Why Cognitions Are Fallible: A True Story

[Spork]

Part 1

A couple weeks back it was time to make a routine purge of my movie collection. My modest shelf was full, and what with some great new releases coming up, space had to be made for more. I pulled two off the shelf:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0277434/

and

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0389722/

Both non-keepers, I thought. Decent films I felt I liked about equally but which for different reasons had to be let go.

We Were Soldiers features some good action which was meant to shock, but Rambo 4 has made it look tame since. Mel Gibson gives a sort of St. Crispian’s Day speech. It doesn’t come off as all that inspiring. I think Mel is upstaged by Sam Elliott, a Lee Marvin clone with a stronger character and only a handful of lines.

30 Days of Night has a stunning premise and an unexpected ending. It isn’t executed very well. The film’s pacing makes it seem more like 30 Minutes of Night. You just don’t get that despairing sense of having to persevere against a horde of vampires from Eastern Europe in Alaska for a winter month. And the suspense is nowhere. Five stars for concept, two stars for partway delivering on it.

Long story short, I had this terrific “cognition” that I liked both films about the same (not terribly) so I could comfortably sell them both. I did so without further hesitation.

Some philosophical remarks on this cognition.

1. Two weeks ago, at the time of the cognition, it occurred to me that it _just couldn’t be wrong._ It was absolutely certain: sure as anything could be. I like to think I’m in passably close touch with my own tastes in film. Anyway, how could I make a mistake about something so private and subjective? As an analogy, if I feel I have a pain in my tooth, then I have a toothache, right? How the heck could I be wrong about that? So how could I be wrong in my feeling that I liked both films equally well?

2. I might like to think that I am my own authority on the content of this cognition. How dare anybody suggest that I don’t know what I like! How dare anyone presume to “invalidate” me! You might as well tell me my favourite flavour of ice cream isn’t pistachio or something. Yes, about my own tastes in film, MY judgement is ABSOLUTE.

 

[Spork]

Part 2

Two weeks have passed and something astonishing has happened. The walls of certainty are toppling. The two movies are long gone from my modest shelf. We Were Soldiers I don’t miss at all. But I’m shocked to find I really regret ditching 30 Days of Night!

How can this be? Clearly this outcome contradicts my earlier cognition. I thought I liked them about the same. Now it appears that I never did. Otherwise I’d either miss having We Were Soldiers or I wouldn’t miss 30 Days of Night.

One conclusion seems inescapable. It’s true, two weeks back my cognition seemed as sure as anything. Notwithstanding, hindsight (it’s said) is 20/20.

_My cognition was wrong._

 

[Spork]

Part 3

How could I have been wrong about a subjective matter of taste? How can the cognition be fallible? Time to consider some alternative hypotheses.

A. In the past two weeks, my tastes in film changed. Before, I _did_ like both movies equally; now I don’t. My cognition wasn’t wrong, I just changed my mind.

B. Actually my original cognition remains correct and I’m wrong _now._ On this theory I ought to stop missing 30 Days of Night or start missing We Were Soldiers.

C. Both my original and my present cognitions are wrong. I never really liked both films equally then and I do like them equally now, though I can’t bring myself to believe it. Somehow I’m kidding myself all the way.

D. Alternately, I never truly had a cognition in the first place: I may have _believed_ I had a cognition but I was wrong about that. My cognitions can’t be wrong but I can be wrong about whether I have them.

The sceptical hypotheses C and D are probably the most interesting of the bunch, but I’ll place them aside since they’re not likely to be espoused by one who holds the Mystery of the Cognition in high regard.

What about the other two? Starting with B, I go back mentally to my recollections of those films. I surf the imdb.com database for clues. Any kind of reality check I can think of ... hmm, no, on careful reflection I still wish I’d kept 30 Days but I can do without Soldiers. Indeed it seems to me that this is how it ought to be. For all the faults in its execution, give me the cool premise about Alaskan vampirism. Forget the Lee Marvin clone when the real Lee Marvin is handily on the shelf in The Professionals and The Dirty Dozen.

As for A, it’s a fact that people’s tastes change over time. But I’d be surprised to find a noticeable shift in myself in only two weeks. Of course, I suppose I have to notice such a shift (if there is one) at _some_ point, so why not now? But _why_ now? This possibility just seems unmotivated. There’s nothing I can point to (at least nothing offhand) which could explain the perceptible taste-shift in the last fourteen days. More deeply, suppose there is such an explanation which I presently fail to see: why then can’t I have an immediate cognition to that effect? Why am I not “cogniting” that my tastes changed?

 

[Spork]

Part 4

None of the alternative hypotheses seem very good. This brings me back to the inescapable feeling that a “cognition” – even about something as intimate as a personal matter of taste – can be wrong.

