Rethinking Emotions

Comment of mine from my blog relevant to this topic:

Question: why is it that logic is automatically of more value than emotion? Is it valid to use logic to determine that (even assuming you could)?

My response:

Both logic and emotion are subjective, but logic is more objective than emotion, and therefore, more reliable. Logic in and of itself is technically objective, it is pure as an abstract system, but because we are beings “tainted” with emotion, when we attempt to utilise logic we infuse our emotion into our logic contaminating it with subjectivity and thus agenda, which leads to fallacy. That’s why in fields of scientific research, objectivity, neutrality and impartiality are of the highest intellectual priority. Of course, due to politics and how funding is used to control what gets researched and for what agenda, this isn’t the case, but in a idealised world where funding was not economically weaponised as it is, this would be the way research worked. Whilst the free market dictates to academia, academia will pander to the needs of corporations to get funding. Whilst the government dictates a specific ideological dogma to academia (eg: multiculturalism, feminism, egalitarianism etc) then academia will set out to conduct studies which support rather than disagree with these views in order to secure funding.

Emotion is not reliable or predictable, logic, to a large degree, is. Not all logic is the same, there are many kinds of logic, and philosophers have attempted to dissect the different kinds of logic (inductive, deductive, logical fallacies etc) even though there are internal elements affecting it, it’s extrinsic in nature. Emotion on the other hand is simply whatever one feels in the moment. Emotion is primal, an animal instinct. Logic is a function of higher-thinking. A dog, for example, cannot logic as well as a human, because it lacks the higher reasoning capacity. Dogs operate almost entirely on instinct which acts off reaction to stimulus controlled by a biologically selected-for hard-wired system of morality, eg: “don’t steal my food, don’t hurt my puppies etc.” Outside of that, a dog has zero to minimal system of thought. If they did, they could invent like humans do. In that regard logic outside “primal logic” aka “instinct” or “the logic of instinct” is unique to humans, particularly men, and it’s logic which allows for the very platform we communicate on now and the high civilization we enjoy today. No amount of emotion in the world will create a civilization. Logic could, without emotion, “just to see.” Although one could certainly argue you may need to eradicate all emotions except curiosity to give logic the kick in the ass it needs to conduct experiments at all.

Emotion is fleeting and intrinsic. Emotion is useful in regulated doses to a degree, but in a way far different from logic. It’s not that emotion isn’t useful, but that it is less useful. Emotion is also far more dangerous than logic because it has a higher capacity to psychologically incapacitate somebody. Emotion drives people to logic in detrimental ways that bring about suicide, crime, self-harm etc. Logic without emotion leads to similar outcomes with far less frequency. There is very little one can learn about the world with emotion alone. Emotion normally acts as a trigger for logic and gives logic an agenda or purpose. The problems arise when there is far too much emotion and not enough logic (and this is common, particularly with women, who seem to lack emotional discipline.) It’s important to conserve a productive ratio of logic-to-emotion. Whatever that ratio may be, I am unsure of – perhaps it is something that warrants more research by the academic community.

Logic relies on observable facts and chains of reasoning which can be demonstrated. Evidence is a proof, which is a form of logic. Mathematics is a man-made system of symbols used to represent the logic of quantity. Anything that extrinsically supports the premise of another needs logic to do so. You cannot emote that a gun with a bullet missing was used to kill a person, you use deductive reasoning and probability to deduce that, which are forms of logic. When you see the gun and you emote, you feel curiosity (which may activate logic as a trigger emotion) or you may feel fear (stay away from that gun!) but emotion in and of itself won’t help you solve a mystery. Mystery is simply the absence of rational explanation. Mystery is an emotional word. If you translate mystery from “emotive” to “logical” you end up with the word inconclusive.

Emotion commands how you feel/your state of being and occasionally causes you to behave in ways which may or may not benefit you. For example: if most men acted on the aggressive impulses they feel, they’d all be locked up. Emotion, at times, must be suppressed/channelled/redirected to be used productively. Men tend to be better at this, although are far from perfect at it (they are human after all) women comparatively appear less disciplined in controlling their emotions and tend to have involuntary outbursts in far more marked frequency.

Emotion can be useful, but it is also far more volatile and harmful for the individual. Emotion is like nuclear energy, very powerful, but if you lose containment it fucks everything up. Logic is more akin to renewable energy, it tends not to harm anybody and if it did, it would do so very slowly over a long period of time, probably via the development of a non-pragmatic ideology which actualises a very specific chain of reasoning and creates a narrative around said reasoning to bring about a cult of logically demonstrable beliefs (one could argue that this is what the red pill philosophy is.)

The logical equivalent of depression is “analysis paralysis.” In so much that both cause you to do nothing or become unproductive. The equivalent of negative emotions would be faulty logic, but even if we look purely at positive emotions vs. productive/helpful logic, it becomes apparent that logic has far more application than emotion. Emotion’s highest function is creating a state of happiness. Logic’s highest function is understanding, discovery and systemising. Emotion can’t build civilization. It can give you a reason to build civilization, but it’s the wrong tool for creation, it can’t create anything alone, it needs logic to create anything worthwhile. I could go on for ages, there are a vast multitude of reasons for why logic is superior to emotion, and emotion is superior to logic in some ways too, but holistically speaking on the whole – logic wins. I think men personally prefer logic because they value reliability, stability and what is measurable. Men like to be able to understand and measure things. Men like problem solving. Women tend not to obsess or really even care so much about such things. The majority of women adopt a much simpler approach to life. If it feels good, it’s good (even if it’s morally bad or logically foolish) and if it feels bad, it’s bad (even if it’s morally or logically intelligent.) Again, morality is a system of rational psychological governance to instil order in a species that is made inherently chaotic due to the ferocity of emotion. As for rationalisation, that’s emotion in logic’s clothing. It’s pseudo-logic, emotion using logic to justify itself.

Empiricist philosophy (the basis for the scientific method) can elucidate and give a far more comprehensive view of the kind of ideas I’m trying to communicate. Check out this Wikipedia page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empiricism