Hrm… While on the one hand I can look at her position and basically react with a “your mind is entirely alien to me”, on the other hand, I can actually imagine being in that state.
That does NOT mean, of course, that it is a reasonable state to be in, but it does seem to be the sort of state that my mind can support.
I guess the basic key is that human minds aren’t necessarally naturally consistent. So we can end up in actual inconsistent states. Including states a bit confused about consistency itself.
A bit more of a personal example would be a state I sometimes recall having been in in the past, and have certainly seen in others, would be when one might say something like, oh, I dunno, “and scientifically, the universe is about 13.7 billion years old and earth is about 4.5 billion years old” and of course, the world was created about 6000 years ago.”
As near as I can tell, happens is that we almost imagine the “scientific world” and the “religious world” as parallel universes that… are actually the same one, so mentally we keep track of it by keeping track of different things.
The way this works is someone might manage to end up in a state that they completely fail to really face the question of “okay, but if you rewind time a bit, will you see 6000 years ago the universe poofing into existence, or can you go farther back, etc? ie, what ACTUALLY happened in ACTUAL REALITY?”
Then, when facing that question, all sorts of Escher mentality stuff starts forming as a defense. But what I think initially happens, at least in part, is sort of mentally tracking those as being about different subjects, rather than contradictory statements about the same thing. So that one will end up, with “science glasses”, visualizing prehistoric humans doing stuff tens of thousands of years ago, while etc etc etc...
At least, that’s my own, partly introspective model of what’s going on here, of how people can end up in these states.
I think that people who had actual mental models of the world would notice a contradiction that large.
People who profess two different beliefs may not see a contradiction. It’s just good to profess one, and also good to profess the other, for different reasons. They aren’t visualizing a world that, at one time or another, needs to either poof or go on. They’re visualizing that “science” and “religion” both seem like good groups to join.
I think that may be part of it, but I’m also thinking back a bit to when I was more religious, and so on, and also thinking about how some people I know seem to talk, and as near as I can tell, there really does seem to be a bit of that.
I’m claiming they’re visualizing a world that goes “poof, ‘LET THERE BE LIGHT!’”. AND visualizing a world that goes farther back, and somehow doing some form of funny doublethink them thinking of those as different worlds that are both in some sense true, while some aspect of them is treating those not as contradictory models, but almost as, well, different worlds. ie, two different “truths” (“but what is truth?” :))
That is, simply holding the contradiction in place, having two “models”, not along the lines of two competing models, but that (though they don’t actually notice it), they’re imagining it more as parallel worlds that, depending on circumstances, they’ll consider either one or the other “this world”
They would (usually, see somewhat below) not ever actually say, or even notice that they’re thinking that way. In other words, I’d expect if you asked such a person something like “do you believe in a set of parallel realities, one in which the world was spoken into existance ~6000 years ago, and another about 13.7 billion years old or at least certainly older than 6000 years”, they’ll probably give you funny looks. But I think, without them noticing, something like that is going on in how it’s being stored.
And I can speak from personal experience about some of the REALLY weird stuff I used to think in terms of, so it’s in part a “pay no attention to the contradiction behind the curtain” situation.
Heck, sometimes when I bring various contradictions up, I’ll get responses like “this isn’t a debate class” or “this isn’t a court room and you’re not a lawyer”, and basically have it laughed off like that from some family members. (and, of course, the infamous “in your opinion” fully general retort to any position you don’t like. :))
I’m not saying this is all of it, but it sure seems to me that something like this is going on in some cases. It may also be what underlies stuff like “I believe people are nicer than they are”. That is, statements like that may partly cash out to “I have a couple different models of people, one of which says they’re nicer than the other. I hold both of these at the same time, but I call one my belief, and one the actual situation”
At least, when I try to imagine being in a mental state that could provoke me to utter such a statement, ie, when I try to simulate that state on myself, that seems to be what the result “looks like.”
Oh, that bit from earlier, well… sometimes it’s made a bit explicit.
I’ve come across some bits of occult philosophy that basically talks about how there can be many histories that are “true” (no, not in the sense a physicist might talk about interference), and they’ll explicitly say stuff like the “there’s the actual historical history, but that’s not the only ‘true’ one..”
But also just from introspection, well, it does feel to me that in the past I would be in such a state, have multiple models that I wasn’t so much treating as competing so much as treating as, well, simply true, in different senses.
The Escher mental tangle can get REALLY strange. :)
From what I’ve seen, fundamentalist Christians (this is the only group I’ve had a chance to speak to) often see the contradiction, and are PROUD of their ability to believe on ‘pure faith’ despite it. As if it’s some kind of accomplishment to say ‘wow, god is so powerful that he can even overcome THAT’. I don’t know how far they carry through in creating mental models of the world, but I know that their expectations of a world with God in it are VERY different from a world without god, i.e. the node is included in their models. This is a particular religious group where receiving “prophetic words” and visions is common, and the people I knew based their expectations on what “God” said to them in these visions. And were sometimes sorely disappointed, but their ‘faith’ never seemed to be affected. At the start, they seemed as alien to me as the woman you’re describing seemed to you. After befriending some people in this group, I started to understand the geometry of their minds a little bit more. This was nearly a year ago, though, so I have trouble explaining the insights I’ve had because my mind has gone back to ‘how could anybody be that STUPID?’
