The Strange Order of Things

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Feelings are the mental expressions of homeostasis, while homeostasis, acting under the cover of feeling, is the functional thread that links early life-forms to the extraordinary partnership of bodies and nervous systems. That partnership is responsible for the emergence of conscious, feeling minds that are, in turn, responsible for what is most distinctive about humanity: cultures and civilizations. Feelings are at the center of the book, but they draw their powers from homeostasis.

Why would feelings succeed in moving the mind to act in such an advantageous manner? One reason comes from what feelings accomplish in the mind and do to the mind. In standard circumstances, feelings tell the mind, without any word being spoken, of the good or bad direction of the life process, at any moment, within its respective body. By doing so, feelings naturally qualify the life process as conducive or not to well-being and flourishing.

That makes sense. How were we able to act without rational thought. From ages 2-4, we were driven by feeling

Feelings are not an independent fabrication of the brain. They are the result of a cooperative partnership of body and brain, interacting by way of free-ranging chemical molecules and nerve pathways.

The most important idea and reason why this is the right model of the brain. The Brain and body are connected

The simple idea, then, is that feelings of pain and feelings of pleasure, from degrees of well-being to malaise and sickness, would have been the catalysts for the processes of questioning, understanding, and problem solving that most profoundly distinguish human minds from the minds of other living species. By questioning, understanding, and problem solving, humans would have been able to develop intriguing solutions for the predicaments of their lives and to construct the means to promote their flourishing. They would have perfected ways of nourishing, clothing, and sheltering themselves, nursing their physical wounds, and beginning the invention of what became medicine. When the pain and the suffering were caused by others—by how they felt about others, by how they perceived others to feel about them—or when the pain was caused by considering their own conditions, such as confronting the inevitability of death, humans would have drawn on their expanding individual and collective resources and invented a variety of responses that ranged from moral prescriptions and principles of justice to modes of social organization and governance, artistic manifestations, and religious beliefs.

Let's break this down
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The simple idea, then, is that feelings of pain and feelings of pleasure, from degrees of well-being to malaise and sickness, would have been the catalysts for the processes of questioning, understanding, and problem solving that most profoundly distinguish human minds from the minds of other living species.By questioning, understanding, and problem solving, humans would have been able to develop intriguing solutions for the predicaments of their lives and to construct the means to promote their flourishing.

"feelings of pain and pleasure from degrees of well-being to malaise and sickness"

Means that there is a degree of direction either positive (pleasure) or negative (pain) with a concept of magnitude (immense pleasure or immense pain)

It lives on a line with no feeling being the midpoint. It is also not a centralized single line. Discomfort (pain) in my stomach is much different than pain in my chest.

Through these pains and pleasures, results in rational minds trying to understand what the feeling means. Some interesting implications are
How to respond to pain in the moment
The implications of anticipated pain and anticipated pleasure
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This is the thesis of the first chapter

If your pain is medicated with treatment A or treatment B, you rely on feelings to declare which treatment makes the pain less intense, or fully resolved, or unchanged. Feelings work as motives to respond to a problem and as monitors of the success of the response or lack thereof.

This is a very simple way to explain the value of feelings to others

Feelings, and more generally affect of any sort and strength, are the unrecognized presences at the cultural conference table. Everyone in the room senses their presence, but with few exceptions no one talks to them. They are not addressed by name.

Good quote to use in writing

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The Strange Order of Things

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