Discussion between Lisa Feldman Barrett and Mark Solms on the nature of emotion (Part 1) 

This is GREAT! I finished Lisas' book a day ago and thanks to this conversation I got a deeper understanding of it. I've discovered I had misunderstood several points. Besides, I teach philosophy in a Spanish high school and you've provided me with good examples of how epistemological and ontological questions are unavoidable in scientific debate. Now I'll read Mark Solms' book. Thank you so much for this conversation!

As a layperson who has enjoyed both of your books, I really enjoyed the conversation between you both. Thanks for taking the time to share this and I really look forward to more!

A wonderful example of two people seeking to understand each other in a respectful way.

The last 3 minutes summed it all up for me. Looking forward to part 2.

Dr Lisa points out that this rational, mature sharing of ideas and clarification is rare, when it should be the everyday-norm. Sad how things have deteriorated and become polarized.

Hi Lisa , am just in the middle of watching your third conversion with Lex and really glad to see you uploading so recently. Thank you for being who you are it's really inspiring. Will come back to this one soon. Hope to see you address more about recent events, and expand more about your thoughts on education, morality, peace and prosperity, AI, roles of institutions, of corporations and the general current global setup. Again, thanks a lot, much love, and all the best!

Thank you Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett for your continued work. I strongly believe in your perception of emotion with the added benefit that emotional granularity is the key to deriving your said conclusion.

So refreshing to see two professionals having a respectful conversation without leaving aside their point of view. I’d learnt so much as a professional and listener: how popular science book are written differently like using metaphors (I learn a lot with metaphors). Love the scientific terms, for example what is for us mood for scientist is affect. I don’t “know much about Dr Mark Solms but I bet he is a good in his field. And I think without the intention to represent the common people feelings and thoughts perhaps, Dr. Mark S has a point: sometimes when we read or listen to someone and other facts are not mentioned we think that that’s all: the one or two or three factors mentioned are all that it is, period. We don’t think “oh! of course, it’s just not those factors, features there must be more… “ Now thanks to Dr. MS I will be more… mindful? So, it will be good if writers could just mention in their Popular books: “note: it’s not that these are the only important aspect of…” I admire how these lab scientists also are good at speeches and get along with people whom they disagree with (not like some politicians).

Excellent! Please do anext one with one of Basic Emotion Theorist's on facial expression (Keltner, Cowen, Matsumoto)

I'm not a psychologist, cognitive scientist or neuroscientist. My field is organisation and information systems (and my garden is music and poetry :D). "How Emotions are Made", Lisa's work, struck a chord with me as a systems thinker and worker, helping me to reconcile some questions I had about the link between the gut and the brain. I found it insightful, revolutionary and refreshing. So firstly, thank you. One thought I had for building on the theory of constructed emptions is that "predictions are hypotheses", such that while the brain is continuously regulating the body, it is also continuously experimenting and challenging our best guesses (our instincts) within varying contexts. I've not read Mark's work but intrigued after this conversation. I liked his framing of "affect" wrt valence, intensity and quality, as this allows us to categorise "emotions" without words but as scalar variables. (1. Cor. 13: 12: For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.) When we just consult our own ideas we gain a glib reflection. Beauty is revealed through deeper conversation.

Are we incredibly lucky or what? This is like when your two favourite pop stars collaborate on an album. An intellectual harmony.

Thrilled to see a conversation between two scientists I greatly admire. Both have deeply impacted my thinking. More please! More videos!

Love a dialogue. You don’t have to agree, but it’ great to keep the conversation going!

This is outstanding. Less than 4k views. Criminal.

This conversation was desperately needed (as will be the follow up 👀). Solms I know well, now I’m interested to read more from LFB. Outside of her popular books, 270+ papers is daunting. Anyone here have immediate literature suggestions?

Affect is an essential component of cognition. You don't cogitate affect. You don't cogitate at all without affect. It's like a tumbler just fell into place with a solid thump.

