Capnmad said:
Can a person be too logical? When and how? I often find myself thinking in ways I think others have a hard time understanding or really relating to -- very analytical, very logical.
When is there too much thinking, too much logic?
I've got to say this:
Fascinating, Captain!
Sorry, too good to resist.
I should reply to your threads more; you always make good points.
Let me cut and paste from a post I made to a friend's lj that posed this very same topic:
Begin my post:
Some arguments against logic:
Shifting views ever so slightly results in an entirely different logical chain, a butterfly effect that leads to different conclusions.
Emotions, however, exist as sort of a grounding to keep things at a safely micro level.
An example of 'pure' logic with no emotion:
1a) One should not care about the needs or wants of others. That, after all, is what said others are for: to watch out for themselves. We reduce our own pleasure for no good reason. As long as we have the strength, the dominance, we can maximize our own pleasure. From our own frame of reference, our own pleasure is the only tangible. Take what you want and safeguard yourself. It is logical.
Counter example:
1b) One should act only in propogation of one's larger community--be it family, society, or even species. Individual needs are illogical and should be subsumed to the needs of the group. Notice that depending on one's perspective, you could argue that the family/clan, society, or species is the most logical group toward which to concnentrate effort.
These two are both logical yet emotionally flawed. Humans instinctively udnerstand 'give some to get some' and use it, tending by nature against both bully and martyr.
Now, consider suicide.
2a) Suicide is never a rational idea. Things can always get better. Whatever temporary problems exist, they are temporary and will fade. Thus, it is never a reasonable solution to commit suicide.
2b) Suicide is a much better alternative than life. Depending on your requirements for quality of life, you won't be getting them as you age. Kill yourself when you turn 65 or so--you'll have a a few years to enjoy retirement, then snuff it before your health rapidly deteriorates in your 60's and onwards. Actually, why work? Really, we should commit suicide in our early twenties, a few weeks after graduating college. up to college, you're around friends, family, and have time off. Once you graduate, you're stuck in the grind of work, with bills to pay, the potential to get fired, and in general not having much fun. It's much more logical to find a means of suicide that you aren't afraid of, and go out while on top. Better that than a slow death over 60 years as your good moments get less and less frequent.
Fuggit--smother ourselves in our crib. Life goes downhill once you have to do household chores.
Again, our emotions are hardwired into us to prevent us from falling prey to hanging ourselves in our own logic chains.
End my post:
Let me make one other point as well.
You can get too logical when you hold logic as your only influencer. Or, to put it another way: When you act in accordance with what should be, not what is.
Take tickling for example. Logically, tickling shouldn't turn us on. Only the erogenous zones should. Therefore, this desire is statistically maladaptive.
The above is perfectly logical. But it ignores the fact that we just plain like it, DESPITE the fact that there is no good reason for us to do so.
So, whenever our logic has us focus on the abstract instead of the actual, we are effectively logicking ourself into illogic
😀.
) though that might not be what you were referring to...
