the inevitability of love and indifference

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
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David Quinn
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Re: the inevitability of love and indifference

Post by David Quinn »

Elizabeth,
DQ: You mean like feeling hot or something?

If feeling hot causes us to have irrational thoughts, then we can say that emotion is involved. Otherwise not. That would be my basic criteria for assessing what is an emotion.

E: I mean like that feeling that causes one to laugh or smile (this emotion would be happiness or amusement), or the feeling of wanting to spread wisdom or go for a walk (this emotion would be desire). I categorize these as emotions, but you do not.
I agree that the feeling that causes one to laugh is an emotion, usually a combination of anxiety and triumph. But wanting to spread wisdom needn't be emotional in nature. It invariably is emotional when one is in the early stages of spiritual development, but the emotional content gradually fades away as one becomes wiser.

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David Quinn
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Re: the inevitability of love and indifference

Post by David Quinn »

Trevor,
DQ: If feeling hot causes us to have irrational thoughts, then we can say that emotion is involved. Otherwise not. That would be my basic criteria for assessing what is an emotion.

T: When a man on fire screams in pain, does the propositional content of his cries determine his potential Buddhahood?
If he is thinking about A=A while on fire, that's a good sign, certainly.

But his potential for Buddhahood would probably be better served by dousing the flames as quickly as possible!

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Nick
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Re: the inevitability of love and indifference

Post by Nick »

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:I mean like that feeling that causes one to laugh or smile (this emotion would be happiness or amusement), or the feeling of wanting to spread wisdom or go for a walk (this emotion would be desire). I categorize these as emotions, but you do not.
Cut the bullshit, you were talking about romantic love, one of the strongest emotions one can experience. And although one might enjoy nice weather, or a tastey meal, causing them to experience subtle feelings of happiness, it is nothing in comparison to romantic love. Which is not only the experience of emotion, but also includes the attachment to that emotion and the illussions which sustain it. You don't see people going out and buying the Sun flowers and a box of chocolates because it warms their faces.
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Re: the inevitability of love and indifference

Post by Elizabeth Isabelle »

David Quinn wrote:But wanting to spread wisdom needn't be emotional in nature.
Then here is where our definitions differ. To me, an emotion is a feeling that starts in the mind, and a physical sensation is a feeling that starts in the body. In my definition, a want is a desire, and a desire is an emotion because it starts in the mind.

I agree that a want to spread wisdom can be intellectually rather than emotionally motivated, but emotions can be sparked by either thoughts or a chemical imbalance. If something is intellectually motivated, it will naturally be far more rational and far less emotional, but that does not erase that the feeling came from a thought originating in the mind.
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Re: the inevitability of love and indifference

Post by clyde »

David;

You write as if you know with certainty the effect of a great multitude of conditions on an enlightened human being. I don’t.

You write about “a person who can skillfully compartmentalize his mind and suppress his emotions at will”. I asked about one who is capable of feeling an emotion (not suppressing) and acting rationally. But your imagination is limited to one who is capable of feeling an emotion and acting empathetically.

But your real point is your belief that enlightened human beings do not experience emotions, no love, no hate, no joy, no sadness, no shock, no emotion at all. I disagree. Enlightened human beings are authentic actual human beings.

clyde
David Quinn wrote:Clyde wrote:
DQ: If feeling hot causes us to have irrational thoughts, then we can say that emotion is involved. Otherwise not. That would be my basic criteria for assessing what is an emotion.

C: There are many causes for irrational thoughts, including extreme hunger and thirst, lack of oxygen, senility, some mental disorders, various ingested drugs, etc. Since I don’t believe that you intend to include ALL possible causes, what is it, in your view, which defines emotion?
None of the things you mentioned would cause a perfectly-enlightened Buddha to engage in irrational thought, at least not of the philosophic kind.

Granted, the ingestion of drugs or a mental disorder could cause him to hallucinate without him knowing it, which would mean that his perception of the empirical world was being corrupted. But even here, he would never lose of sight of his true nature and would never engage in the core delusion of trying to protect himself or react to the illusion of gain and loss.

So an emotion can be classed as any kind of response inside us which causes us to lose sight of the ultimate perspective.

And, can’t you feel an emotion and still think and act rationally, just as one may feel hot or cold, hunger and thirst, etc? I think that the ability to feel an emotion and not act irrationally is the mark of a sage.
On the contrary, it would be the mark of a person who can skillfully compartmentalize his mind and suppress his emotions at will - e.g. a soldier, pilot, policeman, politician, etc. It wouldn't be the mark of a sage.

