Emotions as Part of Decision Making

We have a tendency to look down on an emotional decision.  We pride ourselves as humans on being rational, thoughtful creatures, which make decisions based on the most logical or most beneficial outcome.  Emotions are considered to be irrational, short-term, selfish support for our decisions, not high-minded like reason or critical thinking.  However, emotion must have a purpose, otherwise it would not have evolved and survived.  The True Philosopher gave several examples of people who had suffered brain injuries that did not appear to have damaged the intellect, but left these people without emotional control.  One in particular seemed to be completely without emotion.  He was able to reason perfectly, but could not make real world decisions.  We might need the input of emotion to make value judgements on the array of possibilities so as to know what will be the least painful or the most pleasurable, for us or for people around us.  In fact, most decisions are based on more emotional aspects, although we use reason to justify them afterwards, trying to put what we want in the most reasonable light for others.

The True Philosopher insisted on the combination of reason and emotion as characteristic of the human being.  Intuition was mentioned by several people over the course of the meeting, but in his opinion intuition is not just a matter of emotion.  There is integral and spontaneous awareness in intuition, besides the epistemical knowledge that some people assign to it.  He reminded us that life is not only facts, but a state of affairs that is subject to interpretation.

Our Doctor is normally the one who takes the stance of interpretation, but today he had a great deal of other things to share, the brain being one of his specialties.  He began by stating that in order to survive we need to know things, to develop strategies; decisions are a vital part of our survival.  Psychology is a very new thing, and the result of a few people causing problems in their society and driving others to look for solutions.  The first mental hospitals were less hospitals and more enclosures to separate the problematic from "good citizens".  The science of knowing the brain began in the 19th century, in continental Europe, through autopsies performed on people who were obviously suffering some kind of internal problem.  Our knowledge today, however, is based on words.  We decide on another's sanity by the way the world is described.  The Doctor saw the choice as being between emotion and cognition, rather than reason.  He also insisted that biological logic is completely different from the logic we see in mathematics or physics.  We should measure our steps and not rush to conclusions, lest we commit errors, and the simplification of biology is a true error in his view.  He got a laugh from the group by revealing that he was inhibiting himself from killing - or kissing - his neighbor, himself a source of some rather bumbling thoughts on biology in many meetings.  Focusing on the physical apparatus for decision making, he reminded us that we are at the very beginning of understanding the brain and the mind.  We are only discovering the possibilities of neuroplasticity and the creation of "natural" or "automatic" behavior, unconscious decisions, through discipline and habit.  In the end, he warned us that brain injuries change personalities, but not being yourself might be the best thing that can happen to you.  Life is constant change, in any case.  Finally, he told us that we cannot make decisions alone anymore, but everything must be decided in community.

The Actress was the first to mention intuition, although her opinion was that it was pure reason, based on hidden or unconscious analysis of the situation.  In short, nothing magical or illogical about it.  She also complained that people tend to rely on those close to them to help make decisions, but those people are not objective and give advice based on what is good for themselves, not the person asking.  We need coaches to help us because nobody is an expert on everything, but we do not seek them out.

The Leader, ever practical, said that the end result of a decision should be action.  Even doing nothing is a decision, and in fact it sometimes takes more will-power to contain oneself than to act out.  We cannot escape the role of emotion, since triggers are all around us.  Advertising depends on the emotions behind decision making.  The question is not whether emotions affect our decisions, but how much, and can we control the amount?

The Writer spoke of emotions as being hidden even from ourselves, while the Educator was slightly pessimistic, saying that ultimately decisions are based on self-interest.  With regard to intuition, she said that the reliability of one's intuitions depend on past knowledge, since she was also in the internal/unconscious knowledge camp.  Another Participant said emotion could only be a reaction while rationality was necessary to act and make choices, but both are part of life.  Another sometime visitor reminded us of the need to think critically, even about things we think we know; we tend to take our beliefs as facts and assume what worked once will work again, even when the situation has changed.