In the spirit of Mark Twain

[GliderGuider]

"Man is the only animal that believes. Or needs to."

I think our propensity toward belief is what truly defines us as human, far more than our apparent ability to reason. Not everyone can reason. Absolutely everyone believes, and one of the strongest beliefs is in our ability to reason.

[Agnosticsherbet]

1. Actually we don't know that.

We have taught apes to use sign language to speak to us. Elephants develop individual styles in painting and they communicate with each other. Whales and dolphins have languages. Birds have real languages. Chimpanzee's fight wars. Dogs have evolved to understand humans better than understand each other.

It has become clear that intelligence is not unique to humans.

What we have not done is learn to communicate with animals and ask them what they believe.

[stone space]

4. A small dog will go out into sub-freezing weather...

...to go to the bathroom, with a rather firm belief (and faith!), it seems to me, that its owner will open the door again to let it back in.

What we have not done is learn to communicate with animals and ask them what they believe.

[skepticscott]

2. You're conflating different meanings of "believe"

which pretty much renders your "point" worthless. Whether you're doing it out of ignorance or intellectual dishonesty doesn't reslly matter.

Try again.

[GliderGuider]

55. Not according to the philosophers at Stanford.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/belief/

Contemporary analytic philosophers of mind generally use the term “belief” to refer to the attitude we have, roughly, whenever we take something to be the case or regard it as true. To believe something, in this sense, needn't involve actively reflecting on it: Of the vast number of things ordinary adults believe, only a few can be at the fore of the mind at any single time. Nor does the term “belief”, in standard philosophical usage, imply any uncertainty or any extended reflection about the matter in question (as it sometimes does in ordinary English usage). Many of the things we believe, in the relevant sense, are quite mundane: that we have heads, that it's the 21st century, that a coffee mug is on the desk. Forming beliefs is thus one of the most basic and important features of the mind, and the concept of belief plays a crucial role in both philosophy of mind and epistemology. The “mind-body problem”, for example, so central to philosophy of mind, is in part the question of whether and how a purely physical organism can have beliefs. Much of epistemology revolves around questions about when and how our beliefs are justified or qualify as knowledge.

I'll stick with my use of the term, thanks.

[skepticscott]

62. Aside from the fact

that you yourself have used senses of "belief" that aren't even encompassed here, and that you've admitted are different from each other (or have avoided addressing), your OP does not reflect the same senses of belief that your philosophical authorities are citing.

And do you not even grasp that, if you accept the definition of "belief" given above, it pretty much invalidates your whole thesis?

[GliderGuider]

67. Can you point out the discrepancies? nt

[skepticscott]

112. Under the definition you put forth as authoritative

man is very clearly NOT the only animal that "believes". And belief is clearly not a a matter of "need".

Please tell me you understand that.

[GliderGuider]

113. Of course I get that. My Twain paraphrase contained some literary license. nt

[stone space]

3. The War Prayer

[bvf]

5. You're positing a distinctive human propensity toward belief?

I think you mean a susceptibility to indoctrination.

And how you do know animals don't hold beliefs?

[GliderGuider]

6. I don't actually. I'm putting this out as an invitation for discussion.

It could be that sentience is inseparable from the ability to believe. Or maybe not?

I'm not using belief strictly in the sense of religious belief here, because that is only one part of it. I use it in the the broad sense that we believe that rocks are hard, the sky is blue, Republicans are (or are not) evil, universal health care is (or is not) a good thing, the love of money is (or is not) the root of all evil, etc.

I put the post here because this is one board on DU I'm sure traffics daily in concepts of belief.

[bvf]

7. That's the most glaring

self-contradiction I've read in quite a while, and I didn't even have to get past your first sentence.

[GliderGuider]

8. What do you believe is self-contradictory in what I said? nt

[bvf]

9. Review your OP

and compare it to your above response.

It's word salad.

[GliderGuider]

10. Do you believe Thoreau wrote word salad too?

"Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself - I am large, I contain multitudes."

I have no problem with you believing that I contradicted myself.

[bvf]

11. And now you're likening yourself to Thoreau?

Keep going.

[GliderGuider]

36. I'm also like Thoreau (or Whitman, or you) in that I'm bilaterally symmetrical.

So yes, in that sense I'm likening myself to him. We are all self-contradictory from time to time, there's nothing arrogant in assuming so.

[AtheistCrusader]

61. Prove it.

LOL, just kidding. Had to say it.

[struggle4progress]

31. That's not Thoreau but Walt Whitman

[bvf]

32. Thanks.

Missed that.

Perhaps GG would argue for a difference in belief here.

[GliderGuider]

33. Thanks for catching that.

Last edited Wed Mar 4, 2015, 07:50 AM - Edit history (1)

I knew that, too. I must have had a brain fart from the unexpected warmth of the welcome.

[Goblinmonger]

45. Do you know the metaphor at play here?

Since you got the wrong author, probably not. This is not about what you are claiming it is about.

