(May 6, 2015 at 1:58 pm)Hatshepsut Wrote:(May 6, 2015 at 11:24 am)Pyrrho Wrote: No, emotions are not rational. If we consider your example of fear, many times the fear is based on the possibility of something happening that one does not want....
We love our romantic Enlightenment terminology for thinking processes, but emotion must be just as rational as any other process that takes place in human brains. There's no essential difference between the tissues that generate emotion in the brain and those that generate "rational" thoughts. In fact, brain areas used for both kinds of thinking overlap to some degree. Therefore, the distinction between reason and emotion is artificial. We've separated them conceptually for our own convenience. I'm not opposed to making this distinction because it is after all useful sometimes. Just as long as we're aware that we have done so, and avoid reifying our concepts.
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That is the most ridiculous thing I have read in some time. The areas of the brain in which people reason fallaciously are the same regions of the brain involved in valid reasoning. That does not mean that fallacious reasoning is just as reasonable as valid reasoning. But if you were right, then they would have to be equally reasonable. Since that is obviously wrong, any thinking person can know that you are completely wrong in what you are claiming.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
