Ayn Rand And The End Of Love


regi

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3 hours ago, regi said:

Michael, I do not agree that a good writer attempts to make a reader feel anything.

That's an opinion, I suppose.

Some writers have no interest in providing aesthetic value to their readers. My opinion is that these tend not to be good fiction writers.

EDIT: Let me go further. This kind of rationalizing about the writing process is one of the main reasons O-Land fiction generally sucks. People in O-Land resist learning their craft correctly so they can try to feel superior and posture about as one of the enlightened ones.

Each person is entitled to their own opinion, but for the reader, if you are interested in learning to write fiction (or improve your fiction writing), I highly suggest you learn your craft from people who actually write or writing teachers who have a reputation for having students who write. You generally won't find them posting silly things to scratch their vanity. They know what fiction writing is about and what it takes.

I do not suggest you learn writing--or any attitudes about writing--from people who post online in O-Land. (Even me, if you find someone better--and there are plenty of those out there.)

Following the warped advice you generally find in O-Land about fiction writing is a surefire recipe for failure.

Michael

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1 hour ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

That's an opinion, I suppose.

Some writers have no interest in providing aesthetic value to their readers. My opinion is that these tend not to be good fiction writers.

EDIT: Let me go further. This kind of rationalizing about the writing process is one of the main reasons O-Land fiction generally sucks. People in O-Land resist learning their craft correctly so they can try to feel superior and posture about as one of the enlightened ones.

Each person is entitled to their own opinion, but for the reader, if you are interested in learning to write fiction (or improve your fiction writing), I highly suggest you learn your craft from people who actually write or writing teachers who have a reputation for having students who write. You generally won't find them posting silly things to scratch their vanity. They know what fiction writing is about and what it takes.

I do not suggest you learn writing--or any attitudes about writing--from people who post online in O-Land. (Even me, if you find someone better--and there are plenty of those out there.)

Following the warped advice you generally find in O-Land about fiction writing is a surefire recipe for failure.

Michael

MSK, I agree!  And I suspect that you're a pretty damn good writer...

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Even on a Randian basis, here are a few Rand quotes from The Art of Fiction (my bold):

Quote

The reader, by contrast, follows the process of efficient causation: he goes step by step through your book being moved toward the abstraction you intended.

. . .

The central line is always the development of a given character; and the author stops when he thinks that he has presented the character well enough for the reader to understand him.

. . .

In a suspenseful story, the events are constructed in such a manner that the reader has reason to wonder about the outcome.

. . .

 Since the reader has been given no reason to attach any importance to the characters' learning the truth, there is no conflict, no drama, nothing to wonder about.

. . .

To do that, you have to know not only how to build your suspense—how to feed the reader information step by step—but also how to establish the kind of conflict that in reason will interest a reader.

. . .

To end a part with the heroine crashing in an airplane, leaving the reader in suspense about her fate, is the kind of melodramatic device that would have been used in old movie serials (and that I would have liked even as melodrama, because there is the drama of physical action). But when one adds the spiritual significance...

. . .

A writer has to project his abstractions in specific concretes. That he knows something inwardly is not enough; he has to make the reader know it...

. . .

The reader feels: "Yes, I've seen that type of man."

. . .

My method here is to lead the reader to a certain abstraction—that this is a strong, violent love—by giving him a special kind of concretes.

. . .

Here I want the reader to think that he experienced the whole sentence as one. But he cannot experience it as one; I have to give the steps. ...

. . .

I had to break the emotion down into the kind of concretes that Dagny would not really be thinking of, but that the reader would sum up into monomania.

. . .

I do not present the reader with anything but direct sensory evidence. The author, in my style, never speaks—yet the author is consciously pulling every string. I give the reader nothing but concrete, objective facts—slanted in such a way that he will have only the impression I intend him to have.

I could go on. I do not have a favorable view of Rand's fiction writing teaching, but even in her intimidating style, she was not so goofy as to suggest that the writer has no interest in shaping what the reader feels.

As she said in the last line above, "the author is consciously pulling every string."

