Unreliable Witnesses, Leopard Spots and Placebo Effect

Contributor: Kyle Smeby

When I was a child I remember seeing many television shows trying to be funny by showing us several characters remembering a single scenario differently--and usually to their own advantage. The punch line of these stories usually came at the end when we got to see the actual event occur and realized that no one told the story exactly how it happened. In my mind, as a child, this meant that all of the characters were lying and tended to diminish my respect for them and seemed far from funny.

I'm ashamed to say that, years later, even after I realized how common it was for individuals to remember things the way they like to, it probably still took me another year or two to realize I was probably doing the same thing. Thus making me as unreliable a witness as everyone else.

Inner Monologue: "Congratulations Kyle. You just got the joke."

Kyle: "But it's even less funny than I thought it was before."

Inner Monologue: "When you can't cry… you laugh."

Various schools of philosophy were no help; in fact, they seemed to make things worse. I hadn't disputed the existence of reality, just an individual's ability to remember it accurately. Many philosophers disagreed, however, and felt the need to prove that there was a reality for humans to experience in the first place. Descartes' "I think therefore I am" and Dr. Samuel Johnson's, "I refute it thus! (said while kicking a stone)" while intriguing and entertaining, respectively, didn't really address the issue. Nor did I think the issue really needed to be addressed, until I discovered that some people were capable of manipulating their memories in near real-time, changing their experiences to match their expectations while it was happening.

This phenomenon is most obvious when watching individuals interact with people they have an emotional interest in, either positive or negative. When a person interacts with another in an unexpected way the first is apt to go through any number of mental contortions to make that interaction fit within the framework of their normal relationship. Perhaps most pronounced in cases where a perceived enemy suddenly acts friendly. Individuals will often assume sinister motives and detect sarcasm where there isn't any, one might even go so far as to look into the meaning of their posture or the time and place this happened searching for more signs of antagonisms that may not actually be there. Conversely, most of us have known someone they might describe as a tag-along, or someone that insisted on being your friend when you didn't want them to be. Most people are unaware, however, when that person is themself (sic¹). We are unaware because we don't want to get the hint. People need friends, obviously, but many of us think we need our enemies too and it can be a hard thing to let them stop filling those roles. It's not so much that people can't change, it's that we are loathe to change our perceptions of them.

Getting back to those sitcoms and cartoons where no one can seem to remember exactly what happened, it's hard to have a hero without a villain. And when all parties want to view themselves as the hero a villain needs to be created. It seems counter-intuitive but it's a wonderful safety net to have a lot of people working against you. If you succeed, you've succeeded against impossible odds. If you fail, then you fought a noble fight and it's amazing you made it as far as you did. Either way, you're a hero, tragic or celebrated.

But cheer up gentle reader. The first step down the road to recovery is admitting you have a problem. It's easy to hear other people doing it (hint: it's when you want to correct them when they're telling a story). Now all you have to do is turn it around and realize when someone is correcting your story they might be right, or at least the truth probably resides somewhere between the two.

Welcome to subjective reality where everything looks a little more gray and explanations take a lot longer. Why would you want to do this to yourself?

Once you're able to see yourself succumbing to this character flaw it's much easier to correct it. If you can objectively look at yourself imagine how much easier it will be to improve on those things you've been making excuses for. Imagine the value in becoming the person that others can trust to tell the story straight. Overall your ability to choose the proper course of action should improve with your ability to realistically assess your situation. Many enemies should become friends, or at least fall into the realm of indifference. As you change yourself you might be amazed to see how others change around you, even though they aren't necessarily changing themselves at all.

But it doesn't need to stop there. This leads us to an advanced technique, a very risky, yet potentially rewarding technique. If we can change our memories, thus our reality, to impede us, can we change our memories in ways that advance or improve our lives? It's a dangerous topic since any manipulation of the truth would seem to be a bad thing, but the brain has been known to do it. People suppress or replace debilitating memories of abuse and trauma all the time and there is a benefit as well as a danger to that. The benefit being that the individual can put off dealing with those events until they are ready. The danger being that they may choose to never be ready. These are extreme examples, however, and not the place for mind tricks. I only mention them to illustrate the volatility of memory.

The best place to apply memory manipulation would be in very small events you have no control over that might otherwise ruin your day. Things like traffic jams, the store being out of product X, poison ivy, etc. If you can find a way to spin these things into something positive they can improve your day. Use the time in the traffic jam to think through a problem or just think of something positive to do, when thinking back on the situation allow the traffic jam to fade from memory and focus on any solutions or positive actions you found. If the store is out of product X this could be your chance to try product Y, cook something else entirely, or go out to eat. If you look at those things positively product X loses its significance. Poison ivy could be a reminder of the great time you had hiking through the woods, or something to help improve your focus as you try not to scratch it (It's a stretch but that's also the point).

The funny thing is many of us know people that are really good at this, and if you're like me, at one time, you probably thought of these people as naïve, or worse, stupid. It can be very annoying listening to someone who blankly talks about negative things as if they were positive and doesn't take the time to get properly upset. When there is nothing to gain by getting upset, however, you may want to question its usefulness. Anger can be an excellent motivator and driver of change and it certainly beats depression, but when all the anger in the world isn't going to change the situation; is it really worth generating that anger? Those naïve people that don't sweat the small stuff might just have the right idea.

If you're an angry person the world is a pretty upsetting place. As Voltaire showed us in Candide, this is the most perfect of all worlds if you want to look at it as such.