Very cool dialogue, both are fascinating to learn from. Five star event. Looking forward to part two. 👍

58:06 About the lack of evidence for distinct categories of affect: I don't think enough research has been done on the brainstem to rule those out. For example, there could be one individual projection from the raphe nuclei (core existence of the human organism) to the locus coeruleus that controls the on/off state of fear-based survival instinct (this being permanently off would be psychopathy). What might seem very minor at the fundamental level of the brainstem could produce large effects at the more complex levels. Disclaimer: I am extremely desperate for scientists to realise that the brainstem is a far more vital entity than the higher brain or genes (I can guarantee you will find in the brainstem the mechanisms of schizophrenia, manic-depressive insanity, hysteria (as described by Josef Breuer), and probably all personality disorders (psychopathy as described above. All subscales of PPI-R can be derived from the fear-based survival instinct being switched off). I don't know how to go about this the healthy way. So I'm bullying the scientists I find on youtube. Bullied Sapolsky just the other day. I did bully you once before in a youtube comment on a talk (probably TED) you gave. Hopefully, you didn't see that lol. Oh? Why do I bully people, you ask? That's right. You guessed it. It's because I am a full-blown psychopath.

Emotions are socially constructed. They are learned and new experience can give us new emotional responses .

From what I listen, I have to go with Mark's view on the fundamental nature of an affect. From what I understand our consciousness is the product of a continuous feed of qualia, caused by affects that have risen above a specific threshold, forcing our brain to attend them consciously each time . I think your disagreement with Mark is mainly caused by the word "consciousness". Your definition seems to be a bit wide forcing "affect" to fall inside as a subpart. i.e. You stated: 44:01 "-there, I would disagree with you. Because I think that in the Kantian sense that an affect is a property of consciousness,meaning, your brain is always regulating your body, your body is always sending sense data back to your brain. So you are always in a state where an affect is relevant to consciousness. Sometimes it's in the foreground. And sometimes it's in the background, but it's always there, in cognition and in perception." Yes, we are always in a state where an affect is relevant to our consciousness, but an affect rises outside our experience, competes with many other affects and the "louder" one manages to "convince"our brain to consciously attend it.

another time, I will watch this

I was thoroughly enjoying this for the first 45 minutes or so but then I started to be distracted by Lisa Feldman becoming, what Daniel Kahneman refers to as “noise.” She got noisy, for me so to speak and appeared to want to dominate the conversation and be “right.” She seemed to have lost her ability to be fair with time, was interrupting, disruptive not only to Mark Solm’s but to me as well.

I loved the discussion. It's so curious that Lisa is more psychoanalytical, on Lacanienne terms, than the psychoanalyst. Regarding the reaction of babies to snakes and spiders, it could be explained with the epigenetic study of Dias and Ressler, 2014, in Nature, regarding the reaction of newborn rats to the smell of cherry flowers.

By this point in time, I would have hoped that Lisa would have established her mataphors in standard fashions such that she was no longer making them up the fly, which she does not do well. Also, when on the fly she seems unable to complete one conceptulization without bleeding in other ideation to confuse it all.

The reason that Dr Barrett's position is not easy to understand is that it's not intuitive. The brain loves essentialism and certainty, and for her to say that there aren't essential or innate categories of emotions and that we don't have certain markers for emotional experiences makes us feel uncomfortable. But if we are to explore the brain as it is and follow the science, then we should be willing to be uncomfortable. I will keep learning.

18:02 How is comparing excell spreadsheets to tables a similar comparison to feelings and affects?

I suggest the work of Robert Brandom, the philosopher, it will help with the disagreement.

Looking forward to part 2 already! Great conversation in which two admirable scientists and experts can interact respectfully. I totally support Dr Feldman Barrett's views. I've read her books and I understand that she comes from an evidential point of view. Everything she outlines has been tested and proven.

Brainstem (self concept), there’s important thing

I agree with Solms about 95% on this one, or I should say with Panksepp. It saddens me that the Pankseppian paradigm is not as widespread since his death. The paradigm that Lisa is using is not necessarily wrong, just as it is not wrong to say that the sun orbits the earth. But, it is more difficult to calculate trajectories using Earth-centric frame of reference. What I meant is there is litlle practical reason to see it her way. It is not wrong, but it is less straightforward, which introduces potential for mistakes and misunderstandings.

