The Logic of Emotions
17th August 2015
Private & Confidential Copyright © Mr A Pépés
The Logic of Emotions.
What is the Logic of Emotions?
Most people would say there is no logic to emotions, that is why we say people are being emotional and not logical, but using my simplified complex logic, there is an ultimate logic to emotions.
In other words if someone said there is no logical reason for emotions then I would agree 99% of the time, but if they said there is no logical reasons for emotions then I would disagree 99% of the time.
How can I say these things and still be correct?
Well most of my readers should know me by now, the difference between the two statements is just one letter the "s" at the end of reason, it all depends on your interpretation of the meanings I wish to convey to you. Firstly the word 'logical' means subtly different things to different people, in other words there are lots of different 'logics' and that is why what is logical to one person does not seem logical to someone else. You have to use the same logic that I am using to make sense of it.
Does that make me correct?
It does not make me correct if my logic is faulty, but my logic is based on the logic that it must not contradict itself or contradict any thing else that it can't explain. (You have to wait and see if it makes sense before you accept any explanation).
The second word that you have to think about is the word 'reason'.
Is there a reason or reasons for emotions?
You may not know the reason or reasons but it makes sense that there is a reason or reasons for emotions. You might think they just accidentally happened (evolved) and there is no real reason for them, but I totally disagree and I wish to explain my reasons for this.
I have already mentioned the reasons for emotions in another Tea Break Book of mine, but here I wish to explain further the difference between normal logic and the logic of emotions.
The reason for the evolution of emotions that I mentioned elsewhere is to avoid the equivalent of 'system crashes' that would occur in a normal computer or brain if only normal logic ruled.
So what is the difference between the two logics?
Normal logic I.e. The logic that our higher conscious minds use is serial in nature meaning we can create a single path for our reasoning. I.e. We can deduce induce or abduce etc. the reasons for it, in a linear fashion (or progression).
Let me use an example. If we take a statement like 'All Carnivores Eat Meat'. We may not even know what a carnivore is in its entirety but we know that it eats meat, even if we don't know what eat means or what meat is.
If we next take a second statement like 'All Lions Eat Meat' we may not know what a Lion is, but if we ever come across one we know it eats meat.
Using our normal logic we can infer that a Lion is a Carnivore and we would be basically correct in our logic.
Now what if I said those statements in reverse order I.e. 'All Lions Eat Meat' the logic would appear to be the same: - we may not even know what a Lion is in its entirety but we know that it eats meat, even if we don't know what eat means or what meat is. If we next take a second statement like 'All Carnivores Eat Meat' we may not know what a Carnivore is, but if we ever come across one we know it eats meat. Using our normal logic (as before) we can infer that a Carnivore is a Lion! and we would be basically correct in our logic, but we know that this is actually wrong!
So why is one way correct and the other way wrong?
It is because we already have an idea of all the words we are using and they have been put into some sort of hierarchy or category. So some words have been already defined more specifically like lion, and some words have been less specific or General like carnivore. (This does not mean that the word carnivore does not have a specific definition, it means that it belongs to a higher group). So you can only go from a higher to a lower group (or depending how you view things in your mind, from a lower to a higher group). Either way, it can only go in one direction and not the other.
So a Lion is a Carnivore, but a Carnivore is not necessarily a Lion. Now if you make a third statement and add a 'cub' it can then still be a Carnivore and a Lion, but a Carnivore or a Lion does not mean a 'cub'. It is just a singular sequence of inferences, it can have many branches, but the logic follows a serial path.
What is the logic of emotions?
The logic of emotions does not follow a singular path, it takes all paths and creates a feeling of what is most likely correct according to its experiences. Imagine that there is no one solution to the problem at hand, so all solutions are considered at the same time and some solutions are stronger than others. Each solution has a potential, e.g. one maybe 90% another 50% and a third 10% etc. each emotion will assess different criteria so will come up with a different feeling for the same input.
I'll use 'fear' as an example. A child is playing outside, they come across something they have never come across before.
What do they do?
This depends on their previous experiences, because they have not experienced this new thing before they can't use their normal logic correctly. They see it is sticking out of the ground and it seems to have a stem, they think it might be a plant, but according to their limited experience they think plants have leaves, and this thing doesn't have any.
