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.