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Originally Posted by Greenslade
One's own ego is an 'interface' between their internal and external realities, and there is a symbiotic relationship going on between the two.
Emotions are a response to cognitive behaviour or cognitive dissonance, depending on the state of the person at that time.
I know my own emotions come from thoughts and those come from my cognitive functions.
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I would agree that the little SEPARATIST "ego is an 'interface' between their internal and external realities" with the sense of separation creating the impression of "internal and external realities".
You wrote that "thoughts seem to arise from, they come from the internal processing of the unconscious then 'filter through' to our conscious, it seems to happen in much the same way as dreams can be the unconscious making us aware of its 'contents' ". That is actually a very good insight and I can relate very well to the dream analogy that you provided. As a matter of fact, "revelations" (as described in a previous post of mine) act similarly in many ways as the imaginative faculty projects (mental activity, including thoughts) the indescribable revelation in dream-like fashion prior to it being converted to words in order to communicate it to those who need words.
You also wrote that "These processes also create our sense of 'I am', which is the reason that 'I am......' seems to fade into the background and we can perceive ourselves as 'no-thing' ". This is going in a very illuminating direction as the sense of "I AM" does indeed seem to arise with the activity of consciousness and it does indeed "fade into the background" (well put) with the stillness/quietude and the sense of "no thing".
As you duly noted, "The system also releases 'happy hormones' into the brain, that's been programmed into us since the caveman days - as with the 'fight-or-flight' reflex". It's interesting that you should mention that as I am currently taking an online MOOC course (
www.coursera.org) on Brain Neurobiology and we are going into the sympathetic nervous system ('fight-or-flight) and the parasympathetic nervous system (calming or, as you put it, "happy hormones"). These are obviously responses to various perceptions either internally or externally. As you can see, I like to investigate from as many perspectives as possible ... medical, physics, psychology, etc.
Lastly, from a psychological perspective, you mentioned that "Emotions are a response to cognitive behaviour or cognitive dissonance" and "I know my own emotions come from thoughts and those come from my cognitive functions". It seems that we are in agreement that emotions proceed from cognitive activity (thoughts, etc.) and, as you also noted, emotions tend to be more enduring. I believe that the word "emotion" comes from the Latin verb "emoveo" which means "to move" and emotions definitely set into motion forces that move us to action ... either physically or mentally or otherwise ... all of which proceed from the underlying belief/thought.
As expected from you, this is a very insightful clear post and is presented very articulately. We are pretty much in agreement on virtually everything here.