Belief is not Knowledge
July 11, 2024 12:50 PM Subscribe
‘Who are you to tell me what to believe?’ replies the zealot. It is a misguided challenge: it implies that certifying one’s beliefs is a matter of someone’s authority. It ignores the role of reality. Believing has what philosophers call a ‘mind-to-world direction of fit’. Our beliefs are intended to reflect the real world – and it is on this point that beliefs can go haywire. There are irresponsible beliefs; more precisely, there are beliefs that are acquired and retained in an irresponsible way. One might disregard evidence; accept gossip, rumour, or testimony from dubious sources; ignore incoherence with one’s other beliefs; embrace wishful thinking; or display a predilection for conspiracy theories. from You don’t have a right to believe whatever you want to [Aeon; ungated]
Thank You! For posting this. I’ve been thinking along similar lines a lot recently, mostly since 2016 for a whole spectrum of reasons as I’ve tried to elucidate truths for my own self outside of the echo chambers, hand waving and magical thinking so many of my most immediate peers seemed to be engaging in. More so as these last few years have progressed. I realize the original article may be meant to counter what are ostensibly right wing and religious mindsets, but I find that kind of simplistic thinking even more maddening from the people who I actually choose to be around.
My favorite, probably inaccurate usage of a maybe unrelated term lately has been “Correlation is not causation.” Also, “feelings are not facts” is a good one.
posted by Conrad-Casserole at 1:46 PM on July 11 [7 favorites]
My favorite, probably inaccurate usage of a maybe unrelated term lately has been “Correlation is not causation.” Also, “feelings are not facts” is a good one.
posted by Conrad-Casserole at 1:46 PM on July 11 [7 favorites]
Book is coming my way. Thank you for posting this.
posted by humbug at 1:50 PM on July 11 [2 favorites]
posted by humbug at 1:50 PM on July 11 [2 favorites]
This also implies that certain moral beliefs require action. I haven't accepted Christ as my savior. Some people believe that means, factually, that I am condemned to Hell. Given that, they see it as their duty to try to help me accept Christ, just as it would be anyone's duty to redirect someone who is about to step off a cliff. Even though I disagree with them, I appreciate their positive intent.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 2:25 PM on July 11 [2 favorites]
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 2:25 PM on July 11 [2 favorites]
I think about John Stuart Mill a lot. It's not the same thought experiment, but his assertion that it is not an infringement of your liberty if someone grabs you back from an unsafe bridge that you were about to step on, because if you knew it was unsafe, you wouldn't step onto it.
Ie I am okay with someone trying to save me from something I don't know about, but boy howdy do I know about Evangelical Christianity (and I reject it, fervently and frequently). I do not need anyone to preach at me, no matter my behavior.
Because we know where that goes, don't we?
posted by Mogur at 2:45 PM on July 11 [8 favorites]
Ie I am okay with someone trying to save me from something I don't know about, but boy howdy do I know about Evangelical Christianity (and I reject it, fervently and frequently). I do not need anyone to preach at me, no matter my behavior.
Because we know where that goes, don't we?
posted by Mogur at 2:45 PM on July 11 [8 favorites]
But it's not a misguided challenge. Imagine living in a repressive country and the authorities telling people what to say and do. Imagine being a minority in a first world country and having cis white men mansplain politics and philosophy to you. The author's conclusion is right that there is an ethics to belief, but ironically misses the reality that it (their example) is right-wing zealots incorrectly weaponizing a perfectly legitimate challenge when used in response against the powerful and privileged in the context of social justice for the marginalized and the oppressed.
posted by polymodus at 2:50 PM on July 11 [9 favorites]
posted by polymodus at 2:50 PM on July 11 [9 favorites]
There is an ethic of believing, of acquiring, sustaining, and relinquishing beliefs – and that ethic both generates and limits our right to believe. If some beliefs are false, or morally repugnant, or irresponsible, some beliefs are also dangerous. And to those, we have no right.Talk about dangerous beliefs! This is a very illiberal attitude. The ethic of believing can and does lead different people to different and even incommensurable beliefs. Who gets to decide which ones are false, repugnant, or "irresponsible"? If my opponent has no right to their beliefs, what constrains my right to suppress them?
