In Response to Megan Cooney (3/6/2010)

Q:“Why do we have phrases like "follow your heart," "gut instinct," etc? Why is it not like listen to what your mind tells you?”

Phrases such as "follow your heart" and "gut instinct” are popular in our society for the exact idea that your question brings up. People often do not want to use their mind to make decisions because listening to your mind is a type of reasoning. Having a "gut instinct" is more of an instant feeling because you do not have to think about it. A good example of this is a multiple-choice question that you do not know, but you have an instant feeling that one of the choices is the correct answer; a problem soon arises because you start to think about the choices and you begin to think a different answer is the correct choice. At this point, you must make a choice,either go with your “gut instinct” or listen to "what your mind tells you". I understand that the mind controls the “gut instinct”, but I feel that anytime you use the word mind, you are talking about a type of reasoning. I believe that “listening to what your mind tells you,” means that you trust in simple reasoning. The “gut instinct" is more of an automatic feeling that you do not know where it came from. I feel that a true “gut instinct” is something that is impossible to explain; it seems like it may be an unconscious process because we just feel something that we cannot explain the origins of. For this reason, I think that people often say that they used their “gut instinct” when they actually used simple reasoning. When making decisions, people often come up with two choices because of reasoning they use. They may say, “Most people want me to do this, but I’m going to use my gut feeling and do this instead”. Many situations like this do not represent a true “gut instinct” because the person had to decide between two choices, which both were discovered through simple reasoning. With that said, if the person decided to make a choice using a feeling that they could not explain, then that would be an example of using a “gut instinct”. This brings up the idea that “following your heart” and using your “gut instinct” may be two different things. I feel that “following your heart” is used in situations where a person has to decide between two different choices, and they decide choose their original feeling. It seems that “following your heart” could be defined as when a person chooses to follow their “gut instinct” instead of deciding to trust in their reasoning; therefore, I feel that “following your heart" and using your "gut instinct” are not the same concept but relate closely. Even though I understand exactly what these concepts mean, I am wondering when exactly they should be used. It seems like there are examples in our world of situations where using “gut instinct” has worked and other situations where reasoning has worked better than “gut instinct”.

1.Do you think that we should ever follow our “gut instinct”, and if so, in what situations should we use it?
2.What do you think that Plato and Aristotle would feel about using “gut instinct”?