Cognitive Dissonance or How we Resolve our Dissonances.

[_Runtu]

But I am glad that you again have demonstrated the ultimate anti-Mormon philosophy--that you are all superiorly enlightened. And those LDS who are intelligent will eventually come to adopt your point of view. Those who don't are just too "brainwashed" to be able to escape the clutches of evil Mormondom.

You don't think that is just a tad bit arrogant?

Who said that? Not me. I did point out a major flaw in your argument that religious truth is outside the realm of the factual. How is that arrogant?

[_the road to hana]

But I am glad that you again have demonstrated the ultimate anti-Mormon philosophy--that you are all superiorly enlightened. And those LDS who are intelligent will eventually come to adopt your point of view. Those who don't are just too "brainwashed" to be able to escape the clutches of evil Mormondom.

You don't think that is just a tad bit arrogant?

I think you might be projecting here.

Actually, aren't you the one who holds a position of superiority and believes that if anti- or ex-Mormons were enlightened, they'd adopt your perspective? Don't you think they succumb to too much group-think to do that?

[_Ren]

I haven't heard you describe just what kind of believers you were. Like Harmony?

I don't believe this hana. And this is what is so puzzling to me. I really am trying to understand it.

"No true Scotsman"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

[_JAK]

charity,

The above type of response from you is exactly the reason that JAK recently made this statement to antishock8:

This should give you some idea of what you’re dealing with in Charity.

Don’t attempt to confuse her with the facts or requirement for evidence for faith-based conclusions, she is not interested.

You don't want to engage in thought, charity. You want to put up a post and ignore any challenge to your statements or your thinking.

I don't want to engage in long discussions of highly irreleveant posts filled with minutiae. JAK has repeated himself over and over about transparency, and I have responded. But it rolls right off his back and he comes right back with the same exact post, even when the topic is different.

This topic is not about faith-based conclusions. And the inclusion of a l-o-o-o-n-g post about tha ttopic is tiresome.

Charity,

You’re anti academic. You have yet to address any of my comments and demonstrate them to be “irrelevant” to the issues before you.

You have yet to address transparency of evidence.

You have not addressed as you claim here the analysis either of Jersey Girl or of JAK.

Everyone can read the posts and see if you have responded to the challenges.

Among your more absurd claims was this:

Charity:
Sometimes, we rework the old schema so that the new information can fit in without changing the new information. Sometimes we change the new information so it will fit the schema without changing the scheme. Assimilation or accomodation. (bold added for emphasis)

That’s a great example of cognitive dissidence. “Change the information so it will fit the schema…”

The information about whatever it is stands established. Otherwise it’s not information. It's disinformation or misinformation.

See: schema

There are enough definitions here to make your use of the term wrong. Your language is bogus. “Assimilation or accommodation” you present as a sentence. It’s meaningless.

Particularly it’s meaningless following the previous sentence that we “change the new information so it will fit…” Give us several examples of changing information so the "schema" will fit.

Just what specifically do you think your talking about?
I suspect you have no idea what your talking about. Give us several examples.

Now stop with the claim that you have “responded” to the analysis with which you have been confronted. You have not.

Charity:
This topic is not about faith-based conclusions. And the inclusion of a l-o-o-o-n-g post about tha ttopic is tiresome.

Now just what is this topic about?

The fact is that with information which has met the standards for genuine information, disambiguation is achieved. We don’t make information fit a paradigm. Rather, information provides the structure for shift of paradigm when the paradigm is wrong.

Let's see some straight unambiguous answers.

JAK

[_JAK]

LOL! We were BELIEVERS when we started out on this journey, charity.

I haven't heard you describe just what kind of believers you were. Like Harmony?

Many of us were believers just like you. Well, maybe not JUST like you (there's likely no one else just like you).

It's not a one-size-fits-all.

I don't believe this hana. And this is what is so puzzling to me. I really am trying to understand it.

Charity,

Just exactly is it that you don’t understand in this simple statement? It’s about a simple and straight forward a statement as one might make.

JAK

[_JAK]

Runtu,

You make many fine posts, but there’s something here with which I take exception. Your last statement:

Runtu states:
If your religious truth involves 12-foot-high green-skinned Norwegians dwelling in 1940s Argentina, then you can take it on faith and no one can or should convince you otherwise.

This appears to support your earlier statement in the same post that information should be discounted or dismissed in the face of information and evidence which contradicts claimed beliefs -- which equal "religious truths."

