Cognitive Dissonance

It's a funny thing, the cognitive mind. Somehow it has managed to defeat itself...

I was told I think too much sometimes. I tell myself I don't think enough. The way I see it, everything can be explained and placed into some framework...Piaget's schema theory, perhaps. Afterall, who would disagree with structure? Wouldn't everything be so much better if we could understand what's going on, the thoughts we have, the choices we made? If we could understand ourselves and the people around us? And what better way to do it then with something we can picture...imagine...and hold in our minds? What better tool to use but logic? I mean, one could argue that logic was granted to us...what a waste if we don't use it...check out what this guy said:

"My deeply held belieft is that if a God, anything like the traditional sorts, exists, our curiosity and intelligence are provided by such a God. We would be unappreciative of those gifts...if we suppressed our passion to explore the universe and ourselves." - Carl Sagan, 1979

Cool eh? I totally agree. I think because I can. Schemas? good. Structure? good. Understanding? good. Logic? good. It's all good. Good good good.

So why are we still screwed? Why do we still don't understand ourselves and others? It's kind of funny...the more I read about PSYCH101 last term, the more I realize how folly the mind is. How easily we can misremember...and misrecall... how easily we fall to assumptions and orders. How we can so easily look around the plank in our eyes... the mind is a powerful tool. Too bad a tool is only as useful as the skill of the wielder.

So using science, it pretty much defeated the hopes that the mind can understand itself fully. I came to that realization earlier today. I could only understand so much. I can only bend so much with scientific cognitive-ness. As good as it is...it's not enough.

But I don't want to believe that there are no answers to the curiousity. CS Lewis wrote about how if there's a desire, there's probably something that is meant to meet that desire. So we need to augment more stuff into the picture. This verse came to mind:

"...Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." - John 20.29

Do I have the answers? No. Will I ever get enough to be satisfied? Probably not, but that's not for me to decide. But that's what it takes to be faithful, I guess. To keep on walking, even when I don't know all the facts.

"If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him." - James 1.5