Conspiracy Theory and Reality

Yesterday I had a quaint little debate with another poster about the interpretation of a NIN t-shirt in Captain Marvel. Was there some nefarious alternate association with the placement of this "symbol" in the movie? Or was it just a throwback to 1990's pop culture as seen throughout the movie in various different forms?

Fast forward to my afternoon today where I ran across this nugget in an online article -

In 2015 a badly exposed photograph of a dress tore across the Internet, dividing the world into those who saw it as blue and black (me included) and those who saw it as white and gold (half my lab). Those who saw it one way were so convinced they were right—that the dress truly was blue and black or white and gold—that they found it almost impossible to believe that others might perceive it differently.

The Neuroscience of Reality

Ultimately, I think this bit of analogy states very succinctly why I think it is a moot point to argue about conspiracy theories. We are so defensive to believe what we see, think, feel, and touch that we refuse to acknowledge any other understand and rarely allow the flexibility for another person's differentiated reality or perception. Instead, we envelop ourselves in a cognitive dissonance where we can filter out those beliefs and understandings that don't match our own.

How many times have you engaged in debate on ATS or elsewhere about conspiracy theories and successfully changed someone's point of view? I'm guessing that it is a rare occurrence, but not to say it is impossible.... How many times has your view(s) changed?

a reply to: CIAGypsy

It’s funny but I was thinking along similar lines last night.

Was watching “Contact “ about UFOs and thinking that the hosts and “investigators “ were probably Blue Book agents spreading dis information.

i think we all have confirmation bias to some extent.

a reply to: CIAGypsy

I disagree

Over the years, I've come to recognize that a "conspiracy" is more often than not just a business meeting you weren't invited to. It's an agreement between people with similar interests to manipulate things so everyone in the group benefits. If you don't personally benefit, then it's a conspiracy. If you do, it's just "good planning."

a reply to: CIAGypsy

ATS:

Opinion A: "UFOs are real, they are not made by humans, maybe interplanetary or interdimensional"
Opinion B: "Prove it"

Opinion A: "Here, look at this, read that"
Opinion B: "fake"

Opinion A: "What proof do you have that it's fake?"
Opinion B: "Slow down tiger - the onus is on you to prove to me its real"

[cue spongebob voiceover]..............17 years later..........

Trump has a time machine and the planet is littered with racist nazis and Russian election meddlers.

originally posted by: DBCowboy
a reply to: CIAGypsy

It’s funny but I was thinking along similar lines last night.

Was watching “Contact “ about UFOs and thinking that the hosts and “investigators “ were probably Blue Book agents spreading dis information.

I watched it too!

A guy from work told me yesterday at work, then began texting me as a reminder when it came on. He loves UFO stories. Anyway, it was good. Now I need to watch the earlier episodes

How did you like it?

a reply to: CIAGypsy
Great question and point about cognitive dissonance.
I've encountered cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias on at least two occasions when discussing a couple of classic conspiracy theories--911 and the Kennedy assassination.
In both cases, I encountered a deeply ingrained resistance to entertaining anything other than the original story, regardless of how many points I highlighted from all kinds of sources (one of my favorites being Jim Marrs' books).
Moreover, the mere suggestion that anyone in the U.S. government could have had anything to do with those events is almost more than many people can take. They just don't want to even go there; it challenges too many foundational beliefs.

I will also confess that I refused to entertain anything other than the original story regarding 911 for a long time. It was hard to change my own views.
A friend of mine is a structural engineer, and he presented sound expertise from his own profession as to why it was perfectly conceivable that the structure of the towers could have been weakened to the point of collapse. In fact, he mentioned that many in the profession were waiting for something like that to happen--a high rise to come down. There's an old argument (from Bertrand Russell, I think) that suggests if a majority of 'experts' in a field point something out, we should listen to them, rather than stubbornly clinging to alternative theories.

And then I started reading about building 7, and that got me digging more. A mechanical engineering friend confessed that he had to start looking at 911 from a different angle for the same reason.

Everything changes in this universe, but allowing our own views to evolve does seem to be a real challenge...

a reply to: CIAGypsy

A few hours ago I was actually sitting here writing an email to a childhood friend that I've reconnected with recently. In a previous correspondence this friend had casually asked me about what it's like to participate / moderate on a site like ATS and in answering that query I found myself trying to explain some interesting things.

I guess a good enough term for it could be manufactured reality.

Let me explain.

