Cognitive Dissonance « Unreasonable Faith Forum

Unreasonable Faith Forum » General » Current Events / Politics

Cognitive Dissonance

(12 posts) (6 voices)

Started 3 months ago by Revyloution
Latest reply from FO

Tags:

Revyloution
Member

Your world view isn't consistent. You hold contrary views that cannot be reconciled. Don't feel bad, I do too.

Us in the skeptical community often revel in causing dissonance in others psyche. Browsing Reddit/atheism shows countless examples. I'm curious about your conflicts. Mine often keep me up at night, reading about studies, trying to wrap my brain around huge problems that seem so vast that I'll never understand.

Here is the one I've been tackling with recently. I believe that the best, most stable societies are ones where individuals are allowed to make the maximum amount of free choices without negatively effecting others. I also believe that humans don't have free will. Of course, either topic could be a doctoral dissertation on its own (and has often been), but I want to explore how these two ideas conflict with each other.

If the best society requires a freedom of choice, but we are incapable of choosing, then why do free societies work so well? Is it that the illusion of freedom creates a more harmonious group dynamic? Lack of free will doesn't preclude an individuals acquisition of knowledge, and humans seem to be good knowledge acquiring creatures. Does this mean that eventually society will break down when the overall society realizes that we don't have free will? If a free society is the best system, then how do we choose it lacking the ability to choose?

As an individual in a free society, I feel compelled to try and bring free societies to the rest of my species. Will more information about our lack of free will crush that impulse and drive my into nihilism? Or does the emergent property of group intelligence suggest that free societies are the best system, and groups will eventually develop into that framework, if they don't kill themselves off first?

If freedom can increase stability in a population, then why do so many studies show that increased choice causes increased levels of stress and unhappiness in individuals?

Religions are successful as a stabilizing force for a group, because it enforced loyalty to the group. It seems to fail when the group get's too large, and schisms occur, or contact with a different religion, and violence erupts. What is the stabilizing force of free societies, or does one even exist?

That's what's keeping me up at night. What are your favorite conflicts in your worldview?

Posted 3 months ago #
drax
Member

People are stupid, persons may be smart. Greed and fear seem to be the two biggest drivers of the overall population. I've already been driven to nihilism, unless I can be distracted. I prefer comics, movies, and novels.

Posted 2 months ago #
drax
Member

I forgot to say that one of the conflicts in my worldview is that I am at once a good person and a terrible person.

Posted 2 months ago #
Revyloution
Member

Conflicted seems to be endemic to the human condition. Anyone who thinks that humans are intrinsically good has never had to supervise a group of toddlers.

I do disagree that people are stupid. Groups tend to react to stimuli in the same way individuals do. The concept of the 'hive mind' is often derogatory, but the same concept can be used to explain how a large group of researchers play off each other to make surprising discoveries. It's easy to point out groups of people who all behave badly (or stupidly), because these are the anomalies in the human condition. For the most part, humans in groups do amazing things.

Posted 2 months ago #
kessy_athena
Member

Wasn't it Scott Adams who said something to the effect of, "We're all idiots outside the extent of our expertise"?

Posted 2 months ago #
zach
Member

How is free will an illusion?

Parallel lines may not actually converge at a distance but that doesn't make our sense of vision an illusion. It's simply the nature of vision. We would not be able to "see" otherwise.

Decision-making is a complicated process. Essentially, we make decisions in one of two ways: either with emotion or with reason. Careful! Reason is not necessarily a better way to decide.

The emotional decision making process is fast and, if well trained, very very accurate. This is the reason why we have yet to construct a computer program that can beat the best of human backgammon players. This was the case with chess once upon a time. This only changed when programmers started writing software that "learned" in much the same way human beings learn.

My point is simply that the ability to choose freely requires a nature, a set of dispositions and experiences, or it would not exist. We are able to make decisions because we exist in a structured universe.

To say that the universe is "deterministic" is absurd because it implies that events are "determined," which is something that a person does as a result of being part of the universe.

