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Sophie F's picture

Etc.

If we can accept that pain is the nervous system’s method of reconciling corollary discharge information and sensory information, what of emotional tumult? Is there a place in the nervous system where a mismatch between expectation of behavioral output and input coalesce to generate anxiety or sadness, etc. How is this pattern of behavior “created” or “reconciled” within the brain? As with the knee-jerk reaction in a physical sense, is there a corresponding movement within the nervous system to return the organism to emotional homeostasis? Is this, too, purposive? If the knee-jerk reaction resists being altered by the nervous system, do other behaviors that don’t enhance functioning of the species (which is, of course a subjective determination) also resist change? If one develops depression, for example, does this, re-establish a feedback loop that becomes self-perpetuating or a variable set point of sorts? Does the I-function intervene or is this all apart from the insertion of “self” into the mix?

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