Reason is just the endless paperwork of the mind (virus: Limbic Understanding
Lior Golgher (efraim_g@netvision.net.il)
Sat, 08 Feb 1997 23:02:38 -0800
Regarding certain sections of Prof. Tim posting\forward:
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8.8 Emotion did not get left behind in evolution. Reason and emotion
evolved together and their neural substrates are densely
interconnected. Yet each concerns itself with a different task. The
word "salience", which means to "leap up" or "stick out", describes
how the limbic brain alerts us to what is meaningful. We might say
that the emotional brain deals with qualitatively significant
information.
8.9 The limbic brain's use of common structures for different
functions such as memory, emotion, and attention may partly explain
why humans excel at making decisions based on incomplete information,
"acting on our hunches." We know more than we think we know. And yet
are we not always surprised at our insights, inspirations, and
creativity? And do we not just as often reject our direct experience
in favor of "objective facts" instead?
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9.4 Reason is just the endless paperwork of the mind. The heart of
our
creativity is our direct experience and the salience that our limbic
brain gives it. Allowing it to be that does not stop us from
overlaying rational considerations on it - after which we can talk,
recount, explain, interpret, and analyze to our heart's content.
----
Reason can't help you compose, logic can't help you invent. The actual
composition of ideas is driven by pure creativity. Reason, logic and
phrasing come at the regression from the assumption, the hunche, to the
technical part of proving\negating it.
Lior.