In a recent thread that came down to faith vs logic, I believe humanity is motivated by 2 drives, one of logical and one of emotion. Both compete for our actions, and each person has their own balance between the two. It is this duality that separates us from machine or computer, the reason we always want a ‘manual override’ and the reason for great heroics. Also the reason why a computer can not achieve what we call sentience. In other words what makes us sentient and also gives us free will is the choice to act out of emotion or logic.
There’s no such thing as “free will”; it’s a nonsense phrase. There’s deterministic processes and purely random ones, but no free will that is neither deterministic nor random - the idea doesn’t even make sense.
Nor is there any neat division between logic and emotion; emotion is of great importance to human reasoning (which is one reason we aren’t all that good at reasoning). Nor is emotion required for sentience or (what I think you meant) sapience; there are humans who have lost the capacity for emotions due to brain damage, and they aren’t mindless. And there’s no reason to think that emotions couldn’t be programmed into a computer if we understood them well enough.
So I disagree on pretty much every point.
Is this the same concept as left brain/right brain?
I happen to believe that much of what we are and what we do is because of choices.
As an American in the 21st century, I think and do things very different than people in other places and times, due simply where and when I live. But, within the confines of that, I have many choices.
Yes, some of those choices will be based on rational thought (pay the rent) and some on emotional (blue. paint it blue).
The problem is that many people make decisions based on emotional reasons and then espouse them as rational - see politics and sometimes, religion.
Everything I’ve said here is, I believe, self-evident to anyone with an average intelligence and age of ten.
When you state that some people espouse emotional reason as rational , I wish to go to the above, to pay the rent is logical, but there may be a emotional reason not to, depending on the strength of that emotion and where the person places emotion over logical thinking would separate man from machine.
I do mean that emotion and ‘emotional based decision’ is required for sentience. Logic gives us one path of action (therefor no sentience), emotion gives us not only a choice over the logical path, but also the various emotional options (act in love, hate, anger, etc.), combined with aspects of logic give perhaps infinite paths, thus free will. Our choice in free will is what emotion to operate under and how much logic to include/govern it with.
There’s a lot of research on decision-making processes that shows how much of what we call “logic” is actually just emotional brain circuits retroactively justifying what they wanted to do anyway.
Is your question fueled from a perspective of religious contention? Faith vs. Logic suggests to me about believing in faith regardless of logical contradiction. On both sides there are different proportions of emotion and logic, but neither are exclusively one or the other.
With Faith, one sees logical objectivity where there is subjectivity. It’s choosing to believe in something regardless of logic, because to question one’s faith is too emotionally risky.
It’s like the paleontologist who is a fervent believer in the Bible, and yet frequently deals with data on the job that conspicuously contradicts the idea of creationism and the young Earth principle. He compartmentalizes the two, because never the twain shall meet–if they did, the fabric of his emotional security would be at risk. The mind is a very powerful thing.
I have come to find that even with the most well founded logical argument that contradicts someone’s claim of faith, that it won’t change the other person’s mind. The personal risk of doing so is simply too great for them to bear.
What this kind of thing begs to ask, is that isn’t it OK for people to believe in God as they choose, even though it flies in the face of all the scientific concepts we’ve conceived up to this point? Yes. As long as they don’t let their religious beliefs govern their decision making in secular affairs. That’s what the whole separation of church and state was all about. But lately in the USA, we’ve witnessed frequent mention of belief in God and religious affiliation during political campaigns. Interestingly enough, in Europe you see very little of it. They seem to have been more successful with the separation.
In any event, in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter if you believe in God or not. You will live your life and die and that will be it, as far as corporeal life is concerned. Where the problem lies is how such beliefs affect your behavior in society. And we’ve seen a perfect example of just how wrong it can go… as in the case of Muslim extremists who declare a jihad against the Western way of life.
One of the meanings of “sentience” is consciousness. Another is “Feeling as distinguished from perception or thought.”
A brain-damaged person may be unconscious. But if there is awareness, I can’t imagine a person not having feelings. (Desire for water, anger at uncomfortable tubes or bed, etc.)
“Sapient” means wise. I don’t think that was what the OP was referring to.
Scientists are generally good at reasoning. But empathy should keep scientists from making huge mistakes. (Consider the scientific experiments on twins and pregnant women that took place at Auschwitz.)
Balance is everything.
Yes. There is no logic. It’s all emotional.
I believe we are driven by emotions, that logic takes a backseat and is most often used to justify ex post facto emotional choices.
If we look at it from a high-level, this sort of makes sense, but when we really delve into it, emotions are logical, even if they sometimes the results are illogical. Consider for a moment that emotions are, evolutionarily honed, logical short-cuts. They allow us to take in various stimuli and make inferences about our circumstances that allow us to make quick decisions.
For example, fear derives from an evolutionary need to quickly evaluate our surroundings for potential threats. A lot of the things that cause fear are things that, now or at some point in the past, pose a threat. Having a biological short-cut to recognize potential threats and react to them quickly is important to survival, whereas if we relied purely on high-level logical thought, we could very likely react to potential threats too slowly.
Emotions can also serve to help reinforce important behaviors as well. For example, pleasure from sex, happiness from the company of others, enjoying the tastes of foods that provide important nutrition needs; they’re all aspects that are important to our survival as a species as far as surviving, procreating, and cooperation as a society. It’s logical to make things that we ought to do enjoyable, and things that we ought not unenjoyable. Of course, our modern society has made some of those things not line up anymore, but the logic behind the emotions is there.
So, really, I don’t see it as a duality at all, it’s just finding a balance between using the tools we’ve gained overtime, versus using the tools we’ve developed recently. The best analogy I can come up with would be a programming one, where we can relate emotions and other evolutionary processes as sort of like using a library of functions. In many cases, if we’re doing a pretty common task, there’s already some functions somewhere that someone wrote that are as good or better than what I could write, and I don’t have to spend the time developing them. Sometimes, I’m doing something so unique and specialized that I have to come up with a solution of my own. In most cases, though, I can establish a balance between the two, using libraries or snippets from other people where it’s reasonable and coming up with custom solutions where it’s not.
This is how the balance between emotional thought and high-logical thought should be. Realize the benefits and limitations of our emotions, and temper it with executive logic. And I think anyone who over-favors one extreme or the other is left at a severe disadvantage. Sure, theoretically, I can ultimately replace any emotion with sufficient observation and logical evaluation, but that depends on assuming I’m consciously aware of all the factors those emotions take into account, and that I have the time and ability to extrapolate from those into the correct conclusion. This is exactly why people who rely heavily on logic are often terrible at reading other people’s internal states and can often have difficulty with communication, tasks that are emotions are specifically honed to do well and do quickly.
Blaster Master you are taking emotions as logical short cuts if I take you right. It sort of makes sense in the ‘it’s possible way but not the only explanation’ way.
But even in that meme would not the logical creation of emotion cause a necessary duality?