‘Who are you to tell me what to believe?’ replies the zealot. It is a misguided challenge: it implies that certifying one’s beliefs is a matter of someone’s authority.If you're telling me what to believe, you are arrogating that authority to yourself. That's what the zealot is objecting to: you're denying them the freedom of acquiring, sustaining, and relinquishing beliefs for themselves. Of course people use this argument in bad faith to avoid having to defend garbage beliefs, but you don't get to just dismiss it with appeals to "reality." (On preview: What polymodus said.)
posted by Gerald Bostock at 2:55 PM on July 11 [13 favorites]
When I meet my first example of somebody who acts as if they believe in everything it says in the bible, and particularly in everything Christ is supposed to have said, and acts accordingly, I'll be willing to entertain their 'belief'.
Until that day comes, and I doubt it ever will, spare me.
posted by signal at 2:59 PM on July 11 [5 favorites]
Until that day comes, and I doubt it ever will, spare me.
posted by signal at 2:59 PM on July 11 [5 favorites]
Ungated link doesn't work - it instantly switches to anothet Aeon page on Firefox and Chrome for me...
posted by tiny frying pan at 3:00 PM on July 11 [3 favorites]
posted by tiny frying pan at 3:00 PM on July 11 [3 favorites]
I couldn't love "Belief is not knowledge" more
posted by tiny frying pan at 3:00 PM on July 11 [4 favorites]
posted by tiny frying pan at 3:00 PM on July 11 [4 favorites]
Agreed. This is one of those things where the ambiguity of "right" does a lot of work. Like, of course, people with incorrect beliefs should be open to change them. Someone who says "I have a right to my beliefs!" as a way to close their mind from any cognitive dissonance is wrong and immoral, and in a sense does not have the right to ignore reality. They aren't talking about rights really. They have more in common with a toddler reaming "YOU CAN'T MAKE ME!"
But when you talk about rights, it immediately gets into the territory of law, power, and force. Of course you can't force someone to believe. But you can enforce behavior, including speech, and that gets scary fast. You won't like who wields that power.
posted by Garm at 3:33 PM on July 11 [9 favorites]
But when you talk about rights, it immediately gets into the territory of law, power, and force. Of course you can't force someone to believe. But you can enforce behavior, including speech, and that gets scary fast. You won't like who wields that power.
posted by Garm at 3:33 PM on July 11 [9 favorites]
There's a really *large* story in this Country about how, in some cases, you can believe what everyone else thinks is not true/real and be *right*. And then the assholes got a hold of it.
posted by aleph at 3:37 PM on July 11 [1 favorite]
posted by aleph at 3:37 PM on July 11 [1 favorite]
Dogmatic beliefs are rewarded by an emotional elitism. A true believer is elevated in status for their passionate adherence by those who wish they could have less doubt and internal conflict, but their minds won't step aside. It's a double-bind found in cultures overtaken by individual-repressive doctrine.
posted by Brian B. at 4:00 PM on July 11 [3 favorites]
posted by Brian B. at 4:00 PM on July 11 [3 favorites]
A scientist posits a statement about reality. Someone responds that they don’t believe that. Well, neither does the scientist. A lot of people have no clue about knowledge, belief, truth, falsehood, etc. If it’s in their head then it’s true and real. No matter what.
posted by njohnson23 at 4:06 PM on July 11 [10 favorites]
posted by njohnson23 at 4:06 PM on July 11 [10 favorites]
Believing so much less of a bother and instantly gratifying as well...
posted by jim in austin at 4:33 PM on July 11 [1 favorite]
posted by jim in austin at 4:33 PM on July 11 [1 favorite]
I'm afraid depressive realism causes serious damage here, given Daniel DeNicola's position that "falsity of a belief is a necessary but not sufficient condition for a belief to be morally wrong."
