Reason And Emotion

The other day I had a conversation with a friend who believes that emotions are irrational sorties, the enemies of clear thinking and reason. He is not alone. Traditionally, many people hold that feeling, sentiment and passion cloud logic, derail lucid perception and derange judgment. This credo holds some water. A fiery outburst of anger, or a temper tantrum obviously represent illogical spasms. However, certain emotions can enhance reason. Passion and excitement, for example, are indispensable modules of the act of creation. Poetry and painting, music and art, and even science, cannot exist without them. A case in point features curiosity. It is a rather perilous emotion, which can kill more than a cat. Yet curiosity is also a vital ingredient of science. It fuels inquisitive thinking and learning. It goads reasearch and motivates exploration. Indeed, and interestingly enough, in 2011 NASA launched from Cape Canaveral a robotic rover named ‘Curiosity', engaging it in an exploratory mission of the Gale Crater on Mars. The act of creation in the human mind also involves another stirring component, the excitement induced in sailing the inscrutable ocean of the unknown, our relentless efforts to penetrate and discover the deepest secrets in ourselves and in the universe. ‘The most beautiful experience we can have', says Albert Einstein, ‘is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion, which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.'