In the paper "The Search Hypothesis of Emotion", Dylan Evans considers a model of emotion.
Emotion as we experience it is an extremely complex composite that is the result of billions of years of evolution - no less elaborate than the perceived or inner world to which the emotion is both a response and a form of descriptive intrinsic language.
So much so that any description of a rudimentary form of emotion should seem quite alien and irrelevant to the human experience. I will consider a single dimensional 'magnitude only' emotion ie strong or weak emotion only.
Dylan Evans describes emotion as an appendix to and *perhaps* positive assistant to logical or rational thought. This is an absolutely mammoth assumption. It assumes that rational word-like thought is primary and the emotional thought is secondary or can even be left out of a general description of thought. It ignores the fact that only humans have word thought and possibly only humans have rational or logical thought.
It is almost certain that emotional thought predates rational thought. Tribal and stone age peoples seem to be driven largely by emotion rather than rational thought. Rational thinking seems to have evolved within our written history. We should be asking how rational thought assists emotional decision making or, perhaps, of how rational thought overtook emotional thinking in formal arenas (I am not convinced that it has done so generally).
The obvious supporting case is of a definition of emotion and of rational thought that naturally leads to my introductory remarks. Let’s look at the example proposed by Dylan. But unlike Dylan, let’s make no assumptions about the primacy of any form of decision making and so consider all cases equally.
According to the ‘search hypothesis’, emotion helps to limit the list of possible alternatives when a decision is to be made. Using logic alone there is no way to limit the list or determine the cutoff point for details.
In the example that Dylan uses, a choice between two days on which an appointment with a doctor can be made. On one of those day we have promised to participate in some activity with a child.
Working through the problem using reason alone leads to a never ending regress. If we fail to partake in the activity with the child will there be any repercussions? How important or relevant are those repercussions? We find a divergence of types of concern eg: how far into the future should we consider the impact of our decision?; how far beyond immediate participants: self, doctor, child, should we consider the repercussions of our decision?; to what degree should we consider the cost or benefit for ourselves eg if we go on the day in which we were to participate in the activity with the child we could get a lift with a friend thus saving fuel, wear and tear on car, parking problems and costs, and less stress; to what degree should various types of consequences be analysed eg how many logical steps does it take to assess the benefits of getting a lift with a friend verses the intangible emotional impact that a cancellation of some activity with the child may cause?
What I have just given is, in fact, a decision making process entirely devoid of emotion. The first step in making the decision is to consider how important that decision is. Such a determination directly impacts on the time allocated and the number of steps allowed to make that decision. A computer would have to make the decision in order to answer the first question - a hopeless loop.
Now lets look at the equally impossible emotion only decision. Unlike the rational only, the emotion only packs up so well that we have to unpack it (add rational thought) to see how it is done.
The person making the decision (keeping with the doctor appointment story) "feels" like Wednesday. No reason is given (ie no rational thought, no logical process).
Let me now consider two days for the appointment, Tuesday and Thursday. Emotion only decision will favour one day only, say Tuesday, with no reason given. For a computer or rational only decision, this represents the final act after a long decision making process.
The MAINLY emotional decision pulls out the last match for the decision to be made ie "appointment to doctor" and uses the magnitude of concern to set the limit or depth of consideration of the decision to be made. If it is something unimportant, say, whether to watch a TV show or get an early night, the magnitude may be so small (unimportant) that an arbitrary decision is made. The emotional weight on each of the two alternatives is compared and the greater is chosen. The emotional weight is drawn from the last similar decision made, or the last weight assigned to ‘early night’ and ‘watch TV program’.
Emotion is far more elaborate than a simple magnitude (strong vs weak emotion). But as I mentioned before, the simple case may be unfamiliar simply because the elaborate human emotion is ever present.
Now lets unpack further. If the weight/magnitude of the doctor appointment is much greater then greater depth of consideration is required. Unpacking means replacing some of the emotional components with the underlying or original cause of those emotions.
Let’s say you simply don’t want to go to the doctor. We see this in kids all the time. They have made a decision, but is it based on rational reasoning? The process of dealing with this problem is exactly the same as the resolution of the same problem in an individual’s mind.
The child has a strong negative emotion. Unpack the emotion - turn it into a rational thread. Why don’t you want to go to the doctor? "The doctor hurt me". We might assume that that is why the child didn’t want to go to the doctor in the first place. But the chances are that the child was not aware of the reason for the strong emotion until it was exposed.
Now exposed, the underlying cause of the emotion can be altered - you work through the problem and eventually, when packed up into emotion only, the emotion is positive (a little more challenging to imagine using one dimensional emotion but common enough in actual experience).
In the process of making a decision, a number of factors must be added together. If these are assigned a magnitude (the one dimensional emotion) then this process is fairly straight forward. But if we start with no emotion and wonder how these magnitudes are assigned then we are in for a rude shock - it just can’t be done.
Consider instead the real human being, one that wasn’t just switched on at the mains. Humans carry forward into every situation a prodigious memory. Within the memory is the last emotional assignment of just about everything imaginable. If the priority is low, then the last match is brought forward unchallenged. A greater priority and we unpack some of the determining factors and check the most prominent consideration within it. We check the current situation to see if it matches the one that last assigned that emotion eg "the last visit to the doctor was hellish, but he had to pullout several infected fingernails and the anaesthetic didn’t work. Next appointment is for an annual checkup." This would tone down that factor which is then packed up etc.
Original emotional assignment is learnt from siblings and parents. The feelings associated with emotions are probably originally those associated with physical impact and so are borrowed from other senses (or from the conscious response to other senses).
I note that although most of our decision making is a process of toggling between rational thought and emotional overview, most people seem to be only aware of the one or the other. As shown above and mentioned by Dylan in his paper, rational thought on its own can not result in any decisions. So emotion is always required. Many people and children in particular are unaware of the rational side of emotion (ie that emotion can be unpacked).
It is hardly surprising, then, to find that theories of the mind strongly lean to one side or the other. Religious theories seem to have a strong emotional component. Cog science theories seem to have no possibility of ever finding enough detail and can, with rational eloquence, talk themselves into or out of any theory that happens to be in fashion (the emotional side, but it is unlikely that you will get one of them to admit this much).
If one considers the emotion beyond a simple magnitude or weight then the full impact of emotion on decision making may become clearer. Rational thought only requires a set of rules or algorithms and a knowledge base. Such a logical machine can be fired up from cold and it will run straight away.
Emotion requires a history of experiencing. Start a device up from cold and it will want to know about everything - who is president; how is the favourite team doing; what happened to friends - the emotional mind must keep up to date or no decisions can be made. Look what happens to people who are sent back in time or projected forward (in science fiction). They inevitably get the priorities of the day wrong - the have a mismatching or inexperienced emotional base.
Kind Regards, Robert Karl Stonjek.
[1] The Search Hypothesis of Emotion, Dylan Evans The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science Volume 53, Issue 4, December 2002: pp. 497-509 PDF, 13 pages, 100k http://www.dylan.org.uk/search.pdf
© Robert Karl Stonjek 2003