I'm creating this post because, this time, unlike my free will post, I have no preconceived ideas of what common sense is. I'm going to start with dictionary.com's definition:
sound practical judgment that is independent of specialized knowledge, training, or the like; normal native intelligence.
Now, a little background on myself. I have Asperger Syndrome (AS for short). One of its characteristics is little or lack of common sense. Any sound practical judgments I make, I must first think about before making a decision (and sometimes that decision is not sound or practical at all).
From my observations and conversations with people, there seems to be a time element involved as well. In other words, common sense is like making an instant judgment call. It's something you do without thinking, almost like instinct (but not quite).
What are your thoughts on this.
Ok, ok. I will contribute seriously at some point. Just had to get that garbage out.
Would it be common sense not to participate in this thread?
Possibly. Especially if you take dictionary.com's definition and not come up with a left-field definition (like somebody did in the free will thread).
As a fellow sufferer of AS (though mild - it's amazing how many people of high intelligence are "slapped" with that label 
), I prefer to look at the breakdown. Common - shared, prevalent in the society/culture you are a part of. Sense - in the terms of sensibilty, judgment (unlike the poster posted which puts it more to a sensory effect). Together, the phrase indicates those sensible, judgment calls that most would be expected to make given any situation.
Other than that common sense is suppose to be something that is the obvious conclusion to most people. Basically the gut feeling that says something is true, or that conclusion that seems absolutely obvious due to common experiences. Nothing about common sense means that its conclusions are correct but rather it just means it should be the common result that most people come to.
Other than that common sense is suppose to be something that is the obvious conclusion to most people.
The problem being, of course, that for many people what their "common sense" tells them is entirely different then the "common sense" of most other people. They may think that what they think is common sense is actually such, but experience shows, time and time again, that they're mistaken.
That is to say, "common sense" isn't common, and that's no joke. Claims of it, however, are painfully "common".
An example might be when dealing with cars my dad and a brother might think that tons of little bits of info about cars and the tools used to work on them are common sense. However, i know nothing about anything they talk about in that subject. If i have car troubles my lack of car knowledge (of which a ton of people seem to fit into a similar category) might assume X or Y might be the problem where in actuality Z is the problem.
From what i get from my understanding of common sense is that general common sense seems to be the general conclusion most will come to if they have no specialized knowledge to help them to their conclusion. Suck that everything seems to fall so if i throw something in the air it will fall too. This is due to gravity but it doesn't take a scientist or for someone to know what gravity is in order to understand that things fall. All it takes is some basic observations that it always seems to happen.
When getting more specialized into a specific area the common knowledge there would be the base presumed thingies. basicly the base knowledge needed to get by in the field and nothing more.
An example of when common sense is wrong and could make someone look like an idiot. When two objects are dropped they will fall at the same rate. Only thing that will change this is drag. Light things like paper and feathers have enough that they can float or glide for a while on some occasions. However, crumple up the piece of paper and place it in one hand, place an iron ball in the other and ask someone with no prior knowledge of the experiement which will fall faster and they'll say the iron ball. Basically almost 100% of people would say the iron ball would fall faster. I'ver seen this sort of result serveral times in physics classes before. Common sense says that the heavier thing will fall faster (and probably because lighter things float). When they are both dropped however they both fall at the same rate. The common sense was wrong.
Common sense has nothing to do with being correct. Well i guess it depends on where you look for the defenition.
One would basically say that common sense is beliefs or propositions that most people would consider prudent and of sound judgment, without reliance on esoteric knowledge or study or research, but based upon what they see as knowledge held by people "in common".
basically what i've been explaining.
however, some dumb definitions floating around is having good sense and sound judgement. Basically meaning that common sense does not equate to being a sense that is common but rather just being correct.
@dirty: you make a good argument. I will just point out one thing about the definition from my first post: nowhere in the definition does it say that common sense is to be a correct judgment call, just a sound, practical judgment call.
Let's look at the more severe cases of AS. From what I've read, someone with a sever case of AS cannot drive (miss exits due to a one track mind being one reason), cannot find a wife (again, it's their one track mind working), and if they do, they don't have children (usually a fear of the children inhereting the parent's condition, as well as, an inability to parent correctly). In each of those cases, lack of common sense can come into play as well. I drove my wife (back before we were married, and afterward too) positively bonkers at times until I got diagnosed with AS ~15 years ago. Once she understood the condition that I had, it was easier to accept me for who I was. What's common sense to her does not make sense to me and what makes sense to me doesn't to her.
