Belief (not just religious belief) ought to be abolished!
- As Neil deGrasse Tyson says, science is true whether or not one believes in it!
- Pertinently, that one may believe in science, does not suddenly remove that belief is a concept that permits that one may typically ignore evidence, as observed in the analysis below:
- Belief (by definition and research) is a model, such that one may believe in both science, and non-science.
- However, crucially, belief typically facilitates that people especially ignore evidence.
- A model that generally permits the large ignorance of evidence contrasts science.
- Instead, we may employ scientific thinking, that largely prioritizes evidence, rather than a model (i.e. belief) that facilitates largely, the ignorance of evidence.
Comments (614)
Do you believe that the person who uses the Noble Dust account is typing this response to you?
1. Your account persists, whether or not anyone believes it does.
2. As an example, that flat earthers exist (belief that the earth is supposedly flat) does not suddenly disregard gravitational theory.
You're missing my point.
What is your point?
How do you know the person who normally uses this account is using it? How do you know I didn't dictate this response to my roommate?
One need not belief to observe probabilities.
What?
It is probable that somebody/something is utilizing your account to compose messages. I need not belief to observe said probability.
It's not probable, it's definite. The issue is who is using the account, and do you know that it's the person who normally uses it. You don't, but it would be a reasonable, justified belief to make the assumption that the person normally using this account is, in fact, currently using it.
1. Recall what I said before, that it is probable that somebody/something is utilizing your account to compose messages.
2. Notably, I don't need to believe in the probability above, to observe it as valid.
1. Recall what I just said above...
1. Yes, what you said above does not alter the reality that I can observe some probability, without believing in such a probability.
2. It may be somewhat odd to grasp, since you had probably been used to the concept of belief for quite some time.
3. In perhaps a short while, you may come to recognize that instead of belief, one may instead employ scientific thinking.
That means it's for you!
LOL
1. Your words: "What about the belief that belief should be abolished, should that belief be abolished too? Thus, this thread should be abolished."
2. My response: If you actually read any of the sources related to the OP, you would have probably encountered:
If you're going to bring an argument to the table, you ned to engage in a detailed defense, instead of just rehashing talking points. Show us why you [believe] your arguments to be valid.
1.Your words: "If you're going to bring an argument to the table, you ned to engage in a detailed defense, instead of just rehashing talking points. Show us why you [believe] your arguments to be valid."
2. My response:
No, I gave my argument in steps of increasing detail, as responses to your responses.
Quoting ProgrammingGodJordan
Belief underlies all forms of thought. There have been a lot of threads about belief recently:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/2637/is-it-possible-to-lack-belief/p1
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/2423/is-belief-a-predicate-for-salvation#Item_91
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/2528/what-is-faith/p1
SO we ought believe the evidence?
Hu?
1. I don't detect any novel information from those threads.
2. Again, why do you garner that belief is unavoidable?
You read all 3 in 8 minutes? Nice.
Your belief in non-beliefism is noted.
Of course, you would not believe your belief to be self-contradictory...
1. Your words: "So we ought believe the evidence?"
2. My response: The evidence persists regardless of belief.
Later in your post you say "not only was theistic faith invalid, but also, the very concept of belief!" Which is a fine thing to say, although I disagree with it strongly. But saying your goal is to abolish belief is silly. You might as well say we should abolish thought. Humans are story-telling creatures. It's a much a part of us as opposable thumbs. First, before they are anything else, theories and models are stories. Beliefs are stories. Science is a story.
Quoting ProgrammingGodJordan
Science isn't true. What does that even mean? Statements are true or false. It's reasonable to say that science is a useful method or methods for gaining knowledge about the world. It's not the only useful method. Beside that, truth, as defined by scientists, is a scientific concept. It's a circular argument.
All that being said, NDT is part right - whatever science is, it is whether or not people believe it is what it is.
Quoting ProgrammingGodJordan
This is an incredibly naïve description of how science works. The models come first, then the evidence. All theories are models. Einstein was a theoretical physicist. He didn't do experiments. He made models. Other guys came along later and gathered evidence. Our current, best scientific understanding of the nature of physical reality is called the "Standard Model." The Higgs Boson and gravity waves were predicted decades ago by theoretical physicists based on theories/models. They weren't confirmed until the last few years using extremely expensive, complicated equipment designed and operated specifically to confirm or deny those models.
Again, it underlies all forms of thought; it underlies "scientific thinking" (whatever that is), [belief] in evidence, rational arguments. There's no rational argument to make because belief underlies rationality; apprehending the role belief plays in experience and thinking requires reflection and intuition. If you can't see it, you just can't, which you probably can't.
1.Your words: "Your belief in non-beliefism is noted.
Of course, you would not believe your belief to be self-contradictory..."
2. My response:
1. Your words: "Again, it underlies all forms of thought; it underlies "scientific thinking" (whatever that is), [belief] in evidence, rational arguments. There's no rational argument to make because belief underlies rationality; apprehending the role belief plays in experience and thinking requires reflection and intuition. If you can't see it, you just can't, which you probably can't."
2. My response:
So you believe that?
And you want us to believe it, too?
1. Your words: "I don't detect any cognitive science papers that show that belief is unavoidable.
Science generally occurs on evidence, belief permits that evidence is typically ignored.
So, we can contact a model i.e. scientific thinking, that is something that prioritizes evidence, rather than contact belief, which generally permits ignorance of evidence."
2. My response: none of that is a response to my comment.
Because no cognitive scientist would ever do a study to evaluate that issue. Do you think there is a single cognitive scientist, any scientist, who thinks what you appear to think. Note I didn't say "who believes what you believe." I didn't want to be disrespectful.
[quote=T Clark;140310]Later in your post you say "not only was theistic faith invalid, but also, the very concept of belief!" Which is a fine thing to say, although I disagree with it strongly. But saying your goal is to abolish belief is silly. You might as well say we should abolish thought. Humans are story-telling creatures. It's a much a part of us as opposable thumbs. First, before they are anything else, theories and models are stories. Beliefs are stories. Science is a story.
[/quote]
Are you theistic by chance?
[quote=T Clark;140310]Science isn't true. What does that even mean? Statements are true or false. It's reasonable to say that science is a useful method or methods for gaining knowledge about the world. It's not the only useful method. Beside that, truth, as defined by scientists, is a scientific concept. It's a circular argument.
All that being said, NDT is part right - whatever science is, it is whether or not people believe it is what it is.[/quote]
1. True definition:"in accordance with fact or reality."
2. So, Neil deGrasse Tyson is demonstrably correct, science is true; science aims to describe reality.
[quote=T Clark;140310]This is an incredibly naïve description of how science works. The models come first, then the evidence. All theories are models. Einstein was a theoretical physicist. He didn't do experiments. He made models. Other guys came along later and gathered evidence. Our current, best scientific understanding of the nature of physical reality is called the "Standard Model." The Higgs Boson and gravity waves were predicted decades ago by theoretical physicists based on theories/models. They weren't confirmed until the last few years using extremely expensive, complicated equipment designed and operated specifically to confirm or deny those models.[/quote]
1. In contrast, science does not constitute belief.
2. Both scientific theory and scientific hypothesis generally occur, and align on evidence.
3. Instead, belief generally permits the ignorance of evidence.
No.
How do we know that you do not believe, against your own recommendation, that the evidence persists regardless of belief?
What possible relevance does that have to this discussion? You should be addressing my statements.
Quoting ProgrammingGodJordan
I don't understand your point. Doesn't seem like you understand mine either. So we're even.
Quoting ProgrammingGodJordan
You did not address my points at all. You just restated your original position. So what do we do now? You say "does not." I say "does too." "Nunh unh." "Unh hunh" "Oh yeah?" "Yeah." and so on.
Also, what does it mean to say that a theory "occurs?"
Quoting Banno
Whether you are theistic or not, shall probably affect how many steps my responses to you may contain.
Quoting ProgrammingGodJordan
Not always. Just occasionally, folk believe stuff because of the evidence.
1. I already underlined that one may believe in evidence in the OP:
2. By extension, that one may believe in science, does not suddenly erase that the concept of belief does not prioritize evidence, but instead permits that evidence is typically ignored.
You continue to use exact phrases in your arguments. Using single words consistently is a good way to make a clearer argument, but using entire phrases just means that you have an entire premise in your head which is unassailable to you, but nowhere have you actually made the argument for this premise, and the exact reason is because it's an unassailable premise to you. In other words, everyone responding to you in this thread is challenging your pre-concieved notion of what you think belief is, but because you believe your premise is unassailable, you're either blind to what's happening in the debate, or unwilling to accept it.