I'm sorry to disagree with the many well-meaning comments herein, but I suspect Solms time would have been better spent simply critiquing Barrett's book.

1:23:41

Only Professor Marc Solms would be a good sport to dialogue publically with Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett. I 30:12 wonder if she acknowledges that she has an unconscious mind.

Thank you for all you doing; if he wants to write any other critique, maybe, before that he would find more information about how the brain works - I have two russian professor's names having videos on RU-vid as well.

Ahhhh interesting, so Solms subscribes to a basic emotion view because he wants an affective feeling to already signal a causal inference about how to take care of the body.

44:90 both are wrong

i am utterly disappointrd by Lisa Feldman.

Um um um um jesus so many annoying ums

His main goal is to market for himself (not real criticism).

As a scientist, this is SO basic and highly bias analysis of emotions. All based based on the brain which does not explain how the young experience complex emotions beyond the limits of their experience. Saw her Tedtalk was just as basic. Its a gimmick to try to "help people" by using technical terms to try to sell brain regulation and then shove the problem to psychotherapy, learn new things, watch movies (seriously) -- in other words, empty wisdom -- its insane this actually is our there. Try to tach your brain to predict differently when in life and death situations (as an example). Insane.

I wish more scientists who disagree did this. Wonderful. There was a whole lot of agreement it seemed, but disagreement seemed to be in the nuances that are difficult to catch for the lay person. But overall, this discussion really helped clear up both of your main arguments. This was much appreciated.!

Thank you both for sharing this conversation. I wish you had more time to talk. Going into this I am much more aligned with Barrett's view on this topic but I found Solms to be a very productive conversationalist who understands the constraints and difficulties of live debates in such an intricate topic. I enjoyed Solms' efforts to reconcile your disagreements by agreeing on the vast empirical evidence that you both agree happens, but looking for the place where it 'starts from'. It is an ontological question and Barrett picks up on that point precisely. I think this is unfortunately a difficult point for Solms to look for agreement on. Solms presents that there is a gradation of simple qualitative experiences (like pain, with the finger pricking example), and clearly a 'starting point' for affective experience would make sense from this view point. Indeed, he seemed to be trying to see if this was simply a definitional disagreement or an empirical disagreement (e.g. if theory of constructed emotion proposed that very basic, 'pain-like' experiences existed as distinct qualia that are shared across mammalian species). I do agree with Barrett however that these simple qualitative experiences are not so simple at all. I think it personally unlikely that pain is simply a case of 'extreme' negative affect, but to me pain makes more sense from the perspective of theory of constructed emotion in the sense that, while there are likely underlying circuits that contribute to the constructed experiences of pain, that pain is further constructed in tandem with these more basic neurological processes into an ensemble that incorporates condensed, abstract representations of concepts constructed through learned experience using hierarchically generative circuits in the brain (i.e condensed representations which act on the brain through predictive processing formulations). I think it's likely that the qualitative experience of pain, even at a simple level, would not make sense without these learned, experiential representations that form through hierarchically generative brain networks - and Barrett's formulation provides an ontological framework to explain that process - which is an equivalent she was looking for in Solms' formulation. It felt like you were both just about to get into the meat and bones of this topic but unfortunately ran out of time at the end there. Excited to see/read more from both of you!

I’ve been waiting a long time for this kind of conversation! Thanks so much to both of you!!!

Bravo bravo bravo to you both! You are role models for healthy human scientists who care for the truth/truths of the nature of us miraculous humans. You're conversation can surely be an inspiration for "open science" in the most "transparent" sense. I eagerly await Part 2.

So so so interesting! Great researchers and great thinkers trying to figure out each other’s ways of thinking what is logical and substantiated by research and what isn’t. Pleeeeze continue this special dialogue!!!

It's a real provilege to have the opportunity to take part in this discussion. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

I appreciate your approach to the Scientific Method, Dr. Barrett! You are a great role model in this world of Science.

