“Belief” creating reality
Suppose that belief or faith had the intrinsic property of manifesting into reality whatever is believed. For example if I believe a delicious cheesy, tomato and dough based circle exists then pizza becomes a thing.
But also suppose that this ability to manifest reality is the product of not just one individuals beliefs but those of society as a whole - a sort of democratic belief system where reality is the product of the collective average/ mean of ALL sentient desires and wants.
In this scenario if I believe a little piece of paper has a certain value and I exchange it for goods and services, and others observe this and simultaneously also ascribe to the belief system that this particular piece of paper has value and they also use it to exert real work in the world through trading - it seems we have a currency.
But let’s apply this to the notion of “god” Because of the importance of “faith” or “belief” in religious texts. Suppose hypothetically that god only exists if everyone believes unanimously by some defined doctrine describing such a god. And in the same sense god does not exist if everyone rejects a posited doctrine. A bit like solipsism. I have the following questions
A). How would we “prove” gods existence if we could only observe it through collective faith?
B). Would money be our god or the thing we worship in that we all ascribe to the existence of this arbitrary paper value.
C). Is scientific method and the existence of god mutually irreconcilable in this case as science depends on objective measurement?
But also suppose that this ability to manifest reality is the product of not just one individuals beliefs but those of society as a whole - a sort of democratic belief system where reality is the product of the collective average/ mean of ALL sentient desires and wants.
In this scenario if I believe a little piece of paper has a certain value and I exchange it for goods and services, and others observe this and simultaneously also ascribe to the belief system that this particular piece of paper has value and they also use it to exert real work in the world through trading - it seems we have a currency.
But let’s apply this to the notion of “god” Because of the importance of “faith” or “belief” in religious texts. Suppose hypothetically that god only exists if everyone believes unanimously by some defined doctrine describing such a god. And in the same sense god does not exist if everyone rejects a posited doctrine. A bit like solipsism. I have the following questions
A). How would we “prove” gods existence if we could only observe it through collective faith?
B). Would money be our god or the thing we worship in that we all ascribe to the existence of this arbitrary paper value.
C). Is scientific method and the existence of god mutually irreconcilable in this case as science depends on objective measurement?
Comments (63)
Consensual reality (à la shadows on the walls of Plato's cave) – much more than mere "social constructionism", right?
What does "existence" mean in this scenario other than "manifest by collective faith"?
Rephrase; the question as expressed doesn't make sense...
Again, in this scenario what does "objective" refer to other than "according to collective faith"?
This is in fact how perception and imagination work. To say we believe something exists is , at the most basic experiential level, simply to have it appear before us either as imagined, remembered, hallucinated , dreamt or perceived. The difference between scientific fact, common sense fact, hallucination, memory, brief perceptual illusion, dream and changing perceptual reality is a matter of the pattern by which our ongoing ‘believing’ , which is to say, actual experience, unfolds. Does the experience of the pizza persist or disappear? If it persists, can I experience it with all my senses, can I touch it and eat it? Can I share it with others and have them experience it? Does everything I conjure by ‘belief’ function this way , and if so, can I control its appearance and disappearance at will? Why can Indo this? If I don’t understand why and how this happens, I can’t depend on it being reliable when I really need to count on it.
What I’m getting at here is that all we mean when we talk about reality is a certain dependable stability and predictability to what we believe. Science is based on intersubjective consensus of belief. No one ever observes
the exact same scientific phenomenon as anyone else , so we make our theoretical models general enough to compensate for this ambiguity. The precision of mathematical physics isn’t due to the mathematical exactness of physical reality, but to the models we choose to capture reality. Money as an intersubjectively created concept is different from physical particle in that our belief in money adjusts itself to what we know about its sensitively to economic conditions. We know that its value fluctuates in so many ways and this is part of its reality for us.
Intersubjective belief in god and belief in scientific evidence aren't as far apart as you might think. Both rely on their own variety of evindence. One believes and continues to believe in one’s god to the extent that that belief allows one to anticipate and make sense of deep aspects of human functioning. The evidence can change in such a way ( the death of one’s child) that one finds it necessary to abandon or revise that faith.
