Rational Vs Emotional

Rational Vs Emotional

I was contemplating for long over what should be my first contribution in this blog. There are so many topics to be decided and hence it’s quite a complex task. My getting emotional about the first entry gave me fodder to think of the topic where man is basically disposed toward reasoning or emotion. Or in more definite terms, is man essentially rational or irrational?

And is our contemporary thinking that emotionless man is the ideal, correct? Or is the contention of a minority, but persistent minority than man must live in harmony with nature i.e. return to the emotional level accurate?

I’m inclined to think that both function in sync to build up the whole man. Most of the intuitions we are subjected to in a sense is not reasoning but an emotional gut feeling. So far, rational man and intuitive man have been considered rivals inasmuch as their philosophies are concerned. A rational man fears intuition whereas the other ridicules conceptualization. A balance of both makes a man less vulnerable to weaknesses either kind.

All the decisions taken by man are essentially a combination of both reason and instinct. They can’t be divorced from one another. So instead of taking foolish positions of taking either side in the debate it is best that we use the one which works. Or as it is remarked “How does it matter whether a cat is black or white as long as it catches mice.”

I’m of view that emotions actually make man more intelligent and thus more rational. It feeds the system of reason by way of quick knowledge and we make the mistake of seeking complex solutions making us believe that its incorrect to act under such provocation. All that has to be learnt can’t be made to wait in a queue to partake a slice each time and follow the rigorous procedure of reasoning mind. It has to be quick and instant. Here is where intuition comes to our rescue. Many times we make instantaneous decisions which are found out to be much nearer to truth than those which we reach by careful analysis. Actually analysis is not of much help in this particular case. We just know it. That’s all. In a split second, we act.

But my approval of intuition, must not allow you to judge that I think that reasoning faculty can be disposed of. It is as a matter of fact equally as much important. But we must know where to use it? Even though many of us claim that we’re mostly unbiased, research has proved that we’ve many inbuilt preconceptions about many things and since we see facts through the lens of those conceptions we make mistakes not infrequently. He may for eg be disposed to infer that our supposed enemies are making comments about us even though they might have said perfectly cool things. Even in the light of facts we seldom make remedies for the faults thus arrived.

On the other hand, we tend to be more lenient towards our friends even though he might be clearly at fault. This process of rationalization of things is the most inexcusable bias which is deeply rooted in our behavior. Hence reasoning might actually help us out to minimize the losses thus incurred.

It is thus to be observed that both are actually mutually-inclusive and feed each other. It is to the best of our benefit if we can use combinational strategy to use both at appropriate time. In my next entry I’ll try to narrate under what circumstances I began to study these and scrutinized all the information to seek plausible explanation for the strange events which I was subjected to.

The very bizarre chain of events is responsible for the metamorphosis of mine, and I’m what I’m today precisely because of those.