Bad impulses
We cannot make good (or indeed any) decisions without emotions, but we must watch out for too much of a good thing
At the end of the consultation, the neurologist checked with the patient what day would be the most convenient for their next appointment. The patient, who despite some brain damage, but who still had perfectly normal cognitive abilities, struggled. He had no problem identifying the pros and cons of the different options, but completely failed to reach a conclusion. What was going on?
The neurologist was Antonio Damasio, who has been studying a variety of aspects related to human neurobiology, including consciousness and the role of emotions in decision making for over thirty years. The patient was a man whose brain trauma had left him incapable of experiencing emotions. His case, and the many others Damasio describes illustrate how, perhaps contrary to common wisdom, emotions are crucial in judgement and decision making. When we must make a choice between two or more options, we need to be able to do two distinct things: determine and evaluate the salient aspects of each option, and compare the sets of features of each option with each other. Part of this can be seen as some form of computation, but in the end, we must make a judgement: which is the better option?
