Several years ago, I realized that the human mind often falls into a trap. If something isn’t clear, it causes discomfort. But understanding and analyzing it takes time, so placeholders in the form of mystifications and favored ideas are often inserted in place of the unclear, without critical analysis.
Ultimately, anyone’s mind can be a mess. In some areas, everything might be in agreement, while in others, where understanding is lacking, nonsense and mystification can be lurking. And if you look from the outside, you can see how mutually opposite pictures of the world coexist in one head. It’s good if there are only two or three mutually opposing worldviews. But there are people who have many such worldviews. It’s interesting to observe when, at the end of a sentence, someone denies what they said at the beginning. And this, unfortunately, is normal. Evolution has gifted us with a brain that’s designed exactly this way.
Last time I wrote about the existence of such a trap, and this time I want to draw attention to the fact that there is a mechanism for maintaining such hoaxes. This is also an evolutionary mechanism. It’s laziness, laziness to think. Long-term brain activity did not bring any noticeable benefit for many millions of years, but led to excessive energy expenditure.
This laziness leads to insurmountable obstacles in our heads. When a person feels comfortable within their current worldview, he will actively promote his beliefs. Anything to avoid the work of changing one’s worldview. Anything to think less. Aggression is less energy-consuming than thinking.
Unfortunately, there are very few people who can even see what is happening on the other side of the fence. Who will try to understand what others are talking about. There are even fewer people who can tear down their fences and rebuild their picture of the world when new facts emerge. However, those who overcome this limitation are capable of experiencing unforgettable euphoria when the puzzle comes together to form a coherent picture. After all, at this moment, pleasure hormones are released due to the optimization of the neural network.
But there may be a trap here too. Optimization can arise from false assumptions and lead to further misconception. It’s simply an evolutionary mechanism that developed for survival, not for the pursuit of truth.