by nathanial burton-bradford
The ability of people to communicate with one another
or understand one another requires a common basis for cognition. The
participants must perceive the same thing; share an understanding of reality--Lincoln's
first principles. Without a common perception of the world, people cannot even
recognize what other people are trying to say. Their conversations might as
well take place between persons riding on trains going in opposite directions.
Education must convey the truths that govern all things.
Given our existential existence, reality proves
extremely illusive. We can only interpret the limited energy we can process in
its various forms and construct images that reflect an organization of that
energy into comprehensive algorithms that adapt us to the world in which we
live. The distance between light bouncing off a tiger and the perception that
one is in danger requires a host of processes that took forever to evolve. Complexity
led natural selection to devise a dual system for constructing reality, each
providing a different strategy for interpreting energy. Thinking is an artistic
process.
The brain has two separate spheres, left and right,
that function differently yet compliment one another. They provide the
biological basis for familiar dichotomies like left/right,
liberal/conservative, fact-based first principles/word-based first principles,
and deductive/inductive reasoning. For reasons not yet clear, people tend to
favor one or the other of the dichotomies. Great artists may utilize both to
the fullest effect but few people do. Cognitive dissonance follows and trains continue
to pass in the night.
In discussing the shape of various dichotomies I will
not refer to the left or right side of the brain. The left side of the brain
does not give rise to liberalism and I am not tracking specific behaviors to
any part of the brain. I only address the functioning of dichotomies in cognitive
dissonance.
The dynamic duo (left/right side of the brain)
designs a fair piece of human nature. One side takes experience holistically
without attempting to reduce it to algorithms. It employs inductive reasoning.
The other side applies deductive reasoning to develop the algorithms that make
science and art possible. The two sides communicate and when the resulting algorithms
reach a certain level of development, they become part of one's operating
system.
The results may vary dramatically. My observations
conclude that some people perceive reality through the Word and others perceive
reality as a collection of Facts. A sacred text, authority, a dictator, or some
static meme defines the Word. Without analysis, comparison, distinction, or
other test for the meaning of experience, inductive reasoning may explain undifferentiated
experience with constructs such as God. Ironically, the Word as a means of
defining the holistic experience creates a constraint system that requires one
to put square pegs into round holes for the sake of certainty--hence the paradox
of conservative thinking. Inductive reasoning permits holistic observation but
the adaptations for resolving the multiplicity inherent in holistic experience
may create dogmas that require everything to conform to the Word, not the Word
to reality. Filtering experience through prior constructs alters the perception
of reality.
Deducing facts can be just as tricky. They are based
on tests of identity, reliability, and the ability to disclose predictions. We
can believe that fire requires fuel, heat, and oxygen because of the fact that if we remove one of the three,
the fire goes out. Most facts are not that easy to ascertain. The scientific
method makes its share of mistakes. Mathematics and other definitions of fact
also create constraint systems that filter reality.
I define cognitive dissonance as the difference
between reality and what we perceive as reality. While this may be overly
broad, it serves my purpose: why communication is so difficult. I include in
"communication" reading the signs nature gives us. Natural selection does not
favor us with a wisdom that distinguishes short-term from long-term adaptations
in the short term--the paradox. If the short-term adaptation uses up the resources
needed before natural selection eliminates the short-term adaptation, the
species does not survive. Those who look for the short-term solution will
perceive reality differently than those taking the long view.
Because of its tool-making capacity, the human
species has a large stake in avoiding short-term fixes. We may adapt to our
tools instead of the biological world that sustains us to a point where our
genes can no longer adapt to the new environment our tools create. Given a lack
of wisdom and natural disasters, surviving natural selection is something of a
miracle, like winning the lottery. Natural selection takes no prisoners.
Fact-based reality, as in science, may afford means
of correcting error. Some of the information required to discover deductive error
may come from inductive reasoning, just as misreading holistic experience may
surface through deductive reasoning's handling of detail. The two approaches to
ascertaining reality require integration to achieve an equilibrium that permits
specific responses to the present challenges of survival while avoiding those
adaptations that prejudice continuation of the species. Technology may increase
food production at the expense of healthy soil, which in time will decrease
food production. Without holistic oversight, side effects of technology--the
unintended consequences--may reduce chances of survival.
The competition between individuals to survive drove
biological evolution. However, individuals cannot compete with communities that
employ divisions of labor based on merit where everyone participates in the
production and distribution of the things produced. Hence, natural selection
gave us tribes. The ability to cooperate is part of our genetic makeup. Paradoxically,
the power of the tribe to protect individuals resulted in wars between tribes. Speculatively, the destructive power of
tribes may well have prompted natural selection to favor the invention of God
as a way of reducing tribal conflicts through a common "father.'
Natural selection also influences group survival. In
the acquisition of resources, the composition and functioning of one group may marshal
resources better than other groups. Individuals must decide how much of their
personal search for wealth they are willing to sacrifice to maximize the group's
efficiency--the social contract. How much will they benefit from the group's
ability to provide? As if relationships are not already complicated enough, the
relationship between the group and the individual adds another layer of
adaptations natural selection may influence. The perception of how individuals
and/or groups should relate to one another also colors reality.
Hundreds of years of wars between tribes and then
nations and the sacrifices people were forced to make to support them for the
benefit of king or church focused the last few centuries on the relationship
between group and individual. The American Constitution and subsequent
guarantees of individual rights were supposed to resolve that relationship,
first in America and then the world. Such was our hubris. Individualism has now
reached a point where the functioning of necessary cooperative efforts is at
risk.
Cognitive dissonance has reached a point where America
is becoming ungovernable as partisan politics turns the dichotomies into
something like an inquisition to eliminate the evil other. Instead of dealing
with our factual problems, a holy war for dominance of one philosophy over the
other ensues. Who pays taxes becomes a question of who deserves to keep their
profits, the keepers of the faith, rather than what government needs to do for
everyone. A battle of Words provides a distraction from on-the-ground needs and
the waste and fraud that is robbing the government of needed revenue--an apology
for greed.
The mediation of the three contests, individual
versus individual, group versus group, and individual versus group takes the
form of government, culture, and moral codes. Once biological competition has
evolved a competent species, unbridled competition between individuals weakens
everyone. The earliest codes address that problem. When tribes were small and
isolated, little need for codes between tribes existed. Raiding one another
provided another resource. The consequences of technology have drastically
altered relationships between groups. In the atomic age, cognitive dissonance between
modern tribes threatens life.
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