Dr David McGrath

Spine Physician

MB BS (Hons) FAFOM, RACP, FAFMM
Master of Pain Medicine

In the "Why of Emotion (part one)" we looked at the general advantage of emotion, as a survival strategy. Basically, emotions confer an increased probability of allowing a satisfactory disturbance or action.
This article, looks at that issue in more depth.
Each emotion "allows" disturbances in the the sense of lowered threshold. We often say, "I am sensitive to that suggestion or action " or the opposite. "I am cold to that idea "
In addition,no action actually occurs, unless the environment allows it.
If we are hungry, our actions normally start to indicate a food searching pattern. A man in solitary confinement, however, may not behave any different by being hungry. There are no disturbances which can be supported by hunger, in this barren environment.
In short, each emotion supports a set of disturbances, while resisting disturbances supporting by other emotions. There is a structural inclusivity/exclusivity, going on, which we recognise as emotion.
This is an important point,because, pain sufferers can find themselves in the wrong emotion,excluding the very actions required for health.

Looking at the maths, for a specific emotion and specific environment

	Allowed Actions	Dis-allowed Actions
Emotion Exists	a	b
Other Emotions Exist	c	d

Cell "a" indicates all of the possible actions possible under this emotion and this environment
Cell "b" indicates all of the excluded actions under this emotion and this environment
Cell "c" indicates all of the possible actions under other emotions and this environment
Cell "d" indicates all of the excluded actions under other emotions and this environment.
In addition, a+b, are all of the actions supported by THIS emotion regardless of environment.
And, c+d, are all of the actions supported by OTHER available emotions
And, a+c, are all of the actions supported by this particular environment
And, b+d, are all of the actions NOT supported by this environment.
And, a+b+c+d are all possible actions under ALL emotions and ALL environments

The matching actions are ONLY "a"

In the above example, the hungry man in solitary confinement, may do better, if the emotion changed to curiosity about the structure of the jail or the psychology of his captors. This may lead to available actions, such as, escape or bribary. The emotion of hunger can be re-established, once the environment allows expression of this emotion. The original table might look like this.

EmotionActions	Available Actions eg Escape and Bribary	Excluded Actions eg Eating and Other Free Actions
Hunger Dominates	0	100
Curiosity and Creativity Dominate	2	10,000

In this example, there are NO actions possible under the hungry emotion. There are ten thousand actions possible under curiosity, two of which gives a desired outcome.
We have a similar situation for pain. (analogous to the jail ) There are many possible emotions, which might arise for this foreign situation. We could be angry, fearful, anxious, depressed, litigious, sad, optimistic, pessimistic, resigned, and so on. All of these emotions have a pay off table like above. The question is, what gives the best chance of success ?
Generally, I would argue for more perceptions, supported by curiosity.