It seems to me that social consensus accepts expression of strong feelings by women, just not by men.
Since they aren't part of the web of cause-and-effect (so they might be epiphenomenal), are norms impossible to be irrational about?
I don't think it's inevitable that having emotion causes irrationality, but I think there is a tendency for it to cloud your mind and restraining yourself is a good idea. Maybe after calmly examining things you can say to yourself "This appears to be an optimum situation in which to freak out".
I agree that strong emotions can be very appropriate to many situations, but also think there is wisdom in the usual expectation that bias is correlated with strength of emotions. So it is crucial for us to develop better cues for distinguishing more versus less biased emotions.
Well, at the very least women constitute half of society, it's certainly acceptance within that half. I actually think that it's actually acceptance more broadly though. Women are arguably not accepted my men in general, but in so far as they are accepted it is only in a few narrow domains, primarily science, engineering, and big business that women do best by adhering to men's norms. Actually though, emotional suppression is only normative among men in science, in the military, and in low status positions. Enthusiasm (irrational exuberance) is the ultimate business virtue. If one doesn't claim a level of confidence that can't possibly be justified one is simply not a contender for venture capital or angel investor money. In a hierarchy, one's not suitable for upper management or sales. Beyond that, almost all social elites are, in large measure, "emotional expression professionals". Actors and actresses are the most obvious example of this, but I would say that this is also true of athletes, artists, and other performers and entertainers, religious leaders, and politicians. Al Gore was dismissed with a characterization of "wooden". Hitler practiced his emotional expressions for hours in front of a mirror.
This is one of those rare moments where the usually horribly heterodox economist, me, defends orthodox economic theory. So, looked at very closely, orthodox microeconomic says nothing at all about peoples' preferences themselves, which presumably involve their emotional reactions to various things. What is assumed is certain things about these preferences, that people know what they are, that they exhibit continuity, that they have a degree of internal consistency in the sense of exhibiting transitivity, and it also makes people behave more "rationa...
It seems to me that social consensus accepts expression of strong feelings by women, just not by men.
Traditionaly, women were thought inferior to men precisely because they were thought to have stronger feelings.
It is not thought wise to have anyone "emotional" in any position of importance.
But "emotional" is usually interpreted to mean that your feelings are easily swayed.
Your thoughts on this would profit a lot from some reading of recent research in neuroscience--specifically people like D'Amasio, LeDoux, and Ramachandran, Sacks (there are lots others, too). The idea that rationality begins with some 'asking how-the-world is' as if that act itself were not completely shot through with emotional responses is hopelessly naive. Without an emotional response, one could never even form the judgment that the world-is-any-particular way. The brain lesion studies on this are pretty clear; it's an emotional response that both trig...
As I see it, what's most important is to make a division between rationality and emotions in terms of where they fit in the equations. Rationality describes the equations, emotions provide a source of evidence that must be applied correctly. If an outcome makes me happy, that should make me desire that outcome more, but not make me think that outcome more likely than if it made me sad (unless, of course, I'm evaluating the probability that I will be motivated to do something).
Unfortunately, I think this model of mind is not how the human mind actually wo...
Stephan, it is important to establish normative separation between the roles that emotions play in perception (which may be part of the process of establishing truth) and the roles that emotions play in motivation (which should not normatively affect what we believe to be true). Yes, it may be the same emotion doing both things. But that doesn't change the normative difference in the roles.
When I say "rationality begins with" I am talking about deriving the normative criterion, not about the brain's real-world temporal order of evaluation.
(And yes, I'm read up on neuroscience to the level you specified.)
It's my impression that men and women are permitted somewhat different sets of emotions--men are freer to show anger, women are freer to show sadness. And that showing emotion is more permitted now than it was a few decades ago.
As far as I can tell, it's possible to be emotional (or at least fairly emotional) and logical at the same time, so long as the emotion isn't territorial attachment to an idea.
It seems to me that the basic irrationality implicated here is the assumption that there is such a thing as rationality.
