Entering the “soul” as the result of the internal bodily environment and the external social environment emotions have to pass through a certain pathway inside human body, and the limbic brain can be considered the main part of this pathway. The limbic brain can be evaluated as a meeting place for impulses form outward reality and the agents within our brain evaluating the received information which are mainly located in prefrontal cortex and subcortical areas. Ben-Ze’ev’s approach generates philosophical and psychological points of view on the emotion related matters, and makes his conclusions as to the features of particular emotions and the mechanism of their formation as a response to the world surrounding every peculiar individual. Such emotions as joy, anger, passion, wrath, fright, and fear originate in the limbic brain as a result of reaction of an individual on surrounding environment and then they are sensed within our “souls” according to Ben-Ze’ev (2000).
Speaking about the mechanism of emotion formation and intromission into our “souls”, the definition of emotion should be provided, first of all. According to Ben-Ze’ev, “emotions are highly complex and subtle phenomena whose explanation requires careful and systematic analysis of their multiple characteristics and components” (2000, p. 3). Emotions are explained by Ben-Ze’ev as “a complex phenomenon describable on different levels, for example, physiological, biological, psychological, sociological, or philosophical. On the psychological level, an emotion consists of feeling, cognition, evaluation, and motivation” (8). Ben-Ze’ev explains the concept of emotion as a heterogeneous and contrasted category.
There exist a few levels of emotion formation. The main one of them is a psychological level consisting of the somatic and autonomic activities of the nervous system along with endocrine developments within human body. Physiological characteristics of this level include heart rate, blood pressure, the flow of adrenaline, blood circulation, muscular tension, respiration, the activity of digestive apparatus and gastrointestinal organs, bodily temperature, skin coloring and secretions. All these parameters are directed by the limbic brain which operated them through endocrine and nervous system (Barbalet 1998).
Generally, emotions constitute a model rather than binate classes and categories (Ben-Ze’ev, 2000). Nonetheless, the main characteristics of typical emotional conditions and states can be classified and describes to the extent that they partake in certain environments. In this vein, the characteristics of a given emotion, anger for example, may be classified as related to anger to the extent they resemble typical anger characteristics and anger manifestations for every particular individual. According to Ben-Ze’ev, “emotions are highly complex and subtle phenomena whose explanation requires careful and systematic analysis of their multiple characteristics and components” (2000, p. 3).
We experience emotions “when we perceive positive or negative significant changes in our personal situation – or in that of those close to us” (Ben Ze’ev, 2000, p. 15). Ben-Ze’ev explains the nature of emotional outpourings as abrupt and based on sudden reactions occurring within the shortest period of time in the limbic brain. The main characteristics of emotions are “instability, great intensity, a partial perspective, and relative brevity (Ben Ze’ev, 2000, p. 13). Emotions, thus, may be resulted by “a significant discrepancy between our current personal state, or that of a significant others” (p. 20). The fact is that “emotions are typically a matter of seconds, not minutes, hours or days.” supports the idea that they are formed in the area of our brain which is responsible for temporary conditions (Ben-Ze’ev, 2000, 40). Such spontaneous character of emotion formation and manifestation is explained by the physiological nature of their development inside human organism.
The physiological nature of development of emotions should be, first of all, characterized beginning with the role the limbic brain plays in it. The lower and higher functions in our brain are connected by means of the limbic system. Limbic system and limbic brain, in particular, is considered to be an emotional center in a human body. According to Ben-Ze’ev, limbic brain can be characterized as the main mechanism existing in our body which works with the information received from the outward reality, evaluates it in connection with our cortex, and then sends the impulses to the nervous and endocrine systems. As a result of body reaction to the hormones and impulses spread over the varied body parts our “souls” experience emotions (2000).
Ben-Ze’ev argues that emotions are separated from the other states of our organism such as beliefs, perceptions, principles and so on the reason of the formation mechanism. This mechanism is beyond our control as emotional perception is generated as a response to spontaneous impulses form outward situations. Emotions have peculiarly fast ways of comparison our desired state of affairs with what we experience in every particular case. As a response to the result of this comparison we uncontrollably react to the source of information either in positive or negative way. The kind of emotion every certain individual will experience is dependent on the set of standards for each particular phenomenon we face. Thus, individuals may have a range of emotions expressed as a result of the same situation. For example, one woman seeing her child returning home in a dirty clothing will burst with anger, but the other will stay calm as if nothing special has happened; this all depends on the set of standards of desired conditions for this situation.
