What is not called feelings! Almost all varieties of thinking, as long as they go beyond discursive (conscious, verbal, clearly structured) thinking, are all referred to as feelings. Feelings surprisingly include the activity of scenario thinking and figurative-associative thinking, include intuition and just vague, loosely connected thinking, include the habit of acting impulsively, on the basis of the first thought that came to a person …
A person with developed scenario thinking, simply looking at the situation and imagining its possible reversals, knows in advance: “It will go like this, but it won’t.” Scenario thinking is based on rich life experience and attentiveness to people, but to the question: “How do you know all this?” — there are usually no detailed answers, more often it sounds: «I see it, I feel it.» As an ordinary word usage, this is excusable, but with an attentive attitude to terminology, it is impossible to talk about feelings here.
An experienced person can come to an instant decision just by looking at the situation. There is nothing here beyond the scope of mental activity; this skill develops in any experienced and thinking person. It is quite common to call such convoluted, unconscious reasoning intuition. But to attribute this to the activity of the senses, to call it «one’s inner feeling» is also unfounded.
The use of figurative-associative thinking in ordinary word usage is also called not thinking, but feeling. The training participants are offered an exercise in associative thinking, the task is to say which person resembles which animal. At the same time, to the question: “Why do you think that this man looks like a bear, and this girl looks like a fox?” usually followed by the answer: «I feel it.»
What can be said here? People are inclined to explain by “their feeling” everything that they do not understand the action of in themselves. And the more a person does not understand himself, the more often he talks about his feelings …
This is especially true for girls, exactly due to the fact that they like to find feelings in themselves and like to talk about their feelings.
If a girl thinks, if something seems to her, then even if she does not see clear logic in her reasoning, she can always say “I feel”. It’s not pleasant to admit that you didn’t really think and there is nothing to substantiate your conclusions, and many people call their vague, loosely connected thinking their “feelings”.
This is especially common when a person wants to believe in his impressions. If you believe in something that is pleasant, especially if a person finds some kind of internal benefit in it (this protects against unnecessary questions and gives inner peace), you can call anything you like your feeling and justify any decision and inclination, your whims with your feelings. , weakness and stupidity.
The man was late for the plane, and later found out that the plane that had flown away without him had crashed. The traditional explanation is: «It was my heart that prompted me, which is why I was in no hurry and late.»
It happens that people act impulsively: a bright event attracted attention, a reflex or emotional anchors worked in the body … If someone allows himself to act impulsively, on the basis of the first thought that came to him or without thoughts at all, then explaining such also refer to the feeling that came to them. If such impulsiveness led to trouble, you can sigh and call what happened your impulsiveness. If the impulsive reaction turned out to be handy, it’s more pleasant to be sure that this “feeling prompts quickly and accurately”, then, for justification, recalling only relevant cases …
A smart person will find clues in everything: in the actions of those around him, and in the state of his body, and in the change in the weather, but these are the actions of his thinking, and not those of others, the body or the weather. True or not, a person is prompted only by his thinking, even if it is glued with feelings, in a package of feelings or accompanied by feelings. There seems to be no reason to talk about any important “messages” that are exclusively in the senses, transmitted precisely through the senses.