Category: Let's talk
It was once believed that the heart was the organ of thought and emotions. Eventually of course, that was proven completely wrong. So, why do we still say things like "I love you with all my heart" or my"my heart is broken?" Discuss away.
it's been in circulation too long to stop now. I love you with all of my left toe or ass cheek doesn't have a good ring to it.
How bout, I love you with all my penis?
No, not you, Samurai.
Ever felt a deep feeling of love in your chest area? Heart. Smile.
No. Frowns.
Lol that sounds more like a lust filled statement. I'll give it a try on my next girlfriend and let you know what she says. This is a good point though. It's kind of like those people who once thought that the mind and the brain were different.
I am a hopeless romantic. My love comes from my heart. Call me old fashioned, Haha!
My dearest Michelle, you have a beautiful limbic system.
The first time I ever felt that way in my heart was when my daughter was born. I thought I knew what love was until she came into my life.
No. You felt it in your mind, which is created by your brain.
I honestly don't know. Interesting. Where do you think feelings come from?
The mind, which is created through brain chemistry.
Then they slide right on down, and your heart beat faster. You get that cold or warm tight feeling, and you know it's from the heart.
Just because your heart rate increases or decreases when you feel a certain emotion, doesn't mean it originated there, dipshit.
Maybe I also am a dipshit then: the quickening of the heart and what happens in the gut do affect my mental perception.
I agree re when the daughter was born. This is not fair, in my opinion, because us fathers could experience this while the mother continues her post birth struggle with less of your attention since you're also attending the baby. Ah, but you can't help how you feel, or how you feel about those feelings. I'd say in the heart and in the gut.
the quickening of the heart and what happens in the gut do affect my mental perception.
No, other way around.
I love my Tuna Helper with all of my mouth and all of my stomach.
You've brought this sort of thing up before, Imp, about how everything is in the brain, and perhaps it is, but have you never experienced something that just felt right, virsus something that felt wrong? It's not explainable or describeable. what about simple basic instinct? Birds fly south in the winter. Do they sit down and have this big discussion in some great tree and decide on their plan beforehand? What about all the lesser animals who don't have the intelligence to reason? Sure, they have a brain, but we don't know about their decision making process. When you get really nervous about something, notice how your stomach feels? Maybe that's in the brain, but the stomach is where you feel it. When you break your leg, the brain may register the pain, but where do you feel that pain?
None of which proves that thoughts and emotions come from the cardiac muscle.
And how can you disprove it?
I think it's all beyond what we are all talking about. It has to do with the unconscious, what it is that we can not control. We all say we want love and say it comes from the heart, because we all truly want sex and power. The id will always control us. But maybe it's just the Freudian philosophy that everyone takes as a joke. Lol
I disagree that we all want power. I don't know what the ID is. But if most of us were truly honest, I bet I'm not the only one who finds the prospect of power to be more than a bit scary. We want autonomy, yes, we want to not be overpowered and controlled, yes, we want to exercise our free will, as free as that may or may not be. But I don't think most of us really want power any more than we want dynamite. I know it's a commonly-held assertion, especially males, but over the years I've met more than a few normal average guys who express the same types of misgivings on power.
But you know, I read recently that there are as many nerve endings in the gut as there are in the brain. Biologist I am not, so can't verify. But to me it's apparent how stress can make you feel in your chest, or passion, or excitement, and your brain thinks it but your gut maybe feels it? Who knows.
Lol I do too, I was only half ass joking. I understand the feeling you are explaining though, to an extent. You're married and have a grown kid so you certainly have more experience than I do. I don't know what love feels like outside of having a couple family members who love me and would do anything to help me out. The feeling I got when I asked out the first girl, when I had the first kiss, and pretty much any other first experience usually had a pounding heart involved. I don't know what causes it or why cuz I'm not a fan of science and all that good stuff at all. It just doesn't interest me. But I do like seeing all the perspectives here. Please don't mind my stupid jokes/humor lol.
