Have you ever stopped to question your own belief system? Why do you believe what you do? Actually, what you believe is derived from the learning process because what you know is practically synonymous with what you believe. Of course, we learn in more than one way.
EMULATION / IMITATION
Probably the first process is Emulation/Imitation (“monkey see, monkey do”), right? My wife and I were eating dinner while my daughter was only a few months old. Even before she could crawl, without a single tooth in her head. She was drinking Mommy’s milk. We looked down at our darling angel and she was chewing vigorously. She was emulating Mommy and Daddy. We also learn facial expressions from emulating our parents and anyone else who dares show us facial expressions as an infant.
MEMORIZATION
Another technique we use to learn is memorization. This is, of course, how we learn language. Linguists tell us that we have to hear a word 70 times before we master it. That is a lot of repetition! We commit songs to memory. We memorize poems, preambles, speeches, script, scriptures, equations, algebraic theorems, etc. (e.g. “If a = b and b = c, then therefore a must = c.”) We’ll revisit this algebraic theorem later.
TRIAL & ERROR
Of course, another process is “Trial and Error.” According to science, we can account for about 80% of what we learn to this process. Mama tells us, “Don’t touch that, it’s hot!” What’s the first thing we do? We reach out and touch it! Why? Maybe we didn’t understand what Mama meant by hot. Of course, once we touch it, we realize what Mama was trying to warn us about. Words alone could not satisfy our curiosity. We had to discover for ourselves what the danger was. We had to satisfy our own curiosity. We had to prove it to ourselves. This is why Trial and Error accounts for such a substantial amount of what we learn. Troubleshooting a computer is another perfect example of trial and error. We don’t know how to fix it, but we attempt several changes until we find the correct change which fixes the computer. In fact, how we repair, mend, or reverse-engineer anything can be attributed to Trial and Error.
COMPARING & CONTRASTING
Well, there are still other processes for learning too. Two of these can be said to be the two sides of the same coin — comparing and contrasting.
- Comparing (finding similarities between ‘A’ and ‘B’)
- Contrasting (finding differences between ‘A’ and ‘B’)
When you compare a square to a rectangle, you can see they are almost identical in definition. They’re both 4-sided. They are both parallelograms. They both have four right angles. Technically, I can say a square is a rectangle! However, can I say a rectangle is a square? Of course not! They’re obviously different and anyone can see that obvious difference at a glance. Of course, we’re contrasting the square to the rectangle when we identify that difference. The square has 4 equal sides while the rectangle has only 2 pairs at equal length.
If we look at that algebraic theorem again, it said, “If a = b and b = c, then therefore a must = c.” We commit this to memory. Why? Because as a theorem, it is accepted as law, a truth without dispute. However, what are we doing in this theorem? We are COMPARING A to B. We are COMPARING B to C. Then we are COMPARING A to C. We do this every day of our lives. Things that we accept to be true, we compare them to ALL data that we encounter in our lifetimes. You are doing it right now. The words of this article, you are weighing against what you already believe to be true. If the data within this article are compatible with your belief system, you may incorporate them into your belief system. If it’s incompatible, you will tend to disbelieve it and discount the words.
When you first learned the English word “blue” and started associating it with the sky — do you recall why? In America, it’s usually a parent, but someone you trusted probably told you that the sky was blue. You had little reason to doubt them, right? Why would they lie?
So if ‘a’ is what you heard in childhood, and ‘b’ is what you heard from friends or classmates between now and then, ‘c’ is the data within this article. You do this every day of your life. You are constantly evaluating data to see whether it is feasible to accept.
You have collected an infinite amount of data over your lifetime. From the time you’re an infant to this very second that you’re reading this article. You compare and contrast every piece of data that comes to your attention. You compare it to what you already know (or believe to be true) and if it doesn’t conflict with your present belief system, you incorporate it into your belief system. However, if the new data conflicts with your present belief system you either discount the new data or you hesitate and need to reflect on it more. If I tell you that the sky is green rather than blue — you have no trouble and waste no time discounting the statement. However, when the data is questionable or more closely aligned to your existing belief system you justify the newly acquired data to fit into your present belief system. If at a later date you find that it outright contradicts your belief system — you abandon the idea.
However, let’s say you and I have known each other for a decade. The ideas and opinions we’ve shared seem rational, practical, perhaps even valued advice. So if we’ve built trust over time and you’ve come to depend on my opinion, then you will do mental gymnastics in order to make sure that I and your parent are both right. “If Mama says the sky is blue, but Volshebny says the sky is green, maybe the sky is aqua… a greenish-blue or a bluish-green!” The reason for this mental gymnastics is something called “Cognitive Dissonance.” We can’t bare to think that we may need to re-evaluate everything Volshebny has told us in the last decade because there’s just too much. We fear, “I may have to re-evaluate EVERYTHING!” We can’t deal with such a daunting task, so we will just accept that there are two “cognitions” that are incompatible. This is why we can say, “Cognitive Dissonance is the reason we can say that people will believe whatever they want to believe.” It’s a choice.
This is also why religion stays “close to home.” This is why Christians tend to rear Christian children and Muslims rear Muslim children. This is especially true when the religion teaches children that questioning their belief system is wrong.
What do you believe? Do you believe that the American government works for you? Do you believe Democracy is more resistant to manipulation than other forms of government? Do you believe it to be coincidence that the 34th President of the United States (Eisenhower) issued a warning during his farewell address about the Military Industrial Complex and that the 35th President of the United States (Kennedy) was assassinated in office?