I think you are right in that what's common sense to one person is not common sense to another. Not because of a lack of common sense (such as in my case), but because of a different understanding of the term.
It might be common sense to wear a rainjacket when it is raining out, while others don't care if they get wet or not. Does that mean the wet ones lack common sense? I don't think so, they just probably have a different defintion for that situation.
That last statement just brought me this thought. I speculate that a person's common sense changes with the situation. Given a set of conditions, common sense will tell you one thing. Use the same conditions, but change one small insignificant parameter, common sense will tell you something else. This is also why I think common sense has a time element to it. The time element is so very short as to appear instantaneous. In other words, do you have to think about it for a couple of seconds? Or does it seem instinctual? My view is that if you have to think about it for more than a second or two, it is not common sense.
Common sense is relative. It is relative to the population you are looking at. What is common sense to mechanics may not be common sense to musicians. It is dependent on shared experiences. By shared experiences I mean experiences that an individual in a specific population may have had that are similar to experiences that other individuals in that population may have had. You would be hard pressed to find a mechanic who hasn’t had to change a timing belt in a car. How to go about doing it would be common sense to mechanics. Different from common knowledge in that knowledge would be how to do it. And yes, common sense would be derived from common knowledge. Common knowledge: fire burns. Common sense: don’t touch fire, it burns.
I’m going to assume that most of us here would agree that when driving in areas where it snows, common sense would be to put on either chains or snow tires during the winter season. To us that might be common sense. We are part of a population that drives cars, bikes… etc. A lot of people have experienced driving in the snow or icy roads. But what about an individual that comes from a culture (population) that does not drive or even experience seeing cars? What if you are from some tribe in the middle of the Amazon and you have never seen snow or cars? Changing your tires to compensate for icy roads would not be common knowledge or common sense.
An example of when common sense is wrong and could make someone look like an idiot. When two objects are dropped they will fall at the same rate. Only thing that will change this is drag. Light things like paper and feathers have enough that they can float or glide for a while on some occasions. However, crumple up the piece of paper and place it in one hand, place an iron ball in the other and ask someone with no prior knowledge of the experiement which will fall faster and they'll say the iron ball. Basically almost 100% of people would say the iron ball would fall faster. I'ver seen this sort of result serveral times in physics classes before. Common sense says that the heavier thing will fall faster (and probably because lighter things float). When they are both dropped however they both fall at the same rate. The common sense was wrong.
That depends on the population you are looking at. We can look at individuals in a college physics class and they would say that it is common sense. They have all probably had the same experience as you have (seeing this experiment in a previous class or a science show or read it somewhere). Ask the same question to a couple of kids in the 1st grade and they will probably say that it would be common sense that the heavier an object, the faster it falls. Again, it is based on their experience.
Common Sense prevents you from crossing a road blindfolded, grabbing electric wires to push them out of your way, sticking your hand into a working machine and stopping a spinning chainsaw with your bare hands.
The less of it you have, the more likely you are to get a Darwin Award.
an opinion that one reaches or to which one commits oneself on the basis of of knowledge that is general or widespread.
but i may be wrong, being that i have been told that i do not have much common sense, (or maybe its just that i have trouble making my message/thoughts clear)
Common Sense prevents you from crossing a road blindfolded, grabbing electric wires to push them out of your way, sticking your hand into a working machine and stopping a spinning chainsaw with your bare hands.
How can anything to do with electricity be "common sense"? It really doesn't work intuitively and unless you're in a field where you work with electricity in a less controlled fashion, it's not something you observe.
Not to mention that unless the wires are actually sparking, there's not much indication that a live wire is, well, live.
That depends on the population you are looking at. We can look at individuals in a college physics class and they would say that it is common sense. They have all probably had the same experience as you have (seeing this experiment in a previous class or a science show or read it somewhere). Ask the same question to a couple of kids in the 1st grade and they will probably say that it would be common sense that the heavier an object, the faster it falls. Again, it is based on their experience.
I agree with what you wrote in general but with reference to my example and your explanation here I'd say that the scientists are using their specialized common sense and not common sense in general. If we look at one of the definitions i provided for common sense the studied knowledge of physics would disqualify the scientists using their better judgement on the experiment as common sense. It would more or less be study gained through study or research. But yeah if our base group was that of scientists they should hopefully have had enough exposure to such ideas that the correct answer to the experiment would be the common one thus sort of being common sense.
