As an overview, the emotional battery stores both mass and energy, (I mean this literally since physical objects of attraction–as well as their inherent energy–become fused through Pavlovian conditioning onto the animals’ sense of its physical center-of-gravity) and serves as both an energy reserve boost and as emotional ballast (e-cog) as a source of information as to how to interact with the environment. The emotional battery can convert mass to energy and energy to mass through creating a wave function with others as emotional counterbalances. Therefore it reflects all the properties of physics, in addition to the more limited notion as an electrical battery.
From a previous discussion….
LCK: That said, I still disagree with the concept of the emotional battery.
KB: The most relevant point to the notion of a battery is that it stores energy; it doesn’t have to actually be electrical, even though dogs may act just as if it is electrical in basis as when they touch the positive terminal of one to the positive (head to head) terminal of the other, and then we see sparks if not the fur fly. Also, if we are largely in agreement that there is some kind of an energy dynamo at work then we would have to recognize that there would be no point in generating energy if there wasn’t a means of storing it for times of need. This is why wind/solar hasn’t taken over the energy grid because there isn’t yet a means of storing enough energy to get past the times when the wind’s not blowing and sun’s not shining. So if it’s possible to entertain that an organism is a kind of energy dynamo, it would surely follow that there would have to be some kind of storage faculty as well, just like the body has fat reserves for lean times or a spleen as a reserve of blood. The emotional battery in my model likewise serves as an emotional spleen to carry the animal through “gaps” in its consciousness and to keep it on course when there is no readily visible path forward. It’s what keeps a body in motion tending to stay in motion until acted on by an outside force.
LCK: This idea seems a mixed metaphor to the writer in me, and much too inexact to the dog trainer/natural philosopher. If emotions could be stored as latent or potential electric energy, then there could be an emotional battery. And I could be wrong, but it seems to me that emotions aren’t compatible with electricity. For instance, emotions can be repressed and even <i>com</i>pressed, but I don’t think there’s any compression going on inside a battery.
KB: Actually, I believe inside the battery there is a form of compression as in pressure and I’ve included a link to a thread below. But I can readily appreciate the difficulty with the idea because the Emotional Battery continually evolves into more and more complex sources of energy and information beyond its simplest role as energy reserves and emotional ballast. And this is exactly the problem, emotion cannot be stored, it’s transient and this is why we need a compressed form of emotion, i.e. stress in order to reliably transmit information of an emotional content. And while there’s no compression per se, there is pressure which we experience emotionally as compression, or stress, emotion’s latent form as stored energy.
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=166904 The following is from someone who posts under Xezlec
“Think of the electrons in a metal as a sort of “gas” of electrons. They are free to move around in the metal, and they repel one another. If you pack more electrons into the same volume of metal, then they have a higher “pressure” because they are all repelling one another. The voltage between two terminals is simply the difference in electron pressure between one and the other.”
Xezlec: “Now what if you build a “pump” that pumps electrons from one piece of metal to another? Well then you have a pressure that builds in one piece of metal and a vacuum that builds in the other. The vacuum piece is said to have a higher (more positive) “voltage”. The voltage between two terminals is simply the difference in electron pressure between one and the other.”
Notice that the so called “positive” terminal isn’t actually positive by virtue of being populated with protons, carriers of an actual positive charge. Rather it’s only positive RELATIVE to the negative terminal which has a surplus of electrons collected around it. So it’s a virtual form of positive. So if Physics there is a virtual and an actual way of generating a positive charge.
Because there are divergent agendas between the two brains, when stimuli displace the body/mind it creates a voltage. The voltage is the inability to connect the front end to the hind end by ingesting something without resistance. And if that voltage can’t be reconciled through acting in a pure flow manner that also brings the stimulus to ground, then I maintain this is internalized as stress through some kind of bio-mechanical mechanism which on the surface merely appears to be fulfilling some other bodily function but I believe can one day be shown to be fundamentally about capturing this energy and holding on to it for subsequent processing in order to render a greater degree of complexity. I think Dr. Pert has put her finger on the mechanism, what she calls the psycho-somatic network comprised of the central nervous system, the immune system and the endocrine system, but she doesn’t recognize its larger network function because of course like all mainstream scientists emotion must always be made to fit into the model of it as a self-contained phenomenon within the organism relentlessly in service to the agenda of gene replication. (I predict that the psycho-somatic network will one day prove that viruses and RNA are far more important to the evolution of organisms than DNA since these can rewrite DNA in terms of the environment, i.e. the network.)