If you dislike depressive realism, then the precautionary principle causes similar damage. As an example, computer security profesionals must behave like negatively biased realists about many aspects of their job. We know executives ship dangerous goods all the time, which involves them choosing to disbelieve the paranoid security guys, or never hire any, like witness the whole IoT industry, Equifax, etc etc etc.
posted by jeffburdges at 5:04 PM on July 11 [2 favorites]
If you dislike depressive realism, then the precautionary principle causes similar damage. As an example, computer security profesionals must behave like negatively biased realists about many aspects of their job. We know executives ship dangerous goods all the time, which involves them choosing to disbelieve the paranoid security guys, or never hire any, like witness the whole IoT industry, Equifax, etc etc etc.
posted by jeffburdges at 5:04 PM on July 11 [2 favorites]
https://graywyvern.blogspot.com/2003/07/much-as-i-appreciate-poet-of-lord.html
posted by graywyvern at 5:27 PM on July 11 [2 favorites]
posted by graywyvern at 5:27 PM on July 11 [2 favorites]
In any case, there is nothing actionable within this essay because: First, scientific predictions ensure reality enforces itself only after considerable delay. Second, humans have no mechanism by which to make reality enforce itself faster. Third, if we relax his hard falsity constraint then we'll instantly have powerful humans enforcing false beliefs that benefit them, like they did throughout history.
We'd have fossil fuel lobiest criminalize the belief in climate change in particular. We already have courts denying climate activists any defense that involves mentioning climate.
posted by jeffburdges at 5:35 PM on July 11 [2 favorites]
We'd have fossil fuel lobiest criminalize the belief in climate change in particular. We already have courts denying climate activists any defense that involves mentioning climate.
posted by jeffburdges at 5:35 PM on July 11 [2 favorites]
Yet, even in this context, extremely intolerant beliefs cannot be toleratedThis is Karl Popper's paradox, but clipped a bit. Popper said, to simplify; political toleration is a common good, but limitless toleration allows the entry of political actors whose aims are against toleration, and who'd take advantage of the suckers, and wreck the system for everyone (in his example, the Nazis of the 1940s), so the actual good of political toleration has to also be intolerant of intolerance. It's a nice thinking experiment for intro-level political science, especially for Americans who have a way of treating their First Amendment as an a priori universal good, outside history.
But what's the actual problem here? It's not the belief, it's usually the action implied in the belief, to actively subvert systems (tolerant, open societies) in which people can live good lives. If you have extremely repugnant, false, irresponsible beliefs, but don't do anything about them, who cares? Who will ever know? In liberal terms, everyone has a 'right' to such beliefs because liberal rights really are negative, they're contested against power.
And the converse is also true: what do you call a Christian who goes to Mass, says their prayers, behaves well, lives according to the Gospels, confesses their sins and atones for them, is generally a pillar of the community, but who secretly doesn't believe in God or Jesus or scripture or any of it? A Christian.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 5:59 PM on July 11 [10 favorites]
Fiasco put the finger on something that came up in a discussion I had with a friend, this would have been about a decade ago, when a few people were released with golden parachutes from FAANG companies for voicing their beliefs about how women didn't have the proper mindset for programming, or how it was difficult to deal with certain ethnicities, or whatever garbage they said. "Doesn't this mean that they're getting fired for their beliefs?"
No, they're getting fired for taking actions based on those beliefs. Because creating a hostile work environment with your speech is an action. Keeping people out of departments, out of the C-suites, out of entire professions by "stating your beliefs" is an action.
I live in a big city. It's a near-certainty that within a quarter-mile radius of me, there are at least a few people who hate my ethnicity and would kill me if they could get away without consequences. There are some beliefs that are anti-social, or sociopathic (which literally means "society-killer"). But I don't strictly care, as long as they keep that shit bottled up in their miserable heads. Which of course, they never do.
what do you call a Christian who goes to Mass, says their prayers, behaves well, lives according to the Gospels, confesses their sins and atones for them, is generally a pillar of the community, but who secretly doesn't believe in God or Jesus or scripture or any of it? A Christian.
