GeniesLoki

In the same way that there is an anger -> rage transition from "I will fight you" to "I will fight you and I want it to hurt you" there is a hatred -> loathing transition from "I do not want this in my presence" to "This should not exist".

There is a very strong visceral felt sense of "AAAH KILL IT WITH FIRE" you get when you encounter a target of loathing. The desire to annihilate.

What's interesting with both of these transitions is that in some sense the stronger emotion is just the weaker emotion but more so. Rage is just more anger, loathing is just more hatred. But it crosses a threshold where the response changes and this in turn changes the feeling.

You get this with positive emotions too I think. Love is "just" liking but you do it lots, but at some point the quality of the emotion changes in a way that saying "I love you" is more than "I like you a lot" because you've crossed that threshold.

I often think of emotions as dispositional: They are (or include) a felt sense that you are predisposed towards a particular class of actions or attitude towards the world. e.g. liking something means you are inclined towards more of it in your life.

(That's not literally true, it's possible to like something and not want to do it again, but it gestures vaguely in the direction of truth)

I think often this kind of threshold arises as a kind of felt sense of inevitability to that disposition. At normal levels you feel like "I would prefer something to be done" but at some point you cross over to "the natural order demands that something be done".