I realize that you're thinking of a more sensitive, empathetic person here - as opposed to the "robotic" behaviour of a soldier or policeman - but I don't believe that such a person is capable of rational behaviour. Empathetic behaviour, yes; rational behaviour, no.

If you're experiencing an emotion, you are already deluded, as it means you have been taken in by "maya" - the core delusion of gain and loss, life and death, of inherent existence. The emotion is an expression of seeking gain and avoiding loss.

Trying to be wise and rational after becoming emotional is a case of shutting the door after the horse has bolted. It is too late. Your core perspective is already fatally askew.

I agree that it is possible to think rationally while being emotional, but only to a limited extent. For example, an emotional person can still reason that 1+1= equals 2. But it is impossible to take rationality to the very depths of your being while being emotional.

Emotion - e.g. passion for truth, disgust for ignorance, etc - can certainly you take a lot of the way. But when it comes to crossing the threshold into infinite understanding, it becomes an entirely different matter. Emotion itself becomes part of the Great Barrier which needs to be negotiated

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Pye
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Re: the inevitability of love and indifference

Post by Pye »

Here are three words-sets:

commerce - commercial - commercialize
reason - rational - rationalize
emotion - emotional - emotionalize

The first member of each set is noun-naming of things/experiences in the world; the second member of each set is adjectival description; and the third member of each set is a verbial intentionality, with the pejorative built right in. Something else is happening in each of the third terms as well - a kind of pathology of conditions folded back upon themselves for which I cannot be anymore scientific than in the following descriptions.

Commerce is the name we give that activity we've invented of money-for-materials. In this form, it is an ethically neutral term that points simply to the aforementioned, open-ended activity. When something becomes commercial (or is a commercial), this activity is highlighted as itself; described as itself. But commerce and the commercial only become commercialized when said-pathology has set in. We have closed-off the process from its original means of exchange and the thing is there for the pure sake of itself and bent to its own means.

Reason is the name we give to the activity of finding the what-is of things - the best possible understanding to which we can arrive - of ourselves, of things in the world, of the world itself. In this case, reason does not have itself as the goal, but rather the what-is of things, and in this manner is open-ended until we get there. The rational is the activity highlighted as itself; described as itself. To rationalize, however, is to pervert this open-ended arrival of the what-is and bend itself to the already-decided; already believed. Hence, when we rationalize, we have already decided or already-done or already-believe that which we want to arrive-to, - we have closed it off from the things it originally meant to arrive-to - and thus the process is perverted and bend it to its own means.

Emotion is the name we give to things we feel, and there are many subset descriptions of this for the many types of feelings. The emotional is this phenomenon highlighted as itself; described as itself. And, of course, to emotionalize is to pervert the process and bend it to its own means. It has as its goal - itself, for the pure sake of itself, and thus has become closed-off to the next feeling or the natural flow of feelings with which any sentient being senses him or herself in the world. Emotion is an open-ended condition as well, and it becomes suffering only when we try to close it off, or close ourselves up in it.

clyde writes (to David):
But your real point is your belief that enlightened human beings do not experience emotions, no love, no hate, no joy, no sadness, no shock, no emotion at all. I disagree. Enlightened human beings are authentic actual human beings.
And with clyde, I entirely agree. I think what happens with the more enlightened human being is that the open-ended nature of the course of human feeling becomes wider open, and thus freer to move along and through us - even to the point where their register with us fleets as it should, treads lightly and rightly and poof, it is gone, in order that the next feeling of the sentient being can arrive and depart without closing it off in us; without holding it to us, and thus becoming one of those dire pathologies marked with the deep grooves of our suffering; becoming our suffering itself.

When one watches feeling in themselves in this way (which is above all the most important purpose of meditation), one discovers that one is never in a state, and the habits of taking a feeling and making it a state is the pathological condition under which we were originally suffering. It is the purest mistake of trying to capture and hold emotions as our only sense of ourselves, when rather, their free-movement is what constitutes human sentiency and being. Stuck in one state/reaction to one thing, we cannot see the others, the next and the next, and thus we reach the same poisonous state of the stagnant pool (from which every living animal knows not to drink).

And when one lets these things move instead of clinging to them, they become lighter and lighter and lighter . . . nay, even a seamless transition of becoming without such startling and self-abusive seizures in between. We become becoming - that which we fair and truly are - rather than this or that feeling alone. Our selves arrive to their genuine condition, instead of closing ourselves off in any one of those conditions, perverted and bent to their own sakes.

