Monday, March 15, 2010
Reason Comes From Emotion?
The article by Dr. Richard van de Lagemaat was about how emotions provide us with a reason for doing everything we do. Emotions give us goals, give us directions and priorities. He said that those who do not have emotions are those who are completely indifferent. Without emotions we would have no reason to live or die. No reason to learn or think. We do not want. He believes that those we consider without emotion, completely rational beings with logical thinking, are simply those in control of their emotions. This poses an interesting question. Is emotion the motivation or reason to do everything we do? I guess in some way, what we do, even our most primal instincts, are based on things that feel good. Eating feels good, drinking feels good, being healthy feels good, etc. While being sick feels bad, thirsty feels bad, hungry feels bad... So in someway, our emotions are directing our way of thinking to believe that what we do is important if it feels good. If it feels good, it is necessary for our bodies. There are a few exceptions of course, but that is mostly because our instincts have not developed to the same capacity and the range of substances and things we have become adapted to. We (in primal times) were unable to really take good things in excess. Now that we have access to the things that we enjoy, we sometimes take things too far and that leads to things being bad for us. But if we were a the more prehistoric lifestyles, we would not have such access and would not be to an access. I personally agree that emotions are important to life, and that if we control some of our more wayward and unnecessary emotions in order to not do things we do not want to do or think completely irrationally because we want to do something, then that is the best form of emotions. I also think that emotions are INCREDIBLY difficult to control, and if you take the effort and have the ability to control such complex emotions to think about things rationally before acting, that is the perfect balance and you should be commended for your efforts.
Emotions Final Essay
Emotions are detrimental to the human race because of five reasons (although this is actually not my belief).
The first reason is because they make people make stupid decisions that sometimes lead to ruin because they are swayed by emotion. A person will sometimes sacrifice millions of innocent lives to save one person who may not be particularly good because they are important to that person, simply because their emotions are tied to a particular person and are therefore choose selfishly. This causes problems with doing the logical things, as people will do what they feel like doing, rather than what is reasonable.
The second reason is because people allow emotions to affect how they see other people and react to those people. Many a conflict was started because someone felt negatively towards that person from something they said or seemed like, which would lead to them acting with bias and sometimes starting wars simply to get ‘revenge’. Conflicts lead to death and people getting hurt, and therefore are simply selfish acts, because the only people who enjoy conflicts (for a time) are those triggering them.
The third reason is the different things that are caused by emotions, such as the 7 deadly sins; greed, lust, gluttony, wrath, sloth, pride, and envy. All of these ‘sins’ are caused by negative emotions and selfishness. We want to feel better so we go into an access something in order to feel those good emotions and end up causing more problems with that. You could assume that selfishness is caused by emotion, because by wanting to feel better or feel good emotions, you will try to do stuff just for you. Selfishness itself is the root of many problems such as but not exclusive to, the 7 deadly sins.
The fourth reason is that emotion is unnecessary for life. If you remove emotions from the way you think and act, you are still thinking and acting. You are only being entirely logical rather than using emotions as an excuse to alter your thinking. Without emotions, humans can function properly and effectively. In fact, efficiency will increase because people will not become bored, tired, or lazy. You can get a lot more done in life without emotions and it will still be possible to live.
The fifth reason is that emotions are sometimes negative and can lead people to lose their ability to properly think because of things like depression, stress and extreme anger. People allow negative emotions to sway their behaviors. In fact, people will sometimes allow negative emotions to end their lives, which is completely irrational and wrong. Suicide because you are depressed should be removed from possibilities and if people are without emotion, they will not do such drastic things. In fact, they wouldn’t have need to, because they would never feel sad again. You would never have to feel depressed because something went wrong in your life and stressed because you had a lot to do. IT would make people more rational and less de-motivated.
Although this is not my true belief, these are reasons to perhaps why people would believe that emotions are not necessary or we would be better off without them, like the leader in the film “Equilibrium”.
The first reason is because they make people make stupid decisions that sometimes lead to ruin because they are swayed by emotion. A person will sometimes sacrifice millions of innocent lives to save one person who may not be particularly good because they are important to that person, simply because their emotions are tied to a particular person and are therefore choose selfishly. This causes problems with doing the logical things, as people will do what they feel like doing, rather than what is reasonable.
