I really appreciated this post and it touches on themes I have wanted to write about as well. I have two related questions/comments:
I wonder about also emphasizing the fact that these potentially helpful/motivating emotions (like loving-kindness and awe) are things that can be cultivated on an individual level—we tend to think emotions are somehow set/intrinsic parts of our personality but our ability to cultivate some emotions (and even altruism) through practices like mindfulness has been well-documented.
Also I would challenge the perceived dichotomy between reason and emotion. Modern neuroscience has shown that emotion and reason are deeply intertwined and that this separation is part of the overall fallacy of mind-body dualism. Books like Antonio Damasio’s Descartes Error are helpful in demonstrating this point more, but my sense has been that the EA community holds up reason as some sort of ultimate capacity when in fact it is much more individualistic and dependent on our specific individual experience/emotion than it is often perceived.
I agree that emotions and their determinants are generally viewed as too static. Within reason, you can actively import certain emotions and change the way you relate to the ones that bubble up. ~Meditation~ :)
Agree, again. I hope I didn’t make too strong of a dichotomy. Paul Slovic, a psychology researcher I’m fond of, has published on the importance of the ‘affect heuristic.’ We use our instinctive emotions to make lots of our decisions, and we’re fooling ourselves if we claim all our decisions come from pure reason. I think the influence of emotions, either in the moment or at a more trait level, is generally greater than people think.
I really appreciated this post and it touches on themes I have wanted to write about as well. I have two related questions/comments:
I wonder about also emphasizing the fact that these potentially helpful/motivating emotions (like loving-kindness and awe) are things that can be cultivated on an individual level—we tend to think emotions are somehow set/intrinsic parts of our personality but our ability to cultivate some emotions (and even altruism) through practices like mindfulness has been well-documented.
Also I would challenge the perceived dichotomy between reason and emotion. Modern neuroscience has shown that emotion and reason are deeply intertwined and that this separation is part of the overall fallacy of mind-body dualism. Books like Antonio Damasio’s Descartes Error are helpful in demonstrating this point more, but my sense has been that the EA community holds up reason as some sort of ultimate capacity when in fact it is much more individualistic and dependent on our specific individual experience/emotion than it is often perceived.
Thanks for your thoughtful post!
Thanks!
I agree that emotions and their determinants are generally viewed as too static. Within reason, you can actively import certain emotions and change the way you relate to the ones that bubble up. ~Meditation~ :)
Agree, again. I hope I didn’t make too strong of a dichotomy. Paul Slovic, a psychology researcher I’m fond of, has published on the importance of the ‘affect heuristic.’ We use our instinctive emotions to make lots of our decisions, and we’re fooling ourselves if we claim all our decisions come from pure reason. I think the influence of emotions, either in the moment or at a more trait level, is generally greater than people think.