Who "Owns" Old PC's?

[Wolv0rine]

I don't believe you can. you can control how you respond to pain and how serious an effect it has on you. This difference is relevant to your comparison. If someone says "I control how I respond to pain and my stress level with it" I say cool, me too, wanna trade biofeedback tips. If that someone says "I control how much pain I feel" I wonder if we are having communication problems. If someone says "I take responsibility for any pain I feel and don't blame my environment for pain I experience" I become... concerned about that person and their ability to care for themselves. And if someone takes the next step and says "Everyone should take responsibility for the pain they feel - that person isn't hurting you, you are hurting yourself by taking pain from what he does" .... There is, in my humble opinion, a problem.

Hmm, then you've missed something. There are innumberable cases of people who can, quite simply, block off their awareness of pain as transmitted by their neural network. These people can chose not to experience physical pain. Now I highly doub these people go through their every waking moment in a state such as this, I'm actually quite sure they don't as I've known more than one personally. But the ability is inherent in the human mind, the mind does possess the ability to chose which neural inpulses to take notice of, and which to ignore. It's just that that is not the default state we operate in, and most people will never manage that degree of control over their own processes.

Myself, I fall somewhere in the middle between Mr. Browning and yourself. I am aware of the ideas being talked about, and have been since I was around 8 years old. I have always been mildly interested in the conscious control of physical pain (and once in a great while, I attempt to practice them). Emotional response, on the other hand, is a differently colored horse. Emotional responses have a connection with personality, and with one's sense of self, and as such any topic dealing with them is inherently more touchy than one dealing with physical responses. People tend to get more defensive, faster, on the topic of emotions. I do not find mr. browning's philosophy to my personal liking, because it takes the idea farther than I find personally attractive. This doesn't say anything about him, or how he takes his philosphy, he can do as he pleases, I presume he's an adult. He's also obviously not unintelligent, and I have enjoyed bantering with him because of that. But to say that such things do not exist is, well.. incorrect. It's not a matter of opinion, it's all quite easilly proven in laboratory condintions. I'd be vastly surprised if it indeed has not been done under lab conditions, more than once. It was quite the in vogue topic in science at one point or another. I'm sure I've seen articles on the topic in various science mags I've leafed through in doctors' offices.

[b[Brownings comments on good emotional response have fallen between the last two catagories in my assessment, and I chose to respond only to the personal implications rather than the more extreme possible social implications.[/B]

Ermm, which social implications are those? Have we gone full-circle and returned to the "You're unbalanced, and a danger to people at large" again? I hope not.

 

[jgbrowning]

Emotional response, on the other hand, is a differently colored horse. Emotional responses have a connection with personality, and with one's sense of self, and as such any topic dealing with them is inherently more touchy than one dealing with physical responses. People tend to get more defensive, faster, on the topic of emotions. I do not find mr. browning's philosophy to my personal liking, because it takes the idea farther than I find personally attractive. This doesn't say anything about him, or how he takes his philosphy, he can do as he pleases, I presume he's an adult. He's also obviously not unintelligent, and I have enjoyed bantering with him because of that.

Well the thing that really got me thinking about it was pretty silly. If someone walks up and says "You're fat and your wife is ugly!" its not inconcievable that you may have an emotional response.

But if someone were to walk up to you and and say "You're fat and your wife is ugly!" in Swahili (and you don't speak Swahili ), there would be no emotional response. I'd probably just say "Pardon?" and smile and wait for the guy to say something i understand.

This little silly scenerio sent me down the long train of thought that there's pretty much no way emotions are "given" as opposed to "created". If it so blantantly dependent upon my successful interpretation of a scenerio, it cant be coming from outside. Reminds me of the Flowers for Algeron part where all the guys are laughing and making fun of the main character (who's retarded) and the guy's too retarded to realize they're making fun of him so he's laughing and having fun as well.

I'd rather be laughing and retarded than smart and unhappy. It's going to take me a hell of a long time to get there.....

I'm, of course, not saying that people don't influence each other. I doubt if anyone here really believes that. I just think that, although a person may be influencing me, i don't have to be anyway that i dont want to be. I kinda view it as when you're younger and you came home and told your folks a bully was calling you names and they just said "Don't let him get to you." It pretty much just say that to myself a lot

Course most of the time, its you that's influencing you. If you don't want to feel sad, people go out and try to do something fun. Well, there you're doing the same thing i do internally in an external form.

Some people try to set up situations that will facillitate their being happy... good music, good friends a beer or two . All that is is external emotion control by creating an environment where it's easier to be happy. I do the same, i just try to do it internally because, in the end, its all internal. And once you get it, you don't feel so dependant upon circumstances to dictate how you feel.

The cool thing is that after you do it awhile the old things that used to bother you, stop bothering you. Someone can do something that would have pissed you off a year ago and now your emotional state is unfased by it. A guy may cut you off in traffic and you may have yelled a bit at him a year ago, but now you barely even notice it.

