Last Updated 1 year by Lukas
Have you ever wondered whether we are driven by logic, emotion or both? And whether people are selfish or altruistic? If the answer is yes, you may find this article to be an interesting read. Even if you have never thought about these issues before, you may find this article interesting as it can add to our current knowledge and perhaps inspire us to explore our depths. Let’s go on this voyage of discovery and explore new ideas together.
What is logic?
Definition (Wikipedia)
Definition of logic
Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid conclusions or logical truths. It studies how conclusions follow from premises, regardless of their subject matter and content. Informal logic is associated with informal fallacies, critical thinking and argumentation theory. It examines arguments expressed in natural language, whereas formal logic uses formal language. Logic plays a central role in many fields such as philosophy, mathematics, computer science and linguistics.
Definition of arguments
Arguments can be either true or false. An argument is true if its premises support its conclusion. Deductive arguments have the strongest form of support: if their premises are true, then their conclusion must also be true. This is not the case with ampliative arguments, which provide genuinely new information that is not in the premises.
Everyday arguments
Many arguments in everyday discourse and in the sciences are ampliative arguments. They can be divided into inductive and abductive arguments. Inductive arguments are statistical generalisations. Abductive arguments are inferences to the best explanation. Arguments that do not meet the standards of correct reasoning are called fallacies. Logical systems are theoretical frameworks for judging the correctness of arguments.
Deductive reasoning
Simply put, it’s the process of ‘deducing’ conclusions from generally true or accepted facts. This gives deduction an advantage, because if something is derived from the truth, it must be also the truth. As an example, we can say that if we call a composition of two slices of bread with cheese between them a ‘cheese sandwich’. And we create a similar composition of ingredients, but we replace cheese with meat. We can deduce that it’s also a sandwich. In this particular case, meat sandwitch.
Inductive reasoning
In contrast to deduction, where the validity of the conclusion is guaranteed by the validity of the premises. In the case of induction, there is a degree of probability involved. In this case we are trying to induce a general rule from several observations. For example, if we fail many times in any area, we may conclude that we are not good at it and stop growing in that area. Even though it may not be true, we have created a general rule ‘we are not good at this’. And we start to act as if it was a general truth.
Abductive reasoning
Similar to induction, abduction involves a degree of probability. In this case, we are trying to draw a conclusion based on what is known at a given moment. The best example would be a detective gathering evidence to solve a criminal case. And, based on the known evidence, drawing some conclusions about who to identify as the responsible criminal.
Is deduction, induction and abduction confusing?
I’ve always struggled to remember the difference and examples of these types of reasoning. Thankfully, there is a nice mnemotechnic way to remember them more easily. All three words are based on the Greek root ‘ducere’, which means ‘to lead’. In the case of deduction ‘-de-‘ means ‘from’, so we go from generally accepted true statements to a conclusion.
In the case of induction, ‘-in-‘ means ‘to or towards’. And so we go to/towards a generalisation. Finally, in the case of abduction, ‘-ab-‘ means ‘away’. And so we go away with the best possible explanation we can get out of known facts.
What are emotions?
Definition (Wikipedia)
Emotions are mental states caused by neurophysiological changes that are variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioural responses, and levels of pleasure or displeasure. There is currently no scientific consensus on a definition. Emotions are often associated with mood, temperament, personality, disposition or creativity.
Mechanistic point of view
From a mechanistic perspective, emotions can be defined as “a positive or negative experience associated with a particular pattern of physiological activity”. Emotions are complex, involving many different components such as subjective experience, cognitive processes, expressive behaviour, psychophysiological changes and instrumental behaviour.
Alternative definition
In some uses of the word, emotions are intense feelings directed at someone or something. On the other hand, emotion can be used to refer to states that are mild (as in annoyed or satisfied) and states that are not directed at anything (as in anxiety and depression). In practical terms, Joseph LeDoux has defined emotions as the result of a cognitive and conscious process that occurs in response to a bodily system’s reaction to a trigger.
Development of the human brain
The human brain has about 100 billion neurons. Each neuron is usually connected to thousands of other neurons. In other words, this organ that sits on your shoulders is the most complex thing in the known universe. It’s constantly evolving as it rewires itself based on our experiences or information from our senses. We can divide it into three parts, each of which has a specific responsibility and each of which builds on the other.
The reptilian brain
This is the most ancient part of the brain. We share it with reptiles. It’s main purpose is to control the fight or flight response, it can also invoke basic concepts such as aggression, dominance, sexuality, territoriality. It also allows us at a very basic level to distinguish the known (good feeling) from the unknown (bad feeling until explored and later recognised as known).
