Emotion and Reason

Quite often, I have mystified students. It's almost as if they have embraced mysticism rather than rationality as far as thinking about themselves is concerned. One thing which triggers this state is when they have to think about emotion.

"What's emotion?"

"Err... it's feelings, right?"

"OK, it's feelings. So how come we think of emotion as a way of knowing?"

"It helps you know how you feel!"

"OK, so your feelings teach you how you feel?"

And so on.

The point is a really simple one. An emotion is a physiological response to a situation, that is linked to a change in psychological perspective. It distills a situation down to a complex but concentrated social package, based initially on 'feelings' (but also on the input of your senses) and tells you whether something is 'good', 'bad', or any one of maybe five or six other basic categories. Sometimes it does this very quickly for something that the reasoning mind cannot cope with easily, simply because the situation is too complex.

At this point, students often ask, "What about love? It's only a physiological response?!"

Well, not only that, but the emotion one calls 'love' certainly does not exist without a physiological response that is linked to a change in psychological perspective. If X says he loves Y and you hook him up to a machine that measures these responses, he will certainly show certain kinds of physiological changes when he's asked to think about Y. If he doesn't show any of the known likely changes, then he doesn't love Y in any sense, simple as that.

But is it possible to love someone purely rationally, without messy emotions getting in the way?

No, actually. Even loving some thing requires emotion. If a person truly loves money, then the sight of a $50k cheque made out to bearer will trigger a bunch of physiological responses linked to a change in psychological perspective. With loving someone, it engages the social parts of the brain even more.

Some say that it's emotion, the social response package, that has made the human brain the size it is; we spend a lot more time feeling than using logic. We make snap judgements about how we feel about people (and things, and situations) almost all the time, and it's so much a part of us that we don't consciously think about it. In short, our feelings are actually the brain making sense of our physiological responses (the 'gut feel', the 'sinking feeling', the uneasiness which you can't pinpoint, the chill down your spine, the crawling of the skin, the hair standing on end, the blush of the cheek, and many more).

We aren't creatures of pure reason. We can't be. The brain is too heavily involved in emotion for any of our thoughts not to have any feelings associated with them at all. An honest person will admit it; only the worst kind of pseudo-scientific thinker will assert otherwise.

Fivefold

This is all about what today has meant to me. So here I sit, reading and writing at my philosopher's chair in the park, munching cookies and eating cupcakes, imbibing coffee and assimilating chocolate. For I have come to realise that there is a specific mode of response to every thing in its own place and quality.

There has always been the mystery of five. The ancients called the fifth element the quintessence – the fifth element of reality after air, earth, fire and water. There are simple correspondences between that which is and that which ought to be, according to the ancients, who saw:

• air as that which is dry and cold, the element of intellect and cognition, a sword in the hand;
• earth as that which is moist and warm, the element of fecundity and negotiation, a shield for the body;
• fire as that which is dry and warm, the element of deeds and action, a club in the fist; and
• water as that which is moist and cold, the element of feelings and caprice, a helm for the head and a cup for the lips.

And so, what does it all mean? I think it means that for everything we encounter, there is a mode of acceptance and celebration that is more appropriate than most. We use many words interchangeably, but this should not be so.

My dear students, let me say this:

I thank you for your deeds, for thanksgiving is an act of the body which cannot be entirely contained in the heart or mind or spirit. I am grateful for your feelings, for at the heart of gratitude is grace unearned, accepted and enjoyed. I recognize your thoughts, for recognition is an act of the considering will, whether in focus or not. I appreciate your gifts, for appreciation is an act of assigning value, whether tangible or intangible. And my being, all of it, is glad, is joyful, is replenished and renewed by you – who you are and why you are and how you are.