How can a person know and at the same time not know ?, How can we avoid perceiving things?Sometimes it seems that we have the ability to anesthetize certain aspects or situations of our lives so as not to suffer and move on.
In theory, a person cannot lie to himself, but we only have to look around to realize that lying and self-deception are very common today.
- Human beings have many ways of making mistakes.
- Which affect all aspects of their lives.
- This type of deception is not limited only to humans.
- But to other living beings such as viruses and bacteria.
- Which alter their physical structure to escape the immune system.
- And survive In humans.
- These strategies are more sophisticated.
Robert Trivers defines self-deception as the act of lying to oneself and argues that the main key to explaining this is to consider that real information is excluded from our consciousness.
He has written in several of his texts that “any deception aims at self-provision”. It is a mechanism that has survived the evolution of the human being and makes him accept false information as true. The lie becomes unconscious and becomes credible truths.
When truth is re-delegated to the subconscious, the lie becomes true to the person and to all his knowledge, we believe so much that the idea becomes true.
People look for signs that need to be accepted or rejected, it is attention, by heart, that allows us to retrieve that information necessary for our lives and reject those that do not interest us.
When information is considered a threat, we feel more or less discomfort and anxiety, it is in this situation that self-deception may appear. It’s like we’re exchanging attention for a sense of security. The process of fragmentation of our consciousness diverts attention from our attention and creates a kind of “blackout”; that is, we use our attention to deny this threat in order to avoid any painful situation to the person. While self-deception can be beneficial in some cases, it may be inappropriate in others.
Facing reality, even if it is painful, gives us a solid foundation to move towards a healthier and happier emotional and social life.