SomeMusings.com

I’m rather fond of saying that I know something like “the back of my hand.” On occasion, I’ve even been known to say that I know something like “the back of my mother’s hand.”¹

It’s a good saying, but, how much do you know about the back of your hand, really? If you were to stare at the back of your hand, it wouldn’t take long for you to notice new details.

Until you read this sentence, you were blissfully unaware of the fact that you can feel your clothes touching your body. You know they’re there. You put them on. They hug your most intimate bits. And yet, until you read this paragraph, you were blissfully unaware.

And, while we’re on the subject, immediately before you started reading this post, you were completely ignorant of the force that your chair puts on your bum.

Now, unless you read my blog naked and lying down in bed,² I have made you feel things that you otherwise wouldn’t feel. I have made you notice things that you wouldn’t otherwise notice. As humans, we are constantly living in a state of sensory overload. If evolution ever produced a homo sapien that was aware of all of his senses, I’m sure that he scratched himself to death long before he could pass along that annoying gene. Out of sheer convenience we are ignorant of much that we feel.

Now, you might think that you have a pretty firm grasp of the thoughts that go on inside your head. Your thoughts are about as wholly “you” as anything else in this universe. I know that I used to feel like I had an intimate connection with my thoughts, but, when I did a little bit of research, it turned out that I knew as much about my mind as you do about the back of your hand.

There is a well-documented psychology experiment. In it, participants rank six Vincent³ Van Gogh prints from their most to their least favorite. Starry, Starry Night might come in first, and the napkin Vincent used to stop the auricular bleeding might come in last place.

After the test subjects have carefully made their selections, the researcher will thank them for participating and offer spare copies of either the third or the fourth ranked print for the participants to keep as a token of gratitude.

After choosing between their numbers three and number four, the guinea pigs are left alone for a couple months and then asked to re-calculate their rankings. After going home to live with the results of their choices, two things happen in virtually every case.

1. The print that the person chose to take home becomes their favorite.
2. The print that the person could have chosen, but turned down, becomes their least favorite.

In other words, after going home to live with their choices, the artwork they decided to keep is suddenly seen as better than Starry, Starry Night, and the thing that they decided to turn down is suddenly seen as worse than a random splotch of blood.

Now, of course I’m making up hyperbolic details, but the details aren’t important. What is important is the formula. The things I knowingly choose are awesome, and the things that I didn’t choose are terrible.

This isn’t very surprising. Anyone who’s cast an inquisitive eye towards their own thoughts or a derisive eye towards the thoughts of others have noticed humanity’s annoying habit of justifying decisions. This makes sense. From a strictly evolutionary standpoint, people will be more effective if they don’t waste mental energy playing “what if” games. To some degree, it makes sense for our brain to play some mental gymnastics in order to keep our attention rooted in the present.

But, after watching an immensely enlightening video on the ever-interesting Ted.com⁴ about the subject, I was stunned by the depths to which this deceptive behavior stooped.

Apparently, scientists did the experiment again, but this time they did it on patients that had drank so much that they were incapable of forming new memories. No, I don’t know the name of this condition, and, yes, I really am too lazy to watch the video again to find out again.

But, if I’m understanding their condition correctly,⁵ you can literally walk up to these patients’ hospital beds, smile, introduce yourself, punch them in the face, walk outside, count to ten, take a deep breath, rinse, lather, and repeat.

Now, here’s where it starts to get scary. After the guinea pigs request the third print as a gift, the tester promises to send it to them as soon as possible, thanks them for participating, leaves the room,⁶ counts to ten, takes a deep breath, and walks back into the room.

After the patient reintroduces himself,⁷ the tester asks them to re-rank the paintings.

Here’s the scary part: The alcoholic guinea pigs, who had no memory of ever choosing to keep number three and not number four, ranked the pictures in the same way as the other testers in the second ranking. They moved from 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 to 3, 1, 2, 5, 6, 4.

This means that the justifications happen at a level deeper than memory, deeper than awareness, and deeper than consciousness. When the patients made a choice about the paintings, whether they were capable of consciously justifying their decision or not, something changed about the way that they perceived the world. Their opinions shifted, and their original perspective was warped.

The Ted speaker takes a bit more of an optimistic approach than I do. And, I suppose that there’s cause to be optimistic. Although I would not want to be stuck in a stagnant relationship, I suppose that there’s nothing wrong with my brain convincing me that a girl I’m dating is more attractive than she really is. That would probably make me happier.

But who ever said that happiness was the only goal? Take a look at the world. How many of its problems can be traced to this self-centered aspect of human nature?

For instance, I suspect that America wouldn’t have taken almost 100 years to end legal racism if it hadn’t spent 250 years justifying legal slavery.

I imagine that nearly everyone can think of at least one person in their circle of influence that they would call “evil,” but it’s nearly impossible to find anyone that thinks of themselves as evil. You have a built-in happiness immune system that protects you from such thoughts.

Al Capone may have led to the deaths of countless people, but he saw himself as a public servant. As he famously put it: “I am like any other man. All I do is supply a demand.”

Why do humans polarize into extreme political views? Perhaps it’s because after voting one way, their opinions morph to prove that that was the best possible way to vote.

In the 2004 presidential campaign, Bush’s campaign made everyone that attended his rallies sign a document saying that they would vote for him on November 2nd. Legally, the contract was completely nonbinding. But, if their perspective is altered by merely choosing to sign it, it doesn’t have to be. The subtlety probably made it even more effective.

How is it religious fundamentalists are able to blissfully kill themselves and hapless innocents? I’m sure that there are many other contributing factors, but, after pledging to follow the will of God for weeks on end, their happiness immune system makes it impossible for them to think about their decision rationally.

In their eyes, to not kill innocents is more than impossible. It is unthinkable. The 72 virgins only help.

And, on an even more cosmic scale, if there is a God, perhaps that is why He decided to give us this shitty, “fallen” world where one can choose to find evidence either in favor of or in dispute of His existence. Perhaps He understood our natures and realized that He would be more lovable if He remained deniable.

And, to balance that thought, if there is no God, then perhaps this principle is why churches are obsessed with concepts such as Confirmation where children publicly choose to be loyal disciples long before they have the ability to make such a choice.

Scientologists certainly abuse similar formulas to steal money from their recruits.

And it makes me want to smack them in the face.

Moral of the story is to keep an open mind. It takes a conscious effort.

Your brain is working against you on this one.

FOOTNOTES:

¹^That’s a joke of course. My mother smacks me with her fronthand.

²^Don’t sweat it, I encourage that behavior.

³^At about this point, it occurred to me that I could change the title to “With Eyes that know the darkness in my soul” and change the entire post into a tribute to that Don McLean song. I decided against it. I have some journalistic integrity.

⁴^Be careful. Ted is a time machine that only travels in one direction.

⁵^I’m probably not.

⁶^I’m sure they gave them an extra punch in the face for good measure

⁷^I’m sure that the patient also asked why his nose is bleeding.