BillK wrote:
...
Every time someone (subconsciously) decides to do something, their
brain presents a list of reasons to go ahead. The reasons against are
ignored, or weighted down to be less preferred. This applies to
everything from deciding to get a new job to deciding to sleep with
your best friend's wife. Sometimes a case arises when you really,
really want to do something that you *know* is going to end in
disaster, ruined lives, ruined career, etc. and it is impossible to
think of good reasons to proceed. But you still go ahead anyway,
saying that maybe it won't be so bad, maybe nobody will find out, it's
not all my fault anyway, and so on.....
...
BillK
I think you've got a time inversion here. The "list of reasons to go
ahead" is frequently, or even usually, created AFTER the action has been
done. If the list is being created BEFORE the decision, the list of
reasons not to go ahead isn't ignored. Both "lists" are weighed, a
decision is made, and AFTER the decision is made the reasons decided
against have their weights reduced. If, OTOH, the decision is made
BEFORE the "list of reasons" is created, then the list doesn't *get*
created until one starts trying to justify the action, and for
justification obviously reasons not to have done the thing are
useless...except as a layer of whitewash to prove that "all
eventualities were considered".
For most decisions one never bothers to verbalize why it was, or was
not, done.
P.S.: "...and AFTER the decision is made the reasons decided against
have their weights reduced. ...": This is to reinforce a consistent
self-image. If, eventually, the decision turns our to have been the
wrong one, then this must be revoked, and the alternative list
reinforced. At which point one's self-image changes and one says things
like "I don't know WHY I would have done that", because the modified
self image would not have decided in that way.
P.P.S: THIS IS FABULATION. I'm explaining what I think happens, but I
have no actual evidence of the truth of my assertions.
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