Re: Article~Was Darwin Wrong About Emotions?

[Guest guest]

Hi Bill,I meant understand it, yes. When he made assertions about the way to tell one facial expression from another, some of it was something I could follow very haltingly and other parts were way beyond me, but I think that I might do better if I tried again. I do believe that this was my lack of ability at the time, and not his writing or explanation.OTOH, if there really are challenges to some of it, then I might not even have gotten that far- still, we cannot tell. There is "research" I have always known was incorrect, from childhood. This is quite a different matter, from my side of the table. My father told me something about Freud's

views, and let me read one of his books, when he was studying it. I could tell that it was incorrect in many ways, just based on my early memories. There is a backstory here, though. While there is recent work on neuroscience which does seem to back up my feelings about Freud, and while much of the theory has been challenged successfully by others at this point, there are still open questions about his theories and those of others that I cannot resolve all by myself, because my memories are only my memories- maybe there are other people who really did experience those things. In the case of Ekman, I have no ability at all, and feel perhaps as a five-year-old might if presented with a book on calculus.All the best, To: aspires-relationships Sent: Friday, December 16, 2011 2:05 AM Subject: Re: Article~Was Darwin Wrong About Emotions?

Princess wrote:

> Bill,

>

> I am going off on a tangent- about three years ago I tried to read

> Ekman's work and learn to recognize micro-expressions, and

> discovered that I had difficulty in recognizing many facial

> expressions even when they were not micro-expressions. I found

> Simon baron-Cohen's software called MindReading to be really

> helpful. Now, after learning to read maybe 30 of them? Maybe

> more? I need to review more of the 412 or so on this tape. They

> are in real-time, like watching micro-film clips of the same actor

> over and over.

>

> Ekman? Maybe, I will understand what he has written one day-

> maybe, I will have the nerve to try again. For now, I am enjoying

> being able to read the difference between surprised and worried and

> scared and bored and lying and confused-- all look different to me

> now, and all were unreadable to me back in 2008 when I was formally

> dx- have you tried to read his work on micro-expressions and can you

> read it?

No, I've not tried reading much of Ekman's micro-expression stuff.

I know him by reputation, by a few published Abstracts, and via

fact-checking a few of those. ...Of course also through his annotated

version of Darwin's "EEMA", and fact-checking some of the assertions

he's made there. In all of this my focus was on Darwin - not Ekman.

Given that, I'm underwhelmed with his schema of micro-expressions and

the considerable edifice it's spawned. I'm not sure it's all good science.

His early work was a career builder for him, but I think that now

he's over-reaching the data; IMO the edifice can't continue to stand.

According to Wikipedia (I know, I know) there *have* been significant

challenges to his work.

So there *may* be a reason why you can't read it. You do mean

"understand" it, yes?

- Bill ...AS, 79

> ________________________________

> To:

> aspires-relationships Sent: Thursday, December 15,

> 2011 12:56 PM Subject: Re: Article~Was Darwin

> Wrong About Emotions?

>

> For fun (it's a good read) and educational profit - I recommend

> reading Darwin's 1870-odd original: "The Expression of the Emotions

> in Man and Animals".

>

> You might change your mind about what Darwin *really* thought and

> said.

>

> A much more recent version (1990-odd, Ekman) is nicely

> annotated, easy to find and equally recommended. A good lending

> library should be able to find one for you.

>

> - Bill ...AS, 79

>

>> Article~Was

>> Darwin Wrong About Emotions?

>>

>> Was Darwin Wrong About Emotions? ScienceDaily (Dec. 13, 2011)

> [ snip ]

>> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111213190035.htm

--

WD "Bill" Loughman - Berkeley, California USA

http://home.earthlink.net/~wdloughman/wdl.htm