Same. I think a lot of emphasis is meade on the idea of Vulcans repressing emotions. Partly that might be from the idea of Vulcan meditation as a zen zazen like practice, vs an open awareness practice like vipassana.
Vulcan philosophy as a life practice
- Thread starter XCV330
- Start date
Logic should not be overvalued. By itself it merely shows internal consistency to a base set of axioms.
However, being able to be moved by emotion without being a slave to it seems to me to lie at the heart of the Vulcan discipline. It is not that the species is immune from instinct and emotion, but that they have developed a practice that constrains the most disruptive expressions of it.
They seem to have embraced a pragmatic set of methods to enable them not to be slaves to instinct and emotion.
Even so, they could not have dispensed entirely with an interior experience of instinct and emotion since art and scientific discovery require a certain freedom to go into spaces that are not strictly logical, and are often aesthetic, and that in turn ties things back to instinct and emotion. I prefer to think that like a master of meditation, they have found a means to temper the response of the amygdala to not be a slave. That does not entail losing creativity and imagination, but it does preclude being bound to the Default Mode Network.
"We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way."
- Aldous Huxley "Island"
However, being able to be moved by emotion without being a slave to it seems to me to lie at the heart of the Vulcan discipline. It is not that the species is immune from instinct and emotion, but that they have developed a practice that constrains the most disruptive expressions of it.
They seem to have embraced a pragmatic set of methods to enable them not to be slaves to instinct and emotion.
Even so, they could not have dispensed entirely with an interior experience of instinct and emotion since art and scientific discovery require a certain freedom to go into spaces that are not strictly logical, and are often aesthetic, and that in turn ties things back to instinct and emotion. I prefer to think that like a master of meditation, they have found a means to temper the response of the amygdala to not be a slave. That does not entail losing creativity and imagination, but it does preclude being bound to the Default Mode Network.
"We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way."
- Aldous Huxley "Island"
Problem is they're a fictional alien race on TV, whereas you are not.
Meditation as practised by Vulcans takes a lot of artistic license in how it deals with the subject matter, much akin to the way Kung Fu movies portray martial arts. It's romanticised to say the least and in the real world suppression of emotions is not only undesirable it's unhealthy.
Good meditative practise doesn't suppress emotions, nor does it detach you from them, it enables you to deal with them and use them more skilfully. It gives you a set of tools which allow you to focus in the moment on what really matters, not remove yourself completely.
Very good thoughts. It made me think and jog my memory, which means I'm going to be long winded again.
Meditation though can be a somewhat nebulous term. Contact with the successive waves of teachers of various schools has perhaps not made that all the easier. While at the root of most traditions there is the "simply observing" aspect, and while that can deepen quite a bit in practices like vipassana, there is an aspect of will power to some western methods that might be considered occult now, or even, and there will be disagreement, it is fine, zazen.
I say this as someone who used to practice zazen at a tien monestary several times a week as a lay practitioner for a few years: I may have been doing it wrong, but there was a LOT of repressing going on. Willfully ignoring aches in joints, itches on noses, the wheezing breathing of the person beside you, the general annoyance when the kindly monk Phab An would say "Concentrate. Keep your back straight" in a loud whisper next to your ear that somehow got in your brain, and repressing the "eww" from the venerable abbot's dog that like to sit with people in the room and practice his peculiar habit of flatulence (the dog, not the venerable abbot). I could see a Vulcan doing that.
The closest humans came to to a Vulcan type lifestyle was possibly Greek or Roman stoicism. Obviously Vulcans are a fictional species and capable of doing things we are not, but I can see some good being borrowed from the idea, not necessarily of attempting to wipe out emotion, which does not seem possible, nor beneficial, but of curbing passions and focusing the mind on making the person work on kindness and equanimity.
And the mystery is a good thing. Regardless of how good underlying universe building may (or may not) be, there will inevitably be contention. It surely seems best to not draw on any of it in an attempt to reduce the mystery, leave some of it be and accept it as an alien philosophy most species won't be able to accomplish? Also, it's not like the Vulcans who perfected their studies would care or appreciate or feel insulted or get any emotional response of any sort out of everyone else doing what they do.
Not to mention, "Plato's Stepchildren" states that releasing emotion can kill Vulcans, which prompts Parman to make Spock feel more intense emotions... which may have been an impetus for Spock to do the Kohlinar (no relation to Kohler brand toilets, thankfully). Now fast forward to Star Trek V and Sybok freely embraces his. This conditioning must happen very young (even during infancy?) or there's a genetic component that developed for neurotypical Vulcans, of which Sybok lacks. Or both, since Spock struggled with it, and in one or two TOS episodes and even in the animated series we see Vulcan children all bullying Spock (which puts the kibosh on any number of things... but we can always use as a crutch the old "nothing kicks in until puberty" trick like what even Star Trek Insurrection used. Which might make more sense to start something like Kohlinar there instead of infancy. In the end, does it matter? No. Too many loose ends and trying to wave a scarf from these yarns would only introduce longer strands that just won't begin to fit in.)
I also apologize for contradicting myself in less than one paragraph
.Nope. Especially as, if anything, real life elements were used as partial basis for a fictional philosophy. Meditation and all that.