Once again, if you are a fiction writer and want to learn your craft correctly, start with a different premise. Let me borrow a metaphor from Dona Cooper who wrote Writing Great Screenplays for Film and TV published by the American Film Institute. She said films should be emotional roller coasters and she was talking about the screenwriting part. (btw - This 1994 book, which is oddly not that popular so it is very cheap right now, is a classic that is used by most all of the major screenwiting gurus and scrip doctors I have studied. It is quite a find for those who discover it and drink of its wisdom.)

 

A note about Aristotle

And, one more item for the reader who is an aspiring fiction writer. Go read Aristotle's Poetics. It's short and it's a slog because it is ancient and disjointed, but keep at it. You will be well rewarded. It gives you the very first masterplan of how to engineer audience emotions with fiction. This system is constantly in use today--even Rand used it.

The idea is to start a story making the protagonist suffer from some unfair burden (think of Roark being expelled from school, but a standard approach is to start with the protagonist being an orphan, which ironically, Roark also seems to be). This evokes pity in the audience (or at least empathy). Then you throw everything you've got against him and his plans in increasing tension order to ramp up the fear (suspense, increasing frustration, etc.). At the climax, you remove the reasons for the fear (resolve them) and this makes the audience purge the tension in what Aristotle called a catharsis. A catharsis is often called a purge, but it means an emotional shift from anxiety (tension) to relaxation in one fell swoop. In movies, often audiences cry or whoop for joy at these moments. Even in reading major novels.

(Aristotle gives other ways to intensify emotion like reversals and reveals and he deals with items like spectacle, but the main story arc is to capture the audience's attention in a way that opens emotions, ramp up audience tension through fear and fear-related emotions, then solve the problematic issues and make the audience go into sudden relief.)

I believe Rand did not teach this method because she had a Nietzschean prejudice against the term "pity" and did not know how to reconcile this with her love of Aristotle. So instead, she grafted Aristotle's theories of final causation and efficient causation onto her fiction writing teaching and confused the hell out of her students.

But look at her climaxes--and this holds for every fiction story I have read of hers. They are perfect emotional examples of Aristotle's catharsis.

I think she would have been a far better teacher to accept what Aristotle taught as something she should should have used in her teaching and replaced "pity" with another word more to her liking (like "empathy" or "concern" or "interest," etc.). But she did what she did. At least she gave wonderful examples of what to do and how to do it right in her own fiction writing.

Michael

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On ‎1‎/‎12‎/‎2018 at 3:27 PM, Brant Gaede said:

?

Howard Roark was a Nazi in the bedroom?

--Brant

John Galt? WTF?

From “The New York Times Sunday Crossword Puzzles Volume 43,” Puzzle 13, “Do the Splits” by Lynn Lempel: 73 across, 5 letters: It may deliver a punch.

Answer: ladle.

Never, ever, go with your first definition with this lady. Or BB.

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Re pulling strings, emotional roller coasters, and catharsis

That is not my way of approaching a story. There is a man. His problems are many but they don't amount to much, quite commonplace. Losing his teaching job, confronting a gangster, losing his license as a private investigator, closing his office are pretty much par. Life on life's terms. But when his wife goes missing and all he gets is a garbled text message THAT is an inciting incident and the next 35,000 words are devoted to finding where she went and why. He does it as unemotionally as possible, and I should be very surprised if my readers feel any "emotional roller coaster." They ought to conclude this guy is an overwrought geriatric, makes idiotic mistakes, drinks too much, spends every penny in his pocket, has no plausible Plan B, gets lucky too often, and hikes up a desolate volcanic mountain in Central Java, penniless and alone, persona non grata, chasing a lead that doesn't make any sense -- but it's the only lead he's got.

You should read Ray Chandler and consider what he said about plot ("Believability is a matter of style.") Well, maybe not. I dislike competition <_<

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Any emotions should be the reader's own. There is nothing that turns me off faster than the author suggesting what I should feel. Adjectives and adverbs used loosely and often, is taught to be poor writing. "She felt disconsolate..." "He said, bravely...".

Show why, don't tell. You have to pull in the reader's imagination, to see and experience the concretes as given and visualized by him, and so to feel his own emotions. 

