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This is my argument The reason why people have a passion is because they believe that they can change something and that it is important. In fact, all emotions are true in such a way. Emotions are simply involuntary responses to our rational observations. A child observes what he is good at and that is how a passion develops. It is very obvious to a child. Everyone as a child had figured it out, but not many people actually followed their passion. Since all passions are rational, then if society is rational, following one’s passion will lead to prosperity. However, this is not the case with our current society. If I want to become a philosopher in North Korea, my prospects are very low or I will not make enough money to survive. This would never happen in a free society because passions are always valuable. However, state intervention prevents the pursuit of an individual’s rational self-interests. It subdues free will. There was a man who did a major in philosophy but who after regretted it because he hadn’t been able to make money from it. It as at this point that people break with their passions. He concluded that passions are not necessarily good and he implicitly accepted nihilism rather than recognising that evil was done unto him. It makes it hard for him to recognise it since sophism is state sponsored in philosophy departments. The majority of people share a similar story. Whether it is coercion from the state, or their parents, or their peers, an adult or child is in some way rejected for following their passions and the adult or child concludes that he cannot trust his emotions. This is the very essence of evil. It is why people did not trust the invisible hand of the free market for tens of thousands of years. Essentially, their self-esteem was so destroyed that they did not trust their own rational faculty. It is the greatest contradiction that ever existed. A virtuous man would find a work-around. He knows that his life is meaningless without passion. He knows that if he were to look back at his life without following his passion, he would regret it and wonder what could have been. There is no alternative for him. Every action we make is motivated by emotion. A person cannot simply think and do. They must think until they feel that they can do. An artificial line has been created between emotions and thoughts. Emotions simply are an expression of our deepest and truest thoughts that we may not even be conscious of. It is analogous to the arbitrary distinction between qualia and meaning. We see red because we associate it with everything else that is red. A person void of passion then, is a robot without free will, following the instructions of others without even being consciously aware of it. So, the virtuous man has no rational choice other than to find alternatives to the best of his ability. This does not mean that the virtuous man will be unsatisfied. The passion arises only from what can be done. If man finds that his passion is unreachable, his passion will naturally change. So, the virtuous man is a force that cannot be stopped by anyone or anything. It is as clear as sunlight what his objective is. A rock cannot turn into a tree, nor can man change his neurological predispositions, particularly once he becomes aware of them. Even if a man is destroyed for following his passions, he will never be the same. He will always be at ease, because he knows what must be done so he will inevitably build himself back up. He is the man who works. But if a man does not immerse into his passions, he will always live a shallow life not knowing what he could have been. “Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist it” – Lao Tzu.

Reason Vs. Emotion Vs. Belief Vs. Consciousness Reason, emotion, belief, and consciousness, have a fundamental place in epistemology and psychology but I have not found where they sit. I especially haven't found where they sit from first principles. My hope with this discussion is that these things can find their proper place. Emotions reflect belief and beliefs are always rational I have some ideas, each with their own arguments and evidence. From what I gather, Stefan has an implicit, specific conception of the relation between these things. The two major premises I can identify are 1) Emotions reflect belief, and 2) beliefs are always rational. Now, this second premise seems obviously false, but there is a corollary to it 3) beliefs do not necessarily reflect conscious thought. I should make it clear, by beliefs I mean what we really believe deep down and might not even be conscious of. Evidence for It's from these premises that much of the psychology in this community can be explained. We can explain the true self as rationality and the collection of beliefs. We can explain the false self as the origin of conscious thought that is not wholly informed by beliefs. We can explain free will by saying that it is a choice whether conscious thought wholly informs itself with belief. It also conforms with the evidence. It explains self-defence mechanisms where a person consciously thinks something but believes something else. It explains how personalities as a collective can be fragmented throughout history from all the evils that take place. It gives foundation to how a child protects themselves with false thoughts. It explains how psychotherapy works, by uncovering beliefs using critical thinking and self-reflection. It explains procrastination, as procrastination just reflects the belief of