:lol:
I thought, a vision of gods is the belief or faith. Then the pizza circle moved in...
All of these are very good questions. One way to approach the subject is to look at it through the perspective of the emergence of modern science and the corresponding idea of objectivity that began to become dominant in culture from the 17th Century.
Prior to this, in pre-modern cultures, humans had an instinctively 'I-you' relationship with the world around them. Because the world was understood as the expression of a will (God's will) or as the manifestation of karma (in Buddhism), the criterion for what ought to be considered true were not provided by objective means. In classical cultures the capacity to see things as they truly are was the mark of a sage. That was invariably interpreted as being able to see and act in accordance with the divine will - and this applied even to the stoics, who were purportedly atheistic with respect to the deities but who nevertheless accepted that the Logos directed the entire cosmos.
So with the advent of Galilelean and Newtonian science, a different mentality emerges, which aims to divest the world of all such 'vague and primitive' concepts such like wills, aims and purpose (telos) and instead provide an account resting solely on the measurable properties of objects and on reaching consensus in respect of those. The subjective, interior or intentional domain is banished to 'the past', or declared archaic. Newton still saw the need to God to set the cosmic machine in motion, but Laplace 'had no need of that hypotheses'. Thus begins what René Geunon calls 'the reign of quantity'. Within that overall paradigm, there is no way to accomodate God, or the numinous, or indeed any real idea of the transcendent. Welcome to modernity.
I always feel that God exists to believers and does not exist to atheists. I do not hold that God must exist to atheists, for example.
Quoting Benj96
I saw where you mentioned money, but I would say that belief in God is categorized by God whereas money cannot categorize itself and it is merely an artificial belief that only holds value insofar as it is productive and conducive to society. It just so happens that money works for society and to me this has little to do with belief and more to do with social contracts.
Interesting however could a concept of a god not be conducive to a productive or cooperative society and has it not done so before historically- leaving out all the war and bloodshed done in the name of religions. In that people felt their bad behaviour would be punished in some form - be it by a deity or karma or whatever regardless of whether societal justice systems noticed and reprimanded them or not. There was and still is for many a moralistic imperative to not “piss off” some all knowing entity or in a non anthropomorphised way not to tip the fine balance, the equilibrium that nature demands of it’s systems.
Furthermore I agree money is “artificial” but if a god existed based on exchange of belief by us - sentient beings what’s the difference- would a god that depends on our faith for potency/ existence not be artificial also?
In any case the term Artificial for me is a bit of a strange notion as humans are organic and natural and one would ask where exactly something stops being a “natural progression” and becomes “artificial”. Artificial things come from the natural world and natural things also come from the natural world
I like how you explained the progression it was well articulated.
Scientific method confuses me a bit though in that it is not completely objective in that it is restricted by ethics. If decisions were made without bias it would be open season on how to most effectively collect data and the most efficient ways are no doubt often immoral. So it is biased on principle towards the well-being and safety of humans, and every increasingly animals, the environment etc ( due to emerging laws).
If subjects are those that exert unalienable rights and restrictions on how objectified they can be made, and objects are those things with no restrictions on how they can be tested, and if we are now applying rights and laws to protect non human things like the environment and animals etc... are we not “subjectifying” the world?
And if so do we not increasingly limit the depth of knowledge we can attain with scientific method.
Be VERY careful with the term ‘exist’ and clarify how it is being used as well as how it can be used and applied in another way.
Currency does not exist in the same way that a table or chair exists. The ‘use’ of something is often different from the reality - ie. I can sit on a table no problem but it does not morph into the form of a chair just because I sat on it (conceptually it is understood that I am sitting on a table though).
Haha I’ve made whole posts based on this issue. Trying to define what exists and what doesn’t and how etc. Seems it’s creeping into my other threads. “Existence” as both a concept and physical property continues to elude my capacity to define
But no amount of talking will create a rock.
Or if you prefer, what distinguishes money from stone tools and screwdrivers is that it is made using belief instead of rock.
But no amount of belief will create a rock.
Thanks,
I was under the impression that there was no scientific method. The idea seems archaic.
Clifford Geertz made a definition of ‘religion’ and Colin Renfrew commented that the very same definition can be applied to money. Cannot recall the name of the book Renfrew mentioned this in but you can find the definition Geertz gave easily enough with a quick search.
