Why is a lie more resilient than the truth?
One way or another, we are talking about memes. — about thought viruses. Whatever they are, they are self-replicating information. For example, “you shouldn’t eat pork” is a typical ancient meme. A modern and silly one would be “GMO.” As for the not-so-silly ones… although they’re all pretty silly, let’s say… mm… “crossing in front of a tram.” In general, people want to share this information for various reasons. For the sake of saving their neighbor, for instance.
Now let’s look at the blatant lie, or rather something that is fundamentally illogical, that breaks the brain, that doesn’t align with experience. A person is like a little monkey that seeks explanations and causal relationships. Well, that’s just how it is. In general, a person is a monkey that is capable of predicting the future. It is capable of doing so precisely because it enjoys building causal relationships and drawing conclusions. We get a kick out of this; our dopamine dictates that we do it. Those ancient standard search instincts now work for causal relationships. Now, imagine what happens in a brain burdened by a meme, say, about the Holy Trinity. It seems like you should believe… but it doesn’t add up. So what? The brain starts expending energy, trying to modify reality, to adjust one thing to another just to make everything settle down. Inside, a person feels an itch, and as long as that itch persists, the brain works on how to stop it. The mind becomes occupied with this; resources are spent on building causal relationships related to the lie, and this TRUTH becomes especially valuable because the brain has worked hard to uncover it. (It doesn’t matter that this is a parasitic digging. It exists, it has occupied many neurons, it has reflected in associative connections, and so on.)
The world is now adjusted to this TRUTH. So what now? It still feels like “something is off,” which means we need to do something, right? Correct — share the idea with a fellow person. Here I am, dear reader, sharing this well-structured, yet essentially nonsense with you, and if you say “oh, cool,” I will find happiness, and the world will gain a new follower of this new meme. But if you say “whatever, get lost,” I will be disappointed, but my brain will process it as “ the happiness machine “and rationalizes your answer in such a way that for me you will be either” enemy or still not enlightened. And what will I do? Right — I will continue to strive to enlighten others.
In the end, as Hitler said about the German press of the 1920s: “The more incredible the lie, the easier people will believe it.”