No One Likes It When You Use Vulcan Logic
August 8th, 2008by Richard Cox
TULSA, OK-
I remember quite clearly, when I was 10 or so, a television commercial for Tylenol. The message went something like this:
“Extra Strength Tylenol has more pain-relieving medicine than Regular Strength Bayer Aspirin.”
I was only 10 years old. I shouldn’t have even been paying attention to the commercials. I should have been playing with my Rubik’s cube while I waited for Magnum, P.I. to come back on. But that commercial pissed me off.
How can they think people would be that stupid? I wondered. Any human being with half a brain isn’t going to be fooled by a statement so clearly misleading.
It turns out people are not only susceptible to misleading marketing, they seem to be drawn to it. Unsubstantiated superlatives appeal to our inner nature. But what nature is that, exactly?
Or consider a study done recently on human adaptive behavior, where groups of people were placed in a room and given a special thermostat to regulate the temperature of the room. The thermostat was set up in such a way that it was not immediately obvious how to regulate the temperature. Most groups did not set up a test to try different methods and use logic to arrive at the correct method. Instead they began to develop almost superstitious beliefs about the thermostat, like if they held it in a certain hand it worked better than another hand. Or if they tapped it three times it would set off a special chip inside that would correctly regulate the temperature.
There are people in this world who want to know how things really work, and they have developed logical ways to arrive at good answers. Many more people, however, just want to feel their way through life. Why is that?
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told by people that I think too much, analyze too much, that I am too literal. I’ve always been this way. In school I was excellent at math because the methods to arrive at the correct answer were clear. I also took advanced English and composition classes, and I was good at that, too, but when it came to interpreting literature I was not as good, because the answers weren’t discrete. The answer was smeared across a range. The truth could change depending on your position, and this did not come naturally to me.
So, of course, instead of becoming an engineer I decided to be a writer. What? What sense does that make? Well, I always loved to read and was naturally good at composition, and doing math all day sounded really boring to me. But even though I’ve had a little success, I’ve struggled to create great characters because I seem to be missing some understanding of how to render the “feel” part of life.
It’s not that I don’t have emotions. I do have them. I feel them. I often have to look away from people
during sad movies because they make me get all, you know, teary and whatever. But that looking away doesn’t just happen in the movies. I control my emotions in real life as well. I don’t know why. They just seem to add unnecessary complexity to a situation. You ever had a moody boss? An angry parent? Wouldn’t you rather have had rationality in those situations?
When I was single I used to go to bars with a friend of mine who had moved here from Austria. This guy was really literal…I’m talking Vulcan literal. We would have these long conversations about the inherent absurdity of picking up a girl in a bar. Either one of us could chat up a girl in a normal life situation, where there was some inherent subject to discuss. But in a bar there is no context other than “Hi, I’m going to try to pick you up.” We knew the idea was to make small talk, but that was the problem. Neither one of us cared to make small talk. If you didn’t have a concrete reason to talk to someone, why would you? Eventually, of course, I would have enough drinks that I finally would talk to a girl, about whatever, nothing, anything. And it was fine. But why did I have to wait for alcohol to kick in before I could disregard my need to be literal?
To me, information is the most valuable commodity there is. It’s the currency we use to interact with
each other, with the world at large. Without information you can’t do anything. All the stimuli that are
processed by your senses are comprised of information. Without information you don’t even know if you exist.
But when is it good idea to have less information?
I play my best golf when I stop thinking about the mechanics of the swing and just feel it.
We can probably all agree that you can’t have good sex when you think too much.
You can’t enjoy a slice of pizza if you’re worried about how many calories are in it.
There isn’t a math equation to describe love.
Does that mean there are situations in life where we willfully suspend our disbelief?
Love exists in our brains, after all, and while a lot of people may not believe it, there will come a time when that electrochemical process can be mapped. Unless you think God is yanking the strings of the universe and routinely breaking the laws of physics, everything we know can be described by a physical process. Which means everything could eventually be known.
I can hear you right now: Well, I don’t want everything to be known. I don’t want love to be understood discretely even if it’s possible. I want there to be room for magic.
But you must agree we want some things to be known. Before we had knowledge of pathogens, people routinely died for reasons that today would seem absurd. So that sort of information is good, right?
