Thread by @StephenPunwasi

Your brain is unreliable. No, it’s not just you. It’s everyone.

Quick thread, but warning — once you know this, you can no longer trust yourself 100%, and there’s no going back.

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2/ Humans are complex but that complexity makes them unreliable.

There are way too many points for our memory to remember but we’re also so neurotic we can’t let gaps appears.

It drives us *insane* to not know, so we just make it up. Seriously.

3/ Let’s start with a fun and gimmicky one that you may have already seen.

It’s a viral TikTok. Give it a try?

4/ Which did you hear?

It actually says “brainstorm,” but most of us will hear unclear audio, see a visual cue, second guess, and make the decision with the most available evidence.

Sometimes it’s wrong.

Cheap illusion? Hardly, it shows reality is a function of perception.

5/ Hearing green needle isn’t wrong, it’s very real to you. It’s not what’s there, but it is to you.

Our reality is a combination of data points assembled by our brains, and we fill in what we don’t have.

That’s one of the reasons humans are drawn to conspiracy theories.

6/ Conspiracy theories help people fill in the gaps for complex events they don’t understand.

How do we no longer understand how to get to the moon when people wrapped in tinfoil did in the 60s?

It’s easier to believe we didn’t than it is to understand you’d lose that research.

7/ I can tell you’re wondering how that’s possible? We’re wired to do that.

Conversely, it’s also why people refuse to dismiss real issues as conspiracy theories.

A super interesting one is Project Sunshine. From the 50s to 70s, moms said their dead babies were being stolen.

8/ Experts said this was moms losing their mind after losing a baby.

NOPE! 🇺🇸 and 🇬🇧 would scoop dead babies and cut off parts for radiation testing. They needed fresh young flesh.

Mom’s freaked out when they weren’t allowed to even see the baby after.

theguardian.com/uk/2001/jun/03…

9/ The public didn’t know about testing though, so it some how made more sense that 6,000 moms went insane than the government would hack up dead babies.

A big problem with our brain filling in the gaps is it doesn’t end with active evaluation. It impacts our memory.

10/ You know that epic moment when Darth Vader says, “Luke, I am your father?”

Or in Snow White, when the witch says “Mirror, Mirror on the wall?”

Didn’t happen. It’s called collective false memories, or the Mandela effect after people had memories if Nelson Mandela dying…

11/ but he didn’t die. a lot of people have memories of him dying.

There’s a few issues experts think cause this. The first is recalling memories reactivates neurons composing the trace, creating new connections.

Sometimes is misfires…

12/ if it misfires, there’s zero chance the present is right. You *know* the past was, you’re hardwired for it.

The other issue experts see is suggestion. You may not totally remember the Berenstain Bears, but when someone remembers the Berenstein Bears, you fill in the memory.

13/ This memory recall issue has been problematic in court.

Sometimes witnesses will be asked about details that are usually present, and they’ll remember them when they were not in fact there that day.

This is once against your brain filling in the details.

14/ Last but not least, there’s the Dunning-Kruger effect, which is thrown around a lot these days

This is when someone with low ability overestimates their competence.

In other words, they know so little they don’t know an issue is more complex.

15/ You might be middle class, but you KNOW that billionaire is bad at investing.

The lesser known part of that curve is knowledgeable people are unsure.

You know physics and it’s ridiculous to think life is a simulation, right? Stephen Hawking thought it might be.

16/ on that note, have a great night. Or day. In a few weeks without enough details, this might have been a thread on cats.

Who the heck knows? But it’s probably best not to assume you’re always right.

But for real, what conspiracy do you totally believe? 🧐😂 👇

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