[GliderGuider]

46. My intent was simply to indicate that I don't mind being seen as self-contradictory.

In fact, I take a certain pleasure from being able to see and hold both sides of a question at once.

I see that you, skepticscott and trotsky are still the tight-knit defense team I remember from years gone by.

[trotsky]

47. And it appears you'd still rather insult the individual than defend your argument.

Nice to see you haven't changed either.

[Goblinmonger]

48. This has nothing to do with a defense team, but a misuse of literature.

I'm an English teacher. Literature means something to me. You don't get to just grab some random quotation and completely ignore the context of the literature you get it from. The quotation you used has basically nothing to do with the point you are making.

"My intent was simply to indicate..." Don't care. Make that point without bastardizing Whitman (and claiming it was Thoreau). And the fact that you were kind of all righteous and uppity with your "Do you believe Thoreau wrote word salad too?" makes the fact that you were wrong about both the author and the meaning of the quotation all the more ironically delicious.

[GliderGuider]

49. God forbid I should get uppity!

Or snarky. But your point about not making facile use of quotes is well taken. I will keep it in mind.

[Goblinmonger]

50. Here's a hint when you get uppity.

Don't be wrong about pretty much everything you're saying.

[GliderGuider]

51. Thanks, dad.

[Goblinmonger]

53. Or don't. But if you make another statement like the one above

you're going to get called on it again. Especially when you try to sound all well read when you make said statement.

[GliderGuider]

54. Seriously, I meant it when I said I'd keep it in mind.

Getting called on shit from time to time is good for the humility quotient.

[cbayer]

52. This bears no resemblance to word salad.

When you use terms incorrectly, they lose all of their weight and just become an ad hom.

[bvf]

57. It bears no resemblance to logical prose, either.

You might want to review the meaning of ad hominem, incidentally.

[cbayer]

75. Then say it has no resemblance to logical prose.

ad ho·mi·nem

adverb & adjective
1.
(of an argument or reaction) directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining.

When you say that someone's thoughts are word salad, that's an attack against the person, not the argument…

particularly if it bears no resemblance whatsoever to word salad.

I honestly think you are smart enough to mount a legitimate argument against what is being said as opposed to just throwing out psych terms which you don't understand.

[bvf]

76. Argue this:

Moo goo gai pan schizophasia manhole cover blue meanies go boink tomorrow.

Are you done?

[cbayer]

77. Yep. No argument. Done.

If you insist that that with which you disagree is "word salad", when it is not, you have surrendered.

[bvf]

78. There is a colloquial usage of the term.

But you knew that.

No?

Something tells me you're not really done, but maybe that's just the inductivist in me.

[cbayer]

79. Even the Urban dictionary definition refers to psychopathology.

There is really no colloquial use except by those who wish to throw an insult when they don't have an argument.

My "done" was only in response to your specific question, not to the conversation in general.

Put that in your pipe and re-adjust your inductivism. You might set a more accurate course.

[bvf]

81. Yes, the Urban Dictionary

is your final arbiter.

That's funny beyond belief. No pun intended.

Score one for inductivism, sorry to say.

http://m.thenation.com/blogs/word-salad

[cbayer]

82. There is nothing on that page that refers to word salad.

It's about crosswords.

[bvf]

85. Open your eyes for once.

[AtheistCrusader]

60. Ability, capacity, need, propensity... I'm not sure you are expressing the word associated with

what you are digging here for.

I'm not sure I have the 'ability' to believe at all. I definitely tend to handle information differently than most people I know. To get philosophical about the word 'believe', I 'believe' that my car will convey me home this evening after work. But I have a lot of evidence and solid reason to hold that belief, AND acceptance of the possibility that due to mechanical issues with it, or environmental issues beyond my control, it may in fact NOT get me home this evening. And all of that is calculated into the general 'odds' or confidence that I will in fact get home tonight, without having to run 30 miles to get there.

To me, belief is shorthand for confidence, and some people base that on facts and associated probabilities, some people seem to just invest it without any supporting facts or evidence whatsoever.

[bvf]

66. Kind of makes you wonder

what instills confidence in one's god, doesn't it?

The fact that gravity (as we understand its everyday effects) seems to work the same way all the time?

[GliderGuider]

68. Do you believe that 1+1=2?

Yes it's a trivial example, but it's the sort of belief I'm talking about.

As the boys from Stanford say, belief is "the attitude we have, roughly, whenever we take something to be the case or regard it as true." That applies to trivial examples as well as non-trivial ones like religious belief. We need to have a set of things we "regard as true" in order to make sense of the world we live in. We also extend that attitude to extreme outliers like gods, alien visitors or chemtrails. those beliefs rest on the same psychological foundation as the belief that the sky is blue.

[AtheistCrusader]

70. I assume 1+1=2 because I can empirically demonstrate it.

However, I allow for the possibility that my perception can be damaged, and I can be temporarily or permanently incapable of determining the true result of 1+1. (Stroke, drugs, low blood flow issues, induced magnetic fields and other impairments to cognitive function.)

