What Happens to the Brain During Cognitive Dissonance? (2015) • Hacker News Board

Re: What Happens to the Brain During Cognitive Dissonance? (2015)

#61

Post by pessimizer » Mon, May 30, 2016, 10:10 PM UTC

riprowan wrote: post #52

pessimizer wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if you think your decisions purely based on fact, rather than thinking of your decisions as based on the best facts you have at the time. Cognitive dissonance is believing that two contradictory theories are most likely true based on the evidence you have. Since the evidence of the truth of one is also evidence for the untruth of the other, it means that when evaluating the evidence for one, you discount a diffe…

> This is never rational, and never something that you have to do. Not sure I agree with that. The real world is full of mutually exclusive moral problems, like when "do unto others" runs directly into "first do no harm" when deciding to give help to someone whose bad behavior you might be enabling.

The problem is continuing to hold both beliefs. You can't have two prime directives. You can't say "never do harm to anyone" and "always defend your children." You have to explicitly prioritize beliefs that have the potential to cause dilemmas.

Re: What Happens to the Brain During Cognitive Dissonance? (2015)

#62

Post by ItWasAllWrong » Tue, May 31, 2016, 5:20 AM UTC

Bluestrike2 wrote: post #60

ItWasAllWrong wrote: post #26

Sadly enough, cognitive dissonance is also one of the coping mechanisms that keeps people captured in a cult. I've been raised in a high control religion/cult. I've been out now for a while, but I was in for 24 years. The cognitive dissonance was very high at times, and I'm not the only one [1]. Looking back at it, I almost can't believe it took soo long to realize consciously what was happening to me. It's a weird t…

Interestingly enough, Leon Festinger first developed the theory of cognitive dissonance after looking at the behavior of doomsday cults. His book, When Prophecy Fails is fascinating: it looks at a doomsday cult in the 50s that believed aliens were going to rescue the cult from the world's end on a specific date. The members went all out preparing for the end, selling their belongings and gathering in one place. The d…

The last straw for me were the huge conflicts with science and Jehovah's Witnesses literal interpretation of the Bible:

- Adam & Eve vs DNA & archeology: JW's believe Adam was created about 6000 years ago, 4026 BC to be exact [1] and he was the root of humankind. - The Genesis flood narrative: JW's believe that all known kinds of animals survived a worldwide flood in 2370 BC [2], in a boat made from wood. - Destruction of Jerusalem (607BC vs 587BC): JW's use the wrong date 607BC [3] as a base of a dooms day prophecy, which is supposed to point to 1914 but streched and streched over time. Still waiting.

During the research of these things, I noticed quite some manipulative writings in their literature, presenting only the facts they agree with and misrepresenting the others. They also misquote and twist the words of scientists A LOT! [4]

Another thing was there their involvement with the UN. For an outsider this might look as a none issue, so let me clarify. This is what JW's are teached about the UN:

  "No, the UN is not a blessing, even though the religious clergy
  of Christendom and the rabbis of Jewry pray heaven’s blessing
  upon that organization. It is really “the image of the wild beast,”
  the visible political, commercial organization of “the god of
  this system of things,” Satan the Devil. So the UN will soon be
  destroyed along with that beastly organization."
  Watchtower 1984 Sep 15 p.15

  "The United Nations is actually a worldly confederacy against
  Jehovah God and his dedicated Witnesses on earth."
  Watchtower 1987 Sep 1 p.20

But the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society (this is how the JW organisation is officially called) joined the UN as an NGO and signed their charter, telling them they agreed with their ideas. [5] That's being dishonest and hypocrite about what they teach and what they do.

I could continue for a while, but you get the idea :)

[1] http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1200000089#h=7

[2] http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1200001150#h=2

[3] http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2011736 and http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2011810

[4] http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/misquotes-deception-lies.p...

[5] http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/united-nations-association...

Re: What Happens to the Brain During Cognitive Dissonance? (2015)

#63

Post by ItWasAllWrong » Tue, May 31, 2016, 5:27 AM UTC

xyzzy123 wrote: post #33

ItWasAllWrong wrote: post #26

Sadly enough, cognitive dissonance is also one of the coping mechanisms that keeps people captured in a cult. I've been raised in a high control religion/cult. I've been out now for a while, but I was in for 24 years. The cognitive dissonance was very high at times, and I'm not the only one [1]. Looking back at it, I almost can't believe it took soo long to realize consciously what was happening to me. It's a weird t…

I feel for you, and in many ways the hardest part is that everyone involved is so reasonable and loving if you don't contradict certain beliefs. All the best.

Thanks, but please don't feel for me. I'm out and I'm kind of ok. I'm feeling for the people still in the organisation, it will only get worse for them. They are the real victims. Sadly enough they are used to victimize other people and they don't even notice.

The 'reasonable and loving' part is called conditional love. It's a tool used by most cults.

Re: What Happens to the Brain During Cognitive Dissonance? (2015)

#64

Post by ItWasAllWrong » Tue, May 31, 2016, 5:38 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #45

ItWasAllWrong wrote: post #26

Sadly enough, cognitive dissonance is also one of the coping mechanisms that keeps people captured in a cult. I've been raised in a high control religion/cult. I've been out now for a while, but I was in for 24 years. The cognitive dissonance was very high at times, and I'm not the only one [1]. Looking back at it, I almost can't believe it took soo long to realize consciously what was happening to me. It's a weird t…

Re [2], well, shit. It was a while since I was in touch with what's going on there. I didn't see that level of playing on emotions coming. I guess I'll have to ask my family what's going on there...

Well, there's more:

They've made a bunker video for their convention, made me think of the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt [1]

A while ago, they also made a propaganda animation, made specially for children which teaches that being gay is wrong and can be cured [2]. They compare gay people with terrorists at the airport, going through TSA.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wackkicmf4k

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ag_dXO6HUSY

Re: What Happens to the Brain During Cognitive Dissonance? (2015)

#65

Post by Poorboyrise » Tue, May 31, 2016, 5:03 PM UTC

amasad wrote: post #34

jules wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ability to deal with uncertainty is not the same as cognitive dissonance. There is no cognitive dissonance involved in accepting that mutually contradictory propositions P and Q could be true, you just don't know yet which is. Cognitive dissonance is when you believe that both P and Q are true at the same time. Humans have a tendency to jump to conclusions because they don't like not knowing something, and any an…

Everyone must jump to a conclusion at some point -- you can't possibly collect all the evidence in the world. I think it is also a case of cognitive dissonance in believing that you can believe otherwise.

Shure with only anectodical reference...

During an interview one of my answers was: "for me - it sounds shit to live ambitions !"

And the answer was like the old adam and eve thingy: "But shit is a super fertilizer, it gives a filmsy plantlet growth and thriving.

"Because i have seen where you're going with this", i answered, "let me tell you that some people think, you can make every stand - when you only ground it"

wink