The primacy of emotion over reason

[aporia]

From G. K. Chesterton’s essay “The Ethics of Elfland” http://www.chosunjournal.com/ethics.html (please read as much of this astounding essay as you can, but at least this):

These are my ultimate attitudes towards life; the soils for the seeds of doctrine. These in some dark way I thought before I could write, and felt before I could think: that we may proceed more easily afterwards, I will roughly recapitulate them now. I felt in my bones; first, that the world does not explain itself. It may be a miracle with a supernatural explanation; it may be a conjuring trick, with a natural explanation. But the explanation of the conjuring trick, if it is to satisfy me, will have to be better than the natural explanations I have heard. The thing is magic, true or false. Second, I came to feel as if magic must have a meaning, and meaning must have some one to mean it. There was something personal in the world, as in a work of art; whatever it meant it meant violently. Third, I thought this purpose beautiful in its old design, in spite of its defects, such as dragons. Fourth, that the proper form of thanks to it is some form of humility and restraint: we should thank God for beer and Burgundy by not drinking too much of them. We owed, also, an obedience to whatever made us. And last, and strangest, there had come into my mind a vague and vast impression that in some way all good was a remnant to be stored and held sacred out of some primordial ruin. Man had saved his good as Crusoe saved his goods: he had saved them from a wreck. All this I felt and the age gave me no encouragement to feel it. And all this time I had not even thought of Christian theology.

I wonder how people react to this approach towards developing a philosophy of life. Perhaps some do not identify with the five “feelings” Chesterton describes here. Perhaps some identify with the feelings but hesitate to take them as personal beliefs, as the basis for a personal philosophy on life.

I hesitate myself. I say “so what if it seems like the universe is a work of art, designed by a loving creator? It could still be the case that the universe simply is without explanation, regardless of your feelings. So don’t trust your feelings because you might be wrong, and that would be terrible. Best to stick only with what you know.”

The problem is, we don’t really know anything of significance. All I can say that I know right now is that I’m perceiving many things and thinking about these many things in terms of many categories (color, shape, size, letter, language, etc.) Do I really know if there is a computer screen in front of me? No, it could be an illusion, and no amount of science can eliminate that doubt. All I know about are perceptions. Even my idea that there is a sequence of perceptions ordered by something called “time” could be incorrect, because this idea relies on a perception which I call memory, and could be just as unreliable as the perception of a computer screen in front of me. My only undeniable, undoubtable knowledge is that of my current perceptions.

Given this immense poverty of knowledge, how can I decide how I will live, or what I will choose to do? The answer begins to emerge even from how I have asked the question: I have assumed that there is such a thing as “I” which can “choose” how to “act”, whatever all that means. I’ve assumed these things because my heart tells me to do so. I have no rational defense for these assumptions; it’s purely emotional and pre-rational. Someone could argue to me that I’d be better off not making those assumptions and I’d have no answer, except “listen to your heart; that’s what I do” (to quote the wise Napoleon Dynamite).

To understand why the heart is so important, ask yourself the following question: will you kill yourself right now? If so or if not, why? I think that there is no rational way to defend the decision either way. There are infinitely many and varied possibilities that killing yourself might bring – some you might consider desirable, some undesirable, some neutral. Perhaps by killing yourself you go to eternal torment, or perhaps to heaven. Perhaps by failing to kill yourself right now you eventually go to heaven, or perhaps to eternal torment. Perhaps it doesn’t matter in either case. Perhaps (after Nietzsche) you will live out your decision infinitely many times after this, or perhaps you will live out whatever decision you did not make infinitely times after this. And so on and so on ad nauseam. Clearly in the rational analysis of outcomes and pros vs. cons, there is an unbreakable tie here. But not in real life. In real life you choose one way or the other, and not based on reason but based on emotion. You follow your heart with ABSOLUTELY NO REASON OR JUSTIFICATION WHATSOEVER.