Assuming, based on track record/repeatable tests, is not the same thing as 'belief' in any sense that I am aware.

[GliderGuider]

72. So you would disagree with this description of belief, then?

...the attitude we have, roughly, whenever we take something to be the case or regard it as true. To believe something, in this sense, needn't involve actively reflecting on it: Of the vast number of things ordinary adults believe, only a few can be at the fore of the mind at any single time. Nor does the term “belief”, in standard philosophical usage, imply any uncertainty or any extended reflection about the matter in question (as it sometimes does in ordinary English usage). Many of the things we believe, in the relevant sense, are quite mundane: that we have heads, that it's the 21st century, that a coffee mug is on the desk. Forming beliefs is thus one of the most basic and important features of the mind...

[AtheistCrusader]

83. Twain was talking about metaphysical faith.

You're using such a broad definition it's useless in the context of the Religion folder, and could apply to knowledge, perception, etc.

If you say 1+1 is 2 and my experience agrees, I might say I believe you, but that is not Belief(TM). Certainly not in the sense that Twain was referencing. So, I don't know what the purpose of all this is.

[GliderGuider]

84. It wasn't Twain who wrote that quote.

Last edited Wed Mar 4, 2015, 11:25 PM - Edit history (3)

It was me. So it was my definition of the word "believe" that applied in the context of the saying. Others believed they understood what I meant (because I didn't explain my definition up front, and their beliefs were shaped by the context of the board) or they believed that their definition was the correct one, so the whole thing went down a rabbit hole.

Twain's quote was, "Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to." I riffed on it by replacing one word.

Regarding my question of whether you believe that 1+1=2, consider these confounding alternatives:

1+1=10 (in base 2)
Or, in Reverse Polish Notation, base 2: 1 1 + returns 10.

There are a lot of assumptions or pre-existing beliefs that are required for you to answer "Yes" to my question "Do you believe that 1+1=2?" You have to assume (believe) you know what base I'm using, you have to assume (believe) we share a common understanding of the meaning and behaviour of the operator "+". And as this thread has shown, you have to assume (believe) that we share a common meaning for the word "believe".

[AtheistCrusader]

86. Ok, then you have paraphrased and altered it as...

Oh good grief.

You are certainly correct we are not using a common meaning for the word 'believe' in the context you placed it in.

[trotsky]

90. He admits as such in post #41.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1218&pid=185190

I'd like to know when it was decided that equivocation equals wisdom. I guess it's a way for some to feel superior to others.

[GliderGuider]

91. Does certainty equal wisdom?

It seems to me that people who profess certainty tend to have a very strong sense of superiority. I don't think my position is at all superior - for anyone but me. We all need to find positions that satisfy our own psychological needs.

[trotsky]

92. The members of ISIS appear to have found a position that satisfies their own psychological needs.

Good for them, I guess? At least you've figured everything out and all the rest of us rubes are just muddling along.

[GliderGuider]

94. No, not "good for them." It's just what human beings do, for better or (in their case) worse. nt

[GliderGuider]

93. I'm apparently not using a meaning for the word "believe" that's common in this forum,

...however common it may be in other walks of life. The lack of a shared meaning for the word is one thing that has derailed the conversation in this thread, IMO.

Aside from wrong-footing myself with the Whitman quote, my biggest mistake in this thread was expecting that a general definition of the word would be easily understood in a forum that is conditioned to expect its specific, religious, definition.

Mea culpa.

[trotsky]

95. I think your biggest mistake was taking a word - belief - that has multiple distinct meanings...

and try to fit all of them under a single mushy, unclear, generic definition in order to try and make judgments about other people. IMHO.

[GliderGuider]

96. Yes, I used a generic definition without making it clear that's what I was doing.

Live and learn.

[AtheistCrusader]

97. I would suggest dropping it in the Philosophy group.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=forum&id=1263

In that location, 'belief' won't have the baggage/connotation it will have here.
In the context you placed it in your OP, it suggests religious belief to me. So, we didn't have a good common starting place, before anyone even responded to you, because you had something else in mind that doesn't match how you used it in the OP.

(Hell, I thought that was the actual original quote. Fooled me.)

[GliderGuider]

98. Agreed. I didn't even realize there was a Philosophy group, thanks!

Last edited Thu Mar 5, 2015, 12:57 PM - Edit history (1)

Even there, it would need more of an intro to frame the way I use the word (and the fact that I'm paraphrasing Twain - damn quotes get me in trouble alla time.)

I didn't pay enough attention to the character of the forum I was posting it into here. I'd had a great conversation around it on my FB page - none of the contributors there took it other than I intended it, so I assumed (!) that the meaning I was using was obvious. Gotta know your audience.

I'm sorry it upset some people here. Won't happen again.

[AtheistCrusader]

99. No worries

Good luck with rebooting the conversation in that venue, if you choose to. I might wander over and try and contribute, if I have anything to add.