1. In contrast, I refer to standard definitions:
2. By extension, research shows that beliefs typically occur on non-evidence.
That's probably the genesis of your issues here, then.
And you still have not responded to my arguments, and you've barely responded to anyone else's arguments.
1. Why would using standard definitions supposedly be "the genesis of my issues"?
2. Also, don't forget the latter part of my earlier response:
[quote=ProgrammingGodJordan]By extension, research shows that beliefs typically occur on non-evidence.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25741291[/quote]
My post didn't make any specific reference to theistic belief except in a quote from you. Isn't the whole point of your thread that all beliefs are invalid? Is there a difference between an invalid theistic belief and an invalid non-theistic belief? No need for any special approach.
Also, going by your internet search of "belief", we can easily analyze your own beliefs and compare them against those definitions:
1. "An acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof."
See:
Quoting ProgrammingGodJordan
2. "Something one accepts as true or real; a firmly held opinion."
Quoting ProgrammingGodJordan
3. "A religious conviction."
Quoting ProgrammingGodJordan
4. belief inTrust, faith, or confidence in (someone or something)
Quoting ProgrammingGodJordan
Quoting T Clark
1. In contrast, as underlined in the OP:
2. So, what I mentioned before still applies; that is, whether you are theistic or not, shall probably affect how many steps my responses to you may contain.
>:O
Why do you garner that belief is unavoidable?
He just showed you why.
Where?
in what you quoted..
Hi. I must confess that I can find only another example of vague abstract evangelism in the opening post. Would you mind boiling this down in practical terms? Isn't this just the idea that everyone should be super-ultra-scientific? Doubt everything, except that what constitutes evidence is ambiguous and that doubt is somehow automatically virtuous?
Sometimes the word 'scientism' is thrown around a little recklessly, but I think it fits here. As I've followed the thread, I see you enact what I'd call a kind of fanaticism that won't budge an inch. I'm new here too, and I'm not trying to make an enemy. My thinking is that being on a forum is pointless if one isn't exposed to criticism, so I'm offering you some criticism. Maybe it'll speed the rule of artificial intelligence somehow.
You're on point.
Quoting dog
[list=1][*]It is somewhat tiring when people bring up scienticism when I describe "non beliefism", because as an atheist, I had long encountered scienticism.
[*]Anyway, scienticism does not underline belief's generally science opposing nature, contrary to "non beliefism".
Thanks. (And I was just joking with you about those commas, btw.)
Eh? Commas?
Actually I'm familiar with variants or rather precursors of non-beliefism. I do understand the emotional charge or allure of presuppositionless thought, etc. But I think it's an impossible dream. It reminds me of the smoke that haunts the demolition of one's childhood notion of God. Instead of the deity, there's a nice system of words, some final ism, that gets everything right and ends the need to improvise in angst.
Of course living in angst is a silly goal. The angst will find us. We don't need to hunt for it. In my view we get in certain 'evangelical' or hyper-confident moods where we have the missing piece of the puzzle. I call it 'word drunk.' I've been there. It's not a matter of wrong or right but (in my view) of seeing the social situation in one way or another. Actual science is great because it transcends mood. My cell phone works independently of my fluctuating sense of being awesome or mediocre. But singing the praises of science on a philosophy forum is not science. This isn't a medium for science. It is, however, a great place to assert and defend and criticism fundamental (quasi-religious) worldviews.
Check your old 'mentions' in the New Years Resolutions thread. You were playing with prose style and I chimed in.
1. Some empirically observable thing is Gravitational theory.
2. There exists people that believe that the earth is supposedly flat. (Such a belief does not agree with gravitational theory)
3. It is observable above that gravitational theory obtains regardless of flat-earth belief.
4. Likewise, gravitational theory obtains regardless of the belief of any human.
Are you really using flat-earthers as fodder for your argument that belief should be abolished? Try for some higher-hanging fruit; the stuff everyone in this thread has been offering.
Ah! I do remember. I'm sure I wasn't ignoring what you said; I get apathetic sometimes with responding to mentions.
I feel you. And my comment was just a throwaway meant to keep the prose style conversation going. I liked its concreteness.
My username is JustSomeGuy, so it is probable that I am an adult male. But it's very possible that I could be an adolescent girl. As you read this comment, do you believe you are reading the comment of an adult male or of an adolescent girl?
It is also entirely possible that I am, in fact, an artificial intelligence. Do you believe that you are reading a comment written by a person, or that you are reading a comment written by an artificial intelligence?
Literally everything you "know" is based on belief, save for one single thing: that you exist.
Speaking disparagingly about the concept of belief shows serious ignorance. You are as blinded by your bias as the most fundamentalist young-Earth creationist.
Ah yes, that was the whole joke, as I recall. :D
1. As you are quite accustomed to belief, I see that it may be difficult to detach yourself from it.
2. It is probable that you are male, and so on.
3. Pertinently, I need not any belief to observe probabilities as valid.
This is false. Belief involves a lack of sufficient evidence for knowledge. A lack of proof. And believe it or not (no pun intended)--even in science--proof is an extremely rare thing.
Quoting Noble Dust
1. What "high hanging fruit" has been offered by the others?
2. Yes, that flat earthers exist, does not invalidate gravitational theory. Likewise, it is demonstrable that gravitational theory persists regardless of belief.
Scroll back through the thread.
Difficult, indeed. For all of us. In fact I may even venture to say it's impossible.
You never actually answered my question, though. Do you believe you are speaking to an adult male? Do you believe you are speaking to a human?
The condescension and self-assurance is such an outlier, such a relative novelty, that it's stimulating in some perverse way. Is this dude for real? This dude is for real. I know that some part of me is like that too. Which is scary. But such is life.
Quoting ProgrammingGodJordan
Purely out of curiosity, moderators, what exactly connotes "evangelism"? I have no interest in anyone being warned or banned; the more bullshit evangelism the merrier, per my view (hence my entertainment of this thread). But I've always been interested in this issue with regards to the guidelines, and this thread seems like a prime example of secular evangelism. Maybe I'm wrong?
Quoting JustSomeGuy
1. On the contrary, see scientific research, showing that belief generally permits ignorance of evidence.
2. Notably, there is a difference between scientific proof, and proof.
3. So, it is indeed valid that belief generally occurs absent evidence/proof.
Quoting dog
I'm sorry, did you really just say "On the contrary" before restating what I said?
You claimed belief involved ignoring evidence. I corrected you by saying that belief involved a lack of sufficient evidence or proof, and your next comment is claiming my own sentiment (which was in opposition to yours) as your own?
And I see you're going to make me ask a third time: (I'll narrow it down even more to just one simple question) do you believe you are speaking to a human right now?
Right. Trivially. As I believe I said earlier, I find it hard to distinguish your opening post from the demand that we think critically, non-dogmatically, etc. But this is an old goal in philosophy. Doubting everything is also a well explored idea. I also mentioned an exposure on my part to 'isms' along the lines of nonbeliefism as I understand it, including to post-Christian philosophers who extended their critique of belief to secular replacements of Christianity (humanism, for instance). I consider myself to have walked this road to the end --in a theoretical sense. But the gap between theory and lifestyle is often what our theoretical moods ignore. We forget ordinary language, ordinary thinking, and so on. We get caught up in seductive generalities that are miles from the way we live. Doubt in theory, belief in practice. Finally, the 'dictionary math' misses what is actually being said. This conversation isn't really a math proof, even if you want to treat it like one. (As I see it.)
I think you underestimate the people you're talking with. This isn't our first rodeo.
You're right, but there have been so many responses that probably none of the mods would delete the discussion now. I've only just seen it.
On point again, I must say. I feel responsible for the proliferation of this thread; I just couldn't look away.
No issues on my end; again, I find it entertaining. But if you mods find it irksome, as I just mentioned to dog, I'm probably partly responsible for that, so sorry for that if it's annoying. I do think dog is right that a thread like this becomes a sort of magnet.
What's interesting is that it allows us inferior believing types (superior more sophisticatedly arrogant types who like online friendliness) to get to know one another. It's like strangers on a sidewalk witnessing some social irregularity and looking around to see if others are also surprised, amused, etc. Of course my interest is largely the social dynamic itself (the way we project ourselves publicly), so this is like research. And I can push 'buttons' with words and see what happens. Do (folk-) science, I guess, on [s]scientism[/s] nonbeliefism.
