Everyone agrees that 2+2 makes 4.
Almost everyone agrees that a cloudless daytime sky is blue.
Very few people know why high tides occur on the same and opposite side of the earth from the moon, and those who don't know aren't likely to have a firm opinion about it.
Ask about what should be done to reduce poverty to people who don't know anything about the topic and you will probably find extremely firm opinions about it.
What makes politics different from so many other topics? People obviously put a lot of value in their opinions about politics - often to the extent that they refuse to listen to any alternative ideas. I think the political mind is used to create a model of the world based on beliefs about non-political topics, so that politics is becomes an abstract representation of deeply held belief structures. As such, discussions about politics, in this case, are really discussions about whether or not those deeply held beliefs are true - unfortunately, most of the time neither party recognizes what the discussion is actually about.
If I think that poor people are lazy, I might be likely to believe that welfare is unjust. Similarly, I might rationalize that because there are still poor people, welfare does not work - in fact, it just makes people lazier because they are given something for free and no longer have any motivation to get jobs. Of course, if the premise is true (poor people are just lazy), my conclusion might be rational (welfare doesn't reduce poverty) and, with the conclusion established, people who support welfare are supporting people not working and getting something they don't deserve. From this point it's easy to see how I could believe that welfare supporters want to create a socialist welfare state where nobody works becuase I never question my beliefs about poor people or my belief that it is obvious to everyone else.
If I actually believed this, I would probably get pretty frustrated with all the people coming up with loony ideas about how the world should work. This is no surprise - many of us know how this game works. But what is the value of the behavior? Are people so concerned about whether or not they're correct? I suspect it's something else, entirely. We don't see nearly as many people getting uptight about cars, landscaping plants, or which route is best to get downtown. There is something specific about the beliefs surrounding political thinking that makes it particularly likely to generate anger.
Could it be that politics involves topics that are difficult to understand or ambiguous? Math is difficult to understand, but there aren't blogs about how dumb non-mathematicians are. Ambiguity is a possibility - religious disagreements are quite often based in ambiguity (though they may claim to know). If so, it could be that a need for intellectual certainty combined with an ambiguous topic might do it. Certainty is an often observed characteristic of political thinking (and religion).
But why do so few people try to determine the correctness of their beliefs (let alone take firm positions on them)? For one, I don't think many people understand or are able to apply the idea that anecdotal evidence is not proof. Also, research is hard work that requires keeping one's options open. If coming up with a decision can not be suspended, research basically becomes confirmation bias. I suspect there's more to it than just that, however. What could cause people to falsify research? Where does political chain email come from?
The way I read political chain email is as an attempt to get people to agree with a by having them fall for the same false beliefs or shoddy reasoning the author has. Somehow, the belief/political view construct acts as a feedback loop. Or perhaps, there are yet deeper beliefs that are used to form beliefs about people and policies regarding policies.
Could a complete political belief system be derived from one's belief about the innate goodness of people? If one believes that people are basically good, it would be difficult to believe in extreme right-wing policies. Likewise, if people are basically selfish, it would be difficult to take a leftist position because of moral hazard.
Interesting stuff.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
Wondering this morning about how my intellect engages particular topics - why it grabs them and seeks to defend or condem. Why am I concerned about it? I don't think I want to control others. It's more like I am taking offense (is my defense a clue to this?) and then feeling the need to educate or change their thinking - all good and well, but why the emotions?
As I'm typing this, I am worrying about what a reader might think of me - that they may get the wrong impression or disapprove. That is the heart of the matter. I am able to dismiss their disapproval, but only if I define them away to ignorance. Are they ignorant because I am not? It probably isn't that easy - it never is. I still sit in the shadow of my feelings of inadequacy.
Later, I think about my emptiness. Then, I remember to pull my awareness behind my ears, with the associated feeling in my mid-section and the weight of my intellect's doings is gone for a little while. Why am I not that way all the time? It seems so trivial - how is it that something so profound is can be so difficult to remember. It isn't a regular in my bag of tricks, yet. I am not finished with my struggle - that is why.
As I'm typing this, I am worrying about what a reader might think of me - that they may get the wrong impression or disapprove. That is the heart of the matter. I am able to dismiss their disapproval, but only if I define them away to ignorance. Are they ignorant because I am not? It probably isn't that easy - it never is. I still sit in the shadow of my feelings of inadequacy.
