On Intuition, feelings and emotions - Part 3

One of the most controversial aspects of sentiments (and intuition) is the fact that sentiments (and intuition) bring about as much destruction and hindrance to our quest of perfecting knowledge as much as it allows us to understand the world.

In part one; I have touched briefly on the benefits and hindrances of intuition and feelings on the world today. The strengths I have expounded in slightly greater detail in part two, and I hope to touch on the possible hindrances of intuition and feelings onto the quest for truth of life today in this post. In the last post the most important takeaway was the idea that Intuition seeks Truth not by logical reasoning and analysis of the world around us, but by the very act of experiencing and reliving truths as it happens around us. Putting this sentence in a very warped context, we can find out the truth that fire is dangerous by reading about it and looking at all the pictures of burnt victims in a medical book or a fire safety poster; or we can understand this truth by touching fire and burning our fingers along the way.

Putting this in an empiricist concept, that’s why experiments are crucial even in the scientific method- I am sure by now we have finally found the answer to the question:

How much can you say it’s true that there are atoms in the desk? Just because some textbook or teacher tells you so? Do you actually go to the Science Laboratory and put it under the microscope the experience it for yourself? (From the Moderation Doctrine – An introduction)

On the previous topic on Education, Logic and our lives, we get to see that one of the biggest weaknesses of logical thought is that logic can be warped easily to two differing arguments, the simple logic of ‘Logic from philosophy is impractical to our lives unless we apply it extensively onto today’s world’ has been the prime cause of the over-emphasis of technicalities over true philosophy- and this has further logically led to the warped aims of education to study for examinations and most political problems of today.

On the other hand intuition, feelings and sentiments are also subject to weaknesses and deviations to the Truth. Pure Intuition allows us to live truth, but it does not allow us to know and identify the truth unless we have some sort of epistemological (logical) knowledge beforehand to link that experience to pre-existing concepts and commit them to memory. A goldfish may have as much intuition as we do, but without logical thought and analysis, and memory (the dynamics I’ll delve into soon), it may never understand the truth that swimming into a filter pump would result in rather disastrous results, rather much to the demise of its friend last weekend.

Feelings, on the other hand, have always been the blame for the irrational actions of many. This is seen especially on the issue of religion. Today, I’ll dwell deeper into this issue to highlight the fallacies of the intuitive method of explaining truth.

There has been an increase of people (youths especially) subscribing to a religion (especially Christianity) recently. A closer examination on them has shown that most of them had simply gone to church simply because their friends are there. They believe that the Church is a great place to socialize, make friends, and know more about the salvation of Jesus at the same time. Indeed they in turn become devout people of their faith, and to the next generation become the reason of religion- for salvation from their teenage angst, for socialization, and ultimately for entertainment.

Now, I personally do not have the authority to make judgment whether such aims of religion are objectively or subjectively wrong, for indeed each and every person has a personal reason for his faith we cannot judge. But on a macro scale, we get to see that these reasons are mainly feeling orientated. Entertainment, as I had discussed earlier, are very much to appeal the senses rather than the analytical mind. The aims of such socializing are too for the enjoyment of life, unless their aims are for networking and the study of sociology. Finally, their faith can be described as one as of an intuitive, fediestical faith of trust, hope and love.

A calculated move? Or an act of impulse? Much of the world has shown its disdain, their primary source of attack on the lack of logic of such people. From the viewpoints of the devout, this group of people mars the true aims of God and religion ‘to explain our lives, guide us and show us the way, the truth and the life’. From the critical atheist whom had already shown skepticism over the validity of religion this has been deemed as a ‘completely illogical move that makes religion sound even more ridiculous than it already is.’

Of course, there is also an element of logic for the actions of this group of people. As I had stated earlier, even feelings have an element of logic to it for humans being rational, require both logic and intuitive experience in what they do. But in summary, we see that such actions, where feelings take presidency over true logical analysis and thought, result in actions we deem as irrational and illogical. Now, should I suppose for an instance that there is indeed a possible way to explain that God does exist; I can definitely come up with the following conclusions:

This group of people did intuitively experience God (objectively). They will be right when they say that God exists.
But like the goldfish, they can never know (in essence) the complete Truth on whether God exists.
This is because they cannot, or did not, or would not explain the existence of God.
To other people (this is subjective), they are still living in denial, and whatever they say about God will still be deemed illogical and irrational.

I am sure that such conclusions do not apply strictly on this group of people only. I do not wish to impart an impression that I disdain such people whom subscribe to religion based on ‘feeling based’ reasons. Neither am I downplaying the importance of feelings and faith (when it comes to religion). Indeed, the fallacy of intuition and feelings also addresses the irrationality of those people whom put complete faith in everything they do, but are unable to justify their reasons for doing so.

And so to the fanatics of today- Moderated Islamic scholars have agreed in unison that the concept of ‘Jihadism’ has been marred by many Muslim terrorists today. Indeed, the true concept of Jihad was to be a ‘struggle’ for ‘striving in the way of Allah’. However, sentiments arisen from freedom, land and hatred to American communities have led to the blatant misinterpretation of the word to one of terrorism and fanaticism.

Is it logical? No. Is it sentiment-based? Yes. Is it the fallacy of the religion to blame? No. Is it a fallacy of the over-emphasis of intuitive feelings then? Yes.

Intuition, just like logic, is amoral- both aspects can be bent both ways to the objective truth or against it.

Indeed, with the above statement I have officially concluded by discussion on the topic of Intuition, Feelings and Emotions. And in conjunction with the topic of Education, Logic and our lives I have finally addressed the two fundamental doctrines of philosophy, their purposes, strengths and weaknesses. In the next post I would discuss in greater detail about the ‘now and forever’ theory of both Logic and Feelings. I may have made some headway of this theory over the past six posts, but nevertheless I would like to address it formally before I get the action proper of synthesizing these concepts into a single model that I believe would explain our lives very much in detail in the posts to come.