Science, intellect and emotions

[Farren]

I'll admit at the outset of writing this that I don't have any one, clear point in mind. Some recent threads here triggered a nebulous array of thoughts and I just want to share them and read other people's thoughts on the same issues.

On this thread (http://www.freethought-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=701) Socratoad mentioned being struck by the religiosity displayed by some in their attitude to science. As someone who believed that even one's emotions should be strictly subservient to logic for many years, I immediately empathise with the observation.

Many of the friends of my youth were cultish devotees of science, to the point of subordinating everything to it. In this post (http://www.freethought-forum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=12466&postcount=16) on another thread I described a fairly extreme example.

My own views were also fairly extreme for a while. I lived with a former girlfriend for two years before I could bring myself to say "I love you". The reason? I couldn't define "love" and she and others couldn't provide a formal enough definition for the word to have utility.

I discounted "love" as a conflated term for mutual interests and sexual attraction which served to disguise the underlying reality.

One consequence of this thinking was that I thought monogamous relationships were a stupid artifact of primtive requirements that were no longer applicable. One belief I hold to this day is that evolution doesn't produce the optimum result. It produces an arbitrary result, as ably articulated by Gould.

Coupled with my feelings about love, I arrived at the conclusion that jealousy served no useful purpose and should be suppressed in the same way that we suppress our innate urge to kill other people in situations of extreme conflict. As a result, I had a five-year open relationship with the woman who I couldn't admit I loved for two years.

The results of that social experiment were a mixed bag. I actively encouraged her to find other partners when our sex life was getting a bit boring (mainly because of my programming mania) and she did take two consecutive lovers. The first couldn't cope with the situation but the second enthusiastically embraced it. He was a bisexual guy and in later years I briefly had a sexual relationship with him, for confused reasons that were mainly about testing my limits (I'm 100% hetero).

On the one occasion when I tried to exercise my polyamorous options, however, she couldn't contain her jealousy. By that stage I had acquired a different understanding of love and could admit to myself that I loved her dearly and that I was willing to let her have that freedom and deny myself. I still do, despite having gone our seperate ways because of compatibility issues not related to love - and we have long telephone conversations a couple of times a year.

Among the positives I acquired from that phase is the fact that I rarely, if ever, get any kind of jealousy reaction and feel very little envy generally, not because I've simply repressed it, but because I've accumulated a host of mental devices for disposing of it, mainly centered around recognising that other people's choices are more often a positive force in another direction, not a negative force pushing away from you.

But I also realised that I had gone waaay too far in trying to fit human interaction into a neat little logical model. Consciously deliberating about everything actually denies you the experience of simply being that thing and creates a kind of blindness. At the time I was increasingly being exposed to Buddhist and Taoist ideas articulated by some very smart people I had the privilege of meeting.

I'd never even considered the dichotomy between knowing by naming and knowing by being. I'm not sure when the lightbulb moment was but my feelings about logic, morality and feelings themselves were radically different at age 30 to my feeling at age 20.

In my late teens and early twenties, every single emotional interaction had some kind of attendant conscious dialog. I carefully marshalled my words and discounted any subtext or emotional signals when interacting with people on the grounds that people had a ethical duty to say what they mean and mean what they say.

The curious thing was that at the same time my thinking was being transformed by exposure to Buddhist and Taoist thought, my brother (who's subsequently also swung completely to the "other side") and a close personal friend were becoming more thoroughly "scientized" in their interactions. They had both become devotees of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, most famously advocated by cynical practitioners such as Anthony Roberts.

Years later my brother forked out $10,000 to attend a Roberts seminar in Europe and realised his moral bankrupcy. He described the seminar as "cult like" and was particularly perturbed at Roberts' repeated (decietful) use of NLP techniques on the people he was supposed to be instructing.

The thing is, a lot of NLP actually works. Its based on a lot of effective techniques gleaned from military and industrial psychiatry and its difficult to criticise it in the same manner one would criticise a lot of fluffy new-age self-help stuff.

Having my brother and a close friend become more enamoured of NLP and similar stuff while I was heading in the other direction only served to highlight for me the missing component in conventional western science-oriented living philosophies.

One specific lightbulb moment I recollect was a discussion I had with the close friend about intuition. His belief was that your reaction to other people should always be marshalled by your conscious intellect. IOW, if you have a bad feeling about someone but logic dictates that they don't represent a threat and/or could be a profitable acquaintance, you should suppress or discard that emotion.

In struggling to articulate my instinctive objection to that line of thought the following idea crystallised in my head: If all learning required conscious logical dialog then babies couldn't learn to speak. So its self-evident that we can learn without words or logic. By making our intuition constantly subordinate to our intellect, we're actually preventing ourselves from learning in a certain way and presumably, by extension, preventing ourselves from learning certain things.

