Re: Descartes is still in error, it seems

On Mar 13, 4:09 pm, Lance <LanceG...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:


Contrary to what Descartes held dear, the finding that risk prediction
and
processing of emotions are related suggests that emotions may be
intimately
involved in rational decision making -- they may help us to correctly
assess
risk in an uncertain world.

That's a rather unkind reading of Descartes, I think!

It's a good point, though. Risk analysis is not objective - otherwise
cars and aeroplanes would be a good deal safer. It is something that
people enjoy. Interestingly (well, to me anyway), I happened to be
teaching risk analysis today. As usually happens, a class of students
that finds the overall topic of moderate interest suddenly perk up
when it comes to think about what risks there might be, how to counter
them and how likely they are to happen. The exercise is seen as fun.
The approach is, as the article suggests, anything but analytical -
there's an element of competition to find the most lurid possible
eventualities.

It would seem that, if our emotions lead us to feel in danger, it is
rational to take heed of them in risk assessment.

The comment you made about Victorian criminals needing to choose their
victim sensibly applies here. I'm sure that it is still true that
successful criminals use emotional clues to decide who or what to
target. Dogs are an effective security system not because they aren't
fairly easy to deal with, but because a big dog barking at you is
quite an emotional experience - like most threat displays it succeeds,
as intended, in giving you an artificially high impression of the risk
you face.


.