The economist J.K.GALBRAITH once wrote "faced between the choice of changing once mind and proving thier is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy with the proof".
LEO TOLSOY was even bolder "The most difficult subjects that can be explained to the most slow-writted man if he has not formed any idea of them already;but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him".
What's going on here? Why dont facts change our mind? And why would someone continue to believe a false or inacurate idea anyway? How do such behaviours serve us?
The Logic Of False beliefs
Human need a reasonable accurate view of the world in order to survive. If your moedl of reality is wildly different from actual world, then you struggle to take effective action each day.
However truth and accuracy are not the only thing in human life that matters. Human also seem to have deep desire belong.
In Atomic Habits, I wrote "Humans are herd animals. We want to fit in bond with others, and to earn respect and approvals of our peers. Such inclination are essential to our survivals. For most of our evolutionary history, our ancestors lived in tribes. Becoming separated from the tribe-or worse being cast out, was a death sentence.
Understanding the truth of situation is important, but so is remaining part of a tribe. While these two desires often work together, they occasionally come into conflict.
In many circumstances,social connection is more helpful in our daily life than understanding the truth of a particular fact or idea.
We won't always believe things because they are correct. Sometimes we believe things because they make us look good to te people we care about.
False belief can be useful in social sense ever if they are not useful in a factual sense. For a lack of a better Phase, we might call this approach "factually false but socially accurate."
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