Therefore one's intuition should be developed and listened to as a seperate faculty in a dialog with our intellect, not a subordinate faculty dictated to by intellect. If you don't learn to simply "feel" people, animals and situatons in general, you're closing off an entire realm of possible human experience that is both useful and pleasurable.

Ideas like the one articulated above have had an extraordinarily tangible effect on my emotional state and interaction with people and animals. I'm not a suave charmer by any stretch, but my comic timing has improved. I'm vastly better at correctly reading people's feelings face to face and responding appropriately.

As a teen I believed strongly in being kind to animals in an intellectual way, but my interactions with them were conscious, deliberate and clumsy attempts to be nice, rather than emotionally involved. I used to pay attention to the dog because it was "the right thing to do". Now I give it attention because I love it dearly.

Even the manner of attention has evolved. My sister in law said it best when she said touch from someone they trust and love is pleasurable to dogs for the same reason its pleasurable to humans, so a massage is better than an awkward pat on the head. That's exactly what I (and my SIL) do.

On the subject of massage (for pleasure), a friend told me years ago that you'll know it feels good for the person being massaged if it feels good for you. I simply couldn't grasp what he meant until I underwent a fundamental change in my thinking.

In my younger days I used to dislike hugging because there was too much intellect happening while I did it. Thoughts like "Am I pressing to hard? When do we stop? Is this an innapropriate amount of time for a female friend?" would race through my head. Now a hug from a friend is just pure pleasure, especially if they're a good hugger who has no body space or self-consciousness issues.

I've realised that there's a whole huge bunch of people out there that "got" the kind of things I'm talking about when they were, like, 5 years old, but there are also a surprising number of people, especially in the sciences, who never do.

I wish I there some way of succinctly and persuasively articulating all these ideas because I've met so many people who are good people with many sterling qualities but appear to be denying themselves an entire dimension of human experience by valuing intellect uber alles and operating at an emotional distance from the world.

[Nil Desperandum]

I'm an extremely emotion creature who had the detachment from life that you had.

I realized how much bullshit it entailed to try and act as if nothing on this planet ever bothered me, or that I shouldn't let it.

I embrace my follies, the follies of others, and the fact that I cry at movies, I love, trust, and that I can kiss a ferret and not feel a fool.

I do agree with you in terms of jealousy -- it has no place in my relationship. I too can be open to polyamory or the multiple-sexual-partners-type relationship.

I find that while you are more skilled in terms of vocabulary, I am more skilled in understand the happiness through skin contact, feeling the sadness of movie characters going through pain, or know that a hug doesn't have to be a logical deconstruction of all kinds of facets of intellect.

Perhaps you just worried too damn much. Always needed an explanation.

I encourage your self-growth, and I welcome you to this akward realm of emotion.

Keep talking -- I need it too.

[Farren]

Its funny you mention crying at movies because that's something I only started doing in my late twenties and even the most obvious tear-jerking formulas do it to me now - and it's a source of great pleasure.

You're right about always needing an explanation. That's what, I think, seperates a healthy respect for science from scientism. The axiomatic assumption is that everything which is true can be put into words, but words provide a digitized version of reality, which IMHO of necessity precludes the ability to process certain information properly, for the reasons I described here (http://www.freethought-forum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=12386&postcount=4).

There are things that can be felt and understood by a much simpler and probably more accurate process than symbolic analysis. The analogy that comes to mind for me is a tuning fork and a computer program both recieving and replicating a sound. The computer program must engage in a host of processes to digitize the sound and replicate it via a sound device. The tuning fork simply resonates. The computer program percieves, translates and replicates. The tunic fork simply becomes.

That, in my mind, is the distinction between a trained intuition/emotional mind (trained by using it, unguided by intellect) and an entirely intellectual approach. Empathy in the former case is being like the other person, actually feeling their happiness or sadness and in the latter case is more a process of converting your sensory input to symbols and responding without sharing feeling. The latter suffers from the dual disadvantage of loss of information resulting in less appropriate response and slower reaction.

[JoeP]

Good post, Farren. Just :shakefist: damn you, all of you, for writing such a lot of interesting material when I can't keep up with it.

The whole thing of emotional understanding as opposed to (balanced with) rational understanding is important - knowing by being rather than/as well as naming, as you say. It sounds like you have achieved this (or are achieving this) through friends and reading and contact. Much cheaper than using a therapist!

- and we have long telephone conversations a couple of times a year.I shudder to think what "long" means (six months each?). You and I have had long conversations a couple of times this year.