Excellent, excellent dialog. Very much enjoyed it. Looking forward to your next conversation. I worry when I hear the term qualia, I think used loosely. There is a slippery slope that you are not addressing regarding qualia. Would appreciate a spelling out of how you each use and rely on this concept.

Fantastic dialogue!! Thank you very much.

Thank you both for doing this. I learned a lot!

One of the most influential people in a scientific domain that has huge implications for everything about society. I appreciate lisa feldman barrett so much

Thank you so much for sharing this conversation! I definetely want this to be continued and more of it! It's so much fun watching two very intelligent people discussing such a complex topic that is not quite solved. That seems suprising, considering the fact, that emotions are such an important aspect of everyones live. Sometimes I do believe there's a deeper understanding of quantum physics than there is about basic topics of human nature. The closer you look the more difficult it's to say what an emotion is. That's fascinating!

Really looking forward to the next dialogue. Shame there wasn't at least 2 hours set aside for them to get clarity on the other's position and language. The pressure of time can add an unnecessary sense of tension in discussions

Great explanations by Lisa Feldman. But I hope the second part of the debate will be more balanced in terms of timeframes, as Mark Solms was interrupted every time in this video. Also, although Dr Feldman ideas are stronger in terms of their theoretical and empirical structure and background, she doesn’t seem to represent correctly the core ideas of Solms, which is necessary for the clarity of the debate. Of course, many problems arise from a lack of terminological consensus. Great learnings from both. It’s very generous to share this conversation

The vast majority of humans who feel unpleasant because they are thirsty will not respond by going to sleep. They will seek water. They can differentiate between different types of unpleasant feelings ie sleeplessness and thirst, and how to remedy that unpleasantness.

Hey folks, just curious: who has read either LFB's "How Emotions are Made" or MS's "The Hidden Spring", or both? I have read both. 😊

Thanks! There needs to be more such discussions. That being said I find your books provide an actionable approach to understanding neuroscience and I apply it! Thanks again.

In generalnie it makes sense to me how you Mark understand and explain affect, feeling and emotion. And I like your clarity.

My final score: Solms 3, Feldman 0.

Loved this conversation. Thank you so much for sharing it. Please do have another!

Dr. Feldman-Barrett at the end says they don't have epistemological problems, but rather ontological problems... then she goes on to describe what sounded like the epistemological problem of inference.... but what can I know? Seriously though... this was such a gift. I first read How Emotions are Made a several years back and more recently The Hidden Spring, which caused me to go back and re-read How Emotions are Made. Yesterday I re-read the Feelings Chapter in The Hidden Spring and wondered... how great would a conversation between these two be. Not only did the universe provide, but they are speaking about the exact questions I had hoped.... what is affect? Dr. Feldman-Barrett, in her book, recommended this app called the mood meter.... You just tell the app your arousal and valence level and then it gives you an emotion word based on a simple 2D grid. It doesn't work... it's too simplistic. This is why I think Dr. Solms' take on flavors (I'm thinking of the simple, discrete, handful of taste sensors, not the vastly discriminatory olfactory sense) of affect is intriguing... can the different evolved neural modules or neurotransmitters (sorry to use loose language here... I am not a neuroscientist) give rise to several discrete flavors of affect even though the arousal / valence is the same. I think this solves the problem with the mood meter idea... it complexifies things. But even with a few flavors, we get a vast array of possibilities, so we have to group them... i.e. construct emotions. I think Dr. S (or Jack Panskepp) confuses things by mapping his work to Freud and calling these flavors RAGE, GRIEF, FEAR, etc... but he states clearly that these are not emotions, that they are purposefully capitalized to distinguish them from emotion. Can capitalization reduce incommensurability? Maybe on the page, but it is hard to represent fully capitalized words in a conversation without shouting. Perhaps these words make sense in the extreme case... like when we are so enraged nothing else matters, one "system" is in control and it feels like, well, pure rage... but I agree with Dr. FB that even that "pure" emotional state is still constructed out of raw affect, flavored or otherwise, as well as other factors like exteroceptive and interoceptive context. But normally these systems are often working together along with perception (vast possibilities) to guide possible actions (again vast), and grouping them as Dr FB describes with an emotion concept describes if very adaptive, despite being mentally taxing. No wonder it is so difficult to be human. Looking forward to part II, but I need a break :) Thanks again Professors!

