The way people think

The setup for the discussion is here:

Long time readers here will know that I'm fascinated by the way people think, and their ability to live in a permanent state of delusion. The concept that deludes them could be religious, or political, or social. Really, it could be in any facet of day to day life. The one consistent factor is an inability to rationally process factual information.

Those that are the best at living in a permanent delusional state don't argue the need to process factual information, but argue instead what actually is "factual". But, in the example that I linked to, those people are just your garden variety delusional people.

This point cannot be understated. Delusional people are the most dangerous threat to security of the world. I've said many times that the real threat is not nations, but technology in the hands of delusional people that will eventually lead to the end of everything.

The real war that's going on in the world is between those that can critically process information and those that are permanently delusional. We're losing that war. It's just a numbers game, and the trending is obviously moving away from critical thinking and towards "faith based", i.e. delusional, thinking. The current political and social climate in most of the world today lauds the embracing of that "faith based" methodology. That's true in the middle east. It's true in America. The leader of the free world is a "faith based" thinker - an idea I find extremely disturbing.

When I reference "faith based", it has nothing to do with religion. "Faith" is just a placeholder for "delusional" wherein it's not the factual information that is important, but rather one's perception of "self" that matters.

What it all boils down to is the mind's natural tendency to embrace that sense of "self". After all, if you can prove that what one person considers an infallible truth is actually false, that causes the person to question every belief they hold, and it can destroy the essence of that person's personality. Therefore, no matter what factual information you present to a delusional person, they will never accept it's validity. It's not a conscious decision. It's just how their brain operates.

There are very few people in the world that can integrate every piece of factual information into their own being, and essentially become a different being afterward. It doesn't take me very long at all to know if a person is "faith based" or "reality based", and it's an amusing exercise to suss that out.