How Feelings Shape Our Thinking
In 1983, civilization almost ended – and we have emotions to thank for the fact that it didn’t.
On duty during a time of great tension in the Cold War, Soviet officer Stanislav Petrov got a horrifying alert: a monitoring system had detected that the United States had just launched five intercontinental ballistic missiles at the U.S.S.R.
Petrov’s job was to pass this information on to his superiors, who he knew would counterstrike and start World War III. His training gave him no other option. But Petrov was reluctant to follow cold logic and launch nuclear destruction. His emotions pushed him to look for another possibility. He took a big risk and reported a system malfunction . . . which is what it turned out to be.
Although emotions can serve us well in situations like these, there’s a lot of distrust toward feelings. This mindset stems from the ancient Greeks. Western thought has long seen emotion and reason as separate spheres, with emotions clouding the clear conclusions of logic.
Traditional modern thinking on emotion evolved from this idea, with a big contribution from Charles Darwin and later theorists.
You may have heard the theory that the brain is divided into three parts: the reptilian brain, the most primitive part, which deals with basic survival instincts; the limbic system, the seat of our emotions; and the neocortex, which handles logic and is the most advanced part. The neocortex is said to control the two lower parts of the brain.
There’s only one problem: just as Newton’s understanding of natural laws was upended by modern particle physics, modern neuroscience has found that the traditional thinking on our brain structure is oversimplified. Through brain scans, scientists have discovered that the interplay of instinct, emotion, and logic is far more complex and intertwined than we realized. Emotions, far from being handicaps, are key to processing our instinctive reactions and making sense of them.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise – after all, our emotions evolved to help us survive. Take, for instance, a parent’s love for their offspring.
Along with our physical reflexes, like when we instinctively jerk our hand away from a hot surface, we also have emotional reflexes. Emotions give us a way to process events and use logic to build nuanced responses instead of simply reacting the same way each time. They helped Stanislav Petrov make the decision that kept the world from nuclear obliteration. Don’t discount their importance.
Emotional (2022) explores a long-misunderstood part of the human psyche: emotions. It shows how neuroscience is shedding light on the role and importance of our emotions – and gives tips on how to control our emotions to lead better lives.
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Blink 3 von 12 - Eine kurze Geschichte der Menschheit
von Yuval Noah Harari