Agreed; fair enough.
Indeed. Like riding the subway when someone decides to take a piss at one end of the car, like what happened tonight on my commute home.
1. Your prior response was invalid, as it attempted to confluence scientific proof, and proof.
2. In my stating the synonyms: proof, evidence, I simply re-iterated my original discussion as underlined in the OP wrt to the supposedly new 'proof' term you introduced (it wasn't new, because the proof that is referred to is synonymous with the word evidence).
3. One need not belief to observe probabilities. It's probable that some Ai, or some human is creating messages, through your account. That probability does not warrant or require belief.
Damn. I was on those subways once (visited NYC last summer). I was lucky. I mostly remember heartrendingly beautiful NYC girls. I should say women. But 20-somethings look like girls to an old dog.
NYC seems to attract beautiful females like flies, yes.
In statistical decision theory, belief is the assignment of probabilities to possible outcomes, and in every instance it is impossible to assign definite probabilities without a priori assumptions. Science consists of the collection and evaluation of evidence in response to the beliefs states of the science community, which vary extensively for reasons pertaining to scientists having different knowledge, unconscious biases and so forth.
As a programmer, have you ever studied data-science? Tell me how I should decide upon what is 'the definitive' algorithm for winning a Kaggle competition, and how do i decide what it is, in such a way as to avoid any assumptions and hence belief?
1. No, I don't detect that I have confused "practical belief" with "religious faith"; in fact, I had long encountered scientism, which is near to the 'practical belief' you refer to.
2.a) I tend to ignore the names of scientific things that bear religious connotations, such as the god particle.
2.b) For example: That there are Deep Belief Networks, does not suddenly remove that belief (by definition and research) is model that generally permits the ignorance of evidence.
3.a) You asked if I ever studied data-science, and the answer is yes, I have done things like composing a heart irregularity detection model for kaggle.
3.b). I had also written a basic neural network, without using high level Machine learning libraries that provide abstractions.
3.c) I had also written a book on artificial neural networks for kids.
3.d) I also created something called the "Supersymmetric Artificial Neural Network".
4) The items in (3) involve numbers. I need not any belief to observe numbers.
If beliefs are defined as the assignment of probabilities to outcomes conditioned on one's partial knowledge, and if it is impossible to decide upon any particular probability assignment on the basis of one's partial knowledge, then for the purposes of acting one is forced to choose a set of probabilities, i.e. a model, without justification. Hence my referring to justified belief as practical belief.
You say no beliefs are necessary. Then let's suppose you are presented with an urn containing an unknown number of red and black balls and you have no other information. What is the rational choice of prior probabilities?
1. Belief, (by definition and research) is contrary to the definition that you manufactured above:
2. Ignoring the definition you manufactured above (which contrasts how belief is generally described) science obtains whether or not one chooses to believe in science...
The definition you've quoted is more or less the same, as is the psychological conception of belief as a behavioural disposition towards evidence, which of course is modelled as probability distributions over choices, actions and so on.
Furthermore, by the definition above one is said to be in a state of belief whether or not one has infallible proof. So really your statement boils down to the assertion of infallible belief. I think. Or are you saying that one should judge all beliefs as being fallible?
Obviously science does not consist of infallible beliefs and since there is not even a mathematical justification for a correct way to interpret evidence it seems one cannot eliminate the role of subjective decision making in the assessment of evidence.
There are no infallible proofs and to a certain extent they are subjective, except those which are said to be infallible by definition or by assumption.
Isn't it obvious that the only logically self-consistent answer is no?
Proof and evidence are not synonymous.
Of course, but if he said "no" it would be a lie. He knows that, which is why he refuses to answer. I was just trying to make him aware of one of many beliefs he does, in fact, hold.
Direct quote from the link you provided in regards to "scientific proof":
"While they provide very strong evidence for those theories, they aren't proof. In fact, when it comes to science, proving anything is an impossibility."
Did you even read your own source? I'm legitimately beginning to wonder of you're trolling. You have presented so many blatant contradictions and inconsistencies in your "arguments" that I don't see how you could be serious about any of this.
Just to throw in my $0.02 - Observation - not complaint. Might even be an endorsement. This is a great discussion. Look at all the ideas that @ProgrammingGodJordan has elicited. His thread has made people re-examine the reasons for their beliefs, or whatever you want to call them. It certainly has for me.
As I've said before - you guys (moderators) are responsible that this forum stays on track and keeps it's soul, which I have come to love. You do a good job. That being said, a whole lot of latitude is advisable.
is it psychologically plausible that one can pragmatically adopt unwarranted assumptions for sake of competitive advantage, say when gambling, while keeping his state of belief unattached from his risky decision making?
The phenomena of cognitive-dissonance suggests to me that the answer is generally no. Once we have a stake in the game, we can't help but believe what we want to believe.
"Gravitational theory," of which there are several, is not a fact, statement, or "observable thing." it is a theory, a model, a generalization. Only statements are true or false. Only matter and energy are observable. I made a similar point back a few pages, Here it is again:
Quoting T Clark
To which you responded:
Quoting ProgrammingGodJordan
Which is a very unresponsive response. Now, please, respond to the specific examples and assertions I have made - Models/theories come first, evidence later. Examples - special and general relativity, quantum mechanics, gravity waves, Higg's Boson. Please respond directly to that specific statement. Agree or disagree. Explain why. If you don't think models/theories come first, say why. If you don't think the examples I gave are good ones, explain why.
I actually wanted to give up on this thread a while ago, but I didn't think that was fair to you. I want to give you another chance to act like a new citizen of our small, [s]happy[/s] community. There are rules for philosophy and there are rules for reasonable discourse. One of the rules is to be responsive to sincere and civil comments and questions.
The paper you're citing defines belief pretty early on, and it doesn't really match how you're defining belief, i.e. by reference to a single definition of a particular dictionary. Here's what they say in the first paragraph on their section titled Defining Belief:
Belief so construed would include things like perception, given their example of "that one's senses reveal an environment that is physically real" -- and hence observation and/or evidence.
That was my first cursory glance to the part of the paper that seemed relevant to your point. I didn't read it all. But I don't think that what you're explicitly stating is supported by your citation, and so I have reason to doubt that you've done the reading you're requiring of us all.
All that being said, it seems to me the most charitable interpretation I can give is that you'd rather people pay attention to evidence and observation rather than hold onto any sort of belief which is contradicted by evidence. But then what I'd wonder is -- what is this "paying attention" and "observation" such that it is not belief? Even given the basic definition above (which is surely more science-friendly than fixating on a single dictionary definition, and given that you like science should be something you'd pay attention to) -- how in the world do you pay attention or observe without representational content and assumed veracity of your observations?
When you say non-beliefism, aren't you essentially saying that we should only accept things to be true based off of scientific thinking? Which is like saying even though belief as a concept permits nonscientific thinking, don't allow any nonscientific element in your beliefs. Or are you saying that we shouldn't accept anything as true at all?
Quoting JustSomeGuy
1. I didn't say that proof and evidence were not synonymous.
2. I'd carefully read your earlier response, so I advise that you also carefully read once more, my earlier response.
Simply:
1. Science is a model that prioritizes evidence.
2. Belief (by definition and research) is a model that does not prioritize evidence. (Prioritize meaning it can allow evidence, although it generally permits ignorance of evidence)
3. Therefore, the very concept of belief is non-scientific.
1. I was not the one who spoke about scientific proof, user "JustSomeGuy" is the one that tried to confluence proof (which differs from scientific proof) with evidence (which the OP referred to). (See source)
2. Belief and science are disparate, belief does not prioritize evidence, while science does.
I thank you.
On the contrary, because science prioritizes evidence, while belief does not, we actually can avoid belief, i.e. we can avoid failure to prioritize evidence.
Quoting T Clark
In stark contrast, as I mentioned prior, gravitational theory is empirically observable:
Yes, it is quite clear you merely glanced the paper; for the paper did not end with the early description you posted (where they admit "there is no philosophical consensus on what belief is (McKay and Dennett, 2009)").
The paper went on with scientific results:
"Indeed, the heuristic of anchoring and adjustment, which reflects the general tendency to rely on initial judgements and discount newly obtained information, means that knowledge received after the initial judgment may be distorted to fit the original hypothesis. In support of this, there is research suggesting that beliefs may persevere even when the initial evidence for the beliefs is discredited (Ross et al., 1975, 1977; Anderson et al., 1980). As a result of these biases,people can accept beliefs without sufficient evidence and also retain incorrect beliefs longer than would be case if they sought out diagnostic information. The collective impact of these tendencies is that people (i.e., their cognitive systems) are unlikely to seek information that contradicts their proto-belief, so long as the proto-belief is consistent with pre-existing beliefs or satisfies strong emotional drivers."
