One of the most pervasive, pernicious, and persistent delusions of humanity is that bane of nerd, intellectuals, atheists, and Vulcans throughout the galaxy, the delusion of being a logical creature.

Ironically, this delusion is often most vehemently and virulently clung to by those who take pride and not a little sadistic pleasure in attacking the delusions of others. It is a measure of the nakedly absurd nature of this delusion that said individual often then brags about how free of delusions they are, which is hardly a very logical thing to do.

So let’s get this straight. You are not logical. You might try to use logic as your guide to living, you might do your best to keep a skeptical yet open mind, you might even have cleansed a great many of the more popular and obvious delusions from your conscious mind, but you are not and never will be a logical creature. Such a thing does not exist and quite possibly never will. Banish that thought from your mind right along with belief in ghost, the bogeyman, and unfettered capitalism.

How do I know this? I hear you asking. Simple. If you are reading these words, you are a human being. That means that you are a complicated patchwork of monkey and man and wolf, with an oversized brain and a jury-rigged body both filed with uncertain compromises between animal and human, between tree monkey and hunting ape and civilized sentient, and that means you are struggling in the dark like the rest of us. Becoming more enlightened about certain things does not free you from your basic human nature, and the very idea that it could is nothing but ludicrously obvious bathetic hubris.

As human beings, we are certainly unique amongst all the myriad life forms we know of that have evolved here on this magnificent planet of ours of being capable of logical thinking. Our impressive forebrains allow us to plan, reason, decide, discern, and cooperate with a level of sophistication and power that is unrivaled in both quality and quantity anywhere else on Earth. But there is a vast chasm between being capable of logic and reason, and being led entirely or even predominantly by it.

Still not convinced of your own irrationality? Fair enough. Let’s attack this problem from another angle, namely the philosophical angle. Let us examine the logical nature of motivation. After all, a logical person is only moved by motivations of pure logic, right?

But what, exactly, is a logical motive? Examine any action taken by human being, and you will soon hit a purely emotional motivation if you simply follow the chain of motivations high enough. It is like the child’s game of simply asking “Why?” over and over again until the adult you are pestering gives up in exasperation and assigns you extra chores.

Believe it or not, this childish game is actually quite philosophically illuminating. No matter what starting point you choose, eventually, you end up at the final irreducible answer : because they wanted to. Because like all creatures, they sought to gain pleasure and avoid pain. They did it because it seemed like a good idea at the time. All motivations are, ultimately, purely emotional.

Logic can help us sort through possibilities, pick actions that are more likely to lead to the outcomes we desire, provide invaluable assistance when finding our way through the maze of life, but it cannot provide a reason to care. To logic, life and death, pleasure and pain, good and evil are all exactly the same. It is only our irrational animal emotions which cause us to value one over the other, and which can provide the meaning, motion, and motivation that turns the cold blueprint of logic and knowledge into the living, breathing reality of action.

No action, no matter how noble, altruistic, self-sacrificing, or downright insane it seems, is done for any other reason than to seek pleasure or avoid pain. Despite our high ambitions and even higher opinion of ourselves, ultimately we human beings are no different in that respect than the amoeba flowing towards the paramecium in a petrie dish. The ways we pursue our pleasures and flee our pains are undoubtedly more complex and our powers and abilities to do so of vastly different magnitudes, but in the end, it’s all about the purely emotional desire for pleasure.

Physical pleasure, emotional pleasure, intellectual pleasure, even spiritual pleasure. But pleasure, nevertheless. And logic alone provides no reason why ecstasy is better then agony.

It is a purely human preference.