Plato's Cave - The Orlando Philosophy Meetup Group

Warm Greetings to All,

Join Plato's Cave philosophers and Orlando Stoics on Zoom this Sunday morning, March 22 at 9:00. (Informal chat at 9:00, forum at 9:15)

Plato's Cave members can reserve a place and receive zoom login information on this site and receive e-mail confirmation.

Every Sunday, a new lecture. Our meeting starts at 9:00 AM with friendly wakeup chat; then our select topic panel briefly introduces the subject at 9:15, followed by member discussion and Q&A.
Volunteer introduction panelists will meet following each forum.

This Week: The Paradox of Deception
Discussion Leaders: Joe B. and Rebecca W.

This week we explore a simple but important question: Is the mind designed to discover truth, or to make sense of the world in ways that help us function and cooperate? This raises a deeper puzzle: do paradoxes reveal errors in our thinking, or do they reveal something about how intelligence actually works?

We begin with Robert Trivers, who studied why deception evolved. Trivers argued that in social life, the ability to mislead others can sometimes provide an advantage. But deception creates a paradox. If we know we are lying, we often reveal it through behavior. One solution is self deception. When people believe their own stories, the deception becomes more convincing. Intelligence can therefore contain mechanisms that both reveal truth and hide it.

Next we turn to Michael Gazzaniga, whose research on the brain helps explain how this might happen. Gazzaniga discovered that one part of the brain acts like an “interpreter.” It constantly builds explanations for our behavior, even when the real causes are outside our awareness. His work partly supports Trivers’ idea, but he is also more cautious. He argues that the brain is not necessarily trying to deceive itself. Instead, different systems in the brain produce actions and explanations separately, and the mind tries to create a coherent story afterward.
Finally we look at Jonathan Haidt, who studies moral judgment.

Haidt argues that many of our decisions begin with intuitions or gut reactions. Reasoning often comes later, helping us explain and defend those reactions. In this view, reasoning works less like a judge deciding a case and more like a lawyer defending a position.
Together these thinkers suggest that the human mind is not simply a truth finding machine. It is also a system for story making, interpretation, and social coordination. The paradox is that intelligence helps us understand reality, yet it also builds narratives that make life socially workable.

Understanding this tension may be part of understanding the mind itself.