EPISTEMOLOGY PART 7: EMOTIONS
Yes, even Chuck Norris has emotions.
It should be made clear that even though this site is a philosophic approach that holds reason as an absolute, this does NOT mean it's anti-emotion or stoic, nor should anyone ever advocate suppressing, ignoring, or in any other way discounting human emotions. It should be apparent to everyone that emotions are essential to living our lives as humans. Without them it would be impossible to achieve things like happiness, love or fulfillment in our lives. There would be no desire, excitement, amazement, pride, sadness, anger, despair, horror, or anything else on the spectrum of human emotions. To state it differently, there would be no meaning to our life, and the rest of philosophy (ethics, politics, art) would be meaningless as well. Emotions make life worth living, but if not understood properly, they can lead us astray, and make life a confusing, miserable mess (or worse!).
NATURE OF EMOTIONS
To examine the nature of emotions, imagine 5 different men, each of whom wake up on the morning of their 40th birthday. The first guy has been heroically battling cancer for the last two years, and has recently overcome it and is cancer free. He wakes up with a feeling of triumphant joy and pride as he marks this momentous occasion. The second man is a devout follower of astrology and frequently seeks the advice of psychics. In his last visit to the local fortune teller he was told that the next year will bring hardships and sadness, and his horoscope also tells him to expect a major change in his life. He wakes up with a feeling of fear, uncertainty and uneasiness. The third man is a savage from the jungle. His tribe hasn't developed a calendar, and he has no idea it's his birthday. He wakes up indifferent and has no feeling about his birthday. The fourth guy had the love of his life, his wife, die on his birthday a year ago in a car accident. He wakes up to paralyzing grief. The fifth guy is a middle of the road US Congressman, a new up-and-comer who has recently been praised by both sides for helping to broker a deal on the latest debt ceiling. He wakes up to a familiar sense of emptiness, and a confusing pang of guilt and dread as he thinks about attending the gala in his honor being held later that evening.
Notice that each of these men were experiencing the same event (their 40th birthday), but each had a different emotional response. Clearly, turning 40 in itself doesn't cause a particular emotion, it depends on the concepts and value judgements a person holds, whether they be conscious or subconscious. An emotion is an automatic response to an object one perceives (or imagines). The object could be a person, an animal, a mountain, an event, or a thought. Whatever the object is, it's crucial to understand that it's not the object, but the mind's response to that object that creates the emotion.
There are four steps in the generation of an emotion: perception (or imagination), identification, evaluation, and response. Usually, it's only the first and last of these that are conscious to us. Once we've formed and integrated our concepts, our brain has the ability to identify and evaluate objects so quickly we don't know it's doing it. This makes it often appear to us as if emotions just happen instantaneously, or without causes. However, the reality is that all emotions have a cause, and it results from the thoughts and concepts we hold, whether conscious or not, in our minds. Think for a minute what would happen if you saw a man point a gun at you. Your brain perceives the object (man and gun), and almost instantly it processes your previously formed concept of gun (and all it entails) as well as man (and all it entails), and evaluates the two together as a really crappy situation! The emotional response is most likely fear. Now, imagine a caveman in the same situation. He hasn't formed a concept of "gun", and doesn't even know what metal or gunpowder is. It's hard to say what his emotional response would be, possibly curiosity or amazement, but clearly it would be different from ours.
To examine the nature of emotions, imagine 5 different men, each of whom wake up on the morning of their 40th birthday. The first guy has been heroically battling cancer for the last two years, and has recently overcome it and is cancer free. He wakes up with a feeling of triumphant joy and pride as he marks this momentous occasion. The second man is a devout follower of astrology and frequently seeks the advice of psychics. In his last visit to the local fortune teller he was told that the next year will bring hardships and sadness, and his horoscope also tells him to expect a major change in his life. He wakes up with a feeling of fear, uncertainty and uneasiness. The third man is a savage from the jungle. His tribe hasn't developed a calendar, and he has no idea it's his birthday. He wakes up indifferent and has no feeling about his birthday. The fourth guy had the love of his life, his wife, die on his birthday a year ago in a car accident. He wakes up to paralyzing grief. The fifth guy is a middle of the road US Congressman, a new up-and-comer who has recently been praised by both sides for helping to broker a deal on the latest debt ceiling. He wakes up to a familiar sense of emptiness, and a confusing pang of guilt and dread as he thinks about attending the gala in his honor being held later that evening.