Let's say there's a person out there somewhere who is doing a bit of research into how to make easy money in 2019. They're basically looking for the current, solid scam. The Amway of our current world.

A bit of research online about how memes work ( basic viral marketing, the right key/trigger terms, simple ideas etc ) and they get an idea.

This person then picks some absurd notion from thin air that matches up with some current trends or topics... Let's make one up here... Umm Keanu Reeves is actually an alien sent here to prepare us for first contact.

This person then takes a few days to create a Wordpress blog with lots of pictures, irrational connections, conjecture and creative fiction supporting this claim.

Maybe this person goes ahead and creates a Patreon while they're at it.

Then that person Googles "Conspiracy forums", starts creating accounts with names like "KEANUTRUTH" and spams the basics of their created theory complete with links to their blog.

This is where things get interesting because of course the moderators here and on other sites see those posts, click the links, see the obvious attempt at viral marketing and we remove the post because obvious scam is obvious.

Only maybe a couple of other members see the post before it's removed and when it disappears they get suspicious. Maybe they then post a thread of their own "Why Did The Mods Remove The Keanu Is An Alien Thread???"

This thread gets seen by a few more people.

The following day the scam artist creates a new account and creates a new thread "ATS DOESN'T WANT YOU TO KNOW THE TRUTH!!!"

Staff, knowing that this is the same person from the previous day remove this thread as well.

Only now more members innocently start noticing and start wondering what it is about Keanu that ATS is trying to cover up... And why?

Rinse and repeat for awhile and suddenly I, and the rest of the staff are seen by some as 100% NSA employed Freemason deep staters with marching orders and an agenda - all of our FB feeds are filled with posts about how Trump will soon use his Q card to verify that Keanu is, indeed from Zoltar and is here to give us all light speed capable scooters and Fox, CNN and MSNBC are all running stories discussing the shocking Keanu coverup that's very obviously happening because where there's smoke, there must be fire.

All because some lazy jackass wanted to drive a few hits to his Patreon - only now this jackass has a good shot at doing guest spots on the news and is in talks for his own Discovery Channel series.

Reality? Subjective and thanks to the Internet increasingly so.

a reply to: RoScoLaz5

I completely agree...and I think it is as hard-wired in our psyche such that it as unconscious as breathing or blinking.

originally posted by: watchitburn
a reply to: CIAGypsy

I disagree

That's just because you like to be contrary....

a reply to: Blue Shift

Interesting perspective....and very deep. I think I'm going to meditate on that bit of wisdom.

a reply to: DBCowboy

I've always felt the movie "Contact" was brilliant. I've followed Sagan my entire life. He was a brilliant man...in many more ways than people realize. What I find so interesting about that movie is that he uses science to explain religion. Ultimately, it is always about faith. Faith to believe what you believe, even when others disagree because they don't see your perception. Now apply that definition to conspiracy.

a reply to: Gandalf77

I co-founded a special organization which did some major groundbreaking studies on the paranormal. Unfortunately, I am not at liberty to share the details of what we uncovered due to privacy of the individuals involved...but that data is really irrelevant to this discussion. The only reason I bring it up is because I personally was involved in at least 200 interviews of individuals who claimed to have experienced paranormal events. In our studies, each of the participants were asked questions in order to establish their psychological state(s), as well as undergo collection of brain wave baselines to establish neurological states. This data was frequently (but not always) collected at multiple stages of research over hours, days, and months depending on the participant. One of the patterns that I documented as a frequent occurrence was the persistent refusal of some subjects to accept or acknowledge explanations which might disprove their perception of an event. In other words, we might be able to prove why a door closed suddenly and show it wasn't a ghost.... But the participant may be so sure of their own experiences and recollections that they refuse any explanation that doesn't validate their opinion.

a reply to: CIAGypsy

I can't remember what exactly I was reading but it was to do with the mind and how we can only see what we understand, it postulated if aliens visited us we might not recognise them as we have no data to understand what we're looking at.

It touched on a scientist who went and spent time with some Inuit people and sat in with a spiritual ceremony of some description, all of the members of this ceremony recalled in detail some sort of bear spirit they saw , like a vision of sorts, the scientist didn't see this spirit and described it as a mass hallucination, is it possible though he couldn't see it because he didn't understand what he was looking at.

Anyhow it was something along those lines.

originally posted by: visitedbythem

originally posted by: DBCowboy
a reply to: CIAGypsy

It’s funny but I was thinking along similar lines last night.