However, my example was more of one where, for the most part, any random joe shmoe could be taken off the streets and asked to predict what would happen, using their common sense, and they'd guess wrong way more times than they'd guess right.
Common Sense prevents you from crossing a road blindfolded, grabbing electric wires to push them out of your way, sticking your hand into a working machine and stopping a spinning chainsaw with your bare hands.
How can anything to do with electricity be "common sense"? It really doesn't work intuitively and unless you're in a field where you work with electricity in a less controlled fashion, it's not something you observe.
Not to mention that unless the wires are actually sparking, there's not much indication that a live wire is, well, live.
I would have to agree with EE here. Some of the physics courses i could pass without studying due to most of the principles in them already seeming to be common sense to me. When it came to electricity and magnetism the stuff is so franking foreign that even the professor would have trouble from time to time. There is almost nothing intuitive about that subject.
I agree with what you wrote in general but with reference to my example and your explanation here I'd say that the scientists are using their specialized common sense and not common sense in general. If we look at one of the definitions i provided for common sense the studied knowledge of physics would disqualify the scientists using their better judgement on the experiment as common sense. It would more or less be study gained through study or research. But yeah if our base group was that of scientists they should hopefully have had enough exposure to such ideas that the correct answer to the experiment would be the common one thus sort of being common sense.
However, my example was more of one where, for the most part, any random joe shmoe could be taken off the streets and asked to predict what would happen, using their common sense, and they'd guess wrong way more times than they'd guess right.
Not necessarily. What may be common sense to you may not be common sense to another. I saw that same experiment in elementary school. I would say that for those who attended my elementary school, it would be common sense that both objects fall at the same rate. To someone who didn’t see that, it would not be common sense. You could even look at populations differing in time. What may be common sense to us would not be common sense to someone in the 15th century.
Again, common sense is relative to the population in question.
I would have to agree with EE here. Some of the physics courses i could pass without studying due to most of the principles in them already seeming to be common sense to me. When it came to electricity and magnetism the stuff is so franking foreign that even the professor would have trouble from time to time. There is almost nothing intuitive about that subject.
I’m going to have to point out that you did mention that “the studied knowledge of physics would disqualify the scientists using their better judgement judgment on the experiment as common sense.” I would argue that passing any physics class, whether by studying or not, still requires an understanding of scientific principles that you would have had to learn somewhere previously. By your own definition, the knowledge that you used in order to pass some of these physics classes (without studying because “most of the principles in them already seeming to be common sense to me”) would not be considered common sense because you have this specialized knowledge that you gained from studying and taking other science classes. But that would be by your definition. I would say that you are in a special population that has this common knowledge and thus some of these principles are common sense… to you.
Saying Common sense and common sense in general basically means that in general, you are looking at the world's population as a whiole. This would indicate that the common sense in general you seek would be common sense that is gained by the shared experiences of all individuals in the world's population.
Fire hot. Don't touch fire. Fire makes hurt.
Accidents happen, but grabbing a wire with one of those nifty "Touch this wire and you die" signs next to them... well that's lack of common sense. They put warnings on things for a reason. Some of them are neccesary.
(Some of them are stupid. A bottle of paint should not require a "don't drink this" label. Should also be part of common sense that you don't drink paint)
I didn't mean a regular wire that someone put electricity on, I'm talking about wires that are obviously electrified and dangerous. Sorry for not being clear.
Accidents happen, but grabbing a wire with one of those nifty "Touch this wire and you die" signs next to them... well that's lack of common sense. They put warnings on things for a reason. Some of them are neccesary.
(Some of them are stupid. A bottle of paint should not require a "don't drink this" label. Should also be part of common sense that you don't drink paint)
Common sense is no match for stupidity.
Drinking paint isn't quite a good example, because you can not know that the ingredients of paint are toxic.
Common sense is something you're simply expected to know; and as has been said, it's relative to whoever that knowledge is "common". I dislike the term, though, because it leads to blaming the victim - you can't fault somebody for something they never learned.