The two brains have divergent agendas which inculcate a constitutional state of conflict, the release from which we perceive of as emotion. (In this sense, the Emotional Battery is the body/mind as a displaceable medium, just like the space/time is a displaceable gravitational field, there is not yet any virtual electrical bio-mechanical stuff going on.)Then, when the act of expressing emotion encounters resistance, I believe neuro-chemical/hormonal/antihistamine byproducts are produced and/or deposited throughout the body in response to the individual’s sense of being compressed, or pressurized. (This is now the electrical component.) Then when at some point later the individual achieves emotional suspension with an emotional counterbalance, its physical center-of-gravity projected externally as the e-cog onto the midpoint, this induces a virtual form of magnetic induction which I then believe releases the natural opiates in the cells, again courtesy of Dr. Pert’s research. This loading and unloading taking place on the cellular level would be the same as electrolytes in a battery.
Since the Big-Brain can only allow action (at lower levels of organization) when the balance imperative is satisfied, when a stimulus is complex the B-B will hold the organism back from action since the preyful essence is not immediately apparent. So we have a thrust at one terminal, B-B, and a void or vacuum at the other terminal, l-b. This divergence creates a voltage, or force. Hence there is a constitutional pressure, just as if there’s an electron pump as described above so that a voltage is impressed onto the opposing terminals of the body/mind as an emotional battery. (When the electrons are grounded in the little-gut, the void would shift to Big-Brain, and when the individual is entrained with another and not concerned about balance, then B-B can serve as North Pole of the magnet, so we move beyond the electrical battery metaphor and into a magnet one.)
In the electrical schema: for the Big-Brain output (physical action) must equal input (sensory stimulation). But if it meets resistance it ends up capturing more charge and so this upsets the balance circuitry all over again and so left to its own demise it’s locked into a never ending loop, like Sisyphus pushing the rock eternally up the hill. Thus the Big-Brain tends to hold back and this increases the voltage in the system because the little-brain isn’t getting its needed input. This is how emotion according to the principle of conductivity compels action. Meanwhile, for the little-brain, input (ingestion) must equal output (output being Big-Brain nerve energy) and so unlike the Big Brain it craves movement rather than stasis. When stimulated the l-b will furiously churn and demand input. But it just can’t take in any input, the l-b is limited in its own way because this input must be digestible; it can’t ingest things arbitrarily (we’re talking about a highly evolved digestive system that can only process that which can be processed, it can’t generate new bio-chemical approaches to an input as can the immune system or the sense of smell, in other words whatever it ingests must be conductive) just to satisfy the constitutional problem of the overall organism, although dogs try their darndest by eating grass, rocks, socks, sticks, shoes, TV remote controllers, not to mention self-mutilation.
In a fundamental way the emotional “electrical” battery solves this basic conundrum. When a peak state of intensity is reached, the emotional battery as energy reserve must kick in because it’s reached its holding capacity and so outlets a brief spike of energy, (the individual feels the uprising of the physical cog along the 1st Primal Pathway, gut/spinal cord) and this brief outburst can scare the object of resistance and compel it to move and thus make it conform to the principle of emotional conductivity, i.e. emotion’s desire for motion. (For example, the cat stalks and then pounces on the motionless mouse once it gets close enough to a critical distance, even though the stationary mouse isn’t acting emotionally conductive. Another example of this is an antelope “stotting” as a means of dissipating its battery when it’s attracted to a lion but obviously can’t connect with it. By punching the ground with its front feet it’s dissipating the drive to make contact which given the charge of a lion has pushed the antelope well over its holding capacity.)
But I immediately have to add that it is more than just an energy reserve, the emotional battery is also a source of information in terms of a specific physical memory that is summoned to the surface of awareness at that peak of intensity so that in a critical moment it can supply the memory of a preyful aspect and now the organism is given permission to release energy because the inhibiting agent is now perceived for a brief instant as a preyful aspect. (The cat perceives the motionlessness of the mouse, as a vibration, and in fact the mouse is actually quivering given how wired it is, and as an incipient flight movement.) We can see this exact physical memory being imprinted in infant pups when they begin to stalk and pounce on an unsuspecting litter mate that’s just trying to stand in one spot. Because the little pups are such pure embodiments of temperament, any tiny quiver is perceived as a significant degree of movement that does indeed elicit the principle of emotional conductivity.