resentment. It would suggest we should follow our emotions as long as we identify them properly. Evidence against The issue is, there is a lot of evidence against these things. Are emotional leftist protesters simply misunderstanding their emotions? Are they masking a true self with a false self? Do people fall for propaganda because of the false self, or maybe we aren't actually innately rational? Another problem is, it seems incredibly redundant to have a true self making calculations, and then a false self making entirely different calculations about the same thing. Cognitive therapies suggest something is wrong with cognition itself. For example, schema therapy suggests that we have core beliefs that are often themselves unconscious and formed in childhood that are irrational and make us feel some ways or generate negative thoughts. It would be strange to have an extra layer to this by saying that those irrational core 'beliefs' are preceded by true beliefs. It is very hard for me to believe that emotions reflect belief and beliefs are always rational. But it also explains so much and makes life a lot easier. Argument for from first principles Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Rather than doing some kind of trial-and-error, making observations, etc, an argument from first principles would take away a lot of doubt about the psychology taught in this community. I would think that arguing for these psycho-epistemological concepts from first principles would be the most important thing, as the psycho-epistemology kind of defines what this whole community is about. I tried to find these first principles, and I found these quotes from Ayn Rand. "There can be no causeless love or any sort of causeless emotion. An emotion is a response to a fact of reality, an estimate dictated by your standards." (Ayn Rand, For the New Intellectual, p. 147) All knowledge is derived from reality, so emotions follow cognition. Perhaps we could further say from this that emotions reflect cognition. And, perhaps we can assume cognition and reason that goes with it have sovereignty. Indeed, doesn't seem logical that a rational faculty would allow something like 2+2=5. It is more likely that anyone who thinks such a thing is not using their rational faculty. It would also seem strange that the rational faculty would switch off, rather than keep working at the background. In fact, I think that our very feeling of having a self and having free will sort of rest upon the idea that we have some kind of sovereignty, and that we know what is best for ourselves, and we trust our faculties to give us the most accurate information possible. Perhaps this should be self-evident. Perhaps this is self-evident to any peacefully parented individual. Argument against from first principles Ayn Rand would disagree with our second premise; that beliefs are always rational. "Your subconscious is like a computer—more complex a computer than men can build—and its main function is the integration of your ideas. Who programs it? Your conscious mind. If you default, if you don’t reach any firm convictions, your subconscious is programmed by chance—and you deliver yourself into the power of ideas you do not know you have accepted. But one way or the other, your computer gives you print-outs, daily and hourly, in the form of emotions—which are lightning-like estimates of the things around you, calculated according to your values." (Ayn Rand, Philosophy: Who Needs It?, p. 5) also, "An emotion as such tells you nothing about reality, beyond the fact that something makes you feel something. Without a ruthlessly honest commitment to introspection—to the conceptual identification of your inner states—you will not discover what you feel, what arouses the feeling, and whether your feeling is an appropriate response to the facts of reality, or a mistaken response, or a vicious illusion produced by years of self-deception . . . . In the field of introspection, the two guiding questions are: “What do I feel?” and “Why do I feel it?” (Ayn Rand, Philosophy: Who Needs It?, p. 17) Rand is seeming to suggest emotions can reflect irrational thoughts. It seems beliefs held in the subconscious can be 'programmed by chance'. She says that using the rational faculty is not automatic but voluntary. So it has sovereignty, but it is up to a person to use it. Her view does make a lot of sense. Our working memory is incredibly limited, so thinking rationally would be incredibly limited. Perhaps there is no 'true self' beyond our ability to reason consciously. If Rand is right, I believe it challenges the psychology of this community. Rather than listening to a true self, and to emotions and their origins, her views would suggest we should rather use reason alone to find what is the right thing to do and to create habits out of it. Perhaps one problem with her view is that there is no ought from an is. It makes a lot of sense to me that only emotions can tell us something as trivial as what flavour of ice cream to have and something as serious as whether I should really marry some person. Maybe the truth is somewhere in between. Maybe the subconscious can be 'programmed by chance', but maybe it a somewhat active system which holds our true beliefs, while our conscious thoughts themselves can differ. What do people think? Can these premises be proven from first principles? Maybe you think the premises I outlined are inaccurate? How do you think is the best way to approach and deal with emotions and choices? Have any podcasts/books to share about this stuff?

