Feelings are not the opposite of rational thinking. They are, in many situations, a necessary component of it. People who lose the ability to feel emotions due to brain damage often struggle to make even the simplest decisions.
We tend to think of rationality and emotion as opposites — that feelings cloud our judgment and lead us astray. But the neuroscientist Antonio Damasio found that people who lose the ability to feel emotions due to brain damage also lose the ability to make good decisions.
People often think that emotions are the opposite of careful thinking — that feelings and rationality are at war with each other. But the psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett says this view is completely wrong. Our feelings, she argues, are not obstacles to good thinking, but essential ingredients of it.
Emotions, he came to realize, aren't the enemy of rational thought. They are part of rational thought. Emotions are an evolved system of wisdom — a shorthand that allows us to make quick decisions based on a wealth of past experience.
Most of us think of emotions as the enemy of clear thinking — as biases that lead us astray. But researcher Lisa Feldman Barrett says this view has it exactly backwards. Feelings, she argues, aren't obstacles to good reasoning; they're essential ingredients of it.
Most people assume that feelings get in the way of clear thinking — that the ideal decision-maker is a kind of emotion-free calculator. But neuroscientist Antonio Damasio discovered something remarkable: patients who lost the ability to feel emotions due to brain damage also lost the ability to make good decisions, even when their reasoning abilities remained intact.
Most of us have encountered the idea of the bell curve. Average is the most common outcome. Very good or very bad outcomes are rarer. Extremely good or extremely bad outcomes are rarest of all. But Yadin Dudai says our emotional memories don't follow a bell curve — instead, they skew toward the extremes.
The depth of our emotions and our commitment and our love for someone and how much they love us is directly correlated to the grief you're going to feel.
AI has never had its heart broken, you know, AI's never been in love. So it's like those things. Of course, there will be a math equation that equals up to heartbreak or love or something like that. But I don't think, like, actually going through it.
6mo ago
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