Alright, I just wanted to put that in a clever contenentalist sounding quip but didn't quite manage. What I mean is this: It (usually) makes sense to talk about beliefs being true or false. We can even talk about tendencies as being more or less inclined to reach true beliefs (given background assumptions about the distributions of such truths). However, implicit in this post and many of the comments that follow is the idea that ratio...
I agree that you don't have to throw out emotion to be rational. You just have to put it in its proper place. Logical analysis has to be given a higher priority in forming a good picture of events. But once you have done it, emotion is what powers your actions and words, and gives them meaning.
If I did not have millions of years of evolution making me hate death, it would be less meaningful to talk about how much we need cryonics. I would have to appeal to its usefulness in special cases (preserving great minds or useful workers) rather than advocating the...
I agree that it's not necessarily irrational to feel, but I think the way we feel is clearly irrational. For example, our emotions don't seem to work in a time-consistent manner, and we often later regret actions that we take based on strong emotions, when those emotions eventually fade away. If we could modify the way our emotions work cheaply and safely, I think many of us would probably take advantage of the opportunity. A rational agent wouldn't wish to modify its mind like that.
Here's another, more specific example. I sometimes feel a sense of schaden...
Rationality destroys emotions.
Not always.
But here is a way in which it happens: My friends sometimes have very strong emotions that generate behavior that is completely imoral, sometimes self-contradictory etc... The natural response in me used to be to get mad at them back, creating a circle of anger for a while, which eventually fades away. When this happens, usually the one with more social credence "wins" and does not have to concede whatever is at stake.
Now, enters rationality. My friend goes super angry about something. I know the emot...
Someone who takes rationality-as-attire (like Roddenberry's Spock) would avoid strong emotions because they are superficially irrational.
I'm particularly interested in the idea of rational emotion promoted by Objectivism:
..."Just as the pleasure-pain mechanism of man’s body is an automatic indicator of his body’s welfare or injury, a barometer of its basic alternative, life or death—so the emotional mechanism of man’s consciousness is geared to perform the same function, as a barometer that registers the same alternative by means of two basic emotions: joy or suffering. Emotions are the automatic results of man’s value judgments integrated by his subconscious; emotions are estimates of
Recently, there were rape allegations cast at Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks. Some people in positions of power saw fit to expose identifying personal information about the accusers to the Internet and therefore, the world at large. This resulted in the accusers receiving numerous death threats and other harassment.
When safety can be destroyed by truth, should it be?
In my entire team of Engineers, the one common look I get is a Poker face. It appears that this kind of expression is "default", and showing emotion is something foreign. I wish people would be OK with just expressing themselves - how they feel about any particular situation.
Then, the truth would quite often be out on the table, and everybody can then deal with it [along with the consequences!]
I think that the saying "What can be destroyed by truth, should be" is a little bit too black and white to work well in all aspects of life. For example, a clumsy and fat person who thinks he is actually rather agile, might be a lot happier with this false belief than if he were aware of the truth*. Of course it could be said that if he knew the truth, he would start to exercise and eventually become healthier, but that's not necessarily the case. Another example would be, that if a not-so-good-looking person thinks he looks good, he might be enc...
Having read Feeling Good, I have a different view on emotions than those posed thus far in the comments.
Anger might be a valid response to the little goblin tying your shoes together, but the rational person asks, "Does it benefit me or hurt me to feel anger?" Anger is generally a maladaptive response in today's environment of tremendous punishments for physical violence, and that's beside the fact that it is an extremely unpleasant feeling.
Instrumental rationality, remember? If it prevents you from fulfilling your goals to feel x, then x is unwa...
Emotions can result in conclusions that do not arise rationally. You don't CHOOSE to be angry, and this anger can make your decision for you.
We are also very well acquainted with hindsight. We can look back on a situation that resolved itself in a way we would have avoided, if only we hadn't been so emotional. I really feel that the emotionless state is the default.
Interesting post. I think something like that happened to me - I was only glad when I was right, or at least thought I was right, but... Doesn't rationality in general diminish sadness over non-acute things? Sure, wars are awful no matter how rational or irrational you are, but... For example, dealing with the fact that The Universe Doesn't Care seems very troublesome for a lot of my peers, to the point where they push it away, same with genetically-determined intelligence.