Two weeks ago I thought I had perfect and indefeasible access to my own tastes in film. I thought I could introspect for a while and then come to know, without possibility of error, an apparent fact about these tastes.

Hindsight is clearer than the conviction of the moment. “You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.” Joni Mitchell. Sung like a true philosopher.

What does all this amount to? I think the lessons are threefold.

 

[Spork]

Part 5

Lesson 1. _The rectitude of a “cognition” is subject to the pressure of external facts._

The reality is, in this particular case I was in no position to tell whether I liked both films equally until I seriously made the experiment of getting rid of them. I just had to “suck it and see”. As it turned out, my judgement (something in my mind, internal to myself) that I liked both films equally was defeated by something outside me, beyond the pale of the mind.

This shows – I submit for discussion – that the contents of a “cognition” are subordinate to facts in the outside world which are quite independent of the self and its mind and whatever happens to be in it. (I have a hunch that some people reading this will want to resist that conclusion.)

 

[Spork]

Part 6

Lesson 2. _“Cognitions” are not by themselves a perfectly reliable source of knowledge._

Self-explanatory and I think a corollary of Lesson 1.

 

[Spork]

Part 7

Lesson 3. _“Cognitions” are likely to be increasingly fallible as their content extends beyond the self and/or grows more complicated._

If the truth (or falsity) of a cognition about something private to me (taste in film) has to be referred to facts in the external world, how much more so a cognition which specially concerns things utterly beyond myself and my immediate experience!

For example, if I “cognite” that the Marcab Confederacy will re-form in a gazillion years’ time and will attempt to re-conquer Teegeeack, that cognition has as its subject nothing about me personally about which I might be tempted to maintain (see Part 1 above) that I am an ABSOLUTE AUTHORITY. If I’m not an authority, aren’t I more likely to be wrong? It doesn’t follow that I _am_ wrong (that would be a fallacy), but isn’t there a greater chance of error?

Further, if a person can be wrong in his/her cognitions about something as simple and mundane as a matter of personal taste, what does that suggest about the fallibility of cognitions involving no less remote but more complex propositions? E.g. somebody’s cognition that the real reason my half-brother and I have trouble getting along has to do with a network of “overts, withholds, ARC breaks” and so on – how likely is that intricate cognition to be true? Not very.

It would seem that as the subject matter (the content) of a cognition grows more remote and more intricate, the greater the possibility for error, and above all, the less that any purely subjective feeling of certainty (“Aha!” with “very good indicators”) can serve as a useful guide.

The reason for all this, it appears, is that a “cognition” can be overridden by the facts.

 

[Spork]

Part 8

The facts (for the most part) lie outside us. A fact is a public thing.

Someone may have a “cognition” to the effect that this or that claim is indeed the fact. Whether the cognition is right, is itself entirely at the whim and mercy of the facts. Not the other way round.

“The world,” Wittgenstein cryptically remarked, “is everything that is the case.” (Tractatus.) “The world is the totality of facts” – then still more cryptically – “not of things.”

Tangentally, “cognitions” do not determine the world. They do not even determine anyone’s private universe or personal reality or whatever is “true for them”.

Yes, we live in a harsh, merciless world full of facts of the cruellest and awfullest kind. They sometimes falsify our cognitions! Unsympathetic, the facts laugh at us. Our “cognitions” are the butts of the facts’ inscrutable jokes.

I would like to conclude this fugue with an ambiguous message from the Commissioner of Facts.

“Why, then, you are not to see anywhere, what you don’t see in fact; you are not to have anywhere, what you don’t have in fact. What is called Taste, is only another name for Fact.”

Thomas Gradgrind nodded his approbation.

“This is a new principle, a discovery, a great discovery ... You are in all things to be regulated and governed,” said the gentleman, “by fact. We hope to have, before long, a board of fact, composed of commissioners of fact, who will force the people to be a people of fact, and nothing but fact. You must discard Fancy altogether. You have nothing to do with it. ... This is the new discovery. This is fact. This is taste.”

(Dickens, Hard Times, ch. 2)

 

[Mojo]

“This is a new principle, a discovery, a great discovery ... You are in all things to be regulated and governed,” said the gentleman, “by fact. We hope to have, before long, a board of fact, composed of commissioners of fact, who will force the people to be a people of fact, and nothing but fact. You must discard Fancy altogether. You have nothing to do with it. ... This is the new discovery. This is fact. This is taste.”

(Dickens, Hard Times, ch. 2)

Very well written material Spork.

At the risk of offending anyone's sensibilities by offering what I'm about to offer (as a confession of a peculiar present state of mind) rather than offering a more in depth or substantial response to your series to date, I can only, well, confess to being witness to this present state of mind, lol.