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1 hour ago, Wolf DeVoon said:

You should read Ray Chandler and consider what he said about plot...

Wolf,

Actually I have. I presume you are referring to this:

Raymond Chandler’s Ten Commandments for Writing a Detective Novel

Quote

1) It must be credibly motivated, both as to the original situation and the dénouement.

2) It must be technically sound as to the methods of murder and detection.

3) It must be realistic in character, setting and atmosphere. It must be about real people in a real world.

4) It must have a sound story value apart from the mystery element: i.e., the investigation itself must be an adventure worth reading.

5) It must have enough essential simplicity to be explained easily when the time comes.

6) It must baffle a reasonably intelligent reader.

7) The solution must seem inevitable once revealed.

8) It must not try to do everything at once. If it is a puzzle story operating in a rather cool, reasonable atmosphere, it cannot also be a violent adventure or a passionate romance.

9) It must punish the criminal in one way or another, not necessarily by operation of the law.... If the detective fails to resolve the consequences of the crime, the story is an unresolved chord and leaves irritation behind it.

10) It must be honest with the reader.

Or this: The Simple Art of Murder. One of my favorite quotes of all time comes from this essay (Chandler is talking about puzzle mysteries):

Quote

The English may not always be the best writers in the world, but they are incomparably the best dull writers.

:)

(I learned about a lot of this stuff because I went through The Secrets of Great Mystery and Suspense Fiction with Professor David Schmid, Ph.D. for The Great Courses. I did not buy it, though. I saw it on their streaming service--The Great Courses Plus--and I got the audio for an Audible credit. It's a massively good course. Apropos, of all the mystery and crime writers from the hard-boiled days, I resonate the most with Cornell Woolrich. I don't think he's a great writer, too much abstract telling and not enough detail, but he really messes with your head with suspense. :) I even own and started reading a bio of him, First You Dream, Then You Die by Francis Nevins.)

Back to point. Mixed in with the believability you like, I see Aristotle all over the place with Chandler's Commandments, starting with dénouement (another name for the climax where catharsis takes place).

There is one thing where Aristotle is not present. One of the basic human emotions is curiosity and this was not used much as a form of entertainment for the Greeks. (And, in "The Simple Art of Murder" Chandler ranted and railed against the murder mysteries mostly featuring this emotion because of their unbelievability.) But still, the climax idea holds. A catharsis for piqued curiosity is an explanation--like in these puzzle or cottage murder mysteries. But notice that Chandler says if the story is one (the puzzle kind) in a calm environment, it should not be about the other, that is the tension and suspense kind--and he even talks about the the intense emotions of the other ("violent adventure," "passionate romance").

But even there, I disagree with him. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown skyrocketed to sales places Chandler never even dreamed of by including an intriguing ominous puzzle along with hair-raising suspense and even some romance and sexcaspades. Sales that massive may not be an indicator of quality, but they surely indicate that the book addresses something that resonates with a massive quantity of human beings. After all, nobody forces anyone to buy a fiction book like that. Yet untold millions did.

Michael

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55 minutes ago, Wolf DeVoon said:

Yep, you got me there. Brown, Rowling, and King certainly sold a lot of books.

Wolf,

LOL...

I'm not out to get you.

:)

I do admit I like to study these kinds of authors in order to understand what is it in human nature that makes them so popular.

The traditional O-Land response is that most people like these things because they are idiots, unthinking, suboptimal, tasteless, stupid, morons, evaders, concrete-bound half-wits, mystics (of the mind or muscle), soul of collectivist, conceptually corrupt, death-premise sense of life, etc. etc. etc.

While saying these things might make one feel good,  it doesn't impart much useful information about writing and human nature.

:)

Michael

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1 hour ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

I like to study [bestselling] authors in order to understand what is it in human nature that makes them so popular. The traditional O-Land response is that most people like these things because they are idiots, unthinking, suboptimal, tasteless, stupid...

I'm glad the conversation turned just so. I find it difficult to read other authors, except a few I admire. The simple truth is that I write what I can.