Xezlec: ”And if you connect some conductive path (wire) between the two, the electrons will zoom from the higher pressure to the lower pressure, through that path. The bigger the pressure difference (voltage), the faster they will whiz through the path. The rate that the electrons zip through that path is called the “current”, and is measured in Amperes. So current through a path is proportional to voltage.”
KB: When the prey/predator roles are clearly differentiated between the two beings the principle of emotional conductivity is fulfilled and the energy runs at high “amperage” between the virtual circuit between them to resolve the charge.
LCK: “So unresolved emotions would have to be stored in something more like a reservoir. That’s why electricity works for describing the nervous system (which runs on it), and emotions are more properly (at least in my view) described through fluid dynamics. There are parallels — both water and electricity are said to flow in “currents” — but like water, emotions are more tangible. (Remember, the brain can’t feel anything.)”
KB: What I’m trying to articulate in my limited way, is that because of the principle of emotional conductivity, what starts out as gravity, and then a simple fluid dynamic, and then a simple electrical battery, then goes on to evolve into more and more sophisticated kinds of electromagnetic dynamics, nuclear fusion and even quantum mechanics. This is why the fluid model of emotion hasn’t succeeded in psychology because the range is too limited to account for the infinite variety of expression of emotion and feelings, and diversity across cultures. In my model there is only one emotion, a virtual force of attraction due to displacement of the body/mind, just like gravity. But then as a current connecting the front-end-to-the-hind-end, just like water it has three states, fluid (pure emotion as a current), solid (unresolved emotion as physical memory) and gaseous (resolved emotion as an ephemeral state of contentedness when unresolved emotion is resolved). E – – > UE – – > RE is how emotion via the organism as an emotional battery, and according to the principle of emotional conductivity, can fulfill its network function of turning energy into information by evolving through all forces of nature. It’s akin for example to how the industrial age began by harnessing water to turn potential energy into mechanical energy in order to turn waterwheels and grist wheels, and then to turn turbines in electromagnetic generators. (Apparently the evolution of consciousness bypassed the nuclear fission phase.) That’s exactly what happens in the evolution of consciousness including nuclear fusion and quantum mechanics.(The e-cog facilitates the fusion of external objects and beings into the organism’s sense of its “Self” or nucleus.)
Note that a feeling of self-satisfaction is not easily transmittable through time or from person to person, and that it is virtually impossible to transfer a state of bliss to someone else, whereas a state of stress is easily transmittable through time and it is easy to make someone anxious, or jealous, envious etc.. Note that one doesn’t wake up at 3 in the morning blissed out, but rather stressed out. This is because we are first and foremost designed to be carriers of an emotional charge that makes us feel incomplete and disconnected. Our thoughts then race to find a source of this stress so that we can take action to find a connection and drain our “juices.” Interestingly when a battery is drained we say it has no juice.
Finally, because stress is so easy to transmit, it is therefore easy to relieve a person from stress so as to help them feel more positive about a situation then to actually help them achieve a true state of bliss. This is a virtual form of giving them energy. They feel energized by the words of someone consoling them but that person didn’t actually give them any real energy, rather the person shifted their perception by which their reserve of stored unresolved emotion was converted into a sense of release.
So a virtual static-electricity between two individuals, who haven’t yet differentiated so as to induce the principle of emotional conductivity in the other, is perceived of as pressure, and this is the compressed file of information that is then internalized as physical memory, or an emotional charge, registered in the emotional battery according to intensity. It’s not that electrons have been compressed, it’s that a voltage has been impressed between the two brains, and which I believe has very real physiological and neurological consequences, that only by connecting with the source of that charge, or something of the exact same intensity value, can reduce the voltage.
Feelings then are the projection of emotional mass that has accrued around the physical c-o-g, onto objects of attraction, in order to define a midpoint and recreate a wave function. Through this synchronization process the balance circuitry is subsumed into a pure tuning device, which I believe then synchronizes heartbeats between individuals so entangled. Ultimately through the resulting emotional bond unresolved emotion can thus be resolved. No animal is an island.