In no-wise does this mean that the fleeting-ness of feelings will prevent us from acting upon any one of them. On the contrary, these feelings carry, deliver, with light rapidity the value(s) upon which they are based - carries them with lightning speed to the reasoning faculty, which in peace and quiet and free-movement in itself, can decide what can, if anything, be done; what shall be done.

Suffering is a state. The key to this cage is to recognize that the thing over which we suffer is really the attempt at state-hood itself. We suffer over this far-more than the actual events and things that make us feel that way. Because the actual events and things that make us feel this way are in every moment becoming something else, just like we are.

All "states" - all "being" - all bids for permanency in the midst of pure becoming -- these are the root of all suffering and delusion. You can't close-off an open-ended (meaning temporal) thing.
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Re: the inevitability of love and indifference

Post by Shardrol »

Faust13 wrote:philosophers think they can live fully solitary lives and end loneliness. but they haven't done it because they know it's impossible.
How can you know no one has done it?
Talking on Genius Forums is not being fully solitary. I would like to see someone go to the woods and live a completely alone and solitary life for a few years.
Well if they did, you wouldn't see them, would you. I have met people who have done that but mostly they don't come back & start posting about it on internet forums.
unfortunately we are social animals, even Nietzsche knew that.
Like most animal qualities, in conscious humans it can be mitigated & even overcome.
So it's quite wrong of people here that boast of ending their loneliness, for you are lying.
It would be a mistake to assume that there is no state of mind beyond your own experience.
Elizabeth Isabelle
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Re: the inevitability of love and indifference

Post by Elizabeth Isabelle »

Good post Pye, it inspired me to add one more cognition.

The brain has specialized compartments, and only the prefrontal cortex is wired to think intellectually. The rest of the brain is wired to think emotionally. Logic is an Ultimate Truth. An enlightened being would think logically with the whole brain - both the intellectually and the emotionally driven portions.

It is possible to be intellectually enlightened, and intellectual enlightenment is easier to achieve without the emotional component; but to be fully enlightened, one must be both intellectually and emotionally (including spiritually) enlightened.
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Re: the inevitability of love and indifference

Post by Pye »

Cognizant people recognize immediately what value is being either offended or served by the immediate emotion that delivers it. In this way, the feeling falls off of the value like a seed casing from its content, and one reaches the thing itself that causes the feeling and does not remain entrenched in the emotion that delivered it. The greater portion of work for the greater amount of us is to create a greater seamlessness between the feeling and the value that causes it. In this way, we can decide if this or that value is really worth holding onto - and in reaching this, we are also using a fluid feeling = the one that causes us to say, "That makes sense," - for reason is a feeling, and a fluid one, too. It is that great, "settled" feeling that most secures us in a world of constant becoming, even and especially if it concludes with the never-concluded-ness of becoming.

I don't have my brain/my existence all divided up quite as you have done above, Elizabeth, but I think your last paragraph is closer to the healing and wholeness that all of us must do in order to abate this endless suffering over temporality.
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Re: the inevitability of love and indifference

Post by Trevor Salyzyn »

David,
But his potential for Buddhahood would probably be better served by dousing the flames as quickly as possible!
Hmmm... I guess it doesn't matter at that point if he uses, say, an appeal to emotion to convince others to remove the flames. The intention is perfectly sound, and as long as agonized wails are likely to lead to a bucket of water (or, at least, some sand), his emotion need only be apparent.
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Re: the inevitability of love and indifference

Post by David Quinn »

Clyde,
But your real point is your belief that enlightened human beings do not experience emotions, no love, no hate, no joy, no sadness, no shock, no emotion at all. I disagree. Enlightened human beings are authentic actual human beings.
That's a nice catch-phrase, but it could mean anything, really. It all depends on what is considered to be "authentic".

For example, I consider the emotional human being to be seriously lacking in authenticity. His emotionalism is a sign that he is disconnected from reality, that he still lives in a world of fantasy. It is a sign that he is stagnating within a very rigid and crude imaginary world of "self" and "other", "success" and "failure", "gain" and "loss", etc.

Pye's point that authenticity lies in ceasing to identify with any particular state and tuning into the process of becoming is a lot better, but it is evident from her remarks that she still wants to have an emotional life. And so she can't really tune into the process of becoming, at least not fully. She still needs the rigid illusions and crude concepts of "gain" and "loss" to some degree, otherwise the all-important emotions wouldn't be able to be generated.

The lack of emotionalism in the sage comes from him being so spontaneously free and mentally flexible, and so fully in tune with becoming, that emotion has no basis for springing into being.

