I just had a thought about emotions. Just listening to music of particular kind can completely change the polarity of my current perception of the world. It can be a shade of negative or it can be a shade of positive. Then I thought, what if I felt nothing? What if I could see the world without looking through the cloud of emotions?
But we don’t seem to be able to do it. We often believe we do things that are reasonable, that are logical, that are not based on emotions, but how often is this really the case? In majority of cases I think we’re actually guided by what we feel is right or what we like or love. In fact, we often base our reasoning directly on some sort of emotions. A good example may be common perceptions of what is moral and what is not.
What if we had no emotions? What if we were guided by reason and logic alone? How would our life be like? We would assess every situation we find ourselves in and act based upon our logic. We would in essence always do the right thing, always do what is most logical. Perhaps a world would be a better place for we would probably already, far far ago, come to the logical conclusion that war is not a way to grow, that alcohol, smoking, drugs, violence and many other self-destructive activities are simply not reasonable. We might be living in a sterilized, clean, peaceful and advanced society, perhaps more advanced than we are today, presuming that we set continuous advancement as a logical course of our evolution.
No, we would not be quite like Vulcans in Star Trek. Vulcans strive to be logical and to suppress emotions, but they do have them. In fact, their natural emotions are much higher and more intense than humans, which is why they developed a whole belief system based around suppression of emotions, so that they can keep themselves from lowly savage instincts that emotions often put them to.
Instead, a human without any emotions would probably be like a machine that we ourselves may soon be able to create, an android that is self-aware. Data from Star Trek is an excellent example here. Of course, then we wouldn’t be humans, if humans are defined as emotional beings.
And that brings us to an interesting intersection. Data in Star Trek constantly keeps striving to be more like humans, and as we are watching the series we can see various interesting points being revealed on the emotion - no-emotion relations that at some points makes us envy Data, the emotionless android, and at other points cherish the fact that we can feel.
And yet, even envy is an emotion.
In the end of any discussion about pros and cons of emotions perhaps it would be inevitable to conclude that it is both a blessing and a curse, but we wouldn’t have it any other way. I wonder how much of our culture is inspired by emotion? How many scientific discoveries? It seems that for every negative outcome of an emotion-inspired or affected activity there is a positive to be found.
Pity that we still have to deal with the curse. Between a positive and a negative the strive is and always should be towards the positive, the good. Therefore when faced with both a blessing and a curse we don’t just accept the curse, we try to ban it.
And how to do that?
Perhaps now, Vulcans have something to say about that. 
It is all about control or controlled suppression of certain emotions. It is about putting the logic and reason in us in place of an executive director of all of the rest that is in us - the ocean of emotion.
Controlled by emotion or controlled emotion. It’s a choice between being trapped and being free.
But it may be one of the toughest disciplines for us to master. And we all have our ways.
December 13th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
The implication that emotions must be “mastered” seem to almost directly conflict with the values of freedom in which you mentioned.
In almost every definition of freedom I can think of, it stems from doing that which is not directly beneficial.
Without emotion, there’s no need for freedom. Slavery looses a LOT of it’s stigma when the slaves don’t care.
December 14th, 2007 at 12:32 am
I think you’re misunderstanding. It can be said that if you don’t learn to master your emotions you will be more susceptible to manipulation by those preying on your freedom.
It is not about giving up your emotions as much as not letting them be the ones controlling you. It is not about giving up control over yourself to someone else either, obviously. It is about taking your life under your own control - this is directly proportional to the amount of your personal power - including power to be vigilant and rise up for your freedom.
When talking about benefits you’re mentioning, what will be rational and logical depends on what your goals are. That statement doesn’t change the fact that they are YOUR goals and that you should be in charge of your own self and your actions as much as you can without meddling with someone elses self.
You’re simply way off.
December 14th, 2007 at 11:12 am
It sounds reasonable that one should be in control of ones own emotions, but… Aren’t our emotions exactly what defines who we are? So it could be said controlling ones emotions actually is conformism. If everyone acted perfectly reasonable, everyone would be exactly the same, like machines indeed.
I think it’s much better to say our peaceful emotions / sides of our characters should keep the destructive emotions under control. Logic doesn’t have much to do with it except that it is only logical there will be less suffering that way.
December 14th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
I’m not sure if we would all be the same if we had no emotions (again, not that I’m advocating that). We would still have certain points of view that depend on what we’ve been through because not everyone has been through the same set of circumstances. This affects our reasoning too, not just our emotions.
It does make sense to suggest having our positive emotions control the negative ones though. But even such an attempt as you well said is inspired by logic therefore it may be simply seen as one method of achieving this control I’ve been talking about. Logic says you should keep your negative emotions in check by propagating the positive ones.
It does seem like a tricky subject, but I think it’s not too hard for most people to see where we’re getting at. It’s at the very least an acknowledgement of how much emotion plays a role in who we are, what we do and how we lead our life and at most a suggestion to try to use this human trait the best way possible.
But then again I’m not necessarily good at psychology, which this easily fits with. I’m just an observer..
December 14th, 2007 at 4:31 pm
Just another quick take on it.
On one hand emotions can make us more fallible to manipulation (and hence potential loss of freedom) and on the other hand it can empower us to rise up against oppression.
I think this clearly portrays the dual nature of it - the blessing and a curse. So when talking about control I mean winning over the negative aspect, the fallibility to manipulation in the above example. This is not opposed to freedom, but obviously supportive of it.
Take for example me. Some are saying I easily get affected by conspiracy theory propaganda (and perhaps propaganda in general). Perhaps I am not keeping the part of my emotions which get me riled about about such things well enough, and so I fall to it. If I kept it better in check it would be easier for me to be more critical of what I’m seeing. Basically, when my emotions start being suggestive my reasoning should be there to calm it down and offer a different perspective.
Cheers
December 15th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
“constructive good, destructive bad” is based in emotion, not logic. Logic says 1 + 1 = 2, but doesn’t care about constructiveness or destructiveness - to care is an emotion.
“constructive good, destructive bad” and “good is desirable, bad is undesirable” are good elements for a set of axioms to base logical reasoning on, though - as long as we take into account sometimes a little destruction is needed to prevent a greater destruction (eg killing a malaria mosquito before it bites you).
End of nitpick.