I agree with what you wrote in general but with reference to my example and your explanation here I'd say that the scientists are using their specialized common sense and not common sense in general. If we look at one of the definitions i provided for common sense the studied knowledge of physics would disqualify the scientists using their better judgement on the experiment as common sense. It would more or less be study gained through study or research. But yeah if our base group was that of scientists they should hopefully have had enough exposure to such ideas that the correct answer to the experiment would be the common one thus sort of being common sense.
However, my example was more of one where, for the most part, any random joe shmoe could be taken off the streets and asked to predict what would happen, using their common sense, and they'd guess wrong way more times than they'd guess right.
Not necessarily. What may be common sense to you may not be common sense to another. I saw that same experiment in elementary school. I would say that for those who attended my elementary school, it would be common sense that both objects fall at the same rate. To someone who didn’t see that, it would not be common sense. You could even look at populations differing in time. What may be common sense to us would not be common sense to someone in the 15th century.
Again, common sense is relative to the population in question.
eh sure. Well kinda sorta. but it could be argued that their comming to the new conclusion is not common sense but rather learned sense, which seems to remove it from being common sense, in many cases, even if the learned sense is common.
I would have to agree with EE here. Some of the physics courses i could pass without studying due to most of the principles in them already seeming to be common sense to me. When it came to electricity and magnetism the stuff is so franking foreign that even the professor would have trouble from time to time. There is almost nothing intuitive about that subject.I’m going to have to point out that you did mention that “the studied knowledge of physics would disqualify the scientists using their better judgement judgment on the experiment as common sense.” I would argue that passing any physics class, whether by studying or not, still requires an understanding of scientific principles that you would have had to learn somewhere previously. By your own definition, the knowledge that you used in order to pass some of these physics classes (without studying because “most of the principles in them already seeming to be common sense to me”) would not be considered common sense because you have this specialized knowledge that you gained from studying and taking other science classes. But that would be by your definition. I would say that you are in a special population that has this common knowledge and thus some of these principles are common sense… to you.
Saying Common sense and common sense in general basically means that in general, you are looking at the world's population as a whiole. This would indicate that the common sense in general you seek would be common sense that is gained by the shared experiences of all individuals in the world's population.
Fire hot. Don't touch fire. Fire makes hurt.
You're looking to far into it. Many of those i did way better than had taken several preliminary physics classes before me. I just went in and took it with an open mind. I already know that if you push something it moves. That if you drop something it falls. This is common sense and much of basic mechanics is based off of this. You don't need any physics background to add specifications onto these when you learn some of the physical laws of nature. Basic mechanics is based on common sense/knowledge of motion. The easy part of me is how easy my brain is to molding to new ideas. It has nothing to do with coming in with already known learnt knowledge.
Nothing in the world, either observed or studied, is similar to electricity and magnetism. It can't really be observed, or at least directly and not well, and it works 180o differently than anything we as people are used to. It is a subject that is completely counter intuitive and attempting to use common sense almost always leads you down the wrong path.
Moral of this story? If you lack common sense, sue the dickens out of the other guy. You'll probably win.
eh sure. Well kinda sorta. but it could be argued that their comming to the new conclusion is not common sense but rather learned sense, which seems to remove it from being common sense, in many cases, even if the learned sense is common.
If it is a new conclusion, then yes, you are correct, it can’t be considered common sense. Now try to come up with something that you consider common sense that a new born child would know.
You can’t have common sense without common knowledge. Until that child learns something, he/ she has no common sense. Claiming that you can have common sense without common knowledge would be like claiming that you have a gene that tells you that when driving, a red traffic light means stop. Stopping at a red light is common sense after all.
You're looking to far into it. Many of those i did way better than had taken several preliminary physics classes before me. I just went in and took it with an open mind. I already know that if you push something it moves. That if you drop something it falls. This is common sense and much of basic mechanics is based off of this. You don't need any physics background to add specifications onto these when you learn some of the physical laws of nature. Basic mechanics is based on common sense/knowledge of motion. The easy part of me is how easy my brain is to molding to new ideas. It has nothing to do with coming in with already known learnt knowledge.
While some other students may have taken more physics classes than you did prior to taking the physics class with you, it does not mean that they learned the material well. And you are correct, things like pushing an object causes it to move; and if you drop something, it falls is common sense. Knowing that if you put an object behind another object, the first object is still there is also common sense. Psychologists call it object permanence. It develops about 8 months of age in most normally developing children… through experience. I would assume that you would have found it very hard to do well in a physics class if you had not learned about gravity and the other basic scientific principles.
