Cognitive Hygiene and the Fountains of Human Ignorance by Bradford Hatcher © 2019 Bradford Hatcher ISBN: 978-0-9824191-5-1 Download at: https://www.hermetica.info/CH.htm or: https://www.hermetica.info/CH.pdf Statue on cover: Cain, by Henri Vidal, Tuileries Garden, Paris, 1896. Table of Contents Part One: A General Survey of the Issues 1.0 - Preface and Introduction 7 1.1 - Truth Words, Taxa, and False Dichotomies 11 Amathia - the Deliberate Kind of Stupid True as a Verb, and Being or Holding True False Dichotomies and Delusional Schisms Nature and Nurture, Affect and Cognition 1.2 - Would a Rational Being Think Man a Rational Being? 18 Human Nature and Reality's Nature The Nature of Mind and Cognitive Science Emergence, Qualia, and Consciousness Pros and Cons of Ignorance, Delusion, & Self-Deception A Duty to Culture and Paying Our Rent 1.3 - Why Critical Thinking Hurts Our Stupid Feelings 34 Contradiction and Cognitive Dizziness Critical Thinking and Cognitive Hygiene Stupid Feelings and Emotional Intelligence Denial, Relativism, and Limits to Tolerance 1.4 - Science, and Some Other Ways to Be True 43 Scientific Naturalism, Mathematics, and Formal Logic Informal Logic, Statistics, and Skepticism Taxonomies, Categories, Scales, and Matrices Analogies, Thought Experiments, and Parables Exposition, Narrative, Anecdote, and Anecdata Introspection, Phenomenology, and Vipassana Bhavana 1.5 - Framing Issues and Far Horizons 61 Framing and Perspective Narrow-mindedness, Points of View and Perspective Nearsightedness, Spatial Framing and Orders of Magnitude Small-mindedness, Contextual and Conceptual Framing Shortsightedness, Temporal Framing and Time Horizons 1.6 - Identity, Belief, and Belonging 71 Conviction and Commitment Identity and Identification Belief and Credulity Belonging and Confidence Secular and Sacred Values Opening Up the System 1.7 - Conditioning, Persuasion, and Ideology 86 Being Told What to Think and Feel Classical and Operant Conditioning Persuasion, Public Relations, and Advertising Ideology, Indoctrination, and Propaganda Us-Them, Social Consensus, and Weltanschauung 1.8 - Infoglut, Enrichment, and Lifelong Learning 101 Critical Mindfulness and Cognitive Hygiene Sapere Aude, Against the Great Dumbing Down Infoglut, Selection, Enrichment, and Eclecticism Objectivity, Perspective, Stereopsis, and Feedback Unlearning and Overwriting Inferior Knowledge Lifelong Learning, While Keeping Minds Nimble Part Two: Cognitive Challenges Across Ten Domains 2.0 - Towards a Taxonomy of Anti-Cognitives 114 Cognitive Psychology, Bacon’s Idols, Maslow’s Needs, Psychology’s Languaging Behavior, Gardner’s Intelligences, Bloom’s Taxonomy, Piaget’s Stages, More Psychologists, Taxa 2.1 - Sensorimotor Domain 123 Sensorium, Perception, Semantic Memory, Efference, Play, Art, Imagination, Embodied Cognition, Sensory and Conceptual Metaphor 2.2 Native Domain 132 The Other Original Mind, The Evolving Mind, Our Big Brains, Evolved Heuristics and Processes, Modest Modularity of Mind 2.3 - Accommodating Domain 140 Accommodation and Assimilation, Constructivism and Bricolage, Apperceptive Mass and Inertia, Memory and its Plasticity, Schemas and Scripts, Analogy and Modeling, Cognitive Reappraisal 2.4 - Situational Domain 154 Problems as Puzzles, Cognitive Development, Problems and Emotions, Attitude of Approach, Sense of Agency, Processes and Heuristic Tools 2.5 - Emotional Domain 162 Affect and Emotion, Reason and Emotion, Setpoints and Treadmills, Hydraulics and Other Fallacies, Emotional Self-Management, Cognitive Behavioral Therapies, Reappraising and Revaluing Values, Resentment and Neuroplasticity, Classifying Emotions 2.6 - Personal Domain 177 Intrapersonal Intelligence, Emergent Selfhood, Anatta or No Self, The West Plays Catch Up, Self-Schemas and Scripts, Shifting Identity, Ego Defense Made Easy, Integrity and Character 2.7 - Social Domain 194 Fellowship with Others, Social Emotions, Social Role and Behavioral Archetyping, Sociobiology, Belonging and Behaving, Individuality, Consensus and Diversity, Us Versus Those Other People 2.8 - Cultural Domain 210 Idols of the Theater, Memetical Metaphors, Gene-Culture Coevolution, Spandrels and Exaptations, Transmission, Narrative Form, Hive Mind, Ideology, Persuasion, Signal-to-Noise Ratios 2.9 - Linguistic Domain 230 Idols of the Market, Protolanguage, Nativism, Cognitive Linguistics, Language Development, Linguistic Relativity, Semantics and Syntax 2.10 - Metacognitive Domain 250 Metacognition and Metastrategic Knowledge, Agency and Free Would, Mindfulness and Concentration, Heedful Diligence or Appamada 2.11 - Metacognitive Domain - Thoughts and Practices for Kids 261 Childhood Adversity, Neo-Piagetian Developmental Stages, By Domain: Sensorimotor, Accommodating, Situational, Emotional, Personal, Social, Cultural, Formal