There is no such thing as an emotional bias. Emotion itself is a bias. It is like saying biased bias. There are no good decisions, only parochial and myopic decisions that can be taken through emotions. It is the bug we carry, not a feature.
The purpose of Human reason is not to justify the Natural condition. What is this Natural condition? Condition is a rule that is pre-set before the beginning of existence. Natural condition will be then conditions set by Nature as for being part of it. Bertrand Russell, in his book, "The Conquest of Nature" argues that the central feature of Humans is that they can achieve a conquest of nature. In the wake of modernity and post-modernity, one thing we are sure about Russell is that he at least was wrong once. We cannot conquer nature. Because, I claim, Humans are in the Natural condition even when they wish to conquest it.
It is in us, it is wired in us, to be defiant of nature. But we tried to defy nature on a systemic level, and hence these havocs of Climate change are there to kill us. It was never reasonable. Russell being a rationalist, could not see that. I claim, Human Narcissism, Anthropocentrism took the best of him. Human emotions are part of the natural condition.
We are never, as such, fully comfortable with our emotions. Our turmoil keeps ruling us. To be at ease with yourself is always therefore a reasonable task and not an emotional task. That is why, Zen and Buddhist thoughts are rational in nature and not emotional.
Leaving Bhakti tradition, there is no path of Spirituality which gives space to human emotions without declaring it as a sort of "Ailment" to be cured. And that too, I claim, is Bhakti's way of treating the "Ailment", by venting it out in front of a stone.
Thus, we see, the purpose of Human reason is to establish such human conditions, in contrast to Natural conditions, where nature is not alienated to some extent, but Capabilities of Humans are not stifled. And that is why, To be human is to be natural yet Artificial. The questions like, Artificial Intelligence resembles Humans is a false one. The real question is, "Is not human emotion an artificial construct?"
And more so, "Is there a Human reason, not Artificial?"
I have been interested in people and how they operate. I have been interested in the questions of reason and emotions. These two, in naive understanding, seem to be separate centers of decision making that occupy human mind. But then, I found out some useful contradictions in my analysis of emotions and reason and how so. And then, it made me think that the division between Emotional thinking and reasonable thinking is not much, just that Emotional thinking is inherently parochial and short-sighted, While Rational thinking is a wider expression where it is broader, far-sighted and I claim, more empathetic.
Human mind makes decisions through reason. Let us not convince ourselves of the fact that there is an independent sphere of emotions inside our brains for decision making. Even speaking from the point of view of Physiology of brain, there are centers of reason, while for emotions we have secretion of hormones.
Let us take a look in a pointwise manner about the Contradictions I found about Emotional thinking.
1. The Human performance of Empathy: An Irony
Emotions and emotional categories are inflated and deflated of their meaning from time to time due to unnecessary human interventions in their definitions. This constitutes a major crisis of Philosophy and linguistics.
What do I mean by that? What is one main crisis of Philosophy? It is that Words lose their meanings over time, or rather, Words Accumulate meanings over time. This I called, The historical accumulation of meaning.
Why does this happen? Emotional thinking is a very crucial factor in that. Human emotions are never what they are defined through reason. Only if they remain what they are defined, they could retain their meaning. But they function only through deflation or inflation of their meaning. As if, it is not love if it is clearly defined. This peculiarity is with every Human emotion.
How does this deflation, mostly happen? Through performance I claim. Humans perform while expressing emotions. Ever felt while crying that you are faking it? Like, ok, you have reasons to cry, but is not there a performance involved to express your mourning? Even when you are alone. You are performing for yourself alone, so as if to console yourself. A duty you must abide by. As if there is a cruel master inside you who want you to be punished because you did not act selfishly enough somewhere.
Secondly, Are not emotions an expression, peak of human selfishness? Suppose even in the most empathetic of human actions, like feeling pity for someone's misery and you cried, Let us ask here a question, what is this performance of tears all about?
Empathy, by definition, is, putting yourself in place of the person suffering to witness, as a thought experiment, the mental simulation of the pain he/she is going through.
Isn't it funny? Empathy itself is an expression of Human narcissism and selfishness. The central question of Empathy is "How will someone else's pain appear to me, If I was in someone's place on which the pain would be occurring?"
And this specific irony of Emotional performance that we do in front of ourselves ensures that we do not take further actions to cure the person's pain. As if crying healed everything. No, it didn't. Only the ego got satisfied that you did your task. Cowards!
2. The Paradox of Performance in Humility
The most interesting of the emotions I find, is that of Humility. By Interesting, I mean hilariously stupid. You know, The word, "Humiliate" and "Humility" comes from the same root word, "Humus" meaning soil, something down to earth, something degraded and unworthy. Let me show you
Do you know what this implicates? I interpret it like this,
Humility is basically understood as a performative emotion. If you are humble but don't express it, you will not be considered Humble. Interestingly enough, Performance of Humility and Humiliation is the same. In Humility, you self-degrade yourself. You say, "Oh! I am a piece of shit". In humiliating others, your statement is also degrading, just projecting the degradation to others, "Like, you are a piece of shit!".
So, in performance, Humiliation and Humility are the same, Degradation of someone or something through words.
And this paradox is understood by most Machiavellians. They learn how to perform humility and then keep doing it to get benefits.
And this is the paradox of performative emotions. Performance is the right word for emotions and not expression. If something we learn about Emotions through psychoanalysis, it is that, You never express your emotions spontaneously. It is as if, you are always learning to how to improve your performance of it.
And this performance of emotions time to time, keeping deflating definitions of emotions and making them cliched and many a times meaningless.
Like, Empathy. Let me ask one question? Do you think Empathy could be faked?
The thing is, the answer you will give will be wrong because I asked a wrong question. The real question is, "Is Empathy Fake?"
And yes, it is. It is always in this excess performance that we see empathy. That's why the mental picture of an empathetic person is never an angry one. An empathetic person is always meant to be spiritual, isn't it? This is the biggest deception.
The thing is, If the essence of empathy, Notice I did not say meaning of empathy because the meaning of empathy is disgusting, the essence of empathy is understanding the pain of others, why not the person understanding it allowed to be angry?
Why an empathetic performance always that of being sad and sober? Why is not anger allowed as a performance of empathy? This is precisely how Emotions pervert our understanding of the world. These deceptions are inherent in emotions.
3. Every emotion's essence is in reason
The biggest irony is that, in truth, in essence, every authentic expression of emotion, requires reason. The two poles are not separate but dialectic. For being truly reasonable, you require basic human emotion. And for being truly emotional, emotional rightly if I may, You require reason.
Now, beware I am not talking about the rational sophistication in performance. It is not as if, Human beings not at all use reason in expressing emotions. If anything, it is proven in my last section, that human beings are sly creatures. Creatures who choose their emotions very wisely. They are cunning. They use their emotions for their benefit.
To be reasonable in emotions, I mean, a scenario where a person understands fully where the cruel master, the Machiavellian egoist inside of him is trying to manipulate him or others and stop him then and there. And since it knows your dreams, your desires, in fact it is the one who taught you, who baited you with desires, it is very difficult to catch him in his pants down position.
To be reasonable is not to negotiate with your ego. You don't negotiate with ego. You either lose or you win. Take a thumb rule. Anything, that is benefitting you someway or other, Consider it a bribe of your ego.
Anything that you do not have a stake in, Any such action, and only such action is justified. The ego will suffer and it must. There is only one villain in all of our stories, It is the ego. Ego is where your emotions comes from.
Consciousness is where your reason comes from. Choose consciousness, not ego.
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