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David Quinn
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Re: the inevitability of love and indifference

Post by David Quinn »

Elizabeth,
DQ: But wanting to spread wisdom needn't be emotional in nature.

EI: Then here is where our definitions differ. To me, an emotion is a feeling that starts in the mind, and a physical sensation is a feeling that starts in the body. In my definition, a want is a desire, and a desire is an emotion because it starts in the mind.

I agree that a want to spread wisdom can be intellectually rather than emotionally motivated, but emotions can be sparked by either thoughts or a chemical imbalance. If something is intellectually motivated, it will naturally be far more rational and far less emotional, but that does not erase that the feeling came from a thought originating in the mind.
What you say is only true for those who are not fully enlightened. With a fully-enlightened Buddha, the will to promote wisdom is entirely spontaneous in nature. There are no mental feelings involved. Rather, his entire mind has wholly grown into this purpose.

Just as random thoughts can pop spontaneously into the average person's mind without any effort on his part, in the same way the activity of promoting of wisdom is spontaneous and effortless in a Buddha. It is as effortless and as natural as the existence of his own consciousness.

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clyde
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Re: the inevitability of love and indifference

Post by clyde »

David;

Yeah, I liked the phrase too.

By “authentic actual human being” I mean, much as Pye stated, one who is mindful of the arising and passing of phenomena, and is neither attached to nor adverse to the experience of a human being.

Do you feel any emotion? Have you felt any emotion in the past year? When was the last time you felt an emotion and what emotion was it?

clyde
Elizabeth Isabelle
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Re: the inevitability of love and indifference

Post by Elizabeth Isabelle »

David Quinn wrote:With a fully-enlightened Buddha, the will to promote wisdom is entirely spontaneous in nature.
Emotions can seem entirely spontaneous, but the cause is in a portion of the brain other than the prefrontal cortex.
With bold added by Elizabeth, David Quinn wrote:With a fully-enlightened Buddha, the will to promote wisdom is entirely spontaneous in nature.
In my definition, will is an emotional state.
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Re: the inevitability of love and indifference

Post by Pye »

David writes:
Pye's point that authenticity lies in ceasing to identify with any particular state and tuning into the process of becoming is a lot better, but it is evident from her remarks that she still wants to have an emotional life. And so she can't really tune into the process of becoming, at least not fully. She still needs the rigid illusions and crude concepts of "gain" and "loss" to some degree, otherwise the all-important emotions wouldn't be able to be generated.
David, the only way to eliminate the "crude concepts of gain and loss" is to cease valuing [anything] altogether.

Your being one of those cognizant people who transfers immediate sensing to the values offended or served beneath them is how you serve truth (your uber-value), after your manner. That light-to-nothing remains of the register of your senses/feelings is what enables you to serve truth here, where you are "indignant" with a poster's prattle, or "bored" with someone's one-liners or "impatient" with the lack of evolution in someone's path or "happy/satisfied" when a poster has rendered something the way you see it. That the husk of immediate sensation that exposes these values to you falls away imperceptibly does not render them useless, au contraire. Truth (your sense of things) is first registered/felt, before we re-adorn it with more words. It's unfortunate such an allergic reaction to the word "emotion" prevents you from seeing its most subtle workings in both life and reason. Killing the messenger (sense-ation) is the work of paranoid and petty kings. Why kill it when it means to dissipate anyway . . . . and so we let it go . . . .

When you cease to value anything, most especially truth, you will find the utter end to your feelings, or your life.
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Re: the inevitability of love and indifference

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Pye, two things that stand out:

1. gain and loss are referring to adding or subtracting to something, while valuing doesn't need that thing even.

2. emotions, sensations and feelings are not at all the same categories; they are very distinct from each other and these distinctions must be clear to even start addressing them truthfully. Also using words that refer to emotions as a figure of speech are not necessarily caused by emotion.
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Re: the inevitability of love and indifference

Post by keenobserver »

The sage is emotionally indifferent to the result.
Its like you hoping your neighbors kid recovers from cancer, but whether she does or does not will not move you emotionally.
You're not invested in the outcome.

The sage doesnt even care if his life is over in the next heartbeat, death has no hold on him. So what kind of loss could possibly effect him?
You dont need to be a genius to undertsand this! (just to accept it)

He doesnt see him self existing from moment to moment, day to day. There is no permanance. What could upset such a person!
This is simple stuff, All you should have gotten it by now.