Now depending on their previous experiences they have a feeling about this thing.
Do they fear it? Is it something that should be feared? Can it harm them?
If during their previous experiences their mum said don't touch anything when you don't know what it is, it may hurt you. The child may have a slight fear and just leave it alone and carry on playing. On the other hand if mum just said be careful not to hurt yourself when playing. The child may not fear it and just rip it out of the ground to take it back to mum to find out what it is, or they might start taking it to pieces to discover more about it.
Upon getting home, mum says it's a fungus not a plant ..... Now if the fungus was a mushroom, mum might say you can eat this, or that's what you like when I cut it up and grill it with butter. The child's experience is now favourable and it will not fear fungi the next time it comes across something like this the next time it's playing, even if it is slightly different.
If on the other hand the fungus was a toadstool, mum would explain that this thing can poison you and even kill you, don't ever touch anything like this again unless you check with me first. The child's experience is now not favourable and it will fear fungi the next time it comes across something like this the next time it's playing, even if it is slightly different (it could be a nice tasty mushroom, but it will still be feared).
Now with the examples above I only used just one situation with variations, but emotions are a complete set of circumstances and experiences, so you don't analyse them individually.
You or someone appears to feel fear in some situation that you or they feel comfortable in.
It appears illogical that they should fear a 'strawberry' but somewhere in their past many circumstances created a fear of strawberries. No one circumstance may explain it.
Let us suppose that they saw someone choke on something that looked like a strawberry (the thing was not a strawberry, it was something hard).
Logically you should not fear strawberries because it wasn't a strawberry.
At another time they saw lots of little black ants eating a bit of fruit (again not a strawberry) but at that time it reminded them of the little seeds on the outside of the strawberry, mum went berserk because the ants were on the fruit.
On a third occasion someone cut their hand and blood dropped all over the floor... Some of the blotches where shaped like strawberries and obviously red.
Plus many more obscure experiences not related to strawberries directly, but something that reminds them of feared experiences.
Now each event will have a mild emotion attached to it, in this case various degrees of fear of each occasion. Now the sight of strawberries is not analysed, they just get an overall feeling of fear, which is made up of all the little pieces of fear put together. The fear is real for them because it is the sum of their experiences of all the fears they have had at different times. (Obviously in real terms there are built in fears of certain things, but most is learnt from ones experience).
Imagine it is like a spiders web with different strength threads, and depending where you are on the web and in which direction you want to move in will result in different threads pulling with different overall strengths. Each direction you want to move in will give a different strength of 'feeling'.
Another example, you see someone new, you instantly take a liking to them or an instant disliking.
What makes you like them or dislike them?
Obviously your emotions, but these are the sum of your experiences, someone you liked before had the same type of nose, someone else you disliked had the same type of ears, and another you liked had a similar smile, yet another had similar clothes, and one had terrible teeth just like this one, etc.
You look at this new person and you still like them, even with terrible teeth! This is because the strengths of the positive traits were far greater than the negative traits.
If you try and analyse it with normal logic you will probably fail because you may find far more things you dislike about this person than the things you like, therefore your normal logic will tell you you should not like them, but you still do, so you say it is illogical.
If you can truly analyse the situation you will realise that normal logic treats each event as being equal or similar in some way. Eg. 10 things you dislike and only 2 you like, therefore you should on balance not like them, but you do!
Emotional logic on the other hand is the sum of all these likes and dislikes but it doesn't treat each thing with the similar value, therefore the 2 things you like are far stronger than the other 10 all put together. This is why you like them, because subconsciously you value these 2 things far more than the other 10. (Obviously your true experiences are not this simple to analyse, and because your emotions are controlled mainly subconsciously, you may actually like something about them that you are not even consciously aware of, so maybe everything you can think about them you actually hate on a conscious level but actually love the one thing you are not conscious of, and it doesn't have to be just one thing subconsciously either).
If you followed the concepts of the different types of logic I was explaining, then you can see conceptually that emotions have a logic, it is just difficult to follow, but it is there.
20th August 2015
Private & Confidential Copyright © Mr A Pépés
I will use one more example, but this one may not actually be true. Just image it is, so you can see the difference between the logics.
