06 March 2015

Notes - work-a-day / an interesting subject - passion and reason and heartansoulanmind

         Mid-morning. The day is cold and sunny but the upcoming weather for southwest Ohio appears to become warmer and more Spring-like. - Amorella

         0903 hours. I am thus optimistic on the near future weather. Warming is a trend this time of year in this small part of the world. Along the I-71 corridor from Cincinnati to Columbus the farmers will be out and about turning up and cultivating the soil – corn, soy beans and wheat mainly, at least that is what we traditionally observe from the car windows.

         Afternoon. You ran a couple of errands and got the car washed also. Lunch was an open-faced ham and cheese. You finished the upstairs cleaning and have dusting in the TV room and sweeping downstairs to go. You also read more of the new Harper’s that arrived a week or so ago. Discover arrived in the mail yesterday.

         You and Carol both awoke from a highly unusual and relatively long nap. Rarely do you both fall asleep in the afternoon at the same time. Carol had been up early working on clothes washing and general and deep deliberate (files, electronic and otherwise etc.) cleaning up.

         1612 hours. I fell asleep in the chair as Carol was playing a game on her iPad; it is really rare for her to crash. When I awoke a few minutes before Carol did she was in a sound sleep.

         Another night of leftover. You both watched “Elementary” then Carol left to pack. You continued with “Blacklist” and NBC News.

         1933 hours. I need to pack also since we will be gone a week unless I drive home for the mail and spend the night at home Tuesday and then return for two days of limited children sitting as Kim is heading to Cleveland on business and of course to pick up the next round of Jennifer cookies from the On the Rise Bakery. When I get packed I will finish Dead 8 and have the chapter thus completed if not tonight, before Sunday.

         All in good time, boy. Post. - Amorella


         Evening. Everything is packed and ready to load in the car in the morning. You pick up Uncle John at eleven-thirty for lunch at noon. You are surprised to find Merlyn contemplating on the fact that with the circumstances observed, the heart, through its passions create the need to express thought and in order to express thought reason is the method, that is, grammar is the beginning of reason. – Amorella

         2137 hours. It seems to me that he should have observed this before; only he did not know of evidence showing this a possibility in two babes who did not have a physical brain to learn. Of course it is possible that the body itself is enough to induce learning over simple stimulus -response. I don’t know these things. I do not have the intelligence to understand how this ‘Elderfelder’ concept might be (even in a fiction). It does seem plausible though that it is the heart that triggers the mind to grow because with passion rises a sense of need to define ‘justice or fairness’ – purpose – moral values - individual worth and dignity? Is this then the trigger or one of the triggers that allows the mind to mature as it has in human brains? Is this what allows the mind to survive physical death through the heart and the heart thus through or within the soul?

         There are many paths that lead to Rome. Could it be that there are also many paths that lead to the encompassing soul? – Amorella

         2152 hours. My focus is on the heart as the birth of reason. I do not think this way. I have brought up to think that reason is one thing and passion is another; they are, as it were, separate entities.

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passion noun

1 strong and barely controllable emotion: a man of impetuous passion.
• a state or outburst of strong emotion: oratory in which he gradually works himself up into a passion.
• intense sexual love: their all-consuming passion for each other | she nurses a passion for Thomas.
• an intense desire or enthusiasm for something: the English have a passion for gardens.
• a thing arousing enthusiasm: modern furniture is a particular passion of Bill’s.
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reason noun

1 a cause, explanation, or justification for an action or event: the minister resigned for personal reasons | it is hard to know for the simple reason that few records survive.
• good or obvious cause to do something: we have reason to celebrate.
• Logic a premise of an argument in support of a belief, esp. a minor premise when given after the conclusion.
2 the power of the mind to think, understand, and form judgments by a process of logic: there is a close connection between reason and emotion.
• what is right, practical, or possible; common sense: people are willing, within reason, to pay for schooling.
• (one's reason) one's sanity: she is in danger of losing her reason.

Selected and edited from Oxford/American software
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         I need to review more detail here; simple detail so I turn to Wikipedia.

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Passion (emotion)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Passion (from the Latin verb patere meaning to suffer) is a very strong feeling about a person or thing. Passion is an intense emotion, a compelling enthusiasm or desire for something.

Passion may be a friendly or eager interest in or admiration for a proposal, cause, discovery, or activity or love – to a feeling of unusual excitement, enthusiasm or compelling emotion, a positive affinity or love, towards a subject. It is particularly used in the context of romance or sexual desire though it generally implies a deeper or more encompassing emotion than that implied by the term lust.
Reason

In his wake, Stoics like Epitectus emphasized that "the most important and especially pressing field of study is that which has to do with the stronger emotions...sorrows, lamentations, envies...passions which make it impossible for us even to listen to reason". The Stoic tradition still lay behind Hamlet’s plea to "Give me that man That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him In my heart's core", or Erasmus’s lament that "Jupiter has bestowed far more passion than reason – you could calculate the ratio as 24 to one". It was only with the Romantic movement that a valorisation of passion over reason took hold in the Western tradition: "the more Passion there is, the better the Poetry".

The recent concerns of emotional intelligence have been to find a synthesis of the two forces—something that "turns the old understanding of the tension between reason and feeling on its head: it is not that we want to do away with emotion and put reason in its place, as Erasmus had it, but instead find the intelligent balance of the two".

"Descartes' Error"

Antonio Damasio studied what ensued when something "severed ties between the lower centres of the emotional brain...and the thinking abilities of the neocortex:". He found that while "emotions and feelings can cause havoc in the processes of reasoning...the absence of emotion and feeling is no less damaging"; and was led to "the counter-intuitive position that feelings are typically indispensable for rational decisions". The passions, he concluded, "have a say on how the rest of the brain and cognition go about their business. Their influence is immense...[providing] a frame of reference – as opposed to Descartes’ error...the Cartesian idea of a disembodied mind".

Selected and edited from Wikipedia – Passion (Emotion)
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         2211 hours. Now, this is quotation from above is interesting:

The passions, he concluded, "have a say on how the rest of the brain and cognition go about their business. Their influence is immense...[providing] a frame of reference – as opposed to Descartes’ error...the Cartesian idea of a disembodied mind".
If I am reading this correctly it is suggesting that the idea of a disembodied mind could not be because it is too closely connect to the heart. I don’t believe I ever read this before in present context. Have I erred to think the heartansoulanmind are a spiritual unit?

         Your concern here is on semantics: that the spiritual word should be written heartanmindansoul but it makes no difference in the stories as long as the word represents a trilogy of sorts existing as an individual spiritual entity. A human spirit has three unique and unequal spiritual parts. How’s that? – Amorella

         2220 hours. This seems plausible at least in a fiction.

         That’s all we need, boy. Post. – Amorella

         This is an interesting subject, passion and reason and heartansoulanmind. 

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