From: KPJ (kpj@sics.se)
Date: Wed May 22 2002 - 04:31:06 MDT
It appears as if Phil Osborn <philosborn2001@yahoo.com> wrote:
|
|But, sarcasm aside (for the moment), the interesting
|thing among all the torturous trails of hostility in
|your posting was the section above. In fact, I would
|guess that here is the very heart - so to speak - of
|the matter. Are emotions an absolute that exist
|independent of our rational knowledge? Are they a
|immutable force, a genetically coded unknowable God
|before which reason must bow?
I understand that there exists a shortcut in the brain which makes
a human react emotionally long before the cortex gets to look into
the matter, meaning that if the message contains emotionally loaded
words and phrases, humans tend to react emotionally instead of using
their rational mind parts. The more emotional the message, the faster
the emotional circuits step in, and in effect cancel out the reaction
of the cortex from the overall reaction. This would explain why humans
tend to become less rational when they become emotional over something.
It takes considerable mind power to stop this from happening.
Therefore, I suggest that when y'all feel emotional on a matter, and want
to respond immediately, either with a nasty comment or with >PLONK<, y'all
instead take a stroll, have a coffee or whatever, think it over rationally,
and _then_ respond. It really makes a difference: your emotional circuits
can't take precedence. A rational discourse makes more sense and creates
less bad feelings.
Also, humans tend to feel emotional when they perceive themselves to be
a member of the group at hand. That's why humans tend to wave flags as
madmen at sport events: `we won!' (perceiving themselves as members of
the team). Females will naturally feel threatened as a group when you
discuss procreation, since they have learned, by hormones and social
training, that to be their niche in life. To go against that social
education can be done, but it is very hard when both social mores
and the DNA programming says something is utterly wrong. But by
avoiding the emotional overtones the rational mind can look at
matters, before they have been coloured pink by emotions, and
made impossible to discuss rationally.
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