[Farren]

- and we have long telephone conversations a couple of times a year.I shudder to think what "long" means (six months each?). You and I have had long conversations a couple of times this year.

Hey! Speaking of which, I'm starting a mornings-only contract for the next few months in Rosebank (R12,000 pm which is sweet, considering they'll let me use their boardroom and bandwidth for other business in the afternoons) for an Internet company so why don't we do those drinks sometime, Rosebank or Melville side?

I promise I'll shut up every ten minutes at least.

[JoeP]

- and we have long telephone conversations a couple of times a year.I shudder to think what "long" means (six months each?). You and I have had long conversations a couple of times this year.

Hey! Speaking of which, I'm starting a mornings-only contract for the next few months in Rosebank (R12,000 pm which is sweet, considering they'll let me use their boardroom and bandwidth for other business in the afternoons) for an Internet company so why don't we do those drinks sometime, Rosebank or Melville side?

I promise I'll shut up every ten minutes at least.
You're on. If you talk for longer than 10 minutes at a stretch, the drinks are on you, OK? :winner:

[Farren]

You're on. If you talk for longer than 10 minutes at a stretch, the drinks are on you, OK? :winner:

Oooh Joe. Kinky. But I don't swing that way. Been there, done that, confirmed my orientation. I could, however, just pay for the drinks :D

[viscousmemories]

Y'all are funny.

Great OP, Farren. Can I interest you in the full set of Anthony Robbins CD's? I only listened to the first few then got distracted, and in the 7 years since I just haven't found the motivation to start over. :D

[LadyShea]

I have nothing to add, only wanted to say I really enjoyed reading this thread.

Oh wait, one thing to say

His belief was that your reaction to other people should always be marshalled by your conscious intellect. IOW, if you have a bad feeling about someone but logic dictates that they don't represent a threat and/or could be a profitable acquaintance, you should suppress or discard that emotion.

Completley denying intuition is a good way to get hurt, deceived or even dead. Our subconscious is powerful and fast processing and is picking up cues we may not ever register consciously. You may want to read The Gift of Fear by Gavin DeBecker for a pragmatic look at this.

[The Lone Ranger]

I'm not sure how strong the relationship is between science per se and (for lack of a better term) emotional immaturity. Certainly, scientists are trained to (insofar as possible) evaluate data rationally, and to not let their "feelings" cloud their judgment. But I've never yet read any textbook or attended any class or seminar in which budding young scientists were urged to suppress their emotions, or taught that emotions are in any way bad. (Except insofar as you shouldn't let you emotions cloud your judgment.)

If anything, my experience has been just the opposite. Most scientists I know (myself included) gravitate to the field precisely because they love learning new stuff, and are more than enthusiastic about sharing it with others. Sadly, while the modern scientific establishment stresses specialization uber alles, my impression is that most scientists are lovers of learning for its own sake -- and by no means in one narrow field.

I can sit down with a bunch of faculty members from the Sciences and have a splendid conversation on politics, music, literature, philosophy, or poetry. But just try to get a bunch of Economists or English Professors to discuss something as basic as the Laws of Thermodynamics!

Anyway, the point is: I've never encountered anyone in the sciences who thinks that it's a good idea to suppress emotions and lead a cold, austere, joyless life.


That having been said, you make a very good point in that the sciences have become so specialized that in order to stand out in your chosen field, you have to specialize to a ridiculous degree. And even so, the competition can be so fierce that you pretty-much have to abandon everything else and devote yourself utterly to your research.

That's one of the reasons why -- though I love the sciences -- I have no desire to be "outstanding in my field." I have far too many other interests that I refuse to abandon.




Completley denying intuition is a good way to get hurt, deceived or even dead. Our subconscious is powerful and fast processing and is picking up cues we may not ever register consciously. You may want to read The Gift of Fear by Gavin DeBecker for a pragmatic look at this.

As much as I value reason and rationality, LadyShea has a very good point. Sometimes you "subconsciously" pick up on clues that never quite make it into the conscious mind. I'd say that if you should encounter someone on the street, say, and you feel "creepy" or otherwise uncomfortable in that person's presence, it's probably a good idea to pay attention to those feelings.

That does not mean that you should always just "go with your gut" and assume that every time you have "bad vibes" or whatever you should just go with that feeling, of course.

In a slightly related vein, one of the best pieces of advice I ever received from one of my kendo instructors was this: "Smart people often don't do well in the martial arts." His point was that people who are used to analyzing things often take a long time to become proficient in the martial arts or other such fields, if they ever do. That's precisely because they're used to analyzing things. It's a habit you must un-learn in order to become proficient at such things.

The reason for this is because in an actual fight, there's simply no time for conscious thought. If you don't learn to stop thinking in such a situation and simply react, you'll fare very poorly.

