Sunday 18 May 2014
The Value of Emotion
Emotion can be seen as a hinderance to obtaining knowledge in a scientific manner through theories, laws and to achieve the ultimate goal of absolute truth. As we learned in the perception unit, our senses create our reality for us and therefore distorting it, making them unreliable as a way of knowing. The same goes for our emotions, they distort our perception which in turn distort the reality. This is a problem because reality/knowledge is not what is created for us through our senses/emotions but what is actually there. So therefore relying on emotions and senses as a way of knowledge would be faulty way of arriving to knowledge. The knowledge that I am speaking about above is absolute knowledge, truth about the world around us. However, emotions are very important if not the most important medium on how to obtain a different type of knowledge, personal knowledge. Because no one is the same as anyone else our emotions are different from everyone else's, that does not mean that everyone likes different things though. Emotions tell us what we like and what we don't what makes us feel good and what does not. Only in the middle of writing this blog post did I come to a realization, emotion is the ultimate knowledge acquisition medium. I say this as a personal opinion and it is open to disagreement and debate. I say this because because I believe that the ultimate goal in life is to be happy, and do things that you enjoy doing. This cannot be done without emotion as a way of knowing, actually using emotion as a way of knowing is the only way to attain this goal. I can only think of one instance when emotional knowledge and absolute knowledge might come into conflict. If one is made happy/ is pleased by knowledge in it's most absolute and pure form, one will have trouble reaching the goal of conducting a happy life because of all the obstructions caused by emotion and the personal senses. If you do not agree with me, or see a flaw in my argument feel free to point it out!
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I find your view on emotions very interesting however I believe that reason is a safer way of knowing. I actually think that we should try to control our emotions and not let them take over our logical thinking. In class, we looked at "reason skewing and water lilies" which are two problems of knowing that are caused by our emotions interfering in our rational thoughts. I believe that a person with a high EQ should be able to make decisions and acquire knowledge using reason even though emotions will still have an impact whether it is consciously or not. On the other hand, I agree with the idea that the ultimate goal in life is to be happy and that this goal can not be achieved without our emotions. Therefore emotions do play a very important role in our lives and we would not be able to live as normal human beings without them. In fact without emotions our actions would be even worse than those of sociopaths and our lives would be meaningless.
ReplyDeleteYou also talked about emotions in relation to personal knowledge instead of absolute knowledge. I agree that our personal knowledge mainly comes from our emotions. However, even reason plays an important role in acquiring personal knowledge. For example you might prefer an item over another because it offers a better technology and you find it more suitable. In buying a new computer for instance, you are thinking rationally in order to pick the right one. As a result, you would prefer one over the other not because of your emotions but because you have come up with a reasonable conclusion that one is better than the other. On a final note, I find your blog very interesting and I agree with most of what you said.
I completely agree with what you have said Tito. As human beings, leading a lives without emotion would be meaningless. We live everyday as a result of our emotional stimulus, and because we seek new emotions. I do think is that emotions are the best way for us as individuals to find meaning in our own lives, and to find happiness. All humans are driven by their emotions, and it would be safe to say that all humans have as a goal to seek happiness. But although emotions are the best source for personal knowledge, in a society, they are hardly valuable at all. Humans are not solitary creatures; We live in communities, and constantly have to interact with one another. Emotions, as you said, can be a hinderance in a scientific manner, and that is their biggest flaw. Humans need to be rational creatures in order to evolve, and live together. Therefore, I believe that reason is the most useful means of acquiring knowledge in general. Rationalism is a philosophy that is very popular, as it offers a way of attaining all knowledge solely through reason. Although this point of view is extreme, reason can allow us to piece together all of the things in our life, and try to make meaning out of them. Reasoning requires long reflection, and is a much more mature, and accurate way of acquiring knowledge. Emotions, as many say, are uncontrollable, impulsive, and are overall, are an ineffective way of attaining knowledge.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Said in the way that reason is the safer path to knowledge, but my question to Said would be what would the most fulfilling path to knowledge be? Without risks there are no new ideas, and emotions provide us with the drive to seek more diverse and interesting ideas. Without out emotions, we would not be able to decide on anything and nor would we be able to have ambition. Emotion is the spark that makes us aim for success, which is what makes us work for this success. Without emotion, we would be robots with unchanging routines, and I find that a life like that would be quite boring. Hadi, I do agree that emotion is not valuable in our society (and even less in the past), however, I think that emotion is underrated because without it we would be nothing and would do nothing. However, I also believe that reason is very important and is the basis of the logic we use every day. In truth, I find that both reason and emotion work together in a sort of yin yang relationship, and because they are so different, they are so very much the same. They work together to make us who and what we are and will become, and would be useless without one another.
ReplyDeleteTito, I definitely agree with your point of view about the real important goal of life, to be happy, and how emotion is the most important way of knowing in order to achieve that level of knowledge. Without emotion, our lives would be pointless. Although emotions can fool us and lead to irrational conflict, such as wars, I think that repressing our emotions can have an even more destructive impact. I do not know if you have seen my post about the danger linked with repressing our emotions, but I gave the example of the movie Equilibrium, which is set in a post-apocalyptical society in which emotions are seen as the root of all evil (for reasons similar to those here who argue against the value of emotions) and are forbidden by the law. The outcome of this is that people who still choose to feel emotions are exterminated. This made me question whether or not emotion were actually the cause of our foolishness and suffering. When we think to rationally, we forget what being human is all about, and as you mentioned, we lose grasp of what really matters, being happy. I think that by underestimating emotions, we put at risk what distinguishes us from other animals, the complexity of our ability to feel. Therefore, I also agree with Asmaa, when she said that emotion and reasoning should work hand in hand. Since in today's world, as Hadi said, we need to be effective at grasping both our absolute and personal knowledges, I think we must be able to make our emotional and rational selves cooperate.
ReplyDeleteFrom Lauren Hazel: I think it is a very interesting concept to say that the goal of life is happiness and therefore whatever makes us happy is our absolute truth. I quote someone, not sure who, but there was a story they told that went somewhat like this:
ReplyDelete“My teacher asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said ‘Happy.’ He said I didn’t understand the question, I said he didn’t understand life.”
I love this because it shows that all you really need is yourself to be happy. You can be in the worst situation in the world and as long as you keep your own dreams in your head and you try to do what makes you happy you’ll be alright. However, what if you don’t know what makes you happy? I believe this is also a very large portion of discovering emotional balance. You are a unique person and there is not a single person in the world who has the exact same patterns of happiness as you. Your preferences are almost as unique as a fingerprint, and they must be discovered through trial and error and experiences throughout your entire life. My question to you is: If you cannot find something that makes you happy, what is your way to finding the ‘absolute truth’ that you wrote about in your post?