In a world without emotion

Neuropsychology might sound like it would be a bit technical but it provided enough inspiration to one young woman with a penchant for becoming a writer.

When the term ‘cold cognition’ was briefly discussed in Kaylah Acevedo’s class at Grant MacEwan University a few years ago, somehow the idea stuck.

“Cold cognition is the cognitive process of thinking without using emotion: emotion isn’t influencing your decision-making,” she stated.

“I thought about it all through my undergrad degree and then I took a year and taught English in Spain. All the time, I thought, ‘I want to do this. I want to write this book.’ Everybody around me says ‘I want to write a book some day,’ well, I’m actually going to do it … just find a way and do it.”

And that’s just what she did when she returned to Canada. Cold Cognition is the 23-year-old’s first novel, released at the beginning of the summer. It’s a pre- and post-apocalyptic look at a society that eschews its emotions in order to preserve a state without war or conflict.

The book starts in the near future where there is a terrible spate of violence and corruption. Cold Surgery is invented to cure the human race of its biggest flaw: emotion.

The Cold Cognition Movement grows to create a population entirely devoted to logic but there’s a problem. Despite the splendour of peace that has swept the land, there is now also a marked void where passion once was. They must decide if peace is really worth giving up compassion, joy and love. Naturally, this comes with people on two sides of the issue, and more conflict arises.

Acevedo sees how an emotionless world could be tried, but that it wouldn’t work the way people would want it to.

“I wanted to show what a world would look like without emotion. I know it’s been done before but I did it in a way that it could actually happen. We already have people without emotions. They’re called psychopaths and sociopaths. I don’t think it would be as great as people say it would be, that there’s no racism, sexism or prejudice and that could be true but I don’t think it would be peaceful at all if you don’t have any empathy.”

Despite its technical neuropsychological roots, Cold Cognition is meant to be easily accessible to any reader, complete with fun, relatable characters by the author’s own design. Acevedo noted that she used only her initials K.A. on the cover just as J.K. Rowling did and perhaps with the same intent to make her book open to all audiences both young and old.