JUNE 1, 2022 – (Cont.) “I’m feeling an alien concept,” said the . . . alien.
“Huh?”
“On Planet Goldilocks, reason rules. Apparently that’s not the case on earth. The absence of omnipresent reason is new to me.”
“Hold on,” I said defensively. “The ability to reason at the human level distinguishes us from all other earthbound life forms. Yet, what makes us human is that we’re not always guided by reason. We’re motivated by another quintessentially human traits: emotion. Emotion, in turn, is the stuff of great art, dance, music, theater and most important, love between and among human beings. This dichotomy between reason and emotion is but one of a multitude of paradoxes and contradictions that define us humans.”
“Gracious. How do you live with yourselves?”
“Often we don’t, won’t, and can’t.” Before the words were out of my mouth, I worried that they’d tip the balance in favor of wiping out our species. Time to retreat to safer ground. “But lest I leave you with the wrong impression, we’ve learned to deploy enough reason to avoid self-extinction—thus far.
“I’ll give you an example . . .”
I was beginning to see that despite the the thing’s vaunted attachment to reason, an element of emotion resided in our exchanges.
The alien’s glow and humming, I surmised, were the equivalent of human facial reactions, which are formed strictly by emotion, not reason. Then there were the visitor’s verbal responses to my statements. Take, for instance, “I’m feeling an alien concept.” A feeling, for crying out loud, isn’t reason. Reason is logic, and logic is a matter of mathematical proof. Plus, the alien’s word choice and tone revealed that it could be judgmental—as in “How do you live with yourselves?”—which, in my experience among humans, at least, is a phrase infused with emotion. Moreover, hadn’t the alien mentioned it’d somehow “downloaded” our language? And isn’t language as reflective of emotion as it is of reason? From the instant the “download” was complete, I concluded, the alien would’ve experienced the strangely human element of emotion.
This analysis-on-the-fly reminded me of the central feature of the human condition: reason and emotion inextricably bound. Labeling ourselves, “homo sapiens” was wishful (emotional?) thinking. More accurately described, we’re homo paradoxicus.
“I’m waiting,” said the thing, interrupting my silent rumination. “You were about to cite an example of human reason.”
“Oh yeah, right. Okay, uh, try this . . . Back in the day, with minimal science and maximum religion, the greatest thinkers thought the sun revolved around the earth. After all, this was a ‘fact’ that could be easily observed day-in and day-out, as it were. Any person could readily see that the start of each day coincided with Helios emerging over the horizon. As the person went about her or his business, the sun moved across the sky all the way to the opposite horizon, where the ball of light steadily sank until darkness returned. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the sun was moving around the earth—which, by the way, was as flat as a pancake (except for a few bumps here and there), again, as any observant human could readily see. (Cont.)
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© 2022 by Eric Nilsson