Remember, not all learning occurs in a class room
Nothing in the world, either observed or studied, is similar to electricity and magnetism. It can't really be observed, or at least directly and not well, and it works 180o differently than anything we as people are used to. It is a subject that is completely counter intuitive and attempting to use common sense almost always leads you down the wrong path.
My limited knowledge of electricity does not permit me to argue how similar or not electricity is to other phenomena. Yet I find it odd that you would claim that using common sense would almost always lead you down the wrongs path. I know electricity can kill you. Common sense tells me that I should not play with a downed power line. Common sense would also say that you wouldn’t want to take a metal object (a knife for example) and stick it in an electric socket.
I just remembered something that happened several years ago. Somebody sued a company for their lack of common sense and won. Which case am I referring to? The famous hot coffee cup in the lap vs McDonald's. If I was the judge, I would've thrown that suit out. If you get a cup of hot coffee, of course it's going to be hot. Because of that case the company I work for stopped offering coffee to our clients in the waiting room. It is only this past year we started offering it again (with the appropriate warnings).
Moral of this story? If you lack common sense, sue the dickens out of the other guy. You'll probably win.
Actually, McDonalds wasn’t sued because the coffee burned the old lady. They were sued because of how badly the coffee burned her. She actually got 3rd degree burns from the coffee and required skin grafts.
Also, McDonalds actually required that their coffee be kept in a pot at about 185 degrees. Not only that, but the old lady wasn’t the only that had gotten 3rd degree burns from the coffee.
One of their Quality control guys even admited that anything above 140 degrees was unsuitable to drink because it would burn the inside of a person's mouth.
I used to think it was ridiculous that this old lady got so much money for something that should be common sense. Then my cousin went to law school and actually had to study this case.
If you want to read up on it check out this link (www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm)
Drinking paint isn't quite a good example, because you can not know that the ingredients of paint are toxic.
You should at least have the basic idea that it's not food. And thus you shouldn't eat it. Even if it'd not be toxic you should still have that nagging feeling that it's not ment to be eaten, so maybe you shouldn't.
Also, many people end up in the hospital for putting strange stuff in their mouths (or other bodyparts). The body can handle a lot of the natural stuff, but many of the current unnaturals (like paint) it cannot handle.
Personally I consider it common sense to think about what it is you are putting in your mouth, before you put it in. And to simply not even consider a lot of options. Anything that can survive being stuck to a wall for 5 years in all weather, you do not want to line your stomach with. Same goes for anything that can clean a toilet, the floor, or your dishes with. Even if it contains real lemon.
I just remembered something that happened several years ago. Somebody sued a company for their lack of common sense and won. Which case am I referring to? The famous hot coffee cup in the lap vs McDonald's. If I was the judge, I would've thrown that suit out. If you get a cup of hot coffee, of course it's going to be hot. Because of that case the company I work for stopped offering coffee to our clients in the waiting room. It is only this past year we started offering it again (with the appropriate warnings).
There is a lot of misinformation about that case. I suggest you check up on the actual details and you'll see it's not so baseless at all.
Moral of this story? If you lack common sense, sue the dickens out of the other guy. You'll probably win.
No, the moral of the story is if you're going to quote an example you should be familiar with tha actual details of it.
Ok, maybe I was wrong on the exact details. Yeah, the coffee was too hot and McDonald's should have been sued about it before it got to this woman.
My main point of the example was, is it common sense (or lack) to put an uncovered cup of hot coffee between your legs while driving away from the window? Where was the cup lid? She took it off. Wasn't there cupholder in the car? If not, she should have waited until she parked before taking the lid off. Even a more normal coffee temperature will still burn. Maybe not as bad as it did her, but it will still hurt. If it was a more normal temperature, would she have still sued? My guess, probably. Would she have won? Depends on how well her lawyers argued the case.
This reminds me of another story. I don't know if this is true or not, but here it is. There's a guy someplace that will sue at the drop of a hat. Literally, he'll sue if your had falls off in his yard and you go get it, despite the no trespassing signs. He'll sue you for littering on his lawn. If he can get the license plate of the car that splashed him, he'll sue the owner. Cut him off in traffic? Be prepared to be sued. He'll sue you for using profanity when talking to him because you are treading on his right to hear clean, unoffensive talk (he won that case). According to reports, he wins ~80% of his cases. He doesn't do it for the money. In fact, some of his suits he wins nets him a $1.00. What does that tell you about common sense. No wonder Weird Al made that song "I'll Sue Ya".
