1. Humans experience emotions.  Involuntary chemical reactions take place during, for example, states of fear (ex.:  the "adrenaline rush").  There are Humans that, either from time-to-time or all the time, do not display emotion (ex.:  poker players), but the mere fact that they do not display emotions does not imply that they do not experience emotions.
   
   
2. Experiencing emotions has no correlation with intelligence.  One can argue both that:  (a) less intelligent Humans may experience emotion far more deeply than "intellectuals" (due to fear, ignorance, etc.); and (b) more intelligent Humans may experience emotion far more deeply than less intelligent Humans (when one Human "sees" a problem and empathises with the people affected by that problem).  Even deeply disturbed mentally ill people experience emotion - perhaps more violently than the average Human.
   
   
3. Emotions are a necessary part of the existence of Humans.  Unlike the fictional Vulcans, the total suppression of emotions by Humans will result in irreparable harm to the Humans attempting to suppress their emotions.  However, for Humans to be completely objective on a given subject, they must be able to control all of their emotions during the time they are considering / evaluating / analyzing the subject.
   

For example, if one has a pet, one can become so emotional about the pet that one loses their objectivity about the pet.  Should the pet require serious medical intervention, in order to make objective decisions about the pet's care, one must weigh the decisions in a non-emotional state.  If the pet becomes terminally ill, sometimes the guardian will - for their own benefit - continue to keep the pet alive beyond that point in time when the pet's suffering becomes too great for the pet to endure.  If the decision to Humanely terminate the pet's life seems "cold and harsh", it is logical to prevent the pet from suffering great pain.  If the pet requires medical care beyond the cost of what the pet's guardian can afford, it may be better to give the pet to someone else, or to an organization that can afford to cure the pet, rather than terminate the pet's life due to the guardian's limited budget.

Humans can control some or all of their emotions over long periods of time and even control all of their emotions for short periods of time with no ill effects.  If one cannot control even some of their emotions over a given period, then that person is - by definition - unable to view things objectively and is, in all probability, totally irrational.



4. There are times when it is beneficial for Humans to not experience emotions, as emotions cloud judgement and impair logical analysis; e.g., when trying to resolve an argument, when trying to solve a numeric problem, when a jury is deliberating, etc.  Thus, Humans must have the ability to control emotions while performing logical analysis and seeking resolutions, answers, and clarity of judgement.
   
   
5. There are times when it is beneficial for Humans to experience positive emotions; e.g., when meditating, during romantic relations, viewing media, listening to music, reading, etc.  It is logical for Humans to experience positive emotions provided that the generation of those positive emotions does not violate other Humans' Fundamental Rights nor any Just Laws.
   
   
6. Humans must understand when the feeling, expression, and sentiments of emotions are beneficial to the situation or are harmful to the situation.  Thus, Humans must have the ability to "turn their emotions on and off".  While the Vulcan ideal is to control all emotions all of the time, the Human ideal is to control negative emotions all of the time, and decide when it is appropriate to control positive emotions and thus when it is appropriate to experience positive emotions.
   

   Ex.:  A Human is attending a funeral.  During the service, the Human remembers a joke that the deceased has told them.  Experiencing a positive emotion such as laughter during the funeral service may be inappropriate, and thus it might be best to control this positive emotion at this time.
   

7. Before Humans can determine whether or not emotions are beneficial or detrimental to the situation, emotions must first be removed from the analysis of the specific situation.  When a new situation arises that requires - or may require - objective analysis, Humans must begin by controlling their emotions until it has been determined safe to allow themselves to feel emotions once again.  This is in the best interests of obtaining the best result of the situation requiring objective analysis and it is in the best interests of the Humans doing the objective analysis.
   

Ex.:  a husband and wife are arguing over some subject.  For the purposes of comprehension of this document, the "size" of the subject (i.e., trivial or non-trivial) does not matter - an argument is an argument.  "Who takes out the garbage" is a cause of an argument, and "infidelity" is a cause of an argument.  It is not the specific cause of the argument that we are reviewing here, it is the fact that emotions are involved in the argument.

In either the garbage-taking-out or infidelity case, emotions must be removed from the argument before a peaceful or satisfactory or mutually-disagreeable result can be obtained.  In the matter of "who takes out the garbage", a peaceful result may be obtained:  once both parties have attained objectivity, all valid considerations which comprise the argument (schedule, availability, amount of work, etc.) can be considered, and so a peaceful result can be obtained.  in the matter of alleged infidelity, a peaceful result will, in all probability, not be easily obtained if there is any truth to the alleged infidelity infraction(s), as the concept of "trust" takes a long time to "heal", and the more emotionally "trust" is judged, the longer it takes to heal from a breach of trust.  Objectivity is as necessary to the result of the infidelity argument as it is to the result of the "who takes out the garbage?" argument, but one argument clearly has more impact than the other and due to the complex emotions involved will doubtless be more difficult to resolve.

Thus, the more intense the emotions involved, the more difficult the resolution of the argument will be, and the more important that the emotions of the participants be closely controlled by themselves in order to achieve any type of resolution.


8. Should the person arrive at the conclusion that emotions are not harmful to the situation, since Humans enjoy satisfaction by experiencing emotion, the next decision that must be made is the allowable set and range of emotions that can safely be felt during the specific situation.  This will allow the person to judge whether or not they can enjoy the situation, and if they can, how much enjoyment is safe in which to indulge.  If the person cannot find a "positive" emotion (such as enjoyment, happiness, pleasure) in the set of emotions that can safely be felt during the specific situation, it is better to supress all emotions while the situation is in progress, rather than feel a "negative" emotion (and thus possibly generate "negative energy", which has a deliterious effect upon others).  One can posit that "negative" emotions cannot be completely avoided, and feeling "negative" emotions to obtain "closure" can be a "healing" experience.  Negative emotions can be avoided altogether, or at a minimum, they can be constantly controlled.
   
