Stautory Warning: This is a prose piece. Proceed at your own Risk :)

Was reflecting on thought and feeling- and wish to add some notes...

Would like to refer in passing to a book I have never read..."Men are from
Mars Women are from Venus" but refer to it here, to evoke its powerful
iconic title. Also refer to two well known theories on the behaviour of
light- one that says that it behaves like a wave; the other that it
behaves as particles do. Now, Fritjof Capra, does this kind of a trick,
quite often, bringing together dis-similar disciplines, and perhaps should
acknowledge his technique in passing.

It strikes me, and I almost feel triumphant like making some original
discovery that thought and feeling are two entirely different things- and
it is not just some linguistic difference.(The author of the book on M/W/V
and Mars says the same thing, quite matter of factly)


Now thought can seek to understand feeling, and in fact can understand the
parameters that make up feeling extremely well- just as a man might think
that he understands a woman (regret the use of the stereotype should it
cause offence) but thought can never feel-

That is to say, that a computer scientists might succeed in making a
computer appear like it emotes- something akin to the chinese room
example- but surely that does not mean that the computer is actually
emoting.
(I am aware that I am stating an opinion- and the word "surely" is not
accepted as "proof")- and perhaps my opinion shows my bias towards
feelings over thoughts, but that is not important to the idea explored
here.


Sandy (hang in for a second :) in case you have not yet deleted this!)

So, instead of beating around the bush let me get to the point- now that
is the catch- Feeling is patient, slow, careful, nurturing, gentle- and
thought wants to get to the point and cut to the chase as quickly as
possible- No matter how hard I want I cannot fold a plastic bag as neatly
as my wife- Thought is relentless, like the mind which is full of them.
And a clarity of thought can understand a good many things but it cannot
feel.

Now the folly is to claim superiority, of thought over feeling; or of
feeling over thought- for thought leads to compassion and feeling also
leads to compassion. And aesthetics should never forget that it is a
theory of beauty and a theory of something is not the thing- just as
Sontag, reminds that a photograph is not the thing photographed; Picasso
reminds us that art is not the truth; but an illusion that points to the
truth- just as Bhandari reminds us that design is not the truth- life is!

Regards
Raja
VC 1990