Vulcans Nixed: You Can’t Have Logic Without Emotion -A Galaxy Classic

Fifty years ago some young MIT scholars delivered a radical notion to the world. They proposed that it is possible to scientifically study precise mechanisms and processes of human thought. The movement was the catalyst for many fields of study.

Now after a generation of productive research, a newer paradigm shift is taking place. Science is discovering that it is our emotions that make thought possible, not the other way around. We simply cannot understand thought without understanding emotion. This is a radical departure from the traditional perspective, which used to regard emotion as the antagonist of reason.

Fifty years ago some young MIT scholars delivered a radical notion to the world. They proposed that it is possible to scientifically study precise mechanisms and processes of human thought. The movement was the catalyst for many fields of study.

Now after a generation of productive research, a newer paradigm shift is taking place. Science is discovering that it is our emotions that make thought possible, not the other way around. We simply cannot understand thought without understanding emotion. This is a radical departure from the traditional perspective, which used to regard emotion as the antagonist of reason.

Because we subscribed to this false ideal of rational, logical thought, we diminished the importance of everything else," said Marvin Minsky, a professor at MIT and pioneer of artificial intelligence. "Seeing our emotions as distinct from thinking was really quite disastrous."

Cognitive psychologists have traditionally downplayed the importance of emotions to the thought process. "They regarded emotions as an artifact of subjective experience, and thus not worthy of investigation," said Joseph LeDoux, a neuroscientist at NYU.

In all fairness to cognitive psychologists, the field of cognitive psychology has always been criticized for being too “soft” of a science. The effect is that cognitive scientists have always felt compelled to “harden” the science up with logical facts, and less study of emotion and behavior. Ironically, “feelings” ARE the new “fact”, and the main determination of the choices we make- not logic.

In fact, the entire “science of thinking” was approached somewhat backwards right from the start. Perhaps, this was partly due to the field being largely dominated by men who suspected (in true Vulcan fashion) that “feeling” is inferior to logic. In fact, as I was summarizing these findings for this post, my husband called to tell me about a problem he is having with a coworker. I asked him if he had talked to the individual to find out how he was feeling. My husband replied, “Men don’t talk about feelings. We talk about facts.”

Of course, that doesn’t apply to all men. Antonio Damasio, a neuroscientist at USC has played an important role in establishing the importance of studying emotion. Before Damasio came onto the scene, most cognitive scientists assumed that emotions only interfered with rational thought. It was assumed that a person without any emotions would be a better thinker, since their “cortical computer” could process information without the hindrance of emotion. Damasio’s research challenged the assumption by showing that people who have suffered brain injuries which prevent them from perceiving their own feelings, are ineffective decision-makers. Most would spend hours deliberating over irrelevant details, such as where to eat lunch. Damasio’s research, among many other studies, is revealing that emotion is what enables us to make up our minds. It is pure reason- not feeling- that is the true hindrance to decision making. So take that, Mr. Spock!

Posted by Rebecca Sato

Be Sure to Check Out the LeDouxLab on the Emotional Brain

Link to the History of the Planet Vulcan

Prior Posts:

Big Brain & the Pursuit of Happiness
Mysteries of the Human Brain

Because we subscribed to this false ideal of rational, logical thought, we diminished the importance of everything else," said Marvin Minsky, a professor at MIT and pioneer of artificial intelligence. "Seeing our emotions as distinct from thinking was really quite disastrous."

Cognitive psychologists have traditionally downplayed the importance of emotions to the thought process. "They regarded emotions as an artifact of subjective experience, and thus not worthy of investigation," said Joseph LeDoux, a neuroscientist at NYU.

In all fairness to cognitive psychologists, the field of cognitive psychology has always been criticized for being too “soft” of a science. The effect is that cognitive scientists have always felt compelled to “harden” the science up with logical facts, and less study of emotion and behavior. Ironically, “feelings” ARE the new “fact”, and the main determination of the choices we make- not logic.

In fact, the entire “science of thinking” was approached somewhat backwards right from the start. Perhaps, this was partly due to the field being largely dominated by men who suspected (in true Vulcan fashion) that “feeling” is inferior to logic. In fact, as I was summarizing these findings for this post, my husband called to tell me about a problem he is having with a coworker. I asked him if he had talked to the individual to find out how he was feeling. My husband replied, “Men don’t talk about feelings. We talk about facts.”