The limbic system
The limbic system, together with the amygdala and hypothalamus, is also called the ‘mammalian brain’. The basic responsibility of this part is the creation of emotions and learning. This part of the brain is driven by/creates (in a more complex form) a positive (pleasure) and negative (pain) feelings.
It’s interesting that the limbic system is not capable of understanding logic or time. Past, present and future are the same for the limbic system. This explains why the dog greets you with great enthusiasm even if you have only been away for 30 minutes. It also explains why people with some kind of trauma are literally stuck in time and the bad feeling can be very strong even after a long time.
The neocortex
This is the part of the brain we share with primates, but it’s more developed in humans. It allows us to use logic, reasoning, analysis and complex problem solving. It also allows us to use language, understanding, creating meaning, will and wisdom. The neocortex has a much greater ability to store and process information compared to the limbic system.
It’s wise to make sure that the exchange of information between the limbic system and the neocortex works well. If this is the case, we can tap into it’s power and help/control ourselves better. How can we do this? Meditation or mindful breathing helps to keep information flowing between all three brains without interruption.
What does it mean to be selfish?
When we describe someone as selfish, we usually do so with a negative connotation. We want to say that the person is thinking primarily of their own benefit. In our own DNA, the primary purpose of self-preservation and self well-being is built in. Put another way, if pursued within reasonable limits and with consideration for others, there is really nothing wrong with being ‘that’ selfish.
What we are usually trying to express by labelling someone as selfish is an unhealthy, extreme obsession with one’s own well being. Even at the cost of serious harm to others, which is not generally accepted by the majority as ‘standard’ behaviour. For example, if someone refuses to do something that has a serious detrimental effect on others, but is merely annoying to them personally (and so there is no real reason not to do it from a societal wellbeing point of view).
In reality, we need each other to survive (Although this need is slowly diminishing with increasing levels of technology. And we are becoming increasingly isolated. Only time will tell if this trend is going in the right direction). Marking someone as selfish is society’s self-protection mechanism to create social/peer pressure on others to change their behaviour to be more pro-social, which in the past has helped us survive and thrive.
What is motivation?
Definition (Wikipedia)
Motivation is the reason why humans and other animals initiate, continue, or terminate a behaviour at a given time. Motivational states are commonly understood as forces acting within the agent that create a disposition to engage in goal-directed behaviour. It is often assumed that different motivational states compete with each other and that only the strongest state determines behaviour. This means that we can be motivated to do something without actually doing it. The paradigmatic mental state that provides motivation is desire. But several other states, such as beliefs about what one should do or intentions, can also provide motivation.
Several competing theories of the content of motivational states have been proposed. They are known as content theories and aim to describe what goals usually or always motivate people. For example, Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and the ERG theory suggest that people have certain needs that are responsible for motivation. Some of these needs, such as food and water, are more basic than others, such as respect from others. In this view, the higher needs can only motivate once the lower needs have been met.
Self-determination theory (Wikipedia)
Self-determination theory is an approach to human motivation and personality that uses traditional empirical methods while employing an organismic metatheory that emphasises the importance of people’s evolved internal resources for personality development and behavioural self-regulation (Ryan, Kuhn, & Deci, 1997).
It takes a look at people’s psychological needs and growth tendencies that reveal their personality and level of self-determination. Competence, relatedness and autonomy are important conditions that play a major role in one’s motivation and engagement in activities because they determine one’s well-being.
What can we learn from this?
We have to remember that there are two main sources of motivation and that’s external and internal. Although both can be very strong, if we want to maintain motivation over a long period of time, the internal wins. We can also agree with Mr Maslow that there is a hierarchy of needs and until we have the basic needs firmly met it’s very difficult to expand further.
As research progresses, we are getting more and more insight that motivation is not just about avoiding pain and moving towards pleasure. It seems to be much more complex and influenced by our character, environment, beliefs, society… . For example, self-determination theory talks about competence, relatedness and autonomy. In other words, we want to grow (and know we can grow), we want to feel valued and needed by others, we want to belong to society and we want to have control over our lives.
Long story short, from a long-term perspective, it makes sense to focus on building internal motivation. And also building discipline, relationships with others and expanding our knowledge. If we try to focus too much on a single trait like control, we are at high risk of developing compensating behaviours (we put everything under control, we compensate by for example gambling to bring in some randomness. As our bodies/psychologies try to maintain what is called homeostasis – balance). We are also in danger of falling apart when our single aim fails. The middle way, adapting to changing circumstances and continuous development, is the wise long term choice.
