rethinking emotional

Philosophy Forums Psychology and Mind
1

It is my conclusion through some thinking that we are al emotional beings. although this is not ground braking i still see alot of people using the term “emotional person” to define a person who is easily persuaded by changing conditions around them.

i would like to show those who still use this term why it is largely incorrect.

First lets define emotion.

An emotion is a motivation to produce an action. In other words its a direction of thought or action that will be undertaken.

First one has to notice that it is imposible to undergo a thought process without a motivation to do so, because that would violate the the law of thermodynamics since any action including thinking is in itself a transfer of energy and as a result something most trigger it.

Therefore for any human being, animal or otherwise to think their most be an emotion, desire, trigger that initates that behaviour. saying thus, that someone is an emotional thinker is largely incorrect since it is describing all thinkers.

so i propose that we change the term from emotional thinker to a more accurate terminology.

however i am unable an unwilling to give them another terminology since their are an infite amount of differing conditions that define how a person behaves and what they think. so im open to ideas of how to define those who are deemed as “emotional thinkers.”

if you disagree you are more than welcome as well.

2

“Emotional thinker” was a polite way of saying, “Irrational behavior”.
Irrational behavior is a behavior notably lacking in forethought.
Emotionalism is what causes people to react before they give themselves time to think - Presumption; acting on immediate assumption, prejudice.

All human errors are born from Presumption.

So your other options are;

  1. Presumptuous
  2. Irrational
  3. Unthinking
  4. Moronic
  5. Foolish
  6. Prejudice

Or perhaps the more religious version;
7) Sinful

Are you sure that you want to abandon the one you had? :sunglasses:

3

Presumptions is good enough, however it then falls into the slipery slope of what is an absolute truth. Every observation is a presumption to an extent.

4

“Presumptuous” happened to be the one I chose most. But it doesn’t actually lead to that presumption of absolutes as you might think.
Presumptuousness merely means that you haven’t given yourself time to think through what knowledge/beliefs that you already had. It doesn’t mean that you are right or wrong. It refers to your own incomplete effort at utilizing whatever resources that you already had before acting.

When someone is not presumptuous, they might still often be wrong, but they can learn because they are considering the new information that someone might be giving them rather than ignoring everything due to “knee-jerk reactivity”, “over-emotionalism”, “over-sensitivity”, ranting, or passionate hatred.

5

i would guess that this is good enough.

6

Sometimes. James, when you say “presumption does not actually lead to absolutes, what do you mean by “actually”? Just because in ordinary language we usually use the word presumption specifically? But you may use the word specifically, as in the statement. “I presume you know that Jesus doesn’t have to come back again, because He never actually left”, but the hidden presumption is that you know I am familiar with the Resurrection as a metaphor?”. The word “actually” is the loaded word. Actuality implies potentiality. You have to understand what the potential meaning is (specific).
The specific meaning is inverse to its function. Jesus rising may be a metaphor, an indicator of an absolute impulsive jump, a metaphor which has an intended meaning. The original presumption is clouded by the fact that You, James, may or may not understand that this is a new presumption (a generally hidden one) upon the original presumption of God’s intent.(If it was a conscious intent) the problem of writing off irrational seemingly unintentional acts, is, that it looks irrational to whom, foolish to whom? It is an added pretension to think that everybody can presume to come to know, general concepts from specific usage. The reducing to specific propositions is thus not a “given”, it’s the other way around, general concepts are learned from specific usage, with the reservation, that this is a case of smoke and mirrors, General concepts are learned not by reference to them, but by the evolution , and disassociation of General concepts through specific usage.

The "knee jerk " analogy fits in here. Well, since assumed meanings imply general usage, it can not lead to presumption of absolutes, actually, because the verifiable of actuality can only be ascertained by another test of verifiable facts. So in stead of “actually” (which implies “necessarily” in mixing to types of argumentative styles. I would suggest using the words “may not necessarily” or “probably not”.

7

Therefore I would choose “unthinking” over “presumption” from the list. Presumption implies specific use, unthinking does not imply usage. It’s just a process, and its specificity or generalisation does not need further analysis.

8

Acting on presumption is acting on first thought. Thought is always at root in irrational acts.

9

I think I tend to agree, if I have read this right. Emotions underpin thinking. People who are calm and ‘rational’ are often afraid of emotions, but have them, underneath, guiding things.

