Subject: Re: one small function
From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net>
Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2002 06:18:47 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <3222310728383257@naggum.net>

* Bulent Murtezaoglu
| But how is this integration or rather its necessity and utility is to be
| learned?

  I have no idea.  Some people do, some people don't.

| Unless _great_ teaching _and_ mentoring is available, it seems listening
| to more than one of these great stories and maybe believing a few for a
| period is a workable way to gain the reflex of integration you point to.
| I think the danger you describe is brief in effect, and, at any rate,
| worth taking.

  I think, from observing children, that this desire to understand how new
  things they hear match what they previously heard or understood and
  coming up with new understanding on their own and being able to deal
  _productively_ with cognitive dissonance instead of the apparent default
  to reject the new out of hand and just keep believing the old, starts at
  a very early age and is not actually _learned_, but is more acquired as a
  general attitude towards the world and their interaction with it.

  Some seem to grasp that cognitive dissonance is not a threat to their
  beliefs and do not generally believe all kinds of crap to begin with,
  from the get go, but others may learn how to deal with new information if
  they are provided with a very safe and secure setting where being upset
  (some seem to think they have been "lied" to if they have revise their
  view of something) is handled appropriately by their parents.  I have
  seen how making it more painful to stick to an old belief than to adopt a
  new one can jump-start this process in adults who don't generally get it,
  but a few people go postal when they are presented with anything that
  even hints at their being _wrong_ about something.
  
///
-- 
  In a fight against something, the fight has value, victory has none.
  In a fight for something, the fight is a loss, victory merely relief.