Why we can't "change" our (or others) minds

[gall]

I decide what I call fact not some intangible thought process that doesn't seem to exist.

And how have you come to this conclusion? How would you be able to know that a subconscious mental process was not affecting your conscious mind when it came to changing your opinion?

I don't know this but it sure seems like people are tossing opinions as fact around here. I am saying that I can neither prove nor disprove.

Do you have some data that points towards these sub-con processes you refer to?

Until someone can say for certain that something else is in control of our reasoning functions I would say I decide for myself what is fact and not. I can even choose to be totally ignorant and say a fact is so when others can clearly prove it is not. Sure that is totally retarded but I have that choice and watch others around me do that every single day in public and at work.

I can't prove anything more than anyone else can I am not trying to run over anyone's opinion and hope that my statements for myself personally don't come across as me saying it is universally so. Who can really say. We know so little of the sub-con mind that I would venture no one can actually answer that.

Maybe we don't control what we find to be fact but I can say for a fact that I would never agree that the world is flat like the flat earth society members will even though they will say that their flat world is a "fact". I can use data and even go to space to prove it is not. In that way I cannot prove what I have said I guess I just want to in some way feel like I control what I think and until I see real proof otherwise I am going with that.

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And good for you, gall. But you haven't dissuaded me from my (well somebody's) hypothesis. Think of all the folks who cling to racial stereotypes. I once saw a father on Dr Phil who completely disowned his daughter because she dated a Hispanic guy. There are still large groups of people in the south who "know" that Lincoln was a criminal and evil because of his role in freeing the slaves, and until quite recently it was still illegal to marry outside your race, (and to marry within your gender even now).

Also, most of us were indoctrinated as to the truthfulness of a particular faith early on. Those who were the authorities in our lives made sure that we believed as fact that premises of their religion. And most of us are never able to change those "facts" for the rest of their lives.

But I in fact do not believe in the premises of their religion never have once. they do not decide how I feel or think about THEIR religion. It is not mine that is for certain.

maybe I missed your point. If you feel you cannot change the way you think or facts that you can accept I don't really know what to say other than I do not think like you and have a different opinion and in no way does that make yours less valid.