My main point of the example was, is it common sense (or lack) to put an uncovered cup of hot coffee between your legs while driving away from the window? Where was the cup lid? She took it off. Wasn't there cupholder in the car? If not, she should have waited until she parked before taking the lid off. Even a more normal coffee temperature will still burn. Maybe not as bad as it did her, but it will still hurt. If it was a more normal temperature, would she have still sued? My guess, probably. Would she have won? Depends on how well her lawyers argued the case.
She wasn't driving, she was stopped at the time. She was trying to remove the cup lid when it spilled. The reson she sued is not cos she got scalded, the coffee gave her third degree burns (that's burns all the waydown to the bone) over 6% of her body.
www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm
This reminds me of another story. I don't know if this is true or not, but here it is. There's a guy someplace that will sue at the drop of a hat. Literally, he'll sue if your had falls off in his yard and you go get it, despite the no trespassing signs. He'll sue you for littering on his lawn. If he can get the license plate of the car that splashed him, he'll sue the owner. Cut him off in traffic? Be prepared to be sued. He'll sue you for using profanity when talking to him because you are treading on his right to hear clean, unoffensive talk (he won that case). According to reports, he wins ~80% of his cases. He doesn't do it for the money. In fact, some of his suits he wins nets him a $1.00. What does that tell you about common sense. No wonder Weird Al made that song "I'll Sue Ya".
Doubtful. If you bring enough frivolous lawsuits and the court will actually fine you for "wasting judicial resources”. That's what happened to that Orly Taitz lunatic (the nutcase behind the "birther" nonsense). The court was so fed up with her wasting their time with her paranoid "Obama is not an American!" paranoid conspiracy ramblings they fined her $20,000.
This reminds me of another story. I don't know if this is true or not, but here it is. There's a guy someplace that will sue at the drop of a hat. Literally, he'll sue if your had falls off in his yard and you go get it, despite the no trespassing signs. He'll sue you for littering on his lawn. If he can get the license plate of the car that splashed him, he'll sue the owner. Cut him off in traffic? Be prepared to be sued. He'll sue you for using profanity when talking to him because you are treading on his right to hear clean, unoffensive talk (he won that case). According to reports, he wins ~80% of his cases. He doesn't do it for the money. In fact, some of his suits he wins nets him a $1.00. What does that tell you about common sense. No wonder Weird Al made that song "I'll Sue Ya".
We are going to need some references here. Without some kind of reference your story seems very suspect.
Of course, this is operating that the definition of common sense is: 1) the ability to look at a given situation and gauge whether or not the outcome of a particular action will be negative or just plain stupid. 2) the capacity to get a gut feeling regarding an action, person or situation for good or for ill.
The most likely result of a person not exercising common sense is that the person is injured through circumstances of his or her own making, such as in the oft-cited McDonald's coffee example. Yes, their coffee may have been too hot, but the woman's injury would never have occurred had the woman not placed an uncovered cup of coffee - a drink reputed to be hot and purchased on the requirement that it BE hot - in her lap while driving, a circumstance that can often result in quick, jerky stops.
Also in this vein are such things as people looking down the barrel of a nail gun to see what's plugged it up, especially when the gun hasn't been unplugged/turned off/had its pressurized air cylinder removed.
As far as attention to the mundane goes, what I mean is that if I walk into the kitchen and the sink is full of dirty dishes but I came into the kitchen for a glass of juice, then I'll get the juice and never notice that there are dishes which require cleaning.
Rather than the coffee example, I'll use my personal peeve: "THIS BAG IS NOT A TOY"
Look at the Star Trek Vulcans. For them it is completely logical to supress their emotions and cold rational thinking is what needs to be attained. To humans, who are emotional beings, what the Vulcans are doing are not logical at all. For them, logic is a balance between emotion and rational thinking. Capt. Kirk has proved it many times throughout the show. What emotions do is show that there can be another outcome that is just as logical as the outcome through rational thinking. In other words, there is logic in being illogical.
P.S. I'm willing to admit to being wrong about my first paragraph, if somebody can show sufficient reasons that there is a correlation.