Had you show me without language what you can do with money, with coins or banknotes, it would have become clear to me, without a single word, what money is. If instead, certain stones were used for money, stones would be money. Language accelerates the process of understanding.
So change language to belief.
I think many people hold a view that much of our lived experience is the product of subjective communities of belief/agreement.
For me it seems (amongst other interpretations) that things which often don't have intrinsic meaning hold a significant status in people's lives because they are located within some tradition or established practice. There is nothing to investigate or 'prove' as such - what we can identify is behavior associated with these traditions. It doesn't require a transcendental foundation.
The belief that money has value creates the reality of money. The believe becomes the non-material reality. The piece of paper stays the piece of paper, which can be considered another belief. Like the just sold Warhol (for a reasonable 195 000 000 dollar) is just a piece of underground, colors, and a nice frame, which probably costs more than the paper and colors used). What belief is projected into the Warhol?
What if we consider theologic belief? Do we project a reality or create a reality? Is there a difference with projecting onto pieces of metal and paper (or patterns of zeroes and ones)? Well, the material world itself is a belief, but it exists nevertheless. Not as in our belief, but there are objective qualities in the universe and the need larger contexts like brains to become endowed with properties emerging from visions, angles, POV's, perspectives, perceptions, etc.
Same for gods.
I think you're pettifogging a bit here, I was just saying that money is not real. Whereas you speak about God, to whom many people do think is quite real. Belief in God is belief in something real. Belief in money is merely a social contract (just my opinion at least).
Quoting Benj96
I think that God exists for some and not for others. And before humans came along, God still existed. But let's say that God needs us in order to exist, for instance, the greater our belief then the greater God's power, then you would still have a problem comparing such an idea to money. As I already said, money cannot categorize itself, whereas God can.
Quoting Benj96
I think that God is conducive to society but some people would disagree. It depends on if you think this gigantic world is some sort of artificial anomaly or if you see this world as a miracle from a transcendent source of power. Some people have a desperate need to believe in up and down black and white logic and get all their information from other people who do their thinking for them (such as scientists), because they are too scared to do their own thinking.
But its possible some of these people have some sort of integrity and actually become one of the scientists whom they depend on for all of their knowledge. I am willing to bet there is at least one scientist who realized that he was pathetically dependent upon other people to do his thinking for him and so he actually became a scientist in order to see if his beliefs stayed the same or not.
I cannot have respect for someone who lets others do his thinking for him and I probably will not become a scientist anytime soon, but I largely do my own thinking, and do not base my worldview on what other people say. I do not believe in giving any strange person authority and I decide if I believe something with my own mind.
For instance, I have the vaccine after spending an entire year saying that I would not get it. Then after all the covid stuff died down, I went to Walgreens and got the vaccine and my entire family who does not have the vaccine were bewildered. I simply do not base what I believe on what others say, I refuse to have my worldview thought by someone else. If I see that a bunch of scientists do not believe in God, I could literally care less. And If I had any respect for those people I probably would stop believing in God too. But again, I do not look up to authority. I am not a weasel.
And as far as God needing people to believe in him, this seems contradictory to what you say here...
So God created people so that they could believe in him so that he could exist? Or there is a balance that is needed in nature that has to do with said God? Whom also coincidentally needs us in order to exist? And this is similar to money? Give me a break buddy, try a little harder. :)
Well, it used to, but less and less. The small coin I threw down from a high balcony of an Italian holliday hotel hit a person near the pool with considerable accuracy!
Money is a material thing to exchange with. Be it a coin, paper, or ones and zeroes with a plastic card and chip or phone attached.
That's not the reason gods created the raw material for the universe. I was recently informed that the eternal divine heaven became victim of an existential void and paralyzing boredom. The only thing left to to was to collectively engage in a research program to develop the universe's fundamental ingredients and in deed create it. The life evolving after the act serves to fill the void, that so unfortunate fate.
