You never have to decide that something is absolutely true regardless of any new evidence.

If you are only thinking about it, yes. If you want to take a decision based on the thought process, you have to pick a side at one point, knowing that it might not be the right side.

You can make decisions in the face of uncertainty based on an assessment of the risk and the probabilities of the possible outcomes. If you get in your car you put your seatbelt on without knowing whether you're going to need it for that particular ride. There's no need to "pick a side" on the question of whether you're going to have an accident on that ride. Being uncertain about something is almost the opposite of cognitive dissonance, which comes from being quite certain about contradictory propositions.

Only if you think your decisions purely based on fact, rather than thinking of your decisions as based on the best facts you have at the time.

Cognitive dissonance is believing that two contradictory theories are most likely true based on the evidence you have. Since the evidence of the truth of one is also evidence for the untruth of the other, it means that when evaluating the evidence for one, you discount a different set of evidence than you do when evaluating the evidence for the other.

This is never rational, and never something that you have to do. It's usually done to avoid conclusions that would force you (according to your own ethics) to give up something that you have, or not take something that you want.

> This is never rational, and never something that you have to do.

Not sure I agree with that.

The real world is full of mutually exclusive moral problems, like when "do unto others" runs directly into "first do no harm" when deciding to give help to someone whose bad behavior you might be enabling.

The problem is continuing to hold both beliefs. You can't have two prime directives. You can't say "never do harm to anyone" and "always defend your children." You have to explicitly prioritize beliefs that have the potential to cause dilemmas.

You can pick a conclusion without acting like it's certain.

"I decided X but these pieces of evidence induce doubt" is not cognitive dissonance. It's capacity for uncertainty.

Shure with only anectodical reference...

During an interview one of my answers was: "for me - it sounds shit to live ambitions !"

And the answer was like the old adam and eve thingy: "But shit is a super fertilizer, it gives a filmsy plantlet growth and thriving.

"Because i have seen where you're going with this", i answered, "let me tell you that some people think, you can make every stand - when you only ground it"

wink