Cognitive Illusion : A Human Compulsion

Human beings are constantly victim of cognitive illusions. In the book Predictably Irrational the author Dan Ariely has distinctly brought out the follies in human behaviour spanning the entire spectrum of our life. Classified as Behavioural Economics it challenges the assumption that we are rational and how our daily life is an example of cognitive illusions. As such this is not surprising as we are wired from primitive times for survival and hence the brain is developed for survival. Thus under physical threat of life we have appropriate life reponses. It is so cleverly shown in the Man vs Wild series on National Geographic channel. However when it comes to psychological assessment of situation we tend to behave irrationally.We have a tendency to do relative perception which lead to comparative analysis. Visual optical illusion is the most common example relative perception.This same tendency lead us to compare between two individuals or two religion or two races or ethnic groups invariably leading to conflict. As a consumer we do not do our math right and end up making wrong choices. As society or head of the nation or head of the family or head of a religious organisation we fail to display rational behaviour. such irrationality maybe cleverly packaged. A best example can be narrated from Paulo coehlo's book Devil and Miss Prym. In this instance the head of church was willingly ready to put an innocent citizen on gallows at the behest of devil who promised lure of gold for the village. The choice was to be made between life a village prostitute vs pots of gold for village development. And the choice was made to sacrifice the village prostitute at the altar of greed well couched with religious justifications and charitable intentions. This is just a fictional account of wrong choice that human make but reality is not far from stupid irrationalities on daily basis.
(http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_on_our_buggy_moral_code.html ) Dan Ariely in his book writes more about wrong choices in economic sphere of activity but it has widespread ramifications. It can be interpretated in any other dimension of human behaviour. For instance the most glaring example of cognitive illusions is the havoc wrought by belief systems. It invariably leads to comparision and thereby a need to reassert one particular belief system as superior vs the rest. The outcome is wellknown for centuries in the form of war. Belief system and fundamentalism are two sides of the coin. A siamese twin?

Einstein once did comment that the universe maybe infinite but human stupidity is certainly so.

It is now very very clear. Human behaviour can never be trusted to be free,fair,accurate,just and ,rational. Individuals may either betray disoriented behaviour or portray exemplary behaviour. But there is no certainty and hence trusting human behaviour to be ideal by default is not a good idea. At the same time distrusting it as always disoriented is cynicism. Its a challenge and therefore a slightly off the hook distant observervation of human behaviour is a good idea. Its a mirror in which u see your reflection and what are your co-ordinates in the system provided you arenon judgemental about yourself.
In his famous dialogue with Dr David Bohm, J. Krishnamurti emphatically said " I doubt if man is rational. He added , mankind has taken a wrong turn on his journey of life and right turn is always possible . Quit relative perception. Quit comparison.

Human Brain, Insight And Computer by j. Krishnamurti

J.Krishnamurti : Death is impermanence and possessiveness is hoping for permanence.Happiness is a side-effect, not an end in itself.

Belief atrophies the brain. If you keep on repeating, repeating, as they do, your brain atrophies.


Dialogues with J.Krishnamurti on Human Brain and Computer & Insight


K:
No, the brain is the entire centre of desire, feeling, anxiety, pain, loneliness. The consciousness is all that, the beliefs, fears, sorrow, loneliness, anxiety, the whole….

DB : …. The psychological being.

K : Yes, the psychological structure, confusion. That is the brain. And love is not part of the brain because it is something outside that.

I know. I use that word but, you see, meditation is a very complex business. In meditation there is no meditator at all.

K : That’s all. When you are really looking at something there is the absence of the self.

From what I have discussed with people, Nirvana apparently means a state in which the self is not. The self in the sense of all the turmoil. Come to that point, don’t discuss what Nirvana is you will find out.
: No, I am putting it differently. When you are not hearing with the sensory ear, but hearing inwardly, completely, in that state we are absolutely silent. When absolutely silent, then insight may take place. Perception in which there is no division as the ‘me’, the perceiver and the perceived-right? So the whole mechanical process of thinking, with its conflict, comes to an end.

I wouldn’t ask a human being whether he has insight. That, I think, would be a wrong question. But I would ask: does the mechanical process of thinking ever stop? Or is the brain perpetually occupies?