[GliderGuider]

114. I've posted something like this over on the Philosophy forum now

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1263861

The post is focused on Pyrronian skepticism, and my thoughts on the operation of (generic) belief in the human mind.

[bvf]

74. Do you believe it,

or do you know it?

You're obviously on the edge of claiming you know nothing.

[GliderGuider]

89. So long as it's being asked in base 10, and is using standard arithmetic notation, yes.

I'm not sure I understand any more what the word "know" means in any absolute sense. I have satisfied myself that there are a number of ideas whose truth I can accept within specific social contexts, mostly because they make life easier for all concerned. I find that for most ideas I "know" them in some social settings but don't "know" them at other times. I also find that when I'm alone I know very little. Most of the things we believe we know turn out just to be things we've heard, things that made sense or were particularly important to our life-context at the time we heard them.

I try not to believe anything - this is the whole point of aspiring to epoché as I do. This is very difficult because of human neurological wiring and the requirements of social living. I'd call that position pomo, except that it's 2500 years old. Everything old is new again, or something.

[bvf]

105. "Yes" is not a valid answer to the question,

"Do you believe or know (choose one) that 1+1=2?"

"I have satisfied myself that there are a number of ideas whose truth I can accept within specific social contexts, mostly because they make life easier for all concerned."

So would you consider that the truth of the proposition that 1+1=2 (or 10, in base 2) depends in any way upon social context? Does it vary with your surroundings?

[GliderGuider]

106. I answered "yes" to the question in your subject line.

I believe it. Most of the time, under conventional circumstances. I don't consider it as an absolute truth though (which is what "know" implies to me) since I can easily imagine situations in which it might not hold. Even the trivial case of working in base 2 invalidates it as absolute knowledge when stated without any qualifiers (such as what the base is and how the + sign operates).

It's similar for pretty much any conventionally accepted "fact". I always hold a bit of doubt that keeps their truth from becoming absolute. So for me they generally remain beliefs. Non-obvious propositions (such as "My mistress is faithful", or the fractional quantum Hall effect) are of course more provisional, and stay firmly in the agnostic realm for me.

[bvf]

110. What do you regard as

an "obvious" proposition?

Since you refer to "non-obvious" propositions, i take it that you must accept the existence of both flavors.

What, to you, is the distinction?

[GliderGuider]

111. An obvious proposition would be something like "my mug is sitting on the coffee table."

Last edited Fri Mar 6, 2015, 07:45 AM - Edit history (1)

The distinction tends to be how much of the proposition is directly revealed by my senses. Obvious propositions tend to be immediate and concrete. Non-obvious ones tend to be more distant and abstract, and rely more on on logic or hearsay.

[bvf]

115. Which of your senses

tells you that adding one and one gives you two?

[GliderGuider]

116. None of them, obviously.

Last edited Sat Mar 7, 2015, 03:59 PM - Edit history (5)

"1+1=2" is a proposition rooted in symbology and logic. As a result it's non-obvious and must be learned, so there's even hearsay involved. Because of that I agree to believe it only because I learned it at a very young age, and have accepted its utility over the subsequent decades.

It's also fenced in by cultural caveats. It may be a fundamental axiom in Western arithmetic, but "fundamental" doesn't equal "obvious". Say I asked you a simple arithmetic question that violated your concepts of arithmetic symbology, perhaps to solve the problem "MIV - XIX". Clearly that doesn't invoke the well-practiced mental response that 1+1 does.

In keeping with the religious theme of this group, I could even conceive of a teaching under which "1+1" was holy scripture - where the symbology indicates the crucifixion scene: the thieves on either side of Christ, who was nailed to the plus sign in the middle. That is no more intrinsically absurd than the equivalent arithmetic symbology, simply less common and not taught to us by authority figures. Symbology is infinitely malleable, and thus has no obvious intrinsic belief-content, like "there is a spoon in the glass."

On edit: Even "There is a spoon in the glass" can be considered a non-obvious belief, because it rests on a number of underlying beliefs starting with the basic universal belief in the distinction between "I" and "not-I" that permits us to recognize that there are objects "out there". Then there is the trained belief in objects that are not-me having abstract names like "spoon" and "glass". From this point of view it's not that far at all from "There is a spoon in the glass" to "Christ died for my sins." It's just that the former is easier to believe because it's reinforced by our perceptions, while the latter is purely abstract - much like the mathematical concepts of calculus or ring theory - and must be continually reinforced by authority figures like priests or mathematics professors.

[bvf]

117. My question just then employed no symbology

beyond the written word. You reactively applied it without prompt.

You're saying then that the concept to which we (English speakers) apply the word "two" to is also based on belief through hearsay.

That would explain your earlier statement that you tend to believe less when you're alone (unless you're given to talking to yourself, or don't read or think).

Do you believe what you're talking about?

[GliderGuider]

118. That was well-planned and very educational.

Thanks.