Moral: Sometimes you don't have time to think, and you just have to go on "instinct" or training.

Cheers,

Michael

[Godless Dave]

My own views were also fairly extreme for a while. I lived with a former girlfriend for two years before I could bring myself to say "I love you". The reason? I couldn't define "love" and she and others couldn't provide a formal enough definition for the word to have utility.
One of the many fascinating things I learned while studying linguistics is that there is a class of words that don't really have meaning in themselves; they are used to convey grammatical information.

Try to think about what prepositions like "to", "for", and "of" mean. Then try "the" and "a". They don't have meaning in the same way that words like "dog" and "pretty" do. But we couldn't communicate without them.

What I'm getting at is that "love" may not have a well defined meaning. "I love you" is something to say to your partner so they will shut up and let you go to sleep.

Yes, I started a discussion on linguistics just to make a jackass punchline.

One thing I struggle with is what to do with feelings that, if indulged, lead to unproductive or counterproductive results. I may realize that I am angry with someone who does not deserve my anger, but trying to ignore or suppress the anger doesn't work. I think the key is to be aware of your emotions without succumbing to them. Easier said than done of course.

[Nil Desperandum]

Godless, awesome question.

I have a lot of anxiety. I get angry, and I yell and curse.

These are emotions, period. Every person will have them. I find it not surprising that you struggle with these. I am on a course to lessen the negative effects that these emotions have on my daily life. I know that if I just wait long enough, I'll feel better. Or I try to focus on more positive things. Sometimes, when it is bad enough, I try and channel some energy out of myself, because I tend to think of things in terms of energy, and for whatever reason, I have an extremely large amount of negative energy reverberating throughout my body.

Ever notice how people shake when they get angry? Flight or fight. For whatever reason, your body shoots out energy into your nerves and triggers. You shake. You are more apt to be physical or yell or do other things at higher volumes/energies. That is my take.

Dammit, I lost track. I will finish this later.

:)

[Farren]

I'm not sure how strong the relationship is between science per se and (for lack of a better term) emotional immaturity. Certainly, scientists are trained to (insofar as possible) evaluate data rationally, and to not let their "feelings" cloud their judgment. But I've never yet read any textbook or attended any class or seminar in which budding young scientists were urged to suppress their emotions, or taught that emotions are in any way bad. (Except insofar as you shouldn't let you emotions cloud your judgment.)

If anything, my experience has been just the opposite. Most scientists I know (myself included) gravitate to the field precisely because they love learning new stuff, and are more than enthusiastic about sharing it with others. Sadly, while the modern scientific establishment stresses specialization uber alles, my impression is that most scientists are lovers of learning for its own sake -- and by no means in one narrow field.

I can sit down with a bunch of faculty members from the Sciences and have a splendid conversation on politics, music, literature, philosophy, or poetry. But just try to get a bunch of Economists or English Professors to discuss something as basic as the Laws of Thermodynamics!

Anyway, the point is: I've never encountered anyone in the sciences who thinks that it's a good idea to suppress emotions and lead a cold, austere, joyless life.


Perhaps I over-emphasised the idea of austerity and coldness (and the story about one individual linked to hinted even more at that), but that wasn't quite the whole of what I was thinking. I concur that many scientifically minded types do in fact have very sunny dispositions.

Nonetheless, my experiences with both academics and technical people is that even those that have sunny dispositions (or moody dispositions) are more likely to feel, for want of a better phrase, analytically-contained emotions.

That doesn't necessarily amount to suppressed emotion, but it does amount to bounded and altered emotion. The symptoms aren't necessarily an inability to smile, scowl, or show extreme enthusiasm. They can be far more subtle, such as an awkward approach to affection with both people and animals, which, lets face it, hasn't found its way into the popular archetype of the science or tech nerd entirely because of mischaracterisation.

Its not a wholesale condemnation of science or tech people. Obviously the lens of well-trained intellect offers many benefits. I suppose I was trying to say that by and large scientific ideals aren't coupled with additional ideas and philosophies that would remove the limitations such training introduces without removing the benefits.

I think you more or less acknowledge this (not necessarily as applied to emotion as I have, but an obliquely similar phenomenon), when you say

In a slightly related vein, one of the best pieces of advice I ever received from one of my kendo instructors was this: "Smart people often don't do well in the martial arts." His point was that people who are used to analyzing things often take a long time to become proficient in the martial arts or other such fields, if they ever do. That's precisely because they're used to analyzing things. It's a habit you must un-learn in order to become proficient at such things.

