Hi,

I'll start by saying I'm not familiar with the concepts of presentational and representational states, but I do work in the pain field, looking at how pain affects behaviour, including affective behaviour seen in chronic pain, and how the amygdala is involved in this... I work very strongly under the theory that the subjective experience of pain is a interaction between the sensory, cognitive, and affective components

The amygdala (given the ref to LeDoux...) is a highly connected area in the brain (more connections than any other IIRC), and is very well conserved, evolutionarily (comparable structures found in birds, reptiles, and mammals from rats to humans) and I like to think of it as involved in risk assessment, rather than 'generation of emotional memory'. Although we can't say how the lizard (or a rat etc) feels when faced with a threat, we can see how it alters its behaviour, and in general these behavioural changes have a lot in common with affective disorders e.g. increased risk aversion, decreased activity.

Neugebauer has also done some very elegant work showing the connections between the amygdala and the pre-frontal cortex are altered in pain, with increased input from the amygdala (e.g. emotional states associated with pain) having a dampening effect on the pre frontal cortex, ergo making it harder to rationalise the emotions associated with the pain.

So from this, maybe pain can be a representational state, particularly in neuropathic pain, where the initiating tissue damage is gone, yet the pain persists through some combination of central sensitization, peripheral maintenance, and cognitive/affective effects such as catastrophizing.

Hope this is useful and if you need clarification, please just ask!

Hi,

I'll start by saying I'm not familiar with the concepts of presentational and representational states, but I do work in the pain field, looking at how pain affects behaviour, including affective behaviour seen in chronic pain, and how the amygdala is involved in this... I work very strongly under the theory that the subjective experience of pain is a interaction between the sensory, cognitive, and affective components

The amygdala (given the ref to LeDoux...) is a highly connected area in the brain (more connections than any other IIRC), and is very well conserved, evolutionarily (comparable structures found in birds, reptiles, and mammals from rats to humans) and I like to think of it as involved in risk assessment, rather than 'generation of emotional memory'. Although we can't say how the lizard (or a rat etc) feels when faced with a threat, we can see how it alters its behaviour, and in general these behavioural changes have a lot in common with affective disorders e.g. increased risk aversion, decreased activity.

Neugebauer has also done some very elegant work showing the connections between the amygdala and the pre-frontal cortex are altered in pain, with increased input from the amygdala (e.g. emotional states associated with pain) having a dampening effect on the pre frontal cortex, ergo making it harder to rationalise the emotions associated with the pain.

So from this, maybe pain can be a representational state, particularly in neuropathic pain, where the initiating tissue damage is gone, yet the pain persists through some combination of central sensitization, peripheral maintenance, and cognitive/affective effects such as catastrophizing.

Hope this is useful and if you need clarification, please just ask!

Dear Rosie, for sure there are some representations associated with the feeling of pain, and the prefrontal cortex is surely involved with them.

My question is if pain itself is (necessarily) a representation of something, and my answer is it is not. As in the case of neuropathic chronic pain, it is a feeling generated by a CNS dysfunction that does not represent any change in body states.

Other kinds of feeling - as those that Jaak Panksepp calls "core affects" - are sensations generated by release of neuropeptides in the CNS. These sensations do not necessarily represent any change in body states. Of course our imagination adds meanings to these sensations (e.g. an empty stomach in the case of hunger), but the experience of the sensation is not a representation of anything. In some mental disorders, people feel hungry with a full stomach.

Alfredo,

can we suppose that feelings are the heritage of our ancestors which had no cognitive ability to react on sensual inputs? These feelings were an analyse of the environmental situation and therefore a motivation to react.

Now we have cognitive possibilities to reflect such situations but nevertheless the feelings are present and gives us "a second" interpretation.

Yes Wilfried, a good idea!

Since feelings emerged, they have an autonomous dynamics that is more related to the body than cognitive processes. However, as I have argued with Steven Teelen, we do not need to have the same old sensual body stimulations to experience the feelings again; the brain has developed several endogenous substances (as neuropeptides) that once released generate basic feelings autonomously. By the way, did you see the paper below that argues for 4 basic emotional feelings on the basis of an analysis of facial expressions?

http://www.cell.com/current-biology/retrieve/pii/S0960982213015194

Alfredo,

there is no contradiction between my answer and the brains production of hormones which activate different bodily mechanisms. All feelings and their biochemical causations were the result of an subconscious situation analyse by the nervous system (mostly the brain). These subconscious mechanisms influences not only the body but also the cognition in the younger parts of the brain and this production of feelings is totally autonomous.