Yes, because it is confusing. A euro is a coin with physical properties of money. It has a value stamped on it, an edge with words, a side with a country-dependent image in relief, etc. Pretty physical. And it has a value. It depends on who you ask if this value is intrinsic to the coin or not. Mist will say yes, in which case it's you who is confused: "How can a piece of metal have intrinsic value? It's just a circular piece of metal!" Yes, but we project an intrinsic value in it by belief. It's my guess you won't throw a golden 100 dollar piece in the river (or at my head). A stone is easily thrown though.
And even your objectivity is a belief. Yes, a coin and stone both hit me hard when thrown hard. But the very picture you paint is a subjective picture. A belief...
Maybe there is some topic where we can have a sensible discussion then.
Enjoy :)
Thanks! :smile:
Just tell me, would you throw a 100 dollar note in the river?
:snicker: Hope they discover something interesting!
What-you-believe doesn't create Reality, but Ideality. Yet, for subjective personal purposes, what-you-believe (your world model) is your Reality. The Matrix movie is a good metaphorical illustration of the principle that Reality is what you think it is. Of course, some of us think we're too smart to fall for the old smoke & mirrors trick. But professional magicians, who know how most tricks work, and are inherently skeptical of "real" magic, can be fooled by slick illusions. Such mis-led beliefs are manifest to the mind, not to the eyes. Belief is bliss. :joke:
Matrix Reality Simulation :
[i]Cypher : You know, I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize?
[Takes a bite of steak]
Cypher : Ignorance is bliss.[/i]
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133093/characters/nm0001592
Fool the magician :
https://www.finchmagician.com/magic/who-has-fooled-penn-and-teller
Manifest : 1. clear or obvious to the eye or mind.
Actually, they did. After a long time of collective tinkering (initiated by the delphin gods) in the planes, jungle, fields, waters, and air of heaven, they finally succeeded (well, actually they grew desparate, after initial enthusiasm, and by cheer luck the breakthrough was broken; a confused and weary philosopher god unvoluntarily did his part...), they succeeded! And they brought the stuff into being... And off went the first bang! A lot followed and still infinite are to come. Dunno if they are still bored...
The point is, we can only prove the existence of gods by private experience. Its simply to hard a feat for them to appear in the flesh, by which they would damage the natural order and cause their creation to collapse in on itself. Luckily, they took (accidentally!) care of this, and the laws of quantum mechanics offer a refined means of mindful communication, by which I mean they can show themselves via the mind. In dreams, in thoughts, in mental projections onto the great wide-open. It is possible, once one's mind contains the properly prepared soil, that it becomes more fertile to eventual divine communication.
There's more to it than that. If you alone believe that certain pieces of paper are money, then you will never be able to use them as such. What is required is a collective intent to use the paper as money.
I've no idea what it is you are trying to say about god. Sure folk might introduce a social convention in which they perform certain rituals supposedly directed towards a deity, but this would bring the deity into existence as nothing more than a social convention... And indeed, this is what happens. The error, then, would be in expecting that social convention to, say, miraculously save humanity from global warming or part the Red Sea. That would be a category error.
Of course. If other people don't know the value of my 20 euro note, it will be hard to buy something with it.
Considering gods, there is a difference with projecting the believe of value in money. When believing in gods there is no projecting of a belief but rather, the believe is projected into us, like the material existence of the moneypaper is projected into us. We don't project the belief in gods like we project the belief of value of money.
There certainly is.
Quoting Hillary
It's unclear what this means. It sounds a bit like direction of fit, but at the least needs some clarification.
How can gods become reality by believing in them? They exist, like the paper for money exist. We can collectively project value in banknotes, but how can we project a belief in gods into gods that already exist?
Hence, following that form of argument, gods that are brought into existence by our belief - like the tortoise Om in Small Gods - by that very fact do not exist "prior to our belief in it"...
A god brought into existence as a social institution is not the sort of god that those very social institutions claim it to be.
Indeed. Before the common believe in the value of money existed, a banknote would be a strange object.
But gods are a belief brought into existence because they exist prior to the belief. It's not that complicated. And maybe belief is not the right word. It's a certainty.
Logically absurd.
That might be but gods are not subject to logic.
Therefore whatever you want to ascribe to gods cannot be false?
The they have no place in any of our conversations.
