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bioemerl  ·  2829 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Not sure how this website works but here are todays thoughts

One place I'd like to disagree with you here is the idea that people do not operate on reason and logic if they aren't following the rigorous definitions of logic and reason.

I want to clarify that I don't think you are saying that emotion and logic are really separate, I'm just kind of looking for a place to rant a bit.

Emotions, and our feelings about topics are very powerful things, and very intelligent things. A person who is not operating on logic, but instead trusts their emotions is going to be someone who will often be wrong where logic succeeds, but they will also be correct where it fails.

A big example of this, and I'm sorry for this, is eugenics. Reason, rationality, and so on can lead people to conclusions that make sense based on the scientific knowledge of the day. "We know evolution is a thing, and humans evolve, we have bred other species to be great, why not humanity?

This isn't to say their logic was valid, or necessarily scientific, but they were acting based on reason, and they were incorrect. A person who took the "heartbreak" emotional route in such a situation would have said "lets not kill people" and, despite abandoning all logic, would have been correct in the long run.

I think there is logic in the background in all our systems, even the emotional ones. The mind giving it's opinions may not be directly operating on logic, but the millions of years of evolution that set up those emotions that are being expressed, those have logic behind them. We'd be wise to not forget that fact, I think. This applies to religion as well.