   
9. While the control of emotions will be for some an emotional issue (no pun intended), and while this point could be argued indefinitely, it is easy to see that controlling the "negative" emotions to which one allows oneself to be subjected is beneficial.  After all, no one knows how long they are going to live, thus life is precious, thus it is illogical to spend one's life feeling bad.
   

   Ex. 1:  during heavy traffic, emotions should be suppressed while driving as they are detrimental to the concentration required.  Once the driver is out of heavy traffic, the pleasurable set of emotions (exhiliration, joy, pride in craftsmanship of the vehicle, etc.) may be safely felt by the driver, but the range of the emotions being felt cannot overwhelm the driver to where the driver might lose concentration, lose control of the vehicle, ignore pedestrians / other drivers / traffic signals, etc.  Keeping a logical, objective mind when driving a vehicle will eliminate "road rage".
   
   Ex. 2:  during the viewing of a film, the protagonist is murdered.  The viewer can empathise with this and react emotionally by crying, or the viewer can remain detached and posit something akin to, "what a loss".  It is up to the viewer to decide how to react to the situation.  One could argue that crying over the loss of a protagonist in a film is not a positive emotion; one could also argue that empathy for the loss of the protagonist is a character-building or maturity-building or "getting in touch with your feelings"-building exercise, and thus may provide a long-term positive benefit.  The specifics of the situation:  the film, the protagonist, the method of murder, who killed the protagonist, the plot, etc., all factor in to the decision as to how one reacts.
   
   Humans have an old saying that goes, "it's not what happens, it's how you react that matters." This is entirely logical.
   

10. Should the person arrive at the conclusion that emotions are harmful to the situation, they must be suppressed until the specific situation is resolved.
    

Ex.: At a jury trial, the jury must weigh the evidence to assess guilt / culpability.  The emotions one might feel based on the heinousness of the crime are detrimental to one's ability to assess guilt / culpability and thus must be suppressed during the entire trial proceedings and jury deliberations.  Once the verdict has been reached and accepted, then the jury may open the floodgates of emotions which have been thus far suppressed and react to the heinousness of the crime - if they want to do this.  One could argue that the best way to obtain "closure" after serving on the jury deliberating over such a heinous matter would be to "put it past them" and move on; i.e., to mete out well-deliberated justice, to not dwell on the suffering of the victims, to study the lessons that have been learned by coming into contact with such a heinous crime, and to continue on with one's life.  If one follows this mind-set, then "negative" emotions would play no role in this process.


11. All negative emotion experienced (or, worse yet, stored) is a detriment to the development of the individual.  Prejudice, guilt, hate, negativity, misogyny, misanthropy, et al., are emotions that one should neither store nor experience.  The better thing to do is to learn why one feels negative emotions and to either learn to process the "negative-emotion-causing issues" logically, or avoid those situations where negative emotions may manifest until one can better understand why these negative emotions arise and how to process them.
    

    Ex.: a living being has died, and the mourners are experiencing grief and loss.  In such an instance, the negative emotions grief and loss may be unavoidable.  In this case, Humans cannot avoid experiencing negative emotions.  The goal in this instance is to "process" the loss, grieve, and move on as quickly as possible (given the particular loss).  While this may seem "cold" to some Humans, each Human will someday die, thus, to deny this is illogical.  Since no Human knows how long they will live, to continue grieving beyond a (clearly subjective) date and thus to spend a known quantity of an unknown source experiencing negative energy is illogical.
    
    Ex.: someone is having trouble with their car.  It is getting slower and slower "turning over" when starting and taking longer to start.  The driver needs the car for their job.  Rather than wait for a failure to occur, which could result in anger, frustration, and negative feelings, the driver should instead be proactive and arrange to have the car repaired and arrange for alternative transportation while the car is being repaired.
    

12. If a Human has "deep-seated" issues that are causing them to experience negative emotions, they should seek out qualified therapists to help them process through these issues and thus avoid generating (and experiencing) negative emotional responses to these issues.  Negative emotions stored in the Human mind have a deleterious affect on the Human body (see below).
    

    Ex.:  a Human was abused as a child (the type of abuse is not pertinent to this discussion).  When the Human reflects on this abuse, they feel sad, and continuing reflection leads to more and more sadness which then leads to depression.  Should the Human obtain psychotherapy, they may be able to learn how to process these troubling memories and prevent these memories from making them feel these negative emotions (sadness/depression).  By doing so, they will have "recovered" from the child abuse, and may lead more productive and more satisfying lives that generate positive emotions.
    

13. Experiments by Dr. Masaru Emoto have proven that negative energy causes chaos patterns to arise in water, and positive energy causes ordered "snowflake-like" patterns to arise in water.  The Human body is approximately 75% water.  Thus, any negative energy Humans store in their mind will affect the water stored in their body.  The resulting chaotic patterns Dr. Emoto saw in the water will therefore cause the water in the Human body to rearrange into chaotic patterns.  This cannot be beneficial to the Human in question.
    
    
14. As all Humans share the space in which we live - the Earth - and as all Humans have the right to live their lives as they see fit while not harming others - it is logical for each person to generate positive energy, avoid generating negative energy, and avoid storing any negative energy created by others.
    
    

This is the end of The Logic Of Surak.  I welcome your comments here.