Emotion plays a powerful role in determining the way we perceive events that happen in our everyday life. It can help gain knowledge in certain areas and drive us to look for answers to something we are unsure of: it feeds our inquiry of the world. Although emotion plays a major role in areas of knowledge such as art and music, in mathematics we can see that it does not participate in the same way. However, emotion differs from person to person, sometimes due to culture or perspective, so it is important to be aware of when emotion can harm the outcome of certain events.
Although emotion is something we cannot detach ourselves from and helps us obtain the biggest sources of knowledge there are times when it would be best to not have it. Setting aside all the emotions that we feel would lead to a more reasonable way of thinking and not lead us to make, what are sometimes, drastic decisions because of the emotions that we feel. One example of reason being a more useful way of obtaining knowledge is in the application of mathematics. Mathematics, unlike other areas of knowledge, does not include many areas for emotion to take part in the subject, it is something very logical and the application of it in the real world would be facilitated if humans were deprived of emotion which, in turn, leads to difficulty in seeing a certain pattern or the answer to a problem. A further example of emotion hindering our ability to make decisions is in sports. Athletes sometimes become so emotionally bound to the game they are playing it leads them to make unreasonable decision- for example, in football, it can be foul with only seconds remaining that leads to the other team scoring the winning goal. I have experienced this sort of 'emotional clouding' during a football match. With only minutes remaining, and being up 2-1, it would have been most reasonable of me to perform the simple action of kicking the ball as far as I could in order to waste time. I, however, was so strongly emotionally driven by the close outcome of the game I uncontrollably kicked the ball across the goal almost giving away the ball and allowing the other team to score.
This, however, does not mean emotion cannot help us gain knowledge. Although having the ability to hinder the way we perceive knowledge, emotion can also enrich our acquisition of it. In subjects such as art and music emotion is what drives these artists to paint a painting or compose a piece of music in a specific way; without emotion these two subjects would not have meaning. Art and music are all about expression, they focus on releasing the feelings that are inside you in a way that can be presentable to others and create a reaction from them. The emotions felt by the audience, of course, do not have to be identical to those of the artist, the reaction that an individual has to a certain song or artwork will always be, in some way, different to another. In music this can be seen clearly as there is always some controversy on certain songs and emotions lead you to feel a certain way about the song or the artist. During a concert in 2003, the American group Pearl Jam preformed the song Bu$hleaguer which expressed their opinion about President Bush and the war with Iraq which had begun shortly prior to their tour. The audience saw this song as an insult and many booed the band during their performance. The emotions created when hearing those lyrics angered the crowd leading them to feel differently about the song compared to the members of the band. Whenever we, as knowers, are asked to make a judgement on a song we almost instantly consider how the song makes us feel; and that's the key question. Without emotion we cannot determine how a song makes us feel making it impossible for this area of knowledge to exist without personal feeling towards it. Musicians often say they can 'feel the music' or 'feel the rhythm' and are therefore able to comprehend when and where there is an adjustment to make in a song. Many don't spend several hours obsessing over what notes should go in a specific measure, they can just feel what note should be present and they add it with no hesitation.
On the other hand, it can be argued that emotion does not have the same effect on other areas of knowledge, such as sciences. In physics, for example, the majority of the workload is mathematical and therefore more logical allowing reason to outweigh the need for emotion in acquiring knowledge. Although it may seem essentially a more reasonable subject there is still the presence of emotion as a teacher could have a stronger emotion towards a topic of physics, such as kinematics, causing him to explain it differently and with more passion compared to a topic that he/she had a weaker emotional bond. Whenever you try to learn a new equation or explain a theory, everything is explained through facts and reason but, to a certain extent, what you are most interested in can be driven by your emotion. The sections of information that one can remember, or does not pay attention to, can be affected through the specific emotion that one feels at that point in time. For example, due to me having a bad day in school I was feeling surprisingly apathetic during my physics lesson and did not have a great amount of interest towards what was being taught. I therefore had to regain that information and catch up with my classmates in my own time. If I had been of a brighter mood, perhaps enthusiastic, that day it would have been likely that my reaction to the lesson would have been different allowing me to remember and acquire greater amounts of knowledge.
It can be argued that emotion shaped through culture and perspective is affected less drastically in sciences compared to the arts such as English Literature. Where the understanding and appreciation of abstract ideas and objects may change drastically from one culture to the other or even one person to another, the understanding of concrete objects is much more universal. For instance, if we were to ask around the world about scientific fact there wouldn’t be many different interpretations of it as it mainly involves reason. Meanwhile if you were to ask multiple people of different cultures around the world whether the couple presented to them were really in love their answers would differ due to their different intuitions about the nature of love. Many of the works done by scientists remain the same no matter where you are in the world whereas interpretations of a literal piece, for example a poem, are likely to differ accordingly to where you are in the world.
Conclusively, it is inevitable that emotion will find its way into any area of knowledge from the study of the arts to the study of mathematics, regardless of how logical a subject may appear to be. This is due to our inability as humans to be like Captain Spock and control our emotions; far more entirely isolate ourselves from them. Emotion creates our basic understanding of the world and we see it be shaped in a different ways due to culture and play a major or less central role dependent upon the subject area. Where emotion is free to be expressed as freely as possible we see it translated into the form of a painting, song or even a poem. Meanwhile, although not as free, it can affect how we perceive knowledge and delay our logical reasoning in science and mathematics.
