind, and the mind developed later. But wait…haven’t we discussed that the mind is part of the brain? If it developed later, then where were our thoughts before the mind? Did we still have them?

            In relation to the article by Damasio discussing the ideas of feeling and emotion, the primary article of this week that included three poems also revolved around the topics of feeling and emotion. The first one, “Want me”, by Melissa Stein encompasses the idea of desire. Desire is a much easier feeling to feel than it is an emotion to express. This is seen even in the poem itself. Stein uses jumbled diction, and each idea seems unfinished, thrown together almost as if a running stream of thoughts. For example, the line “A duet for cello

and woodsmoke, violin and icicle” seems extremely jumbled. In fact, it seems as if it should read ‘A duet for cello and violin, woodsmoke and icicle.” This mixing of ideas creates not only a confused feeling, but it also helps express the idea of desire. Desire, as an emotion and a feeling, it often thought to be overwhelming and overpowering. The jumbling of words seems to almost suggest that the desire itself is overpowering the writer’s ability to keep words straight. This again stresses the idea that desire itself is more a thought-based feeling, rather than an expressed emotion.

            In the second poem, “Dreamsong”, by John Berryman, the author expresses the idea of boredom. In this case, boredom serves to be more of a lack of emotion and feeling than anything else. The author uses extreme sarcasm and several examples of instances in which he believes other people generally find amusement, in which he does not. He even mentions his mother speaking of boredom, telling his as a boy that “Ever to confess you're bored means you have no Inner Resources.” The author’s mother seems to be referring to feelings with the term “Inner Resources”. The author, admitting to being bored, also admits that he is lacking these inner thoughts, or feelings. Therefore, since emotion and feeling are attached, it can be concluded that he lacks both. He stresses this idea at the end of the poem when speaking of a dog, which is generally a happy or joyful experience for most people. He speaks of the dog leaving, stating it “has taken itself & its tail considerably away into the mountains or sea or sky, leaving behind: me, wag.” The term “wag” seems to poke fun at the dog for its happiness, and by pairing this word along with the reference to himself, he stresses even more the fact that he lacks this happiness or joy, and thus emotion.

            These two poems address a few of the many feelings and emotions that are known to mankind. In fact, some would say that these are limitless. It is interesting to think about these feelings and emotions, especially with the idea of the mind at hand. How do things such as boredom and desire originate, and where does the mind play a role in comparison to the body and brain. This, I think, is a very intriguing idea, especially when it comes to theory of mind. It touches on one of the most difficult challenges that exists in science currently with fully understanding the mind, and that is the idea of emotion and feeling, which have yet to be completely understood. Doing so would allow us to make further advances not only with things such as Artificial Intelligence and brain modeling, but also with understanding why people’s mind are so different from one another.