I’ve observed that the people whom I’ve interacted with tend to make poor decisions (defined as decisions having harmful outcomes and that could have been foreseen with the knowledge the person possessed at the time of making the decision) at a rate proportional to the amount of cognitive dissonance that they exhibit. The ones who have the most consistent beliefs and behaviors make the fewest mistakes. I haven’t run into anyone who was both consistent and a screwup yet, but that could be a result of my peer group (pretty much all of whom have completed a college education, which is hard to do if you consistently make poor decisions).

This fits in well with my theory of personal development as minimization of cognitive dissonance.

There is another important aspect of this that I am beginning to discover as well (and indeed, it springs from the only decision I’ve ever made that I consider objectively wrong, given my available options and knowledge): one cannot hope to understand another who has not undergone a similar degree of development. Their internal dissonance will manifest as poor decisions and attitudes which are utterly irrational to one who lacks such dissonance.

It took years for me to sort it out, and very few people are as introspective as I am. Perhaps this is why I’m very slow to make friends but greatly cherish the ones I have: none of them suffer from the burdens of irrationality that seem to plague the majority of the population to one degree or another. At a fundamental level, we understand each other because we are capable of constructing rational models of each other’s behavior – and we know that these models will be correct because they are consistent with our values.

This is the root of empathy. One cannot “see things through another’s eyes” unless an understanding exists. Any perceived understanding that lacks the root of such a model, conscious or unconscious, is a mere shadow of the true bond. Words are not a substitute and will not create an understanding where none can exist. In order for the phrase “I understand you” to be true, one must first understand “I” and “you” – in that order, for if your own behavior is irrational, you have no hope of ever constructing a rational model of another’s behavior.