When ideas become thoughts we always frame them with words. That's how you can tell a thought from an emotion - emotions come in feeling-tones, while thoughts come in words. On a verbal medium like this one, the convergence of a symbol and its name becomes virtually complete. I did not notice that the numbers were written down in words - the words produced the same mental sound as the symbol had. All the beliefs I apply to the symbol also apply to the name.

Do I believe what I'm talking about? Sometimes, sometimes not. I'm just exploring the world as I see it for the last decades of my life, and looking for meaning in non-obvious places. I find I change my mind a lot - maybe it's flexibility, maybe it's indecision; maybe it's a boost in neuroplasticity, maybe I'm just getting older. Whatever it is, it's the way I approach a lot of life. Conversations like this help.

[GliderGuider]

12. The sort of unquestioning general belief-in-general practiced by most people

is the opposite of my own aspiration, which is to Pyrrhonian skepticism.

Pyrrhonism

Pyrrhonian skeptics withhold any assent with regard to non-evident propositions and remain in a state of perpetual inquiry. They disputed the possibility of attaining truth by sensory apprehension, reason, or the two combined, and thence inferred the need for total suspension of judgment (epoché) on things. A Pyrrhonist tries to make the arguments of both sides as strong as possible. Then he asks himself if there is any reason to prefer one side to the other. And if not, he suspends belief in either side.

Fallibilism is a modern, fundamental perspective of the scientific method, as put forth by Karl Popper and Charles Sanders Peirce, that all knowledge is, at best, an approximation, and that any scientist must always stipulate this in his research and findings. It is, in effect, a modernized extension of Pyrrhonism. Indeed, historic Pyrrhonists are sometimes described by modern authors as fallibilists. Modern fallibilists also are sometimes described as pyrrhonists.

Except I believe it is impossible to completely suspend belief.

Does that clarify the point of my OP, or not?

[bvf]

13. No.

[GliderGuider]

14. Ah well. No fun to be had here, eh?

Too bad. Belief can be a very fun topic, if one can loosen up to it.

[bvf]

15. I suppose.

Provided one can also loosen up to the prospect of talking with someone who doesn't talk out of both sides of his/her mouth as a first response.

[GliderGuider]

16. That's what the "loosening up" business is all about.

Not requiring the world to conform to my own internal needs or expectations. I find that makes life a lot less painful, and a hell of a lot more interesting.

Ciao.

[bvf]

18. Suffering fools gladly?

Last edited Wed Mar 4, 2015, 04:10 AM - Edit history (1)

[longship]

17. Dennett has pondered similar questions.

And don't be afraid of the nay-sayers here. The question of why humans believe is a very important one, as Dennett and others have defended.

If we as a species are to rise above these Iron Age beliefs wouldn't it be crucial to understand why, in the 21st century, there are so many that adhere to them?

These are questions which need to be asked, probed, queried, studied, etc.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with posing the question. Indeed, it may be one of the most important ones. If we can answer that one, given history, it may be the greatest thing humankind has accomplished.

I am a lifelong atheist, and I have read much, but above all I wish we had an answer to this. (I humbly confess that I have not read nearly enough.)

Do not apologize for your post.

R&K

[GliderGuider]

21. I realize that this group centers around a particular set of Iron Age beliefs

But there are plenty of modern ones that we cling to even more reflexively. Few of those are explicitly religious. Beliefs are are the foundation of our value systems, whether they are religious or secular.

One way these things fit together might be like this:

» Perceptions are the primary inputs into the organism;
» Emotions mediate those perceptions, transforming them into mental activity;
» Beliefs then frame the emotions, giving the emotional activity a defined ideational structure;
» The structure allows us then to apply reason to those beliefs, and through them to the original perceptions.

From this point of view, the ability to form beliefs (again, I'm NOT talking about religious beliefs here, but generalized beliefs like "There is a reality separate from my perceptions" or "1+1=2&quot is a prerequisite for reason.

[trotsky]

19. Our propensity to understand and explain is what defines us as human.

To observe and study our environment, identify patterns, and make predictions about future events that will either benefit or harm us.

Religion allowed us to invent reasons for things happening. To dictate a pattern where perhaps one couldn't easily be found. Our brains seem to crave figuring things out and assigning motive or agency whenever possible.

Thus religion. That also explains why as our understanding of the natural world has increased, the belief in supernatural agency has declined. Liberal/moderate believers reject the anthropomorphic god, the simplistic god of our ancestors who caused misfortune to befall us if we displeased him.

[Starboard Tack]

20. Brilliant! Great post

Hope it gets some traction.
I think reason is more to do with our daily survival, as humans, whereas belief is more about our sense of purpose, both as individuals and as a species.

[skepticscott]

22. Maybe in your world

that's "brilliant". But if so, your standards are on the low side. There's nothing original or profound there, or even particularly correct for that matter.

I suspect neither the OP nor you could provide a single, unambiguous definition of "believe" that would make this a Great Post (r).

