[Joely]

Originally Posted by cylon

Well, take out the word immature then, it's not getting us anywhere. You're taking it as a negative, so maybe I'm not clarifying what I'm saying very well.

Where "immature" was, put "more guided by emotions as opposed to reason".

And men are more guided by reason than by their emotions (strong silent type).

We can't have it both ways, be men and women and be the EXACT same way, with the same amounts of this or that.

Taken, incidentally, from a review of the state of knowledge of synaesthesia, it would appear that the limbic system, which handles emotion and qualitative information, actually feeds the rational neocortex. Our apparently "rational" decisions are in fact based on emotional assessments. We just like to kid ourselves about being rational - or you do.

9.3: When we think of our brains, we usually think of a computer, a reasoning machine in our heads that runs things. This is consistent with the hierarchical model. But emotion - which word I use to include irrational, a-rational, and non-verbal knowledge and cognition - is what actually directs our thoughts and actions. Like the Wizard of Oz, it is our a-rational inner life that pulls the levers behind the curtain. Our inner knowledge behind the curtain is largely inaccessible to introspective language, which means that what we feel about something is more valid than what we think or say about that something.

8.5 I am hardly rejecting either reason or the role of the neocortex in objective assessment or assigning meaning. Though we quickly speak of reason dominating emotion, the reverse is actually true: the limbic brain easily overwhelms thinking.

And this contains my favourite quote of all time:

Reason is just the endless paperwork of the mind. The heart of our creativity is our direct experience and the salience that our limbic brain gives it. Allowing it to be that does not stop us from overlaying rational considerations on it - after which we can talk, recount, explain, interpret, and analyze to our heart's content.

From: this article: Cytowic 1995 on the Phenomenology and Neurophysiology of Synaesthesia.

Men and women are as much guided by emotions, hormones, and brain chemicals as each other. There is a strange thing in human life: we think that we can be rational in a way that overrides the chemical and hormonal function of the brain. Basically, the argument raised by Cytowic is that what we think is a rational decision or assessment is based on emotional responses and reactions.

I ought to add that Cytowic is discussing in these quotes not the workings solely of the synaesthetic mind, but all human minds. It just so happens that synaesthesia allows one to examine these kind of functions in detail.