Later, I think about my emptiness. Then, I remember to pull my awareness behind my ears, with the associated feeling in my mid-section and the weight of my intellect's doings is gone for a little while. Why am I not that way all the time? It seems so trivial - how is it that something so profound is can be so difficult to remember. It isn't a regular in my bag of tricks, yet. I am not finished with my struggle - that is why.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Objects of belief or; A belief isn't the thing believed
In my last post, I claimed that belief is the acceptance of the truth of something. To believe is to accept something as being true (which is not known to be true); confidence in or conviction of the truth of something. This belief requires an object of belief and differs substantially from belief in Truth (that objective truth exists, in general). I will refer to the object of belief to as an hypothesis, although it can be any sort of claim from completely fanciful to scientific theory and of any degree of complexity, logical soundness, or verification. Beliefs, like premises, can be implicit and explicit, recognized and unrecognized by the believer. Lastly, a belief is not the same are the object of belief; while this may seem self-evidently true, I’ve found that most people do not, in practice, recognize this subtlety. “The sun will rise tomorrow morning”, is not a belief even if someone believes it; it is the object of belief – belief is the accept-as-true part. “The sun will rise tomorrow morning”, in my vernacular, is an hypothesis.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
What is belief? No, really?
Are beliefs really just the realm of subjectivity?
I don’t think that this is the nature of belief. In order to understand what Dr. AC Grayling was really saying in his essay Facts and Fairy Dust, I wanted to take his implicit logical framework to its extreme. I felt this was necessary because Dr. Grayling seems to identify strongly with scientism; that is to say that he disputes the existence of fairies because evidence for their existence does not meet the requirements of a narrow definition of science. As he says;
“every belief or hypothesis depends for its respectability on how it was arrived at, how open it is to test, and how it consists with what is powerfully established and repeatedly (a billion times repeatedly) confirmed in our common sense and scientific views of the world.”
The scope of respectability is defined by the boundaries of scientific empiricism; the realm of possibilities is limited in the same manner. In short, only that which fits within the scope of scientific method is respectable (real). However, I do not think that this is a reasonable requirement because it fails one of its own requirements; it is not open to testing and requires a series of additional un-testable beliefs to support it. But, I’m not quite ready to get into this quite yet, so I’ll get back to the topic at hand; what is belief?
As I mentioned in an earlier post, belief is the acceptance of something as being true. Correlational to this definition is that beliefs are not known to be true; if they were they would no longer be beliefs, but knowledge. (There is a relationship between beliefs, knowledge, scientific method which the cleverer of you may already have perceived. However, I am not ready to address this relationship, yet.) All beliefs require an hypothesis, either explicitly or implicitly, but an hypothesis does not directly require a belief; however, in practice, virtually all do.
As previously stated, beliefs have a subjective component, but are not themselves subjective. Also, beliefs are not (as I have used them previously) divorced from reality. Beliefs can be identical to an hypothesis, with the difference being that hypotheses are not (ideally) believed to be true. Description vs. unproven truth is the game at hand. Be careful, this is a game filled with subtleties and whose elements are often difficult to ascertain. Luckily, Truth is bullet-proof and we are going to fire a lot of rounds into it and see how well our view of reality holds up.
I don’t think that this is the nature of belief. In order to understand what Dr. AC Grayling was really saying in his essay Facts and Fairy Dust, I wanted to take his implicit logical framework to its extreme. I felt this was necessary because Dr. Grayling seems to identify strongly with scientism; that is to say that he disputes the existence of fairies because evidence for their existence does not meet the requirements of a narrow definition of science. As he says;
“every belief or hypothesis depends for its respectability on how it was arrived at, how open it is to test, and how it consists with what is powerfully established and repeatedly (a billion times repeatedly) confirmed in our common sense and scientific views of the world.”
The scope of respectability is defined by the boundaries of scientific empiricism; the realm of possibilities is limited in the same manner. In short, only that which fits within the scope of scientific method is respectable (real). However, I do not think that this is a reasonable requirement because it fails one of its own requirements; it is not open to testing and requires a series of additional un-testable beliefs to support it. But, I’m not quite ready to get into this quite yet, so I’ll get back to the topic at hand; what is belief?