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On 1/16/2018 at 10:25 AM, dldelancey said:

No one is teaching my son or any of his friends to have sex until they're sore (the meaning behind Side to Side).

Well it means a little more than that.

Here's One refrain:

"This the new style with the fresh type of flow
Wrist icicle, ride dick bicycle
Come true yo, get you this type of blow
If you wanna Minaj I got a tricycle"

Silly, but packed with meaning: "Wrist icicle," is slang for ejaculate dripping down the girl's wrist; "Ride dick bicycle" is the sex position with the girl on top also called the cowgirl position. "Get you this type of blow," refers to both falatio and drugs. "If you wanna Minaj I got a tricycle," is a play on the name of Nicki Minaj (the girl Ariana sang with) and "tricycle" makes it clear she's referring to a menage a trois.

Of course the song is not, "meant to teach," but what is it meant to do? Since Ariana's fan base of well over a 100 million and consists primarily of girls from 8 to 18, do you believe none of them are learning anything from the song? Children are curious and will ask their friends and older sisters and they will all know what, "wrist icicle," "dick bicycle," "blow," and "tricycle mean."

There is nothing wrong with children knowing the meanings of such words and phrases. They're going to hear and read them. My mother was very wise and totally candid with me and frankly explained every term I asked her about. By the time I was twelve I knew every detail about both male and female genitals and their function. I believe that is the ideal way for young people to learn about sex. I think learning those things from songs and media which treat sex is a kind of recreation with no particular significance beyond pleasure for pleasure's sake is disastrous.

The saddest part of all is that the word "love" does not appear, even once, in that song. It is all and only about physical desire and fulfilling it in any way, even in defiance of any possible consequences (read the lyrics). When all children read, hear, and see of the relationship between individuals is sex, they will never know what love is. That's what I object to.

Randy

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28 minutes ago, anthony said:

Michael, "curiosity" an emotion? The impulse of a mind to know things, rather.

Tony,

Yup.

Identifying curiosity as an emotion is pretty standard, but not in O-Land where there is an anti-reason prejudice against anything using the word "emotion."

:) 

That prejudice is a bubble problem that I managed to pop out of. But I try never to be snarky about it because I find great value in Rand and huge empathy with those finding their way in life using her ideas as their main searchlight. In fact, that was and--to a great extent--still is me. My trick was to keep the foundation as I got out of the bubble. Lot's of people who get out of the O-Land bubble reject everything Rand-wise and end up smack dab in the middle of a different bubble.

I prefer the wide, wide open world in front of me without self-limiting dogma gleaned from others. So another trick I learned was to recognize that Rand comes with truth and she comes with dogma--and then to think all this through on my own in order to separate which idea (or jargon) is which, truth or dogma.

btw - The opposite emotion from curiosity is boredom. Both curiosity and boredom are extremely powerful emotions. They are often called drives or strong desires, which is another reason that calling them emotions can feel a bit off.

But don't take my word for it. Look it up for yourself and see with your own eyes. God knows I don't want my own words to be used as a bubble for anyone. :) 

Michael

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3 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Identifying curiosity as an emotion is pretty standard

Well then it must be right. We know consensus trumps reason every time.

Personally I have burst that, "it's what everyone, or at least all the experts believe, so it must be true," bubble.

3 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

The opposite emotion from curiosity is boredom.

I've never been bored in my life, not because I have an insatiable curiosity, but because I've always had more things I've wanted to do then I will ever have time to do, even if should live forever. Even when circumstances prevent me from doing what I would prefer, like waiting in a doctor's office, I have things I do, even if only in my mind. I have never understood boredom. I think a lot of people mistake an anxiousness for time to pass in anticipation of something for boredom, but most people live in a state of perpetual ennui because their own minds are so uninteresting, not from a lack of curiosity, just a lack of diversion or entertainment.

Is there emotion associated with curiosity? Of course, just as everything else we think and are conscious of is accompanied by a corresponding emotion. Like the feelings of love a mother has when thinking about her children. Nothing changes a mother's love for her children, but when she is ill or the children are being particularly exasperating the feelings she has may be nothing like love, even though she loves them not a bit less.