And of course the inverse of the converse (the contrapositive?) is a person who is irreligious, anti-social, clannish, hurts others for their own benefit, takes no responsibility, but claims that they're absolved because they "accepted God into their hearts". "You can't judge me! You don't know me!" Asshole, I see you.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 6:25 PM on July 11 [10 favorites]
No, they're getting fired for taking actions based on those beliefs. Because creating a hostile work environment with your speech is an action. Keeping people out of departments, out of the C-suites, out of entire professions by "stating your beliefs" is an action.
I live in a big city. It's a near-certainty that within a quarter-mile radius of me, there are at least a few people who hate my ethnicity and would kill me if they could get away without consequences. There are some beliefs that are anti-social, or sociopathic (which literally means "society-killer"). But I don't strictly care, as long as they keep that shit bottled up in their miserable heads. Which of course, they never do.
what do you call a Christian who goes to Mass, says their prayers, behaves well, lives according to the Gospels, confesses their sins and atones for them, is generally a pillar of the community, but who secretly doesn't believe in God or Jesus or scripture or any of it? A Christian.
And of course the inverse of the converse (the contrapositive?) is a person who is irreligious, anti-social, clannish, hurts others for their own benefit, takes no responsibility, but claims that they're absolved because they "accepted God into their hearts". "You can't judge me! You don't know me!" Asshole, I see you.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 6:25 PM on July 11 [10 favorites]
Such judgments can imply that believing is a voluntary act. But beliefs are often more like states of mind or attitudes than decisive actions. Some beliefs, such as personal values, are not deliberately chosen; they are ‘inherited’ from parents and ‘acquired’ from peers, acquired inadvertently, inculcated by institutions and authorities...This though is exactly right, and makes the whole of the rest of the argument (about beliefs as a moral right or wrong) a problem. We've all of us got a freight of very real beliefs that we didn't choose, don't want, and probably don't even know about, and they come from systems and power and history from long before any of us were born. It's why we address unconscious bias as a system-problem, because even people who make the active choice not to believe racist, or sexist, or simply untrue things, do perpetuate the systems, because a lot of beliefs aren't chosen, they're reproduced through the ways we behave and live. And to conceive of these kinds of beliefs as residing primarily in the rightness or wrongness of the individual holder, that's wrong, I think, and unhelpful.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 6:33 PM on July 11 [4 favorites]
To me, the example of, "It's raining, but I don't believe it's raining" isn't absurd, as the writer suggests. It perfectly illustrates that belief has no effect on reality. You are welcome to believe that it's not raining, but that won't change what's happening outside. And along with that, you're free to deny the existence of rain — even deny the existence of water, or clouds, or the sky. Belief cannot affect reality. Things that are real don't need your help with it.
posted by emelenjr at 7:08 PM on July 11 [3 favorites]
posted by emelenjr at 7:08 PM on July 11 [3 favorites]
Or, the old quip, "Reality is what trips you when you walk around with your eyes closed."
posted by aleph at 8:56 PM on July 11 [3 favorites]
posted by aleph at 8:56 PM on July 11 [3 favorites]
Well, it depends. A lot of beliefs profoundly do. Self-esteem is a belief, and usually rests on foundations that don't have any relation to measurable fact, and you'd better believe it affects reality.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 9:12 PM on July 11 [3 favorites]
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 9:12 PM on July 11 [3 favorites]
IMHO, this needs a definition of what a "right" is. Absent that, I'm not sure what the argument actually is. As it is, it seems to invite us to imagine people we think are exceptionally stupid and/or malicious, and then to get angry at them. Given this is what people do on the internet, not surprised to find it has takers. But it's not really an argument about what rights exist.
Is it actually saying state power can be used, if necessary, to stop people from holding wrong beliefs? That's typically what not having a "right" to something means. It's also rather horrific.
Or is it just saying that people who have bad beliefs can be criticized? That seems fairly uncontroversial. We criticize people for doing things they have a right to do all the time.
posted by mark k at 10:37 PM on July 11 [2 favorites]
Is it actually saying state power can be used, if necessary, to stop people from holding wrong beliefs? That's typically what not having a "right" to something means. It's also rather horrific.