Notice that each of these men were experiencing the same event (their 40th birthday), but each had a different emotional response. Clearly, turning 40 in itself doesn't cause a particular emotion, it depends on the concepts and value judgements a person holds, whether they be conscious or subconscious. An emotion is an automatic response to an object one perceives (or imagines). The object could be a person, an animal, a mountain, an event, or a thought. Whatever the object is, it's crucial to understand that it's not the object, but the mind's response to that object that creates the emotion.
There are four steps in the generation of an emotion: perception (or imagination), identification, evaluation, and response. Usually, it's only the first and last of these that are conscious to us. Once we've formed and integrated our concepts, our brain has the ability to identify and evaluate objects so quickly we don't know it's doing it. This makes it often appear to us as if emotions just happen instantaneously, or without causes. However, the reality is that all emotions have a cause, and it results from the thoughts and concepts we hold, whether conscious or not, in our minds. Think for a minute what would happen if you saw a man point a gun at you. Your brain perceives the object (man and gun), and almost instantly it processes your previously formed concept of gun (and all it entails) as well as man (and all it entails), and evaluates the two together as a really crappy situation! The emotional response is most likely fear. Now, imagine a caveman in the same situation. He hasn't formed a concept of "gun", and doesn't even know what metal or gunpowder is. It's hard to say what his emotional response would be, possibly curiosity or amazement, but clearly it would be different from ours.
EMOTIONS AND VALUE JUDGEMENTS
Everyone has value judgements, and they differ depending on the concepts and thoughts they have formed throughout their life. While we learn and store information in our heads consciously, once we learn something it's stored in our subconscious. We may or may not be aware of what's stored in our subconscious (most people aren't), but once it's there it will stay until we consciously change it. This is one purpose of therapy. Our subconscious is entirely capable of holding contradicting ideas without us even aware it's doing so. This is important to understand, as while we do have the ability to change our ideas and value judgements, we do NOT have the ability to change our emotions in a certain situation. Emotions are an automatic response based on our value judgements, and you have no more power to avoid feeling sadness when a loved one dies as you do to avoid feeling pain when a right cross is delivered to your face. Any attempts to repress or avoid your emotions are futile, harmful, and will lead to problems down the road. This is not for the study of philosophy, but for psychology, so we won't examine it here. Suffice it to say, an attempt to reject or suppress an emotion is ultimately an attempt to reject the content of your mind. (Note: it may be ok in certain social situations to hide emotions, just as long as you confront them privately.)
Emotions are not inexplicable demons or mysterious thunderbolts from beyond, although they will become that if you hold contradictions and don't explicitly identify the ideas in your head. If your friend is getting married and you feel anger or resentment instead of happiness, you need to examine your mind. Is it because his fiance is a raging lunatic, or because of how you've led your life? Ultimately, your emotions are based off of your view of philosophy and life, which is the main reason for creating this website. Most people haven't given but the slightest thought to philosophy, and if they have it's most likely due to their religion or a class they took in college which probably only filled their head with more confusion and contradictions. If you don't take time to integrate a philosophy that makes sense in your head explicitly, your subconscious will fill in the holes for you, and your resulting emotions will most likely seem confusing at times, or even terrifying and out of control. A person in control of their mind does not fear emotions nor their effects, but welcomes them as a validation of his mind and humanity.
Everyone has value judgements, and they differ depending on the concepts and thoughts they have formed throughout their life. While we learn and store information in our heads consciously, once we learn something it's stored in our subconscious. We may or may not be aware of what's stored in our subconscious (most people aren't), but once it's there it will stay until we consciously change it. This is one purpose of therapy. Our subconscious is entirely capable of holding contradicting ideas without us even aware it's doing so. This is important to understand, as while we do have the ability to change our ideas and value judgements, we do NOT have the ability to change our emotions in a certain situation. Emotions are an automatic response based on our value judgements, and you have no more power to avoid feeling sadness when a loved one dies as you do to avoid feeling pain when a right cross is delivered to your face. Any attempts to repress or avoid your emotions are futile, harmful, and will lead to problems down the road. This is not for the study of philosophy, but for psychology, so we won't examine it here. Suffice it to say, an attempt to reject or suppress an emotion is ultimately an attempt to reject the content of your mind. (Note: it may be ok in certain social situations to hide emotions, just as long as you confront them privately.)