I've also broken the bubble that confuses feelings caused by my conscious thoughts as the cause of my thoughts. Most people are stuck in that bubble.

Randy

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16 hours ago, Wolf DeVoon said:

The simple truth is that I write what I can.

After all the tortured analysis and rhetoric, that's all any writer does. The fact you know it makes you unique.

16 hours ago, Wolf DeVoon said:

I find it difficult to read other authors, except a few I admire.

I understand that, but it surprises me coming from you. Your erudition convinces me you've read widely. I'd be interested in which authors you admire enough to read. Perhaps even some you loath to read.

My wife and I are voracious readers, my wife more than I. Not reading would have the same limiting affect on my life as loosing one of my senses.

Randy

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17 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Tony,

Yup.

Identifying curiosity as an emotion is pretty standard, but not in O-Land where there is an anti-reason prejudice against anything using the word "emotion."

:) 

That prejudice is a bubble problem that I managed to pop out of. But I try never to be snarky about it because I find great value in Rand and huge empathy with those finding their way in life using her ideas as their main searchlight. In fact, that was and--to a great extent--still is me. My trick was to keep the foundation as I got out of the bubble. Lot's of people who get out of the O-Land bubble reject everything Rand-wise and end up smack dab in the middle of a different bubble.

I prefer the wide, wide open world in front of me without self-limiting dogma gleaned from others. So another trick I learned was to recognize that Rand comes with truth and she comes with dogma--and then to think all this through on my own in order to separate which idea (or jargon) is which, truth or dogma.

btw - The opposite emotion from curiosity is boredom. Both curiosity and boredom are extremely powerful emotions. They are often called drives or strong desires, which is another reason that calling them emotions can feel a bit off.

But don't take my word for it. Look it up for yourself and see with your own eyes. God knows I don't want my own words to be used as a bubble for anyone. :) 

Michael

1

Michael, I knew the wide world before knowing Rand, :) and still know it while thinking much better.  I'm surprised. I did not know my rendition of curiosity has been put the same way. Except briefly once with you, I have never seen a discussion within Objectivism about curiosity, however it has ~always~ been unquestioningly true (for me, and what I've known of others) that "being curious" is the effects of a mind and its senses' active interest in its surroundings, activities, own workings (etc.). (except the last, also by animals' brains, like the famed cat...)

Where an emotion is reactive, and it is (to a specific circumstance, according to what one values) - curiosity is pro-active. At opposite ends of the cognitive "process", in short.

And too, "anti-reason prejudice" by Objectivists - I have many times responded here about emotions and their supposed conflict with reason. I have pressed for what I've experienced and thought of independently, that emotions and their causes can be identified and known, that repression of emotions (by Objectivists, sometimes) is contra-self and therefore, irrational (and contra-Oism), that the emotions' role is of great benefit in highlighting how we think about 'things' and fathoming one's inner self, and - of top priority - that it is highly possible and necessary to "integrate" (align) emotionality with reason and value (requiring a regular practice of asking oneself: what was that emotion? why did I feel it? was it appropriate to what I *purportedly* care about - and don't?).

Last - that emotions are unreliable guides to measure (identify) anything or anyone by, and especially, to judge them with, even when you largely have them "integrated".

In fact I don't only agree with Rand on the mechanics of emotions, and what Nathaniel wrote too, I heartily endorse them. :) 

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1 hour ago, regi said:

 

Is there emotion associated with curiosity? Of course, just as everything else we think and are conscious of is accompanied by a corresponding emotion. Like the feelings of love a mother has when thinking about her children. 

 

Randy

1

The association of one thing with another, valid and not, can be part of the confusion. And then, the phrasing which creeps into popular discourse: I *felt* curious, He had a curious feeling, etc. reinforces curiosity as an emotion.

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2 hours ago, Wolf DeVoon said:

RLS for pleasure.

One of the very first authors I was exposed to, after Rudyard Kipling. My mother read to me all of, A Child's Garden of Verses, and years later my wife and I read those touching poems to each other.

I loved O. Henry, but more for irony than humor. For humor, no one has ever surpassed Twain for me. When I think of him, "Adams Diary," always comes to mind.