The second reason is because people allow emotions to affect how they see other people and react to those people. Many a conflict was started because someone felt negatively towards that person from something they said or seemed like, which would lead to them acting with bias and sometimes starting wars simply to get ‘revenge’. Conflicts lead to death and people getting hurt, and therefore are simply selfish acts, because the only people who enjoy conflicts (for a time) are those triggering them.
The third reason is the different things that are caused by emotions, such as the 7 deadly sins; greed, lust, gluttony, wrath, sloth, pride, and envy. All of these ‘sins’ are caused by negative emotions and selfishness. We want to feel better so we go into an access something in order to feel those good emotions and end up causing more problems with that. You could assume that selfishness is caused by emotion, because by wanting to feel better or feel good emotions, you will try to do stuff just for you. Selfishness itself is the root of many problems such as but not exclusive to, the 7 deadly sins.
The fourth reason is that emotion is unnecessary for life. If you remove emotions from the way you think and act, you are still thinking and acting. You are only being entirely logical rather than using emotions as an excuse to alter your thinking. Without emotions, humans can function properly and effectively. In fact, efficiency will increase because people will not become bored, tired, or lazy. You can get a lot more done in life without emotions and it will still be possible to live.
The fifth reason is that emotions are sometimes negative and can lead people to lose their ability to properly think because of things like depression, stress and extreme anger. People allow negative emotions to sway their behaviors. In fact, people will sometimes allow negative emotions to end their lives, which is completely irrational and wrong. Suicide because you are depressed should be removed from possibilities and if people are without emotion, they will not do such drastic things. In fact, they wouldn’t have need to, because they would never feel sad again. You would never have to feel depressed because something went wrong in your life and stressed because you had a lot to do. IT would make people more rational and less de-motivated.
Although this is not my true belief, these are reasons to perhaps why people would believe that emotions are not necessary or we would be better off without them, like the leader in the film “Equilibrium”.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Dating Data
This article was about a 47-year old woman with autism. She writes about her experiences with support from studies on autism. She mentions several times that those who are autistic often have trouble understanding emotions. This causes a contrast to the fact that most of our actions are indirectly effected by our feelings. She looked at every experience in her life as an observer, a logical perspective on her actions rather than a person who has little idea of what they are REALLY thinking.
I consider myself as a fairly logical person, I feel that I think about my actions before I do something and analyze things around me level-headedly. But that does not exempt me from emotions. Often I am ruled by my emotions, and am only able to look at it impartially after the event. I find this rather annoying :) simply because it is uncomfortable for me to have no control over myself. Nonetheless, I have accepted my emotions as a part of who I am and rather than try to hide or prevent them, I spend more time trying to understand them. That way I know why I am doing something or feeling something, rather than trying to stop myself without knowing why. I think that those with autism must have to spend a lot of time doing that as well, but instead of trying to understand their own emotions, they have to understand everyone else's. To me that is one of the hardest things to do, simply because you usually don't have enough information to really know what a person is thinking. In that way I can sympathise with those with autism. To be completely logical in a world where everyone around you is ruled by complex emotions you cannot understand, I find that to be something truly difficult, but I think that we should all try to understand eachother better like those with autism have to. This is because I think that everyone has a reason for feeling some way, and if we can understand that, we can understand the person much better, which will help us know truly how we feel about that person and what type of person that really is. I think that we should look inward as well, because knowing yourself is probably the most important thing we can hope to achieve in our lives.
I consider myself as a fairly logical person, I feel that I think about my actions before I do something and analyze things around me level-headedly. But that does not exempt me from emotions. Often I am ruled by my emotions, and am only able to look at it impartially after the event. I find this rather annoying :) simply because it is uncomfortable for me to have no control over myself. Nonetheless, I have accepted my emotions as a part of who I am and rather than try to hide or prevent them, I spend more time trying to understand them. That way I know why I am doing something or feeling something, rather than trying to stop myself without knowing why. I think that those with autism must have to spend a lot of time doing that as well, but instead of trying to understand their own emotions, they have to understand everyone else's. To me that is one of the hardest things to do, simply because you usually don't have enough information to really know what a person is thinking. In that way I can sympathise with those with autism. To be completely logical in a world where everyone around you is ruled by complex emotions you cannot understand, I find that to be something truly difficult, but I think that we should all try to understand eachother better like those with autism have to. This is because I think that everyone has a reason for feeling some way, and if we can understand that, we can understand the person much better, which will help us know truly how we feel about that person and what type of person that really is. I think that we should look inward as well, because knowing yourself is probably the most important thing we can hope to achieve in our lives.
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