On 12/5/06, Charles D Hixson wrote:
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.
No time inversion intended. What I intended to say was that most
(all?) decisions are made subconsciously before the conscious mind
starts its reason / excuse generation process. The conscious mind
pretending to weigh various reasons is just a human conceit. This
feature was necessary in early evolution for survival. When danger
threatened, immediate action was required. Flee or fight! No time to
consider options with the new-fangled consciousness brain mechanism
that evolution was developing.
With the luxury of having plenty of time to reason about decisions,
our consciousness can now play its reasoning games to justify what
subconsciously has already been decided.
NOTE: This is probably an exaggeration / simplification. ;)
BillK
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