I’ve taken the following schema of a battery and below each passage of explanatory text have written in italics my translation of its mechanics into my emotional model. The link has a simple rendition of a battery.
http://www.qrg.northwestern.edu/projects/vss/docs/Power/2-how-do-batteries-work.html
How do batteries work? Electricity, as you probably already know, is the flow of electrons through a conductive path like a wire. This path is called a circuit.
In the Emotional Battery the circuit is the behavior that can conduct energy so as to connect with object of attraction and so as to reduce the charge to neutral. But in behavior, the circuit must constantly be refreshed with new energy so that it can reliably repeat itself.
Batteries have three parts, an anode (-), a cathode (+), and the electrolyte. The cathode and anode (the positive and negative sides at either end of a traditional battery) are hooked up to an electrical circuit.
In the Emotional Battery: the Cathode is the Big-Brain-in-the-head which can be charged by external stimuli, the Anode is the little-brain-in-the-gut that receives these “electrons,” the electrolytes are the cells in the body.
The chemical reaction in the battery causes a build up of electrons at the anode. This results in an electrical difference between the anode and the cathode. You can think of this difference as an unstable build-up of the electrons. The electrons want to rearrange themselves to get rid of this difference. But they do this in a certain way. Electrons repel each other and try to go to a place with fewer electrons.
In the Emotional Battery, displacement of the body/mind by external stimuli causes neurological and physiological activity that arouses the hunger circuitry, just as if there is a concentration of electrons at the anode so that the organism craves an environmental input in order to ground out this charge. This we experience as butterflies, morbid dread, in addition to hunger itself, and so on deep in our gut.
In a battery, the only place to go is to the cathode. But, the electrolyte keeps the electrons from going straight from the anode to the cathode within the battery.
Because cells burn energy they demand nourishment and this prevents the Emotional Battery from being self-neutralizing. It must interact with the environment to receive input. In other words, cells don’t metabolize to provide energy to the muscles as their primary function. Rather their primary function is to serve as electrolytes by burning energy to create an energy deficit which then implements the phenomenon of a virtual Emotional Battery by not allowing the organism to dissipate the charge through its own on/board mental activity. It must move, i.e. create an emotional circuit with another being.
When the circuit is closed (a wire connects the cathode and the anode) the electrons will be able to get to the cathode. In the picture above, the electrons go through the wire, lighting the light bulb along the way. This is one way of describing how electrical potential causes electrons to flow through the circuit.
In the Emotional Battery if the action that’s being expressed is moving in conformance with the principle of emotional conductivity so that a preyful essence is being perceived and absorbed by the organism, then it’s just as if its front-end-is-connected-to-its-hind-end and virtual electrons are flowing through the behavior as a virtual circuit. Ultimately when the wavelength is strong enough, there is a collapse of an electrical current into a magnetic field that collapses into an electrical current which then collapses into a magnetic field. In other words, just as a light wave self-propagates. This is what we’re seeing when we observe two dogs flipping polarity at will and developing an unbreakable emotional bond.
However, these electrochemical processes change the chemicals in anode and cathode to make them stop supplying electrons. So there is a limited amount of power available in a battery.
Because the Emotional Battery evolved to solve the problem of entropy, when the Emotional Battery is returned to neutral so that the individual feels complete, the interaction has also generated information, i.e. a wave form with its emotional counterbalance. Therefore the Emotional Battery can also be likened to a computer because when two beings encounter each other and since they have the same emotional problem to solve, the Emotional Battery is able to transcend this limited schema of a simple electrical battery and evolves into the basis of an electromagnetic dynamo so that when one individual moves in an emotionally conductive manner, it induces new energy in its counterbalance. Ultimately becoming emotionally entangled with another emotional being turns two Emotional Batteries into two cells of one Emotional Battery thus recharging the system in terms of a heightened state of complexity. In other words, raw energy has been turned into information and now this unified battery is charged anew and affiliated beings need to seek higher paths of resistance to overcome.
When you recharge a battery, you change the direction of the flow of electrons using another power source, such as solar panels. The electrochemical processes happen in reverse, and the anode and cathode are restored to their original state and can again provide full power.
