Emotions are a powerful force; much more so than it is given credit for. It doesn’t matter what type: love or hate, joy or anguish... They all have a life of their own.
It's lack of sentience is a godsend, but what would happen if this force decided to congregate and cooperate, directed by a darker and more amibitious mind rather than by survival instinct?
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"Although it has never been observed or theorized; whenever a pony dies, its emotions leak out into the air, unknown and unseen to the rest of pony-kind. Without a mind to focus them and a body to contain their essence they begin to lose cohesion. Ultimately, the energy composing them is bound to fleetingly dissipate."
I should inform you sir or madam that your prelude has a philosophical-linguistic fallacy. You seem to grasp the dualistic or possibly even the triune theories, but you do not have a firm grasp on the concept of what you wrongly call emotions. In order to show you this, let me describe the triune theory. Unlike the dualist theory, which I believe you are referencing, the triune theory claims that the form of a human (but of course for the purposes of this fanfiction, we are humanizing ponies) is made up of three persons.
The first of these person is the body. The body, unlike the other two parts, has the ability to feel emotions. These emotions are feelings such as happiness or sadness. The body is important because it has the ability to alter the physical world.
The second person is the soul, or as you term it, "the mind." The soul is contained within the body, and cannot alter the physical world. Inside the soul is contained a myriad of tumultuous thoughts and memories, which must be ordered and given form (or "focused" as you call it) by the power of words. You seem to understand this somewhat as you said these "emotions" must be focused. Know that the soul cannot process emotion, only thought. Hence, the soul is important because of its capacity for reason. The body cannot reason, and the other person would be hard pressed to do so without the guidance of the soul. These two parts compose what is called the dualist theory: that humans (and here, also ponies) have two parts that make up their form.
Yet the triune theory asserts that mortals have one more, significant person that makes them up. That other part is called the spirit, which is contained within the soul. Like the soul, without a body, it cannot hope to alter the physical world. It controls the soul, which controls the body. Now the spirit is extremely important for humans because unlike the previous two parts, it has the capacity to process higher concepts such as objective morality.
Now, understanding this, I can correct your fallacy. The body cannot process these ideas which you are calling emotions (Hatred, compassion, joy, and most incorrectly labelled love). This can be seen in animals who have no spirit: They cannot fathom what it means to love, or what it means to truly understand hatred. These cannot be felt. Thus, these cannot be emotions. However, they do have souls as science shows that they have an ability to reason, even though that ability is far less than that of a human's. Only the spirit has the capacity to understand these ideas, which should more properly be called concepts rather than emotions. In addition, an emotion cannot have essence. An emotion is simply an electrical impulse which the brain interprets. A concept, however, does have an essence since it is an entity. Thus, even If you reject the triune theory, you still cannot say that emotions have essence. As I continue to read, I find more and more that you are speaking of concepts because you give them traits of entities (notably having a will).
Furthermore, you cannot easily say that an entity is made up (or "composed" as you term it) of energy. Your assumption that this energy somehow disappears is also a violation of the defined and accepted laws of thermodynamics. Although that is an interesting theory, it appears that your claim is undefended, and I remain skeptical.
Wonderful work regardless of a misunderstanding.
250669
Heh, interesting read. Brings be back a year or two to philosophy class (and to some extent physics classes, though these were never my forte)
Isn't what you're refering to that thing plato (or was it Socrates? mhh...) defended with there being a body, reason and passion that had to be in equilibrium for society to function? (Well, not exactly, since we're not reasoning in terms of society, but there's definitely a little something there)
Thermodynamics, of course, you're right about. I'm kind of ashamed about it too, it's a fairly basic concept that brings me back some five years back? Now that you point it out, I remember it, and I could have easily circonvented the problem with a little thought.
I'll be honest with you, though. The fact is, I got the idea three days into the competition and I was hard-pressed to finish it in time with enough slack to cross-read it sufficiently and smooth out the rough edges. I'd have researched in the philosophy/hard fact behind the base concept that sprouted the whole text more if I had had more time.
Nonetheless, I'm glad you took time to point it out and give me some food for thought, it's much appreciated ^^
And I'm glad you enjoyed my work too :)
295186
Ah, what I described to you in that comment was a compilation of my speculations based upon my previous knowledge, the Bible's mention of the triune theory (not defining it that is to say), some influence from Frank Peretti, and a quote from the movie V is for Vandetta. However upon my reading of an introduction to Aritsotle's Metaphysics, I am astounded to find how similar his conclusions were to mine which had not been pre-exposed to his beliefs. Again, thanks you for your work once more. It, coupled with your comments, have truly proved beneficial .
299761
Always a pleasure to be helpful!
Oh and yeah, Aristotle, Initially I was going to put him as the alternate to plato but then I switched to Socrates for some reason >.>"
My classics are hurting a bit, really, I should go over them...
I'd do it too, if I wasn't stuck in Brent Week's prose up to my arse.
Well, good night to thee, sir/madam.
250669 seriously, are you part of the Q continuum or something? 0_o
If you're not, here. Have a Stone of Ephemeral Eyes.