Two people have just arrived at work and they start talking about an accident they saw on the way to work, "that green car must have been going at some speed to have crashed into the red car and made such a mess .... Cars must have spun..." Etc. now another worker is slightly autistic or savant like (his mind is slightly wired differently). The two previous workers look at him and notice he does not seem to be interested in their conversation, they ask him "did you see the accident? You don't normally see that" (it is something unusual). As far as the other workers are concerned he is not very sociable. He looks at them puzzled and in his mind he is wondering why they are making such a big thing about the two cars, why didn't they mention the bicycle that was near by? It was bright orange, and the front wheel had 27 spokes and the back wheel had 29 spokes, the front rim was bright yellow and the back wheel had lots of different coloured discs on it, and what about the old lady in the building next to it hanging out the 13th floor window flapping her brightly coloured flowered carpet? These you don't normally see coming to work either but they said nothing about them.
Now the two workers question the other worker to double check whether he really saw the accident that they were referring to. He says yes I saw it, I can draw it out for you if you like, and I'll add the bicycle and the woman on the 13th floor of that building that has 29 windows on it.
The workers look out the window and can see the building in question, then start counting the windows, four on each floor and seven floors that makes 28, and there is an extra little window, that makes 29.
How did he know how many windows in that building, does he count them on the way to work.?
No he doesn't, he knows there are 29 in that building and how many there are in all the buildings he sees, this is because he sees all the windows at the same time like the 'emotional' logic. Our normal conscious logic compares things so only sees 2 or three things at the same time. E.g. Is one bigger than the other. You can train your conscious mind to see more things by using patterns, so 4 in a row or at the corners of a square, you don't have to count. Once you go over about ten, you start to get into trouble if they are not in some order or pattern.
If you take a pack of cards and place some of them on the ground in a regular pattern you may know how many are there without counting (because of the pattern), but put 29 in a random mess and you will not see (and know) all 29 at the same time. The autistic/savant will still see and know there are 29 cards on the floor, because he sees them all at the same time in the same way you can see 2 or three cards randomly on the floor without counting them. It is a different process, as if he can consciously access his subconscious that sees everything but does not compare.
The subconscious sees everything but only brings to your conscious attention that which you are interested in.
Morph your mind with Morphological at
apepes.com
Private & Confidential Copyright © Mr A Pépés
The Logic of Emotions.
What is the Logic of Emotions?
Most people would say there is no logic to emotions, that is why we say people are being emotional and not logical, but using my simplified complex logic, there is an ultimate logic to emotions.
In other words if someone said there is no logical reason for emotions then I would agree 99% of the time, but if they said there is no logical reasons for emotions then I would disagree 99% of the time.
How can I say these things and still be correct?
Well most of my readers should know me by now, the difference between the two statements is just one letter the "s" at the end of reason, it all depends on your interpretation of the meanings I wish to convey to you. Firstly the word 'logical' means subtly different things to different people, in other words there are lots of different 'logics' and that is why what is logical to one person does not seem logical to someone else. You have to use the same logic that I am using to make sense of it.
Does that make me correct?
It does not make me correct if my logic is faulty, but my logic is based on the logic that it must not contradict itself or contradict any thing else that it can't explain. (You have to wait and see if it makes sense before you accept any explanation).
The second word that you have to think about is the word 'reason'.
Is there a reason or reasons for emotions?
You may not know the reason or reasons but it makes sense that there is a reason or reasons for emotions. You might think they just accidentally happened (evolved) and there is no real reason for them, but I totally disagree and I wish to explain my reasons for this.
I have already mentioned the reasons for emotions in another Tea Break Book of mine, but here I wish to explain further the difference between normal logic and the logic of emotions.
The reason for the evolution of emotions that I mentioned elsewhere is to avoid the equivalent of 'system crashes' that would occur in a normal computer or brain if only normal logic ruled.
So what is the difference between the two logics?
Normal logic I.e. The logic that our higher conscious minds use is serial in nature meaning we can create a single path for our reasoning. I.e. We can deduce induce or abduce etc. the reasons for it, in a linear fashion (or progression).
Let me use an example. If we take a statement like 'All Carnivores Eat Meat'. We may not even know what a carnivore is in its entirety but we know that it eats meat, even if we don't know what eat means or what meat is.
If we next take a second statement like 'All Lions Eat Meat' we may not know what a Lion is, but if we ever come across one we know it eats meat.
