Cool Reason And Warm Emotion

[HydrogenBond]

Emotion and reason are two orientating functions. Both in their own way, define cause and effect. The main difference is the time element.

 

As an example, a husband might caress his wife, with his touch placing her in the mood for love. The cause and effect is the touch and the emotion. The next week, he may do the exact same thing, but she may not be in the same mood. Now the cause and effect to the touch is connected to a different emotion. In the short term, there was cause and effect in each situation.

 

Cool reason, without emotion, tends to define cause and effect for a longer duration of time. If you put your hand in the flame it will get burnt. It does not matter if one is in the mood or not. Being cool reason, the cause and effect is occurs over longer time, apart from the shorter duration cause and effects of emotion.

 

During the fall, the new fall fashions arrive creating an emotional excitement. As soon as the winter comes, the cause and effect of this excitement fades for fall fashions. The excitement is now connected to the winter fashions. If we wait one year until the beginning of the next fall, the fall fashions of last year, which had created the excitement for the fall of last year, no longer will define the same cause and effect. This may seem irrational, but it is only irrational in terms of the longer duration time element associated with cool reason. But in the shorter term duration of an emotional orientation, there is cause and effect.

 

If we blend emotion and logic we can create mid-duration perception of cause and effect. This would be reason blended with emotion, or emotion blended with reason. An example of the first might be the election cycle and the emotional excitement created as the candidates outline the logic of their orientations. Most typically, this does not pan out in the long term, since the logic was define for mid-duration to get emotion on board. An example of the second may be someone who gets angry, with little provocation. As they begins to see this cause and effect, their outburst may shift only to the genuine need to be angry.

 

The golden generation was a masculine culture, where men did not express emotions. The cool reason would have been expected to make culture reflect this longer duration cause and effect, such as a lifetime marriage or job. When men were taught to be in touch with their emotions, culture became shorter term. For example the job life cycle has shortened. One can rationalize this, but the reasoning will be within the context of logic and emotion, which defines a mid-term time scale.

 

It is all cause and effect, but the interesting point is the tweaking of the time scale for the cause and effect.

[HydrogenBond]

Let me see if I can give some general examples of how the cause and effect stemming from different time scales interact. The simplest to see may be connected to the interaction of male and female. Since the natural female is the one that will get pregnant, and needs to make provisions to raise a chid, her time scale for cause and effect, in this matter, would reflect the long duration of the entire process. Her cause and effect will look for security and love.

 

The male has different constraints. If he is thinking with his lower brain, cause and effect has a narrower time element.

 

Relative to interaction, since each is defining cause and effect relative to their time scale, each has a sense of conviction. But since both have different time scales for cause and effect, the needs of each do not always define the cause and effect of the other. The male may say he will love her for all time. He may actually feel that way, but since cause and effect is of a short duration, this cause and effect may appear like a lie when the time scale is extrapolated. However, if there is an attraction, each will learn the cause and effect needs of the other. The time scale of the male will begin to increase so he begins to sacrifice the moment for a longer term. The time scale of the female will begin to decrease, sacrificing the long term for the moment.

 

In the more traditional sense of marriage, the male becomes the patriarch whose role becomes the cause and effect of the longer time scale. Somewhere along the line an inversion of time scale occurs. He may become a work mule to make sure the family has enough provisions through retirement. The female, as the matriarch needs to be more in touch with shorter time scales because of the changing small time scale needs of growing children. She may have to keep up with the fads, which the child will quickly outgrow, as the short term cause and effect expires. The dad may not understand the need for expensive shoes knowing the child will outgrown them quickly. But the mother knows it will last as long as the fad.

 

The wife may wonder where the romance went; the time scale of her husband's cause and effect increased. When he was younger and his time scale of youth was shorter, he was trying to shorten his future wives time scale for the cause and effect of now;sex.

 

In modern times, marriage has a shorter time scale. All that means is the time scale, optimized for shorter term cause and effect. For example, say you were consciously going into a marriage you wanted to last exactly two years. The optimized cause and effect for this duration would contain specific parameters. Since there is not enough time to have children who will be older than say 1-2 years, that person only needs to be good with babies. There is no need for to have skills with teenagers. Instead you could easily trade teenager skills for extra fire in the bedroom. That fire will wear out over time, but it should last the two years. A good cook is definitely a must for the long term, but not a full requirement for two years. For two years, if you need to do take-out and/or go out more often, maybe a trophy spouse, is fine. Two years of debt is not impossible to recover from. The other person may have bad habits that get on your nerves. One may ask themselves can I deal with this for two years with all the other assets considered?

 

Say culture was to lower the time scale through conditioning, so more people are unable to reach the longest term time scales, one would expect cultural cause and effect to change to reflect the new time scale. It would be like tweaking a knob to lower the social time scale. This would require is breaking apart long time scale traditions since they are overkill.

 

As an analogy, say people only kept cars for 5 years and then junk them to buy new. There is no need for cars that last 10 years. These would have too much value left in them, to throw away in 5 years. As such, manufacturing would discontinue production, to save resources, making cars wear out closer to 5 years. Since people dump the cars in 5 years anyway and these new models can last that long, nobody will notice the 12 year rust proofing is now only 6 years. In tr\he context of the time scale, the loss may seem irrelevant.

[madmadmax]

I always thought that emotions are feminine, women tend to think with their "heart" while men think with their "brains". Doing so simultaneously is difficult indeed.

[paigetheoracle]

I always thought that emotions are feminine, women tend to think with their "heart" while men think with their "brains". Doing so simultaneously is difficult indeed.

 

I think this is because emotion is a release of energy/ attention and intellect is capturing it (concentration down and in/holding onto possessions and thoughts versus dispersal of attention into the outside world and more general awareness). Heat and radiation, cooling and absorption.