We used to believe the sun was drawn across the sky by a guy in a chariot. We used to believe the Earth was at the center of the universe. But when scientists suggested we weren’t at the center of the universe, they were tried for heresy. Heresy!
Even today there are people who reject mature fields of science like evolution and geology because it doesn’t jibe with their religious beliefs.
I suppose this need to occasionally blot out rational thought emerges from the way our brains are wired. In some ways we are like computers, passing and parsing bits of information, but we also incorporate emotions, which current computers do not. Those emotions can completely override normal information processing, like when you have an orgasm, or when your favorite team wins the Super Bowl. In the most literal sense it may seem absurd to rub your private parts against someone else’s, it may seem ridiculous to watch a bunch of strangers on television throw a ball to each other, but no one can deny the euphoria that can be produced by these activities.
Which is one of the most interesting conundrums of being human. You can try to reduce the world to a
discrete, measurable system, but your brain will always rebel against you, because it cannot divorce itself from emotion.
And what would life be like if it could?
Yesterday I bought some Nike golf balls, and the girl at the cash register asked, “Why are these golf balls so expensive?”
Normally, I would have answered her literally, something about the attributes of the golf balls, or just
smiled and said I didn’t know. But instead I said, with a gleam in my eye, “Because I’m so good.”
She got a kick out of that.
Which I suppose is a small but fitting example of what it means to be human.
Tags: computers, electrochemical, human, information, Philosophy, vulcan
Well hello, you must be new to TNB, welcome!
I think your desire to go into writing is self explained here in your piece - we are creatures destined to evolve therefore we must assume that which challenges our nature.
I think your perspective on love occurring in the brain is somewhat limiting. Perhaps emotions involve more than synapse charges…. Personally, I want to know how it all works because I think truth is magical.
And thank the stars that we cannot divorce ourselves from emotion… Distraught as they make us - they are what make us worthwhile in the end.
Now, to address your comparison of a sports touchdown and an orgasm… I think I need a bigger comment box.
Nice to meet you Richard.
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-BL
“Many more people, however, just want to feel their way through life.”
I HATE those kinds of people. HATE ‘em.
Emotions are, by and large, a liability.
This, my bro, was stellar. Can I link it to my blog series on love?
There is so much that I agree with here that I would be re-writing your entire piece as my comment, so I’ll restrain myself & my words (a struggle for me indeed!) and just say yeah, Because you are so good!
I like Titleist Pro VI here in my cold foggy climate & the Pro VI x in warm weather, don’t ask me why… it just feels good… xo
P.S. - Call me, dickface, so we can hammer out some final plans for September.
San Dimas High School football rules.
Richard.. great write.
The emotion part makes us human.
Funny how I usually “feel” my way through things.. but at the same time can’t reconcile the God thing..
I’m one of those people that go with the gut, instincts or intuition.
I know.. sooooo not a science.. and yet it works for me (Why then am I not Christian! bahhaahahha.)
I think you just ruined sex for me. All I can think about is the absurdity of people rubbing their private parts together devoid of any enjoymet or emotion. How funny is that?
Thankfully the emotional part of the brain shuts off logic at the right time or it would be a small, small world.
As usual, Richard, I adore your brain, and found it very interesting to read about. I am whatever is the opposite of Vulcan literal, and will happily trade a portion of my runs-on-pure-emotion spine flower for your more rational gray matter, as soon as logical people like yourself invent a way to do so.
I also share your need for the social lubrication offered by alcohol and am mortified by the thought of sober small talk. (You say socially retarded, I say tomato.) I could completely relate to this dilemma.
The other thing I kept thinking as I read this was, “He’s golfing in this heat? What a masochist!” That is dedication, my Tulsa friend. You really ARE so good, expensive balls or not.
P.S. It’s okay to giggle at the “expensive balls” part.
Have you ever done the Meyers Briggs Inventory? I’m trying to guess what you are. ISTJ?
(Yeah, I’m kind of a Vulcan too. Even thoug I usually come out as an “Intuitive” on the MBI. I think I probably am processing various facts into a “big picture” when I make those “gut” decisions).
@Josie: Nice to see you again. Good to see you still have your head in the clouds. Haha.
