Affect programs and feelings

Abstract

Interdisciplinary approaches to emotions hold a tension which we know already from other discourses such as the debate about free will or the problem of phenomenal qualities - the tension between the perspective of the observer and the personal point of view (i.e., the participant perspective). While we know, from our own experience, some portion of the richness which emotional experiences are capable of affording, we can partake in experiences and feelings of others through narratives. By contrast, insights into the neuronal mechanisms forming the basis of emotional processes do not deliver insight into the corresponding feelings. So, one might think: the more accurate neuron scientific descriptions of the basis of emotions are, the more we lose track of what we esteem most in our emotional life - the multi-layered and fine-grained nature of experience itself. But it need not be like this. © 2009 Imprint Academic.