I know you have been on the forum just starting today, so I don't know if you know how a private message (PM) works. When I first started, it took me several weeks to figure it out. You can tell if you got a PM because there will be a number next to the "INBOX" label at the top of the page. You can click on "INBOX" and you'll have access. I sent you a PM.
Quoting ProgrammingGodJordan
I know you didn't, that's why I did. You implied they were synonymous; I was correcting you. This is the second time in this discussion that you have swapped our positions around after the fact. I don't know if you're really confused or purposefully being dishonest.
Here:
Quoting JustSomeGuy
Quoting JustSomeGuy
You apparently misread or misunderstood. What I said was that "proof" is "sufficient evidence for knowledge". Maybe I should have been more explicit somehow, I don't know.
Proof is a kind of evidence, but they are not synonymous. All proof is evidence, but not all evidence is proof.
And I have not once used the phrase "scientific proof" in this discussion, so I have no idea what you're referring to when you claim I was the one who spoke about it.
But I asked:
Quoting Moliere
Given that these are the bare-bones necessary features of belief in the paper you cited.
Statements are statements of thought and belief. Positive assertions are statements of belief. "Science prioritizes evidence" is a positive assertion; it is a statement of belief about what science does. If science prioritizes evidence, then the belief statement is true.
The OP wants the reader to accept the dubious presupposition that it is humanly possibly to hold no belief.
Sure... from the moment of conception through the first mental correlation drawn... during that time period - and that time period alone - it makes perfect sense to say that humans do not hold and/or have belief.
Consider this...
The OP has a worldview. A new one - in fact. All world-views consist entirely of thought and belief about the world and/or ourselves. The OP cannot admit that s/he believes what s/he says. The OP cannot admit of having a worldview.
Why continue with such nonsense?
I don't detect the relevance of your response above wrt the OP.
Quoting JustSomeGuy
Quoting JustSomeGuy
1. On the contrary, your "correction" does not apply, and your words are ironically invalid, for "proof" and "evidence" are quite literally synonymous.
2. Reference A: Definition of "synonymous":
3. Reference B: Proof/evidence relationship:
Consider this past sequence:
1.a) My words: "belief typically facilitates that people especially ignore evidence."
1.b) Notably, my words above are demonstrably correct, as seen in this scientific paper (as listed in the OP).
2.a) Your response: This is false. Belief involves a lack of sufficient evidence for knowledge. A lack of proof. And believe it or not (no pun intended)--even in science--proof is an extremely rare thing.
2.b) As is observed above, despite the this scientific paper (as evidence listed in the OP, in (2.a) you responded with some irrelevant sequence, not even bothering to contact evidence presented.
3) So, as is observed above in (2.a), you made an irrelevant reference of proof wrt to science ..i.e. scientific proof (when I didn't mention describe scientific proof in the OP) Why bother to bring up your quote in (2.a), about scientific proof?
Depends on whether a belief is arbitrary or well-founded. What constitutes a well-founded belief is best defined in science, and in relation to empirical propositions. When it comes to ethics, aesthetics or religion, it is not at all self-evident what constitutes evidence and hence what could best be counted as a justification for well-founded beliefs.
a. Your argument above originates from a trivial error.
b. That science prioritizes evidence, obtains regardless of anyone's belief, contrary to your response.
c. Why would you want to contact a model that fails to prioritize evidence (i.e. belief), instead of another that prioritizes evidence?
1.This was already covered in the Op; I already underlined that belief may occur both on evidence, and non-evidence.
2. Religious beliefs are scientifically unfounded.
There is no evidence as to what consitutes real evidence without begging the question.
What might be believed to be the best kind of evidence in science may not be believed to be the best kind of evidence when it comes to religion, the arts or ethics.
Apparently you are unable to see the enclosed circle within which your beliefs are moving.
No. They aren't. The fact that you think they are should discredit anything else you have to say on this subject.
All you have done throughout this entire discussion (with everyone here) is:
- Make a claim
- Provide a link to a single webpage/article/scientific study
- Conclude that your provided source is proof that your claim is indisputable fact
Not only is that not how logic argument works, that's not even how science works. You of all people, with your scarily dogmatic devotion to science, should understand that nothing in science is proven. Nothing. There is no such thing as scientific proof. Proof is for logic and mathematics. Those are closed, self-contained systems of propositions. Science is empirical.
This Psychology Today article explains it perfectly:
"Proofs have two features that do not exist in science: They are final, and they are binary. Once a theorem is proven, it will forever be true and there will be nothing in the future that will threaten its status as a proven theorem (unless a flaw is discovered in the proof). Apart from a discovery of an error, a proven theorem will forever and always be a proven theorem.
In contrast, all scientific knowledge is tentative and provisional, and nothing is final. There is no such thing as final proven knowledge in science. The currently accepted theory of a phenomenon is simply the best explanation for it among all available alternatives. Its status as the accepted theory is contingent on what other theories are available and might suddenly change tomorrow if there appears a better theory or new evidence that might challenge the accepted theory. No knowledge or theory (which embodies scientific knowledge) is final.
Further, proofs are binary; a mathematical proposition is either proven (in which case it becomes a theorem) or not (in which case it remains a conjecture until it is proven). There is nothing in between. A theorem cannot be kind of proven or almost proven. These are the same as unproven.
In contrast, there is no such binary evaluation of scientific theories. Scientific theories are neither absolutely false nor absolutely true. They are always somewhere in between. Some theories are better, more credible, and more accepted than others. There is always more, more credible, and better evidence for some theories than others. It is a matter of more or less, not either/or. For example, experimental evidence is better and more credible than correlational evidence, but even the former cannot prove a theory; it only provides very strong evidence for the theory and against its alternatives.
The knowledge that there is no such thing as a scientific proof should give you a very easy way to tell real scientists from hacks and wannabes. Real scientists never use the words “scientific proofs,” because they know no such thing exists. Anyone who uses the words “proof,” “prove” and “proven” in their discussion of science is not a real scientist."
If A then A
A
therefore...
Religious faith is not-scientifically founded, and this is not up to me.
What is most unsettling here is not your belief that we ought abolish belief, but that you have had this belief so intensely for years, to the extent of setting up your own domain, without recognising the irony.
That you fail to acknowledge evidence, does not suddenly warrant that evidence is invalid.
Do you believe what you write?
I'll break it down for you:
Quoting ProgrammingGodJordan
Your very first sentence claims "science is true". Clearly this is a nonsense phrase in itself, but I'll allow that it's expressing a sentiment which differs from the literal interpretation.
Other ways to rephrase while keeping the same meaning:
"science finds truth"
"science is composed of facts"
Truth and facts rely on proof. In order for something to be a truth or a fact, it must be proven.
So, yes, you did "advocate scientific proof".
You are clearly very deep into this ridiculous ideology of yours, so I don't expect anyone here to be able to change your mind right now. I only hope the things people are saying to you here can plant the seed that eventually blossoms into you waking up and realizing how horribly misled you are.
[/list]
My writing persists, regardless of belief.
Do you believe what you write?
I'd already approached that type of query, amidst this thread.
In stark contrast:
1. True definition:"in accordance with fact or reality."
2. So, Neil deGrasse Tyson is demonstrably correct, science is true; science aims to describe reality.
3. The quote's source is below:
Quoting ProgrammingGodJordan
Do you believe what you write?
I'd already approached that type of query, earlier.
Either you cannot or you will not answer a simple 'yes or no' question. Neither is acceptable. When you enter into a public philosophy forum and say things with such certainty, you voluntarily obligate yourself to directly answer relevant questions.
Do you believe what you write?
What is the criterion which - when met - counts as being a case of belief?
I'd already approached that type of query, earlier.
Quoting creativesoul
That was covered throughout this thread. Do read and discover.
Well that's hardly a surprise. What is surprising is that you cannot see the irony of your predicament.
Quoting ProgrammingGodJordan
Did you mean that "one can avoid failure by prioritising evidence", or that one can avoid failure in order to prioritize evidence?
If the latter, I've no idea what you could mean, so I will presume you meant the former. One must be selective, accepting some evidence, but not all.
Do you agree?
I quite enjoy irony.