As I mentioned in an earlier post, belief is the acceptance of something as being true. Correlational to this definition is that beliefs are not known to be true; if they were they would no longer be beliefs, but knowledge. (There is a relationship between beliefs, knowledge, scientific method which the cleverer of you may already have perceived. However, I am not ready to address this relationship, yet.) All beliefs require an hypothesis, either explicitly or implicitly, but an hypothesis does not directly require a belief; however, in practice, virtually all do.
As previously stated, beliefs have a subjective component, but are not themselves subjective. Also, beliefs are not (as I have used them previously) divorced from reality. Beliefs can be identical to an hypothesis, with the difference being that hypotheses are not (ideally) believed to be true. Description vs. unproven truth is the game at hand. Be careful, this is a game filled with subtleties and whose elements are often difficult to ascertain. Luckily, Truth is bullet-proof and we are going to fire a lot of rounds into it and see how well our view of reality holds up.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Theories
Between belief and fact are theories. If beliefs are the acceptance of something as true which has no descriptive or explanatory value and no predictive power, then what I am referring to as theories are the opposite; the acceptance of something as true which has descriptive or explanatory value, or predictive power. Although the denotation of belief accurately describes most theories, I am using both terms differently here. Theories are different from beliefs in that they refer directly to an objective component; they describe, explain, or predict some part of the universe for which knowledge is possessed.
In another way of talking it, facts are objective, beliefs are subjective, and theories bridge the gap between the two because theories are a subjective analysis of objective phenomena. Theories are the inevitable byproduct of intelligent, conscious creatures with sense receptors (remember, I am classifying mental states as objective phenomena). Is this clear? Since a theory requires sensory data and a subjective experience, it is necessary that these two requirements are met.
For the materialists out there who believe that consciousness is epiphenomenal, this idea is utter nonsense because they believe that what we call consciousness is really just the firing patterns of neurons in the brain and so, there is no subjectivity. While I would like to cover this some day, it simply cannot be done quickly in any way that would make sense to a die-hard materialist. For those who are undecided explicitly or implicitly (many don’t know they are materialists, although they cling to many dualistic concepts, and so, are partial materialists), I can offer up some nuggets that may help them understand that consciousness is real and a fundamentally material universe is incoherent. It goes some thing like this: A subjective experience is a constrained experience. The scope of our awareness and decision space is limited to a seemingly unique perspective which is based on a set of intrinsic features and our interaction with our environment. What is like to be each of us is the result of our limitations and experiences. This is fundamentally the nature of subjectivity and while there is an objective reality of which we are a part, we only know it through our individually, somewhat unique experience of it. Yes, I am aware of the standard refutation of this description. And no, I don’t find it convincing because a real experience and sensory data of an experience are not the same thing (presupposition of the non-existence of subjectivity) and because it requires the assumption that materialism is true (the premise and conclusion are the same) and consequently, that mental states are caused by the brain. None of these are necessarily true and I personally think they are nonsense, but more on that another time.
So, what does this mean? Am I saying that theories are not scientific? Am I just redefining words in an effort to change their meanings?
At this point, what I am doing is showing that virtually nothing is purely objective as far as we can know. Although I am using some terms unconventionally, I am doing so to avoid the sloppy conceptualizations that I think many people have. In my next post, I will begin to explore theories and beliefs and their seemingly codependent existence with more musings and some examples.
In another way of talking it, facts are objective, beliefs are subjective, and theories bridge the gap between the two because theories are a subjective analysis of objective phenomena. Theories are the inevitable byproduct of intelligent, conscious creatures with sense receptors (remember, I am classifying mental states as objective phenomena). Is this clear? Since a theory requires sensory data and a subjective experience, it is necessary that these two requirements are met.