Thought experiment: Trolley Problem
Definition (Wikipedia)
The Trolley Problem is a series of thought experiments in ethics and psychology involving stylised ethical dilemmas about whether to sacrifice one person in order to save a larger number. The series usually begins with a scenario in which a runaway tram or trolley is on course to collide with and kill a number of people (traditionally five) on the track, but a driver or bystander can intervene and divert the vehicle to kill only one person on another track.
Let’s give it a twist to test how strong our logic is
If we take the example of the trolley problem as given and think about it. In this imaginary example, most people would choose to save a larger group and sacrifice a smaller group. From this point of view, it seems that we are all perfectly logical.
Now let’s change the example a little. Let’s say that the one person we would send the trolley to is someone we care about. Now we have shifted the situation from the two groups of unknown people to the single person we care about and the group of unknown people. For the majority of us, logic goes out the window as emotions kick in. Emotions are much stronger than logic because there are many more connections from the limbic system to the neocortex compared to the other way around.
Is there a ‘right’ solution?
There is no ‘right’ solution to this problem. The point of this exercise is to realise how powerful our feelings/emotions are. And that they are the main driver of our life/behaviour. With this information we should not delay things like meditation, breathing exercises… . As these can strengthen the neocortex and improve the connections between all our brains.
If we still believe that we can be 100% logical. On the level of feelings, we should observe how strong the sensations are when the trolley problem starts offering harder and harder choices. When there really is no ‘right’ decision, but only subjectively ‘less wrong’. Most of the time, long before logic kicks in, we feel this uncomfortable feeling in our stomach.
The limbic system has no concept of logic or time. It just sends some information (in the form of advanced feelings) to our neo-cortex, where we do what is called ‘rationalisation’ (we tell ourselves what it means or why we feel this way). Of course, this explanation is just our assumption of the meaning and it may be wrong. Throughout our lives we can only improve our assumptions of what these feelings mean by paying attention to our body/feelings.
Are our actions driven by emotions?
Current situation
Based on current human knowledge and until proven otherwise by some ground-breaking study. It’s reasonable to assume that we (humans) are primarily feeling/emotional driven and logic is only there to steer/shape the final course of action. With this knowledge, does it make sense to expand the capabilities of our logic? It definitely does, and it also makes sense to observe ourselves and learn more about our feelings in order to make better decisions in the future.
Make emotions your ally, not your enemy
If we improve our self-understanding and if we improve our willpower and discipline. We will be able to make better long-term decisions. This will most likely translate into a greater sense of satisfaction with our lives and our choices. And if feelings/emotions are our primary driver, does it make sense to feel better in the long term? it does, because feelings/emotions are a source of great motivational energy. It’s much more energy than logic can provide. But it’s wise to tame this beast with logic, as it may not make the best choices alone in the long run.
To further support our conclusions. We can search our memory for a situation where we knew logically that it’s good to do something, like not eating too many sweets or exercising regularly. But in the end, logic was not enough to fight our emotions. And we either ate a lot of sweets with the excuse that we will start to get in shape tomorrow, or we just put off starting to exercise. That’s how powerful the limbic system can be against an untrained neocortex. And even with a trained one, it’s still pretty hard to follow through with our plans using only logic. Let’s make emotions our allies, and for that we need to observe ourselves and adjust our actions according to our findings.
Are we selfish?
On a microscopic (internal) level, we are selfish. If we define it as acting only on the basis of our ‘good feeling’. It all starts with an emotion in the limbic part of the brain, this is later translated into drive and it ends up as some internal state or external action. If everything works as expected, it flows through the neocortex and we can decide what to do (we can shape or suppress the drive through logic/reasoning).
Let’s take an example. We see a beggar and our brain (limbic system) creates an emotion which translates into a drive to help him by sharing some money. This goes to the neo-cortex and we create rationalisation (explanation for the feeling/emotion). We also filter it through our belief system, experiences… . And finally we either give money or not.
In general, helping other people makes us feel good because it’s evolutionary (if we help each other, we’re more likely to survive) and so it’s a preferred behaviour promoted by society/our brains. The point here is that this act of generosity (seen by external observers as not selfish behaviour) started internally as selfish (emotion/feeling concerned only with ourselves).
We can generalise this as ‘When people act, they are driven to achieve the best possible outcomes for themselves. And that’s based on their best internal understanding of the world (beliefs, experiences, values…). Because we act based on a model of the world (we can’t achieve a true representation of the world, just a better or worse model), we are often doomed to act against our best interests until we update our model. And we often fail to realise this.
