RetroAdventurer

No, you can’t, that’s just plain silly. There’s no way to change your emotions without first changing your thoughts. Don’t just make stuff up.

You can absolutely prime people to think differently about something by engaging their emotions in different ways first. All film makers, political advertisers, marketers, etc know this. It's how propaganda works.

One name for this is peripheral route persuasion. It's the type of persuasion that depends on slick production, trustworthy messengers, visuals, etc. It could also use scary images of terrorists to make you more likely to agree with authoritarian restrictions.

Central route persuasion is when you put a set of arguments forward and people evaluate them intellectually on their merits. But it's impossible to do this without making people feel motivated to put the work in. Otherwise they'll walk away and not waste time and effort.

Another example is when you communicate about something legitimately threatening, e.g. climate change. When people get too scared they refuse to think about it. They have to feel there is something they can do to reduce the threat. Managing emotions is the top priority.

If humans were capable of thinking first and feeling second, all of this would be SO MUCH EASIER.

But also, in other ways, very very much harder. Because you wouldn't be able to make people care, and if they don't care they don't think.

You’re confusing language & thinking. We can think without language. However it’s true certain kinds of thinking are only possible with language. Regardless we can’t feel an emotion without first thinking. We can feel physical sensations without thinking but those aren’t emotions