You already know what I think of Fitzgerald. (Did you know that Zelda and Mencken's wife were friends?) Chandler and Hammett are unique stylists and story tellers. Not sure anyone could emulate them.

I know who Roscoe Pound was, but since I have no use for man-made law, unless there was something uniquely profound in his writing, I cannot imagine being interested in it. What I know of his views, I'm surprised you are interested in them. Then, I have almost no use for anything written by lawyers, economists, sociologists, psychiatrists, or theologians, except for their almost universal negative influence.

Thank you for your candidness. It's very refreshing.

Randy

 

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7 hours ago, regi said:

Well then it must be right. We know consensus trumps reason every time.

Regi,

It's not a matter of consensus trumping reason. It's a matter called language.

If there were no consensus on using language, we would all mean vastly different things when we tried to communicate.

Kinda obvious...

Is it really necessary to abolish common sense in simple tasks like speaking to humans?

:)

Michael

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6 hours ago, anthony said:

Where an emotion is reactive, and it is (to a specific circumstance, according to what one values) - curiosity is pro-active.

Tony,

Sez who?

You can get curious without a stimuli?

Curious about what? Nothing?

:) 

Besides, your division of emotions into reactive and pro-active is not the way they work. Almost all emotions are both.

If you want to learn a little about emotions, I suggest the following 2017 book, but only because, if you study it earnestly, it will make you break out of O-Land jargon and all the ensuing rationalized certainties that go all over the place. How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett. She's a neuroscientist but writes in a manner accessible to the lay reader.

I disagree with her on a scope level--she argues against all volition, which is a stretch too far, but she's right about the illusion of a lot of volition. Believe it or not, in a lot of cases, scientists can prove a you are acting on a decision before you even make it in your conscious mind. Her science is rock solid. (She's also is big on claiming some common emotions are culturally constructed, so even on her science level, we see the influence of bad philosophy. Still, she gives far more good than bad. Her bad is annoying, though. :) )

Once you see how emotions are actually formed in the nervous system with inputs throughout the body, you will begin to see how the way Rand characterized emotions is mostly opinion based on what she wanted them to be in order to contrast them against reason. Reason versus emotion is a false dichotomy, though. Humans use both to process information.

Also, when reason has been divorced from emotion like with some of the lobotomies of old or other brain surgeries for, say, epilepsy, all values went out the window. After the operation, some of the subjects would take about 10 hours to choose a meal from a menu and they didn't mind the passage of time. Even then, they would not be sure what they finally chose was what they wanted. :) 

Imagine operating reason like this for everything...

Michael

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8 hours ago, regi said:

... most people live in a state of perpetual ennui because their own minds are so uninteresting...

Regi,

I find it difficult to take you seriously because you always claim to know so much bad stuff about "most people."

I wish I were smart enough to know how awful most people are inside their heads.

:) 

Michael

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7 hours ago, anthony said:

The association of one thing with another, valid and not, can be part of the confusion. And then, the phrasing which creeps into popular discourse: I *felt* curious, He had a curious feeling, etc. reinforces curiosity as an emotion.

Absolutely! It is confusion, but it is mostly innocent. It is common English idiom to replace one's convictions, beliefs, or thoughts with an accompanying feeling. In American vernacular, "I feel," actually means, "I think or believe."

"I feel it is important," "I feel it is wrong," "I feel it is necessary," and, "I feel it is right," means, "I think it is important," "I believe it is wrong," "I'm sure it is necessary," and, "I'm convinced it is right."

It is because what we think and believe we are sure about and are convinced of is frequently accompanied by feelings we identify with what we believe is right, important, wrong, or necessary we can substitute the feeling for the thought.

It is that substitution that is the cause of the confusion. If I believe something is wrong, when considering it, I will have a feeling resulting from that thought. The confusion is the result to misidentifying the feeling for the thought, or as the cause of the thought.

Your example, "I 'felt' curious, is perfect. Before there can be a "feeling" of curiosity, there must first be a question in the mind, such as "why" or "what" or "how" whatever one is conscious of that produces that feeling.

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