Why are higher levels of intelligence in humans associated with lack of emotion?
The thing is, the more intelligent we are, the more we can reason
about our actions, and therefore, the less we need to rely on simple
emotion to make our choices. If we’re intelligent, we understand
consequences better, too. For example, a 3-year-old will suffer negative
emotion when his ice cream falls to the floor and will begin to cry. A
more intelligent adult, on the other hand, will only be mildly annoyed
at this, because he understands that there will be more ice cream in the
future, that he’s fortunate to have been able to get ice cream in the
first place, that the ice cream just doesn’t matter that much compared
to other aspects of his life like the fact that he has a loving family
and steady income, etc. (How do you make a 3-year-old cry? Throw his ice
cream on the ground. How do you make an adult cry? Kill his family.
Don’t try this at home!) Intelligence gives us a larger set of concerns
to worry about, and this makes emotion less important.
Intelligent people still have emotion. They just have enough perspective to be affected by it less.
(CavemanCircus.com)
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