Unemotional thinkers - those who consider others emotional thinkers in a pejorative sense - have generally just spent more time finding ‘logical’ and ‘rational’ jutifications for their emotion/thought arrived at conclusions. It’s a style difference and how they handle the post opinion-formation time.

10

That would depend on what you are calling “thought”.
“First thought” certainly doesn’t mean “considerate thought”. And generally means with no substantial forethought - “Presumption”.

The point and purpose of the cognitive process is to weigh the varied emotional impetuses such as to come to a balanced decision. Emotional thinking means that such a cognitive process was over-ridden (usually by habitual passion) and thus no governorship of the stronger emotion within comes into play. That lack of self-governing, self-control, is what is meant by “emotional thinker”.

Such people serve to keep insanity alive and help keep the population weak and helpless.

11

‘substantial’ to me adds little. People can write huge treatises and spend thousands of hours mulling while not writing and still end up with silly conclusions. Of course, this first thought need not be a considered one, but even if it is it can still be silly. People can also spend enormous amounts of time trying to justify their first thoughts, in fact I think this is more the rule - when considerable thought has gone into a position - than the exception.

I can imagine you will say that all this effort need not make their thinking substantial, but then, substantial seems to just end up meaning correct.

But my main point was that it is thought. And there is a good chance that even if that individual did not spend time coming up with that thought, someone else did - often for their own agendas and to justify their own first thoughts.

My point is certainly not that first thoughts are good ones - though I think one can get better at this and further I think some people start off good at this and have good heuristic devices for questioning their own inventory of first thoughts when needed.

My point is more that it is not an emotional problem. It still comes back to a thought problem.

Sure, though the emotions will affect that weighing.

Self-control is an unresolved stalemate where one part not in concert with another part (of the self) takes over as jailer/lecturer/restrainer, etc. So, if this is necessary, there is already a huge problem. And if it is seen as a final solution, the problem is permanent. That said, self-control is usually based on first thought thought systems based on guilt, societal mores, reactions to trauma (discrete or relation based played out over time), and common judgments of the self. There is no evading trusting the self and intuition, though one can create a facade that appears to control this, the facade itself built up on the very thing it fears.

I think as much of the problem, if not most, is created by people being taught to deny their first reactions to BS.

12

i would like to point out that a human being is not born knowing anything and this world is alien to him, no thought is right or wrong until a standard of evaluation is given to it, that standard could be anything depending on what is deemed most pleasurable. Thus whether a person takes alot of time to think or not does not mean that he will get the answer that he was looking for for the person is restricted to his prior knowledge. Aristoteles didnt know everything for example.

So presumptuos is still a good word to use since the person would thouroughly evaluate the information he has and give as jss says a more balanced response instead of just acting on its first urge. what the response is does not matter as long as its more balanced.

and i do agree thought is always present since it is an association which is intrinsical to any emotion.

13

I don’t think we are born as aliens. We have momentum. We can interpret the visual field. We general know to make eye contact with our mothers, if given the option. There’s more then and more unfolds from us, we are not blank slates.

I agree about the time investment and the possibility of not getting answers regardless.

  1. first responses can be balanced. And one can get better at this. In fact most experts, experienced whatever, have developed very good first responses. But then one can also be born with good first responses in certain areas. I happen to think we are often trained to discount our first responses, and this makes it seem like they are bad or out of balance. 2) sometimes we HAVE TO go on first response. 3) sometimes it is unneccesary to reason our way to a choice. Extreme example: while running it would be silly to reason out where to place our feet for each step. But this is also true for talking to others we like (or do not like) and all sorts of other situations. 4) We are so stifled, first reactions often seem like knee jerk responses. IOW responses with only part of us present, near unconscious. But this is because we are backed up and have so much self-distrust.

It’s hard, yes, presume without thought.

14

  1. aliens in that we “know nothing of it.” not that we are not designed for it. Balanced responses are a memory of a balanced thought process already undertaken, it is a way to make the brain more efficient, still at one point serious thought had to be put into it.

  2. that depends on what is more convenient to the being and comes back to my argument of not having enough knowledge.

  3. that is basically the same as number 2.

  4. too long to exaplain so ill leave it for another time. but i agree with what you are saying.

first responses are out of balanced since the brain can only focus on one information at a time, although they can change very quickly it is still one, so their is one thought but the consciousness does not have time to measure an opposite view since it takes time for the other view to come into effect.

also their needs to be a motivation for the thought to come into consciousness so it might be perceived fast or it might not.

By the way balanced refers to balanced within the knowledge that one has, that is independant of whether the outcome was convenient or not.