Frankly, if they are not subject to logic, anything follows, and you can claim what ever you like. You will have left your brains on the bench.
The only reasonable conclusion is that this conversation with you is utterly pointless, because you have left reason behind.
You know better.
Well, their existence is not subject to logic. They are subject to the same logic as we are subject to.
Anything goes.
I think gods offer the only reason for existence of the basics of the universe.
:lol:
Why, if they are the same as life in our universe then they obey the same laws.
I mean the fact that they exist. Not their existence.
Again, how does that play out? The fact that my cat exists is beyond logic, too... No proof ends with "Jack exists" unless it also assumes that Jack exists.
Of course not. They just exist. No logic required. Our knowledge of them follows logically.
Or not.
Your post in the context of this thread is about the consequences of gods being brought into existence as a result of belief, in some way not unlike money.
My reply is, firstly that it's collective intent that brings money into existence, not belief; secondly that any efficacy resulting from such a god would be reducible to that group intent, as for money, thirdly that hence such a god would not be capable of the sort of miracles often attributed to them; And finally that if gods are beyond logic, the conversation ends.
Here's food for thought. It appears, as far as I can tell, that the brain/mind is, intriguingly, anti-subjectivity. Why? For the simple reason that it doesn't allow total perceptual experience of imagined entities; for instance, I can conjure up an image of a unicorn in my mind (imagination seems restricted or more developed in re the visual system), but the other senses don't join in i.e. I can't smell a unicorn, hear it or touch it. It kinda makes evolutionary sense because, for survival, objectivity is a sine qua non. We can't go running around the savannah tripping like a junkie - we'd end up as a lion's lunch in a flash. :grin:
Gods are even more logical than people. Except the hu.an gods. It's not intent that brought them into existence. Neither is it belief. You put the horse behind the wagon.
Intention would appear to be an abstraction. Group intent definitely is. So you've got gods and money "reducing' to abstractions.
Abstractions don't reduce.
Have you ever studied formal systems?
Every formal system needs a set of axioms which can't be proven within the system. Mathematics relies on the "belief" in numbers and operators, science in "belief" of a real, orderly, knowable universe and as it seems, your religion relies on the axiom "there is a god".
The quality of a formal system is measured by its parsimony and integrity. Are there superfluous axioms, are there contradictory axioms (or ones that lead to contradictions)?
Can you expand on your set of axioms? What else do you believe without evidence or proof?
I have studied physics, which rather heavily relies on math. The laws of physics can't explain themselves. I adhere to a most parsimonious two particle model, without mass. My gods model is the opposite. The temporary material universe is just a reflection of the non-material eternal heaven. All life in the cosmos, every living creature in it, has a divine eternal god counterpart. So by knowing life and the universe you know gods and heaven. We wont go to it, but life our life, in endless variations, over and over, compatible with serial big bangs. Is there a moral? Yes. They are like our own, but some human gods "screwed up" during the preparations for creation. What they can't do in heaven, they tried to project unto the material universe, by secret tinkering with the particle properties... or initial conditions... but here Im not sure of ( :wink: ). But we should be careful with creation, the universal lives, if we have to draw a moral.
Natural deduction systems do not use axioms.
"Just as, in axiomatic formulations of logic (“Frege systems” or “Hilbert-style” systems), different choices of axioms are possible for a particular logic, different sets of rules can be chosen in formulating a natural deduction system. In particular, one or more rules of supposition can, in the presence of others, be replaced by inference rules."
that seems to say natural deduction also needs a set of axioms, just that there are multiple possible sets of axioms to choose from. Can you explain?
Impossible.
That’s why I said “suppose”. It’s a hypothetical situation leading to hypothetical conclusions. Replying “impossible” to a “what if” question has about as much value and insight as not writing anything at all
If all belief manifested into reality, what would happen if two individuals held mutually exclusive beliefs about the very same events?
Insight?
:wink:
Better to think about other stuff.
The article explained that belief would be in this situation the mean of all beliefs - ie every sentient believer has a proportional influence on the outcome. So if there were only two people and they believed contradictory things about the same event they would probs cancel out I guess. However there are billions of “believers” in this hypothetical situation so that is unlikely to occur. It would be some amalgamation of all inputs