Emotional labels and how they do harm. The Mary Problem. Very few people tried to solve the Mary problem, because I think they felt is was an artificial question or, that I was trying to prove a point about contextual ethics, and they didn't want to give any ground. I really didn't think the problem was all that hard, and it should be consistent with UPB, if you have a healthy understanding of ethics. But are biases always come back to haunt us don’t they? The reason I came up with the problem, was to see how members of the forum apply their understanding of ethics, and then work from their. What was suppose to be a starting point is looking more and more like an ending point. But I am getting ahead of myself. So here is what I would do as the social worker. “Mary I am glad you realize what you did is not healthy and you told me of your own free will, that is a very healthy response. So I will not violate your trust in me, yes, society views this as a serious crime, but most important we need to understand how John is dealing with it. I have a friend Nancy she is a private psychologist that works with this type of issue. What is in the past is in the past we can’t change that, the the only thing we can do is change what is in the future, that fact that you know you are on a bad path is what we need to be concern with. Laws are to protect and serve, and should never be used to punish for punishment’s sake, at least in my opinion. You are taking responsibility for your actions, and that’s what we need in society, Elinn needs you, and cares about you, and as far as I can tell you are doing a good job, in other aspects of your life, so lets build on what you are doing right, and fix what you're not doing right. Lets don’t let the tragedy in your life, prevent you and your son from leading healthy lives” You might say I am making an excuse for marry, but I am not, you might say that this story is statist propaganda, but how is that true, if that is true, I would turn her into the police causing devastating damage to Johns support network. So I would be punishing john, for what Mary did. In the case of surgery I do a momentary harm for a long lasting good. At least in theory, would that be true in this case? I don’t think so. This is Arkansas their family services blows chunks. You can only base an action on what you know, one thing I know is that I can not change the past, no matter how much I might want to. What does punishment accomplish? Ethics has nothing to do with punishing people, if your system of ethic requires it, then I would have to ask what god are you sacrificing too? Because the only effect of punishment that I am aware of is harm. A deterrent? that seems like a path to statism to me. The way I see it is you have two option kill, or Help. I am assuming killing is not a viable option right? So you have to help, and as such throwing Merry in Jail is not helping john. If you assume merry is evil, you are wrong, and no nothing about human psychology. Evil is to act for the sole purpose of doing harm, evil is when you enjoy the pain of others. When you want to see someone suffer, for something they did, that is where evil comes from. Don’t go there, it’s not a happy productive place. Nothing Good comes from punishment for punishment's sake. Thank you for those that tried to answer this question, I have no idea who understand my point, and why I believe it to be important starting point for talking about Ethics. Here is too new beginnings. Refer to for background: http://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/39735-how-flexible-are-your-ethics-and-how-flexible-should-they-be-moral-scenario-exercise/#entry363963

Earlier today I found myself having an internal discussion on the concept of "personhood", specifically what is required for said distinction to apply. I determined that the presence of a consciousness is required which I (unoriginally) define as:1. Self awareness 2. Capacity for rational thought3. Ability to act as a moral agent During my internal dialogue I was unsure whether emotion ought to be included with my definition of consciousness. In the end, after much debate, I decided not to include it on the grounds that emotions are not predicated by the presence of a consciousness as I define it. Lesser animals, which do not have a consciousness, have been observed exhibiting emotion. Although I concede that a consciousness adds complexity to emotion, it is not required. Our consciousness after all is tasked with keeping our emotions in check, lest we act irrationally. At this point in my dialogue I asked what was necessary to act as a moral agent. I felt that "personal/individual values" was a sufficient answer as whether a moral agent acts morally or not is irrelevant. This response resulted in the question "How can we get values in the absence of emotion?" At this time, I do not have a satisfactory answer. I make this post for three reasons. (1) I wish to have my position criticized as it is not something that happens often. (2) Said criticism will hopefully lead me to become a more intelligent individual and (3) I am stuck. I can not think of an argument in which values are possible without emotion. I would truly appreciate other perspectives on this. Well, I look forward to reading people's responses to this sometime in the near future. Hope everyone enjoyed the holidays! PS: I'm rather unread on this topic,among others, and would appreciate if anyone could recommend good literature on the subject.

I explore how it might be possible to betray yourself in this new video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qS0Y0rufbQ