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  1. Nov 2021
    1. in the old view of enlightenment reason emotion got in the way of reason and motion was the 00:08:34 enemy of reason reason was what you know sort of like mr. Spock on Star Trek you know who is you know super reason no emotion or whatever not true suppose 00:08:49 that you had a stroke or a brain injury that wouldn't allow you to feel emotion and there are such strokes and brain injuries rep Antonio Damasio and his 00:09:01 wife Hana figured out some years ago and published in a book called des cartes error is that you can't reason without emotion emotion is necessary and it's 00:09:14 easy to see why if you cannot feel emotion then like and not like mean nothing to you and you do not know what to want think about it 00:09:27 if you couldn't feel anything if you wouldn't know what it meant to like or not like something or if somebody else or you couldn't tell if someone else would like or not like what you were doing you wouldn't know what to want you couldn't set a goal and this is what 00:09:41 happens to people with such brain injuries they act randomly they don't know how to plan they don't know how to structure their lives or set rational 00:09:53 goals because rationality requires emotion very very deep finding

      "If you do not feel emotion, you do not know what you like or not like, and you do not know what you want.....you couldn't set a goal...and this is what happens with people with such brain injuries. They act randomly. They don't know how to plan. They don't know how to structure their lives or set rational goals, because rationality requires emotions."

      This is a hugely profound statement that Lakoff talks about. Without emotions, we cannot make choices, and without choices we cannot set goals and without goals there can be no intentionality behind actions.Can one imagine a human life without setting goals? We take this so much for granted as a normative human behavior, but our social lives would be profoundly different without this intimate connection between emotion and rationality.