5.16 Commentary on descartes’ discourse on method and meditations  (Page 3/6)

That passage shows well how everything that someone thinks is going to be true to a certain degree. It is going to be absorbed a certain amount; however your understanding of how much it is absorbed is also going to vary by degree, not necessarily related to the reality. There are also going to be different types of truths, and different ways in which knowledge can be absorbed. It can be understood emotionally. It can be understood emotionally in different ways and in each different way, it could affect a different other sort of knowledge already in your mind. For instance, one piece of knowledge could change your viewpoint on another piece of knowledge or opinion in your mind. This shows how all knowledge is really just opinion, or belief, since it can vary so much based off of new material, or, since we just defined knowledge as belief, new beliefs. By stating “knowledge” or “belief” here, you should understand that both are clearly emotional intelligence. As an example you could use the idea of how much you enjoy going to playgrounds and parks. The idea of that and what you understand about it could be influenced by your understanding of how much you like going to other events. A whole set of experiences could be used and that could be one way your mind compares or processes things. One certain experience, or a few ideas however might be much more significant and relevant to other ideas then all the ideas you have in your mind, however. So it is not as if everything is infinitely complicated, with everything tying into everything else in some infinitely complicated way.

The previous passage is in turn explained by the quote:

More especially did I reflect in each matter that came before me as to anything that could make it subject to suspicion of doubt, and give occasion for mistake, and I rooted out of my mind all the errors that might have formerly crept in. Not that indeed I imitated the skeptics, who only doubt for the sake of doubting, and pretend to by always uncertain; for, on the contrary, my design was only to provide myself with good ground for assurance, and to reject the quicksand and mud in order to find the rock or clay.” (pg 22 the European philosophers)

Using experiences in life, or anything that is complicated beyond a practical reality is going to involve emotional intelligence. When I talked about how a lot of reality is going to be knowledge of belief I was referring to understanding things that can be manipulated in your mind as to your viewpoint, versus thinking about things that don’t have an emotional impact on you and is more like you are just manipulating a certain real reality in different numbers or amounts (like doing math) but not your personal viewpoint. When your viewpoint for a specific thing, or even your overall viewpoint is being manipulated by yourself you are using emotional intelligence. That manipulation might occur when you are thinking about anything that can have various different perspectives, which could be a lot of things. In fact, even something mathematical is going to have different perspectives, for instance, if you get the wrong answer you have a wrong perspective of what you think is the truth. That shows how emotions are going to play a role in even simple things in life, like calculating how many objects there are in a room, or doing other mathematical like calculations. They play a role because for each different perspective you have on the answer, there is going to be a different emotional outlook. For instance, you might be happy if there are a large number of objects in a room, but sad if there are very few. A lot of life is going to consist of observations and behaviors that can be described simply. In that way it is easy to see how a lot of life can be “true”, because when you describe what happens in life in a simple way you also see a certain emotional truth, which would seem to be a more significant aspect of how reality functions.