Download How we fool ourselves

How we fool ourselves
Fooling ourselves is certainly something we are all aware of because we all do it. The
background material for this subject is extensive as a few quick searches demonstrated by the
breadth and depth of this common flaw in reasoning.
I encourage you to do a bit of research here as you may find it enlightening.
The below list is by no means comprehensive but simply a few things I found that might allow us
to begin to frame our discussion.
WIKI
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-deception
Wiki Tags
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Anosognosia
Bad faith
Bad faith (existentialism)
Cognitive dissonance
Confabulation
Delusion
Denial
Distancing language
Doublethink
Double-blind
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Groupthink
Introspection illusion
Indoctrination
List of cognitive biases
Point of no return
Positive illusions
Propaganda
Psychology
Rigour
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Self-fulfilling prophecy
Self-handicapping
Self propaganda
Subjective validation
True-believer syndrome
Wishful thinking
Mundus vult decipi, ergo
decipiatur
EXAMPLE – Cognitive dissonance
Smoking is a common example of cognitive dissonance because it is widely accepted that cigarettes can
cause lung cancer, and smokers must reconcile their habit with the desire to live long and healthy lives.
In terms of the theory, the desire to live a long life is dissonant with the activity of doing something that
will most likely shorten one's life. The tension produced by these contradictory ideas can be reduced by
any number of changes in cognitions and behaviors, including quitting smoking, denying the evidence
linking smoking to lung cancer, or justifying one's smoking. For example, smokers could rationalize their
behavior by concluding that only a few smokers become ill, that it only happens to very heavy smokers,
or that if smoking does not kill them, something else will.
INTERNET ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY
Philosophers of mind and action have worked towards developing an account of self-deception and, in
so doing, an explanation of its possibility. They have asked questions concerning the origin and structure
of self-deception: How is self-deception possible? Do self-deceivers hold contradictory beliefs?
http://www.iep.utm.edu/eth-self/
MORE
http://www.iep.utm.edu/eth-self/
http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=how-we-fool-ourselves-over-and-over-10-0619
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/self-deception/
http://www.truthaboutdeception.com/lying-and-deception/self-deception.html
IN SONG
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwPS19swwiA
A FEW QUOTES AND APHORISMS
“Who had deceived thee so often as thyself?”
― Benjamin Franklin
“The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.”
― Leonardo da Vinci
“All war is deception.”
― Sun Tzu
“Whatever you say is propaganda, whatever I say is the decree of justice, because I own the copyright on
truth.”
― Unknown
“Profit is sweet, even if it comes from deception.”
― Sophocles
“Reality denied comes back to haunt.”
― Philip K. Dick, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
“Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point
that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for
others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
“People who believe that they are strong-willed and the masters of their destiny can only continue to
believe this by becoming specialists in self-deception.”
― James Baldwin, Giovanni's Room
“It is a self-deception of philosophers and moralists to imagine that they escape decadence by opposing
it. That is beyond their will; and, however little they acknowledge it, one later discovers that they were
among the most powerful promoters of decadence.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power
“If our subject persuades himself to believe contrary to the evidence in order to evade, somehow, the
unpleasant truth to which he has already seen that the evidence points, then and only then is he clearly a
self-deceiver.”
― Herbert Fingarette, Self-Deception: With a New Chapter
If you’re still hanging in, you should read
Some of my favorite philosophy links
http://www.autodidactproject.org/wpc/events2.html
http://www.flowofhistory.com/units
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/k/kant/immanuel/k16p/introduction.html
http://www.iep.utm.edu/
5 stars
http://philosophy.uchicago.edu/faculty/files/forster/KantSkept2.pdf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvTTq_yFtA&feature=autoplay&list=UUUCETXjDuUi4yA0oy3PDGzg&lf=plcp&playnext=7
http://www.evolutionaryethics.com/
http://www.academia.edu/
http://www.khanacademy.org/
very cool