Emotions are not inexplicable demons or mysterious thunderbolts from beyond, although they will become that if you hold contradictions and don't explicitly identify the ideas in your head. If your friend is getting married and you feel anger or resentment instead of happiness, you need to examine your mind. Is it because his fiance is a raging lunatic, or because of how you've led your life? Ultimately, your emotions are based off of your view of philosophy and life, which is the main reason for creating this website. Most people haven't given but the slightest thought to philosophy, and if they have it's most likely due to their religion or a class they took in college which probably only filled their head with more confusion and contradictions. If you don't take time to integrate a philosophy that makes sense in your head explicitly, your subconscious will fill in the holes for you, and your resulting emotions will most likely seem confusing at times, or even terrifying and out of control. A person in control of their mind does not fear emotions nor their effects, but welcomes them as a validation of his mind and humanity.
Plato: 429-347 B.C.
THE MIND-BODY "DICHOTOMY"
Emotions themselves are not right or wrong, they just are. It is your value judgements and ideas themselves that can be right or wrong. If you think of your brain like a computer (which it essentially is), then emotions are like printouts, a result of how the computer was programmed. A well-programmed computer will most likely function reliably and properly, while one that was programmed carelessly with random codes thrown in haphazardly will most likely spit out incomprehensible nonsense and possibly freeze and cease to operate. There's no reason for the rational mind and emotions to be at war with each other, in fact it's the opposite. The two should be in harmony with each other, and if the mind is programmed correctly, the resulting emotions should validate, not contradict the rational mind. This is in contrast to the prevailing philosophy throughout much of history, which originated way back with Plato and continued with the major religions, that described a "mind-body" or "reason-emotion" dichotomy.
Plato held that the body existed in this world, but the soul existed eternally and could gain truth and knowledge directly through supernatural means that aren't accessible by the body. As a result, there would always be a natural war between the soul and body, as the body was of this world and the soul was of the next. The body deals with earthly realities, and the soul deals with eternal ones. A more modern interpretation is that we have two minds, a rational and an emotional mind. This tells us that we can't only rely on reason for knowledge, because it contradicts the other part of our humanity, emotions. Reason may give us practical information about our world, but emotions are pure, other worldly, and can bring us to higher truths and knowledge than reason has the ability to. This gives rise to the idea that sometimes we have to follow our hearts, and other times our minds. If we only followed reason, we would be cruel, unfeeling robots. We must at times follow faith, emotion, intuition, whatever you call it, in order to be moral and to seek truth.
Philosophy in the epistemological realm eventually got divided primarily into two camps (both wrong!), the intrinsicists and the subjectivists. Intrinsicists hold that truth exists in an object itself, independent from our consciousness, and we have to tap into some higher power to understand it. Plato and Augustine are two examples of intrinsicists. Subjectivists hold that the truth of an object exists in our consciousness and that reality itself doesn't matter. Essentially, we can create our own reality and truth. Subjectivism includes philosophers like Kant and John Dewey. For the sake of your sanity and mine, that's all we'll get into about subjectivism and intrinsicism here, and just say that they're both wrong because they deny the axioms we learned in Metaphysics Part 1, and champion the primacy of consciousness (albeit in different ways).
In reality there is no mind-body dichotomy. The conflict only seems to arise when your mind holds conflicting ideas, or ideas that conflict with reality itself. The problem with the mind-body dichotomy is that it puts forth that concepts can be created without percepts, or in other words that concepts can be detached from reality. There is no basis for this, and it inevitably conflicts with the three axioms we learned in Metaphysics Part 1, as it violates the identity of consciousness, in particular. In order to accept the mind-body dichotomy, you have to leave the realm of the knowable and enter (and have faith in) the unknowable.
(Note: If the last two paragraphs made no sense to you, read Metaphysics 1 and 2 at a minimum!)