I'm sure you've come across the anecdotes about Niels Bohr, who was often mocked by his friends for being slow to "get" a comic or "gotcha" moment in a movie, while ostensibly being so bright. In his latter years he collaborated with Jung in a series of experiments to verify the obvious: That his deep analysis of the situation precluded and even supressed the gut reaction that made things "obvious" to everyone else.

A: "What's this?" (points at sheep).
B: "I don't know..."
A: Thinks: gee, this guy is ignorant
B: Agora or Merino? I'm not sure...

The thing is, people in the sciences are very actively taught a comprehensive philosophy of symbolic logic and method. They are not, at the same time, taught a great deal about the logic of gut reactions and knowledge by being. Most people aren't taught a comprehensive philosophy that examines and explores the knowlege of being in a consistent, unsuperstitious way.

But the absence of such teaching in the sciences is salient because the former definitely enroaches on the territory of the latter. A person who is trained to methodically and logically seek answers naturally adopts methods they've been actively taught when considering why they are saddened by something, whereas the untrained mind goes with feelings by default.

That's not to say the dialogue between the trained intellect and raw emotion isn't fruitful. Its tremendously beneficial when the two mutually inform each other. When intellectual understanding, for instance, leads one to temper one's anger and be diplomatic because of an awareness of consequences and mitigating circumstances, all benefit. But that's mainly good in a situation where the intellect has been initially employed to arrive at a condition of being that subsequently doesn't require intellect.

That recognition, the recognition of when to analyse and when to reacte from the pit of your stomach, isn't a standard companion of scientific teaching. Hence the awkwardness and limitation I mentioned earlier. It doesn't mean it can't be learned, that science somehow precludes such greater understanding. But it does create a predisposition in the scientific and technical communities.


As much as I value reason and rationality, LadyShea has a very good point. Sometimes you "subconsciously" pick up on clues that never quite make it into the conscious mind. I'd say that if you should encounter someone on the street, say, and you feel "creepy" or otherwise uncomfortable in that person's presence, it's probably a good idea to pay attention to those feelings.

That does not mean that you should always just "go with your gut" and assume that every time you have "bad vibes" or whatever you should just go with that feeling, of course.

The reason for this is because in an actual fight, there's simply no time for conscious thought. If you don't learn to stop thinking in such a situation and simply react, you'll fare very poorly.

Moral: Sometimes you don't have time to think, and you just have to go on "instinct" or training.


I agree with you wholeheartedly and I think that's where more metaphysical philosophies become useful, especially those that include components of teaching that are non-intellectual, such as meditation and physical activity. I firmly believe several such systems of thought offer ways of discerning the time and place for each.

[Farren]

My own views were also fairly extreme for a while. I lived with a former girlfriend for two years before I could bring myself to say "I love you". The reason? I couldn't define "love" and she and others couldn't provide a formal enough definition for the word to have utility.
One of the many fascinating things I learned while studying linguistics is that there is a class of words that don't really have meaning in themselves; they are used to convey grammatical information.

Try to think about what prepositions like "to", "for", and "of" mean. Then try "the" and "a". They don't have meaning in the same way that words like "dog" and "pretty" do. But we couldn't communicate without them.

What I'm getting at is that "love" may not have a well defined meaning. "I love you" is something to say to your partner so they will shut up and let you go to sleep.

Yes, I started a discussion on linguistics just to make a jackass punchline.


Excellent point, jackass.

Yeah, its like there are words that describe things that are nebulous (involving expectations, behaviours and several feelings) but consistent. So they have utility (describing something that has consensual meaning despite covering a lot of territory) while at the same time don't submit well to reduction.

Personally, I have to admit romantic love (the feeling induced by chocolate) is still problematic for me, but general love (feeling someone's pain and joy almost as intensely as they do, when they do and caring about their welfare as much, or almost as much as you do your own) is something I feel is worthy of seeking out and cherishing.

[The Lone Ranger]

That doesn't necessarily amount to suppressed emotion, but it does amount to bounded and altered emotion. The symptoms aren't necessarily an inability to smile, scowl, or show extreme enthusiasm. They can be far more subtle, such as an awkward approach to affection with both people and animals, which, lets face it, hasn't found its way into the popular archetype of the science or tech nerd entirely because of mischaracterisation.


I'm not sure there's any cause-and-effect relationship as far as that goes. Maybe it's more that in such fields it's possible to be successful despite social awkwardness. Maybe it's not so much that people in these fields are taught or encouraged to behave in such a way, as that they're allowed to behave that way.



The thing is, people in the sciences are very actively taught a comprehensive philosophy of symbolic logic and method. They are not, at the same time, taught a great deal about the logic of gut reactions and knowledge by being. Most people aren't taught a comprehensive philosophy that examines and explores the knowlege of being in a consistent, unsuperstitious way.