Same with, as I've noticed, a seeming lack of empathy towards people. Not sure how to deal with that, as I want to be right, and correct others, even when they don't like it. Ah, the dilemmas... And I can't think of a third alternative either.
"our emotions arise from our models of reality. If I believe that my dead brother has been discovered alive, I will be happy"
Fallacy of the single cause. Knowledge of the physical fact of his being alive does not completely determine your response of being happy, many other things come into this, of which at least a few are non-rational. Maybe your brother is a convicted serial killer who recently escaped from detention, killed a few more people according to his old habits and is now reported to be alive only by virtue of having escaped a police ...
I was talking to someone the other day about our treatment of sexual offenders. She seemed to be insinuating that I didn't care about the plight of the victims because by proposed solutions were all aimed at reducing sexual violence rather than punishing the offenders.
I told her that the injustices visited upon the victims of sexual abuse made me very angry, which made me passionate about fixing the problem. Having set my goal of reducing sexual violence, it behooved me not to let my anger at the perpetrator distract me from the task of achieving that goal. If I'm ever presented with a choice where I can either punish the perpetrator or help the victim (or future potential victims), I chose the latter. You can't always do both at the same time.
So I suppose emotions can be rational in that they can arise from truth, but they can also be very irrational in that they prevent winning your goals.
An interesting perspective on the validity of emotional states vis-à-vis Rationality.
I have something of a fear of heights. This fear is, I realize, irrational. Certainly, Being afraid of falling and the resultant injury or death is reasonable and potentially useful. However, fear when it is completely unfounded…
I remember a spring break some years back, where I learned to ski and enjoyed it very much indeed. I was, however, held back by my visceral reaction, whenever approaching a portion of the trail where I could not see my path of travel, part of m...
Related Einstein Quote: "The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift."
what about applying rationality to the emotional situations themselves? when your family member dies by virtue of someone elses mistake/accident, does rationality require (in its purest sense) that we evaluate the situation without the emotions that a family member often feels? if not, what if a third party "rationally" evaluates the situation differently? (e.g. "your family member was equally at fault") . Can two different viewpoints about the same event be rational, taking into account each decision maker's relative emotions (or lack thereof)?
A somewhat related, incredibly badass quote.
..."...I hear some one of my audience say,... ...you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. Would you argue more, and denounce less, would you persuade more, and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed. But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? That point is conceded already. Nobody doubts it..."
"...Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? that he is the rightful owner of his own body? You have already declared it. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a question for Republicans? Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation, as a matter beset with great difficulty, involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to be understood? How should I look to-day, in the presence of Americans, dividing, and subdividing a discourse, to show that men have a natural right to freedom? speaking of it relat
Emotions, like any sensory input, can serve as a source of information to be rationally inspected and used to form beliefs about the external world. It is only when emotions interfere with the process of interpreting information that they become detrimental to rationality.
I don't think this covers the role of emotions in regard to instrumental rationality. The most negative consequences of emotions are how they control our behavior inspite of knowing the rational thing to do based on rational beliefs. I think there is far more merit to the idea of being able to completely control your emotions than you credit. Using emotions as a driving factor for motivation is counterproductive in many situations because you are not in control of how and how much they affect you.
I think you've wrongly interpreted being in control of your emotions to being emotionless.
"Since the days of Socrates at least, and probably long before, the way to appear cultured and sophisticated has been to never let anyone see you care strongly about anything."
I would strongly encourage anyone who wants a good counterexample to read Plato's Symposium, where the desire for wisdom is specifically linked with erotic desire.
I'm sleep deprived right now, things are getting 'weirder' lol. I 'should 'do this later... I seldom write in first person, but it seems easier right now. So I don' t think these comments exactly typical of mine. I hope there is some substance .
I try to keep two mental compartments, one where I do rational processing, the other where emotions occur. One is a noisy mess. From the other, rational thoughts flow. I struggle to 'rational-check' them, and form them into coherent sentences. I o...
I'm sleep deprived right now, things are getting 'weirder' lol. I 'should 'do this later... I seldom write in first person, but it seems easier right now. So I don' t think these comments exactly typical of mine. I hope there is some substance .
