Does intellect inhibit emotion? Do emotions inhibit intellect? Does intellect suppress the ability to express emotion and do emotions suppress the ability to rationalize with logic and sound reason?
There is an entire world of grey in-between intellect and emotion. There is nurture vs nature, subjective expectations, self-interest vs altruism, left brain vs right brain dominance or trying to find intellect & emotional balance with getting lots of therapy to either: A) help control emotions to be able to express with sound, calm reason and logic or B) help lessen intellect to identify emotions and learn to express with heart and deepen struggles with personal connection.
If a person is more intellectual, it has been my experience that emotion and a nurturing personality are not their strong suit. And then I’ve experienced the other end of this intellect & emotion continuum where those who wear their heart on their sleeve, are strong nurturers and not the best at being rational and logical.
My recent reading about autistic savants makes me wonder if it is the lack of emotion that allows for intellect to blossom? If you take away emotion, can the brain truly become a super computer? Do emotions clog up the ability for the brain to super excel with amazing wonders that savants are renownedly capable of?
I’ve worked/supported those with autism. It has been my experience that those with autism are unable to understand/express emotion, make emotional connection with others as well as understand social situations. Emotions, emotional connection and understanding social scenarios are modeled and taught to the person with autism within the realm of what they can manage. Mathematics, finding patterns, memory and facts are what, in my experience autistic students excel at.
An interesting article I read was the blog about the 10 most fascinating savants in the world. What I’m wanting most to express in this blog is how interesting it is to me that when the brain is wired as a super computer, it seems emotions are left out. What would it be like to have a brain that is a super computer? To live free from the messy yet beautiful world of emotions? How much do emotions inhibit the brain from it’s full intellectual potential? If emotions were removed from a human, what would our brains be able to calculate and accomplish?
Maybe because I’m an emotional creature, I wonder what it would be like to be void of emotions for just one day and would this set my intellect free to be a super computer?
What would that day be like?
S, xo