But the absence of such teaching in the sciences is salient because the former definitely enroaches on the territory of the latter. A person who is trained to methodically and logically seek answers naturally adopts methods they've been actively taught when considering why they are saddened by something, whereas the untrained mind goes with feelings by default.

I think the key thing here is imbalance. Too "methodical" an approach to life can be just as bad as too "emotional" an approach. More on that in a moment. I've not noticed that lots of courses in the Humanities stress the importance of being able to rationally analyze problems.

Certainly, I'm trained as a scientist, and that influences my outlook on life. As a scientist, I'm trained to recognize that you can never prove anything absolutely. Consequently, I'm downright obsessive about qualifying just-about everything I say. I'm reminded on a daily basis that most people don't seem to think that way though, and it's often a source of frustration. I can't begin to enumerate the number of times I've had a conversation that went something like this:

Me: "As best I can tell from the information I have, 'X' is probably true."
Somebody Else: "Ah, so you believe 'X' is true."
Me: "No, I said that, as best I can tell, 'X' is probably true."
Somebody Else: "Okay, so what do you believe?"
Me: " . . . I believe that as best I can tell, 'X' is probably true. Why is that so difficult a concept?"


As much as I frequently lament the general lack of critical thinking skills within the general populace, I'd be the last to say that an overly-analytical mindset is either appropriate or even particularly healthy.

Robert Heinlein wrote:
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

It's a sentiment I tend to agree with.



For every scientist or technician I've encountered who had an overly-analytical approach to life, I'd bet good money that I've encountered a dozen people who seem to be incapable a rational analysis, and seem to rely only on "gut instinct" to make their decisions. Imbalance is a bad thing, in my view, no matter which direction it leans.

My impression is that "overly-emotional" people who cannot or will not think rationally greatly outnumber those who are "overly-rational" and cannot or will not react to a situation except on the basis of careful analysis. What's more, just as it may be true that training in the sciences encourages people to think in a rational and "detached" manner (which some people take to an unwise and even unhealthy extreme), other fields train people to pay attention to their emotions and "intuition," and some of those people take that to an unwise or even unhealthy extreme, to the point that they insist that rational thinking is unproductive or somehow "phallocentric" or whatever. I'd be willing to bet good money that I've encountered a lot more people who use the word "rationality" as a sort of swear word and can't say it without a sneer than people who think that "intuition" is something that should be ignored or suppressed.


What's really astonishing is when people try to use ways of thinking for tasks to which they're completely unsuited. Like the English professor who tries to "rationally analyze" a poem, for instance. It's beyond absurd, and yet I've heard people insist with a straight face that you can formulate "objective criteria" with which to judge the "worth" of a poem or piece of music. I'm always reminded in such instances of the "Far Side" cartoon in which "primitive scientists" try to get a wooly mammoth under a microscope for analysis -- they're using a totally inappropriate tool for the job at hand.



Maybe the problem is one of overspecialization. We've all heard the stories of the "tortured genius," the person who simply cannot relate to anyone outside his/her field -- and not very many within the field.

Such people are often encouraged to devote more or less all of their time and energy to their pursuits. Is it any wonder that they have tremendous difficulty relating to or even understanding others? This is no less true of poets, musicians, or other artists than it is of outstanding scientists or technicians, as far as I can tell.

The difference is that the natural sciences have been so extraordinarily successful at explaining the natural world that nowadays, you pretty-much have to specialize if you expect to have any hope of making any "significant contributions." While I understand the necessity for specialization, I do think it's often overstressed in the training of scientists, and as I've often said, I don't think that's a good thing at all.


Cheers,

Michael

[livius drusus]

What's really astonishing is when people try to use ways of thinking for tasks to which they're completely unsuited. Like the English professor who tries to "rationally analyze" a poem, for instance. It's beyond absurd, and yet I've heard people insist with a straight face that you can formulate "objective criteria" with which to judge the "worth" of a poem or piece of music.

Just a little note from the English major side of the fence: I don't think rational analysis of a poem and determining the so-called objective worth of a poem are necessarily the same process. I've done a lot of the former - examinations of form, rhythm, theme, devices, etc - but I never went from there to creating the Pritchard graph from Dead Poets Society.

Analyzing a poem can help you see things beyond the initial emotional impact that then can add to it. I think some poems can even be lost on a reader if she doesn't sit down and look at it hard word for word. Dickinson is a good example of that for me: she can pack the world into 4 verses; sometimes it takes some hard-nosed scrutiny to really appreciate what she offers.

Anyway, I think my point is very much in line with your wider perspective, Michael. It's more of word choice issue than anything else. I'm probably overanalyzing. :)

[Godless Dave]

Indeed, I didn't enjoy poetry at all until I took a poetry writing class that emphasized form.