Or is it just saying that people who have bad beliefs can be criticized? That seems fairly uncontroversial. We criticize people for doing things they have a right to do all the time.
posted by mark k at 10:37 PM on July 11 [2 favorites]
Belief cannot affect reality.
Sure it can. Just today I was reading a news story about a gang of religious fuckwits who believed that their Type 1 diabetic kid didn't need insulin any more. That kid is dead now. Doesn't get much more real than that.
posted by flabdablet at 10:59 PM on July 11 [11 favorites]
Sure it can. Just today I was reading a news story about a gang of religious fuckwits who believed that their Type 1 diabetic kid didn't need insulin any more. That kid is dead now. Doesn't get much more real than that.
posted by flabdablet at 10:59 PM on July 11 [11 favorites]
as long as I remind myself that any belief I may have is, by definition, a conclusion based on incomplete evidence, I find I don't make too big a mess of things.
posted by philip-random at 11:04 PM on July 11 [2 favorites]
posted by philip-random at 11:04 PM on July 11 [2 favorites]
Things can be True but not Good, and belief is a way to negotiate that gap.
posted by dmh at 11:10 PM on July 11 [3 favorites]
posted by dmh at 11:10 PM on July 11 [3 favorites]
(Reminder that urls aren’t automatically turned into links, but can easily be made linkable (thus contributing to site accessibility) by using the “link” button in the quick-access edit buttons immediately below the comment input window. (The link button is the one on the far right of the row of buttons just under the comment box.) Linking urls properly ourselves saves mod time for actual site moderation, too!)
posted by eviemath at 3:49 AM on July 12 [1 favorite]
posted by eviemath at 3:49 AM on July 12 [1 favorite]
Belief cannot affect reality. Things that are real don't need your help with it.
Physical reality is not affected directly by your beliefs about physical reality. But social constructs are real things too. And social constructs can make you do things that affect physical reality.
The meaning of words is socially constructed. But if I ask someone for an apple (a series of sounds that has no intrinsic connection to the physical piece of fruit, except that we both believe there is some connection!) a physical apple may appear in my hand. Money is a social construct too, but because of our shared belief in its value, some people sleep in castles, and some die under bridges. This belief very much does affect our physical circumstances.
This is why I think it very much matters what people believe. But I have never seen it as a matter for moral judgment, because I don't think people choose what to believe.
If someone has damaging beliefs, that's bad, but it doesn't follow that they are bad. Probably they have been lied to. Very likely they are afraid, and can't bring themselves to confront the truth. What might help is not punishment for their error, but telling them the truth is making them feel safe.
posted by OnceUponATime at 4:36 AM on July 12
Physical reality is not affected directly by your beliefs about physical reality. But social constructs are real things too. And social constructs can make you do things that affect physical reality.
The meaning of words is socially constructed. But if I ask someone for an apple (a series of sounds that has no intrinsic connection to the physical piece of fruit, except that we both believe there is some connection!) a physical apple may appear in my hand. Money is a social construct too, but because of our shared belief in its value, some people sleep in castles, and some die under bridges. This belief very much does affect our physical circumstances.
This is why I think it very much matters what people believe. But I have never seen it as a matter for moral judgment, because I don't think people choose what to believe.
If someone has damaging beliefs, that's bad, but it doesn't follow that they are bad. Probably they have been lied to. Very likely they are afraid, and can't bring themselves to confront the truth. What might help is not punishment for their error, but telling them the truth is making them feel safe.
posted by OnceUponATime at 4:36 AM on July 12
Telling them truth AND making them feel safe, I meant.
posted by OnceUponATime at 4:43 AM on July 12
posted by OnceUponATime at 4:43 AM on July 12
CG Jung was asked if he believed in God. He hesitated slightly and said that he did not need to believe since he knew.
posted by DJZouke at 5:05 AM on July 12 [2 favorites]
posted by DJZouke at 5:05 AM on July 12 [2 favorites]
"Who are you to try to tell me what to believe?"
