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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?