In reading the initial question we have some answers but not in the sense of the question. Feelings are, if nobody disagrees, not representations of bodily states but bodily indicators of a subconscious situations analyse to prepare body actions which becomes aware.

My dear Alfredo,

I think you are right that this is, in your clear terminology, a presentation rather than a representation. There is an awareness of a feeling, even if it is a ‘thin’ quale in some ways.

This thread overlaps with, and may have spawned one set up by Wilfried. I will add something here because it is a response to the quote from LeDoux. This quote seems to me contorted.

Firstly, what is this consciousness that ‘detects’ or ‘witnesses’ something. Is it a security guard walking through our neurons? Signals may reach those areas whose content we call ‘consciousness of something’ but only because they arrive there. What is a ‘survival circuit’? Or even a ‘circuit’ in a brain? And who is this chap in our head, this unofficial policeman with a notepad, who appraises and labels this state, as if putting a parking ticket on the windscreen? Can we really take seriously a theory couched in these anthropomorphic terms?

I need no answer to that question, but my real question is why these should be representations of the **state of the body**. Surely this is wrong. They are presentations of inferred dispositional states of the world (?umwelt) as it concerns the person. Love is the emotion that presents a state of the world that includes someone to be loved, despair presents a world devoid of hope. The idea that these are presentations of the body seems nuts.

But presumably the idea is that part of the brain has done some inferences and come to the conclusion, in the case of fear of a tiger, that the world is threatening – over there by the tiger. And then the consciousness security guard sees that other part of the brain getting all hot and bothered about a tiger and decides to ‘write myself a letter’, as the song goes, to say that the body, (or was it that other bit of brain?) is in a state of fear. So it conjures up this horrible feeling to tell itself it discovered the plight of the other bit of brain.

Isn’t this crazy? If the other bit of brain has inferred that the world is threatening over there then would it not make more sense for it simply to send a signal to the bit that has qualia that will pop up a quale we call ‘fear’. Why should the ‘consciousness bit of brain’ have to rely on seeing steam coming out of the ears of the other bit and then try and work out whether it has seen a tiger or a nice bit of totty turning the corner in the road? (Sorry, totty=attractive female.) For sure the conscious bit will in time notice the steam, in terms of the cold sweat on the brow etc. but that is not the emotion, it’s just the steam that goes with it, isn’t it?

If we look at a red bus in a mirror some red sensitive cones get depolarized more than the blue ones. Our brain may infer there is a red bus, or it may infer there is a mirror ahead (from the same signals). It may present a bus or a mirror. It does not present a retina full of cones. If a particular neurotransmitter trips potentials that give a sad quale this is not a presentation of a sad neurotranmitter, but a presentation of an inferred sad state of the world. Intentional presentations are of distal inferred dispositions, not of their bearers. The medium is not the message in this case.

Would you agree, in the late summer sun of São Paulo?

Dear Jonathan, I fully agree! Sorry for not answering before...now it is winter cold here!

Best,

Alfredo

Dear Bernd, I agree that there are different aspects of the world that cannot be reduced to each other. I am uploading in my page the proofs of a new paper (to appear in the Journal of Integrative Neuroscience), where I try to explain to neuroscientists and scientists in general my theory called Triple Aspect Monism. Thi stheory claims that conscious systems operate with three aspects of reality, the physical (matter/energy), the informational (patterns composing cognitive unconscious processes) and the conscious (cognitive processes with feeling).

LeDoux surprised me favorably with his excellent new approach to conscious emotional feelings, as reviewed in his article in the link below. The approach is developed in his new book on Anxiety - my congratulations!!

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/i-got-mind-tell-you/201508/whats-wrong-antianxiety-drugs

Every of our activities are representative thru our mind .Our mind is very important as it offers us all the time of our thinking & understanding way for our life.

Our mind work under different traits but due to our working action of our life our mind becomes sensitive ,creating sometime disturbing & nervous feelings.  This attitude of our mind create a disturbing feelings which may take out all the good & pleasurable action of our life.

In the line of the above action of our feeling ,it certainly disturbs our health , resulting in a permanent health problems B.P ,HEART PROBLEMS,DIABETES ,GASTRIC TROUBLE,& such other related areas of our health problem .

This is my personal opinion 

Dear Rohit, 

I understand that you are assuming that feelings are not representations of the state of the body, but states of mind that affect (sometimes disturb) the state of the body. Am I right?