@Supremo: “It’s a song, you green-blooded Vulcan.”
@Lori: Link all you want. But please, stop using inferior equipment to play golf.
Richard, I loved this.
However, true to form I walk away from reading with:
1. Mmmmm pizza
2. I wish everything was a easy and logical as Math equations
and
3. Expensive balls. *giggling* balls *giggles* Wow, Richard IS SO GOOD…his balls are expensive.
Doctor: “Raymond, do you know what autistic is?”
Raymond: “Yeah.”
Doctor: “You know that word?”
Raymond: “Yeah.”
Doctor: “Are you autistic?”
Raymond: “I don’t think so. No. Definitely not.”
@Johnny: The truth is a riddle wrapped in an enigma. Or something.
@ MJ: Hahaha. Here’s a new assignment: Start thinking about your breathing until you are doing it manually. Now let go. It doesn’t go back to manual so easily, does it?
@Tawni: The other day we played when it was 105. Isn’t that awesome? No one had any energy to make small talk.
No one other than Tiger could play Nike equipment, dude! Talk about inferior…
@Smarty: I haven’t. I’ll give it a whirl and let you know how it comes out.
@Bella: Doesn’t Schweddy make pizza flavored balls?
@Mandy: Eight minutes to shut up.
I so agree…..I am the black and white, math and science lover…I need to be correct. I never was comfortable with all the leniency in Eng Lit, although I did enjoy the many, many interesting viewpoints. Thanks for doing all of the analyzing. Now I have one less thing to do today ;D
I’m glad I finally understand why extra strength has more pain-relieving medicine than regular strength.
Hey Richard. This is phenomenal. Read it twice. Plan to share it. Hope you’re well.
Go Cowboys!
Supremo—- feel THIS!
I feel your pain, brother. Lately I’ve been catching even more shit than usual for my Vulcan-ness.
On one hand, I wonder if there’s a twelve step program out there for it; but at the same time, I can’t stand the idea of contributing to the irrationality and flat-out impreciseness of the masses, dig?
PS, Tylenol and Hemis, dude.
I totally dig. I hate impreciseness. What is the source of this shit you mentioned?
I saw a guy in line at the market yesterday buying a steak with a sticker that read ALL NATURAL
It made my skin crawl.
this was great, and I liked that you could hear my thinking even though I am so far away and hadn’t even read the damn thing yet.
You’re wicked clever. z
All natural steak. Hahaha. That’s funny.
Hi Z! (Or did you already know I said that?)
I like sex.
Chemicals in the brain are fun.
Math is easy.
SUPREMO— but you DONT hate me. You love me. I am the exception to your rule!!!!!!!
lets get together soon and feel things!
SPENCER- noob
I love Spencer’s comment…
So Richard having been diagnosed with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) in my life I’ve learned some cool things about the brain. One is you can teach it work differently. Just as trauma caused my brain to react irrationally so can artificial brain manipulation correct the damage and ultimately help it function more effectively. My personal experience is with emdr (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing.) I mention this because I have been interested in whether there are other ways to trick and or retrain the brain to feel or process more emotion or less emotion. Some children within the autism spectrum can’t understand how to relate to other people. They go through life being considered cold and unfeeling. But if a child is taught what emotion is and why people reach out to each other in a seemingly ridiculous way and then given tools to practice, he can eventually remap his brain to respond differently to affection. Even if he can’t feel it. It’s my suspicion that the parts of the brain that are not functioning in the way a ‘normal’ feeling person’s brain does, it can be taught. We have sooooo much to learn about the brain, a gray matter of gray area. The method as far as I know is yet to be determined but forcing yourself out of your comfort zone is a good place to start. It’s also unwise to go forth with this theory without professional supervision and advice or you might end up with PTSD.
As far as creating characters with feeling I try to push myself to write totally uncomfortable prose that pushes my own buttons. It try to describe someone I love and try to write why or describe someone I hate and try to write why. If I can put my finger on where my emotions are coming from I have a better starting point for character development. Granted I am not published. I’m not even a writer really. I write inane advertising copy like that that you vilify in the beginning of this blog. So what the fuck do I know? namalove
You are more than welcome to use Vulcan Logic as long as you are wearing a CBGB T-shirt…or better still a Texas tee.
