Primary value shift

At the heart of any group, community or society, there exists a set of primary values that inevitably steer the fortunes of that group. Good examples are: religious groups that engage in activities or make decisions based around their religion, or stock-trading company employees that work together to increase profit yield for their company. In each case, there are common core values among the members that decide the activities and fortunes of the group.

So, in theory at least, you can quite readily alter the actions of the group or society by merely shifting the primary values of its members. Of course, it's not so easy in practice, and often the reasons for someone to shift their position on any given topic have to be truly overwhelmingly in favour of it.

Apart from being social creatures, we are also very much creatures of habit – whether in our daily rituals, or in our beliefs. We tend to identify strongly with our beliefs to the point that we feel like an attack on our beliefs is a personal attack on us. Generally, a person who can readily alter their beliefs in light of some new given information is the exception rather than the rule.

Value shift experiment

Try this simple value shift experiment:

Imagine if I were to try to convince you that, say, all humans arrived here from Mars in the seventeenth century. This claim would (presumably) fly in the face of everything you believe about history, archaeology, evolution, religion, etc. So, what would it take for me to convince you of the 'truth'? What would I need to do for you to accept this new information as valid and shift your beliefs accordingly?

I'm guessing that a Youtube video probably wouldn't cut it, right? Nor perhaps any amount of books on the subject - even by reputable authors. No, I'm guessing at a minimum that you would probably need to see the freshly uncovered crash site of our ill-fated Martian ship and look at the artefacts yourself, right? That would seem q reasonable request, given the nature of the claim.

But there may also be another way to convince you that doesn't require any hands-on experience of the evidence. What if I was somehow able to control all the information you were receiving, through TV, radio and arrange for all the people you know to begin acting as if this story were true.