Don't Trust Your Gut

Your Emotions Are Historical Intelligence

Many of us believe, with a smirk, that we’ve already lived through the "future" as portrayed in movies. Y2K passed without incident, there’s no flying cars, and other than Roombas and Alexa, robots haven’t become a common sight in our homes (certainly not fetching us beers). We seem to have grown accustomed to the pace of technological progress until recently. Personally, I didn't have nightmares of a scorched dystopian hellscape ruled by cyborgs until now.

AI has been having a moment recently. Not like a kind-of-scary return of low-rise jeans moment either. It’s a potentially terrifying surge that has even its formerly staunchest supporters and innovators feeling concerned. The most horrifying implication is that AI will eventually outpace human intelligence and harvest us in pods. But for now, the unease seems generally focused on misinformation and the public's inability to discern what is real and what is not.

In a similar vein to how AI has made it difficult to discern whether a track is genuinely from Drake or not, we face a comparable challenge when it comes to our emotions. Despite the mental health community's constant encouragement to trust our emotions, I argue that we shouldn't. Unless it's a life or death situation, and you may be in actual danger, chances are, your feelings can’t be trusted.

The scientific community generally agrees that genetics account for anywhere between 20% to 60% of an individual's temperament. Let's assume, for this example, a conservative estimate of 30%. If you were born with a predisposition for nervousness, where did that come from? Yep. So, on top of what you were born with, you were likely raised by helicopter parents who instilled in you a sense of constant vigilance. That probably built upon your genetic predisposition towards nervousness. This phenomenon is known as nature via nurture, where an individual's genetic tendencies are compounded by their environment.

Confirmation bias plays a powerful role in shaping our beliefs and perceptions. When we have an inclination towards something (in this case, anxiety), we may selectively attend to information that confirms our beliefs while dismissing or minimizing evidence to the contrary. For example, we may focus on news stories or personal anecdotes that reinforce our beliefs about the dangers of the world, while overlooking statistics or research that suggests we are relatively safe. This can create a self-reinforcing cycle where our anxiety leads us to seek out information that confirms our fears, further exacerbating our anxiety.

(I’m not even addressing how the content we’re fed, which also gives birth to, develops, and expands our emotional identity, is cherry-picked by powers greater than ourselves, which even further distances ourselves from reality. That is another essay for another day. For more on this: Jean Baudrillard.)

For most people, day-to-day emotions are subtle, and we are rarely aware of what’s insidiously solidifying our worldview. For instance, if we feel annoyed by something, we may quickly conjure up a story to explain our feelings. This internal discourse can strengthen our thought process. The actual cause of the feeling may have been as innocuous as a sound or smell stimulating a subconscious memory.

If you've been the victim of trauma, you are likely hypervigilant and aware of any and every cue that might remind you of the event(s) and represent danger. Although most of these cues don’t signify imminent peril, it is expected that you will acknowledge and analyze the feedback you’re getting from your environment. In any situation where emotions are strong and persistent, it behooves you to take notice and investigate; exploration with a licensed professional is recommended.

Let's circle back to AI. If an AI system is learning and generating based on flawed programming, the output will inevitably be questionable. Also, there are hooligans and ne'er-do-wells who are constantly creating false representations of celebrities and politicians engaged in all sorts of tomfoolery. To combat this, smart and capable individuals are developing tools to determine content provenance and authenticity. Hopefully, we will soon be able to reliably determine whether a Drake track was released by OVO or if it's a fake created in some dude’s mom's basement.

So, how do we determine the authenticity and provenance of our emotions? When we feel sad for no apparent reason, is it real time or historical? We may be quick to attribute our emotions to a particular cause, but our biases and upbringing shape our interpretation of events.

To avoid being misled by our emotions, I suggest waiting a few moments and letting them pass before responding. Most of our emotions are passing ghosts and aren't useful to us. By acknowledging that our programming and upbringing may have biased our interpretation of events, we can learn to question our emotions and develop our own content provenance. While AI tools may help us determine the authenticity of content online, we must learn to determine the authenticity of our emotions in real life.