Читать книгу The Matter of Vision - Peter Wyeth - Страница 12

Emotion is central to this project. In terms of the question of what Emotion is, I take the line of LeDoux (The Emotional Brain) that the key thing is what Emotion does rather than being too concerned with definitions of what it is, which tend to end up either diffuse or circular. Emotion is seen here in physical terms as the response of the body/brain system to a perceived survival-threat (or opportunity) in the external environment.²⁷ It functions as an alarm-system that warns of a potential threat, and takes the form of internal activity, blood flow, synapses connecting, galvanic skin response, sweating, etc and only at the extremes does it make an appearance in Consciousness. Most Emotion is unconscious or Automatic (for which there is considerable evidence, see LeDoux). Everything that happens in the brain is seen as prompted by Survival, and Emotion is, as it were, the raw material that the body/brain system produces as a response to potential danger.

The evolutionary sense of a threat may seem too broad and general to apply to everyday life, but if we take the notion first suggested in The Descent of Man that sees human culture as the successor to genetic evolution, in other words cultural evolution as the adaptation of genetic evolution that developed in human society, then the definition of a threat becomes much wider. By a process of adaptation, or ‘exaptation’, what originally served the purpose of an alarm against predators can become a mechanism to help choose a handbag or breakfast cereal. In the choice of a handbag there can be many competing images that battle for victory in the buyer’s mind. Is it really me? Is it too young/old, posh/flashy for me? Can I afford it? Will it go with other things? “The only thing that separates us from the Animals is the ability to accessorize” as Dolly Parton put it.²⁸ The Emotions that are part of the process of taking a decision will be partly conscious, but also unconscious. It can be argued that no one ever took a decision rationally – even with an exhaustive list of pros and cons – as in the famous example of Darwin trying to decide about marriage (and concluding it was better than a dog). Emotion makes the decision for us as Reason has its limits.

That point is also related to Damasio’s crucial conclusion noted earlier – that Reason is contingent upon Emotion. Emotion without Reason is possible, but not Reason without Emotion.²⁹ That view overturns centuries of philosophy but also suggests the power of Emotion. Kant reacted against Hume on the epistemology of induction, but it was Hume who declared that ‘Reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them’. Hume’s wisdom on emotion appears prescient both for his time and in opposition, as it were, to the view Kant would later take.

What might be called The Logic of Nature is seen in Emotion, as Emotion is survival. That is to say that Emotion arises as a survival response, and survival is basic to evolution alongside reproduction. We survive in order to reproduce, that is the logic of evolution and therefore the Logic of Nature.

Cinema is Emotion, according to Sam Fuller in Godard’s Pierrot Le Fou, where he was asked to define exactly what is Cinema: “Film is like a battleground. Love. Hate. Action. Violence. Death. In one word . . . Emotion”. Cinema is drama, and dramatising uses the strongest emotional situations.

There are two immediate connections between science and Cinema in regards to Emotion. The first is that the eye responds to movement. It is natural for our eyes to follow movement. It is built-in as a biological response. Movement may equal danger so we are particularly alert to it. The second connection is Emotional movement. A film is an arc of the hero/ine’s emotional status. Each scene is centred on a change in that status, for example success or happiness. The arc of the hero/ine’s emotional status is the string the audience follows. A film is, in ideal formal terms, all emotional movement. It is not ‘about’ emotional movement, but is emotional movement. Cinema is Emotion.

Life is change. Without change, without movement, there is no life. Life, in the biological sense, is a process of change. The Logic of Nature is change, in the large; evolution. Emotion is a process, a process of change. Movement is central to Life. Cinema brings photography to life. Cinema moves and Cinema moves us. Cinema is Emotion.

Emotion has had a bad name with scientists. After all, it is the opposite of Reason, the foundation of science. The growth in interest in Emotion in neuroscience has met with far from unanimous approval, but I would argue that it as an invaluable advance because it brings the ‘subjective’ within the orbit of scientific method – of experiment and testing, as Dehaene has done in relation to Consciousness. A similar thing could be said of Dream Science, which has taken what were considered to be irredeemably personal experiences, dreams, and subjected them to scientific methods and procedures with striking outcomes – not the least the notion of overturning Freud’s speculative claim that the unconscious hides guilty secrets. Dream Science has suggested the truth to be the direct opposite – the unconscious reveals rather than conceals – it is all about revealing and has nothing to do with concealment.

With the study of Emotion in neuroscience, subjectivity is within the gates of scientific method. I argue that is something of a revolution, extending the reach of science into areas previously excluded. If we accept Damasio’s argument that Reason is contingent upon Emotion the autonomy of Reason falls. However, Emotion complementing Reason is a more balanced picture, an expanded view of Reason encompassing subjectivity in a scientifically-disciplined manner. The task remains to chart the dimensions of unconscious Emotion in order to understand more about that complementarity.