Matthew Blakeway - THE LOGIC OF SELF-DESTRUCTION

Concentrate now! Yes, you at the back... This appendix sums up the entire theory of Part I of the book. However, dont think that by reading it you can save time and not bother reading the book because, if you try that, you wont have a clue what its going on about.

This is how our understanding of our emotions is supposed to work: circumstances in our environment cause us to have a feeling; this causes us to exhibit a certain behaviour; anyone can observe the behaviour but the feeling is private; only the fact that the behaviour is public enables us to form a concept of the emotion, and collectively an ability to name it; we use the word as though it refers directly to the feeling, but in reality it refers indirectly to the unseen cause of the behaviour (whatever that might be).

Tactical deception with the behaviour disrupts this process. Firstly, it causes us to form an incorrect concept of the emotion: suppressed behaviour disrupts identification of an emotion, and affected behaviour creates false beliefs as to its cause. When we goalseek an emotional outcome with a disrupted concept of the emotion, we rationally choose a self-destructive action.

• Scenario A involves suppression of emotional behaviour by third parties;
• Scenario B the suppression is by the protagonist;
• Scenario C involves affectation by the protagonist; and
• Scenario D involves affectation by third parties.

We can construct a 2x2 matrix: one axis is affection or suppression; and the other axis is first person or second/third person. Respectively: they suppress; I suppress; I affect; they affect.

(1) When we remember emotions, we think we remember the feeling, but our memory tricks us by recalling surrogates of the feeling (such as the behaviour) (BEHAVIOUR IS THE ONLY CONSTANT);

(2) Human action is driven by goal-seeking the achievement of positive emotional states and the avoidance of negative ones (INTENT);

(3) Humans implicitly form theories that certain sets of circumstances cause certain emotional states (BELIEF);

(4) Humans act on the belief (3) to establish sets of circumstances that cause positive emotional states, and avoid the sets of circumstances that cause negative emotional states (DERIVE AN ACTION).

The action is rationally derived from the concept of the emotion, and this remains the case even if the concept is distorted; so from here the theory reduces to: How is the concept derived?

(5) Words for feelings reference whatever causes the behaviour. It is merely an assumption that this is caused by a feeling, so the metaphysics of the feeling becomes irrelevant. The word is a derivative of behaviour (CONCEPT AND LANGUAGE);

(6) Tactical deception with the behaviour, results in the concept of, or the word for, an emotion being derived from false data:

a. When the behaviour is suppressed, the evidence of the feeling is absent:

i. If the subject suppresses the behaviour, then they will interpret the word for the feeling as meaning just the behaviour; so if the feeling arises in themself (which will not trigger the behaviour) they will have no knowledge that they have the feeling associated with that behaviour. (ABSENCE OF BELIEF THAT OWN FEELING IS THE EMOTION THAT CAUSES BEHAVIOUR IN OTHERS) [Scenario B];

ii. If people in the subjects world suppress the behaviour, then the subject has no mechanism to allocate the word to the feeling. If a feeling arises in themselves and they hypothesise a name for that feeling, they have no mechanism to refute the hypothesis, so it is irrefutable. (A HYPOTHESIS AS TO FEELING IDENTITY AUTOMATICALLY BECOMES A BELIEF IN THE IDENTITY OF THE FEELING) [Scenario A];

b. When someone tactically affects the behaviour, the behaviour is caused by something other than the feeling (usually, in the first instance, by a belief about how modified behaviour will alter how others perceive them):

i. If the subject affects the behaviour (and therefore their own behaviour is not caused by the feeling) then the subject assumes the presence of the emotion without the feeling. (FALSE BELIEF OF WHAT CAUSES THEIR EMOTION) [Scenario C];

ii. If people in the subjects world affect the behaviour, then the subject will identify a false cause of the emotion in others. (FALSE BELIEFS OF WHAT CAUSES EMOTION IN OTHERS) [Scenario D];

(7) Each of the four circumstances described in (6) gives rise to an incorrect belief, so the simple derivation of action in (2) through (4) gives rise to a rationally derived self-destructive action, respectively:

a. With respect to suppression:

i. The self-suppressor will be unable to identify the causes of their feelings and will be unable to take corrective action. (CANNOT DETERMINE ACTION THAT ACHIEVES EMOTIONAL GOAL);

ii The person living in an environment of suppression will, upon hypothesising the identity of a feeling, be unable to refute that hypothesis. This will draw a false conclusion as to what emotional goal they have achieved. (CONTINUE A COURSE OF ACTION BASED ON FALSE BELIEF OF EMOTION ATTAINED.)

b. With respect to tactical affectation of behaviour:

i. The self-faker will continue to pursue a course of action that they believe will lead to an emotional outcome without being able to know whether they achieve that outcome. (REPEAT ACTION WITHOUT ABILITY TO DETERMINE SUCCESSFUL OUTCOME);

ii. The person living in an environment of affectation will pursue an incorrect course of action in the mistaken belief that it will lead to an emotional outcome. (PURSUE ACTION BASED UPON FALSE ASSUMPTION OF OUTCOME.)