Simply by being conscious and stimulated, the Emotional Battery will become recharged and the animal perceives this as becoming incomplete. And then when animals flip polarity, they reverse the electro-chemical flow of the cells as electrolytes. This is the process of emotosynthesis, capturing the energy of resistance and turning it into information, just as photosynthesis in plants turns the energy of the sun into matter. And just as photosynthesis makes life on earth possible emotosynthesis makes intelligent life on earth possible.
A Final Note. If it wasn’t for the the Emotional Battery and the principle of emotional conductivity, then animals would not be able to be conditioned because the body becomes partitioned into a positive and negative end, and then the e-cog moves around the memory of p-cog in the body along these regions and in specific ways, as if it’s travelling along circuits of more/less resistance. This virtual flow of energy through the animal body/mind as emoitonal battery becomes as reliable as water coursing through a riverbed, thus animals attune to their bodies and reliably repeat behaviors that led to them feeling good, and avoid that which makes them feel “bad.”
Also, there’s no real circuit connecting dog A to dog B, it’s just that A becomes the cathode to B as anode, this can flip in another emotional context, and so they each become the means for resolving the constitutional state of conflict they render in the other until ultimately they fuse into one battery, and set out to magnetize others in terms of this nuclear fusion.
Kevin, I have another question I hope you can get around to answering (in your ‘spare’ time! lol): Why do some dogs seem to ‘guard’ their owner/handler from interference from other dogs? My sister asked the question and I don’t have a good answer. One of her dogs, Sophie a golden, will block the other dogs from coming over to her for a pet. She’s not aggressive to them, she’ll just try to keep them away. It looks like jealousy but I’m sure there must be another answer. Diva does this with the boys; trying to block them from me or one of her ‘pets’ (kids she loves). What do you see as what’s really going on in this scenario?
When a dog associates its owner’s attention with its sense of connection, then when the owner diverts their attention, the dog feels cut off from its source. This is by the way the number one source of aggression these days, and a host of other problems. To put it in the starkest terms. a dog that is hooked on attention is like a drug addict, the owner is like the dealer, and then interlopers become blockages in the supply which is why the dog tries to squeeze them out when energy of attention is being exchanged. This is a pack instinct rather than group energy.
Just curious what your take would be on this behavior (log post on the IWC):
“We have a Working for Wolves program next weekend and the wolf that has the biggest issue is Shadow. He will bark howl if he feels his area is threatened. I have been watching this closely trying to figure out the triggers for this behavior. Last fall, he was fine on Friday and Saturday, but wouldn’t tolerant anything on Sunday. So, we thought maybe it was length of time, but when I have had student workers from Vermilion Community College, he seems to tolerant them better than our Working for Wolves groups. The only difference I can see is that the student’s are involved in their own conversations, are relaxed and joking amongst themselves. They don’t take pictures of the wolves, they don’t talk to them, they don’t even look at them. So, it appears that if you are just there and not directing attention at Shadow, he doesn’t respond in a territorial nature. So, if you are on the Working for Wolves crew next weekend, we’re going to test this theory.”
I know it has something to do with being the ‘object of attraction’ but can’t seem to follow it through….
Cameras are eyes to an animal (focused energy that reflects emotional projection back at wolf) and you’re right that it makes the wolf feel like it is the object-of-attention, with tension being heightened as a result. The howling shows the yearning/attraction component but fear keeps it blocked. So it isn’t a territorial motive, what we call territoriality is a strong attraction blocked by fear, and the dog needs a safe familiar place to be able to express its state of attraction, hence when it’s on familiar ground it looks like it’s defending a territory as if it is aware of its domain relative to an interloper, and this will serve to keep animals spaced apart, but it’s an error to think that the animal is thinking about maintaining a territory. Because wolves are so much more blocked by fear than dogs, these instincts are triggered and so it looks like the dog is missing them because it doesn’t act like a wolf when running feral. But they’re still in there it’s just that the dog’s emotional capacity is higher and so can respond in real time to novelty via the core emotional code (which is source of social) without being limited by instinct. When the students are occupied with tasks, the wolf can feel attraction to strangers more clearly.
