What if Our Ancestors Didn’t Feel Anything Like We Do?
The historians who want to know how our ancestors experienced love, anger, fear, and sorrow
TL;DR
- Rob Boddice, a historian of emotions and senses, advocates for a radical new direction in the field, focusing on 'experience' as a construct.
- He disputes the idea of six basic universal emotions (happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise, disgust) as identified by Paul Ekman.
- Boddice's concept of 'experiential relativity' posits that human nature and emotional experience are variable and unstable, not constant across time and space.
- He draws parallels with philosopher William James, who questioned the direction of emotional causality, and contemporary neuroscience, which highlights the brain's plasticity.
- Neuroscience suggests that the brain creates predictions and interpretations of stimuli based on individual and cultural 'concepts and categories,' leading to a 'highly edited subjective version of the world.'
- Even seemingly universal experiences like pain are not direct signals but are interpreted by the brain, influenced by cultural and personal contexts, such as a medieval carpenter's potential religious framework.