Posted 2 months ago #
zach
Member

I do disagree that people are stupid. Groups tend to react to stimuli in the same way individuals do...

Intelligence is relative. We're pretty used to thinking on a tiny spectrum about this:

Village Idiot <-------------> MIT Graduate

A broader perspective might look more like this:
<-Plants--------Chipmunks----------------Village Idiot-MIT Grad-----------Dolphins---->

The whole smart/stupid classification doesn't mean much to me. We're all short-sighted and prone to cognitive biases.

EDIT: Edited formatting on that bastard visual.

Posted 2 months ago #
drax
Member

<-Plants--------Chipmunks----------------Village Idiot-MIT Grad-----------Dolphins---->

So long and thanks for all the fish!

Posted 2 months ago #
julie42
Member

I'm curious about why you don't believe in free will.
I'm guessing that you mean that since so many unconscious motives control our decisions, we're not actually making our own decisions. Social scientists can study people and predict what their actions will be. I still don't see this as not having free will. It is still ourselves that are making the choices, even if we aren't aware of that part of our self. And the more we learn about how much instincts play a role, the more we can choose for ourselves to override that.

Even if you don't agree that that's free will, I also don't think there's really much cognitive dissonance with your two ideas. It is clear that no matter why we make the decisions we make, people do make very different decisions all the time. The only way there is a real contradiction is if there is some outside force (a god or a dictator) with a will of its own forcing people to make certain decisions, while pretending they still have a choice. Nature may make a lot of choices for us that we aren't aware of, but since nature has no real agenda and can still be overcome, it's still free will in the end.

Posted 2 months ago #
FO
Member

Free will is a meaningless term, I highly suggest you guys define it before you start any sort of argument about it.

@Revy: "Free" societies work very well because they keep the tension very low.
It is difficult to have the power to make many suffer.
In this context, "Free" could be tentatively defined as "the individual has no power to make others suffer".

Also, free societies are the "best" but for what?
Happiness?
Stability?
GDP?
Ability to colonize other planets?
Reduced environmental impact?

What is the "best" you want?
Again, we have to decide what are we talking about.

Also, I think you are confusing 'choice' with 'freedom'.
Choosing between 100 brands of toothpaste can be stressful, but is not freedom.

In this context, religion is just a shared culture.
Non-religious societies can have that as well (Sweden comes to mind).

Posted 2 months ago #
Revyloution
Member

FO has a solid point, talking free will without a well defined starting point is really the monkey chasing the weasel around the mulberry bush.

Free Will by Sam Harris is a good starting point. It's short enough and easily digested. I've read many essays, papers, and books over the years. I'm not dead positive that free will is non-existent, I just feel that the preponderance of evidence shows that it is very unlikely.

@FO, I would say that the best societies are ones that have the least suffering. Stretch that out over time, and that could include overall happiness, reduced environmental impact, and perhaps colonizing other planets.

Yes, I agree that too much choice causes stress. Therein lies another of my great conflicts. If I choose a society that limits the number of toothpaste choices, I also limit the number of people who might want to make a unique toothpaste. Who do I choose to limit, the toothpaste shopper, or the toothpaste innovator? (if I have the ability to choose at all)

Yes, religion can be reduced to shared culture, but it has something that secular culture lacks: Revealed Knowledge. When a group receives what it believes is divine knowledge, it has an advantage over other groups in that it's core tenants cannot be questioned. In the short term, this is a big advantage over acquired knowledge in that it only requires obedience.

Posted 2 months ago #
FO
Member

@Revy: of course, religion enforces conformism while absolving the individual from the responsibility of making choices.
And conformism has a number of advantages.

At the same time, I find this absolution from personal responsibility very dangerous in a citizen (or in a member of any larger social group).
It creates false expectations and too much dependence on the leaders, usually resulting in very bad leaders.

I am not sure I get the point of your toothpaste example.

Posted 2 months ago #

RSS feed for this topic

Reply

You must log in to post.

A Reasonable Forum on Religion, Science, Skepticism, and Atheism

Cognitive Dissonance

Reply