I daily shift between a delicate balance of both the left and right hemisheres of the brain because I cannot co-exist in both. I am an artist and writer on one hand, but I am also a business professional who must opperate in the left side of the brain during the majority of the work day on the other.
The problem occurs when I become too emotional because the left side of my brain shuts down and I am rendered virtually useless at work. Although it is a hinderance at work, my emotional side is still the essence of who I am and who I am comfortable being, so I have a problem comprehend people who are in full control their emotions and are able to be unemotional the majority of the time.
Both my father and my ex have an uncanny way of taking emotion out of everything in life, thus making them seem sub-human to me. Isn’t it the emotions we feel thats make us human???
The emotions are definitely part of what makes us human. But they are arguably the source of most human pain as well. Such a conundrum.
LOL…I apologize for the grammatical errors. A bottle of good Malbec and blog writing just don’t mix well.
Dear Richard, you’ve given such thought to this writ, that I will try to respond in kind through a MySpace email. Thank you for your reflection.
And a question for you … is Mind and Brain one and the same and therefore do they share the same definition?
No, to me the mind emerges from activity in the brain. The brain is an organ, the mind is a concept.
I think.
this blog was worth the wait. loved it.
is brett favre vulcanish?
No, but your mom is.
No, but his mom is.
“There isn’t a math equation to describe love.”
True, true…
(in case the above image-embed didn’t work: http://xkcd.com/55/)
Golf is a game, not a science experiment.
You’re a science experiment.
You have a contradiction - “Vulcan logic” and “science like evolution”. Evolution, i.e. the origin of life, as it has been presented to us by the ‘evolution scientists’ is totally illogical.
If we are to believe the evolutionists, all we needed for life to begin on earth was a primordial soup sufficiently rich in nitrogen and carbon dioxide. These chemicals somehow got together under the right conditions and formed amino acids, which happened to somehow get together to form amino acid chains, which eventually formed themselves into DNA and somehow, voila, for whatever reason, life began. Then this whatever-life-form-it-was evolved into all of the incredibly diverse animal, plant, microbial, and viral foms we have now and have had in the past. Whew! To believe this ‘logic’ is a bit of a stretch for me as a scientist.
To put just the first part of this scenario in its simplest terms: all we need for life to form is to have the right chemicals in the right ratios under the right conditions and life happens. I humbly propose that if this is true, then LOGICALLY, killing a fly (or any other living thing) would be impossible.
Think about it. The split second immediately before you smack the fly it is alive and functioning perfectly. All the myriad of complex chemicals which allow this to happen (including all the exact amino acids making up DNA, the basis of all life, are in perfect ratio. The chemical term for this is perfect stoichiometry.
Now, immediately after the unfortunate fly is swatted, it is DEAD! Yet all the chemicals, including its already available DNA, is still there in all their perfect ratios for life to “happen”, yet it the fly dead.
In the logic of evolution, all I need to have for life to be is to have the right stuff together under the right conditions and life WILL happen. I submit that, logically, conditions today must be near to ideal, since we obviously have life all around us in incredible abundance. Certainly one must admit that conditions today are vastly more ideal than in the days of the primordial soup.
So we have the right stuff, under virtually IDEAL conditions, but as far as my experimentation goes and the experiments of countless generations of scientists who have tried their best to create life, no matter how long I leave the remains of the hapless fly there, it will not suddenly and spontaneously come back to life.
It will, however, decay. In the cycle of life, it will eaten by some of the millions of microbes which lived within it and millions more which arrive on the scene afterward from the surroundings - as long as there is a bit of water around. But once the fly is consumed and/or the water is gone, even the microbes will DIE. Yet these “simple” creatures were also perfect representatives of the right chemicals in the right ratios under the right conditions, etc., etc. So why can I not reconstitute them, i.e. bring them back to life, if I just create the right conditions again. Umm. A bit of a dilemma and totally illogical.
Now at this point, you are probably expecting a religious explanation. That is not my purpose here. I will leave this or other origins of life explanations or THEORIES to others. What I have tried to present here, is that there is more to life than chemistry. Yet chemistry is what evolution “science” would have us believe is the all there is to explaining the origin of life.