[GliderGuider]

23. In my use of the word, a belief is essentially an a priori assumption. nt

[Starboard Tack]

30. You are correct, definitely in my world.

Obviously not in yours, and it never entered my mind that it would be. No offense, but this is a subject for those who think beyond two dimensions. When you get locked into an opinionated mindset, then belief is not on the menu.
That said, please, by all means, enjoy your world.

[cbayer]

25. Hey there ST!

Your ears must be burning.

:

[Starboard Tack]

40. Mis oidos estan quemando

[AtheistCrusader]

59. And those of us with no belief... Are we then lacking in a sense of self-purpose?

Belief is commonly regarded as a survival mechanism as well, allowing us to communicate dangers across vast gulfs of social standards, or distance, or lack of written directives.

For instance, biblical prohibition on eating pork may simply have been a way to get people to avoid encysted trichina.

I assure you, I have no lack of self-purpose, as an individual, nor as a member of society.

[Starboard Tack]

73. If you think you have no beliefs, then you delude yourself.

Believing that something does not exist, is as much of a belief as saying it does exist.
You obviously believe that I am a homophobic asshole as the basement gang, that you have aligned with, likes to paint me.
You obviously believe that I give a "flying fuck" about your SN or how you came about it, otherwise you would not defend it or its creation.
You obviously believe that your participation here on DU has some kind of value, or you would put your time to better use.
You believe that carrying a gun makes you safer when navigating this world.
That is some of what I believe about you, based on your posts.

That said, I do not doubt your sense of self-purpose, nor your participation as a member of "society".
I truly "believe" that you "believe" in your own relevance in this world. I may also add that I believe you take both the world and your place in it way too seriously, but that's on you. You bought the ticket and it's your ride. Enjoy it!

[AtheistCrusader]

80. Well, it's a good thing I didn't do that.

"Believing that something does not exist, is as much of a belief as saying it does exist."

That claim is true, it's a positive statement. A claim that carries the burden of proof for the person bearing it.

I say*:

"I don't believe your god exists."

The thing you stated, is a positive claim about something not existing. My statement is a dismissal of someone else's claim as being unconvincing.

The distinction is important.


*There are times I have said things a bit more bombastic, like 'your imaginary friend doesn't exist' to certain people, but that's after barbs have been exchanged and civility and any pretense of discussion or debate has long since gone out the window.

So if you're going to presume to tell me what I believe, at least use the language I use. Language is the expression of ideas. If you can't echo back my language, what hope have you of accurately representing my ideas?

[Starboard Tack]

87. "what hope have you of accurately representing my ideas?"

Why would I have any interest in doing such a thing? What makes you believe that others would want to represent your ideas?
Got a little Messiah Complex going there AC? Or are you being a little "bombastic"?

[AtheistCrusader]

88. You're the one trying to paraphrase things back.

Not very well mind you, you expressed precisely the opposite of what I say, and I say it for a very precise reason.

You couldn't actually get it more wrong.

[cbayer]

24. Nice post, GG and glad to see you around.

While human may be the only animals that have formalized beliefs, I am not confined that we need to.

It may define us as human. Reasoning is a fairly simplistic concept when compared to belief.

Reason is only based on evidence, which may be faulty or full of holes.

Belief on the other hand require taking a further step and recognizing that you might be wrong, but choose to proceed anywhere.

[skepticscott]

27. Um..no..reason is NOT based only on evidence

it is also based on rules of logic. Duh. And belief is adhered to in the absence of or even in spite of evidence, which makes it far more faulty and full of holes. And the only thing "complex" about belief are the knots people have to tie themselves in to rationalize it.

Want to try again, or are you happy being completely wrong?

[GliderGuider]

26. Here's a slightly more organized run at the concept

As I use the word, beliefs are essentially the "a priori assumptions" about the world that form the foundation of our value system.

Examples of the sorts of beliefs/assumptions I'm talking about might include:

"There is (or is not) a reality separate from my perceptions."
"1+1 = 2."
"Dick Cheney is evil."
"There is a God."
"Religion is a crutch."
"Technology is good."
"Human social behavior is constrained by the Second Law of Thermodynamics".

Here's one way the associated neural/mental process flow might operate:

» Perceptions are the primary data inputs to the organism;
» Emotions mediate those perceptions, transforming the data into mental activity;
» Beliefs then frame the emotions, giving the emotional activity a defined ideational structure;
» The structure allows us then to apply reason to those beliefs, and thus to the original perceptional data that they frame.

From this point of view, the ability to form beliefs is a prerequisite for reason, because without the belief there is no abstract but well-formed mental structure against which to apply reason.

Animals may have beliefs, but they may be limited to basic interpretations of the world based closely on their perceptions, or are more along the line of conditioned expectations. Of course this idea is itself one of my own beliefs.

[skepticscott]

28. Now you're conflating "belief" and "assumption"

Which is more flawed thinking, and takes "belief" out of the realm of religion. On top of that, you're confusing both with "opinion", which is yet a different concept.

Can we please move the level of thinking here above kindergarten? Seriously? I know the yacht clubbers go gaga for this, but some of us have moved beyond it.

