Theory of Emotion
The Building an Equation section of the site is complete! Granted, it is only a condensed version of the content, but it covers most of the important things. I will come back and model schadenfreude in August, and possibly pick a few other emotions to map out as well. For now though, I am taking a break from updating till August.
Now that summer has rolled around and I have more free time, it is time to get on the ball with things. Before modeling schadenfreude though, I thought it would be best to briefly describe the functions from my book. So I have added a new section to the website called Building an Equation. The link is on the home page, under the tab “What Is Affect Engineering?” tab, or you could just click the first picture under the slider. It will take a number of posts and some time to present everything more succinctly than the 700+ pages in the book, so some patience will be required.
New ideas always seem to come after I have finished something. I had forgotten about schadenfreude (satisfaction or pleasure at someone else’s misfortune) up until recently. I used the term malevolence as a substitute for it in my book, but it would have been nice if I had mentioned it. I’ll do a series of posts explaining how to model it.
Another idea that came too late for me to add the book regards salience, specifically the choice of a specific action among others. Basically, it would hold that whatever valuation possesses the most salience (e.g., highest or is anticipated to be the highest) at the time of a deadline for action would be acted upon. I suppose it could be intuited from it, but oh well.
Brace yourselves!
So, this month I finished chapters 5 and 6 (out of 120 planned) of the epic poem that has consumed my attention for a good number of years. I may end up calling them something else as time goes on, as chapter is very prosy sounding. Maybe I will call them fugues, who knows yet. I will likely think it my greatest achievement when I finish, but my latest product always tends to feel like a magnum opus, so I guess I am biased. However, I have noticed something over the years.
For better or worse, the things that irritate me the most evoke my creativity and inner muse. I am finding it impossible to shake the notion that complacency is the sworn enemy of all artistic endeavors. What else could drive people to go the lengths they do in order to share a sentiment, a thought, or a vision? With six out of a hundred twenty chapters complete, that must mean I have achieved five percent vexation.
There is so much to be upset with in the world though, that the other ninety-five percent should be easy to find.
I have done some careful planning on the idea of an epic comic (epic poem + comic strip) and come to the conclusion that one will have to come after the other. A comic strip on the scale that I am looking to do (a maximum of 10,000 panels) would require somewhere between ten to twenty volumes, given the physical limitations that printed book can have.
Phase one will be to finish writing the epic poem (a maximum of 10,000 lines of verse). My target for this is to have it complete before I turn 31 (my next prime birthday). Certainly feasible, given that everything is set up for it, including Affect Engineering.
Phase two will be the comic strip illustration aspect that incorporates the epic poem. Making it available as a web-comic would seem to be the logical route to go before the next prime birthday (37).
Thirty lines of verse and then five illustrated panels per day. They both seem within reach.
Famous last words . . .
