The brain is one big sense making, pattern recognition machine. We expect emotions to be different. That they “just come up” or are “real” or “just happen”. Yet the science tells us that emotions are just another case of the brain sensing certain things and matching those things to patterns I understands. Emotions are patterns also. Favorite quotes: “There is no emotion is a facial movement, it is our interpretation of that movement that creates the emotion.” This from a neuroscientist who has put sensors on people’s faces to try to detect emotions in facial movements. There are none. Your own emotions are guesses at the pattern you brain makes. “Emotions that seem to happen TO you are actually made BY you.” “If you change the ingredients that your brain uses to create emotions, you can transform your emotional life.” Basically neuroscientists confirming 2000 years of Stoic philosophy.
TEDFAV: Emotions are guesses
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