Emotions themselves are not right or wrong, they just are. It is your value judgements and ideas themselves that can be right or wrong. If you think of your brain like a computer (which it essentially is), then emotions are like printouts, a result of how the computer was programmed. A well-programmed computer will most likely function reliably and properly, while one that was programmed carelessly with random codes thrown in haphazardly will most likely spit out incomprehensible nonsense and possibly freeze and cease to operate. There's no reason for the rational mind and emotions to be at war with each other, in fact it's the opposite. The two should be in harmony with each other, and if the mind is programmed correctly, the resulting emotions should validate, not contradict the rational mind. This is in contrast to the prevailing philosophy throughout much of history, which originated way back with Plato and continued with the major religions, that described a "mind-body" or "reason-emotion" dichotomy.
Plato held that the body existed in this world, but the soul existed eternally and could gain truth and knowledge directly through supernatural means that aren't accessible by the body. As a result, there would always be a natural war between the soul and body, as the body was of this world and the soul was of the next. The body deals with earthly realities, and the soul deals with eternal ones. A more modern interpretation is that we have two minds, a rational and an emotional mind. This tells us that we can't only rely on reason for knowledge, because it contradicts the other part of our humanity, emotions. Reason may give us practical information about our world, but emotions are pure, other worldly, and can bring us to higher truths and knowledge than reason has the ability to. This gives rise to the idea that sometimes we have to follow our hearts, and other times our minds. If we only followed reason, we would be cruel, unfeeling robots. We must at times follow faith, emotion, intuition, whatever you call it, in order to be moral and to seek truth.
Philosophy in the epistemological realm eventually got divided primarily into two camps (both wrong!), the intrinsicists and the subjectivists. Intrinsicists hold that truth exists in an object itself, independent from our consciousness, and we have to tap into some higher power to understand it. Plato and Augustine are two examples of intrinsicists. Subjectivists hold that the truth of an object exists in our consciousness and that reality itself doesn't matter. Essentially, we can create our own reality and truth. Subjectivism includes philosophers like Kant and John Dewey. For the sake of your sanity and mine, that's all we'll get into about subjectivism and intrinsicism here, and just say that they're both wrong because they deny the axioms we learned in Metaphysics Part 1, and champion the primacy of consciousness (albeit in different ways).
In reality there is no mind-body dichotomy. The conflict only seems to arise when your mind holds conflicting ideas, or ideas that conflict with reality itself. The problem with the mind-body dichotomy is that it puts forth that concepts can be created without percepts, or in other words that concepts can be detached from reality. There is no basis for this, and it inevitably conflicts with the three axioms we learned in Metaphysics Part 1, as it violates the identity of consciousness, in particular. In order to accept the mind-body dichotomy, you have to leave the realm of the knowable and enter (and have faith in) the unknowable.
(Note: If the last two paragraphs made no sense to you, read Metaphysics 1 and 2 at a minimum!)
Hang in there, we're almost done.
Presumably how intuition works?
EMOTIONS ARE NOT A VALID SOURCE OF KNOWLEDGE
Emotions are not a valid source of knowledge! (just in case you didn't catch it!) Since they are based off of our previous concepts and ideas, they are not knowledge in themselves, although often they may give us signals that are worth examining through reason. There are no shortcuts to knowledge, as much as we might wish there to be. Any attempt to claim knowledge through emotions or feelings, whether it be called a sixth sense, intuition, extrasensory perception or divine revelation is a mistake. Saying, "It's true because I feel it's true" is not valid. What that's saying, is that you have a direct link to knowledge, which presumably means some sort of God or supreme consciousness that somehow uplinks their knowledge to you. This is advocating the primacy of consciousness viewpoint that was addressed in Metaphysics Part 2 as faulty. Remember, it's impossible for consciousness to exist without existence, as it would be conscious of nothing. If you are claiming knowledge through the supernatural or through emotions, you have left the realm of the knowable and gone into the unknowable. This cannot be called "knowledge", or at least not objective knowledge that could ever be verified. People may go down this road if they want, but it would be wise to reconsider. If you do go down that road, unfortunately you will surely have plenty of company in today's world!