Imp, you're probably right, and emotions do stem from our minds, and brain chemicals. But Wayne said it best in post 5. I think we say heart because, at least for me, sometimes those feelings are most felt inside my chest area. I've felt that with deep love, and I've felt it with deep pain too. The night I lost my Grandpa, as we were standing around his hospital bed once they'd turned off the life support, it felt like a tearing inside my chest, like I was just being shattered. So I think that's why it's used. And the mind is often associated with logic, so even if in reality it's where feelings stem from, the different word is used.
Anxiety for me manifests physically as an upset stomach and an unpleasant tingling in my fingers, but that's all.
You didn't ask for a medical, or biology reason, you ask why do we still say heart? Smile.
Would you like to hear about my soul?
I can go off topic if I feel like it.
Ok, and? So what! You asked, and you were given answers. Now what, that's not enough? I can understand it from the biological point of view, but I believe there are things we can't control. That's just me, though. I can use heart, if I feel like it. And I don't have to explain why, if I don't feel like it either. So there ya go.
OK. You be poetic, I'll be realistic.
dear imp
since every thing originates in the brain and and is created by brain chemistry, would you forgo your man bits? Because studies have shown that the biggest sexual organ is the brain...
Not at tall. The brain is the transmitter, the dick, the receiver. I just have never felt a pain or a sense of warmth in my chest area in times of grief, or deep love. Maybe it only occurs for certain people
It's not that you literally feel warmth or pain in your chest, lol! So tell me something. Where do you feel sadness, love, hope, happyness? What about your emotions?
Well, I wouldn't say it's happened to me a lot, but certainly, I have felt amazing sensations in my heart at times of intense love and since I don't have children, it was not related to children.
And indeed, at times when I was losing a loved one (relationship wise not death), I felt pain in my heart.
Would you say you've felt deep love and deep loss in relation to others, Imp?
Of course. Who hasn't? But it's never been accompanied by physical sensations, unless of course, the person I love and I are embracing.
To give a direct answer to your question, its because of tradition. We've heard it said for centuries now, so we continue to say it.
Same reason we still use the word shit to mean fecal matter. The acronym, (yes, shit is an acronym), doesn't apply anymore, but we still use it. Practically every word in our lexicon is used because of tradition. Certainly every common phrase is.
How many of you have actually seen a button quail? I bet you've all heard or said that something is as cute as a button. That's tradition.
I doubt many of you have gone hunting with a falcon, but I bet many have said a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. That's what that phrase refers to.
Ever ridden shotgun? Well, I bet it wasn't in a stage coach with an actual shotgun. That's what the phrase means though.
Ever been told you're just blowing smoke? Well, unless it was into the ass of a drowning victim in the seventeen hundreds, it was because of tradition.
That's why we say heart. If you want me to explain any of those examples, I'd be happy to do so.
By that logic, we should still say that the kidneys are the seat of concience, another antiquated belief.
You're confusing belief with tradition. I'm not saying that the belief is why we say it. I'm saying tradition is why we say it. The tradition is not the belief. The tradition is the phrase.
No one actually believes that emotions come from the heart. I'm sure we are all intelligent enough to know that they come from biochemistry and neuroreceptors in the brain. That they're caused by stimuli in the outside world which is received by our central nervous system, and created into reactions by our brains. But already this is too long to fit on a catchy hallmark card, so we stick with heart cuz it sounds cute.
My heart is full of murph over this topic.
I can be realistic, too, Imp:
We use similes and metaphors to describe a whole host of things. You've said fire up your PC, but your PC doesn't have a combustion engine in it.
Ok. So why do yu hold Her hand. I mean, that's filthy nasty: before you took Her hand you washed the dishes with your hands, you emptied out the garbage, and before that you made her a sandwich. Now, you have all sorts of nice bacteria all over your hands, but you still like to hold her hand.
