T. M. Luhrmann’s “Faith vs. Facts” on self-contradictory “cognitive attitudes” in tomorrow’s New York Times: fails to consider alternate personalities.

“Most of us find it mind-boggling that some people seem willing to ignore the facts…and…a broad group of scholars is beginning to demonstrate that religious belief and factual belief are indeed different kinds of mental creatures. People process evidence differently when they think with a factual mind-set rather than a religious mind-set…

“…They tell a story…about a woman who had taken her tuberculosis medication and been cured — and who then told Dr. Farmer that she was going to get back at the person who had used sorcery to make her ill. ‘But if you believe that,’ he cried, ‘why did you take your medicines?’ In response to the great doctor she replied, in essence, ‘Honey, are you incapable of complexity?’ "

I would wonder whether she had one fact-minded personality and another faith-minded personality; that is, whether she had what I call “normal multiple personality” (multiple personality that does not cause distress or dysfunction, and which, I have speculated, may be present in 30% of the general public and 90% of novelists).

There are two cardinal clues to the possibility that a person might have multiple personality. One is memory gaps. The other is a puzzling inconsistency, which is the subject of Luhrmann’s essay.