Because our brains work so quickly, it often seems like we are getting knowledge through emotions and intuition. As pilots, we often say if something "feels" wrong, it probably is (they even tell us this in training). This is true, as I've personally had several times when a feeling swept over me while flying that alerted me to a potential danger. Does this mean I have a sixth sense and am tapped into some supernatural force looking out for me? No, it means that I have gained a lot of experience flying airplanes which is stored in my subconscious. Even without me being aware of it, my senses can pick up on things that seem unusual or dangerous and alert me to it via emotions. However, the emotion in itself doesn't mean anything. There are plenty of times where the feeling is unsubstantiated and doesn't translate to danger in reality. To figure out if the feeling is actually a sign of danger requires the use of reason to sort it out. A person who never flew before wouldn't have this same "power". They would have no "feeling" that something is wrong, except that everything might feel wrong because they have no idea what to do! Similarly, an attempt by me to use intuition trading stocks on Wall Street, or to follow my gut when a patient came into the ER with a mysterious illness would probably lead to disaster, since I have no experience or knowledge in these areas.
Emotions are not a valid source of knowledge! (just in case you didn't catch it!) Since they are based off of our previous concepts and ideas, they are not knowledge in themselves, although often they may give us signals that are worth examining through reason. There are no shortcuts to knowledge, as much as we might wish there to be. Any attempt to claim knowledge through emotions or feelings, whether it be called a sixth sense, intuition, extrasensory perception or divine revelation is a mistake. Saying, "It's true because I feel it's true" is not valid. What that's saying, is that you have a direct link to knowledge, which presumably means some sort of God or supreme consciousness that somehow uplinks their knowledge to you. This is advocating the primacy of consciousness viewpoint that was addressed in Metaphysics Part 2 as faulty. Remember, it's impossible for consciousness to exist without existence, as it would be conscious of nothing. If you are claiming knowledge through the supernatural or through emotions, you have left the realm of the knowable and gone into the unknowable. This cannot be called "knowledge", or at least not objective knowledge that could ever be verified. People may go down this road if they want, but it would be wise to reconsider. If you do go down that road, unfortunately you will surely have plenty of company in today's world!
Because our brains work so quickly, it often seems like we are getting knowledge through emotions and intuition. As pilots, we often say if something "feels" wrong, it probably is (they even tell us this in training). This is true, as I've personally had several times when a feeling swept over me while flying that alerted me to a potential danger. Does this mean I have a sixth sense and am tapped into some supernatural force looking out for me? No, it means that I have gained a lot of experience flying airplanes which is stored in my subconscious. Even without me being aware of it, my senses can pick up on things that seem unusual or dangerous and alert me to it via emotions. However, the emotion in itself doesn't mean anything. There are plenty of times where the feeling is unsubstantiated and doesn't translate to danger in reality. To figure out if the feeling is actually a sign of danger requires the use of reason to sort it out. A person who never flew before wouldn't have this same "power". They would have no "feeling" that something is wrong, except that everything might feel wrong because they have no idea what to do! Similarly, an attempt by me to use intuition trading stocks on Wall Street, or to follow my gut when a patient came into the ER with a mysterious illness would probably lead to disaster, since I have no experience or knowledge in these areas.
If knowledge can be claimed by emotional or supernatural means, then nothing can ever be objective. A suicide bomber's claim that God is on his side can be argued with an American soldier who claims God is on his side. Who is right, if anyone? What means do we have to decide if a claim or idea is correct or incorrect? The answer to that always has to be reason, as it's the only means of cognition that can be grounded in reality, and thus can form objective knowledge. Reason has to be the way humans deal with each other in order for civilization to progress. If two sides are both rational, they can always come to a mutual understanding or agreement without resorting to violence. If one or both sides are irrational, often violence or war is the only solution, and virtually all wars are fought because at least one side was irrational and operating on emotion, whether it be ancient Rome, the Crusades, Nazi Germany, or present day Palestine. When men stop dealing with each other through reason, the only other option to resolve a dispute is a gun. If a tiger charges you in the jungle you get ready to shoot it, because there is no way to reason with it. Similarly, when a person abandons reason, you can't deal with them as a human, but only as a jungle beast.
The next two posts will attempt to wrap up this area of philosophy and discuss different degrees of knowledge like possible, probable, certain and arbitrary.
The next two posts will attempt to wrap up this area of philosophy and discuss different degrees of knowledge like possible, probable, certain and arbitrary.