Using our normal logic we can infer that a Lion is a Carnivore and we would be basically correct in our logic.
Now what if I said those statements in reverse order I.e. 'All Lions Eat Meat' the logic would appear to be the same: - we may not even know what a Lion is in its entirety but we know that it eats meat, even if we don't know what eat means or what meat is. If we next take a second statement like 'All Carnivores Eat Meat' we may not know what a Carnivore is, but if we ever come across one we know it eats meat. Using our normal logic (as before) we can infer that a Carnivore is a Lion! and we would be basically correct in our logic, but we know that this is actually wrong!
So why is one way correct and the other way wrong?
It is because we already have an idea of all the words we are using and they have been put into some sort of hierarchy or category. So some words have been already defined more specifically like lion, and some words have been less specific or General like carnivore. (This does not mean that the word carnivore does not have a specific definition, it means that it belongs to a higher group). So you can only go from a higher to a lower group (or depending how you view things in your mind, from a lower to a higher group). Either way, it can only go in one direction and not the other.
So a Lion is a Carnivore, but a Carnivore is not necessarily a Lion. Now if you make a third statement and add a 'cub' it can then still be a Carnivore and a Lion, but a Carnivore or a Lion does not mean a 'cub'. It is just a singular sequence of inferences, it can have many branches, but the logic follows a serial path.
What is the logic of emotions?
The logic of emotions does not follow a singular path, it takes all paths and creates a feeling of what is most likely correct according to its experiences. Imagine that there is no one solution to the problem at hand, so all solutions are considered at the same time and some solutions are stronger than others. Each solution has a potential, e.g. one maybe 90% another 50% and a third 10% etc. each emotion will assess different criteria so will come up with a different feeling for the same input.
I'll use 'fear' as an example. A child is playing outside, they come across something they have never come across before.
What do they do?
This depends on their previous experiences, because they have not experienced this new thing before they can't use their normal logic correctly. They see it is sticking out of the ground and it seems to have a stem, they think it might be a plant, but according to their limited experience they think plants have leaves, and this thing doesn't have any.
Now depending on their previous experiences they have a feeling about this thing.
Do they fear it? Is it something that should be feared? Can it harm them?
If during their previous experiences their mum said don't touch anything when you don't know what it is, it may hurt you. The child may have a slight fear and just leave it alone and carry on playing. On the other hand if mum just said be careful not to hurt yourself when playing. The child may not fear it and just rip it out of the ground to take it back to mum to find out what it is, or they might start taking it to pieces to discover more about it.
Upon getting home, mum says it's a fungus not a plant ..... Now if the fungus was a mushroom, mum might say you can eat this, or that's what you like when I cut it up and grill it with butter. The child's experience is now favourable and it will not fear fungi the next time it comes across something like this the next time it's playing, even if it is slightly different.
If on the other hand the fungus was a toadstool, mum would explain that this thing can poison you and even kill you, don't ever touch anything like this again unless you check with me first. The child's experience is now not favourable and it will fear fungi the next time it comes across something like this the next time it's playing, even if it is slightly different (it could be a nice tasty mushroom, but it will still be feared).
Now with the examples above I only used just one situation with variations, but emotions are a complete set of circumstances and experiences, so you don't analyse them individually.
You or someone appears to feel fear in some situation that you or they feel comfortable in.
It appears illogical that they should fear a 'strawberry' but somewhere in their past many circumstances created a fear of strawberries. No one circumstance may explain it.
Let us suppose that they saw someone choke on something that looked like a strawberry (the thing was not a strawberry, it was something hard).
Logically you should not fear strawberries because it wasn't a strawberry.
At another time they saw lots of little black ants eating a bit of fruit (again not a strawberry) but at that time it reminded them of the little seeds on the outside of the strawberry, mum went berserk because the ants were on the fruit.
On a third occasion someone cut their hand and blood dropped all over the floor... Some of the blotches where shaped like strawberries and obviously red.
Plus many more obscure experiences not related to strawberries directly, but something that reminds them of feared experiences.
Now each event will have a mild emotion attached to it, in this case various degrees of fear of each occasion. Now the sight of strawberries is not analysed, they just get an overall feeling of fear, which is made up of all the little pieces of fear put together. The fear is real for them because it is the sum of their experiences of all the fears they have had at different times. (Obviously in real terms there are built in fears of certain things, but most is learnt from ones experience).