[GliderGuider]

29. I'm saying precisely that belief is not exclusive to the realm of religion

Rather it subsumes the realm of religion. And that beliefs and assumptions in this sense are identical. And that opinions are, if not identical to beliefs, at least based closely on them.

Nobody is forced to believe anything I say. I'm not selling anything. But if it makes you feel more secure to sneer than to think, then by all means continue.

[Jim__]

34. I think belief can enter between the sensory input and the perception.

For instance, this week's infamous black-blue/white-gold dress:



[center][/center]



As explained in Slate:

... So the brain relies on the eyes to supply an image of the outside world, but there are many processing steps between the translation of light energy into electrical impulses that happens in the eye and the neural activity that corresponds to a conscious perception of the outside world. In other words, the brain is playing a game of telephone and—contrary to popular belief—our perception corresponds to the brain’s best guess of what is going on in the outside world, not necessarily to the way things actually are. ...

I'm interpreting the brain's best guess as a belief, and then, belief is prior to perception, which goes along with your claim in the OP that absolutely everyone believes.

[GliderGuider]

35. That's an interesting possibility.

In my view, perception is more of a physical phenomenon (i.e it happens close to the actual receptor cells) while belief is a mental phenomenon that happens further away, and may integrate the output of more than one set of receptors. IMO that would make perception prior to belief. In the case you quote, I read "best guess" as being the result of purely physical neural interpretive circuits. But in actuality perception, emotion and belief all have their roots in parallel unconscious neural processes, so it's might be hard to assign precedence.

[trotsky]

37. Here are two statements:

1) "I believe this chair will support my weight and not collapse when I sit on it."

2) "I believe that Jesus Christ died for my sins and I will spend eternity in heaven with him when I die."

Now here's a belief question for you: Are those two examples of belief the same?

[GliderGuider]

38. In the way I'm using the word, those are both beliefs.

As are "I believe that the position and velocity of a sub-atomic particle cannot be measured simultaneously with precision," and "I believe that people have souls."

The content of a belief is not important for it to be a belief. What is important is that it is an assumption that forms part of a person's worldview. Whether a belief is objectively verifiable or not is immaterial to its function as a belief. Likewise for its logical consistency. Our beliefs generally operate at a level prior to (and independent of) logic and reason. Belief and reason typically fulfill quite different psychological roles - though a conclusion arrived at through reason may become a belief.

Cognitive dissonance occurs when a belief is confronted by evidence that threatens to expose its illogic or lack of validity. This causes people to double down on the belief rather than accept its invalidation. Entrenched beliefs are very hard to change through evidence or logic, due to to the human tendency to engage in motivated reasoning.

[trotsky]

39. You didn't answer my question.

Yes, they are both beliefs.

But are they the same type of belief? If someone came along and sat in the chair and it fell apart, would the person who held the belief that the chair was sturdy experience cognitive dissonance or have an existential crisis because their belief was proven wrong?

[GliderGuider]

41. They're different shades along the same spectrum.

The chair business is more of a conditioned expectation (like a dog believing that its owner will come home at a particular time of day). It's a special case of the deeper belief that matter is solid. If they sat on the chair an it broke, they might be shocked, but experience tells them that chairs breaking is not unusual. If they sat on it and they simply passed through it, there might be some cognitive dissonance and an existential crisis as a result...

[skepticscott]

42. One is an expectation based on past experience

The other is not. The other (which you conspicuously failed to address in your response to trotsky) is, in fact, nothing like that at all, and not a different shade of the same thing. As has been noted multiple times, you are conflating different meanings of "belief" and "believe", and pointing out nothing more profound than that humans use those words in different ways.

But keep it up...the religionistas love you!

[GliderGuider]

43. Here is a bit of background reading on belief that might be helpful

This article elaborates how I understand the term "belief". As the article says, some beliefs (like the chair holding me up) are quite mundane, while others like classical religious beliefs are less so. As I said, such beliefs fall on a spectrum. But they're all beliefs.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/belief/

Contemporary analytic philosophers of mind generally use the term “belief” to refer to the attitude we have, roughly, whenever we take something to be the case or regard it as true. To believe something, in this sense, needn't involve actively reflecting on it: Of the vast number of things ordinary adults believe, only a few can be at the fore of the mind at any single time. Nor does the term “belief”, in standard philosophical usage, imply any uncertainty or any extended reflection about the matter in question (as it sometimes does in ordinary English usage). Many of the things we believe, in the relevant sense, are quite mundane: that we have heads, that it's the 21st century, that a coffee mug is on the desk. Forming beliefs is thus one of the most basic and important features of the mind, and the concept of belief plays a crucial role in both philosophy of mind and epistemology. The “mind-body problem”, for example, so central to philosophy of mind, is in part the question of whether and how a purely physical organism can have beliefs. Much of epistemology revolves around questions about when and how our beliefs are justified or qualify as knowledge.

