Confirmation Bias

This is when your brain acts like a cheerleader for your own ideas. If you believe that all cats are mean, your brain will remember every time a cat hissed but will forget every time a cat purred. It wants you to feel right, even if you are wrong! To beat this, you have to try and be a detective instead of a cheerleader. A detective looks for the truth, even if it is not what they expected to find.

Be a detective instead of a cheerleader. Your brain does not want the truth. Your brain wants to be right. These are not the same thing. Being right feels like safety. Being wrong feels like danger. So your brain filters for evidence that confirms what you already believe and quietly discards the rest. Two people watch the same game. One saw a fair call. One saw a robbery. Same play. Different jerseys. Same brain. Different filter. The cure is not to stop having opinions. The cure is to actively hunt for evidence that you are wrong. If you go looking for proof you are wrong and you cannot find any — then you might actually be right. But if you never look, you will never know. The cheerleader protects your ego. The detective protects your truth.

Confirmation bias: a byproduct of cognitive dissonance avoidance. The brain discards anomalous data that threatens the current worldview. The cheerleader protects your ego. The detective protects your truth.

SOUND: Only hearing the parts of a song that match your mood: the ears editing the playlist in real time.

SMELL: Thinking a flower smells bad because someone you dislike gave it: the nose following the narrative not the molecule.

TASTE: Deciding food is yucky before trying it: the tongue obeying a verdict that came before the evidence.

TOUCH: Feeling a chill in a room because you were told it is haunted: the skin believing a story over a thermometer.

SIGHT: Seeing a sign in the clouds that matches what you were thinking: the eyes finding what the brain already decided was there.

BODY: Feeling clumsy because you told yourself I am clumsy: the body performing the script the mind wrote.

Music: The Sound of Silence (Live On Conan) by Disturbed

Music: Light My Fire by The Doors

Part of Perception & The Filter — CONSCIOUSNESS — Education Revelation