The system of standards for each situation is constantly changed for every human during one’s whole life period. This can be named as the reason for brief, unstable and momentary character of emotions. The other reason can be found in physiological peculiarities of this phenomenon. To support this idea Ben-Ze’ev addressees a row of neurologists who explain that the limbic brain sends impulses to endocrine system, hormones are effused to blood as a result, but the term of their effect on varied parts of organism is rather short. The fact that all the emotions are formed in the limbic brain is also supported by the medical practice of prefrontal lobotomy which resulted into a turning of an individual into a person indifferent to the stimulus and irritators from outward reality (De Sousa 1987).
Our sudden emotions appearing inside our “souls” are different from the way we think about varied information in case our intellect is addressed. This difference can be explained by the varied places in our brain which are affected during experiencing emotions and evaluative thinking. Ben-Ze’ev explains that limbic brain’s main characteristic is its immediate connection to the nervous and endocrine system which makes our reactions instantaneous and momentary whereas intellectual thinking is exercised in different brain zones which have no such prompt mechanism of connection with the body organs and systems responsible for the distribution for our reaction. The mechanism described by Ben-Ze’ev which lies as a basis for connection between the limbic brain and human “soul” can be seen in the following illustration. When seeing a frightening insect the individual perceives the information, compares it to the freighting patterns in one’s memory and reacts with neurovegetative manifestations. As a result of an unpleasant physical reaction the person develops fear.
Emotions occur in case an individual deviates from the level of one’s usual stimulation that the person customarily experiences for a rather significant period of time. Our personal concerns play a critical role for the changes in appraising certain circumstances which causes emotional occurrence. Concerns can be evaluated as long-term or short-term preferences of an individual in experiencing the surrounding world. Emotions are considered to be a mechanism existing in our body to monitor and update our concerns. Emotional meaning has a comparative and relative nature, thus. The main factors causing typical emotional concerns are social comparison, group membership, the availability of an alternative and personal evaluation.
Social comparison can be named as one of the most evident stimulants for emotions. For example, in shame, pride, pity, hate, anger, jealousy, envy, pleasure-in-others’-misfortune, and embarrassment the main stimulant for appearing this emotion is social comparison. However, for a row of the other emotions including hope, fear and joy which are connected to more entitative issues, social comparison may have less importance. The other interesting group of emotions in which the concern for living matters is predominating including fear of death and desire to have a better health condition can be also described as not directly connected to social concerns.
The main object causing emotions for every human being is a fellow human being, of course. We are socially oriented creations, and, thus, there is nothing else on the entire earth to be so interesting for people as fellow people. The way people look, what they do and say, including our own acts, words and thoughts affect us emotionally more than anything. Emotions are mostly directed to individuals, but there appear cases when particular groups of people become the stimulus for emotion formation. For example, hatred may be caused by a person who offended us somehow, or by a group of people who are connected to our negative perceptions such as ethnic preferences and political or religious convictions.
Concluding on all the information related above, it should be stated that penetrating into the “soul” as the result of the circumscribed bodily environment and the social environment emotions have to pass through a certain pathway including the limbic brain which can be considered the main part of this pathway and the other parts of the nervous system. Such emotions as joy, anger, passion, wrath, fright, wrath, hope, fear and so on originate in the limbic brain as a result of a reaction of an individual on surrounding environment. The limbic brain can be characterized as the main mechanism existing in our body which works with the information received from the outward reality, evaluates it in connection with our cortex, and then sends the impulses to the nervous and endocrine systems. As a result of body reaction to the hormones and impulses spread over the varied body parts our “souls” experience emotions.
References
Barbalet, J. M. (1998). Emotion, social theory, and social structure: A macrosociological approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ben-Ze’ev, A. (2000). The subtlety of emotions. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
De Sousa, R. (1987). The rationality of emotions. Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press.