Now if such a momentous decision as suicide is decided without any reason or justification, can any of the mundane actions of our lives be considered truly rational or justified? Aren’t we all just following our emotions, our hearts, from moment to moment, using reason only as a handmaiden to whatever the heart seeks? I would say yes, everything we do (even using reason) we do because we’re following our emotions (which we DO know because we perceive/feel them, and perceptions/feelings are the little that we do know in life).

So if all I’m doing is following my heart and my emotions from moment to moment, how do I decide when I have conflicting emotions about something? For example, killing someone, or following a certain religion, or eating something fattening. Do I just try to feel out which emotion is the deepest, strongest, most essential to who I am? What am I doing?

And if you share Chesterton’s feelings above, is that enough of a basis for following those feelings by believing in a personal God or some such thing?

[Igor]

You follow your heart with ABSOLUTELY NO REASON OR JUSTIFICATION WHATSOEVER.

greetingth aporia igor liked the essay, and thankth you for putting it up. igor have thome thougtth about following your heart:

what are emotions…? i think that just as we have direct physical/sensation based reflexes (the hotplate reflex for example) that exist as hardwired neural loops within us, so we have behavioral loops dealing with indirect sensory input, remnants of our less rational heritage if you like. it is not that there is no reason/justification going on behind emotional responses, only that it is an earlier, hardwired, antiquated process of reasoning/justification.

emotions are evolutions ‘reasoning’ processes exposed, not based on an individual life or short time-scales - but adaptive responses to enviromental stimuli formed across a multitude of generations over uncountable millenia on a species-wide level.

just as a tennis player does not have to wait to see the served ball before he positions his/her body to return it - so our ancestors could not afford the time to wait and rationally process certain external stimuli, the presence of a threat - the ursurpment of position within the pack - the theft of a mate etc… etc… emotions are a relic of our animal past, where problems were not so much of an abstract nature, but of an instant - react or suffer - red in tooth and claw type.

our emotons trip us up in our increasingly subtle existances, as emotion by its very nature must see and react instantly - and only to the most superficial surface of events - to the most meagre of information - any slower and its usefulness would have been voided. in these complex days - perhaps emotions are not to be trusted…?

how does the saying go…? if you can keep a cool head whilst all those around you are losing theirs, you have already won half the battle…

emotions are an appendix, a gift or curse from the beast dwelling within our modern shaved and manicured shells. enriching and enticing - but increasingly a handicap to our ‘higher’ selves.

it is funny that the base emotional response to a cold-hearted, purely rational person is repugnance and distrust… is it fear or envy pulling the puppet-strings… who knows…?

igor brain hurt, igor need rest. igor wait for reply.

[someoneisatthedoor]

Dear Aporia,

Thanks for posting this and your thoughts on it, and please don’t take my comments as flippant

@aporia

From G. K. Chesterton’s essay “The Ethics of Elfland” http://www.chosunjournal.com/ethics.html (please read as much of this astounding essay as you can, but at least this):

These are my ultimate attitudes towards life; the soils for the seeds of doctrine. These in some dark way I thought before I could write, and felt before I could think: that we may proceed more easily afterwards, I will roughly recapitulate them now. I felt in my bones; first, that the world does not explain itself. It may be a miracle with a supernatural explanation; it may be a conjuring trick, with a natural explanation. But the explanation of the conjuring trick, if it is to satisfy me, will have to be better than the natural explanations I have heard. The thing is magic, true or false. Second, I came to feel as if magic must have a meaning, and meaning must have some one to mean it. There was something personal in the world, as in a work of art; whatever it meant it meant violently. Third, I thought this purpose beautiful in its old design, in spite of its defects, such as dragons. Fourth, that the proper form of thanks to it is some form of humility and restraint: we should thank God for beer and Burgundy by not drinking too much of them. We owed, also, an obedience to whatever made us. And last, and strangest, there had come into my mind a vague and vast impression that in some way all good was a remnant to be stored and held sacred out of some primordial ruin. Man had saved his good as Crusoe saved his goods: he had saved them from a wreck. All this I felt and the age gave me no encouragement to feel it. And all this time I had not even thought of Christian theology.

