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Comment by CTDOCodebases | Hacker News Reader

Aren't emotions just thoughts with a linked physical sensation?

Why is it so fascinating?

What? Emotion doesn't have physical sensation, unless you mean "heart pumping strongly when afraid".

@WaxedChewbacca re:meditation, if your advertisement for meditation is that it will make me feel physical pain when I experience emotions, then that's a great motivation to never ever try to meditate ever. It's also almost completely the opposite of anything I've ever read about meditation. Isn't the whole point to disconnect from emotion and suffering?

If you are practicing mindfulness meditation the whole point is just to observe.

Most people experience emotional body sensations - “butterflies in my stomach,” “a weight on my chest,” “steam coming out of my ears” etc.

Don’t people with facial paralysis say that their feelings of emotions are, not functioning at full capacity, due to inability to express them outwardly?

Or, something like that?

I have heard something similar.

People get together to fake laugh and end up happy at the end of the session.

Really curious to learn how you perceive emotions. Maybe I'm reading into this too much, but this feels like the start of discussing an aphantasia analog.

To attempt to answer your question, I don't know how to describe it. Until now, I would have attempted to use the language of "physical metaphor" that I had heard and read, but if those aren't metaphors... I have no idea how to describe something that is to me, by definition, indescribable. I can only really describe the effects I suppose, that being angry makes me desire violence, being sad or afraid makes me want to hide, etc.

Thank you for taking the time to share. I really enjoy learning how other people experience the world. There are so many times when I've made an assumption based on my own life and was greeted with a surprise when I came to learn something new.

Well, I don't visualize at all, so you could be on to something.

Just?

I didn’t mean to downplay the intensity and effect of emotion.

I found it strange that others don’t acknowledge emotions for what they are at a basic level and instead talk about them like they are some supernatural perception.

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