Well SOMEONE told you what to believe - why CAN'T it be me?
posted by Billiken at 5:38 AM on July 12
Well SOMEONE told you what to believe - why CAN'T it be me?
posted by Billiken at 5:38 AM on July 12
Sure it can. Just today I was reading a news story about a gang of religious fuckwits who believed that their Type 1 diabetic kid didn't need insulin any more. That kid is dead now. Doesn't get much more real than that.
I think it's not the belief that insulin isn't necessary, or lack of belief in the efficacy of insulin that leads to those results. Your beliefs or convictions can lead you to make choices, but in your example, ultimately it's the lack of insulin that leads to those results.
Edited to add: Denying that insulin does work or believing that it doesn't work does not change what insulin does for someone with T1D.
posted by emelenjr at 5:54 AM on July 12
I think it's not the belief that insulin isn't necessary, or lack of belief in the efficacy of insulin that leads to those results. Your beliefs or convictions can lead you to make choices, but in your example, ultimately it's the lack of insulin that leads to those results.
Edited to add: Denying that insulin does work or believing that it doesn't work does not change what insulin does for someone with T1D.
posted by emelenjr at 5:54 AM on July 12
I think it's not the belief that insulin isn't necessary, or lack of belief in the efficacy of insulin that leads to those results.
In any case, I think an unwillingness to understand something real counts as belief. And if their belief leads to real-world consequences, it's not mere semantics to say "belief did this". Their belief killed someone.
posted by grubi at 6:03 AM on July 12 [2 favorites]
In any case, I think an unwillingness to understand something real counts as belief. And if their belief leads to real-world consequences, it's not mere semantics to say "belief did this". Their belief killed someone.
posted by grubi at 6:03 AM on July 12 [2 favorites]
METAFILTER: it seems to invite us to imagine people we think are exceptionally stupid and/or malicious, and then to get angry at them
posted by philip-random at 9:15 AM on July 12 [1 favorite]
posted by philip-random at 9:15 AM on July 12 [1 favorite]
but seriously (and this will likely be something of a ramble, apologies in advance) ...
We've all of us got a freight of very real beliefs that we didn't choose, don't want, and probably don't even know about, and they come from systems and power and history from long before any of us were born.
yeah, from the moment we're born, perhaps even before, we're starting to pull together the complex stuff of what will come to be tagged our "belief system". And whoever is closest to us at the very beginning, holding us, feeding us, protecting us -- they're going to be laying down some pretty fundamental foundations.
BUT
and it's a big but. Reality being reality, those foundations are going to be encountering many assaults and attacks (or just arguments and coercions) as time goes by, as we start crossing the street, going to school, making friends with kids whose parents may have laid down different foundations -- also teachers, coaches, teammates, band mates, you name it. I've heard that for maybe the first ten years of your life, your immediate family has the greatest influence on your values etc, but past age ten, it's your peers, with this dynamic really kicking in through your teen years. Which makes sense. We're social animals. Society should form us.
Anyway, long story short, unless you're living in some kind of isolation (or somehow just blind to what's going on around you), none of your foundations (aka beliefs) are going to be spared opposition over time. So the question becomes -- what's your response when they do? Do you ignore it because GOD (or whatever)? Or do you actually take the time to consider it? And upon consideration and perhaps seeing a possible "truth" you hadn't considered before, what then? Do you reconsider your foundations, or do you adhere to them?
I don't think there's a simple yes/no here. Because sometimes our foundations are correct. Sometimes we should adhere to them even in the face of compelling other options. But the key is that we considered the possibility. We were curious. It's those who refuse to be curious who terrify me -- those who are certain, who don't just hold fast to their dubious bullshit, they act on it, often passionately. I don't care whether they do it in the name of God or politics or some king or queen or fucking pop star -- they're dangerous and maybe worse, they're profoundly boring.