But then, I think diagramming sentences is fun.

[The Lone Ranger]

Just a little note from the English major side of the fence: I don't think rational analysis of a poem and determining the so-called objective worth of a poem are necessarily the same process. I've done a lot of the former - examinations of form, rhythm, theme, devices, etc - but I never went from there to creating the Pritchard graph from Dead Poets Society.

Analyzing a poem can help you see things beyond the initial emotional impact that then can add to it. I think some poems can even be lost on a reader if she doesn't sit down and look at it hard word for word. Dickinson is a good example of that for me: she can pack the world into 4 verses; sometimes it takes some hard-nosed scrutiny to really appreciate what she offers.


Yes, the Pritchard graph from DPS was exactly what I was thinking of -- a ridiculously extreme example of trying to use a form of "analysis" in an utterly inappropriate manner. I'd be the last person to say that you can't analyze a poem, piece of music, etc. in terms of the quality of its rhythm, rhyme scheme, harmony (I was briefly a music major in college, before settling on biology) and so forth. It seems so absurd that it's hard to believe, but I've read articles extolling something more or less exactly like the Pritchard graph in analyzing the "quality" of a musical composition -- as if a symphony could be reduced to a mathematical equation.

This may be an example of someone being seduced by the success of science in explaining the world around us, and falling into the trap of thinking that its methods can be appropriated for analyses to which they're not suited.

Cheers,

Michael

[Farren]

Just a little note from the English major side of the fence: I don't think rational analysis of a poem and determining the so-called objective worth of a poem are necessarily the same process. I've done a lot of the former - examinations of form, rhythm, theme, devices, etc - but I never went from there to creating the Pritchard graph from Dead Poets Society.

...


Yes, the Pritchard graph from DPS was exactly what I was thinking of -- a ridiculously extreme example of trying to use a form of "analysis" in an utterly inappropriate manner. I'd be the last person to say that you can't analyze a poem, piece of music, etc. in terms of the quality of its rhythm, rhyme scheme, harmony (I was briefly a music major in college, before settling on biology) and so forth. It seems so absurd that it's hard to believe, but I've read articles extolling something more or less exactly like the Pritchard graph in analyzing the "quality" of a musical composition -- as if a symphony could be reduced to a mathematical equation.

This may be an example of someone being seduced by the success of science in explaining the world around us, and falling into the trap of thinking that its methods can be appropriated for analyses to which they're not suited.

Cheers,

Michael

Do tell. What is this "Pritchard Graph"?

[The Lone Ranger]

Do tell. What is this "Pritchard Graph"?

From Dead Poet's Society:

KEATING: "Gentlemen, open your text to page twenty-one of the introduction. Mr. Perry, will you read the opening paragraph of the preface, entitled 'Understanding Poetry'?"

PERRY: "'Understanding Poetry, by Dr. J. Evans Pritchard, Ph.D.' To fully understand poetry, we must first be fluent with its meter, rhyme, and figures of speech. Then ask two questions: One, how artfully has the objective of the poem been rendered, and two, how important is that objective? Question one rates the poem's perfection, question two rates its importance. And once these questions have been answered, determining a poem's greatness becomes a relatively simple matter."

Keating gets up from his desk and prepares to draw on the chalk board.

PERRY: "If the poem's score for perfection is plotted along the horizontal of a graph, and its importance is plotted on the vertical, then calculating the total area of the poem yields the measure of its greatness."

Keating draws a corresponding graph on the board and the students dutifully copy it down.

PERRY: "A sonnet by Byron may score high on the vertical, but only average on the horizontal. A Shakespearean sonnet, on the other hand, would score high both horizontally and vertically, yielding a massive total area, thereby revealing the poem to be truly great. As you proceed through the poetry in this book, practice this rating method. As your ability to evaluate poems in this matter grows, so will - so will your enjoyment and understanding of poetry."

Perry sets the book down and takes off his glasses. Keating has finished his graphs demonstrating the "greatness" of a Shakespearean sonnet, compared to a Byron sonnet. The graphs show the axes of Perfection, Importance, and Greatness, or rather their acronym PIG. The students have all dutifully copied the graphs.

KEATING: "Excrement. That's what I think of Mr. J. Evans Pritchard. We're not laying pipe, we're talking about poetry."

Cheers,

Michael


Edited to add: Keating then insists that the students should rip the Introduction out of the book, which despite my agreement with his assessment of Pritchard's methodology, I think is a revolting act.

[Clutch Munny]

Two things.