Though this was my suspicion from the beginning, trying to reason with you is a waste of time. You are nothing more than a delusional cult leader trying to recruit members. Thankfully, it seems you've been quite unsuccessful thus far (only 10 members in your "non-beliefism" Facebook group). Maybe try going door to door with pamphlets?
Contrary to what other members have expressed, I don't see any positive result of your attempt to evangelize aside from being a practice dummy with which we can hone our arguing skills.
Either way I'm done here. Goodbye.
What is your goal with this thread?
We've arrived at either an insincere speaker or an insane one. Insanity isn't supported by the evidence. Insincerity remains.
1. It's really not extremely complicated; one need not belief to observe evidence; i..e. evidence persists regardless of belief.
2. As an example, Christians don't tend to express faith or belief in oxygen/air, because oxygen/air is demonstrably present.
In between insanity and insincerity is self-deceptive fundamentalism, which I think is where our OP is situated. It's the inability to question one's own assumptions (let alone beliefs...). There's an element of denial, but I think the denial doesn't quite reach a conscious level.
*believe
And what would happen when there is contradictory evidence? When evidence A is contradicted by evidence B?
And this ignores the whole issue of what evidence is.
True. Could be the remnants of a belief system...
On a more fundamental basis(pardon the pun)...
In order to learn that that is called "a tree" one must first believe that that is there(whatever that may be). The OP clearly has learned how to talk about things and clearly has no clue what all that entails.
It is unfortunate that you grovel in and enjoy your own errors, for self-denial of said errors shan't enable you to escape them.
Simply, belief is such that does not prioritize evidence.
Almost biblical prose.
And how, exactly, does prioritising A over B differ from believing A and not believing B?
All you have done here is to replace saying "I believe A" with "I prioritise A". You still believe A in your heart of hearts.
Dude, one of the main problems is that you sound like a robot.
Quoting ProgrammingGodJordan
You appear to be a fundamentalist atheist, yes. That's a common outcome for someone who has an emotionally violent divorce from religion.
Quoting ProgrammingGodJordan
Which is (2)? You made this statement on line 2...
Quoting ProgrammingGodJordan
Which people, and why make erroneous assumptions about me? My beliefs (none of which I've stated, and none of which you are aware of) are much more complex than the binary thinking you're using here.
Quoting ProgrammingGodJordan
Quite so; but I do not claim to have abolished belief, so there is no hypocrisy in my belief. For you, your belief is apparent from your fervour.
You still believe in your heart of hearts.
What is your goal with this thread?
That you may chose to believe, does not suddenly warrant that everybody else believes.
Goals:
1. Unravel errors of my own, where applicable. (i.e. learn)
2. Unravel errors in others. (i.e. teach)
Goal 1. is a good goal, and I trust you're learning a lot.
Goal 2. is pretty arrogant, given that you're new to the forum. I had a similar mindset when I joined. I've done a whole lot of learning, and basically 0 teaching. You'll find it's the same for you if you stick around; if you do, please learn to debate, though.
What?
1. I am yet to discover any novel information, from others here.
2. Why do you feel it is arrogant for me to teach, but quite alright for me to learn, due to some odd boundary, such as my time spent on this particular forum?
A review:
I find it arrogant for you to think you can teach, because not only do you not have anything meaningful to teach anyone, but you fail to recognize your own arrogance, your own inability to examine your own pre-existing beliefs, and your own failure to engage in charitable philosophical debate on a philosophy forum.
A review:
What?
An admirable aim. Holding false belief is something to avoid. Not all belief is false. Not all belief suffers the same issues as religious belief. Unraveling your errors requires understanding thought and belief. Notably, what they are, how they are expressed, and what makes them true/false.
Such is a typical response; for I have observed that many people don't tend to scrutinize beyond religious belief, as you continue to demonstrate well.
Such is a typical response; for I have observed that many people don't tend to scrutinize beyond scientistic belief, as you continue to demonstrate well.
In contrast, nowhere did I say that all beliefs are false.
Good.
Some belief is true then.
Agree?
A simplification:
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You are still a believer, hiding your true heart with the words "prioritise".
Once more, that you believe, does not suddenly warrant that everybody believes.
That's not even a response to Banno.
A particularly appropriate place to invoke the crucial distinction between belief in something or other and belief that something or other. The former is about existence. The latter is about truth. Belief in God includes a belief that the statement "God exists" is true.
There is no such thing as a 'belief in science' like there is a belief in God or a belief in astrology or a belief in souls or spirits or re-incarnation, etc.
I personally believe that science works from a method meant to reduce the possibility for error.
Methodological Naturalism.
I don't detect the relevance of your comment above.
You denied claiming that all belief are false. I asked then if you would agree that some belief is true. The above is not an appropriate response. I'm running out of reasons to continue.
Alright Data...
You are repeating yourself without answering the question.
Is it that you cannot see the question?
Is it that seeing the question would break the cage?
Where did I supposedly claim that all beliefs are false?
How does the reality that science prioritizes evidence supposedly disregard non-beliefism?
Where did I ever claim you had? I'm granting that you did not.
If you agree that not all beliefs are false, then you also agree that some beliefs are true or you do not know what the fuck you're talking about. I'd like to think that you do know what you're talking about to some degree or other. I'm trying to provoke answers which bear witness to that. Your answers are evidence. It has not been forthcoming.
Do you agree that not all belief is false?
Refer to the sequence below:
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This isn't accurate. I believe in freedom of speech. That doesn't mean I believe it exists, it means I support the concept. Also, contrary to your claim that...
Quoting creativesoul
...you can also believe in science. A belief in science signifies a confidence in it's methods.
This may all be semantics, but I just wanted to point these things out. Your underlying message still stands.
You, on the other hand, must claim not to believe, despite the evidence of your fervency.
What, except strong belief, would drive one to suffer the slings and arrows of a site such as this?
Fair enough assessment. Not worth quibbling over what's wrong with it. Something was wrong with my own writing as well...
:P
And thank Satan that when two words are synonyms in the thesaurus, they are therefore interchangeable and mean the exact same thing, rather than being words that express fine shades of meaning!
Where did I supposedly substitute belief and prioritize?
If you follow some of his links you can see that he is actually trying to sell a short book he self-published on Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B072TXZ18M
That's not to say selling the book is his soul intention, but you have to wonder why else he would have joined this site just to post this discussion when he clearly has no desire to actually learn, he simply wants to spread his "wisdom"
Haven't you been paying attention? He doesn't believe anything....
Rather, a belief is an attitude towards some statement. If one believes A, one is willing to assent to A, to act on A, to assert that A.
[*] Thus, I shall underline a summary below, until I return in roughly 12 hours.
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Ah yes; I need to make room for his beliefs! Far be it from me to suggest to him that beliefs themselves should be abolished, when he so clearly holds beliefs of his own.
Perhaps the inability to suffer those slings and arrows?
;)
The sales quota is looking grim.
Indeed.
But that is about you, isn't it?
I could grant lack of sincerity, at least potentially. The book sales thing combined with the verbatim repetition of unexplained talking points does suggest insincerity. But there does seem to be an almost-but-not-quite-conscious denial that's working in conjunction with it.
To quote that master of rhetoric, President Donald Trump: "Sad."
The only issue is this:
Quoting ProgrammingGodJordan
I garner concepts all day, bish
Scientific faith is not religiously founded, and that is not up to you, either, you poor, deluded demigod, you.
Really, even just undergrad? I took a few courses, but didn't major in it. This guy doesn't strike me as a fresh undergrad with a fire under his ass. I would hope a fresh undergrad would at least be able to debate concepts.
Yes, indeed. And it's a nice high. It's like the foolishness of young love. 'Holy cow, mom, turns out I'm a genius.' The comedown is rough. The fog of sexy words finally condenses to a platitude or an absurdity that no one would ever act on (take seriously).
In my opinion, it's about sharing the glory of one's genius in these cases. If this was about money, he'd be charming us. I actually think PGJ is a smart guy. He's probably a good programmer.
A few pages back there was another poster (who got no replies) who laid out a 6 page mystical/rational system that could save us all. It reminds me of Jung. Religion is a spontaneous generation of us humans. Ideas hit us with a kind of magic force. One has the secret that can make everyone happy and free, because one is oneself happy and free while this 'magic' force lasts.
[quote=link]
Fallibilism is the epistemological thesis that no belief (theory, view, thesis, and so on) can ever be rationally supported or justified in a conclusive way. Always, there remains a possible doubt as to the truth of the belief. Fallibilism applies that assessment even to science’s best-entrenched claims and to people’s best-loved commonsense views.