I wonder how people react to this approach towards developing a philosophy of life. Perhaps some do not identify with the five “feelings” Chesterton describes here. Perhaps some identify with the feelings but hesitate to take them as personal beliefs, as the basis for a personal philosophy on life.

I hesitate myself. I say "so what if it seems like the universe is a work of art, designed by a loving creator? It could still be the case that the universe simply is without explanation, regardless of your feelings.

It depends on what sort of explanation you find satisfactory.

So don’t trust your feelings because you might be wrong, and that would be terrible. Best to stick only with what you know."

The problem is, we don’t really know anything of significance.

It depends on what you mean by ‘really’. If you have a pragmatic definition of the real then you ‘really know’ lots of things. If you apply a standard you expect to fail then you are going to be disappointed.

All I can say that I know right now is that I’m perceiving many things and thinking about these many things in terms of many categories (color, shape, size, letter, language, etc.) Do I really know if there is a computer screen in front of me? No, it could be an illusion, and no amount of science can eliminate that doubt.

But even adopting the position that you don’t know there is a computer screen there is applying a standard, but one that is intended to fail. It depends on what you mean by ‘illusion’. There could be no real, no illusion, only appearance. Since there is only appearance, you ‘know’ (in a practical sense) everything that appears, no matter how contradictory or transient.

All I know about are perceptions.

Kind of, or at least you don’t know whether or not there is anything else. You might occasionally not have a perception, you might have the actual thing (in itself, or otherwise) but you just couldn’t know whether you had it or not.

Even my idea that there is a sequence of perceptions ordered by something called “time” could be incorrect, because this idea relies on a perception which I call memory, and could be just as unreliable as the perception of a computer screen in front of me. My only undeniable, undoubtable knowledge is that of my current perceptions.

If you only have perceptions then truth is perception, or truth is a perception. You seem to feel that only having perceptions, or appearances, whatever, is somehow a lacking of knowledge, an absence of knowledge. But if you only have perceptions, what is lacking? What else is there?

Do you see what I’m driving at?

Given this immense poverty of knowledge, how can I decide how I will live, or what I will choose to do?

In the absence of absolute truths (which don’t exist, only the appearance of them does, or so it seems) just use something non-absolute. I don’t really get why this bothers you, though I’m open to you trying to explain it.

The answer begins to emerge even from how I have asked the question: I have assumed that there is such a thing as “I” which can “choose” how to “act”, whatever all that means. I’ve assumed these things because my heart tells me to do so. I have no rational defense for these assumptions; it’s purely emotional and pre-rational.

No, it can be rational as well, but the rational is simply another way of perceiving, it is just another set of feelings, whatever. Or, if you have a practical meaning for ‘rational’ this is how you see it.

Someone could argue to me that I’d be better off not making those assumptions and I’d have no answer, except “listen to your heart; that’s what I do” (to quote the wise Napoleon Dynamite).

Or just don’t aim so high you know you’ll fail. Don’t apply a standard unsuited to the task.

To understand why the heart is so important, ask yourself the following question: will you kill yourself right now? If so or if not, why? I think that there is no rational way to defend the decision either way.

Depends on what you mean by ‘rational’. If your rationality defends the proposition that life is worth something then you’ve got your answer.

There are infinitely many and varied possibilities that killing yourself might bring – some you might consider desirable, some undesirable, some neutral. Perhaps by killing yourself you go to eternal torment, or perhaps to heaven. Perhaps by failing to kill yourself right now you eventually go to heaven, or perhaps to eternal torment. Perhaps it doesn’t matter in either case. Perhaps (after Nietzsche) you will live out your decision infinitely many times after this, or perhaps you will live out whatever decision you did not make infinitely times after this. And so on and so on ad nauseam. Clearly in the rational analysis of outcomes and pros vs. cons, there is an unbreakable tie here. But not in real life. In real life you choose one way or the other, and not based on reason but based on emotion. You follow your heart with ABSOLUTELY NO REASON OR JUSTIFICATION WHATSOEVER.

No, you have any number of reasons or justifications, just no absolute standard by which to compare them all simultaneously. Can you see the difference?