I’m in the habit of posting comments regarding wolf behaviors in NDT terms; I figure it’s good practice for me and it might strike a responsive cord with some of the wolf care staff, ya never know! This one I couldn’t follow-through on, though so I do appreciate the clarification. The fear component makes sense to me; I see it in Diva, especially, in novel/new situations or objects (and my mom’s Sibe, Sister). Bodie is much less likely to display fear of new things/situations. More often it’s curiosity, perhaps caution. Duncan will often show more fear than Bodie of new objects/situations but even then it’s not as extreme as Diva.
Personally, I’m looking forward to the time when that “fear of man” is removed from all things wild and we can enjoy a closer connection with them.
So then, barking would represent blocked attraction? Or would that depend on where the bark emanates from, head/gut?
BTW…do you feel there is an inherent danger in using the pushing exercise with wolfdogs? Some have expressed concern that it could trigger their “wild” genes and not in a good way. I don’t necessarily agree with that, although I do recognize that one would proceed with caution until you get a real “feel” for how it works with them, which would require working with a number of wolfdogs of varying content over a span of time. The idea of working with NDT methods in this area is exciting to me and I see the possibility of great results. This is where my dream waits for me….
Barking is blocked attraction, but, if the dog feels grounded into object of attraction, then the bark originates from the deep gut while being focused in the heart and now the dog is able to hold back without getting a charge because it can feel potential energy. In other words it’s in sync with what it’s attracted to.
I don’t think there’s a risk with wolf/dogs as the more you develop the dog, the safer one would be. But the emotional capacity of wolves is more limited so I believe we should never lose sight of the line that divides us, in other words, don’t follow a need to connect, rather search for the commonality of Will and Spirit while admiring from afar. Timothy Treadwell didn’t respect that line because of a need and that’s what got him.
I don’t have any interest in applying NDT methods with wolves as I’m quite happy and content to admire from afar. However, wolfdogs are of our making. I have one by happenstance not intent, which is what has fired my interest. I would never have gone there otherwise. So I guess I’m unclear as to what your meaning is in this cryptic comment “…don’t follow a need to connect, rather search for the commonality of Will and Spirit while admiring from afar.”
I feel we have an accountability and responsibility to these animals. And who is Timothy Treadwell?
Okay, so now I know the story of Timothy Treadwell. I have no such aspirations! Don’t want to go live with the bears (or wolves or any wild life for that matter). Although I used to threaten to as a child and would pack my bags and walk up and down our street while my mother watched and laughed (not in derision).
I also have no interest in imitating Shaun Ellis (honestly, I think he’s a bit of a nut-job). I’ll have to recheck YDIYM on the Will/Spirit thing; I remember reading about it but not the essence. Too bad there’s not a word/subject index for easy searching!
Besides, I’m just not that brave…and I DO NOT like getting bit!!
The main thing is to gain awareness more than needing to connect with the Spirit of the wild. Our heart is wild and so we’re already connected, what would be good to do is to think, speak and act from the heart. So if you have a wolf/dog, the goal would be to maximize the dog and minimize the wolf. Whatever can’t be trained, is just to be admired as we would do with a cat.
That much is easy! There is much about Diva that I love and am in awe of – all the things that set her apart from the dogs (I see similar traits in Sister). Those are the things that I wouldn’t even think of altering; those two girls are unique and I have always felt connected with them, that’s what drew me to them. At least, that’s how it feels to me. I’ve always felt that Diva embodies my wild heart and carries it with her. Sometimes I wonder if that’s why she came to me…to show me the way back to my wild heart (I think I lost touch with it a long time ago). I don’t think of it so much as a need but as a great big desire…it’s what I want and I just can’t get there fast enough.
I have learned (or realized) that it’s not about the training for me; I used to think it was. I realize more clearly now that I don’t want the “perfect” dog, just the dogs that I love. I guess I just am not really “feeling” the connection. From my earliest memories I’ve always acted/spoken from the heart, without the thinking part; that is what has always gotten me into trouble and it’s also why I carry the label of ADHD (and I wouldn’t change that for anything; it’s just who I am and I love that part of me — just need to learn to dial it down and reign it in when appropriate).
I suppose all that is just my long-winded way of saying that I’m working on the awareness part…it’s a hard-scrabble to be sure!
btw re Timothy Treadwell
cannot recommend Grizzly Bear
werner herzog is a goof
and the whole goofy story of tt just compounds that…
saw about 5 minutes of it and gave it back to the rabbits