Cognitive Dissonance

If you engage in arguments/discourses often, you probably are familiar with the term Cognitive Dissonance, because people tend to throw it around a whole lot. for such linguistic candy, it’s meaning is also beautiful. the wikipedia entry for cognitive dissonance defines it as 'the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time; performs an action that is contradictory to their beliefs, ideas, or values; or is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas or values'. but what really does this mean?    

Basically, The theory is that when we hold a certain belief to be true, and an idea which also seems true, but contradictory is given to us. we experience a discomfort, an internal awkwardness causing us to reject the new idea and look for some sort of justification for our current belief, even though this belief might be clearly shown to be wrong in the new idea which we rejected. in some severe cases, we reject not just the idea. but discard the argument completely. 

A typical scenario where one would encounter the use of this term is in a debate between atheists and theists, where the atheist accuses the theist of having cognitive dissonance and refusing any type of evidence pointing contrary to the illusory beliefs which the theist holds. and then the atheist declares himself the rational one. however the theist can also argue that, cognitive dissonance is an all too human characteristic. it applies to the atheist himself. for example, if an atheist were to have a manifestation from the divine, they would probably deny this to themselves, and even possibly claim that they are having illusions and are going mad, just to stay consistent with their own beliefs that the divine is non-existent. so, as a matter of fact, experiencing cognitive dissonance, and rejecting the new belief is not an altogether bad thing, indeed, this dissonance often aids the scientific enquiry.

What is it that makes the human mind want to believe and stay consistent with it’s beliefs? what is it that makes us cling to what we already know? why is it difficult to accept something different in the wake of evidence? why do we resist to atleast contemplate the possibilities in the presence of new ideas? why do we feel this awkward sensation within ourselves? for the scientific mind, when we experience Cognitive Dissonance, we analyze the situation and the conflict is resolved in favor of the option with the stronger case. NOT the one that came first. thus we accept new ideas even when they go against our intuitions(as in quantum mechanics and relativity) or abandon some (like string theory) depending on the strength of their case. obviously much progress can be made this way. 

The philosopher plato also talks about this in the Allegory of the Cave. in this story, some prisoners are chained from birth in a cave with their faces to the wall so that they are unable to see the opening and the world beyond it. They only see the shadows of objects passing by the cave, cast on the wall, and they build their ideologies of reality from this shadows. to them, the shadows are all that exist. one of the prisoner breaks free, goes out and sees that the world is different from what they have experienced. and that the shadows are not the real thing, comes back to share this enlightenment with his mates but the prisoners refuse to leave the cave because they are comfortable with their own idea of reality. the implication of this, is that a lot of people do not like their ideas/beliefs challenged. it makes them very uncomfortable. Plato concludes that the philosopher is one who would accept this new idea, leave the cave to experience the reality outside for himself, the curious mind, who gets rewarded by experiencing a richer form of life.

To understand the world, we need to understand ourselves better and to do so we must get rid of our biases and cognitive dissonance. knowing the problem, like they say, is the first solution. so perhaps the next time you are presented with facts that contradict your belief, instead of trying to justify your belief, or become aggressive you will at least be objective and analyze the situation, choosing the one with the stronger case. we must be fervent and rigorous in our pursuit of knowledge, we should refuse to be trapped by cognitive dissonance because our belief, as real as they may seem, might be based on false dogma, for example. when next you feel that awkward sensation of rejecting a belief, you can identify it and analyze it. get rid of the occlusion that is cognitive dissonance, and open yourself to the exhilarating thrills of epiphanies. perhaps this will bring us one step closer to discovering universal truth and peace.

i’ll end this with a quote from lao tzu. ‘To the mind that is still, the whole Universe surrenders.’

At ease.