Hrm… While on the one hand I can look at her position and basically react with a “your mind is entirely alien to me”, on the other hand, I can actually imagine being in that state.
That does NOT mean, of course, that it is a reasonable state to be in, but it does seem to be the sort of state that my mind can support.
I guess the basic key is that human minds aren’t necessarally naturally consistent. So we can end up in actual inconsistent states. Including states a bit confused about consistency itself.
A bit more of a personal example would be a state I sometimes recall having been in in the past, and have certainly seen in others, would be when one might say something like, oh, I dunno, “and scientifically, the universe is about 13.7 billion years old and earth is about 4.5 billion years old” and of course, the world was created about 6000 years ago.”
As near as I can tell, happens is that we almost imagine the “scientific world” and the “religious world” as parallel universes that… are actually the same one, so mentally we keep track of it by keeping track of different things.
The way this works is someone might manage to end up in a state that they completely fail to really face the question of “okay, but if you rewind time a bit, will you see 6000 years ago the universe poofing into existence, or can you go farther back, etc? ie, what ACTUALLY happened in ACTUAL REALITY?”
Then, when facing that question, all sorts of Escher mentality stuff starts forming as a defense. But what I think initially happens, at least in part, is sort of mentally tracking those as being about different subjects, rather than contradictory statements about the same thing. So that one will end up, with “science glasses”, visualizing prehistoric humans doing stuff tens of thousands of years ago, while etc etc etc...
At least, that’s my own, partly introspective model of what’s going on here, of how people can end up in these states.
I think that people who had actual mental models of the world would notice a contradiction that large.
People who profess two different beliefs may not see a contradiction. It’s just good to profess one, and also good to profess the other, for different reasons. They aren’t visualizing a world that, at one time or another, needs to either poof or go on. They’re visualizing that “science” and “religion” both seem like good groups to join.
I think that may be part of it, but I’m also thinking back a bit to when I was more religious, and so on, and also thinking about how some people I know seem to talk, and as near as I can tell, there really does seem to be a bit of that.
I’m claiming they’re visualizing a world that goes “poof, ‘LET THERE BE LIGHT!’”. AND visualizing a world that goes farther back, and somehow doing some form of funny doublethink them thinking of those as different worlds that are both in some sense true, while some aspect of them is treating those not as contradictory models, but almost as, well, different worlds. ie, two different “truths” (“but what is truth?” :))
That is, simply holding the contradiction in place, having two “models”, not along the lines of two competing models, but that (though they don’t actually notice it), they’re imagining it more as parallel worlds that, depending on circumstances, they’ll consider either one or the other “this world”
They would (usually, see somewhat below) not ever actually say, or even notice that they’re thinking that way. In other words, I’d expect if you asked such a person something like “do you believe in a set of parallel realities, one in which the world was spoken into existance ~6000 years ago, and another about 13.7 billion years old or at least certainly older than 6000 years”, they’ll probably give you funny looks. But I think, without them noticing, something like that is going on in how it’s being stored.
And I can speak from personal experience about some of the REALLY weird stuff I used to think in terms of, so it’s in part a “pay no attention to the contradiction behind the curtain” situation.
Heck, sometimes when I bring various contradictions up, I’ll get responses like “this isn’t a debate class” or “this isn’t a court room and you’re not a lawyer”, and basically have it laughed off like that from some family members. (and, of course, the infamous “in your opinion” fully general retort to any position you don’t like. :))
I’m not saying this is all of it, but it sure seems to me that something like this is going on in some cases. It may also be what underlies stuff like “I believe people are nicer than they are”. That is, statements like that may partly cash out to “I have a couple different models of people, one of which says they’re nicer than the other. I hold both of these at the same time, but I call one my belief, and one the actual situation”
At least, when I try to imagine being in a mental state that could provoke me to utter such a statement, ie, when I try to simulate that state on myself, that seems to be what the result “looks like.”
Oh, that bit from earlier, well… sometimes it’s made a bit explicit.
I’ve come across some bits of occult philosophy that basically talks about how there can be many histories that are “true” (no, not in the sense a physicist might talk about interference), and they’ll explicitly say stuff like the “there’s the actual historical history, but that’s not the only ‘true’ one..”
But also just from introspection, well, it does feel to me that in the past I would be in such a state, have multiple models that I wasn’t so much treating as competing so much as treating as, well, simply true, in different senses.
The Escher mental tangle can get REALLY strange. :)
From what I’ve seen, fundamentalist Christians (this is the only group I’ve had a chance to speak to) often see the contradiction, and are PROUD of their ability to believe on ‘pure faith’ despite it. As if it’s some kind of accomplishment to say ‘wow, god is so powerful that he can even overcome THAT’. I don’t know how far they carry through in creating mental models of the world, but I know that their expectations of a world with God in it are VERY different from a world without god, i.e. the node is included in their models. This is a particular religious group where receiving “prophetic words” and visions is common, and the people I knew based their expectations on what “God” said to them in these visions. And were sometimes sorely disappointed, but their ‘faith’ never seemed to be affected. At the start, they seemed as alien to me as the woman you’re describing seemed to you. After befriending some people in this group, I started to understand the geometry of their minds a little bit more. This was nearly a year ago, though, so I have trouble explaining the insights I’ve had because my mind has gone back to ‘how could anybody be that STUPID?’