Though all that said, I am pretty damned certain the sun will rise tomorrow and it will still be summer.
posted by philip-random at 9:53 AM on July 12 [1 favorite]
We've all of us got a freight of very real beliefs that we didn't choose, don't want, and probably don't even know about, and they come from systems and power and history from long before any of us were born.
yeah, from the moment we're born, perhaps even before, we're starting to pull together the complex stuff of what will come to be tagged our "belief system". And whoever is closest to us at the very beginning, holding us, feeding us, protecting us -- they're going to be laying down some pretty fundamental foundations.
BUT
and it's a big but. Reality being reality, those foundations are going to be encountering many assaults and attacks (or just arguments and coercions) as time goes by, as we start crossing the street, going to school, making friends with kids whose parents may have laid down different foundations -- also teachers, coaches, teammates, band mates, you name it. I've heard that for maybe the first ten years of your life, your immediate family has the greatest influence on your values etc, but past age ten, it's your peers, with this dynamic really kicking in through your teen years. Which makes sense. We're social animals. Society should form us.
Anyway, long story short, unless you're living in some kind of isolation (or somehow just blind to what's going on around you), none of your foundations (aka beliefs) are going to be spared opposition over time. So the question becomes -- what's your response when they do? Do you ignore it because GOD (or whatever)? Or do you actually take the time to consider it? And upon consideration and perhaps seeing a possible "truth" you hadn't considered before, what then? Do you reconsider your foundations, or do you adhere to them?
I don't think there's a simple yes/no here. Because sometimes our foundations are correct. Sometimes we should adhere to them even in the face of compelling other options. But the key is that we considered the possibility. We were curious. It's those who refuse to be curious who terrify me -- those who are certain, who don't just hold fast to their dubious bullshit, they act on it, often passionately. I don't care whether they do it in the name of God or politics or some king or queen or fucking pop star -- they're dangerous and maybe worse, they're profoundly boring.
Though all that said, I am pretty damned certain the sun will rise tomorrow and it will still be summer.
posted by philip-random at 9:53 AM on July 12 [1 favorite]
Physical reality is not affected directly by your beliefs about physical reality
Beliefs are internal behaviours, and as such are every bit as much parts of physical reality as anything else; physical reality is affected by them even if to no larger extent than instantiating them. And those private internal behaviours may well cause externally observable behaviours, which in turn cause effects on parts of physical reality that are not you. Such as, for instance, your insulin-dependent kid.
posted by flabdablet at 10:24 AM on July 12 [2 favorites]
Beliefs are internal behaviours, and as such are every bit as much parts of physical reality as anything else; physical reality is affected by them even if to no larger extent than instantiating them. And those private internal behaviours may well cause externally observable behaviours, which in turn cause effects on parts of physical reality that are not you. Such as, for instance, your insulin-dependent kid.
posted by flabdablet at 10:24 AM on July 12 [2 favorites]
I like "Everyone walks around in their own little made-up version of Reality." With the important proviso: "Some are closer than others".
posted by aleph at 10:56 AM on July 12
posted by aleph at 10:56 AM on July 12
The nasty utility of belief is that it justifies things that are indefensible. Otherwise it isn't needed.
Cruel men believe in a cruel god and use their belief to excuse their cruelty. Only kindly men believe in a kindly god, and they would be kindly in any case. -- Bertrand Russell
posted by Brian B. at 11:44 AM on July 12 [2 favorites]
Cruel men believe in a cruel god and use their belief to excuse their cruelty. Only kindly men believe in a kindly god, and they would be kindly in any case. -- Bertrand Russell
posted by Brian B. at 11:44 AM on July 12 [2 favorites]
Recently-seen bumper sticker "Don't believe what you think"
posted by Wizard777 at 2:31 PM on July 12 [1 favorite]
posted by Wizard777 at 2:31 PM on July 12 [1 favorite]
As J.R. “Bob” Dobbs said, You’ll pay to know what you think! And Pull the wool over your own eyes. The internet is evident of these truths.
posted by njohnson23 at 2:39 PM on July 12 [3 favorites]
posted by njohnson23 at 2:39 PM on July 12 [3 favorites]
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