And why do you like her hair? It has one evolutionary purpose and one only: its job is to insulate the cranium. Don't believe me? Ask a cancer survivor or a bald guy to tell you what it's like to walk through the cold pounding rain with no hat on and no hair. Hair is an insulator, period, end of story, from an evolutionary perspective.
Point is, we're humans. Humans do a whole host of things that can be understood as a rational objectivist, if you're willing to include the last 50,000 years' evolution, and all of the symbolism that includes. Rational objectivist doesn't mean dried up old prune. In fact, to be truly rational and objective you would understand humans' need for symbolic references, labels, inferences and all sorts of things like that.
I love your last post, and Cody's posts too! I wonder what logical arguement will be against tradition and being human, lol! Thank you!
Well said in both posts, Cody, particularly helping Imp differentiate between belief and tradition. Also interesting from your first post to learn where some of those sayings you quoted come from. I knew a couple of their origins, but not all. I do have to ask, WTF is the blowing smoke and drowning victim thing you mentioned? Would you mind explaining that one? Off topic, but I'm curious.
Sometimes my soul gets filled with joy, and makes my heart glad even.
I'd be glad to. Its one of my favorite stories. Makes me laugh and cringe every time I tell it.
A couple centuries ago, around the time America became a country, it was a common practice to literally blow smoke into the anus of a person who had suffered some accident involving water. It became something of a stimulant, and it was common practice to have the so-called cure applied for many ailments; even the common cold.
A person would take a pipe, a smoking pipe that is, and a pipe the drain kind of pipe. The smoking pipe would be lit, and the drain pipe would be inserted into the anus. Then, the person giving the treatment would draw in smoke from the smoking pipe, and blow it up the anus of the person via the drain pipe.
Note: It wasn't actually a drain pipe. It was just that sort of pipe. I was trying to differentiate between metal pipes and tobacco pipes.
So that's where that came from. Once people started realizing it was pure hogwash, the phrase began to mean doing something pointless and weird or silly in the hopes of making someone better. Blowing smoke up someone's skirt is the same thing, but cleaned up a little.
Now tell me, really, how many of your friends do you think would be willing to do that for you if you drown?
I just have to say, O,M,F,G! Yikes. Ok. Laters...
Loved that! I do, I do!
This topic about harts made me think of all the things that could happen to a guy during the normal course of a day!
Saturday morning I woke up early feeling good. My heart was full of joy and my brain was idling!
I had me a good breakfast and a mug of wonderful brew, and that made my veins hum, I’ll tell ya!
I had some stuff to do, so I got dressed and broke a leg to the bus stop.
Just as I was getting there so was the bus, and the driver shut the door and left!
That got my nose out of joint, you know, so I called the transit folks to give them a peace of my mind.
They need to train these drivers to be more polite!
I just had to get it off my chest.
Well, I finally gets to the bank, cause I needed to get some money to pick up an order I was after, and the teller tells me my account is over drawn 6,000 dollars!
I says, what!
Can you check again?
So she checks, and sees she’s put in a wrong number, and everything’s okay.
I almost shit a brick right there!
I goes to pick up my order, and it wasn’t ready, so I had to wait around! A pain in the butt!
I got home, and decided to relax, so found a comedian on TV. It was so funny I busted a gut, and died laughing. That guy killed me!
Awesome Wayne!
Thank you all for posting, from the heart of my bottom, as Scott would say.
Your welcome. Your the bees knees.
Cody, thanks for the explanation. I can definitely see why you'd both cringe and laugh every time you explained it, because that's exactly what I was doing while reading it! That's crazy! But then, many of the so-called medical practices humans used to engage in were crazy, and often downright harmful. Again, off topic.
Wayne, that was good. Thanks for the laugh. Grins.
Imp, definitely a Scottism there, and appropriate for this topic.
Agreed.
You know, they're going to laugh and cringe at some of our practices someday. Say, chemotherapy.
Except chemotherapy has demonstrable results. Torturous ones, sure, but demonstrable. It actually does help to cure cancer.
Now faith healing. That one makes me want to go to the future and apologize.