Although emotion is something we cannot detach ourselves from and helps us obtain the biggest sources of knowledge there are times when it would be best to not have it. Setting aside all the emotions that we feel would lead to a more reasonable way of thinking and not lead us to make, what are sometimes, drastic decisions because of the emotions that we feel. One example of reason being a more useful way of obtaining knowledge is in the application of mathematics. Mathematics, unlike other areas of knowledge, does not include many areas for emotion to take part in the subject, it is something very logical and the application of it in the real world would be facilitated if humans were deprived of emotion which, in turn, leads to difficulty in seeing a certain pattern or the answer to a problem. A further example of emotion hindering our ability to make decisions is in sports. Athletes sometimes become so emotionally bound to the game they are playing it leads them to make unreasonable decision- for example, in football, it can be foul with only seconds remaining that leads to the other team scoring the winning goal. I have experienced this sort of 'emotional clouding' during a football match. With only minutes remaining, and being up 2-1, it would have been most reasonable of me to perform the simple action of kicking the ball as far as I could in order to waste time. I, however, was so strongly emotionally driven by the close outcome of the game I uncontrollably kicked the ball across the goal almost giving away the ball and allowing the other team to score.
This, however, does not mean emotion cannot help us gain knowledge. Although having the ability to hinder the way we perceive knowledge, emotion can also enrich our acquisition of it. In subjects such as art and music emotion is what drives these artists to paint a painting or compose a piece of music in a specific way; without emotion these two subjects would not have meaning. Art and music are all about expression, they focus on releasing the feelings that are inside you in a way that can be presentable to others and create a reaction from them. The emotions felt by the audience, of course, do not have to be identical to those of the artist, the reaction that an individual has to a certain song or artwork will always be, in some way, different to another. In music this can be seen clearly as there is always some controversy on certain songs and emotions lead you to feel a certain way about the song or the artist. During a concert in 2003, the American group Pearl Jam preformed the song Bu$hleaguer which expressed their opinion about President Bush and the war with Iraq which had begun shortly prior to their tour. The audience saw this song as an insult and many booed the band during their performance. The emotions created when hearing those lyrics angered the crowd leading them to feel differently about the song compared to the members of the band. Whenever we, as knowers, are asked to make a judgement on a song we almost instantly consider how the song makes us feel; and that's the key question. Without emotion we cannot determine how a song makes us feel making it impossible for this area of knowledge to exist without personal feeling towards it. Musicians often say they can 'feel the music' or 'feel the rhythm' and are therefore able to comprehend when and where there is an adjustment to make in a song. Many don't spend several hours obsessing over what notes should go in a specific measure, they can just feel what note should be present and they add it with no hesitation.
On the other hand, it can be argued that emotion does not have the same effect on other areas of knowledge, such as sciences. In physics, for example, the majority of the workload is mathematical and therefore more logical allowing reason to outweigh the need for emotion in acquiring knowledge. Although it may seem essentially a more reasonable subject there is still the presence of emotion as a teacher could have a stronger emotion towards a topic of physics, such as kinematics, causing him to explain it differently and with more passion compared to a topic that he/she had a weaker emotional bond. Whenever you try to learn a new equation or explain a theory, everything is explained through facts and reason but, to a certain extent, what you are most interested in can be driven by your emotion. The sections of information that one can remember, or does not pay attention to, can be affected through the specific emotion that one feels at that point in time. For example, due to me having a bad day in school I was feeling surprisingly apathetic during my physics lesson and did not have a great amount of interest towards what was being taught. I therefore had to regain that information and catch up with my classmates in my own time. If I had been of a brighter mood, perhaps enthusiastic, that day it would have been likely that my reaction to the lesson would have been different allowing me to remember and acquire greater amounts of knowledge.
It can be argued that emotion shaped through culture and perspective is affected less drastically in sciences compared to the arts such as English Literature. Where the understanding and appreciation of abstract ideas and objects may change drastically from one culture to the other or even one person to another, the understanding of concrete objects is much more universal. For instance, if we were to ask around the world about scientific fact there wouldn’t be many different interpretations of it as it mainly involves reason. Meanwhile if you were to ask multiple people of different cultures around the world whether the couple presented to them were really in love their answers would differ due to their different intuitions about the nature of love. Many of the works done by scientists remain the same no matter where you are in the world whereas interpretations of a literal piece, for example a poem, are likely to differ accordingly to where you are in the world.
Conclusively, it is inevitable that emotion will find its way into any area of knowledge from the study of the arts to the study of mathematics, regardless of how logical a subject may appear to be. This is due to our inability as humans to be like Captain Spock and control our emotions; far more entirely isolate ourselves from them. Emotion creates our basic understanding of the world and we see it be shaped in a different ways due to culture and play a major or less central role dependent upon the subject area. Where emotion is free to be expressed as freely as possible we see it translated into the form of a painting, song or even a poem. Meanwhile, although not as free, it can affect how we perceive knowledge and delay our logical reasoning in science and mathematics.