Thomas II

I think I understand what you mean and it ain't coldhartedness.
It's simply that, between being a rational issue and a simplyfication of the way you express yourself, it might come across as "less" or "cold" to some.
I have to be careful with that myself because I tend to write to the point.
If I can say it in ten words I use nine... :jump: C'est la vie!

StaticAge

Tom: What is this crap?
Lucy: Its the Boredoms. They are from Japan.
Tom: Turn it off- its nothing but noise!
Lucy: Are you kidding me? this stuff is great!
Tom: It sounds like sheer nonsense- why would they spontaneously have a girl screaming in the middle of a song? Its mindless! There is no rational reason behind it!
Lucy: Exactly! I love it! It makes me laugh
Tom: You laugh way too much. You should be more serious. There is no reason to like this kind of crap. It's not music, its noise.
Lucy: Whatever.

Astinus

What kind of person is entertained by screaming and cussing and such in music? I rest my case.

However, there could be plenty of reasons Lucy(using your names) likes that kind of music - whether she recognizes them as reasons or not.

StaticAge

But would those reasons be rational or irrational? People have reasons for all sorts of things that are often called irrational- like belief in God, taste in art, finding someone attractive, liking cheese, etc

Astinus

Well, it depends. If it's to "fit in," then it is irrational, because she would be suborinating her judgment in favor of others.

However, I consider taste and other preferences to be "morally neutral," meaning that the taste themselves does not effect one's mind in the slightest. However, her actions given that tastes do (such lying about one's musical tastes in order to conform to one's peers goes against integrity).

So it depends on whether she likes that music because she likes it (in which case, she should be able to provide reasons), or whether she likes it because other people like it.

JamesBannon

Presumably this is aimed at me since I'm the one who made the remark. Let me explain.

The thread was started by a youngster in obvious pain because of a belief in his inadequacy both intellectually and socially. We were trying to engage to get him to believe he could at least approach the subject without too much fear. Even if he didn't "achieve" as much as the next guy, so what!

At the time I made this remark we were kidding around with an ironic look at philosphers which you apparently failed to pick up on. I said that some were a miserable shower and you then come back with some half-assed remark about emotional people not being able to appreciate the beauty of the subject. Do you see why this is insulting?

Admittedly English is not your first language, which we now know, so you may be partly excused for perhaps misreading the intent of the remarks and the thread. However, I had no way of knowing this at the time because you're English seemed good to me.

BTW: To those who argue that emotions are irrelevant, so they can be dismissed with rationalist hand-waving, I say "get out into the real world and try and engage with someone". Emotions are real and can cause tremendous pain and suffering and just because we don't understand their origin does not mean they are invalid. They are not!

doubtingt

Contrary to some of the posts trying to legitimize irrationality, responding to emotion is not what irrationality refers to. If being insulted causes a negative emotion and I retreat from the source of that insult, is that irrational? No, and most of those who call for more rationality and reason would not claim it is.
Irrationality is when emotion and other motivations infect thinking whose goal is to determine the answer to a question of fact. On any question of fact, what we prefer an answer to be has zero bearing on what the answer is. Thus, our emotional preferences regarding various answers has no ability to guide us toward the accurate answer. When emotional preference for or against possible answers imapacts thinking on questions of fact, then reasoning is impaired and the plausiblity of moving closer to an accurate answer is reduced.

Liking chocolate or feeling bad about the theory of evolution are not irrational. Rationality does not apply. However, allowing your feelings for chocalate to imapact your belief about the health effects of chocolate or allowing your feelings about evolution to impact your belief that it did and does occur is irrational, undermines reasoned thought, and inherently harmful to your ability to align your beliefs with what is most likely the case.

Emotions are important and positive to thinking in the sense that they can be the needed motivation to engage one's cognitive faculties to answer a question or solve a problem. However, when emotions go beyond motivating a desire to uncover the best answer and become a desire to reach a particular conclusion regardless of its accuracy, then emotional influence becomes negative and pushes thinking toward irrationality.

Preno

Yes. The ultimate motive behind that is irrational (i.e. a negative emotion). Or is it not?

JamesBannon

Have you sat down and analysed why you like a piece of music and why you don't like others? What makes people say, e.g., I like Mozart but I don't like Rock? E.g., I'm not over fond of Mozart because to me his music lacks "something" (emotion) even though I agree that it is almost harmonically perfect, whereas I like Bach because to me it has a "melancholic" edge that Mozart lacks. It's the same when we're comparing other kinds of music I think. Where is the use of the laws of reason here?

Here's another example, how do the laws of reason explain empathy? This is an ability poseesed by the vast majority of humans and yet it seems to defy logical explanation. We seem to be able to put ourselves in another's situation and, at least to some extent, feel what they feel. This gives rise to emotions of "pity", expressions of solidarity and so on. None of this is really "analytic" in nature.

Don't get me wrong, reason is a necessary tool for humans but to elevate it on to some other "plane" is to deny part of who we are. This is what happens to religious & socio-political zealots who deny that others have the right to feel differently because it offends there "sense of reason".

Oxymoron

The reasons behind preference may be complex - due to a number of influences distributed through time, genetic factors, and so on. But they remain reasons. Just because the individual (or anyone else for that matter) cannot point to any one or combination and say "that causes me to like Mozart" doesn't mean there isn't some deterministic process involved.

Music does evoke emotion, no denying that.

Not so. When animals became highly social - in evolutionary terms, after the dinosaurs had gone, and after mammals had grown in stature - the rules of existence became more complex. It became important to understand the needs and motivations of the tribal members they were simultaneously competing and cooperating with. This requirement was a big factor in humans ending up with with big brains and walking upright, and it conferred the ability to model other individuals in a predictive manner. It's something we all do - with mixed results - because our understanding of how others tick is very closely determined by how we tick. Hence our occasional inability to comprehend opponent's viewpoints.