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This is a work in progress - all rights reserved.
Copyright © 2006-2008 Tony Giovia

 

CHAPTER 18 - Feelings, Thinking and the Self Image v2.0

 

18.1 - The Dominant Rule of a Self Context (SC) is “All My Beliefs Are Right”. (Definition)

18.2 - The Self Context (SC) is the sum of interactions between a Dominant Rule  “All My Beliefs Are Right” and all the Recessive Rules composing the SC. (Definition)

18.3 - The Self Context defines an Identity Point of View (IPOV). (Definition)

18.4 - A Rule is a Point of View. (Construction)

18.5 - Power is the capacity for, and measure of, energy transfer. (Definition)

18.6 - Feelings are the relationships between an Identity Point of View and its Recessive Rules. (Definition)

18.7 – Feelings are relative states of power as viewed from the Identity Point Of View. (Definition)

18.8 – Thinking is the comparing and contrasting of Recessive Rules relative to the Identity Point of View. (Definition)

18.9 - Ideal love is the equal influence of perceivable energy, in both measure and kind, between and among objects. (Definition)

18.10 - War is an unequal influence of perceivable energy, in both measure and kind, between or among objects. (Definition)

 

Feelings are generally defined and understood in terms of emotions – happy, sad, and mixtures between and extremes outside those two contexts. The American Heritage dictionary describes feelings as “An affective state of consciousness, such as that resulting from emotions, sentiments, or desires.”

Dimensional Thinking defines feelings in terms of power. “Happy” feelings make us feel more powerful than “Sad” feelings. The mechanical process that determines feelings is straightforward - essentially, feelings are the balance of power between the Self Context and one or more other contexts in a relationship with the SC. Relationships affecting feelings include Recessive Rules which directly share dimensions with the Self Context, as well as relationships among the Recessive Rules that are indirectly shared with the Self Context.

The Self Context is required for the generation of feelings. The SC is the collection of contexts that we use to filter all incoming sensory contexts. It is what we are referring to when we say “I”. An SC has one Dominant Rule – also known as the Identity Point of View – and many Recessive Rules (identical to Recessive Points of View). The Dominant Rule of an SC is “All my beliefs are right.” When we watch a movie and see a character “change” because of events depicted in the movie, we are watching one Recessive Rule replace another Recessive Rule as the POV for a specific collection of contexts. The Identity POV is fundamental to a personal identity because it organizes every included context via shared contexts or container contexts.

The second set of contexts required for the generation of feelings is the collection of contexts processed by SC filters. Filtering is no more than the application of logical operations by the SC on new or old contexts. Contexts that can be assimilated (shared or included in a mixture) increase the power of the SC – because they reinforce the physical structure of “All my beliefs are right”.

Plainly put, feelings are measurements of self power relative to particular contexts inside or outside the Self Context.

A simple example illustrates the relationship between a Self Context and a new filtered context. Imagine that you have lost your house key. Such a loss is interpreted by the Sc as a loss of power – “I” must expend energy looking for the key, “I” must lose time looking for the key, “I” must pay money to replace the key, “I” must … etc. Beyond that, the lost key context damages the physical structure of “All my beliefs are right” because it may damage one or more of that DR’s dependent Recessive Rules, such as “All my actions are right” or “I never make mistakes”, forcing secondary RRs to replace them: “Most (or Some) of my actions are right” or “I rarely (or sometimes) make mistakes.”

When these RR changes occur, physical structures are modified as new contexts are added and others removed from the Self Context.

I hope it is obvious now that Dimensional Thinking regards feelings as both the thinking process itself, and also as the physical expression of thinking via the display of emotions. The phenomena of process and expression are the same – the apparent difference is only your POV – i.e., what part of the elephant you are looking at.

One common expression used to describe thinking is the “weighing” of alternatives. In these cases a final decision depends literally “feeling” which solution is a better match – has more shared dimensions – to the context requiring a mate.

Love and war are common contexts describing the two general levels of energy transfer between objects. Ideal Love is the equal influence of energy, in both measure and kind, between and among objects. The terms “love” (as opposed to Ideal Love) and “peace” imply an unequal influence of energy, in both measure and kind, between or among objects, but with more perceivable energy traded than not traded. The term “War” as used in The Geometry of Ideas refers to a tipping point where there is less perceivable energy traded than not traded between objects. Physical combat is an extreme lack of influence between objects.

 

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