TheSquealer

You will never convince a conspiracy theorist they are wrong in their conclusions. It's just not going to happen. Here's why....

Your brain is an incredibly complicated machine. Often argued to be the most sophisticated computer on the planet. Unfortunately for your brain, the world is also a very complicated place. The good news however, is that your brain is very well adapted to dealing with this complex environment. Every waking moment, you are bombarded with endless sensory input. Sights, sounds, shapes, colors, smells, tastes and all the near infinite complexities and submodalities of each, often bombarding the mind all at the same time.

As a result, your brain does a lot of amazing things to deal with the overwhelming amount of information available to it every second of the day.

The 3 most important things your brain does to make sense of the world around it are these.

1) Your brain generalizes information
2) Your brain deletes information
3) Your brain distorts information

Your brain does this and in this process creates what can be called an "internal representation" of the world around it. It's a model. Owns own interpretation and understanding.

Imagine you need to get across the street to withdraw money from your bank before they close. It's 5:58. You've got less than 120 seconds to get from where you are, across the busy street and in the door.

What does your brain do?

The first thing your brain does is generalize information. You don't look at every footstep required to get across the street. You think more in broader terms "need to get across the parking lot, then across the street, then across that parking lot and then into the bank" - all of the millions of details such as the weather, the position of the sun, trees around you, sounds, where each footstep will be placed and so on, are irrelevant and you've generalized the process and how to get from a to b, using and observing and processing only relevant information to that task.

The second thing your brain does is that it deletes information that isn't useful as it goes. You don't remember details of the things behind you. You don't remember the cars you ran past. You don't remeber the bird singing in the background. You may not remember anything at all that doesn't stand out to you as being worth remembering that is not relevant to the tast. In fact, you can walk right past things for many years and never realize its there. Being aware of it or remembering it just wasn't important.

The third thing your brain does is that it distorts information. As you approach the street to run across and make it in time to the bank, you start tell yourself it's safer than it is, that cars are going slower than they are, that you have a wide enough gap to run between cars and so on. You lie to yourself. You create an often very innacurate picture of what you believe to be a truth or fact, based on what you need to believe in that moment.

Imagine you run out into the street and a car screeches to a halt before he hits you. What is the response of most people that would run out into the street and almost get hit? Usually the same defensiveness, telling themselves as they keep running that the driver is a shithead and so on - this happens because in their minds, most often (at least in that moment) they believe they've acted correctly. Their brains told them they acted correctly as they darted out into the street. How will they remember this event where they were almost hit by a car in the future? Well, memories are not memories. Memories are memories of memories of memories. You remember only the basic key points and a few snapshots/videos, maybe some sounds and so on, which may or may not be accurate at the time but which a definitey less accurate over time. This information is continually passed through those same filters. You're brain is only trying to keep what it needs. Your final memory of this event will most likely be distilled down to key and more often than not, wholly innacurate points. "i was fine. i was right. i acted appropriately. they were wrong... everyone over reacted. the driver acted innapropriately" etc.

The truth is that we ALL distort everything. Our brains filter and distort everything it takes in. Even our memories are simply filtered information of filtered information of filtered information. In fact, anything that you are aware of, has already passed through these filters and has already been distorted, generalized and some parts deleted before your conscious mind is aware of it. There is no information that you are consciously aware of which hasn't already passed through these filters.

We tend to believe that the way we percieve the world around us is . We generalize, we delete information and we distort information and accordingly, we create a model of the world that is nothing more than our own internal representation of how we understand the world. In fact, what are hallucinogenic drugs? You can eat an 1/8th ounce of mushrooms and stare at your hand for the next 6 hours, or God forbid, end up in front of a mirror and never get bored with what you are looking at. This is because those filters are now disabled and you are now seeing countless details and information that you've never noticed before because your brain was filtering it out. Hippies would love to tell you how they are expanding their mind, their consciousness and so on, but really, this information is filtered out for a reason... its irrelevant and unecessary and has no value and serves no useful purpose.

This is a simple explanation of how we all tend to end up with radically different understandings of the world around us and why we have so much difficulty seeing things the same way.

Think about all the things you argue about in life. Politics, money, Al Queda, bitcoins, George Bush, Republicans/Democrats or whatever. Each person having an often radically different internal representation of the world, shaped by their own generalizations and distortions and deletions are trying to argue to get the other to see the world in the same exact way that they do. Thats generally not possible. The model that you've created in your mind of the world, which shapes your thoughts, decisions, actions, feelings, communication with others and so on are very unique to you, though we all love to believe thats not true. For example, two people will argue about there being a God or not being a God and will never see eye to eye because both have learned to look at all the same evidence and distort into proof that their belief correct. In fact, people will look at the exact same thing and each see it as incontrovertable evidence that they are each correct though it is clearly not possible.

An important thing to understand in human behavior is how to know who is distorting information to an unreasonable degree.

What happens when we are presented with information that challenges our own internal representations of the world? Well.... Your brain generalizes, deletes and distorts information. The brain will create irrationally broad generalizations, start blurring the lines, concepts, definitions and so on and then will continue and distort a square peg to fit into a round hole and quite often, the brain will summarily dismiss any new and contradicting informtion as being irrelevant which doesn't fit into its own model of the world. Ooops!.... sounds an aweful lot like a conspiracy theorist, right?

So how do we know when one has gone too far and is deleting, distorting and generalizing information to an unreasonable degree?

How do we know when a discussion of bitcoins has gone from passive interest, discussion of new ideas, all possible outcomes to complete irrationality with an individual?

This answer is actually very simple.

Certainty.

Certainty, when it comes to beliefs and ones own internal representation of the world is simply the minds way of reinforcing the idea that your own representation of the world is perfectly correct. Certainty is how a brain defends itself from new information which might challenge it's own internal representation of the world.

What is a healthy position? What does a healthy mind do?

Doubt... You doubt what you believe. You question what you believe. You are open to new information and changing your beliefs and conclusions. What does doubt do? Doubt says you are willing to accept new information and are willing to change or expand your own internal representations of the world. Doubt makes room for new information. Certainty, rejects new information.

Have you ever seen a conspiracy theorist expressing doubt in their beliefs? Doubting their conclusions? Willing to accept new information which may challenge their views? Willing to say "oh, i guess 9/11 wasn't a government conspiracy"? Willing to accept they are wrong? Generally not. To what extent do they over generalize information? Shifting from specifics to broad and vague concepts "government", "authority" etc etc. Putting the presence or absence of mental disorders and disease aside, that's how you know there is something very off in how they are processing information and that they are clinging to a very distorted internal representation of the world and further distorting information to fit it into that model.

Conspiracy theorists typically are, above all things, 100% certain in their beliefs.

As user Camgirls said on GFY, (paraphrasing) "medications do not help stop the voices in my head, because the voices are real". He's made it clear that he's 100% certain of that fact.

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Yes, fewer illegal immigrants working equates to more job opportunities for American citizens.

Rochard