Thanks for introducing the larger topic. I see you and raise you: I think emotional responses can actually encapsulate information, in something like the way visual perception delivers an overall verdict (e.g., “that’s my Aunt Lydia”) without requiring doing the math on details (like the shape of the nose, eyes, etc.). Without emotion, reason is crippled. Antonio Damasio’s book Descartes’ Error is a good source on the topic.
Perhaps the reason emotional reactions seem so untrustworthy is that significant details of this implicit information can be altered without the alteration being emotionally evident. That is, we can change the logic enough that it no longer applies, but do this subtly enough that the emotional reaction is preserved. Therefore, rationalists feel safest if everything is laid out explicitly, so that their emotions are less likely to give them false positives for “convincing argument”.
If I can indulge my nerdy side, it reminds me of cryptographic hash functions. The idea there is that the slightest change in the source string (“dinosaur” → “dinosaus”) will result in a completely different hash, one that you couldn’t even tell was related to the original. The hash function relating information → emotion fails at this: it isn’t sensitive enough to reflect small but significant changes.
Thanks for introducing the larger topic. I see you and raise you: I think emotional responses can actually encapsulate information, in something like the way visual perception delivers an overall verdict (e.g., “that’s my Aunt Lydia”) without requiring doing the math on details (like the shape of the nose, eyes, etc.). Without emotion, reason is crippled. Antonio Damasio’s book Descartes’ Error is a good source on the topic.
Perhaps the reason emotional reactions seem so untrustworthy is that significant details of this implicit information can be altered without the alteration being emotionally evident. That is, we can change the logic enough that it no longer applies, but do this subtly enough that the emotional reaction is preserved. Therefore, rationalists feel safest if everything is laid out explicitly, so that their emotions are less likely to give them false positives for “convincing argument”.
If I can indulge my nerdy side, it reminds me of cryptographic hash functions. The idea there is that the slightest change in the source string (“dinosaur” → “dinosaus”) will result in a completely different hash, one that you couldn’t even tell was related to the original. The hash function relating information → emotion fails at this: it isn’t sensitive enough to reflect small but significant changes.