H/W: Following the class activity on Monday, please write a portfolio reflection about what you learnt or reflected on regarding the WOK of Reason and Emotion. Write about 300 words.
- How do you think you use them?
- What kind of a balance is there in how you use these contrasting WOK?
- Can you think of any examples where you relied on both emotion and reason to ‘know’ something or decide on something?
The class activity we have done made me realize how each person relies on reasoning and emotion to a different extent. I see “reason” and “emotion” as a spectrum and initially I thought that I rely more on “emotion” as my instinct reaction to the question was “what can I do to make myself not be the blame”, meaning that I prioritize my emotional consequences rather than logical reasoning. This is why I chose option C because I will be able to blame on the computer system for my action if the missiles were not actually shot because technological error is “easier” to blame than human error. However, I also realized that I heavily relied on my intuition and “reason” to this option because I intuitively felt that the probability of computers making an error is very small compared to humans considering that technologies were developed during the Cold War. Furthermore, the system detected five missiles and my group thought that the probability of a computer making an error for all the missiles is very low. This shows how we used what is probabilistic reasoning as well as emotion to choose this option. Therefore, we used these two contrasting ways of knowing to decide our choices but I think that the extent people rely on these two ways of knowing differs – some rely on emotion more than reason and vise versa. Stanislav Petrov relied on reasonings as thought that it is a computer malfunction because he thought that any U.S. first strike would be more massive, so five missiles seemed an illogical start and he was correct. He also relied on emotion and reason as he had a “funny feeling”. I think that procrastination is a very common example of people using both emotion and reason to a different extent. When we procrastinate we prioritize our emotions because we “feel better” doing something else but at the same time you feel like you have to do what you should be doing. However, because you do not want to do what you should be doing, you start to find reasoning to rationalize your actions which is how we end up thinking that we can ‘do it later’ or in some cases ‘don’t have to do it’ to keep on procrastinating. People who rely more on reason when they procrastinate may procrastinate less than people who rely more on emotion.
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