[/quote]
http://www.iep.utm.edu/fallibil/
Also Popper said something about letting our theories do our dying for us.
In short, unbeliefism seems like old news. As I understand it, it has its charms. But what's offensive is the lack of awareness of its lack of novelty. I feel like I'm being told the sky is blue. It is more or less the common sense of secular/negative philosophers, which is why they tear one another's fancy theories to shreds. They self-consciously subject their beliefs to more criticism than non-philosophers. Their criticism-enduring views are more reliable, more trustworthy, weightier. That's their ideal virtue. They are less full of shit than the average bear. Or that's at least one guiding ideal as I understand it. But there is also the Dr. Pangloss archetype. I suppose actual philosophers tend to be both negative and system-building. They slash and burn to clear space for the system that finally gets it right and conquers time and chance.
1. Proof and evidence are not exact synonyms.
1.2 Stop writing your arguments in numbered lists, using screenshots of dictionaries and copypasteing your previous arguments. Dictionaries are not exact, often using colloquial meanings of words. And your comments are unpleasant and inpractical af to read.
2. Thinking anything unproven to be true or false is a belief.
3. There're no proofs in science, only evidence.
4. Thus science is belief.
Also Popper said something about letting our theories do our dying for us.
In short, unbeliefism seems like old news. As I understand it, it has its charms. But what's offensive is the lack of awareness of its lack of novelty. I feel like I'm being told the sky is blue. It is more or less the common sense of secular/negative philosophers, which is why they tear one another's fancy theories to shreds. They self-consciously subject their beliefs to more criticism than non-philosophers. Their criticism-enduring views are more reliable, more trustworthy, weightier. That's their ideal virtue. They are less full of shit than the average bear. Or that's at least one guiding ideal as I understand it. But there is also the Dr. Pangloss archetype. I suppose actual philosophers tend to be both negative and system-building. They slash and burn to clear space for the system that finally gets it right and conquers time and chance.
[/quote]
Proof and evidence are not exact synonyms.
1.2 Stop writing your arguments in numbered lists, using screenshots of dictionaries and copypasteing your previous arguments. Dictionaries are not exact, often using colloquial meanings of words. And your comments are unpleasant and inpractical af to read.
2. Thinking anything unproven to be true or false is a belief.
3. There're no proofs in science, only evidence.
4. Thus science is belief.
[/quote]
[*] Your third point at (2) is invalid; mathematical proofs may be demonstrated to be true.
[*] I don't detect the relevance of your point at (3), especially given my reference in my point above.
[*] I detect that if you've read up to this point, you'd figure out that your conclusion does not follow from your trivially demonstrably invalid prior points.
[/list]
In case of quantum mechanic, anomaly in black radiation comes first and then the anomaly was resolved by Plank. You can read about it in here. The same is true for special relativity.
Quoting ProgrammingGodJordan
And we mere students were simply waiting by the pond for the master to appear from his work to enlighten us, and help us over the great hurdle of observing your statements steeped in non-belief via your guiding touch.
Did I get it right? Is the OP just a butchered form of scientism, both unaware of its existence and of its limitations? I ask because I didn't find the text of the OP or the explanations of PGJ at all helpful.
Because it's more technically correct than what you claim. I oppose calling words with similar but not the same meaning synonyms.
Quoting ProgrammingGodJordan
Is this a counter to my point 2 or 3? Because it doesn't counter 2, but you still mention the number 2 there for some reason.
If it's supposed to be a counter to 3, I'll answer by fixing my argument into the form: "there're no proofs in science, excluding mathematics, only evidence".
[/list]
I don't detect the relevance of your response above, wrt the OP.
[list=1][*]It is somewhat tiring when people bring up scienticism when I describe "non beliefism", because as an atheist, I had long encountered scienticism.
[*]Anyway, scienticism does not underline belief's generally science opposing nature, contrary to "non beliefism".
Quoting ProgrammingGodJordan
Its relevance is that science is a belief (with the exclusion of mathematics). Therefore you must reject science in the name of non-beliefism.
Is English your first language?
I detect that it is sub-optimal to further respond to you, given that you garner that belief (something that does not prioritize evidence) equates with science (something that does the very contrast, i.e. prioritize evidence).
Quoting ProgrammingGodJordan
I know I said I was done engaging with you, but you are either intentionally or unintentionally misrepresenting my position, so I feel the need to respond.
You equated "evidence" with "proof", using the terms interchangeably, with the implication that they are the same thing.
In your OP:
Quoting ProgrammingGodJordan
My response to that:
Quoting JustSomeGuy
Your response to me:
Quoting ProgrammingGodJordan
You were using the terms to mean the exact same thing. I demonstrated multiple times that they do not mean the exact same thing. Now, it seems you have changed your argument, claiming that you only ever said they were "synonyms" (which is not what you did, you demonstrated their meanings through use) and that synonyms can just be words that are similar or the same, and you are apparently using the former definition of the term.
So not only are you being completely intellectually dishonest about your own previous statements, but even this new argument does not disprove anything I have said.
You are claiming that the term "synonym" has multiple meanings, and that you are using one of them, yet based on the definition which you cited for "synonym", the meaning I am using is also correct.
I'd like to point out again (I did so yesterday at some point but don't feel like finding it) that this is not the first time you have changed your tune based on my or others' arguments against your claims.
When you respond to criticism by changing your argument and acting like the new argument was the argument you were making the whole time, you may as well be a child. This is a forum for intelligent and honest discussion. You may be intelligent, but you have demonstrated many times over that you are not honest.
The only thing I'm still not sure of is whether you're aware or not of your own dishonesty. I'm not sure which would be worse.
Here's what you said: "Anyway, scienticism does not underline belief's generally science opposing nature, contrary to "non beliefism"."
Explain how scientism underlines and how belief takes the possessive. As best I can decipher, you believe science ought be relied upon and not faith. Your view might be different but your writing is poor.
A claim is not a valid response to its own counter. The only thing it implies is that you either didn't read or understand my reply.
Similar words are synonyms. The two words are not similar. Therrefore the two words are not synonyms.
Quoting ProgrammingGodJordan
False. Belief does not prioritize proof.
Quoting ProgrammingGodJordan
Science prioritizes evidence, but not proof (excluding mathematics).
I know this was a distinction PGJ insisted on you making, but it isn't necessary because mathematics is not a science; it is a tool that science utilizes.
Whether or not anybody believes science is to be relied upon, is irrelevant; for science is demonstrably thus far mankind's best tool, regardless of what anybody believes.
Quoting BlueBanana
The OP, along with many many responses of mine here, underline that belief does not prioritize evidence.
I had advised you many times, and provided definition urls, which you ignored.
We are all aware of the things you have said, the claims you have made.
The point is that you are wrong
The flaws in your reasoning have been demonstrated many times by many people. Your refusal to acknowledge them is irrelevant.
Quoting BlueBanana
Your refusals to acknowledge evidence that contrasts your false pre-conceived notions reminds me of Ken Ham; he tends to express that nothing can change his mind regarding his faith, even if contrasting evidence occurs.
You just avoided the whole "and even if I didn't" thing. Even if the words were synonyms, they would have drastically different meanings for this discussion.
But fine, let's forget the synonym topic and all that mess, and see the question from another angle. Do you admit the difference between the concepts of evidence and proof?
Can you present where I supposedly presented 'proof' and 'synonym' to be exactly the same?
Dear lord...I feel like I'm talking to a malfunctioning A.I.
I don't detect the relevance of that question, wrt to the OP.
In others, you are unable to present evidence for your claim.
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Are you theistic?
Define "knowledge." How can you know what you say is true without believing it?
I don't detect the relevance of that question.
Something that generally permits ignorance of evidence, contrasts science.
So, whether or not I exist, belief remains a concept today, that generally permits ignorance of evidence!"
But-
1. All men are ignorant of something even in their fields of expertise.
2. There is no science that has exhausted knowledge of its subject.
3. Therefore there is no science that can be more than belief. It is simply a matter of degree. Firm belief vs. weak belief.
[/list]
[*] Belief permits the very opposite of scientific endeavour; instead of rigorous evidence prioritization, belief generally permits that evidence is typically ignored, which clearly contrasts the scientific method.
[List]
[*] "Non-beliefism" underlines that:
[List]
[*]"One need not be genius nor omniscient to do scientific thinking, as belief typically enables large evidence ignorance, in contrast to scientific theory or scientific hypotheses, for which genius is not required, and crucially, for which evidence is defined to be prioritized".