For the materialists out there who believe that consciousness is epiphenomenal, this idea is utter nonsense because they believe that what we call consciousness is really just the firing patterns of neurons in the brain and so, there is no subjectivity. While I would like to cover this some day, it simply cannot be done quickly in any way that would make sense to a die-hard materialist. For those who are undecided explicitly or implicitly (many don’t know they are materialists, although they cling to many dualistic concepts, and so, are partial materialists), I can offer up some nuggets that may help them understand that consciousness is real and a fundamentally material universe is incoherent. It goes some thing like this: A subjective experience is a constrained experience. The scope of our awareness and decision space is limited to a seemingly unique perspective which is based on a set of intrinsic features and our interaction with our environment. What is like to be each of us is the result of our limitations and experiences. This is fundamentally the nature of subjectivity and while there is an objective reality of which we are a part, we only know it through our individually, somewhat unique experience of it. Yes, I am aware of the standard refutation of this description. And no, I don’t find it convincing because a real experience and sensory data of an experience are not the same thing (presupposition of the non-existence of subjectivity) and because it requires the assumption that materialism is true (the premise and conclusion are the same) and consequently, that mental states are caused by the brain. None of these are necessarily true and I personally think they are nonsense, but more on that another time.
So, what does this mean? Am I saying that theories are not scientific? Am I just redefining words in an effort to change their meanings?
At this point, what I am doing is showing that virtually nothing is purely objective as far as we can know. Although I am using some terms unconventionally, I am doing so to avoid the sloppy conceptualizations that I think many people have. In my next post, I will begin to explore theories and beliefs and their seemingly codependent existence with more musings and some examples.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Words and Meanings
It’s been brought to my attention that I’m using words and concepts with non-traditional meanings and that some people are having trouble understanding me. While I certainly don’t intend to confuse people, I often find that words have definitions which do not work very well for detailed analysis or may inherit meanings from sloppy usage.
An example:
Belief - As I mentioned in a previous post, belief is the acceptance of something that has not been verified as truth. With this definition, belief can be pure fantasy or one’s educated opinion on a long-studied topic. Belief can also refer to knowledge of something not directly available to logical analysis; religious belief. While all of these definitions are correct, if one wishes to consider one facet of belief, one can either use the same word with limited meaning, find a more accurate word, or make up a new word. Since I am writing casual posts to a blog with no expectation of peer review, I am using the more general word and expecting people to stretch their minds and come to an understanding of my meaning so I don’t have to resort to words which may send them either scrambling for a dictionary or to the next web site. If anyone is confused about the use of a word, leave a comment. I will try to answer your questions.
My intention for this blog was for it to be thought-provoking and increase understanding. It isn't rocket science, nor is it in any way critical for anyone but me (if that).
An example:
Belief - As I mentioned in a previous post, belief is the acceptance of something that has not been verified as truth. With this definition, belief can be pure fantasy or one’s educated opinion on a long-studied topic. Belief can also refer to knowledge of something not directly available to logical analysis; religious belief. While all of these definitions are correct, if one wishes to consider one facet of belief, one can either use the same word with limited meaning, find a more accurate word, or make up a new word. Since I am writing casual posts to a blog with no expectation of peer review, I am using the more general word and expecting people to stretch their minds and come to an understanding of my meaning so I don’t have to resort to words which may send them either scrambling for a dictionary or to the next web site. If anyone is confused about the use of a word, leave a comment. I will try to answer your questions.
My intention for this blog was for it to be thought-provoking and increase understanding. It isn't rocket science, nor is it in any way critical for anyone but me (if that).
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Belief
At the bottom of these musings about Dr. AC Grayling’s essay “Facts and Fairydust”is a discussion about knowledge; the cold, hard facts. So far, I have taken a narrow view of justification for knowledge. It is narrow in the sense that I have placed all human knowledge into the realm of probability and shown how we can never prove that we know anything. Looking at it from the other direction, one could say that what I define as knowledge is something that requires no justification. Knowledge is either real knowledge, or it is speculation. Direct knowledge however, seems a lot like a belief. However, there is a distinct difference; a belief is not known to be true, but knowledge is. Is that clear?
So far, I have seemingly classified anything that isn’t knowledge as belief, but that isn’t my intention. If belief is the acceptance of something as true which has no justification, descriptive value, explanatory power, or predictive power, then there must be something that is not knowledge which is justifiable and has descriptive value, explanatory power, or predictive power. Considering this model, knowledge is the realm of the objective. The information received from senses is knowledge about the universe and, when considered objectively, only includes the raw data from our senses. When I talk about senses, I am referring to awareness, not sense receptors or processors. We are aware of not only what comes from physical receptors, but also what comes from the non-physical realm; the brain. Yes, I know the brain is physical and I also know that physical sensations actually come from the brain. Come from? Where do they go? Another time…
What I mean by the non-physical realm is the information from the brain whose origin is not from physical sense receptors. You have those sensations, right? Feelings, intuition, inspiration, eureka moments, et cetera. There are more of them than that, but for the purpose of this musing, I’d like to limit them to the non-physical sensations that nearly everyone would agree are sensations.
