Memory Help Wanted

Please help: I have a memory hovering in the back of my mind of a post (I think) which had to do with emotion and reason. Sepcifically, it had to do with the idea that the things we feel are really just the end product of a logical process conducted by our unconscious, which manifest themselves to us as (seemingly spontaneous) emotions. It could have been someone on my friends list. It could have been a non-LJ blog. Or it could be a memory of something I read by Jung. If this sounds familiar to someone, would you please pipe up and link me to the original?

__batgirl__, I know you’ve touched on this subject before. Was it you?

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7 Comments

  1. if A, then not B

    if it was about Jung, then it was not a post of mine

    other than that it certainly sounds like it could have been me. i recently commented on taboulichic’s LJ about the general principle i hold of not separating emotions and logic. and i know i wrote entries of my own early on about why certain situations that appear illogical are in fact quite rational on some level. it dealt with things like people remaining in bad relationships, parenting, suicide issues, and people who, without overwhelming medical reason, find themselves unable to lose weight even though their weight is dangerous and problematic on all levels, things like that.

  2. don’t know…

    it sounds a bit like Jung.. but from all I’ve read about Jung, I don’t think he would claim that most things coming from the unconscious are based on rational thought.. Freud would definitely deny such things and a lot of Jung doesn’t fall that far from Freud…

    In any case, I remember reading a NYTimes article a while ago that researchers were positing that emotions evolved as rough and ready responses to various extreme physical stimuli and that these responses were there to help humans deal with situations quickly… i.e. in instances when time for detailed rational analysis wasn’t available..

    Personally, I think that viewing emotions as the output of unconscious logical processes is kind of strange… Many emotions are fairly irrational.. and they often reinforce conclusions that don’t make a lot of logical or rational sense even in the conscious mind…

    Instead of emotions.. I could definitely see intuition as the end product of unconscious logical processes.. i.e. unconscious pattern matching routines that we are not aware of on a conscious level but which pop up now and again..

    1. Re: don’t know…

      I definately think there is something to be said for intuition being the by product of an unconscious logical processes. I have a rather high sense of intuition about things and being a highly emotional Pisces makes life very interesting.

      I mean, think about how much of the brain we don’t use or don’t even know anything about.

    2. Update

      I’ve since reached one of the people I needed to reach, so you can disregard the above.

    3. Re: don’t know…

      “Many emotions are fairly irrational”

      such as ;)?

    1. Bingo. Thank you.

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