Without affect, there's nothing to connect. Affect isn't the connector between perception and cognition. It's more fundamental. It's a component of cognition. It's as if affect were a sensory "organ" in itself, summarizing not just visual data, and not just olfactory data, but (mostly) interoceptive type stuff. That's what the evidence shows. I think this is an important update to the definition of the term "affect." We, all of us, have to be disciplined against exactly what LFB talked about, as regards precisely defining terms.

Deep respect and appreciation for both of these scientists! Did evolution select for a generalized and simple representation of sensations (multi-sensory summaries), did evolution select for specific sensations and affects (i.e. hunger, thirst, sleepiness, etc) , did evolution select for both general and specific sensations and affects, what is the origin and function of affect and feeling (i.e. ontology)? I really appreciated hearing from this discussion that genes/genetics are a representation of prior experiences. Perhaps basic and known by others this insight fascinates me - all of it past and present is experience.

unfortunately I was not able to make it through her book because of her dismissal of the incredible evidence of the correlation between facial expressions and emotional states, which transcend cultures. Her potential hypothesis of "constructed emotion" reads to me like a rehashed version of James Lange's "read-out" theory of emotion, which is nothing new and has actually been the dominant paradigm. Panksepp's "affective neuroscience" is the revolutionary perspective. Her ideas also do not match with my own experiences of my emotionality. For example, any person who has ever ingested any opioid can speak to the emotional effects they bring about, which are the same across all cultures. these emotions are undoubtedly generated in the subcortical and limbic structures that have a high density of opioid receptors - you can literally feel this in your body when you ingest them, and animals react in a similar way since opioids can reduce separation distress calls in birds that have been separated from their mothers (Panksepp, 2012) Of course, these subcortically generated emotions send and receive signals to extremely diverse neural networks and populations. This is why Panksepp spoke of tertiary level emotions like jealousy, which he explained are constructed in a social-cultural context. Lisa's work takes us backwards. Dr. Panksepp "affect balance therapies" are the mental health therapies of the future

As an absolute layman i really enjoyed this conversation. Although i understood, i think 80 % of the details of it all, I do hope there will be more to digest

Let's take one out of many examples, dear Lisa, "When people in Bali are afraid they falls asleep." That would be an expression of immobilizing or passing out, anxiety, fear, withdrawal in contrast to say the affective seeking system of curiosity or qualia affective drive of play/laughter. There are subtle perhaps tremendous variations of how different cultures label their experiences but the "body based energy budget" to use your term and the qualia of the subcortical affective drives and the autonomic nervous system does not lie. It is all the same!

Lisa you are an excellent cognitive conceptual engineer but completely lack any direct emotional understanding which is prior to cognition and does indeed exist as distinct affective reflexes or drives. Just let's say there is a fundamental difference between savoir and connaitre.

In India Hinduism and Buddhism teachers used to have these types of debates.. that's why these two religions produced worlds best teachers.. conversation is necessary for growth.. ❤

It ended up like a discussion that stands on the border between the subjective and the objective, and on a person's ability to escape their subjectivity. Quite philosophical.

Thank you both for having this conversation.

What’s the proper label for learning while being entertained? This was super informative and I enjoyed the back and forth

Lisa you interrupt too much. You interrupt the flow.

When Mark's gotta go, he's really gotta go...

is Solms coneying that Panksepps work on animal models directly correlates to the human experience in this five affect categories? Although animals maybe have consciousness in a pan psychist view their consciousness may vary and doesn't seem to directly map to the human experience (interested if this is correct?) I like Feldmans idea's because that emergent property from signals between neurotypical consciousness and the physical world seem to make more sense and have more opportunity for nuance . Panksepps work seems groundbreaking but also reductionist and anthropomorphic.

This is amazing. 2 intelligent people having a conversation and disagreeing respectfully. Oh nuance I long for thee more lol The world needs more nuance

Great conversation, but pricking your finger is all interoceptive. It’s damage into the tissue activating interoceptive neurons. Also, hunger is also just interoception, not affect. Affect results from hunger and circumstance.

