I now propose that the three human emotional responses are instinct-based, assimilation-based and logic-based. And I’m back to naming the three evaluceptual (or emotion-evaluational) types dionysian, apollonian and hermesian, with the claim that dionysian and apollonian have much in common with Nietzsche’s two personality types but aren’t identical to them. It’s true that when introducing my theory I have to spend time explaining my types, but that would be the case whatever I named them. So why not go with interesting names?
In any case, the dionysian’s primary emotional reaction to stimuli will be on the basis of his innate instinctive evaluation of them as painful, pleasurable or neutral. A wound will be painful, a smiling face pleasurable, a nondescript meadow neutral. Near-universal direct emotional responses to commonplace realities. He will thus generally be one of the crowd, and instinctively enjoy the feeling of oneness with others that fusing with a crowd can give one, as is true of Nietzsche’s dionysian. His enjoyments will be mainly sensual, unreflective.
The apollonian’s primary emotional reaction to stimuli will be on the basis of his evaluation of them, mostly instinctive, as to whether or not they lead to contradictions. If they harmonize with his other relevant understandings, he will find them pleasurable. If they contradict those understandings, they will pain him to the degree that they contradict them. If they lead to neither significant agreements or disagreements, as will most often be the case, they will cause no emotional reaction. The apollonian’s enjoyments will tend to be abstract, austere, thoughtful. He will feel himself above the masses, as is the case with Nietzsche’s apollonian.
The hermesian’s emotional reaction is similar to the apollonian’s inasmuch as it is determined in the cerebrum rather than coming already tagged the way the dionysian’s does. However, whereas the apollonian is concerned with unchanging contradictions, the hermesian is concerned with how familiar a situation comes about, which is constantly in flux. That is, if a psychevent leads to contradiction X, it will always cause pain, but if a psychevent leads to situation Y, the result may be pain on Tuesday but pleasure on Thursday, or even later on Tuesday, since what is familiar is a matter of one’s constantly growing knownledge of existence, while what is contradictory will always be contradictory.
Ergo, the hermesian’s response will tend to be the most sophisticated of the three. It will be due to the hermesian’s long-term, cummulative experience of life, whereas the apollonian’s will be due to his innate, permanent sense of consistency, and the dionysian’s to his unchanging instinctive attraction-to/repulsion-from his immediate experience of life.
Still, the dionysian response will be the most natural, the generally most rich. the most unarguably valid of the emotional responses. The apollonian’s the most scorned but probably the one most important for establishing the final value of an artwork, with the hermesian’s irrelevant if concerned with stimuli of not instinctual resonance or logic.
Okay, I’m still fumbling for my take. I’m getting close to it, though.
Bob, I didn’t bank on a posting from the hospital, but I’d hoped for some word by now. Get back to me (or the world in general) as soon as you can, so we know what’s up.
Geof