cognitive fallacies

Cognitive Fallacies This has popped up in a few places, but each time, I notice a mistake. And this is probably the most important avenue of 'exploration of mind'; a slight change here can really effect where you end up. Now, I'm not going to list them all, people always seem to be able to find more, but I think that's because they are looking for them, but they are coming up with more names for the same things and making more room for mistakes. For some reason, this existence is highly complicated, and the realms of cognition and cognitive fallacies appears to have very minimal entrants, and each entrant seems to have their own take on things. Where a creative writer would say "don't think too much" and go to live in a fantasy land, as a skeptic I say "how do I know that there even is such a thing as thinking too much?" at which point the writer says "that is too much", while I cite my previous answer. A great man told me that "great men think deeply about simple things." So let's start simple. CONFIRMATION BIAS "To favour theories that confirm your existing beliefs." And people favour the theory that 'favouring theories is a bias'. All this has really done is devalue 'theory'. People will say "oh but that's just confirmation bias", without realising that 'confirmation bias' is just a theory, therefore by saying so, they have committed the sin of confirmation bias. It's a null point, and it's only value is in saying "some people simply cannot change their minds". ANCHORING EFFECT This is a side effect of our mind being only able to hold so much in it's grasp at any one time. Sure, the limit of how much it can hold can certainly be stretched to the edge of the imaginary, but this is important to recognise, because if we hold onto to too many dark truths at once the world turns black, be sure to write down happy lists in preparation for this situation. Start a list of what you are grateful for, hopeful for and enjoy considering and add to it every-time you think of it. If you have a bad day, week or year, it can save your life to have a bedrock of happiness, love and hope. BARNUM EFFECT Seeing personal specifics in vague statements is not actually a fallacy. It's an avenue of consciousness, and requires a certain sense of heightened awareness to notice these personal specifics as often as you can. Getting 'tips' from random strangers can be immensely powerful for self development. It's crazy how common someone can be talking of a story that relates metaphorically to a particular situation you are in right now. I have acquired the personal evidence to say that 'every situation almost always has something new to be learned from it'. Ever come back to an old story that taught you more about yourself on the second go than it did the first go? That can happen over and over again. Metaphors are hyper-connected. JUST WORLD HYPOTHESIS Supposedly it is only my preference for a just world that makes me presume it is. This is the perfect example of someone else creating a 'cognitive fallacy' when it is actually their confirmation bias. I have a lot of evidence to support that existence is just and perfectly equated such that 'pride comes before a fall' and 'be careful what you wish for' ensure that doing things for the wrong reasons certainly incurs their consequences. PLACEBO EFFECT If you take a medicine and it's benefits are a result of a placebo, you can still habituate that placebo to the medicine and only be restricted to having the effect of the placebo upon administration of the medicine. Homeopathy and acupuncture are still reliable and safe placebos. Leave them to their own. BELIEF BIAS I can avoid this situation by being a syncretist, I am able to believe in one thing while also believing in it's semantic opposite, because semantics misses out on the subtleties. "I am no one" and "I am some one" are both true to me. OPTIMISM VS PESSIMISM BIAS I believe this is the best of all possible worlds and simultaneously the worst of all possible worlds. It is the only world, and the one I'm in is the only I can know. But I do have hope for the future because I know that mathematically win:win situations have a conservation effect through time and is why symbiosis occurs.