Why would you say that? It’s relevant to the distinction between what we know (or can know by research) and what we imagine (or take someone else’s imagination). Absent that clear, transparent evidence which is critical to reliable information, religious truths are based on what?

They are based on the ignorance of the past and the imagined “12-foot-high green-skinned Norwegians…” for which the is no evidence. Hence claimed religious truths are irrelevant.

If man was intended to fly, God would have given man wings.

Well, man does fly and with wings, but not like a bird. The religious truth was not true. And it took skeptical review along with information and knowledge to prove that man could fly. And now we (man) are in space, have been to the moon and back, etc.

“Religious truths,” when examined objectively, are often false. Religious dogma masquerades as explanation. It is not explanation and never was. However, centuries ago, when literacy was virtually non-existent in the masses, religious truths were passed off as explanation. People then had great struggle just to survive sufficiently long enough to reproduce. Some civilizations died out entirely as a result of various factors which transcended their capacity to adapt and cope with truths they did not and could not understand (at that time).

So called religious truths have been a drag and a stifling factor in the evolution and emergence of increased knowledge. Generally, religious dogmas have had the effect of keeping people ignorant. Again, they masquerade rather than discover. They contribute to cognitive dissidence.

JAK

You're preaching to the choir, JAK. Maybe you misunderstood, but I was articulating the problem with charity's approach, which is simply that facts and verifiable truths are irrelevant to religious truth. She told us that religious truth is outside the realm of verifiable fact. That's clearly the case for some ideas, such as the existence of God, but not for all. If I read charity correctly, and she hasn't contradicted what I said, if she believed in the green skinned Norwegians, no facts would matter to her, as long as she had a spiritual witness that the Norwegians really did exist.

Runtu,

Sorry if I misunderstood.

Thanks for the clarification. I quite agree.

JAK

[_JAK]

Cognitive dissonance is part of the reason why we learn. It is neither bad nor good. It just is.

Schol teacher time. Sorry ifyou all already know this.

Jean Piaget called it adaptation. And there are two features--assimilation and accomodation. We all form schemas. When new information comes in that doesn't fit, this creates cognitive dissonance, and it is uncomfortalbe enough to motivate us to resolve the conflict.

Sometimes, we rework the old schema so that the new information can fit in without changing the new information. Sometimes we change the new information so it will fit the schema without changing the scheme. Assimilation or accomodation.

I have read an article by Terryl Givens (The Lightning of Heaven, BYU studies) where he makes the statement that there is plenty of evidence on either side for what he calls "a life of credible belief" or "a life of dismissive denial."

I think this assimilation/accomodation problem is the answer on the surface to why two people can take the same information and deal with it in these contrary modes.

The real question is why does one person go one way and the other person go the other?

I would be interested to hear ideas on this. And I hope the discussion can stay well above the level of "because you are stupid," or "because you are brainwashed."

"Cognitive Dissonance or How we Resolve our Dissonances."

Humans with brain to think and to reason have some options.

One option is to think, to take in new information to embrace that information which we, ourselves, did not generate.

Second option is to pretend the information does not exist.

Third option is to deny the information.

Fourth option is to find yet more information which may support or alter previously discovered information. Inventions and discoveries are made utilizing the fourth option.

With the second and third options, we can deceive ourselves by wishful thinking or cognitive dissonance.

JAK

[_JAK]

Sometimes, we rework the old schema so that the new information can fit in without changing the new information. Sometimes we change the new information so it will fit the schema without changing the scheme. Assimilation or accomodation.

The changing of new information is where you go wrong, charity. It is not the changing of information that constitutes assimilation and accomdation, it is *the revising of schema*. How on earth you can justify corrupting Piagetian theory is beyond me.

This is the definiton of assimilation: :The process by which a person takes material into their mind from the environment, which may mean changing the evidence of their senses to make it fit." I.e. new information has to be "changed" to fit. Which is what I said.

I have read an article by Terryl Givens (The Lightning of Heaven, BYU studies) where he makes the statement that there is plenty of evidence on either side for what he calls "a life of credible belief" or "a life of dismissive denial."

What is his position of conclusions reached via critical thinking and analysis. There are more options than what you say Givens presents.

So if you don't accept it, or you don't deny it, what is left? A neutral position. Wait and see?

I think this assimilation/accomodation problem is the answer on the surface to why two people can take the same information and deal with it in these contrary modes.

The real question is why does one person go one way and the other person go the other?

Because one person is functioning in formal ops and other in concrete ops

Come on, charity! This is Piagetian Theory 101 for Dummies!