Imagine it is like a spiders web with different strength threads, and depending where you are on the web and in which direction you want to move in will result in different threads pulling with different overall strengths. Each direction you want to move in will give a different strength of 'feeling'.
Another example, you see someone new, you instantly take a liking to them or an instant disliking.
What makes you like them or dislike them?
Obviously your emotions, but these are the sum of your experiences, someone you liked before had the same type of nose, someone else you disliked had the same type of ears, and another you liked had a similar smile, yet another had similar clothes, and one had terrible teeth just like this one, etc.
You look at this new person and you still like them, even with terrible teeth! This is because the strengths of the positive traits were far greater than the negative traits.
If you try and analyse it with normal logic you will probably fail because you may find far more things you dislike about this person than the things you like, therefore your normal logic will tell you you should not like them, but you still do, so you say it is illogical.
If you can truly analyse the situation you will realise that normal logic treats each event as being equal or similar in some way. Eg. 10 things you dislike and only 2 you like, therefore you should on balance not like them, but you do!
Emotional logic on the other hand is the sum of all these likes and dislikes but it doesn't treat each thing with the similar value, therefore the 2 things you like are far stronger than the other 10 all put together. This is why you like them, because subconsciously you value these 2 things far more than the other 10. (Obviously your true experiences are not this simple to analyse, and because your emotions are controlled mainly subconsciously, you may actually like something about them that you are not even consciously aware of, so maybe everything you can think about them you actually hate on a conscious level but actually love the one thing you are not conscious of, and it doesn't have to be just one thing subconsciously either).
If you followed the concepts of the different types of logic I was explaining, then you can see conceptually that emotions have a logic, it is just difficult to follow, but it is there.
20th August 2015
Private & Confidential Copyright © Mr A Pépés
I will use one more example, but this one may not actually be true. Just image it is, so you can see the difference between the logics.
Two people have just arrived at work and they start talking about an accident they saw on the way to work, "that green car must have been going at some speed to have crashed into the red car and made such a mess .... Cars must have spun..." Etc. now another worker is slightly autistic or savant like (his mind is slightly wired differently). The two previous workers look at him and notice he does not seem to be interested in their conversation, they ask him "did you see the accident? You don't normally see that" (it is something unusual). As far as the other workers are concerned he is not very sociable. He looks at them puzzled and in his mind he is wondering why they are making such a big thing about the two cars, why didn't they mention the bicycle that was near by? It was bright orange, and the front wheel had 27 spokes and the back wheel had 29 spokes, the front rim was bright yellow and the back wheel had lots of different coloured discs on it, and what about the old lady in the building next to it hanging out the 13th floor window flapping her brightly coloured flowered carpet? These you don't normally see coming to work either but they said nothing about them.
Now the two workers question the other worker to double check whether he really saw the accident that they were referring to. He says yes I saw it, I can draw it out for you if you like, and I'll add the bicycle and the woman on the 13th floor of that building that has 29 windows on it.
The workers look out the window and can see the building in question, then start counting the windows, four on each floor and seven floors that makes 28, and there is an extra little window, that makes 29.
How did he know how many windows in that building, does he count them on the way to work.?
No he doesn't, he knows there are 29 in that building and how many there are in all the buildings he sees, this is because he sees all the windows at the same time like the 'emotional' logic. Our normal conscious logic compares things so only sees 2 or three things at the same time. E.g. Is one bigger than the other. You can train your conscious mind to see more things by using patterns, so 4 in a row or at the corners of a square, you don't have to count. Once you go over about ten, you start to get into trouble if they are not in some order or pattern.
If you take a pack of cards and place some of them on the ground in a regular pattern you may know how many are there without counting (because of the pattern), but put 29 in a random mess and you will not see (and know) all 29 at the same time. The autistic/savant will still see and know there are 29 cards on the floor, because he sees them all at the same time in the same way you can see 2 or three cards randomly on the floor without counting them. It is a different process, as if he can consciously access his subconscious that sees everything but does not compare.
The subconscious sees everything but only brings to your conscious attention that which you are interested in.
Morph your mind with Morphological at
apepes.com