Perhaps you dont believe a person could care so little about life. Why not?
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Re: the inevitability of love and indifference

Post by Pye »

Diebert writes:
Pye, two things that stand out:

1. gain and loss are referring to adding or subtracting to something, while valuing doesn't need that thing even.

2. emotions, sensations and feelings are not at all the same categories; they are very distinct from each other and these distinctions must be clear to even start addressing them truthfully. Also using words that refer to emotions as a figure of speech are not necessarily caused by emotion.
:)
rationalization

Keenobserver writes:
He doesnt see him self existing from moment to moment, day to day. There is no permanance.
?
irrationalization . . . .
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: the inevitability of love and indifference

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Pye wrote: :)
rationalization
A reply perfectly demonstrating emotionalization as you defined it earlier:
And, of course, to emotionalize is to pervert the process and bend it to its own means. It has as its goal - itself, for the pure sake of itself, and thus has become closed-off to the next feeling or the natural flow of feelings with which any sentient being senses him or herself in the world.
With the correction that instead of 'closed-off' it's actually the reverse and you confuse 'feeling' still with a particular subset of emotion.
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Re: the inevitability of love and indifference

Post by Pye »

Diebert writes:
A reply perfectly demonstrating emotionalization as you defined it earlier:
um, noooo . . . I meant rationalization. I meant you are rationalizing in these two points:

Diebert:
1. gain and loss are referring to adding or subtracting to something, while valuing doesn't need that thing even.
gain = value being served. loss = value being offended. Without these senses of things, there's no need to speak or argue here, or anywhere, at all.

Diebert:
2. emotions, sensations and feelings are not at all the same categories; they are very distinct from each other and these distinctions must be clear to even start addressing them truthfully. Also using words that refer to emotions as a figure of speech are not necessarily caused by emotion.
This rationalizes the use of these words, and rationalizes away the impetus of response altogether - all in support of the belief in non-feeling sentient beings.

As for the subsets of feelings/sensations, it is up to you categorists to tell people which of the sensations in their existences they are supposed to be eradicating. My thoughts on it, extensively expressed above, do not square with such a project. Nor does the belief that reasoning does not register as [the sense-making] feeling.
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Re: the inevitability of love and indifference

Post by Pye »

.


" . . . body am I entirely . . . An instrument of your body is also your little reason . . . a little instrument and toy of your great reason . . . that does not say "I," but does "I."



.
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David Quinn
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Re: the inevitability of love and indifference

Post by David Quinn »

Pye wrote:
" . . . body am I entirely . . . An instrument of your body is also your little reason . . . a little instrument and toy of your great reason . . . that does not say "I," but does "I."
Nietzsche is in danger of backing himself into a corner here. For the view he expresses is intended to be a truth which he reached by reason. So somehow he managed to circumvent the massive influence of his body's reason and successfully reach a truth with his little reason - which promptly undermines the point he is trying to reach.

Or at least it undermines the point that postmodernists falsely try to project onto his words.

As Nietzsche has just shown, the body's reason, "great" though it might be, isn't strong enough to prevent our little reason from reaching truth.

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Re: the inevitability of love and indifference

Post by David Quinn »

Pye wrote:
Diebert: 1. gain and loss are referring to adding or subtracting to something, while valuing doesn't need that thing even.

Pye: gain = value being served. loss = value being offended. Without these senses of things, there's no need to speak or argue here, or anywhere, at all.
The difference is, a sage values without seeking gain.

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David Quinn
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Re: the inevitability of love and indifference

Post by David Quinn »

keenobserver,
The sage is emotionally indifferent to the result.
Its like you hoping your neighbors kid recovers from cancer, but whether she does or does not will not move you emotionally.
You're not invested in the outcome.

The sage doesnt even care if his life is over in the next heartbeat, death has no hold on him. So what kind of loss could possibly effect him?
You dont need to be a genius to undertsand this! (just to accept it)

He doesnt see him self existing from moment to moment, day to day. There is no permanance. What could upset such a person!
This is simple stuff, All you should have gotten it by now.
Couldn't agree more.

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David Quinn
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Re: the inevitability of love and indifference

Post by David Quinn »

Elizabeth,
DQ: With a fully-enlightened Buddha, the will to promote wisdom is entirely spontaneous in nature.

EI: Emotions can seem entirely spontaneous, but the cause is in a portion of the brain other than the prefrontal cortex.
Yes, emotions are spontaneous. They just don't occur in a sage.

DQ: With a fully-enlightened Buddha, the will to promote wisdom is entirely spontaneous in nature.

EI: In my definition, will is an emotional state.
Not in a sage. There is just thought and action.

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