It's almost like there's a new filter in place. the "It won't do you any good to get upset about this so you won't even feel the emotion to begin with filter". Thankfully this filter, filters out only the bad stuff!!!!!!

That's because in the end, the filter is just my will. Of course, my will can be broken under concerted attack (physical torture or such:hell a guy punching me in nose would piss me off, but i wouldn't hold on to being angry very long. I don't want to feel angry, i want to feel happy) but i dont think that invalidates my point, but instead just shows that i'm not that strong.

joe b.

 

[jdavis]

joe b.

So I guess I am right that you are not striving to become a emotionless animaton. I think it's odd that when people talk about controlling emotions they end up labeled as emotionless. It seems to me that the emotions you are attempting to control are the bad ones, and that is just good general advice. Aside from the philosophy behind all this I figure everybody is attempting to do the same, minimize the bad and maximize the good, people just use different methods. Well most people think I minimize the good and thrive on the bad, but actually I can get more laughs by centering on the bad, it's a character flaw, I try to make other people happy by making myself look so much worse than them that they have to feel good about their situation. Most people who know me never ask me "how was your week?" because they know I will actually tell them. I sort of revel in my emotional whirlwind, I have a very hard time controlling it so I just go where it sweeps me. My mother has the same problem but she is always miserable, I at least try to enjoy the bad for what it is. One day my head will pop like a extra from scanners but until then I'll just keep making the best of it.

Hmm, then you've missed something. There are innumberable cases of people who can, quite simply, block off their awareness of pain as transmitted by their neural network. These people can chose not to experience physical pain. Now I highly doub these people go through their every waking moment in a state such as this, I'm actually quite sure they don't as I've known more than one personally. But the ability is inherent in the human mind, the mind does possess the ability to chose which neural inpulses to take notice of, and which to ignore. It's just that that is not the default state we operate in, and most people will never manage that degree of control over their own processes.

Pain is actually not as hard as people believe to control, and you also can build up a tolerance for pain too. Aside from the many pain killing drugs out there, there is the fact that people can learn to block out those neural impulses and shrug off the pain as if they didn't feel it, whether they felt it but didn't acknowledge that they felt it or they didn't feel it at all is irrelevant. Pain is just a symptom of something else, it is a biological function and not a emotion at all. It's not about psychic powers or magic body control, it's normally about people being attuned to their body and having adapted their minds. Emotional pains, such as hate self doubt, loathing etc..... really are not pain they are emotional states and they can be controlled much easier. Guy cuts you off in traffic, well just don't let it get to you and wham you have overcome that emotion, if people didn't do this all the time we would all be a bunch of raving lunatics, blame yourself, blame others, how about just don't bother blaming anybody and getting on with your life, it seems to work ok in all sorts of situations for everybody. We all are doing the same basic things here we are all just using different beliefs and methodology to get to that point.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Well, I have to say I found it rather emotional as well. Perhaps you didn't intend it, but you started out with a veiled insult towards potentially everyone participating in this thread (except blackshirt5) and then, without offering any context, compared jgbrowning to a leper. I find it easy to interpret that as an emotional response.

no context? how odd...

I note that despite the fact that he thought you were responding emotionally, he took the time to discuss your points and respond to them in detail.

I suppose since I wasn't emotional when I wrote the response, its hard for me to give him kudos for accusing me of emotionalism then 'ignoring' it. Honestly, when you've had the same conversation a few dozen times, you get in the habit of throwing out a condensed version of your take on the situation so people won't confuse silence with agreement and let it be.

I suppose you could take acknowlegement that some people don't get along and that its best to find this out before you start personal interactions with them as a veiled insult... of course since most of those people had previously made comments like "I'm so glad I don't game with any of you" and "tell him to seek psychiatric help" I'm a little confused as to the responses to my mild comments.

right back atcha...

Kahuna Burger

 

[megamania]

If I feel the need to use a prior PC as a NPC I generally ask the original player about motives, plans and finally permission.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Okay. I'd say I do control how much pain I feel (and so would anyone who knows me), but it's obvious you've got your mind made up about this, so it's not worth arguing about. So let's just agree to disagree here.

just to put this in context, the question about controlling how much pain you feel was in direct response to my discussion of a disease where one cannot acknowlege pain. They do not know something "painful" is happening. My response was meant to differentiate between dealing with pain (to the point perhaps of having no emotional response to it) and not being aware of th fact that you are recieving a physical signal from your body. We may have a language issue. (to another poster, drugs, like disease are pretty obviously irrelevant to the distinction being made.)

Kahuna Burger

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Now not blaming your enviroment for pain is also easy, would you blame the rock you tripped over when you fell and broke your leg? Do you blame the car door if you slam it on your hand? Anybody who blames their enviroment for the pain they are experiencing has a problem not the other way around.

If you hold a personal grudge against an inanimate object, sure. But if by blame you mean "aknowlege that my pain was caused by a physical interaction with that object and change behaviour as a response"... I'd say its pretty healthy.

