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Originally Posted by Mark Lapierre  We have fear for a reason, to stop us from doing something which will harm us. But I assume you're only talking about immediately doing things which you have no rational reason to fear, and not, for example, swerving across three lanes of high-speed traffic just to see if you survive (my brain comes up with some scary ideas sometimes...) |
I have a bit of trouble seeing how there are rational reasons to fear something.
Example: take someone nearby a cliff. If they have no fears associated with the cliff, does that mean they'll carelessly walk to the edge, and jump off? They could simply decide, "Okay, there's a cliff here, however since I'd rather not injure myself, I'll take the necessary precautions not to fall over the edge." Fear doesn't have to be involved in this thought process, yet they're still able to protect themselves, using reason. So while I agree fear is more of a failsafe for preventing harm to oneself, the protective effects can be accomplished just as well by using our intelligence, not to mention that it also allows more conscious control of the situation which fear often "overrides."