[/list]
[/list]
[/LIST]
[List]
[*]Dictionary definitions (and research) had long been provided in the OP.
[*]And contrary to your claim, apart from the sources provided in the OP, definitions (and research) were underlined several times throughout the duration of this debate.
[*] Advice: You need to actually observe the OP and the 14 pages you claimed to have read, before "confidently" posting invalid responses.
[/list]
Is that really the problem here? I think all kinds of conversations are productive without terms being defined. In my view it's the social dynamic that's fouled up here. PGJ is being silly.
Defining terms has its limits too, does it not? Because we define terms with still other terms and so on and so on. On some level people just have to (1) speak the same language and (2) actually like or respect one another enough to work through ambiguity.
Or so I see it.
I think that's the idea. The guy's supposedly written some fancy A.I software and now he's answering all the questions as if he was a computer program. He's obviously getting his kicks out of imagining we're all slowly beginning to wonder if we're really talking to a human or not.
I suggest we don't humour him.
I don't disagree.
Quoting ProgrammingGodJordan
I don't really understand. Are you against the word "belief" because of the baggage it carries? I don't see how your nonscientism is any different than individuals deciding to hold only beliefs based on science. It's essentially the same thing. What difference would there be if I were to be a non-beliefist vs. someone who only believes with only scientific thinking.
Quoting ProgrammingGodJordan
Rather than complicating all of this, we can just encourage rational thinking and not believing things without good reason.
Belief is accepting a claim. When you say that belief generally permits ignorance of evidence, all you're saying is that people tend to accept claims while ignoring evidence. Rather than redefining the word belief, we can just be specific and say scientific beliefs or beliefs that are based on scientific thinking are the only types of beliefs people should have. Your term nonbelief is exactly the same thing.
Alternatively, the concept of belief could be discarded altogether, because it is a model that generally permits evidence ignorance.
I spoke in this manner long before I began to program...
Quoting ProgrammingGodJordan
Knowledge is a model too. When we find that our knowledge was wrong, did we really possess knowledge or was it only a belief?
Many psychologists view belief as an unscientific term that deserves to be phased out. Contradictory and ambiguous definitions may be to blame for this attitude. However, knowledge is even less well defined. For example, a skeptic would claim that we can never know we know anything. If this is the case, then knowledge is merely a well-supported belief that we falsely ascribe the comforting notion of certainty to.
Words require consistent definitions that are agreed upon by those within the social dynamic. This is why the social dynamic is fouled up, because the terms haven't been clearly defined.
Defining terms can be done by showing other words, or showing you the thing the words refer to. Words refer to things, which might, or might not be other words.
If you don't have omniscience, then what do you have if not beliefs, or models of the way things are, (which according to your own definition of belief as a model means that you have beliefs if you have models, right?)? To say that you have non-beliefs is similar to saying that you have omniscience, or true knowledge. But I already showed you the problem of saying that you have knowledge.
Quoting ProgrammingGodJordan
You're taking skepticism and open-mindedness and renaming it "non-beliefism".
Modeling the world does not necessitate belief.
The irony is that he cannot see this.
This doesn't make sense. In your nonbeliefism you are still believing things by definition (accepting a claim). A belief doesn't require nonscientific thinking. You are accepting claims based off scientific thinking which is still by definition believing. That's the same thing as telling people not to hold beliefs that prioritize nonscientific thinking. It's accepting claims that are based off scientific thinking which is essentially believing only in things that are based off of scientific thinking. We don't need this nonbeliefism term at all.
[/list]
What do you make of this:
Once more I don't detect the relevance of your comment;
How so?
I don't detect the relevance of that query.
I don't detect the relevance of that query, especially given my earlier response.
It's not that I disagree with your idea of nonbeliefism, it's that I just don't see the reason for throwing out a term like that. Nonbeliefism sounds like you aren't believing things. But that's not true because you are still accepting claims so you are still believing by definition. People can believe things for a bunch of different reasons. Why don't you call it science beliefism or something which implies that it is a type of belief that is only based off scientific thinking. Sort of like a subset of type of belief or something.
On the contrary, belief is defined such that people tend to generally ignore evidence, which contrasts nonbeliefism.
Irrelevant query.
Which definition? The first one? That says especially, not necessarily. So if you are accepting something to be true off of science thinking, it still is a belief by that definition.
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See the response above.
This is nonsensical; whether people tend to generally ignore evidence or not is not based on how belief is defined.
People have different ideas of what constitutes evidence. Can you provide evidence that people generally ignore evidence or is that a belief that ignores evidence? :s
As I've mentioned many times it doesn't necessarily mean it's based off of nonscientific thinking. Especially is not the same thing as necessarily. Those are two different words. Therefore if you are accepting a claim, it is still a belief by definition. So if you accept something based off of scientific thinking that is still by definition a belief.
The thing is, even if he shows that people generally ignore evidence it doesn't matter. A belief is still a belief regardless of whether it is one based of scientific or nonscientific thinking.
I'm curious about the limits of psychoceramics.
Is what is happening here so very different from, for example, certain discussions with @Metaphysician Undercover?
(Edit: that came out wrong. I have respect for Meta because of his capacity to engage in discussion. That is entirely absent here. So is that the difference between a crackpot and a philosopher?)
On the contrary:
[/list]
The Oxford Dictionary lists three definitions. None mention evidence, the first says "especially without proof" which would seem to indicate a notion that the term belief is more applicable to opinions held where proof is lacking. Proof is not evidence; if you believe it is then you are ignoring evidence.
LOL, psychoceramics! MU can be somewhat stubborn in his refusal to see sense sometimes; but I think this little demigod has reached an altogether different level. >:O
On the contrary:
And beliefs are avoidable altogether.
So you believe... X-)
I understand what you're saying. I'm just saying using the word nonbeliefism is misleading because the term makes it sound like you don't accept anything to be true. Yet you still are accepting claims (and still holding beliefs), it's just that the beliefs that are held are based off of scientific thinking. If you insist on calling it nonbeliefism that's fine, just be aware that most people will probably realize it's just a subset of beliefs that is based off of scientific thinking and won't use the term nonbeliefism.
That you constrain your mind to belief, does not necessitate that everybody else constrains their minds to belief.
In some special cases evidence may constitute proof; but it certainly does not follow that all evidence is proof.
So you can say that such-and-such is true, and yet that you do not believe it.
Indeed, I am not capable of such a feat.
Do you mean to ask why he persists? If so, I can only speculate... is it ego, desire for attention, self-delusion, stupidity? Hard to say, and I suspect your guess is as good as mine.
That's the food of trolls. My question is more about the difference between the crackpot and the serious eccentric.
That's why I'm saying...just stop responding...
Woah buddy!
True, that seems probably the most likely explanation! But do we have proof, or even evidence for that belief?
Quoting Noble Dust
Ahh, resolutions...
...if you want the discussion to stop.
But all that means is that now you are saying that instead of accepting claims, we should only look at things as if more likely or less likely to be true. But if you are gonna say that x is more likely, you are accepting the claim that x is more likely and therefore by definition still holding beliefs. There is no way to get around it unless you don't accept any claims. And that's actually impractical.
I think I do. Have you or anyone made any progress? I don't think so.
Indeed!
i have i swear. believe me
Show me.
[/list]
Progress towards what? Some, including myself, have asked PJ what his goal is, what the purpose of the thread is, to no avail.
It is quite odd.
Oh? So, if it's "bad", it's a crackpot, but if it's "good", it's an eccentric?
I've asked him that too.
Progress towards an actual discussion where PJ doesn't just copy and paste verbatim responses which don't constitute an actual discussion. Seriously.
Yes to 2 and 3.
It would be quite fun to discover that PJ is a bot.
I think I would cry a little. But then feel ok.
I was the first responder (lol) to this thread, so the entertainment value has long since vanished for me. Around page 8 or so.
Contrary to your false response, I had already mentioned my goals (See my response on page 10):
1. Unravel errors of my own, where applicable. (i.e. learn)
2. Unravel errors in others. (i.e. teach)
A belief is accepting a claim. A belief is accepting a claim, and not exclusively that based off of nonscientific thinking. Therefore accepting a claim off of scientific thinking is still by definition having a belief. You have already acknowledged this.
So... if you see a chair in front of you, would you make the statement there is a chair in front of me, or make the statement there is likely a chair in front of me?