First, worries about whether love should be discussed because it's impossible to give necessary and sufficient conditions are not a consequence of over-privileging a scientific perspective. They are at most a result of misunderstand a scientific perspective. Notice that there are no necessary and sufficient conditions for the plosive bilabial sound [p]. Yet the scientific study of linguistics marches merrily along. This sort of thing is more rule than exception in science.

So what if love is compounded out of a wide range of emotional experiences, and some explosive bilabial experiences of a different sort? As TLR observes, no proper education in science counsels abandoning talk of love.

Second, the idea of separating reason from emotion is factually incorrect as much as it is personally damaging or morally incorrect. Emotion pervades our cognitive life; there are better and worse effects that emotions can have on our reasoning, but so what? Too much water makes it impossible to grow potatoes, but the inference that the ideal conditions for growing potatoes involve a complete absence of moisture is of course bonkers. Emotion is as essential to science -- and every human practice -- as water is to agriculture.

[Farren]

I wasn't proposing that science teaches the rejection of love. I was commenting on the personal observation that science encourages a tremendous enthusiasm for critical analysis, causing a general predisposition in the scientific community towards analysing appropriate things at inappropriate times or in inappropriate ways, which, IMO was again ably illustrated by TLRs anecdote about poetry.

[The Lone Ranger]

In fairness, I don't think that's so much a problem with the scientific community (scientists are darnded-well taught how to analyze data, and which analytical tools are appropriate for the task at hand) as it is with those who are jealous of the successes of the natural sciences and try to (mis)appropriate its methods and apply them to tasks to which they aren't suited.

Call it "science envy," if you like.

Edited to add:

I've never heard a scientist argue that you could analyze a poem or musical composition mathematically, though some have accused E. O. Wilson (unfairly, in my opinion) of coming close in Consilience.

It's my impression that we do a lousy job of teaching critical thinking skills under the best of conditions, especially to non-science majors. Not only do I think that it'd be a good idea to require every college student to take a course in critical thinking, but such a course should stress the fact that not everything should or can be evaluated in such a manner.

Cheers,

Michael

[wade-w]

Not only do I think that it'd be a good idea to require every college student to take a course in critical thinking, but such a course should stress the fact that not everything should or can be evaluated in such a manner.


The university I attended did require that every student take Philosophy 241: Logic and Critical Thinking. It's a good idea, but I can't say that it did a whole lot of good in the end. Most students seemed to forget everything they learned in it as soon as the term was over.

[Adora]

but there are also a surprising number of people, especially in the sciences, who never do.

Er, it's not really that surprising.

Not only do I think that it'd be a good idea to require every college student to take a course in critical thinking, but such a course should stress the fact that not everything should or can be evaluated in such a manner.

I think it's the way the Crit. Thinking courses are taught. I took on in my first semester of University and found it very good and interesting and all, but yeah, I forgot most of it the instant I walked out the door. The ones that stuck, however, were the courses very similar to it that used the same sorts of arguments but applied them practically- in my field of majors it was Cultural Studies Theory, which uses all the same techniques are regular arguments to dissect a text, piece of research, whatever. I remember almost everything from them, because they were taught as part of a practical approach to everyday life (we all live in a culture, afterall) whereas the crit. thinking one wasn't taught as practically. We studied Socrates and all that stuff (I don't even remember the rest of them), but what use is that to me in everyday life?

I got far more out of the subjects that taught me how to dissect communication and culture than anything in the philosophy department.

*shrugs* Just my observations.

In fairness, I don't think that's so much a problem with the scientific community (scientists are darnded-well taught how to analyze data, and which analytical tools are appropriate for the task at hand)

Those "analytical" tools though are not totally objective even in the scientific community though. They're influenced by what company they're working for, what product they're working on, what tools they can afford, and hell, basic social predjudices and whims. Just ask any baby that was born a hermaphrodite, or, if you want something more "scientific" than medical doctors, someone who really knows the truth about the egg and the sperm.

[seebs]

The university I attended did require that every student take Philosophy 241: Logic and Critical Thinking. It's a good idea, but I can't say that it did a whole lot of good in the end. Most students seemed to forget everything they learned in it as soon as the term was over.

I think some such material should be obligatory in every level of education, from elementary school on up.

[wade-w]

The university I attended did require that every student take Philosophy 241: Logic and Critical Thinking. It's a good idea, but I can't say that it did a whole lot of good in the end. Most students seemed to forget everything they learned in it as soon as the term was over.

I think some such material should be obligatory in every level of education, from elementary school on up.

I agree. I think it would probably be far more effective that way.

[seebs]

I agree. I think it would probably be far more effective that way.

Such habits of thought are likely best brought in early on, but they have the real downside that they make children less biddable.

p.s.: Get on #infidelchat, have questions for you.