Terms and mindsets: emotional meaning. JOSÉ VÍCTOR ORÓN SEMPER LA OPINIÓN DE... JOSÉ VÍCTOR ORÓN SEMPER
Born in Valencia and currently a resident in Navarra, he is Piarist priest, works with the Mind-Bran Group ( ICS) at the University of Navarra (UNAV). He holds a Bachelor of Religious Studies from the Theology faculty at the University San Vicente Ferrer, Valencia (2001). His studies also include a bachelors and masters in Canal and Ports Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Valencia (1997). He completed Master s Degree in Neuroscience and Cognition at University of Navarra and an International Master s Degree in Bioethics through the Jerome Lejeune Chair in Madrid. A Secondary Education and A-levels teacher. Author of the UpToYou program, a project for the emotional education of teenagers. ACCORDING TO emotional meaning" Why do I feel what I feel? Why do we assign a specific emotional meaning to an experience? It is commonly accepted that emotions are a type of assessment, and the assessment is a way of attributing meaning, but why does a person specifically experiences an emotion (evaluative emotional meaning) in a different way from another? These questions have been given different answers throughout history, we obviously do not intend to revise them, but we can claim that all of them stand between two extremes which could be characterized by the famous reasoning: I cry because I m sad or I m sad because I cry. The former highlights the subjective and cognitive experience of the person, while the latter highlights the biological aspect. Both positions have something in common: it is a process which starts in one extreme and sequentially reaches the other. They also share the common big mistake of thinking that human beings can be represented outside of humans complexity. They both apply a
mechanist process to humans so one thing happens first and then another, or things happen separately and then once they are constituted they can join each other or not. They are mistakenly undertanding that something may be mentally split, with it being split in real life. Any attempt to explain any human event outside of human complexity, where everything happens because it co-happens, pari passu, leads to a distortion of what being human is. Let s see an example: a two years old child is eating, sooner or later they will get some food on their shirt. What emotional meaning does this event have? Let s break it down. A child that age is developing gross motor skills, which implies that they are taking control over their physical movement (moving their limbs), but they are not completely developed, particularly considering fine motor skills (fingers one). During their short existence, the child has discovered their mother s purpose: she wants the food on that plate to be on the child s mouth. At that age the child can already build up two words sentences. That is why they say: I do. This expression is highly complex, since it requires for the child to decode the mother s purpose, for him to recognise himself as agent of his own actions and for him to accept the mother s purpose as their own. Consequently the child gets ready for action: First attempt, it takes some effort, but mission accomplished! Food gets to the mouth. Second attempt and something that had never before happened in the universe happens now: the food ends up on the child s shirt. This outcome had never been seen by the child. What does the child do? At that moment the child does a visual triangle: mother object child. With their look the child is asking their mother: mom, how should I understand this? the child looks at the mother because it is the source of authority, someone who they value and love because she is always with them and magically solves everything that happens. Option A: the mother, notably nervous and with a high voice says: what happened?! That is a new shirt, now I ll have to wash it and we are going to miss the bus (the reader may recreate the scene in their minds since everything is said while the mother cleans the child vehemently) The child is not going to understand any of the mother s explanations. He lives in the present. The child sees their mother notably upset and concludes that what happened is terrible, look what happened to my mom! The child doesn t understand the reasoning, but that their mother has despised the child s purpose which came from the child s desire to satisfy the mother. What emotional meaning does
a stain on a shirt have? Horror. What will the child do about a future stain? They will probably try to fix it or hide it, but they will probably make it worse because they will spread the stain. Option B: the mother, evidently calm, will repeat the visual triangle and say to the child using a warm tone: oh, you have stained your shirt, let me clean it up and she will gently clean it. In both cases, the child has learnt that the food must not be on the shirt and in this case, what will they do next time they get something on their shirt? They may even go warn their mother so that she can clean it, since they like seeing their mother look after them. What is the motional meaning of a stain on a shirt? Everyday life. With the event described, one can see that to understand both emotional experiences, we need to simultaneously consider several aspects. Physical development, cognitive development, the understanding of purpose, agency, the development of one s own purpose, social relationships, planning, the temperature of food, what is good for the relationship and what is not (moral basis) Everything happens because it co-happens, pari passu. It could be said that in that little child we can find the same elements we will find in an adult s case. We must insist, not even the most basic situation can be understood without considering the complexity of life in all its richness. The child borrows their mother s world of meaning. It could literally be said that the mother lends her mindset to the child. And considering what we have described, it has been evidenced that this does not only happen at an emotional level, but several. There is the stain itself (meaning), the act of getting something on the shirt (concept), the experience of getting something on the shirt (emotion), the value and concept the child has of him/herself (self-concept), what is appropriate and what isn t about getting something on the shirt for the relationship (moral) the child is being educated at the same time through the mother. Then the emotional meaning, the meaning of the object, the meaning of personal relationships, the meaning of one s self, they are all overlapped, they demand each other and they come from and appeal to the same reality. What has been described is not the process of meaning of the child, but the process of meaning of the every human being. This same process is repeated in each experience
throughout childhood, teenage years, youth and adulthood. That is why, whoever thinks the meaning of something can be educated without taking into account the complexity of educating everything at the same time, simply does not know human nature. The difference between a child and an adult is in the amount of experiences lived which slowly builds up, through processes of production and giving new meanings to events, the cosmovision, mindset or system of beliefs of a person. This gives us a wide collection of experiences to be able to interpret new ones. However with every new experience our beliefs are tested. Why is the human being so complex? Does the same happen with animals? Is this just a human process? To be able to explain it, it is necessary to differentiate between shared purpose and repeated purpose. Animals also share purposes but not like human beings. Let s see what a monkey knows: a monkey knows it can recognise the purpose of another monkey to eat the same banana (here we also find a triangle: monkey banana monkey). The monkey even knows how to trick the other monkey, which implies knowing the other monkey s purpose. But, they don t really have a shared purpose, but a coinciding and repeated one. They both want the same. Let s say that a monkey is using the other monkey because it is interested in the banana. In the case of humans the process is more complex and there is a shared purpose, since humans can elaborate a common purpose, as result of mutual trust. Similarly, we could talk about shared attention or repeated attention. In the case of the monkeys, they both pay attention to the banana, they have the same type of attention, but it is not shared. A person plays with a child with a ball (the triangle is: child ball adult). The child and the adult do have a shared intention: they want to play together. The child uses the ball to meet the adult through the game. The monkey learns what the banana is without a connection with what the relationship monkey monkey is. The monkey carries out a technical learning. The problems which may arise in the relationship monkey monkey related to the banana are purely contextual. The child learns about the ball in connection with the relationship child adult. The child experiences a personal learning. The problems which may arise in the relationship child adult related to the object (ball) are intrinsic to what the ball is. That is why, for the monkey the banana has the emotional meaning within istself, while for the human being, the meaning is always relational and highly complex.
Therefore, when a school is just trying to educate technically, they are treating your child like a monkey. That education is not advisable. In conclusion, the emotional meaning of the most basic event for a human being cannot be understood without considering the complexity of everything human. This view overcomes the historical dilemma of whether I cry because I m sad (first the subjective experience) or if I am sad because I cry (first the biological experience); because human beings cannot be compared to a mechanism, no matter how complex that mechanism is. Human beings have a very complex systemic way of functioning where everything happens because it co-happens, pari passu