The "Natural" Brain vs. Finding Peace

The quote below is deeply profound, imo, and has more application than just internet communication. I really think letting go of the natural inclination it describes is an important step in understanding and living charity – and finding peace and joy.

“The human brain is, in large part, a machine for winning arguments, a machine for convincing others that its owner is in the right – and thus a machine for convincing its owner of the same thing. The brain is like a good lawyer: given any set of interests to defend, it sets about convincing the world of their moral and logical worth, regardless of whether they in fact have any of either. Like a lawyer, the human brain wants victory, not truth; and, like a lawyer, it is sometimes more admirable for skill than for virtue.” – Robert Wright

I think there is some truth to this idea as far as people commonly having the tendency to oversimplify things, jump to conclusions, and then become extremely defensive and stubborn about their opinions as if they are absolutely right. However the problem I have with the idea of people adopting a general policy of not really trusting the “natural brain” and secular scholarship is simply that I think some of the alternatives like mostly trusting your feelings and/or what others have told you to believe are even more likely to result in inaccurate conclusions and ineffective or counterproductive solutions to problems.

Personally I like to argue and challenge people’s claims and assumptions not so much for the sake of contention or expecting to win debates as much as simply to test out different ideas and possibilities to see just how well they really stand up to honest criticism. To me some arguments are useful simply to spark worthwhile discussion where if no one can step up and show me why exactly I am wrong in a fairly convincing way then it just makes me that much more confident that my opinion is reasonable even if not the most popular.

I am perfectly comfortable with some uncertainty and actually like many faith-based beliefs involving speculation about things that are truly unknown. However, I have a lot less patience for beliefs that basically require and depend on ignorance and denial of generally accepted knowledge that we can be fairly confident about especially when people expect others to believe the same thing just because it’s a popular tradition. Sure denial might make me feel better and make it easier to get along with others but to me that’s like trying to cure cancer by putting a band-aid on it because the root problem is still there for future generations to deal with if I simply try to ignore it and pretend it doesn’t exist (Luke 8:17).