Here goes:

“This is a new religion, a discovery, a great discovery ... You are in all things to be regulated and governed,” said the commodore, “by data. We hope to have, before long, a bridge of data, composed of levels of data, who will force the thetan's to be thetan's of data, and nothing but data. You must discard creativity altogether. You have nothing to do with it. ... This is the new discovery. This is data. This is Scientology.”

Mojo

P.S. in regard to the experience of cognitions seemingly being jr. to facts, I believe it was Gurdjieff that first suggested (to a broad audience) the many I's theory of Individual Being wherein, for example, the "I" that enthusiastically set's the alarm at night to get up at 4:00 am the next morning to go off to the local gym for a strenuous workout and the "I" that hear's the alarm go off at 4:00 am and has to get up and go 'do' that strenuous workout, is not the same "I".

In this light both "I"'s are valid in terms of their respective "cognitions" (yes/no), but neither "I" is equal to the Master "I", or the Real "I" as Gurdjieff proposed it.

In a similiar vein (in terms of possibilites) the cognition that resulted in an equal-value assigned to each movie made at one point and time ("I" like them both equally) and the later cognition that was opposed to such an equal-value ("I" like one better than the other) represent not a failure in cognition or in the accuracy of a cognition but in the principle of multiple identities, each assuming the same introductionary name, to wit: "I". The idea that a later cognition is necessarily more accurate than a former one owing to a greater experience (via time) may just well be a presentation of rationalization, which serves to keep the whole "group" in line. Lol!

Mo

 

[SchwimmelPuckel]

That was great Spork! - All those scilon communication experts and authorities on the mind should read that until they have a cognition! :mindblow:

Or maybe they should just take a ride on their bicycles..

A cognition can be contagious! - And that even if it is contrary to facts.. I ain't talking about Hubbard. I suspect him of trying to fool us intentionally (or actually doing it!)... A carefully planned deception.

I'm talking about Percival Lowell, a respected astronomer who made the whole world believe that there were great canals on Mars.

So we learn that epic cognitions are sometimes epic MU's!

We need to nurture our doubts.. They are very useful and a safeguard for our sanity! - Skeptism is in this category as well...

 

[The Anabaptist Jacques]

Excellent post Spork!

As I see it, the decline in the reasoning process and minds of Scientologists starts with their acceptance of Scientology nomenclature, such as a "cognition" as a fact of reality in the first place. By redefining a "temporary value-preference decisions" as a "cognition" one then believes "cognitions" have force, that is, are real factors that effect reality. when all they really are is a person thinking about their own thoughts and value-preferences. A value-preference is simply a personal preference of valuing one thing over another thing or things.
I had an OTVIII once tell me they cognited that the trouble in the Middle East was because of third-party by space aliens. She said she "knows" this is true. She said that no peace or progress in that part of the world will be possible until world leaders cognite on this.
This is why I find it unproductive and useless to discuss Scientology using Scientology terms. Because by using the terms you are automatically agreeing to their concept and thereby the premises behind it.

But again, great post Spork!

The Anabaptist Jacques

 

[Zander]

Great posts spork

And you make very important points. Scientologists pin a lot on these so-called cognitions, and they become their "truth" whether or not they are based on reality.

As TAJ said of that ot8, they "know" something to be true even when there is absolutely no evidence for it. Well I call this "believing", but to them it is "knowing".

I think there has got to be some sort of feedback mechanism going on here. Every time you, as a pc, cognite in session this is reinforced by the e-meter ("your needle is floating") and that lovely "ack" you get. I'm sure that as this happens more and more you start to "know" these cognitions are true.

This is how a person can attest to the silliest things and really believe it and how in scientology you really can lose touch with reality.

Surely the more auditing you have the more suggestible you become.

Probably every attest I ever made I "knew" at that point in time that it was correct but if I had really evaluated it properly it clearly wasn't. But I felt so good about it so it must be true! This would include such things as the ep's of the grades or of "Clear".

Could I really communicate to anyone about any subject after grade 0?

Could I really recognize the source of problems and make them vanish after grade 1?

After attesting later on I would always have doubts because I would think, did I really reach that ep? This caused me a lot of problems in scientology.

Also another point of judgement being lost is that a scientologist often believes something to be true when they get that certain good feeling about it, just feeling that they are right. They have this feeling reminiscent of a cognition in session, so it must be true regardless of the facts!

The trouble with that is that they end up believing what they want to believe, no matter how conclusively anyone can demonstrate the falsity of it. And anything presented to them in a feel-good uptone kind of way will generate cognition type feelings of belief in what's being sold. I believe that this is why events seem to have such a manipulative impact on many of the followers and why scientologists can be quite gullible.

So in my mind "cognitions" certainly seem to have far-reaching effects on the ability of scientologists to reason, and why it is often very difficult to communicate with them.

Zander

 

[Axiom142]

Lesson 2. _“Cognitions” are not by themselves a perfectly reliable source of knowledge._

Self-explanatory and I think a corollary of Lesson 1.