In the same way, if I get into a major blowout with a member of my gaming group in which he acts in a way which is very upsetting to me, I don't neccassarily "blame" him for it in the context of holding a personal grudge, thinking ill thoughts of him, etc. But I definitly say "this unpleasant emotional response was caused by interacting with this person in this context, and I should avoid that if possible." This not only avoids the unpleasant response, it frees up more of my time for interactions which will cause pleasant responses.

This whole thing, iirc, started with the phase "you made you unhappy" and I thought the context would carry through. Perhaps I caught up on posts to quickly and responded at a time when many had abbandoned that original context. Peril of time delayed conversation, we'll call it.

In any case, I begin to repeat myself and don't see the need to continue to carry this off topic...

Kahuna Burger

 

[jdavis]

If you hold a personal grudge against an inanimate object, sure. But if by blame you mean "aknowlege that my pain was caused by a physical interaction with that object and change behaviour as a response"... I'd say its pretty healthy.

In the same way, if I get into a major blowout with a member of my gaming group in which he acts in a way which is very upsetting to me, I don't neccassarily "blame" him for it in the context of holding a personal grudge, thinking ill thoughts of him, etc. But I definitly say "this unpleasant emotional response was caused by interacting with this person in this context, and I should avoid that if possible." This not only avoids the unpleasant response, it frees up more of my time for interactions which will cause pleasant responses.

This whole thing, iirc, started with the phase "you made you unhappy" and I thought the context would carry through. Perhaps I caught up on posts to quickly and responded at a time when many had abbandoned that original context. Peril of time delayed conversation, we'll call it.

In any case, I begin to repeat myself and don't see the need to continue to carry this off topic...

Kahuna Burger

I was just wondering how the "you made you unhappy" comment turned into "you have no emotions". It affected the whole way I viewed your arguement as I didn't make the same assumption, nor could see where that assumption came from. I read what your arguement is and it doesn't sound all that different from his arguement, minimize the bad and maximize the good. It's just a philosophical difference in how you go about it. Nowhere did I see where it was said "you should not show or feel emotion" I never even saw that implied. Your arguement is valid, your philosophy is valid, heck I agree more with it than the other. The problem was there was no reference made to not having any emotions and that seemed to be what you were argueing against, I think I can safely state that everybody who has been involved in this little sidetrack agrees that having no emotional responses is bad, I mean who doesn't want to feel happy.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

I was just wondering how the "you made you unhappy" comment turned into "you have no emotions".

Uh.... so am I? I looked back over my orriginal post and I can't see what led you to that interpretation of my remarks. I'm not trying to be snotty, I honestly don't know how we got here.

Hmmm.... I made a coment about being 'emotionaly divorced from the real world' in reference to his indication that it was in fact better to be happy while someone is punching you in the face... but I wasn't the one who called him spock, certainly... my entire point was that just like pain, negitive emotions can be* a signal that there is a problem in your environment. To nigh universaly declare negitive emotions a personal problem that people shouldn't 'blame' their environment for... I cannot consider this a socially healthy philosophy. But at the same time I never once thought he 'had no emotions', merely that his recommended methods of reaching an emotional state was unrealistic...

*Just as pain sometimes means merely that I'm having a migraine again, and is not a signal of danger, emotional pain sometimes merely indicates that I missed my antidepressants too many mornings in a row. Knowing when my environment is to blame and when its not is an important survival tactic.

Kahuna Burger

 

[jdavis]

Uh.... so am I? I looked back over my orriginal post and I can't see what led you to that interpretation of my remarks. I'm not trying to be snotty, I honestly don't know how we got here.

Hmmm.... I made a coment about being 'emotionaly divorced from the real world' in reference to his indication that it was in fact better to be happy while someone is punching you in the face... but I wasn't the one who called him spock, certainly... my entire point was that just like pain, negitive emotions can be* a signal that there is a problem in your environment. To nigh universaly declare negitive emotions a personal problem that people shouldn't 'blame' their environment for... I cannot consider this a socially healthy philosophy. But at the same time I never once thought he 'had no emotions', merely that his recommended methods of reaching an emotional state was unrealistic...

*Just as pain sometimes means merely that I'm having a migraine again, and is not a signal of danger, emotional pain sometimes merely indicates that I missed my antidepressants too many mornings in a row. Knowing when my environment is to blame and when its not is an important survival tactic.

Kahuna Burger

Yea the emotionaly divorced (separated from ones emotions) or the comparison to a leper (totally non feeling), those sort of led me to that conclusion, it seemed to be infered some too, but those two seemed pretty straight forward to me. I could of misinterpreted but it does seem that way from the tone and language you used.

jgbrowning's methods remind me of Buddhism in a way, I don't think his thinking is socially unhealthy, I think it is a very high idea to try and maintain. It's not for me at all but that doesn't mean it isn't ok for him. I agree with many of your statements, heck I find I think along the sme lines as you on many things, but I do see where he is coming from and I don't see where taking full responsibility for your own emotions is a bad thing.