I follow that, sir. What you are saying is: insight is perception or listening without any examination, any analytical process at all.


DB : If you start with logic, you are starting with your past assumptions that are wrong. You see the difficulty. When you start from insight, you start from something new, a new perception. But if you start from logic, you must start from what you already know, which is always wrong, fundamentally.
So we started out by saying that thought is mechanical. The computer is mechanical. What thought can do the computer can do, up to a certain point. But thought being mechanical, can never capture that which is non-mechanical. And insight is non-mechanical, totally non-mechanical. Now listen to that, don’t argue. You have argued enough now to say thought is mechanical, computers are mechanical; whatever thought can do, up to a certain point the computer can do, it can learn, relearn, adjust, it can do all the kinds of thing that thought can do, based on knowledge and so on. We both agreed to that. David tells me it is perfectly right up to that point. But that doesn’t bring about insight, he tells me. So I say, all right. I don’t say, what am I to do? The moment I say, what am I to do, you are back in the cycle. Right? He says, see that very clearly and don’t move away from that. We have argued about this mechanical process sufficiently. We can go into much more detail and so on but we have got the principle of it. Right? That’s all. Don’t move from there. Don’t say, what is insight? If you don’t move, it’s there. I don’t know if I’ve conveyed this.

K : I would like to discuss that a little. ‘Attending’ means giving all your energy, sensitivity, the whole nervous organism, so that not only your hearing, you eyes, but everything is tremendously alive. In that state of attention there is no centre as the ‘me’ attending. So there is no fear in that. I don’t know if I am making myself clear.

: No, the point is to understand living, the significance of living, not this perpetual battle, struggle, conflict, I must have more, be better, this constant measurement of myself with somebody else – he is famous so I must become famous, he is on television, I am not! This terrible sense of poverty; and in the attempt to be rich there is the burden of fear. I may never get rich because there is somebody much richer.

Yes, You see that’s why one has to inquire, is there a becoming and therefore the ending of becoming is fear.

K : And is there psychological becoming at all? There is a becoming in the world in the sense that one is apprenticed to a master carpenter and you gradually work with him until you become as he is. But that same attitude spills over, or is extended into, the other, the psychological, inner field – I must become something. If I don’t I am lost, I am a failure, I am depressed, look, you have become something, I am nobody.

K : Death is impermanence and possessiveness is hoping for permanence.
So there are two separate entities. The thinker and the object of which you think. Now, what is the thinker?

: To realize that the observer, the thinker, the experience and the observed, the experience are one, are not separate, sir, that means a tremendous, inward, psychological revolution. It means there is no division, there is no conflict. And when you then give attention to the fact, the fact is burnt away. But thought will be kept to plant a tree, to bring that flower into being.

K : No, the ultimate goal, if you can put it that way, is to find that which is completely sacred, totally uncontaminated by thought.

: Of course not, that’s why I said one has to be free of all the illusions that thought has created to see something really sacred which comes about through right meditation.


K : You see, this question is very complex. Putting the house in order means no fear, the understanding of pleasure, the ending of sorrow. From that arise compassion, intelligence, and the process of that we’ll call it process for the moment – is part of meditation and then to find out whether thought can ever stop, which means time has to have a stop. And then out of that comes the great silence, and it is in that silence that one can find that which is sacred.

K : No, when one realize that the observer is the observed, the controller is the controlled, the experiencer is the experience, when one realize it not intellectually, verbally, but actually, profoundly, then that very perception stops it. It’s like seeing danger. If you see danger you move away from it. For example, a human being who is perpetually in conflict may ‘meditate’, he may do all kinds of things but the conflict still goes on; but when he sees the psychological danger, the poison of conflict, then he’ll stop it, there’s an end of it.
You see, then we have to find out what action is. Is there an action that doesn’t create conflict, in which there is no regret, which under all circumstances, whether we live in a poor or an affluent society, is and must always be correct? To find that out one has to go into the question of what our action is now. It is either idealistic action concerned with the future or it is action based on past memories, which is knowledge. Now, is there an action independent of the future, of time? That’s the whole point, isn’t it?

Belief atrophies the brain. If you keep on repeating, repeating, as they do, your brain atrophies.

k :j.krishnamuti. Mystic,philosopher. DB: Dr. David Bohm, swedish physicist.