Was watching “Contact “ about UFOs and thinking that the hosts and “investigators “ were probably Blue Book agents spreading dis information.

I watched it too!

A guy from work told me yesterday at work, then began texting me as a reminder when it came on. He loves UFO stories. Anyway, it was good. Now I need to watch the earlier episodes

How did you like it?

It was alright, but I can't help feeling like it's a deliberate disinfo program.

a reply to: Hefficide

Heff....are you sure you aren't in the Beltway Matrix??? Because I'm pretty damn sure you just described the mechanics of the propaganda machine used by government insiders ad nauseum. I guess its just like phishing....it only takes one clueless person to take the bait and then it rolls from there....

People are naturally suspicious of things they don't understand. I get that psychology... Where I and everyone else gets frustrated is the other person's inability to see anything from our perspective.

originally posted by: hopenotfeariswhatweneed
a reply to: CIAGypsy

I can't remember what exactly I was reading but it was to do with the mind and how we can only see what we understand, it postulated if aliens visited us we might not recognise them as we have no data to understand what we're looking at.

That sounds like something straight out of the mouth of Giorgio Tsoukalos....

originally posted by: hopenotfeariswhatweneed
a reply to: CIAGypsy
It touched a scientist who went and spent time with some Inuit people and sat in with a spiritual ceremony of some description, all of the members of this ceremony recalled in detail some sort of bear spirit they saw , like a vision of sorts, the scientist didn't see this spirit and described it as a mass hallucination, is it possible though he couldn't see it because he didn't understand what he was looking at.

Anyhow it was something along those lines.

I personally believe the electromagnetic spectrum is much larger and more dynamic than science can currently measure. This may be the energy signature where spirits, visions, ghosts, angels, demons, whatever exist.... Can I prove it? No...or my name would be on the Nobel Prize.

But again, I think what differentiates this perspective from Conspiracy theory is that I am open to the debate and allow for my theory to be fluid based upon other data or input that is received....

However, I do believe with the previous poster who talked about confirmation bias. It's probably a survival trait.

originally posted by: CIAGypsy
Yesterday I had a quaint little debate with another poster about the interpretation of a NIN t-shirt in Captain Marvel. Was there some nefarious alternate association with the placement of this "symbol" in the movie? Or was it just a throwback to 1990's pop culture as seen throughout the movie in various different forms?

Fast forward to my afternoon today where I ran across this nugget in an online article -

In 2015 a badly exposed photograph of a dress tore across the Internet, dividing the world into those who saw it as blue and black (me included) and those who saw it as white and gold (half my lab). Those who saw it one way were so convinced they were right—that the dress truly was blue and black or white and gold—that they found it almost impossible to believe that others might perceive it differently.

The Neuroscience of Reality

Ultimately, I think this bit of analogy states very succinctly why I think it is a moot point to argue about conspiracy theories. We are so defensive to believe what we see, think, feel, and touch that we refuse to acknowledge any other understand and rarely allow the flexibility for another person's differentiated reality or perception. Instead, we envelop ourselves in a cognitive dissonance where we can filter out those beliefs and understandings that don't match our own.

How many times have you engaged in debate on ATS or elsewhere about conspiracy theories and successfully changed someone's point of view? I'm guessing that it is a rare occurrence, but not to say it is impossible.... How many times has your view(s) changed?

It isn't " Conspiracy Theory " that is argued so much as it is alternative critical thinking.
The term conspiracy theory forwards a valid argument to the trash bin before it's
even considered.

So you're whole post sucks for those searching out truth.

a reply to: CIAGypsy
In the case of your analogy it's only a matter of perspective, bias is literally from a particular point of view. Looking at it closer or at different distances and angles will give us more information to base our perception... How's that for a point of view?

We can also try to examine a particular conspiracy theory like a system analyst does by defining goals or purposes, identifying individuals or groups in order to make sense of their operations and procedures for accomplishing their goals.

Systems analysis is a problem-solving method that involves looking at the wider system, breaking apart the parts, and figuring out how it works in order to achieve a particular goal.

study.com

We all have different ways of perceiving or recognizing patterns, of dot connecting to figure out what reality is.

I find this interesting, in information theory as a branch of probability theory or as a mathematical theory of communication, it is said that entropy quantifies the amount of uncertainty involved in the value of a random variable or the outcome of a random process... whatever that means.

For more info:
sciencedirect.com
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
sciencedirect.com
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov