joft
29 Dec 2004, 06:53 AM
Human emotions serve a purpose; that is completely understandable from the viewpoint of natural selection.
My observation as an INTP who tends to favor leaning toward my absolute extremes (of thinking and not feeling) is as follows. I am aware of my own natural tendency toward and desire for experiencing feelings. I am aware that there are biological, psychological, and sociological factors which cause me to want to interact with other people and "feel" bad when I don't. The same goes for finding a mate and most of the nuances of that process. I am aware of them, they threaten my T, they threaten to force me to abandon objectivity and become lost in the pheromonal throes of passion. But, as of yet, I have been unable to sever myself from them.
So what is the solution? I don't have much experience, but I've thought about it theoretically. I don't see any way of shutting one or the other off, and they're constantly opposed to each other, at least in my psyche. The paradox seems (to me at least) to stem from the fact that we have this learned (or maybe inherent?) concept that feelings in general, or at least one as strong as "love," have a deeper meaning than just being the formulations of a certain sector of our brain. Is there a hidden motive behind this perhaps? To distinguish between ourselves and other animals? To serve as a base of operations for "spiritual" concepts? Are we unwilling to accept the "cold," "harsh" reality of our existence?
I do have one theory. I think that the advancements of science and education to show us the logical purpose of procreation, being the furthering of our species as according to natural selection, have made it so that by the standards of natural selection, emotions are no longer needed to cause us to procreate. We simply know that if we don't do it, we would cease to exist. I don't purport this to be the end of emotions, as we would still have to have an aesthetic attachment to our species to be motivated to further it anyway. But perhaps they will fade away and be less important as they are less needed.
However, it also seems to me to be the nature of feelings that people tend to want to hold on to them. Some of them are pleasurably addictive, others sentimentally comforting, but all of them have their own means of seeming desirable in our psyche. I experience certain times, call them "weak points," when the objective/logical/thinking portion of my brain seems to be less aware and more prone to allow emotions to grow- unchecked. Whether this is caused by physical weariness (it happens to me a lot at night), or psychical weariness (I'm not sure if this is even possible but sometimes my brain just seems tired), or any combination of those and anything else, I don't know. But it causes a problem, because thinking also won't allow itself to be shut off or ignored completely.
So, perhaps the answer lies in not separating the two... Perhaps the MBTI system, at least to us structured, logical thinkers, causes us to categorize thought and feeling as separate things when they truly are not. I don't mean that we simply need to acknowledge that "feelings" are thoughts in our brain; as that would only lead to redefinition and using different letters in place of T and F. The fight would proceed the same as before only with one less disclaimer to be made beforehand. I mean truly acknowledging that "emotional thoughts" (the redefined "feelings") and logical thoughts are both as purposeful, meaningful, and valid as each other. In essence, targeting the notion that they must be opposed and cannot exist in harmony.
After all, logical, scientific observation would tell us that our logical and observational thoughts are simply the products and constructions of our brain too. They are subject to being wrong, and even harmful to our being, just as emotional thoughts are. Now, I have to stop thinking or I could write a book; but, I still haven't figured this out and I still struggle with it a lot. I experience some loneliness and depression, and I withdraw further into cold, impersonal thought. That only puts it off for a little while, and then it might be worse. Heh, I guess you could say that emotionally withdrawn thought has as many similarities to an addictive substance that emotional thought does.
On that note, as it is almost 2a.m., I just had another theory. I think it might be plausible that the convergence of emotional thought and logical thought is what forms what we might think of as moral thought, or morals. I initially imagined the first two as intersecting lasers, and the resulting constructive or destructive interference as the third. Anyway, I'm probably making a bunch of distinctions that biology would have no reason to say even exist. At this point I don't even remember what the topic of my thread is.
My observation as an INTP who tends to favor leaning toward my absolute extremes (of thinking and not feeling) is as follows. I am aware of my own natural tendency toward and desire for experiencing feelings. I am aware that there are biological, psychological, and sociological factors which cause me to want to interact with other people and "feel" bad when I don't. The same goes for finding a mate and most of the nuances of that process. I am aware of them, they threaten my T, they threaten to force me to abandon objectivity and become lost in the pheromonal throes of passion. But, as of yet, I have been unable to sever myself from them.
So what is the solution? I don't have much experience, but I've thought about it theoretically. I don't see any way of shutting one or the other off, and they're constantly opposed to each other, at least in my psyche. The paradox seems (to me at least) to stem from the fact that we have this learned (or maybe inherent?) concept that feelings in general, or at least one as strong as "love," have a deeper meaning than just being the formulations of a certain sector of our brain. Is there a hidden motive behind this perhaps? To distinguish between ourselves and other animals? To serve as a base of operations for "spiritual" concepts? Are we unwilling to accept the "cold," "harsh" reality of our existence?
I do have one theory. I think that the advancements of science and education to show us the logical purpose of procreation, being the furthering of our species as according to natural selection, have made it so that by the standards of natural selection, emotions are no longer needed to cause us to procreate. We simply know that if we don't do it, we would cease to exist. I don't purport this to be the end of emotions, as we would still have to have an aesthetic attachment to our species to be motivated to further it anyway. But perhaps they will fade away and be less important as they are less needed.
However, it also seems to me to be the nature of feelings that people tend to want to hold on to them. Some of them are pleasurably addictive, others sentimentally comforting, but all of them have their own means of seeming desirable in our psyche. I experience certain times, call them "weak points," when the objective/logical/thinking portion of my brain seems to be less aware and more prone to allow emotions to grow- unchecked. Whether this is caused by physical weariness (it happens to me a lot at night), or psychical weariness (I'm not sure if this is even possible but sometimes my brain just seems tired), or any combination of those and anything else, I don't know. But it causes a problem, because thinking also won't allow itself to be shut off or ignored completely.
So, perhaps the answer lies in not separating the two... Perhaps the MBTI system, at least to us structured, logical thinkers, causes us to categorize thought and feeling as separate things when they truly are not. I don't mean that we simply need to acknowledge that "feelings" are thoughts in our brain; as that would only lead to redefinition and using different letters in place of T and F. The fight would proceed the same as before only with one less disclaimer to be made beforehand. I mean truly acknowledging that "emotional thoughts" (the redefined "feelings") and logical thoughts are both as purposeful, meaningful, and valid as each other. In essence, targeting the notion that they must be opposed and cannot exist in harmony.
After all, logical, scientific observation would tell us that our logical and observational thoughts are simply the products and constructions of our brain too. They are subject to being wrong, and even harmful to our being, just as emotional thoughts are. Now, I have to stop thinking or I could write a book; but, I still haven't figured this out and I still struggle with it a lot. I experience some loneliness and depression, and I withdraw further into cold, impersonal thought. That only puts it off for a little while, and then it might be worse. Heh, I guess you could say that emotionally withdrawn thought has as many similarities to an addictive substance that emotional thought does.
On that note, as it is almost 2a.m., I just had another theory. I think it might be plausible that the convergence of emotional thought and logical thought is what forms what we might think of as moral thought, or morals. I initially imagined the first two as intersecting lasers, and the resulting constructive or destructive interference as the third. Anyway, I'm probably making a bunch of distinctions that biology would have no reason to say even exist. At this point I don't even remember what the topic of my thread is.