There's a lot more on the philosophy of belief at that link: implicit vs. explicit beliefs, beliefs vs. delusions, the content of beliefs, etc. One question that is quite interesting to me is whether language is required for belief. If we say it is (and I tend to think it is), then how we define "language" is very important for deciding whether animals have beliefs.

I hope you enjoy the read.

[trotsky]

44. So they're different. Thanks. n/t

[FiveGoodMen]

101. I'd say they are qualitatively different

First case: "I believe the chair will hold me." -- "I mean, it's been working so far, and I've sat on a lot of chairs in my life and they generally do what they're supposed to; I'm not worried."

Second case: "I believe that Jesus died for me (because his father was going to torture me forever; because I wasn't perfect -- just like every other single person that HE made(!)) And my entry into a place called Heaven is predicated on my maintaining that it really happened like that ... and I believe all that because my parents told me that's how it is ... ... ... even though they had absolutely NO WAY OF KNOWING what the truth was."

Hell of a spectrum there!

[GliderGuider]

103. They're both still beliefs, in the general sense of the term.

The common definition of belief is "an acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists." The fact that one belief is banal and the other is outrageous doesn't mean they are different in kind, just in degree.

As I've already said, my mistake in this thread was to use the generic sense of the term "belief" in a posting on a forum that's used to a specific definition.

As another example of extreme differences in degree, the bumblebee bat and the blue whale are also on opposite ends of a hell of a spectrum, but both are still mammals.

[FiveGoodMen]

104. bat and blue whale both mammals

But most other attempts to equate them would fail.

If all we're arguing here is a technicality, then we're wasting everyone's time.

Point is: Preachers try to equate "faith" in a chair with "faith" in their holy book and say, "look everyone has faith," but that's a pretty bad comparison.

Let's talk about meaningful things. An atom and a star are both matter, but it wouldn't do to get them confused.

[GliderGuider]

108. We obviously have different points of view

Atoms and stars may both be made of hydrogen - that seems like a useful thing to know. Arithmetic and the existence of God may both be beliefs. That also seems to be a useful thing to know.

A star is not an atom, but its properties derive from basic physical properties shared by the atom. Likewise for arithmetic and Gods - one is not the other, but both beliefs derive some of their basic qualities from the same mental processes.

If one is a cosmologist one may be less concerned about the minutiae of hydrogen atoms, but understanding the physics is still important. I view understanding the nature and behaviour of beliefs as being similar to knowing the physics of matter.

You may not care about the similarities, and be concerned more about the differences. That's fine, the world has room enough for everyone's concerns. However, this board may not be the place for some of them, as I've discovered.

[stone space]

100. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh!

"1+1 = 2."

I can prove that one!

[GliderGuider]

102. "when arithmetical addition has been defined..."

Thank you, Horshach. You may take your seat.

[stone space]

107. It only took them 300 pages to prove it.

[GliderGuider]

109. I bet they didn't think it was a trivial issue at the end of THAT!

And they still had to make a key assumption - the nature of addition.

[Humanist_Activist]

56. I object to the idea that our propensity toward belief is exclusively human...

granted, more abstract beliefs would necessarily require a species is able to think abstractly, but belief is extremely general, so could be applied to many of the behaviors of other animals besides us.

[GliderGuider]

58. I agree.

I was just riffing on the Mark Twain quote about blushing.

[AtheistCrusader]

63. Propensity towards belief is not absolute in Homo Sapiens Sapiens.

It's the majority, but it is not absolute. http://www.apa.org/monitor/2010/12/believe.aspx


Bumbling around looking for the study to back that up, I tripped over these quotes, of which I had no previous knowledge.

"Reason must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed. Faith must trample underfoot all reason, sense, and understanding, and whatever it sees must be put out of sight and ... know nothing but the word of God." ~ Martin Luther

"Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but -- more frequently than not -- struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God." ~ Martin Luther

"There is on earth among all dangers no more dangerous thing than a richly endowed and adroit reason... Reason must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed." ~ Martin Luther

"Reason should be destroyed in all Christians." ~ Martin Luther

That, is depressing.

[GliderGuider]

64. It depends on whether you constrain the definition of belief to include only religion

As I mentioned above, a general definition of belief (which was my original intention) makes it clear that belief is universal.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/belief/

[AtheistCrusader]

65. Hmm. Seems like philosophical hair splitting. Did you see my post 60?

[GliderGuider]

69. Yes, I did. Did you see my post #43?

[AtheistCrusader]

71. I have.

"like the chair holding me up"

Have you ever experienced a chair collapsing under your mass? I have. Very embarrassing. Had I remained in an actual state of belief, I would have crashed to the floor. However, I correctly interpreted the sequence of events, and managed to raise myself into a standing position, saving myself the embarrassment and impact damage of hitting the floor.

I don't think the assumption the chair will hold me translates into 'belief' that the chair will hold me, in any meaningful sense. If it does, it lends itself to disabusing ourselves of the notion that 'belief' is in any way meaningful, as the things we 'believe' to be true continually fail over time.