Subjective + Objective Synergy
Being rational certainly involves thinking, but thinking doesn't necessarily imply being rational. Why❓
Because, whether thinking or being rational, both are efforts towards understanding or becoming aware.
The simplest process of thinking involves tracing cause-and-effect relationships.
Can emotions also trace cause-and-effect relationships? Yes. So understanding something goes beyond just thinking; it also involves feeling.
Prioritizing one over the other is imbalance, as life dimensions encompass subjective (internal) and objective (external, daily life, scientifically termed as "empirical"). Thus, both "feelings" and "thoughts" are necessary.
Emotional Control
Some say, "using emotions is detached from consideration - losing control." Not entirely true, as the consideration process done through thinking has already occurred in the emotional process, through instincts that prevent when something feels painful. The consideration happens automatically. Not detailed but realistic, though challenging to plan for a broader realistic scope.
Similarly, control through detailed consideration might lack empathy to realize hidden reasons overlooked by rational thinking.
Comparison
So, thinking and empathizing are both attempts to understand cause-and-effect relationships but in different ways.
Hence, when someone says "thinking is superior to empathy," it's odd because both have similar fundamental functions with their respective advantages.
Is there thinking with foundations beyond tracing cause and effect? No.
Likewise, feelings have the same foundation; it's just that the cause-and-effect exploration can cover many points simultaneously.
If likened, thinking is like catching fish one by one from a pond. Meanwhile, feeling is like capturing cause-and-effect (various fish characteristics) all at once.
On one side, empathy easily concludes but lacks detail. On the other, thinking can calculate in more detail but may not quickly grasp the context (the direction of its conclusion).
Using both❓Certainly empowers us to analyze premises and draw conclusions in line with reality - more objectively.
Being Rational
Is being rational just thinking❓Or is it also empathizing❓
It's more than that. Being rational is not just thinking and empathizing (within it is imagination - thought experiments - falling under contemplation), but also praying.
So being rational is thinking and contemplating (empathizing) + prayer.
Exploring Cause and Effect & Logical Consequences
Why is thinking alone not enough for reasoning❓It's sufficient if it's just exploring cause and effect. However, it can't see the logical consequences behind it, meaning it's challenging to understand the universal truth underlying the logical consequences that underlie cause and effect.
Generalization vs. Universal
Thinking limited to cause and effect can only understand the map of deeper cause-and-effect relationships to a general extent (outline). But its universality doesn't extend to universal, only to probabilities (inductive processes or postulates in physics terms).
With logical consequences, it enables understanding both mathematical and non-mathematical axioms.
Broadening Perspectives
Logical consequences are conclusions from cause-and-effect as broad as it may be, yet its cause-and-effect remains narrow in relative terms.
Then, how can narrow observations (cause and effect) draw broader knowledge❓They can't, impossible❗️
Because "something cannot surpass its limits unless it receives an addition from outside itself" (from one cup of tea, you can't pour as much as one gallon of tea unless there's an addition from outside the cup).
Similarly, sensory perceptions limited to cause and effect won't be able to conclude the breadth of universal truth unless our perceptions receive additions from outside our own perceptions.