What are the key takeaways?
Reach people with both logic and emotion
It’s very wise to aim for both logic and emotion when talking/influencing/sharing experiences with others. If you have to choose only one, as explained in the article above, it’s no brainer to go for emotions/feelings. Let’s try to remember when someone told us: ‘Don’t do it, it’s not worth it’. But many times we tried anyway because we could not understand it with logic alone, we had to feel it.
Many of us have a strong desire to be ‘right’ and nobody wants to be ‘wrong’. Let me say this: if you win a logical argument and you are ‘right’, try to think for a while how being ‘wrong’ would make you feel. Now it should be easy to conclude that it’s very important to be careful here, otherwise you may create people who ‘feel’ bad about your argument. And emotions/feelings, as we know, are very powerful motivators. Maybe there is a better way from a long-term perspective? How do you want people to remember you?
That doesn’t mean agreeing with everything they say. It means using empathy, choosing your words carefully, and leading others to realisation at their own pace, using their own powers of reasoning. Life can be quite long, and it’s much better to have supporters than enemies. Try not to create winners and losers (if possible).
Maintaining a student mentality throughout our lives
As mentioned earlier, we act as best we can based on the model of the world we have created in our minds. It consists of our beliefs, values and experiences. Often we are not even aware of how much it shapes our lives. There is no one model that rules all other models. It’s always about being open and willing to change. Simply put, if we realise that what we are doing is not working, we should change our behaviour/model of the world (if there is a better one), because we can also learn from others.
It’s no coincidence that the proverbial definition of insanity is doing the same thing the same way and expecting different results.
Improve our understanding of both logic and emotion
As human knowledge continues to grow and expand. We must not stop learning and keep our minds open. Of course, we must take into account our abilities and our current situation. And we should not compete with others, but only with ourselves. This will ensure that we continue to grow at our own pace. Step by step, little by little, every day, to be better tomorrow than we are today.
Make sure you find some time for exercise and meditation
Do you remember when we discussed whether we are selfish as human beings? And when we talked about the path from emotion to drive to the neocortex, where we can choose to act on that drive or suppress it. It’s not always like that. A good example is trauma, when we are trapped in a very strong emotion that puts our body into a fight or flight response. In this case the neocortex shuts down because we don’t need it. This also means that we can’t just think our way out of it. And first we have to allow information to flow from the limbic system into the neocortex.
Is there a way to improve the flow of information? It’s as simple as meditation or mindfulness exercises. Of course, we are not trying to say that we can resolve trauma in this way, as that may require specialist intervention at this point. What we are saying is that there is a way to improve the flow of information so that we are more resilient in the future. Even ‘normal’ exercise can go a long way to reducing stress levels.
Mind influences body, but body influences mind
It’s probably no surprise to hear me say: “When we feel happy, we smile. But did you know that it also works the other way round? In other words, if you force yourself to smile, it will affect your mood. Or take the example of when we are sad, there are certain postures we adopt (looking down, shoulders down…). And what happens if we change our posture? Yes, you guessed it, our mood will change.
We may even have experienced this ourselves, we just don’t feel like going outside for a jog. We force ourselves and surprisingly we come back and many times we feel better than before thanks to the exercise. What are you going to do with this new superpower knowledge?
There are limits to what reasoning can do
As we mentioned in the section on exercise and meditation. Not everything can be solved by logic and reason. If we have experienced a very strong emotion, we may be trapped in the trauma. As the limbic system is not able to understand time or logic, it may relive the strong emotion over and over again when triggered.
Such a strong emotion causes our body to go into fight/flight mode, effectively shutting down the neocortex. You don’t have to think much when you’re running from a tiger. But wait, there are no tigers in our modern world. That’s true, but our bodies don’t adapt that quickly, it took us a few thousand years to get to where we are now. In such a case, we usually have to find a therapist to help us reduce the strength of the feeling and gain access to our neocortex.
This is also why the very popular cognitive behavioural therapy isn’t very effective for trauma. Because it tries to influence primarily the neocortex (logic/behaviour). But if information from the limbic system can’t get to it, we can’t really use the neocortex to solve our problem. And that’s also why your dog welcomes you so vividly, even if you come back in 5 minutes. That’s a limbic system with no concept of time and logic.
Final words
Let me end this article with a quote to think about.
It doesn’t matter how smart or brilliant you are, if you don’t understand people, you will lose all your advantages.
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