Education, Kindergarten, Secondary School, Introducing the Metacognitive Domain to Kids 2.12 - Metacognitive Domain - Thoughts and Practices for Dults 282 Not Too Late for a Little Work, By Domain: Sensorimotor and Native, Accommodating, Situational, Emotional, Personal, Social, Cultural, Linguistic, Work in the Metacognitive Domain, Elucidogens Part Three: Toolkits and Collected Anticognitives 3.0 - Toolkits and Anticognitives by Category and Domain 300 3.1 - Media Savvy and the Smell Test 301 Garbage In Garbage Out, Some Filters of Baloney and Craap [sic], Source, Motivation, Evidence, Logic, Lacunae 3.2 - Evolved Heuristics and Processes 308 By Affected Domain: Sensorimotor, Native, Accommodating, Situational, Emotional, Personal, Social, Cultural, Linguistic 3.3 - Emotions and Affective States 329 Affect Suggesting Approach, Affect Suggesting Avoidance 3.4 - Cognitive Biases 338 Anticognitives by Domain: Accommodating, Situational, Emotional, Personal, Social 3.5 - Coping Strategies 351 Anticognitives by Domain: Situational, Emotional, Personal, Social 3.6 - Defense Mechanisms 357 Anticognitives by Domain: Emotional, Personal, Social 3.7 - Logical Fallacies 364 Anticognitives by Domain: Native, Accommodating, Situational, Emotional, Personal, Social, Cultural, Linguistic, Formal Fallacies Bibliography 380 Links for the Toolkits 386 Part One: A General Survey of the Issues 1.0 - Preface and Introduction Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens. Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain. Friedrich von Schiller First, accept my apologies for the typo in the title. It should have read “Foundations.” Or maybe “Mountains.” It’s too late to change it now, so just think of it as irony or something. Apologies also for not being three writers, each with triple the amount of time to work on this. The scope of this book is ambitious, but it’s a scoping document, not a final manual, and it’s for a field of inquiry that doesn’t really exist yet. Several pieces of this field have been developing for ages now, for millennia in Greece, India, and China, but nobody to my knowledge has tried to stitch them all into a meaningful whole. It’s considerably broader in scope than Robert N. Proctor’s idea of agnotology, the study of culturally induced ignorance, although that’s an important aspect. Neuroscience is the latest major contributor, but that’s just getting started. The effort to understand how our minds work, in the broader effort to learn who or what we are, has been missing a crucial piece: an effort to understand how our minds Fail to work, in the broader effort to learn who or what we are Not. We can learn much about our minds from studying their weaknesses, and perhaps unlearn some of the illusions and delusions that we’ve collected about ourselves. Mapping the terrain of human ignorance is easily as broad a task as mapping that of human knowledge. At least it’s certain that we are ignorant of more than we know. We’ll be asking how much of human error and stupidity is preventable. But to be honest, it’s too late for the majority of adults to correct a majority of the errors we carry around. Catching them early in childhood gets a much better prognosis, which holds lessons for us as parents and teachers. For some time, I thought the words “critical thinking” might figure into the title. Critical thinking is supposed to be an objective or rational analysis of facts to form judgments. It means perspective taking, openness to new and disconfirming evidence and propositions, dispassionate thought, rigorous logic, and an array of problem solving skills. This would have required a great deal of backpedaling or apologizing early in the Introduction, however, as I tried to explain why instruction in critical thinking has so little effect, particularly when taught to grownups. The phrase itself is not only problematic: it suggests the very perspective that causes the problems. It suggests an exaltation of reason, with some hierarchal authority over other mental processes. Most of what humans have understood about critical thinking is centered on logical error and inconsistency. But the more we look into critical thinking research, the more we see that what's been written is way too heavy on the philosophy and pure logic and far too light on the psychology, the emotional components, ego defensiveness, cognitive inertia and bias, delusion, anxiety about peer pressure and belonging, whininess about having to unlearn, saving face, fear of the unknown, hot buttons, and whatnot. Critical thinking alone, the way it’s normally approached, is about as effective as telling someone that you’ll quit smoking is in guaranteeing that you’ll quit. Thoughts and words with nothing