Great discussion! I loved the mention of "incommensurability" and "concepts ARE predictions". I would like to hear more if/how emotion as a "prediction" could be similar way to how brains predict "color". If we focus on the predictions (prior to perception) and how brains create "models", then I think lay persons (engineers, makers, etc.) could better leverage the implications.

A great conversation, discussion, and elaboration of views. I found Mark's explanations very lucid and supported - even though I don't agree with some of his ideas (the fundamental nature & concept of consciousness). He did a great job here, in his efforts to find agreement and clarify any _a priori_ perceived differences. Lisa also explained & clarified her ideas well. Great seeing this with two respected scientists.

The inference in classical theory will always be subjective as it is based on those agreed assumptions of those proposing it. I don’t think the majority of classical thinking, in this case categorical, is inherently wrong, but it is intentionally biased to create a fixed view of the world, for the people. There have long been established scientific communities that have agreed on many things that are simply inferred through agreed perspectives. The history of classical theory is riddled with this type of corruption. Tesla being a good example of how easily this agreed and fixed viewpoint can destroy an entire sector of research. All of the major breakthroughs in science have relied on negating and reducing this inference of agreed perspectives. If anything the scientific community relies far too much on agreed principles or foundations without questioning the rationale or logic that got them there. Very often there are political or social motivations for these theories to become widespread and often they are tied to investment and industry, or government agendas and political motives. Categorization of emotions only requires two languages or even a set of identical twins, to prove it has no consistency between people. We form these concepts to agree on things, not because they are absolutes. If only the scientific academies had this foresight before they began their long tradition of agreeing on ‘inferred absolutes’. Which has always been done for the betterment of their community above others, I might add.

I am wondering what Dr Feldman Barrett considers innate, given that our experiences, including emotions, are constructed. Biologically, we know that some needs are innate, such as hunger, and the brain will regulate the body such that innate needs (or desired ranges) are met. What of psychological needs? According to Self-Determination Theory, autonomy, competence, and belongingness are basic psycholocial needs. So is the brain also regulating to support these needs, hence the distress and unwellness that is observed to occur when they are thwarted, or do we learn that they are important because we get good outcomes when they are supported?

Act one, Scene one, The Merchant of Venice. Antonio: In sooth, I know not why I am so sad: It wearies me; you say it wearies you; But how I caught it, found it, or came by it, What stuff ‘tis made of, whereof it is born, I am to learn; And such a want-wit sadness makes of me, That l have much ado to know myself.

Interesting talk between two emotion specialists, who try to control their emotions before reason, discussing the genetic or epigenetic factors of emotions when this cognitive bias is balanced in favor of both perspectives, it would be better to talk about how much of each genetic factor and epigenetic influences the cultural, for the rest excellent discussion greetings from Guatemala

Appreciate this dialogue and the way it is happening. I think more active listening, resummarizing the other person's stance would be helpful practice for the two and for viewers to digest

"All metaphors are wrong." Really?

Mark's link doesn't work. It says error 404

Please have a follow up meeting

Here after listening to Dr. Barrett on The Huberman Podcast.

We do not think inductively!

She's really such an insult to the genuises of Panksepp, Damasio, and Solms. Please stop hyping here, it's becoming more and more an insult comparare to the as the science landscape in Don't' look up.....

Wooww two legends

WOW! 🍿👍👍👍

Thanks for this!

This is awesome!

Did Lisa Barret criticise Solms for using words that she herself wrote in her book?

Why does he so desperately want to categorize tummy rumbles? Serious question.

As an applied psychologist I found this to be an enriching encounter. Looking forward to the second one. Cudos to you both for having this conversation in such a courteous, exemplary fashion.

