INTRODUCTION

Emotions are intense feelings that are directed at someone or something. Moods are feelings that tend to be less intense than emotions and that often (though not always) lack a contextual stimulus emotions are reactions to a person (seeing a friend at work may make you feel glad) or event (dealing with a rude client may make you feel angry). You show your emotions when you’re “happy about something, angry at someone, afraid of something.” Moods, in contrast, aren’t usually directed at a person or event. But emotions can turn into moods when you lose focus on the event or object that started the feeling. And, by the same token, good or bad moods can make you more emotional in response to an event. So when a colleague criticizes how you spoke to a client, you might become angry at him. That is, you show emotion (anger) toward a specific object (your colleague). But as the specific emotion dissipates, you might just feel generally dispirited. You can’t attribute this feeling to any single event; you’re just not your normal self. You might then overreact to other events. This affect state describes a mood. There are dozens of emotions.
They include anger, contempt, enthusiasm, envy, fear, frustration, disappointment, embarrassment, disgust, happiness, hate, hope, jealousy, joy, love, pride, surprise, and sadness. There have been numerous research efforts to limit and define the dozens of emotions into a fundamental or basic set of emotions.
"An emotion is a complex psychological state that involves three distinct components: a subjective experience, a physiological response, and a behavioral or expressive response." (Don H. Hockenbury, Sandra E. Hockenbury, 2007).
In 1972, psychologist Paul Ekman suggested that there are six basic emotions that are universal throughout human cultures: fear, disgust, anger, surprise, happiness, and sadness. In 1999, he expanded this list to include a number of other basic emotions including embarrassment, excitement, contempt, shame, pride, satisfaction, and amusement. (Ekman, 2007). During the 1980s, Robert Plutchik introduced another emotion classification system known as the "wheel of emotions." This model demonstrated how different emotions can be combined or mixed together, much the way an artist mixes primary colors to create other colors. Plutchik suggested that there are 8 primary emotional dimensions: happiness vs. sadness, anger vs. fear, trust vs. disgust, and surprise vs. anticipation. These emotions can then be combined in a variety of ways. For example, happiness and anticipation might combine to create excitement. (Plutchik, 1962).
It was naturalist Charles Darwin who proposed that emotions evolved because they were adaptive and allowed humans and animals to survive and reproduce. Feelings of love and affection lead people to seek out mates and reproduce. Feelings of fear compel people to either fight or flee the source of danger. Emotions motivate people to respond quickly to stimuli in the environment, which helps improve the chances of success and survival. Understanding the emotions of other people and animals also plays a crucial role in safety and survival. If you encounter hissing, spitting, and clawing animal, chances are you will quickly realize that the animal is frightened or defensive and leave it alone. According to the evolutionary theory of emotion, our emotions exist because they serve an adaptive role. By being able to interpret correctly the emotional displays of other people and animals, you can respond correctly and avoid danger. (Darwin, 1873).
It’s interesting to consider these issues in terms of the specific structures. In this context, a specific prediction made by the present theory of emotions is that complex map dynamics will be more associated with emotions than other aspects of Novamente cognition. Complex map dynamics involve temporal patterns that are hard to control, and that present sufficiently subtle patterns that the present is much better understood once one knows the immediate future.