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Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?

smithsonianmag.com

271–280 of 288 posts

Re: Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?

#271
post #227
post #19

As an emotional philosopher, I've found that the emotions of guilt and pride don't stop developing until you're in your 60s. EDIT: No, really, I do philosophy, it focuses on emotion. I don't deserve downvotes for something I've worked for years on[1]. [1]: http://eristicstest.com/

Hey that was fun. I first read your page, and based on descriptions, tried to predict my result. Took test, result was close - same category(row), but other side.(column). Neato.

Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed it. And yep the category (order) is the big one. But six results didn't really capture it all.

Re: Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?

#272
post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't care what your opinions are. We care about you following the site guidelines, which include things like " Be kind ," " Don't fulminate ", and " Eschew flamebait ". Can you please stick to the rules? I'm sure you can find thoughtful ways to express your substantive views if you want to. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I'll try to adhere more closely to the ritual forms of disingenuous presentation and allusion brinksmanship. As an aside, I find your choice of pronoun fascinating and enlightening.

That doesn't make sense to me but if you stick to the rules it's ok.

I'm not the only person who works on HN!

Re: Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?

#273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read somewhere that because people don't live that long, we don't have a collective memory of previous disasters or pandemics (anyone who was alive today during the 1918 pandemic wouldn't really remember it), so human history simply happens in cycles or waves. The underlying conflict is the same, but a new set of humans deal with it with the technological tools of the day. Simply put, if the human lifespan were lon…

> I read somewhere that because people don't live that long, we don't have a collective memory of previous disasters or pandemics (anyone who was alive today during the 1918 pandemic wouldn't really remember it) I’m splitting hairs, but aren’t these two separate problems? If I lived 1,000 years, I’m not sure I’d be able to remember things that happened 200 years ago super well. I can’t remember things that happened 2…

The assumption that I'm going under (I assume others as well) is that if we can halt aging, we might be able to do something with memory as well.

Although I kinda personally believe (more on hope than any technology being available) that we can move to a non biological medium with nearly infinite storage, speed of light processing speed, effective immortality...etc. The only needs would be entertainment and energy.

Of course, we have zero idea if that is even possible.

Re: Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?

#274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last thing you wrote is something I indirectly think about quite a lot. Imagine a place (call it heaven if you want) where time and death don’t exist. What could you possibly care about?

Caring doesn't need to be negative only. IMHO You can care about love even if you're immortal, and you care about losing it even though you went through it all bazillion times already, as each person is unique and the feelings you lose are still lost and the loss is still painful.

Babylon 5 had a neat episode (spoilers) where the first living being (in his corporeal form) has a conversation with one of the human commanders and says something about love being a remarkable gift/illusion for mortals that they should treasure.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0OI4kah6Rp4

Re: Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?

#275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm about half your age and I don't know much about anything but, I think I'd agree based on my experience so far. I realized a while back that I'm some sort of chemical soup and I don't know where my thoughts or emotions even originate from. I don't seem to produce them voluntarily – they just bubble up out of the silence inside me. I have some moment of control, though it doesn't seem very effective a lot of the ti…

Your ideas are very much in line with Stoicism (I can't control the world, but I can control my reaction to it), the teachings of Jesus Christ (Matthew 6:25-34 lilies of the field), Buddha (Discourse on the Forms of Thought), ancient Hindu wisdom (lookup "Vāsanā" for starts) and modern Cognitive Behavior Therapy. Some people like to focus on one, but I have learned from them all.

I am currently in the process of making a game that focuses on these ideas. It's a 2D fishing, farming, mining and philosophy game. I would like to give people the opportunity to practice a calm and peaceful state of mind by knowing that as people we can choose our thoughts and how we feel. Just as people can get stronger physically with physical exercise, I believe that people can become better at responding, by choosing how they think and feel, rather than reacting to what happens. There may be no tears or laughter in the land of Vulcan but we can certainly feel more joy by choosing how we think and feel.

Re: Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?

#276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm about half your age and I don't know much about anything but, I think I'd agree based on my experience so far. I realized a while back that I'm some sort of chemical soup and I don't know where my thoughts or emotions even originate from. I don't seem to produce them voluntarily – they just bubble up out of the silence inside me. I have some moment of control, though it doesn't seem very effective a lot of the ti…

Your ideas are very much in line with Stoicism (I can't control the world, but I can control my reaction to it), the teachings of Jesus Christ (Matthew 6:25-34 lilies of the field), Buddha (Discourse on the Forms of Thought), ancient Hindu wisdom (lookup "Vāsanā" for starts) and modern Cognitive Behavior Therapy. Some people like to focus on one, but I have learned from them all.

Stoicism is actually what sent me down this path of thought. Something I read, and I wish I could recall, emphasized that the stuff of thought and reason is a fleeting, tenuous, unpredictable thing and prescribed a number of ways to compensate for that.

I was really struck by how true that is and how practical the advice was. Digging deeper into stoicism, I discovered that the dichotomy of control presents a world in which we have a laughably small amount of control over anything at all - including most of the components which make up our ‘selves’. What remains is all that we can ever utilize in order to be virtuous people. There’s not much there to work with, but in its isolation, it’s somehow immense and incredibly difficult to manage at the best of times.

Like you though I find value in several religions and philosophies. Some of the most valuable things I’ve learned have come from a few of them. I’ll have to look into the Hindu Vāsanā - thanks for that.

Re: Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?

#277
We've seen the sun set after a warm day, and we've seen it rise again after a cold night. You live through this enough times and you learn to see beyond the horizon. Eventually you can see yourself in the distance, walking forward and away from you, towards your past

Re: Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?

#278

We've seen the sun set after a warm day, and we've seen it rise again after a cold night. You live through this enough times and you learn to see beyond the horizon. Eventually you can see yourself in the distance, walking forward and away from you, towards your past

Also, we are deaf and didn't hear the guy who tried to pick a fight with us

Re: Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?

#279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone is just a machine

Everyone can be described as machine-like if you apply that particular lens . From a first-person perspective I am pure consciousness operating a meat suit. You may argue that reductive materialism allows you to reduce my claim to one about matter, but the onus is on you to prove materialism -- which I suspect you'll be hard-pressed to do in an HN comment.

I mean, if you accept that the laws of physics are deterministic, don't you sort of have to accept materialism?

I would think the onus would be on you to show a mechanism for the interaction between the physical and the "spiritual" (or whatever you want to call it). In other words, how does this pure consciousness affect things in a purely deterministic physical universe?

Re: Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?

#280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your ideas are very much in line with Stoicism (I can't control the world, but I can control my reaction to it), the teachings of Jesus Christ (Matthew 6:25-34 lilies of the field), Buddha (Discourse on the Forms of Thought), ancient Hindu wisdom (lookup "Vāsanā" for starts) and modern Cognitive Behavior Therapy. Some people like to focus on one, but I have learned from them all.

I am currently in the process of making a game that focuses on these ideas. It's a 2D fishing, farming, mining and philosophy game. I would like to give people the opportunity to practice a calm and peaceful state of mind by knowing that as people we can choose our thoughts and how we feel. Just as people can get stronger physically with physical exercise, I believe that people can become better at responding, by cho…

ok but how many gold coins can I make by selling the trout?
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