Feeling or thinking

Loren Booda

Which has contributed more to your life?

Huckleberry

Hard to say since I use one to do the other interchangably.

hypatia

Thinking for me. Feelings can often hinder me from what I know needs to be done.

Moonbear

A little bit of both.

Loren Booda

Feelings for me - but they seem for most an undiscovered, unappreciated, underutilized and underrated resource.

Gale

do you mean like, feelings as in emotions? vs thinking meaning logic? and do we mean positively contributed? or which just affects us most?

infinitetime

I go with what I sense, or in other words, feel.

TheStatutoryApe

My emotions tend to not do so well for me. I generally wind up needing to use my logic to pull me out of the situation that my emotions have gotten me into. Haven't given up on my emotions yet, though I have been close.

SOS2008

Well said. Feeling may have had more impact, but not necessarily in a positive way. There have been times where I would have been better if I followed my instincts, but usually logical reasoning results in better choices (what hypatia posted).

PerennialII

Feeling interpreted as "belief" == intuition, gut, understanding (the "mystic" view that there are things unapproachable by logic) against thinking == logic.

Zantra

INTJ all the way baby!

guess which one I am..

Ivan Seeking

I find that instinct, or whatever you wish to call it, plays an integral role in any major decision. I primarily follow logic to a point, but almost anything important involves judgement calls, or best guesses, with no black and white logical decision to be made.

On the flip side of things, some [but not all] of the most profound moments in my life came through science and learning; which in turn produced many feelings - exhilaration, a sense of awestruck, overwhelmed, even cathartic experiences...and some feelings that were unique to learning. I have often thought of something Frank Drake of the famed Drake Equation once said. There have been two times in his life that he thought that he was, or may have been looking at a signal from an alien race - somewhere out there. "It is a very special feeling", he said, "and not like any other. I hope I can feel that again some day". Also consider Michio Kaku, who cried when he first saw the equations from GR. So apparently not only for me, but even for accomplished physicists, feelings and thinking, even logic, are hopelessly intertwined.

cronxeh

feeling caused the thinking

Nylex

Both make me feel like crap.

Smurf

zoobyshoe

More or less the same for me. I can't separate them. Thinking, for me, is primarily the act of sorting out feelings (emotions).

Danger

In the sense of 'intuition', my first reaction is usually correct even if subsequent conscious consideration conflicts with it. I have come to realize after very carefully analyzing such situations that it is simply a matter of my subconscious mind working faster and more accurately. As a for instance, when I approach a pool table, there's usually one shot that just screams to be taken. I always try to map out the table anyhow, and consider every foreseeable possiblility. Quite often, logic says "that's a stupid shot; take that one instead". If I follow the logic, something tends to screw it up. Taking the initial one works, because it's something that I know is in accordance with the way that I play. Retrospectively, it was logical after all.

Emotions have gotten me into all kinds of trouble, so I always try to temper them with logic. In that regard, I'm pretty much in accordance with Loseyourname's thoughts.