I didn't call the people here dummies. But I think I can see what you mean with formal operational thought and concrete operational thought. People who deal only in facts can't deal with abstract concepts. People who deal with religious truths for which there aren't provable facts, must needs be at the formal operational level.

OR...

They are both functioning in formal ops and one or the other compartmentalizes their thinking.

I think Dan Vogel illustrates this compartmentalization. He absolutely cannot admit that there is any supernatural realm, and everything has to stay in that box.

I would be interested to hear ideas on this. And I hope the discussion can stay well above the level of "because you are stupid," or "because you are brainwashed."

How do you plan to incorporate the stages of cognitive development in to your theory? You could have thought a little more about the characteristics and cognitive abilities of concrete vs formal ops instead of skimming the surface of Piagetian theory and simply reducing it to assimilation and accomodation.

I think probably formal operation or concrete operational may have something to say on the subject, as I answered you questions above.

I really don't know how everything interacts. That was why I asked the question.

Where does convergent vs divergent thinking enter into your theory?

I don't have a theory. I have questions. Convergent thinking, the one right or best answer, seems to fit the one true gospel and Church concept. Divergent thinking many right answer, no wrong answers, may fit well in some venues. Which is what the traditional Christian world is, or even the world as a whole, but it certainly is not the Lords' way. Just one example: Matt. 7: 14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

Changing the new information? You have got to be kidding me! That's what apologists do!

Only from your side of the fence.

Charity,

Tom Delay: “No science supports that man contributes to climate change.”

That in the face of the fact that nearly 100% of scientists around the world have consensus that man (mankind 6+ billion people) is contributing to global warming.

That’s an example of cognitive dissonance.

Delay employs truth by assertion. When asked how many scientists support his position, he claims the news broadcaster is just trying a “trick question.”

That’s cognitive dissonance.

That example has no obvious reference to religion, charity.

This one does:

Charity states:
Convergent thinking, the one right or best answer, seems to fit the one true gospel and Church concept. Divergent thinking many right answer, no wrong answers, may fit well in some venues. Which is what the traditional Christian world is, or even the world as a whole, but it certainly is not the Lords' way. Just one example: Matt. 7: 14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

Yet you contend this topic is not about religion. Quoting the Bible as support for your view is about religion.

JAK

[_beastie]

charity said:

But I am glad that you again have demonstrated the ultimate anti-Mormon philosophy--that you are all superiorly enlightened. And those LDS who are intelligent will eventually come to adopt your point of view. Those who don't are just too "brainwashed" to be able to escape the clutches of evil Mormondom.

You don't think that is just a tad bit arrogant?

Earlier on this same thread, charity asserted:

But I think I can see what you mean with formal operational thought and concrete operational thought. People who deal only in facts can't deal with abstract concepts. People who deal with religious truths for which there aren't provable facts, must needs be at the formal operational level.

Let's get this straight. Charity is asserting that skeptics who reject religious claims for which there are no provable facts "can't deal with abstract concepts", whereas believers, like charity, who DO accept religious claims for which there are no probable facts are at the "formal operational level".

Then she accuses us of arrogance.

Classic Charity. She's just shooting fish in barrels.

[_JAK]

charity said:

But I am glad that you again have demonstrated the ultimate anti-Mormon philosophy--that you are all superiorly enlightened. And those LDS who are intelligent will eventually come to adopt your point of view. Those who don't are just too "brainwashed" to be able to escape the clutches of evil Mormondom.

You don't think that is just a tad bit arrogant?

Earlier on this same thread, charity asserted:

But I think I can see what you mean with formal operational thought and concrete operational thought. People who deal only in facts can't deal with abstract concepts. People who deal with religious truths for which there aren't provable facts, must needs be at the formal operational level.

Let's get this straight. Charity is asserting that skeptics who reject religious claims for which there are no provable facts "can't deal with abstract concepts", whereas believers, like charity, who DO accept religious claims for which there are no probable facts are at the "formal operational level".

Then she accuses us of arrogance.

Classic Charity. She's just shooting fish in barrels.

Excellent analysis, beastie!

It’s ironic that charity began a topic on cognitive dissonance.

It’s the about the last kind of topic one might expect that she would start.

Without question, charity projects “arrogance.”

I’m skeptical that she could construct any definition of “formal operational thought” and clearly distinguish that vague verbiage form “concrete operational thought.”

If she would like to try, we will be attentive to her detailing of those two separately and then combined.

JAK