I try to keep two mental compartments, one where I do rational processing, the other where emotions occur. One is a noisy mess. From the other, rational thoughts flow. I struggle to 'rational-check' them, and form them into coherent sentences. I organi...
something terrible happens link is broken. Was moved to http://yudkowsky.net/other/yehuda/
If so, then as you study the skills of rationality and train yourself not to deny facts, your feelings will become stronger.
How does one go about this?
I have begun reading everything I can find by you on this page - I will probably also read other things, but it seems a foundation by (one of) the founder would be useful.
Still, while I see the ideas presented as very useful, I find myself wondering how do actually go about implementing them. Take any one thing as an example here, such as "Making Beliefs Pay Rent". (I hope you are not annoyed by t...
That invites a rather optimistic view of mind. If we have a mind deprived of emotions but similar to us in other we expect that it will on average fare better than ours. Not because emotion is somehow _underlyingly_ irrational but because it tends to intensify our biases (and be the main motivation for some of them - affective death spirals come to mind first).
You could respond that curiosity and having something to protect are both based on emotions - but that's human motivation for rationality not guarantee of its efficiency, and both, unless supported by a good model, can also be fulfilled by religion. Truth as an instrument could be sufficient for emotionless brain as well.
Reminded me of this blog post by Nicky Case, where they said "Trust, but verify". Emotions are often a good heuristic for truth: if we didn't feel pain, that would be bad.
I think this article wonderfully illustrates the primary relationship between emotions and epistemic rationality. Namely, that emotions can be downstream of false beliefs. Robin Hanson added in another comment that this relationship can go the other direction, when strong emotions bias us in ways that make us less epistemically rational.
But I think there is also a separate relationship between emotions and instrumental rationality. Namely, that emotions can influence which decisions you make. This includes but is not limited to epistemic bias.
Suppose that, as a Buddhist or a lobotomy patient or just a very phlegmatic person, finding your shoelaces tied together didn’t make you angry.
Buddhist, lobotomy patients and phlegmatic people all have things in their closets, they all have things to get angry, upset or confused about. If you are a Buddhist, lobotomy patient and phlegmatic you still see the particular narrative worldview. What you see does not change because after all there will always be something to get tied up on. It is about shaping the things that you do get tied up on and further con...
I noticed that something is conspicuously missing from this article. Namely, that truth can have disutility as well as utility. There are instances where it is better to not know than to know. For instance, if nazis come to your house looking for Anne Frank, it’s better that they don’t know she is in your attic. It can also be better that someone doesn’t know you don’t like their gift.
Then there are times where the truth can be a hindrance. For example, when I look at the desktop on my computer screen and drag a file to the trash, I am not throwing anythin...
I think the definition of rational emotions as those based on correct thinking about reality is a bad definition--it makes both the act of modelling the world correctly and communicating your models to others slightly harder instead of slightly easier.
Imagine there is a faucet in front of me. Let's say this faucet is running hot water because I turned the right knob because I incorrectly thought the right knob turned cold water. It would be very strange to say that "The faucet's running of hot water is irrational."; no one would have a clue what you mean.
Y...
...Ever since I adopted the rule of “That which can be destroyed by the truth should be,” I’ve also come to realize “That which the truth nourishes should thrive.” When something good happens, I am happy, and there is no confusion in my mind about whether it is rational for me to be happy. When something terrible happens, I do not flee my sadness by searching for fake consolations and false silver linings. I visualize the past and future of humankind, the tens of billions of deaths over our history, the misery and fear, the search for answers, the trembling h
Since curiosity is an emotion, I suspect that some people will object to treating curiosity as a part of rationality. A popular belief about “rationality” is that rationality opposes all emotion—that all our sadness and all our joy are automatically anti-logical by virtue of being feelings. Yet strangely enough, I can’t find any theorem of probability theory which proves that I should appear ice-cold and expressionless.