As a chemist, I know that the chemistry of body is incredibly complex and absolutely marvelous. Mind boggling is what it is. And I also know that as ingenious and knowledgeable as we are today, we still have great difficulties synthesizing even some of the simplest of most of the chemicals we find there. We also understand only a small fraction of the systems involved in the processes of the body and the many diseases which plague us.
I think that Spock would unemotionally explain that there is a life force necessary for life, not just chemistry and calmly point to the death of the fly and all other living creatures as logical evidence. Otherwise we would be here trying to explain immortality instead of death.
I forgot to add that evolution isn’t a theory about the origin of life. It describes the process by which organisms change over time. This is a common misconception held by people who oppose evolution for spiritual reasons.
I know you’re just sitting there all tingly cause you see that I made it all the way over to TNB, all out of the blue, and for no apparent reason. Well, not to take the magic out of it, but the reason is super apparent…I checked my email. It told me you wrote a blog. Since you’re settings aren’t on private, I could go straight to your post and then to this one without signing in to that “other” site that I rarely get on anymore. Science really is magic, in the proper hands
To comment on the post: Brilliant.
Hope you are well!
~R
Really, really wonderful blog. I confess that your closing paragraphs nearly knocked the wind out of my rapture, but it’s been so long since I read such a cogent, deliciously-written blog that I got over the shocking conclusion quickly. REALLY fabulous.
Hi Nan,
Thank you. You must be the same Nan to whom I subscribed on MySpace a few weeks ago. I guess I should stop lurking and comment. Ha.
@Columbia: I am tingly. Thank you.
@Gordon:”…as far as my experimentation goes and the experiments of countless generations of scientists who have tried their best to create life…” What sort of arrogance is this? You think your experimentation and the experiments of a few hundred or a few thousand other scientists can somehow approximate the millions and billions of years that passed while those amino acids and energy somehow coupled to create the process we call “life.”
If you are a true scientist, you cannot ignore the myriad of opportunities afforded by those millions and billions of years. Not only that, but please explain to me your hypothesis for this mysterious “life force” you suggest. And please tell me what sort of experiments you think might reveal the reality of this force.
Logical thinking has its place, particularly when deciding which pharmaceutical with which to fill your body. However, relying solely on logic for every interaction would rob one of many fulfilling experiences. Emotions may add complexity to situations, as you suggest, but they also add depth to life.
On a side note, reading about your expensive balls, in addition to your description of randomly rubbing “private parts” together, has taken all the allure of out of sex for me. Thank you.
Logically, sex is silly. But when you stop thinking and just do it, it seems to make sense. Confusing, no?
Logically, a lot of things are silly. And confusing. Thinking too much is completely overrated. (Proofreading is, too. heh.)
I couldn’t help but think of children while reading your post. Children have little knowledge of those things that “make it all work”, and therefore are thus reduced to “feeling their way through life.” And yet, they have more fun and joy and wonderment than adults. I think that as we mature and start to learn what the reality of the magic is, it takes away a spark for life that we never get back. With knowledge comes consequence.
The nature of humans is to seek knowledge and truth, to find out how things work. However, sometimes I can’t help but long for those good old days when life just……was! When I could make up the answers for myself, sprung out of the unadulterated imagination that only a child can possess.
Great post Richard!!!
Product advisements crack me the hell up. I came across this product directed at women just today http://www.nundies.com/history.php
And then I came across your post with this statement:
“Extra Strength Tylenol has more pain-relieving medicine than Regular Strength Bayer Aspirin.”
“I was only 10 years old. I shouldn’t have even been paying attention to the commercials. I should have been playing with my Rubik’s cube while I waited for Magnum, P.I. to come back on. But that commercial pissed me off.”
I suddenly felt justified in being pissed at such a ploy to separate me from my hard earned cash, just so I can appear to be up with the changing times.
My Vulcan mind immediately told me to forego this new product for my old stand by which has never failed me once and is a hell of a better deal financially http://www.ecowise.com/product_info.php?products_id=549
The prosaic mind wins again!
I was never any good at small talk in a bar either. I understood the point of it. I just could never think of anything small to say that didn’t sound completely ridiculous leaving my mouth.
I have enjoyed your posts immensely.