Very interesting posts Spork. Your points are well made.

Personally, I never thought of my cognitions as being ‘true’ in an absolute sense. They were just ‘true’ for me at that particular point in time.

For example, I might have a cognition that I always wanted to be an opera singer, and that was why I was so unhappy being a truck driver. But, I might have a subsequent cognition that I didn’t have the necessary vocal chords to be an opera singer and realise that I could be a pilot and be really happy doing that.

I considered that cognitions were just a physical manifestation of a process that took place in the mind. I even had a cognition about this in session! My cognition was that cognitions were the thoughts that accompanied the process of making a mental connection. Sort of tying up mental loose ends so that they were no longer er, loose.

I haven’t read any Wittgenstein, but I will leave you with this quote from the well known American philosopher, Homer: “ A nuclear reactor is a lot like a woman. You just have to read the manual and press the right button.”

Axiom142

 

[Emma]

Great stuff Spork. That moved things in my head.

 

[Feral]

Very interesting posts Spork. Your points are well made.

Personally, I never thought of my cognitions as being ‘true’ in an absolute sense. They were just ‘true’ for me at that particular point in time.

For example, I might have a cognition that I always wanted to be an opera singer, and that was why I was so unhappy being a truck driver. But, I might have a subsequent cognition that I didn’t have the necessary vocal chords to be an opera singer and realise that I could be a pilot and be really happy doing that.

I considered that cognitions were just a physical manifestation of a process that took place in the mind. I even had a cognition about this in session! My cognition was that cognitions were the thoughts that accompanied the process of making a mental connection. Sort of tying up mental loose ends so that they were no longer er, loose.

I haven’t read any Wittgenstein, but I will leave you with this quote from the well known American philosopher, Homer: “ A nuclear reactor is a lot like a woman. You just have to read the manual and press the right button.”

Axiom142

Good one Spork!

I agree with Ax. I have had the embarrassing experience of "cogniting" exactly 180deg wrong..... More than once...

 

[Voltaire's Child]

Anything that's subjective is either fallible or potentially so. That also includes revelations that Scn is no good, that no one ever achieves anything from spiritual or mental exercises, etc. I've seen many such realizations by people on critical forums.

Same standard applies.

 

[olska]

Spork, excellent series of posts -- thank you!

 

[Lucretia]

Spork, that was a brilliant post!

When it hit me that ot3 was bollocks, I ditched all the cognitions I had on ot3 and 4. If the ot levels were rubbish then any realisation that came from them also had to be rubbish. Then - well, how did I trust the cognitions I had from the lower levels? The cogs I had on ot 3&4 seemed OK, but so did all the others. Well, now I am consciously trying to ditch the cogs I have had in 30 years of $cn, because I no longer trust my past deluded mindset, or the processes that led to the cogs. This is quite difficult, as a lot of it is quite entrenched, but it has lead to a welcome lack of arrogance, much more humility and a great deal more empathy with ordinary people (not wogs - people)! I also have the added advantage of being able to reference my feelings to the world around me, not to some spurious set of data both internal and external, and in a gentle kind of way it is quite extroverting and liberating.

I think cognitions are transient kind of mental ordering of a set of data, in relation to the mood you happen to be in at the time. If the data (which I think is more important than mood) does not change, everthing is held in place. KSW is diabolical! Once that data changes the ordering must change, and the past cognitions must go.

I have an adventure ahead of me I think. However, the legacy is that I find it very difficult to trust anything metaphysical. Maybe this will settle down with time.

 

[Feral]

One question; Why would a person expect a cognition to be an infallible truth?

A cog is 'an asising aberation with a realization about life' (ref tech dictionary). This may be a highly subjective realization, a personal 'truth' , based on the data available at that time, which means it well could be complete bollocks.

Spork's cog may have been true enough, at that time. Maybe then as he let the movie go that he did a new "Joni Mitchell' type phenomenon may occur. Requiring a second cog!!!!

'Oh shit, now it is gone I see that I miss it! Maybe that would have occurred with the other movie too!"

Or the second cog could have been 'cogs are not infallible'

 

[Lucretia]

In the light of my current experience I don't think that cogs are an infallible truth, but for some reason I used to think they were. And the poor deluded one who believes that space aliens are responsible for the Arab-Israeli conflict does.

I think scios are encouraged to think that they have the monopoly on truth and the more it is self-generated bullshit, without a shred of evidence supporting it, the more credence it has.

The aberration that is being as-ised is only an aberration in the context of $cio. But what aberration was being as-ised in getting rid of the movies? Are we talking about the same thing?

Another thing - I decided I was not going to talk in scientologese any more and I am disgusted with myself that I just have. Read vapourised, or something for as-ised (bleeeh!)