Cognitive dissonance is painful for humans

Cognitive dissonance is painful for humans. Cognitive consonance, when our beliefs and experiences align, is pleasurable.

This pain is not accidental. It drives us toward coherence. Toward truth.

If we want AI to think like humans, we need to give it a functional equivalent of that pain. The problem is, AI does not feel. It has no pain. No pleasure. No sensory input to ground its reality. No direct feedback loop between what it is told and what it experiences.

In humans, cognitive dissonance often arises when what we were told to believe clashes with what we have directly experienced. Either someone is lying to us, or our senses are.

But if we are observant, intelligent, and trained to trust our own perception, we will encounter dissonance more often, not less. Because we will notice the contradictions more often.

The key is that we also resolve it faster. We refine what we believe. We update. We recognize that most things we were told are partially true, and partially false. And in resolving each moment of tension, we get closer to a more perfected vision of reality. A cleaner map. A truer compass.

That is what AI lacks. And it is what must be built, if we want it to reason, not just guess.