You, Illuminated

What there is no Santa? I guess you won't be getting anything under the tree on Christmas morning from the jolly fellow!

Hi, Joshua:

Regarding Santa Claus, please visit www.TheSantaClausFoundation.org.

Blessings to all, Santa Claus

I think cognitive dissonance goes FAR beyond the usual discussions of reactions to failed prophecy. In my view, CD underlies all rational adaptation to our many environments. I think about a quote from Lewis Thomas (Lives of a Cell), that in a productive scientific lab, one hears loud, excited exclamations like, "That's impossible!" accompanied by laughter. Science resolves CD by investigation and setting up experiments to test conflicting ideas and resolve the dilemma. In everyday life, we face conflicts in many situations, from trivial to life-changing, and have to resolve them one way or another. To a creationist, facing constantly growing mountains of evidence substantiating evolution, dissonance must be held at bay by ever-greater levels of denial, like clinging to long-disproven misrepresentations of science and repeating them like a mantra to ward off Satan.
In my estimation, CD ranks as one of the most important of all cognitive subroutines and I watch it operate on many levels in my own life, sometimes minute-to-minute. Small wonder that it lights up the amygdala!

...but a WHOLE lot of money to be made selling it.

Same for:
- Conscious control and free will
- Most business theories, pretty much most theories of everything it turns out
- Supernatural and spiritual beliefs

...any other pop myths....but this must have some adaptive value....as you suggest, w propose it mainly saves the brain from expending unneeded energy processing experience.

Clearly, tracking of empirical reality is NOT a top reproductive benefit. Yipee!!

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