If you do not think that these things are sensations, I’d like you to consider happiness. Is happiness are theory? An Idea? A belief? When you are happy, you feel happy. You are sensing happiness. Is this not true? If you are still unconvinced, consider the source of happiness next time it strikes you. You could also do this with anger, fear, apprehension, or any other emotion. Do these sensations come from outside of you? Do you will them to happen?
Not all non-physical sensations are knowledge, but those that aren’t are related to knowledge in the same way that thoughts, ideas, beliefs, theories, and models are. They are about knowledge. They refer to knowledge. They are a representation of organization. While knowledge (data/information) has only one component (knowledge is a thing in and of itself), non-knowledge has at least two components; a knowledge and contextual component. The contextual component could be anything from the subjective realm. By subjective, I mean not only the traditional definition of subjective, but also any limitation of extent of knowledge; purely defined, it is the realm of speculation.
Are you saying that theories have no value? No. I’m saying that theories have a subjective component; no more, or less.
Beliefs (as I am considering them), are not directly about the universe; they lack the knowledge component or any direct reference to knowledge. They are not descriptive, do not explain anything, and are not able to predict anything objectively. What is left is pure subjectivity, and they most certainly are subjective. Beliefs lack directly informational content but can be filled with meaning. Though they most certainly say something (indirectly, perhaps) about the person with the belief. So, how do beliefs relate to theories? If you are clever and have been paying attention, you may already know the answer. Otherwise, you may have to wait for the next thrilling post.
So far, I have seemingly classified anything that isn’t knowledge as belief, but that isn’t my intention. If belief is the acceptance of something as true which has no justification, descriptive value, explanatory power, or predictive power, then there must be something that is not knowledge which is justifiable and has descriptive value, explanatory power, or predictive power. Considering this model, knowledge is the realm of the objective. The information received from senses is knowledge about the universe and, when considered objectively, only includes the raw data from our senses. When I talk about senses, I am referring to awareness, not sense receptors or processors. We are aware of not only what comes from physical receptors, but also what comes from the non-physical realm; the brain. Yes, I know the brain is physical and I also know that physical sensations actually come from the brain. Come from? Where do they go? Another time…
What I mean by the non-physical realm is the information from the brain whose origin is not from physical sense receptors. You have those sensations, right? Feelings, intuition, inspiration, eureka moments, et cetera. There are more of them than that, but for the purpose of this musing, I’d like to limit them to the non-physical sensations that nearly everyone would agree are sensations.
If you do not think that these things are sensations, I’d like you to consider happiness. Is happiness are theory? An Idea? A belief? When you are happy, you feel happy. You are sensing happiness. Is this not true? If you are still unconvinced, consider the source of happiness next time it strikes you. You could also do this with anger, fear, apprehension, or any other emotion. Do these sensations come from outside of you? Do you will them to happen?
Not all non-physical sensations are knowledge, but those that aren’t are related to knowledge in the same way that thoughts, ideas, beliefs, theories, and models are. They are about knowledge. They refer to knowledge. They are a representation of organization. While knowledge (data/information) has only one component (knowledge is a thing in and of itself), non-knowledge has at least two components; a knowledge and contextual component. The contextual component could be anything from the subjective realm. By subjective, I mean not only the traditional definition of subjective, but also any limitation of extent of knowledge; purely defined, it is the realm of speculation.
Are you saying that theories have no value? No. I’m saying that theories have a subjective component; no more, or less.
Beliefs (as I am considering them), are not directly about the universe; they lack the knowledge component or any direct reference to knowledge. They are not descriptive, do not explain anything, and are not able to predict anything objectively. What is left is pure subjectivity, and they most certainly are subjective. Beliefs lack directly informational content but can be filled with meaning. Though they most certainly say something (indirectly, perhaps) about the person with the belief. So, how do beliefs relate to theories? If you are clever and have been paying attention, you may already know the answer. Otherwise, you may have to wait for the next thrilling post.
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