Of course, that doesn’t apply to all men. Antonio Damasio, a neuroscientist at USC has played an important role in establishing the importance of studying emotion. Before Damasio came onto the scene, most cognitive scientists assumed that emotions only interfered with rational thought. It was assumed that a person without any emotions would be a better thinker, since their “cortical computer” could process information without the hindrance of emotion. Damasio’s research challenged the assumption by showing that people who have suffered brain injuries which prevent them from perceiving their own feelings, are ineffective decision-makers. Most would spend hours deliberating over irrelevant details, such as where to eat lunch. Damasio’s research, among many other studies, is revealing that emotion is what enables us to make up our minds. It is pure reason- not feeling- that is the true hindrance to decision making. So take that, Mr. Spock!

Posted by Rebecca Sato

Be Sure to Check Out the LeDouxLab on the Emotional Brain

Link to the History of the Planet Vulcan

Prior Posts:

Big Brain & the Pursuit of Happiness
Mysteries of the Human Brain

Comments

[tejo]

"people who have suffered brain injuries which prevent them from perceiving their own feelings, are ineffective decision-makers"
this in fact does not prove that emotion is needed for decision making;I mean put it other way :"people who have suffered brain injuries which made them ineffective decision-makers prevent them from perceiving their own feelings."

[Odd John]

Hasn't Spock faced enough discrimination? For shame!

[Randall Klopping]

Yeah living with the problems of a major brain injury are difficult but even though I don't feel many emotions I have still been able to relearn/adapt. Life will always be frustrating for me but I've learned to function halfway decent again.

[Amy]

This is a very common misconception about Vulcans. They DO have emotion, they simply choose not to express it overtly. There are actually many instances when they are shown to have emotion, such as during their mating ritual. Or when Spock's father was dying of Bendii Syndrome and could no longer suppress emotional outbursts--much like those with Alzheimer's.

Yes I'm a Trekkie nerd!

[Narendra Nath]

It is a very interesting study that need to be persued further before arriving at intermediate conclusions. Yes, both emotions and logical/rational processes are involved in working out the basis for thought processes. Assuming early humans to have dominance of emotion over rational component provides us the way to build a picture of intellect to grow with times. What exactly can be considered intellect is today associated with the IQ of a person. On the other hand, we know excellence and innovation is not directly related to the intellect level. There are prodigies who showed restricted Talents of high order. The same even faded with time too. Thus the picture appears to indicate all the components that go into the thought processes may have role towards defining the quality of thoughts. The environment plays a role too. The environment has all levels of possibilities,highly restrictive to all-encompassing.
The human mind has yet to be understood better scientifically and human brain is just one factor in it. The emotions tend to get associated with the 'heart' but certainly it can't be the organ so named. In fact, consciousness/ awareness lives collectively as well individually in each human cell, and the human death does not correspond to sudden loss of all sorts of these 'consciousness' seats in the human body. Survival of miraculous nature and revival of life after substantial confirmation of medical death are also still enigmatic for humans to unravel. Just continue to study as we are still far from a clearer picture in this regard.

[xyz]

Quite correct, Amy.
Live long & prosper.

[nono]

I think the first respondent is bogged down in semantics. The point of that pull quote is that when faced with decisions of a trivial nature such as where to eat, there is no major logical or factual advantage or disadvantage to any of the options. Because of this one would have to fall back on how they feel about each option: "I'm sick of sushi"(having sushi again would not be fulfilling and so not make me feel good), "I feel like having a burger"(having a burger would make me feel good),etc. without these emotional motivators and with insufficient technical and factual knowledge of,or interest in(which goes back to emotion/fulfillment)human dietary needs, that decision would be vexing. this has interesting implications about the likelihood of advanced, human-like artificial intelligence. However, maybe a computer would be able to have a deeper, more easily cataloged and accessed store of factual knowledge that would circumvent the need for emotion or feeling with regard to decision making. so maybe all this says is that humans, who have always had emotion, and require various levels of intrinsic motivation to determine behavior, have come to rely on feeling as a crutch in decision-making situations where their level of technical knowledge of cost/benefit is lacking either because of intelligence/education level or lack of personal interest in a specific area.