AthenaAwakened
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- Joined
- Sep 17, 2003
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- 5,340
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- Right behind you so ... BOO!
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- non-theist, anarcho-socialist
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/meyer769/section16&17/2011/11/emotion-and-choice.htmlYou would think that choices would be made easier if emotion did not conflict with our ability to reason, but Radiolab concludes that this is not the case. They wonder if a "Spock" or "vulcan" like person who is completely logical would actually be beneficial. They bring the question to a neurologist and psychologist named Antoine Bechara. Antoine then tells the story of Eliot who is a completely normal man, but had a tumor in his orbital frontal cortex that was removed. This part of the brain plays a key part in decision-making and emotion.250px-OFC.JPG After it was removed Eliot was still relatively normal but took a long time in making the most simple decisions. He couldn't even decide what color pen to use at work. It would take him half an hour to decide. Eliot eventually visited a neurologist who realized he spoke normally but had no emotion to it. So the neurologist presented him with disturbing images and saw that he had no emotional responses in the brain.
As a result of all of these effects, we can see that Eliot is pathologically indecisive. The answer to the original question of whether it would be beneficial to be completely logical is no. The only way to cut down to a choice is to go with a feeling. The feeling of emotional yeses and nos is what allows us to make a decision. Without emotion we would be stuck. This could be supportive evidence for the evolutionary basis of emotions. If we always got stuck on making simple decisions, it would be an evolutionary disadvantage.
Often we pit reason against emotion. But what if they are simply halves of a whole? In debate, appeals to emotions are the great taboo of rational discourse, or is it?
What do you think?