In this post, I will argue that emotion-based knowledge is unreliable. In other words, it is not really knowledge at all. According to Epistemology, a proposition must actually be true for it to count as knowledge. Just saying we know something does not make it knowledge. If it turns out to be false, it was never knowledge. Strength of conviction makes no difference. It is the nature of our emotions to be convincing so we pay attention and perform a behavior that may be essential to our survival. While emotions are useful, and even essential, they are not fool proof. They are easily subject to manipulation if we do not understand where they come from and how they function.
In Mormon culture, it is common for a believer to say that they know some aspect of the faith to be true. Once a month an entire worship service is devoted to allowing regular members to stand up in front of the congregation and express what they "know" to be true, a practice Mormons refer to as "bearing testimony." Describing how they have acquired this knowledge, Mormons will typically say the "Spirit" or "Holy Ghost" revealed it to them. This revelation comes through feelings, as summed up in this passage from the Doctrine and Covenants 9:8-9
...if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right. But if it be not right you shall have no such feelings...Many believing Mormons will take issue with the statement that their beliefs, or what they would call knowledge, are based on emotions. They claim to be able to distinguish between the Spirit and emotions. However, I believe this distinction is merely an acknowledgement that we experience a wide array of emotions. This website lists 147 different words that describe the complex and subtle range of emotions humans are capable of distinguishing. Just because the feeling on which Mormons base their testimony may be different from the feeling they get when their favorite team wins the championship, this does not make it something different from an emotion, but merely a different emotion.
Emotions are essential to the survival of the human species or we would likely not have them. Emotions encourage us to act without thinking. Our subconscious mind has been refined through millions of years of evolution to act in ways that promote our personal survival and the survival of those closely related to us, or at least those who we perceive to be closely related. Richard Dawkins book, The Selfish Gene, explains that our instinctive survival behavior is best understood as our genes trying to preserve copies of themselves, whether they exist in us or in those closely related to us. The primary aim of the book is explain how altruism arises at the organism level when evolution seems to imply selfishness. Dawkins proposal is that the selfishness occurs at the level of the gene, which can lead to altruism, or self-sacrifice for the benefit of another, at the organism level.
Evolutionary change also led to our conscious intelligence. Our subconscious communicates to us through emotion so we can act quickly without thinking when speed is of the essence. Our conscious mind is more deliberate. It may ultimately lead to a more accurate view of the world, but it takes more time. These two aspects of human thought are complimentary. The combination has proved effective in the past or it would have been weeded out through natural selection.
This is an oversimplification. Human intelligence and emotion are complex, subtle, and not completely understood. What is understood is far too extensive for me to write about in detail here. The essential point is that emotion, by its nature, is meant to convince us to act, and to do it quickly. Without emotion, we would find it difficult to act at all. People who have a disorder causing them to feel no emotion do not act like Spock on Star Trek. They have difficulty making even the simplest of decisions, such as what to eat for dinner or which pair of shoes to wear.
As a fully believing and active Mormon I once made a comment on this subject in an Elder's Quorum meeting, which involves only adult men. I said that knowing things through the Spirit is not exactly the same as knowing things from experience. For example, I know that Denver, Colorado exists because I have been there many times. I have driven through it and have walked around in it. If I say I know I continue to live after I die, that is something different. I have not yet experienced it. When we say we "know" it we really means that we believe it or are convinced of it. One of the members of the class took offense at my comment. He told me I was wrong and that he really did "know" those things. His reaction illustrates how deeply ingrained this idea is in the Mormon psyche.
In Episode 77 of the Mormon Expression podcast, one of the panelist described an experience very similar to the one I had in Elder's Quorum. During a testimony meeting, his wife stood up and said, "Why do we say we know? We don't know. Nobody knows." This led to a flood of fervent testimonies with people saying that they really do know. One of the other panelists pointed out that this was much like the case of Shakespeare's woman protesting too much. We do not usually talk this way about things we really know, such as our work expertise. They fervency of these threatened testimonies seemed to be as much to convince the speaker as anyone else. I wrote in more detail about this phenomenon in this blog post on the Power of Conviction
It is convenient that many of the elements of a Mormon testimony are not testable by other means. However, some of them are. One important belief is that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. Essential to this point is that the Book of Mormon is genuine ancient American historical document. This is a question that can be examined scientifically. I have an entire blog devoted to this question here. I am still adding entries as I continue to examine various aspects of this claim. The sum of my personal investigations, and those of many others, is that the Book of Mormon is a 19th Century creation, not a translation of an ancient document. This is one of many examples that discredits the idea that we can definitely know anything through our feelings. Many of my own personal experiences have convinced me that feelings are not reliable truth detectors. If emotions prove unreliable when we can verify by other means, I have little confidence in their ability to reveal the unknowable.
Bearing testimony in the Mormon style seems to be an attempt to preempt all rational arguments. Once a Mormon bears his testimony, the argument is over. Evidence-based examination is rendered meaningless in the face of a testimony. How do you argue with someone's strong conviction? That is why an important starting point, for me, is to question the very idea that feelings can reveal knowledge. Natural selection did not favor certain emotions because they reveal truth, but because they promote survival. Truth may be an occasional byproduct, but not a guaranteed one. Utility is more important than truth from an evolutionary stand point.
I am confident that these arguments will not persuade most people who hold strong convictions. Perhaps some, however, will at least consider the idea that these feelings may not be the fool-proof truth detectors we sometimes take them to be. After all, believers in many religions base their convictions mostly on feelings, even though their beliefs differ one from another. They cannot all be right.
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