When people think of “emotion” and “rationality” as opposed, I suspect that they are really thinking of System 1 and System 2—fast perceptual judgments versus slow deliberative judgments. System 2’s deliberative judgments aren’t always true, and System 1’s perceptual judgments aren’t always false; so it is very important to distinguish that dichotomy from “rationality.” Both systems can serve the goal of truth, or defeat it, depending on how they are used.
For my part, I label an emotion as “not rational” if it rests on mistaken beliefs, or rather, on mistake-producing epistemic conduct. “If the iron approaches your face, and you believe it is hot, and it is cool, the Way opposes your fear. If the iron approaches your face, and you believe it is cool, and it is hot, the Way opposes your calm.” Conversely, an emotion that is evoked by correct beliefs or truth-conducive thinking is a “rational emotion”; and this has the advantage of letting us regard calm as an emotional state, rather than a privileged default.
So is rationality orthogonal to feeling? No; our emotions arise from our models of reality. If I believe that my dead brother has been discovered alive, I will be happy; if I wake up and realize it was a dream, I will be sad. P. C. Hodgell said: “That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.” My dreaming self’s happiness was opposed by truth. My sadness on waking is rational; there is no truth which destroys it.
Rationality begins by asking how-the-world-is, but spreads virally to any other thought which depends on how we think the world is. Your beliefs about “how-the-world-is” can concern anything you think is out there in reality, anything that either does or does not exist, any member of the class “things that can make other things happen.” If you believe that there is a goblin in your closet that ties your shoes’ laces together, then this is a belief about how-the-world-is. Your shoes are real—you can pick them up. If there’s something out there that can reach out and tie your shoelaces together, it must be real too, part of the vast web of causes and effects we call the “universe.”
Feeling angry at the goblin who tied your shoelaces involves a state of mind that is not just about how-the-world-is. Suppose that, as a Buddhist or a lobotomy patient or just a very phlegmatic person, finding your shoelaces tied together didn’t make you angry. This wouldn’t affect what you expected to see in the world—you’d still expect to open up your closet and find your shoelaces tied together. Your anger or calm shouldn’t affect your best guess here, because what happens in your closet does not depend on your emotional state of mind; though it may take some effort to think that clearly.
But the angry feeling is tangled up with a state of mind that is about how-the-world-is; you become angry because you think the goblin tied your shoelaces. The criterion of rationality spreads virally, from the initial question of whether or not a goblin tied your shoelaces, to the resulting anger.
Becoming more rational—arriving at better estimates of how-the-world-is—can diminish feelings or intensify them. Sometimes we run away from strong feelings by denying the facts, by flinching away from the view of the world that gave rise to the powerful emotion. If so, then as you study the skills of rationality and train yourself not to deny facts, your feelings will become stronger.
In my early days I was never quite certain whether it was all right to feel things strongly—whether it was allowed, whether it was proper. I do not think this confusion arose only from my youthful misunderstanding of rationality. I have observed similar troubles in people who do not even aspire to be rationalists; when they are happy, they wonder if they are really allowed to be happy, and when they are sad, they are never quite sure whether to run away from the emotion or not. Since the days of Socrates at least, and probably long before, the way to appear cultured and sophisticated has been to never let anyone see you care strongly about anything. It’s embarrassing to feel—it’s just not done in polite society. You should see the strange looks I get when people realize how much I care about rationality. It’s not the unusual subject, I think, but that they’re not used to seeing sane adults who visibly care about anything.
But I know, now, that there’s nothing wrong with feeling strongly. Ever since I adopted the rule of “That which can be destroyed by the truth should be,” I’ve also come to realize “That which the truth nourishes should thrive.” When something good happens, I am happy, and there is no confusion in my mind about whether it is rational for me to be happy. When something terrible happens, I do not flee my sadness by searching for fake consolations and false silver linings. I visualize the past and future of humankind, the tens of billions of deaths over our history, the misery and fear, the search for answers, the trembling hands reaching upward out of so much blood, what we could become someday when we make the stars our cities, all that darkness and all that light—I know that I can never truly understand it, and I haven’t the words to say. Despite all my philosophy I am still embarrassed to confess strong emotions, and you’re probably uncomfortable hearing them. But I know, now, that it is rational to feel.