Logically thinking?

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I am in a bit of a rut right now in my life and I started to think of it logically and I question why not think everything through logic, how would that affect emotions and my decisions, would it be better to give up emotions and simply go through logic because the way I see it logic docent have much room for anxiety and depression, meaning I would have them but never have to deal with them, is this achievable?

We Aspies are still human, not Vulcan. Emotions are a part of human life.

You can't give up emotions.

Basically, the big issue is that emotions provide a massive cognitive short-cut necessary for decision making. Often just setting up the logic for a lot of issues is so difficult that you couldn't do so well and in a timely manner, and most people who actually have damage to the emotional parts of their brains actually have massive difficulties making decisions.

You are best collapsing your anxiety and depression into a little ball inside yourself, and feeding it until it becomes a black hole of negativity, sucking all that is good into it to destroy. Then you need to use this superpower of yours to because a supervillain, and hold the world hostage. It's that simple.

Logic consists of the laws governing the operations of argumentation in terms of the validity or cogency of reasoning. Logic in itself is nothing more than that. If you were to operate upon logic alone, you'd be nothing more than an input-output device with no capability of independent thought.

You are right. logic does not help us make inspired guesses.

ruveyn

I don't know, I'm an extremely logical type of person and tend to make most of my decisions this way. I still have emotions of course, but I try to differentiate between my rational emotions and my irrational emotions. Basically I'll have an emotion and then ask myself why. I have found this to be a very effective way to combat anxiety and depression. I don't operate on 100% logic, but it's pretty close.

Agreed, yet we dare not rely only upon emotions for making decisions ... and I am not suggesting you are saying we should.


Not so, and as much as I would rather not disagree with you: Neither is emotion required for independent thought.


I am not sure how "inspired guesses" might equate with the OP's question about logical thinking affecting emotions and decisions, but I can definitely see where emotion can steer toward a certain bias or serve as a tie-breaker when we are indecisive in the face of two or more options.


No, I think not, and I can assure you I have in the past been quite convinced it was and I have truly tried to get there ... but just could not. Like Orwell has said:


... and no matter how hard we try, there is just no way to live without having any and/or being affected (or even effected) by their presence.

Actually, most of our decisions are based almost entirely upon emotional considerations. Much of our "reasoning" is really just an after-the-fact rationalization of our gut instincts driven by massive confirmation bias, rather than any truly logical thinking.

I can see what you are saying. I used to build machinery, and it was quite logical to make that machinery "user friendly" as well as "boss pleasing"!

By "truly logical thinking" you mean totally logical thinking. Humans don't do that. At best, they are partially logical some of the time.

David Hume pointed that out.

ruveyn

Emotions, to a large extent, form the basis and motivation for logical thinking. Fear, hate, love, lust, hunger pain, thirst, etc. present the motivation for solving problems of attaining goals. Achieving those goals successfully usually involves the necessity for rational and logical thinking.

Then we are doomed to short fall and frustration. Our monkey glands work nearly full time.

ruveyn

I misread that as 'monkey glans' and was momentarily concerned.

There is obviously nothing to worry about in having glands similar to other living animals. I wonder why human physiology is supposed to be totally unique.

I'm not claiming that emotions are the source of independent thought. Especially with how emotions are defined in the false dichotomy of logic versus emotion, or Apollonian versus Dionysian if you refer back to the originator of this dichotomy - Nietzsche - emotions have all the relevance of dice in such a paradigm as far as decisions are concerned. I see emotions as a type of amplifier to motivate actions based upon conclusions obtained, but I doubt I can formalize that in such a way that people who have been long since indoctrinated by culture and television (Spock and Kirk, for instance) to think otherwise.

"logic is just the beginning of wisdom."