Unfortunately this is a question of politics, not science and we all exist within that mileu. The scientists are just the pawns here and with the current state of science and funding I'd suggest the older the study the more reliable. Science is done within a monetary system which yields predictable results. If we could put the whole system into a test tube this would be born out. Philosophy of science cannot even be done now becaue philosophy is dead in our culture for the sake of making politics paramount. What a mess it all is at this time. Both sides were at least very courteous in this debate. It's just not the playing field that it used to be. Enjoyed. Thanks for posting. To add more, the point about the popular literature metaphor being unfair to pick on by Solms seems to be the major problem. Ideas matter. The popular books should not have been published from this data set to convey the ideas they do. Accountability for that seems reasonable. If a particular scientist looks through the world through a small but accurate hole, they need to be very careful of how they extrapolate that perspective into the larger popular culture, since it may not apply at all. They cannot prove negatives but only positives. They should say "I observe this but not observing something else doesn't mean it doesn't also occur." Limited scientific methods do not provide the only knowledge we have of the world, and different theories of science and ways of doing science are justly applicable to different fields of knowledge within it. We know this. Some fields of science barely deserve the label and we know that many studies within even the hard fields are skewed in data. Is brain science even really a hard field? We may want it to be but it's such a complicated field that a spectrum of approaches seems not only reasonable but necessary. Outside of so called "scientific domains," in general life and relationships we have virtually no access to science at all. We interpret everything subjectively and have to because that's how experience is received. But we can recognize patterns there too. This spectrum is so important to recognize so that we don't pretend no impact or knowledge on the other side of the spectrum to where we feel comfortable living. We cannot live in our test tubes or labs. There are social and political implications for the popular spreading of ideas which are obtained from limited data. There's a sort of logical positivism here I smell. A lot of things the both science and life demands answers to cannot be examined in a test tube in a lab. The test tube is excellent for chemistry but the questions here require the risks and knowledge that as subjective beings capable of making mistakes, there is a lot of data outside of the test tube we must still be aware of. How do our theories fit with other established theoreis, such as evolution, for instance? And how do we as observers fit in socially, financially and politically in the world? Being objective means accepting our subjectivity and location while still trying for objectivity anyway. And if we do this we should then limit ourselves from extrapolating our limited test tube perspectives outside their domain as being fit to spread around socially beyond their proper sphere. This is the problem of the popular metaphors that Solms is picking on. Another metaphor for this is the guessing of underlying emotions in reference to facial expressions seen in still photographs.... In this instance the test tube is doing an experiment on the wrong question. This may be admitted but the metaphor is still being used for popular communication, creating an illusion. It seems rather obvious that humans don't judge facial expressions as isolated still images, but as a contextualized chain of movement patterns. They have meaning but they do so in the same way letters do, in words which sit in sentences and paragraphs. By themselves they have no meaning. If we ask the wrong question we don't come up with the answer to the right question, do we? I would suggest that a return to philosophy of science is in order for modern scientists trying to stay objective in our current political and financial climate in which science is a religion as well as a method of obtaining knowledge. The deeper recognition of both the environment and the methods of how the noble quest for objectivity is undertaken need more analysis because at the end of the day none of us are really scientists or brains first but rather, human beings. Embodied and vulnerable creatures set into chaotic and non-safe environments. Exploring that first can bring healing to the larger context so that we can move forward in knowledge. Otherwise I'm afraid we're moving backwards, really.

Unfortunately Mark Solms is stuck in his systems-cognition based perspective, whilst Lisa Feldman Barrett's theory is based on a cross-paradigmatic foundation. Whilst he claims to accept with almost everything Lisa says, he clearly does not understand that his entire critique is based on his own unexamined inferences. Feldman Barrett's theory is built upon being aware of one's inferences. Perhaps he should examine his own inferences first, before criticising a theory he clearly does not yet grasp. Also, he babbles too much...

I do not want to read ‘popular science’ regarding vital information. I prefer the work of Solms- I think Lisa and her books need to be shelved. 😃. Great learning video though!

It is nice to see people in all walks of life speak to their opinions, we all have some more correct than others and to hear them is great, also I would love for Lisa to answer proper questions she happily agreed to, with her knowledge not to keep quoting others as a fence for not knowing how to answer or to answer and disprove her own writings or give her opinions and not truly know if she is correct maybe there is emotions at play and it is stumping how to respond , or I think but do I know? Great watching. Mark is great at communaciting his needs. Thank you.