Now if such a momentous decision as suicide is decided without any reason or justification, can any of the mundane actions of our lives be considered truly rational or justified? Aren’t we all just following our emotions, our hearts, from moment to moment, using reason only as a handmaiden to whatever the heart seeks? I would say yes, everything we do (even using reason) we do because we’re following our emotions (which we DO know because we perceive/feel them, and perceptions/feelings are the little that we do know in life).

So if all I’m doing is following my heart and my emotions from moment to moment, how do I decide when I have conflicting emotions about something? For example, killing someone, or following a certain religion, or eating something fattening. Do I just try to feel out which emotion is the deepest, strongest, most essential to who I am? What am I doing?

No, because the ‘deep’ the ‘strong’ the ‘essential’ are all just appearances like the rest.
[/quote]
And if you share Chesterton’s feelings above, is that enough of a basis for following those feelings by believing in a personal God or some such thing?
[/quote]

I think if you believe in a God then that God by definition is meant to be more than personal. I’m not sure what you mean here.

[aporia]

Thanks for responding someoneisatthedoor; I was just trying to get out a lot of thoughts that were swimming around in my head hoping that some of them could produce a meeting of minds here. I think this is at the heart of what I’m thinking about:

In the absence of absolute truths (which don’t exist, only the appearance of them does, or so it seems) just use something non-absolute. I don’t really get why this bothers you, though I’m open to you trying to explain it.

It doesn’t exactly bother me that I’m using “non-absolutes” to get by in life. I just wonder what’s the “best” way to go about picking your particular non-absolutes. It seems to me that we can choose our assumptions, choose the way we’ll look at the world. Choosing a worldview is difficult because when you do it, you don’t have a worldview at hand with which to choose your worldview. Or if you do, you can’t really tell how it’s influencing your decision process. So how do you pick your worldview?

I guess I’m thinking about worldviews because I’d like to have a theistic worldview. I feel that, as Chesterton says, “there is something personal in the world, as in a work of art; whatever it meant it meant violently”. I feel like this world suggests a loving creator very strongly. In particular, Christianity’s conception of a loving God makes a lot of sense to me (although the massacres in the old testament don’t). So I wonder if it’s “okay” or “best” for me to just believe in Christianity or some variant of it, even though I’m not really sure. And I wonder if there’s something better I should be looking for. I just don’t find my worldview right now very satisfying, it doesn’t seem like there’s much of a purpose for living. Not that I’m depressed or suicidal, just feeling kind of aimless.

Should I just pick an “aim” based on what feels right and go for it?

[someoneisatthedoor]

@aporia

Thanks for responding someoneisatthedoor; I was just trying to get out a lot of thoughts that were swimming around in my head hoping that some of them could produce a meeting of minds here. I think this is at the heart of what I’m thinking about:

In the absence of absolute truths (which don’t exist, only the appearance of them does, or so it seems) just use something non-absolute. I don’t really get why this bothers you, though I’m open to you trying to explain it.

It doesn’t exactly bother me that I’m using “non-absolutes” to get by in life. I just wonder what’s the “best” way to go about picking your particular non-absolutes.

Again, we can only assess the ‘best’ via non-absolute means, but this in itself doesn’t bother me. I think there are better and worse things to do, or say, or whatever, but these are very much contingent on the way the world appears right now. Had I been born 2 centuries ago I’d have different aims, and would prioritise differently.

It seems to me that we can choose our assumptions, choose the way we’ll look at the world.

I’m not sure, if we were entirely predetermined we’d probably still feel like it was ‘us’ choosing things simply because of how we experience time.

Choosing a worldview is difficult because when you do it, you don’t have a worldview at hand with which to choose your worldview. Or if you do, you can’t really tell how it’s influencing your decision process. So how do you pick your worldview?

I dislike the word ‘worldview’ but nevermind. What you do is pick a way of doing things and run with it, adapting it as necessary. Don’t be flippant, devote a bit of time to working out what is important and how to accomplish it, but don’t worry about questions such as ‘how do I know if this is really important?’. Such questions can’t be answered, because one is asking for something one knows one cannot get. So make a purely emotional issue of it, does it make you happy to think that what you are doing isn’t in any way important? Most people would say ‘no’. Does it make you happy to remain undecided as to the things importance? People are generally divided. Does it make you happy to believe it is important? Most people would say yes.

