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Comment by jules | Hacker News Reader

The ability to deal with uncertainty is not the same as cognitive dissonance. There is no cognitive dissonance involved in accepting that mutually contradictory propositions P and Q could be true, you just don't know yet which is. Cognitive dissonance is when you believe that both P and Q are true at the same time. Humans have a tendency to jump to conclusions because they don't like not knowing something, and any answer is better than no answer. It's precisely those people who can't deal with uncertainty who must deal with the most cognitive dissonance when the conclusion they jumped to turned out to be wrong, particularly when they've turned that conclusion into dogma.

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For the most part. Cognitive dissonance is the stress that results in believing P and Q are true at the same time, along with a few other scenarios such actions contradictory to one's beliefs or being confronted with evidence that is contrary to one of your beliefs (belief disconfirmation paradigm). We then engage dissonance reduction to arbitrate the difference and lessen the stress. One of the easiest methods of which is ignoring or rejecting the conflicting evidence or ignoring the voices that are--literally--causing you mental pain.

Socially, belief disconfirmation is arguably the most problematic because it turns rational discourse into something very, very ugly. Instead of persuading people, evidence and debate can further entrench a given belief instead. When certain issues became almost identity and lifestyle statements (climate change denial, the anti-vax movement, GMO hysteria, etc.), contrary evidence is perceived as a personal attack instead of a weighing of scientific evidence to determine fact. Unfortunately, overcoming this isn't easy. And it's made that much harder when people are able to retreat into their preferred echo chambers rather than be forced to directly confront the dissonance.

Everyone must jump to a conclusion at some point -- you can't possibly collect all the evidence in the world. I think it is also a case of cognitive dissonance in believing that you can believe otherwise.

You never have to decide that something is absolutely true regardless of any new evidence.

If you are only thinking about it, yes. If you want to take a decision based on the thought process, you have to pick a side at one point, knowing that it might not be the right side.

Only if you think your decisions purely based on fact, rather than thinking of your decisions as based on the best facts you have at the time.

Cognitive dissonance is believing that two contradictory theories are most likely true based on the evidence you have. Since the evidence of the truth of one is also evidence for the untruth of the other, it means that when evaluating the evidence for one, you discount a different set of evidence than you do when evaluating the evidence for the other.

This is never rational, and never something that you have to do. It's usually done to avoid conclusions that would force you (according to your own ethics) to give up something that you have, or not take something that you want.

> This is never rational, and never something that you have to do.

Not sure I agree with that.

The real world is full of mutually exclusive moral problems, like when "do unto others" runs directly into "first do no harm" when deciding to give help to someone whose bad behavior you might be enabling.

The problem is continuing to hold both beliefs. You can't have two prime directives. You can't say "never do harm to anyone" and "always defend your children." You have to explicitly prioritize beliefs that have the potential to cause dilemmas.

You can make decisions in the face of uncertainty based on an assessment of the risk and the probabilities of the possible outcomes. If you get in your car you put your seatbelt on without knowing whether you're going to need it for that particular ride. There's no need to "pick a side" on the question of whether you're going to have an accident on that ride. Being uncertain about something is almost the opposite of cognitive dissonance, which comes from being quite certain about contradictory propositions.

You can pick a conclusion without acting like it's certain.

"I decided X but these pieces of evidence induce doubt" is not cognitive dissonance. It's capacity for uncertainty.

Shure with only anectodical reference...

During an interview one of my answers was: "for me - it sounds shit to live ambitions !"

And the answer was like the old adam and eve thingy: "But shit is a super fertilizer, it gives a filmsy plantlet growth and thriving.

"Because i have seen where you're going with this", i answered, "let me tell you that some people think, you can make every stand - when you only ground it"

wink

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