Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Emotions vs. rational thinking

[Racheli&John (jnpalme]

** Reply to note from "Brian Baresch" <baresch [at] earthlink.net> Tue, 04 Sep 
2001 01:06:03 -0500

>From Racheli

The dichotomy between "rational" and "emotional" is 
simply false: *There is no such thing* as rational thinking 
which doesn't involve emotions.  (I realize that many have
strong emotional attachment to this distinction, which might 
make it difficult to give it up :)) ...

Research has shown that when people don't have access
to emotional input (which happens, for example, in cases
of certain types of brain injury), they are not able to
make rational decisions.  For those who are interested
in this subject, I recommend Antonio D'Amasio's 
"Descartes' Error". 
A more recent book by D'Amasio, which I haven't read yet,
is called: "A Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion 
in the Making of Consciousness" (published by Harcourt).
"D'Amasio draws of years of clinical research to make the 
argument that consciousness arises from our ability to map
relations between the self and others *through our emotions*"
(emphasis added).

R. 




_______________________________________________
Cohousing-L mailing list
Cohousing-L [at] cohousing.org  Unsubscribe  and other info:
http://www.communityforum.net/mailman/listinfo/cohousing-l