Are we emotion sensors?

Hello everyone!
I would like to give your opinions about the way we feel emotions. Apparently there are sensors in our brains that sense cortisol which is the molecule of anxiety and sensors that can sense endorphine or whatever thw molecule of happiness is. Some of us have more of the first type and some of us have more of the second type from what I heard. It would also seem that for 1 minute of sadness or anxiety i don't know you spend 1 hour getting rid of the cortisol in your brain. Also the only emotion your brain is constently trying to reproduce would be happiness.

So I was thinking, more sensitive peraons have more sensors right? What would happen if two persons would possess a 50/50 ratio of sadness sensors and happiness sensors but person A would have significantly less sensors than person B overall. Would they feel the same? Or one would feel hapoier or sadder than the other? Providing Jedi are probably very sensitive beings, what would it mean about the trials Jedi have to face everyday in their brain?
I am looking forward to hear your thoughts about this. Thanks for reading!

Dear Flojade,

As far as I remember, the feeling, on a biological level, is based on 3 chemicals (neurotransmitters). It is the balance between these 3 that creates a certain mood. So you can be stressed, yet happy, or relaxed but sad depending on the combination.

So it doesn't matter how much chemicals or how sensitive you are in general, but rather if you are more sensitive to one or the other so the balance between them changes. So people with a natural tendency to be sad, or angry, are generally more sensitive to one hormone then the other (having more receptors of one, or some receptors blocked for the other).

A jedi, or anyone who is more sensitive to emotions, is likely better in detecting the subtle changes in this balance between these neurotransmitters. So they will notice that they are leaning more towards happiness or anger much earlier than "normal" people.

Another good thing to note is that, like most brain functions, you can train this. Not only to be more sensitive in general, but you can train being happy. By mindfully focusing on the happy, positive and peaceful feelings, you reward your brain (even more) for feeling good, this will increase your likeliness to feel good again, creating a positive spiral.

Sadly the other way is also true. That's why you see people slowly spiraling into depression. They start focusing on the bad emotions, rewarding your brain for feeling it, so you will feel more of those emotions on which to focus etc.

I have been here for less than a week, so I am the last one to lecture on Jedi codes and ideas. But as far as I can see, this explains why Jedi focus on the positive. And why the famous words "Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering" are actually true and negative feelings will multiply as much as positive ones. And you are the only one that can change this.

Thank u that was well explained! Does that mean jedi have a tendancy to go for the extremes? Aren't normal people safer as they are less likely to go mass murdering if there is too much milk in their morning coffee?
Also how can we reward the brain?
Do you think being sensitive is a good thing and why?

I wouldn't think so. Part of being a jedi, as far as I know with my limited understanding, is being more sensitive. But another part is to learn to act from serenity and calm. So you feel the anger, maybe even the urge. But you never do it.

Also, feeling more clearly doesn't mean feeling more intensely. It is not that you are MORE angry, but that you can see the anger better. It is as if you have a higher resolution picture of the same thing.

That’s not entirely true. While something like mindfulness has been shown through neurological scans to have an almost immediate effect on brain activity and thus emotion, actually making the claim that we can voluntarily change our beliefs or physical chemical responses to achieve a permanent or long lasting happiness and inner peace is to accord a power to the mind over the body that it does not possess. A depressed person can’t actually just replace their dark thoughts with nice ones to neutralize their depression nor can an anxious person actually dispel their anxiousness simply by exchanging their negative projections for positive ones.

The best you can do is momentarily trick the unconscious mind but it only delays the inevitable because instead of dealing with those issues we just suppress them and the return of those things later usually only serves to compounds them. Depression is a real physical thing and can’t be dealt with through a trick. Instead these sorts of things take real long lasting work to learn to deal with and often times medical treatment is required. Our minds and its interactions with the subconscious is much more complex than simply "counting receptors" in the brain.

The same concept goes for fear leading to anger every time. This is also not entirely true. This view of fear is one dimensional because fear also triggers our fight of flight response and actually serves to protect our lives. Fear itself, just like any of our emotions, does not carry an automatic positive or negative connotation. It is how we use those emotions. Each and every one of our emotions have positive and productive uses as well as negative and destructive uses. We can use love to destroy and we can use hate to build just as easily as the other way around.

I would argue that this attachment towards trying to control emotions at all costs is more conducive to mass murdering than simply admitting you are angry when you are angry. Sweeping dirt under the rug only makes it worse, as Kyrin points out.

Emotional wellness is more about looking at your own darkness honestly than it is about applying gimmicks to appear happy.

Thank you Kyrin for pointing that out. That is not what I meant, and I know for personal experience that you can't think your way out of a depression. And I also know that it can feel as a personal insult when someone tells you to just start being more positive or to "get over it". So if I insulted anyone, I truly am sorry, this was never my intention.

What I meant was that from a hypothetical neutral point or a happy point in life, focusing on the positive can trigger a chain reaction that increases this.

For negative feelings the opposite, from a neutral or slight negative point in life, focusing on the negative can result in a negative chain reaction.

This is a mostly one way street though. A person in a very positive state of mind is unlikely to start a chain reaction towards negativity. And, as you pointed out, people with depression cannot rely solely on 'being positive" to spiral back up.

The last part of your message, I didn't take into consideration and is definitely something for me to reflect upon, thank you for that!

Fair point Manu

Manu wrote: I would argue that this attachment towards trying to control emotions at all costs is more conducive to mass murdering than simply admitting you are angry when you are angry. Sweeping dirt under the rug only makes it worse, as Kyrin points out.

Emotional wellness is more about looking at your own darkness honestly than it is about applying gimmicks to appear happy.

Agreed. Being able to come to terms with your own mental state is key in finding a balance in your own life. To know how to admit you're angry, to know you are, but choose to not let it dictate your actions... that is control over self.

Arisaig wrote:

Manu wrote: I would argue that this attachment towards trying to control emotions at all costs is more conducive to mass murdering than simply admitting you are angry when you are angry. Sweeping dirt under the rug only makes it worse, as Kyrin points out.

Emotional wellness is more about looking at your own darkness honestly than it is about applying gimmicks to appear happy.

Agreed. Being able to come to terms with your own mental state is key in finding a balance in your own life. To know how to admit you're angry, to know you are, but choose to not let it dictate your actions... that is control over self.

Lets take a different emotion - love. Do you allow Love to dictate your actions? Do you maintain control over self when it comes to love?