I guess I’m thinking about worldviews because I’d like to have a theistic worldview. I feel that, as Chesterton says, “there is something personal in the world, as in a work of art; whatever it meant it meant violently”. I feel like this world suggests a loving creator very strongly. In particular, Christianity’s conception of a loving God makes a lot of sense to me (although the massacres in the old testament don’t).

Plenty of ‘Christians’ have massacred but Christians on the whole agree killing isn’t something that should be done. One can choose to criticise Christianity for hypocrisy, or one can say it’s been taken out of context, or corrupted, to justify any number of non-Christian things.

So I wonder if it’s “okay” or “best” for me to just believe in Christianity or some variant of it, even though I’m not really sure. And I wonder if there’s something better I should be looking for. I just don’t find my worldview right now very satisfying, it doesn’t seem like there’s much of a purpose for living. Not that I’m depressed or suicidal, just feeling kind of aimless.

Sp stop drifting, stop worrying about these unanswerable questions and get on and enjoy life. I know how you feel because anyone who tries to think goes through periods of feeling unmotivated and sceptical, but the only answer is action. Next time you are screaming on a rollercoaster or striking a ball with a bat and running like a crazy person you’ll wonder why you ever questionned that life is meaningful, fun, eminently worth participating in.

Should I just pick an “aim” based on what feels right and go for it?

No, chase a dream which has different forms. Try to do something that can be accomplished in different ways, that way if you fail one way you can try another. You might never achieve it - I ask ‘so what?’

Existentialists have tended towards depression, particular the French. It’s a waste of time and solves nothing. I should take my own advice here because I tend towards depression as well, but I know it can always be overcome.

Best wishes

[someoneisatthedoor]

One other thought, which is basically what I’ve been saying all along

If we have no absolute standard (by which to judge whatever it is we’re trying to judge) then there is no good reason to question ‘truth is perception’ or however you want to phrase it.

This is one of Plato’s tricks in the Theatetus, a text I know well and refer to in almost all epistemological discussions. He wants to assert an absolute standard on knowledge, a metaphysical one, so he demonstrates that by such a standard ‘truth is perception’ fails on various counts. But he never explains or justifies why he is applying this metaphysical standard in the first place.

If you’ve read the text you’ll probably have noticed the same thing, if you haven’t I recommend it as an example of how not to write a philosophical dialogue.

I think Plato’s whole body of work is very comical, because he makes so many mistakes. I’m not sure if the academy is right in taking him so seriously, he could be writing very clever satires…

[Nick_A]

Hi aporia

So if all I’m doing is following my heart and my emotions from moment to moment, how do I decide when I have conflicting emotions about something? For example, killing someone, or following a certain religion, or eating something fattening. Do I just try to feel out which emotion is the deepest, strongest, most essential to who I am? What am I doing?

You raise the important question of emotional quality. Judging intellectual quality is easier. In mathematics, if the numbers don’t add up it is safe to say that the intellectual ability relating to math was lacking in quality. But what is the corresponding emotional test? We can increase our quality of associative intellect as in math, but how can we increase our capacity for emotional understanding? Many do not even recognize such a scale of emotional quality.

As I understand it, we lack any sort of growth in emotional quality from our lack of consciousness of self. We don’t know ourselves and without this knowledge, we cannot begin to appreciate emotional levels between what we are and what we are capable of. Consequently, emotions cannot provide what they can objectively for us and are limited by our acquired subjective negativity. Our conflicting emotions remain on the same level and serve for our self justification. Yet the real conflict of emotions occurs when we begin to experience feelings that originate from higher sources than our negativity. Such an experience inspires the goal of sacrificing our superficial emotions for the experience of the higher more meaningful ones similar to this enlightening experience. Now words like “belief” can take on completely new meanings since a qualitative scale of “belief” is revealed beyond the limits of self justification.