Comments on: Make Better Decisions By Being Emotional http://www.manasclerk.com/blog/2009/07/27/make-decisions-emotionally/ Because the killer app is us. Sun, 05 Feb 2012 06:16:07 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Forrest Christian http://www.manasclerk.com/blog/2009/07/27/make-decisions-emotionally/#comment-29548 Forrest Christian Tue, 28 Jul 2009 21:49:35 +0000 http://www.manasclerk.com/blog/?p=991#comment-29548 I will be adding to this. The research is pretty thick, even for me. One of the key researchers really was a guy I knew at university, so I'm hoping to get him to do an interview for the podcast soon. It's definitely what you say -- pattern recognition -- but it also seems to be basic decisiveness. Someone completely rational, when told to sign a paper and given both blue and black pens, will argue with himself for hours over which one is the right choice to sign with. I know this because the research has been done on someone whose emotional parts have been damaged. It's really freaky if you were raised on Spock: completely "rational" people are not normal. I think there's something here about why the rise of rationalism has been so dangerous. Related is Andrew Sullivan's recent take <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2009/07/are-the-new-atheists-really-rational/198481/" rel="nofollow">Are the "New Atheists" Really Rational? »</a>: "I agree that the “new atheists” see their mission as advancing reason. But I think this self-conception can abet self-delusion, making it easier for them to be blind to their own lapses of reason." Warren Kinston has said something similar about the topic in an email recently, albeit more learnedly and in the Taxonomy of Human Endeavour. I'm pretty sure that people advocating rationalism, including Rationalist faith-proponents, are people to pity. Rational thought is necessary but we can't be entirely led by it, any more than you can be entirely led by your passions. So I guess I'm saying, yeah, I needed to explain this better and I'm not doing a good job of that here :) I will be adding to this. The research is pretty thick, even for me. One of the key researchers really was a guy I knew at university, so I’m hoping to get him to do an interview for the podcast soon.

It’s definitely what you say — pattern recognition — but it also seems to be basic decisiveness. Someone completely rational, when told to sign a paper and given both blue and black pens, will argue with himself for hours over which one is the right choice to sign with. I know this because the research has been done on someone whose emotional parts have been damaged.

It’s really freaky if you were raised on Spock: completely “rational” people are not normal. I think there’s something here about why the rise of rationalism has been so dangerous.

Related is Andrew Sullivan’s recent take Are the “New Atheists” Really Rational? »: “I agree that the “new atheists” see their mission as advancing reason. But I think this self-conception can abet self-delusion, making it easier for them to be blind to their own lapses of reason.”

Warren Kinston has said something similar about the topic in an email recently, albeit more learnedly and in the Taxonomy of Human Endeavour.

I’m pretty sure that people advocating rationalism, including Rationalist faith-proponents, are people to pity. Rational thought is necessary but we can’t be entirely led by it, any more than you can be entirely led by your passions.

So I guess I’m saying, yeah, I needed to explain this better and I’m not doing a good job of that here :)

]]> By: Alicia Parr http://www.manasclerk.com/blog/2009/07/27/make-decisions-emotionally/#comment-29547 Alicia Parr Tue, 28 Jul 2009 14:29:27 +0000 http://www.manasclerk.com/blog/?p=991#comment-29547 I'm tracking with you on this. Humans make decisions influenced by 100's of things outside of awareness then rationalize post hoc. Then we believe our stories. There's perfectly sound, self-preserveing and adaptive reasons for doing so, although it means living in a world of created meaning that is inevitably different than the created meaning of other individuals. All kinds of communication problems result. Having said that, I have a comment about the support for your main message of the post -- that it's better to involve emotional and bodily response in decisions. While I agree with you wholeheartedly, I don't feel you've fully presented your case as to why that's true. You do describe the inadequacy of relying on pure logic/rationalization, but don't really flesh out why also using bodily response and emotion improve decision-making quality. My thoughts on the matter are that bodily respones/emotion is a highly complex system adapted to respond quickly to familiar-seeming patterns of variables by bypassing the prefrontal lobe and thereby making the process "not conscious". Or something like that. Look forward to reading your thoughts on the matter. I’m tracking with you on this. Humans make decisions influenced by 100′s of things outside of awareness then rationalize post hoc. Then we believe our stories.

There’s perfectly sound, self-preserveing and adaptive reasons for doing so, although it means living in a world of created meaning that is inevitably different than the created meaning of other individuals. All kinds of communication problems result.

Having said that, I have a comment about the support for your main message of the post — that it’s better to involve emotional and bodily response in decisions. While I agree with you wholeheartedly, I don’t feel you’ve fully presented your case as to why that’s true. You do describe the inadequacy of relying on pure logic/rationalization, but don’t really flesh out why also using bodily response and emotion improve decision-making quality.

My thoughts on the matter are that bodily respones/emotion is a highly complex system adapted to respond quickly to familiar-seeming patterns of variables by bypassing the prefrontal lobe and thereby making the process “not conscious”. Or something like that. Look forward to reading your thoughts on the matter.

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