The ferociously pro-reason philosopher Ayn Rand says: "Emotions are not tools of cognition." But they are. Not scientific or exact tools, but lightning-quick, profound, often-strong, and important ones.
However rational you are, you should almost always partially trust your instincts or your gut. You should pay close attention to these subconscious feelings, test them on a continuous basis, and try to remember how often – and in what senses – these vague but powerful impressions prove to be true, or at least helpful. When it comes to determining the nature of reality, and what actions to undertake, rational calculation alone isn’t enough.
Your gut or "lizard brain" is highly suggestive and can often tell you a lot as to whether you’re on the right or wrong path in your thinking and behavior. It can often indicate whether triumph or disaster looms. These subconscious emotions and impressions can and should somewhat guide you. They’re important supplements and compliments to logical evaluation.
Emotions and gut reactions are useful and sometimes invaluable guides to what to do next, how, and why; as well as what to think about, how, and why. Hence, despite what Ayn Rand claims, emotions are formidable and crucial tools of cognition.
Someone called Dupran Davidson made these comments yesterday on MeWe:
ReplyDelete"I have a lot to say about this. Emotions are true. They are true reactions, fully aligned with a concept I call our Inner Book of Law. Emotions are not true to actuality, they don't align with what's actually there. They align with each individual's idea of what should be there. Basically as we grow and gain information we build a stockpile of "important" agreements. These agreements determine our reactions, if the agreements are satisfied then we are happy, if not then we will generate a different emotion. Anger occurs when we believe we can change a situation, sadness occurs when we believe we cannot. Thats basic, of course we could make a study of this if we wanted to.
This makes them perfect tools of cognition, as you say, because they provide us an insight into whoever we are dealing with. It also naturally reveals the power of Stoic persons, they are protecting this information.
Mostly, I try to use this as an internal tool, a personal check. If your internal Book of Law is poorly written (and they almost all are) then your emotions are going to be disruptive, and nonproductive. However, the emotion is inexorably tied to the agreement that makes it, and therefore we can trace a "bad" emotion to its root and potentially rewrite it.
There's so much potential in emotions for self-discovery. The problem is that there is great potential for disruptions when we think emotions align with actuality, and this seems to be the default belief. I think we should discuss this more."
Mr. Davidson is exactly right that this is a big subject in need of further discussion.
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