I can only sum that up by digging through ancient history and finding another show to quote from, in a character wondering if an alien mindset could become instinct for human beings in the future:
You might appreciate the Dialetical Behavioral Therapy Model, which espouses a balance between Reason/Logic mind and Emotion Mind to come to a place of Wise mind.
It was originally developed for people who struggle with personality disorders, specifically borderline personality disorder, whom often struggle with intense emotions and no self-regulation. So, emotional regulation is a huge part of a therapeutic approach. It also involves a very mindful approach, observing events or thoughts without judgement or necessarily emotion.
I personally don't think full Vulcan emotional suppression is positive for humans, largely because humans start out as very emotional creatures who seek connection and relationship to support those emotions. And, when I see people who are pushing down their emotions its usually still being expressed in other ways, i.e. anger, irritability, depression, drug use, isolation, etc.
You've been watching too many Hollywood movies or Downtown Abbey
Like humans following a religious belief e.g Christianity, none of the followers of logic on the screen behaved very logically e.g the Vulcans under V'Las, T'Pau's prejudice to humans, Tuvok treated Neelix with contempt, T'Pol's drug habit and denial of her attraction to Tucker, Sarek hiding his illness from himself and decades before that, not talking to his son for 18 years and TOS Spock denial of his human heritage.
Humans and logic go together like Humans and common sense, not many practise it.
Any errors I make are not due to those two reasons. ... Well, at least the second one is impossible since I never watched that.
I believe that logic can be utilized over emotion is many circumstances. Balancing logic with emotion might be the ultimate goal, but if that if unachievable, it is best to aspire logic.
Star Trek frequently portrays Spock or Data as searching for something beyond logic, even if they do not know it.
The important part about Vulcan philosophy was suppressing emotion. The Vulcans did have emotion, they just chose not to let it interfere with their decisions.
Star Trek frequently portrays Spock or Data as searching for something beyond logic, even if they do not know it.
The important part about Vulcan philosophy was suppressing emotion. The Vulcans did have emotion, they just chose not to let it interfere with their decisions.
The Kolinahr was a main theme of the TOS novel "Crucible Spock - The Fire and the Rose" which dealed with Spock searching for and reaching Kolinahr at a vulcan monastery for dealing with the grief and anger caused by Kirk's apparent death on the Enterprise-B.
According to the novel, the Kolinahr technique is to become aware of emotional issues and to deconstruct the emotions behind them by using logic. The end result is a state without any emotions.
I doubt that such a state of being is possible or even desirable for humans. In any case trying to reach such a state of mind would be psychologically unhealthy.
According to the novel, the Kolinahr technique is to become aware of emotional issues and to deconstruct the emotions behind them by using logic. The end result is a state without any emotions.
I doubt that such a state of being is possible or even desirable for humans. In any case trying to reach such a state of mind would be psychologically unhealthy.
Last edited:
You should see the Brexit celebrations!
No, it is not healthy.
Another problem with strictly disregarding emotion is that emotion is the basic root of morality.
It’s not logic that convinces you to place another person’s needs equal to your own or help someone who can’t help you back. It’s your programmed reflex to feel empathy toward a person you see in pain.
Emption should establish your goals and logic should establish your means of attaining those goals.
It’s not logic that convinces you to place another person’s needs equal to your own or help someone who can’t help you back. It’s your programmed reflex to feel empathy toward a person you see in pain.
Emption should establish your goals and logic should establish your means of attaining those goals.
I have HFA (high functioning Autism) and recently read an article in which Brent Spiner recounts a plethora of correspondence in which people on the spectrum thanked him for his portrayal of Data and how they related to it. Personally, I relate more to the Vulcan characters as they often talk of not being emotionless but use logic to order that emotion. My position is one of ordered emotional chaos.
Vulcans are not real. In real life, trying to suppress your emotions is a profoundly damaging habit that engenders all sorts of destructive and self-destructive behaviors.
English culture today isn't nearly as stoic as it once was. And the era in which it was stoic was also the era in which the English inflicted profound violence upon themselves and upon the rest of the world via the British Empire and the abusive social structures need to maintain that empire.
Seriously, guys. Emotional suppression is not good. Emotional regulation is good and healthy, but emotional suppression is fundamentally damaging.
That's what emotional regulation is.
Was it truly repression? My interpretation was that it was a control of outlying over emotion and in that sense logic was a tool of emotional regulation.
Some here are comparing it to stoicism or to the evasion of emotional states. In the modern world expression of over emotion is validated and the result is a cumulative effect of anxiety disorder in the greater population. People are lining up to be diagnosed with complex disorders to give them a sense of understanding to over emotion itself. I don’t think the Vulcan archetype is one of concealing emotion but using reason to achieve a balance, one which in reality is an unsteady pendulum.
combustion in some chemical processes may need to be suppressed in order to achieve optimal outcome. this does not necessarily mean the reaction is kept inert. that too is regulation. I'm not implying that humanity can simply become another species with green blood, pointy ears and a love-hate relationship with soup, rather some of the ideas regarding a Vulcan outlook might have merit and be achievable.