The humour is still there - just a bit black.
Just watch lol
Your response is demonstrably incomplete:
Quoting ProgrammingGodJordan
Ah - so you believe that there is at least the possibility of your being wrong...
One needs not belief to observe probabilities.
I've been watching, bub...
It's beyond black now.
As you even admitted yourself, there is a difference between especially and necessarily. Therefore by definition accepting a claim off of scientific thinking is still a belief. A belief doesn't require accepting a claim off of nonscientific thinking, it could still be either. If you won't acknowledge this point then I'm gonna realize you're trolling.
I rephrased
Okay I will demonstrate to you why you are still holding beliefs.
A belief is accepting a claim that generally permits ignorance of evidence. No where in that definition does it say necessarily permits ignorance of evidence. Therefore accepting a claim off of scientific thinking is still by definition having a belief.
So... if you see a chair in front of you, would you make the statement there is a chair in front of me, or make the statement there is likely a chair in front of me?
You're doing just grand, but I remain pessimistic.
Quoting SonJnana
A) It is silly to advise me that belief does not necessitate non evidence, because the OP had long underlined that one may believe in both science and non science.
B) [U]Anyway, please read the following summary carefully, especially point 4:[/u]
[*] One can instead rely on a separate model i.e. "non-beliefism" (that does not permit general ignorance of evidence).
[*] Crucially, for eg, science obtains whether or not one believes in it.
[List][*]This is a clear counterexample to your claim that scientific thinking must be an evidence based belief, because here we see that it is possible that things are observable as valid, regardless of anybody's belief (Things don't require belief to be valid).[/list]
[/list]
Okay so you acknowledge that if you accept a claim on evidence it is by definition a belief.
Now hang on, before I read any of that, answer my question that I've asked multiple times already. This is part of my demonstration that you hold beliefs.
If you see a chair in front of you, would you make the statement there is a chair in front of me, or make the statement there is likely a chair in front of me?
Please see point 4 above.
I've seen it. Now answer my question
If you see a chair in front of you, would you make the statement there is a chair in front of me, or make the statement there is likely a chair in front of me?
Especially now that your recent idea has been shown to be invalid, I don't detect the relevance of your question.
If it's so very irrelevant then the point a make after you answer the question will be easy to refute right? Or are you afraid I will prove that you hold beliefs?
If you see a chair in front of you, would you make the statement there is a chair in front of me, or make the statement there is likely a chair in front of me?
Scientism permits belief, i.e. it does not underline that beliefs are generally science opposing in nature.
Edit that sentence with proper grammar and I'll respond. And it's "scientism", not "scientistism".
That query is in the same realm of your recent idea, which has been shown to be invalid.
Everyone has, which is why it's time to put it to rest.
Just answer the question and I will show you why it's relevant when you answer it.
I'm doing this so you can clarify your position for me because I still don't fully understand it. And if you refuse to clarify your position then you are being intellectually dishonest in this discussion. So answer the question.
If you see a chair in front of you, would you make the statement there is a chair in front of me, or make the statement there is likely a chair in front of me?
Do you mean the same way I showed your recent idea (which was bundled with that query) to be false?
1.Right. I detect no contact between you and this reality.
1a) i.e. you are unaware of your scientistic beliefs.
2. This had long been pointed out to you in this thread.
2a) your continued refusal to acknowledge this contacts a garnering of knowledge suggesting that you are in denial.
That's irrelevant to the point I'm about to make. You are the king of misdirect. If you keep misdirecting then you'll be seen as someone who is intellectually dishonest. You wouldn't want that would you? So answer the question.
If you see a chair in front of you, would you make the statement there is a chair in front of me, or make the statement there is likely a chair in front of me?
Queries/statements of that nature have already been approached on page 1.
Things don't require belief, to be valid. (as long mentioned).
This is not a response to what you quoted. As has been long mentioned.
At present you appear to be avoiding the discussion with @SonJnana rather than helping us understand your position.
Just play along; answer the question. See where it goes.
?
This is not a response to what you quoted. As has been long mentioned.
Do you detect that you shall demonstrate your point to be valid, regardless of whatever answer I return?
Do you detect that you shall demonstrate your point to be valid, regardless of whatever answer ANYONE returns?
Oh, come on, have a bit of intellectual courage! If you are right, how could you go wrong?
Maybe, maybe not. We won't know till you answer right? So answer the question
If you see a chair in front of you, would you make the statement there is a chair in front of me, or make the statement there is likely a chair in front of me?
Or are you gonna be intellectually dishonest and refrain from clarifying your position to someone who's trying to understand?
Can the query be rephrased as follows:
"If a chair is in front of you, would you make the statement there is a chair in front of you, or make the statement there is likely a chair in front of you?"
?
I'll rephrase it like this to make it more simple
If you see a chair in front of you and I asked you "Is there a chair in front of you?" what would you say?
I would also say that I believe there is a chair in front of me.
I might even be so bold as to say that I am certain that there is a chair in front of me.
Intelectual courage, or just plain recklessness?
Woah buddy!
I don't detect the significance of your comment above, wrt the OP.
*holds beer*
I'm a non-beliefist, but only in regards to non-beliefism.
It didn't hurt me none. Give it a try.
Answer the question:
Quoting SonJnana
I have only just been prompted to this thread and as I attempted to read it in order to ascertain what the concern may be, unfortunately I stumbled upon this and I am afraid that this is complete nonsense. Is that link to a page you have created?
There is an opportunity to correctly discuss fallibilism or even when beliefs can qualify as knowledge, but you need to exhibit a degree of coherency in your position. Plato famously remarked "justified true belief" so perhaps you can focal an argument toward the Gettier problem. Otherwise, the last several pages of nonsense only qualifies the thread' closure.
An expression of disagreement in such a state of considering the aforementioned to be blasphemy that no verbs are to be inserted in this sentence.
I don't detect any novel information in your response.
Whether or not you agree, and regardless of your feelings, belief is both defined to be able to occur on evidence, or on non-evidence.
*burp* what?
I'll make a drugstore run (we call it a bodega run around these parts); I can't keep watching the entertainment otherwise.
[*]From item (c) it is observable that fallibism permits the concept of belief, although under particular constraints, similar to scientism.
How supposedly so?
Here is an answer:
What question is that an answer to? No one's.
So answer the question.
I await sonjnana's response on the matter.
No you don't; I and everyone else await your response to the question that was asked fucking pages and pages ago.
My prior response obtains.
That doesn’t answer my question. In case you forgot, here: If you see a chair in front of you and I asked you "Is there a chair in front of you?" what would you say?
Answer the question.
No it doesn't. Answer the question.
Are you theistic?
Answer the question.
Weak responses of your type above, have already been approached on prior pages.
Does it grant you amusement to repeat my style of expression?
Answer the question.
Another misdirect. I’ll ask this one more time. If you still refuse to clarify your position by ignoring my question then you’re being intellectually dishonest and be notorious for being a troll on this forum. Your response to this comment right here will determine that.
If you see a chair in front of you and I asked you "Is there a chair in front of you?" what would you say?
Once more, are you theistic?
Answer the question.
I await sonjnana's response to my recent query, (Not yours, nor Dust's)
Answer the question.
Tru
Well SonJnana, apparently PJ awaits your response. What fucking response are we even awaiting?
Noooo, he won't even see the irony tho
Yes, I am yet to detect any novel information from the responders here.
~ProgrammingGodJordan
We all had fun, and we all experienced pain. I don't think he was properly trolling; see @exit above. He went through the trouble to make a second account (for what reason?) in order to sign off...? I don't know. Hopefully this is the end of it.
I will say to the moderators, even though the thread was far too popular for you to delete or close, I appreciate that nonsense like this was able to be addressed. Free speech means that all ideas, no matter how close-minded, need to be brought to the table, if only to be shot down. Edit: indeed, if close-minded ideas aren't even given the chance to be shot down, how can ideas be debated in the first place?
However, the question of whether science is a belief has risen in this discussion. To answer that, we must use the correct definition. Your "definition" is not a definition, only a partial description.
Science* isn't proven. It has scientific evidence and evidence. It has no proof.
*with the aforementioned exclusion
He was banned, so he created a new account.
Quoting Noble Dust
I agree, but in the long run such people are not good for the forum. He was banned for evangelism. As it says in the guidelines:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/480/site-guidelines/
I think, in general, how the thread ran it's course was fair; the ideas were fairly debated (by the community anyway), and he was clearly an evangelist. Rather than ban him at post #1, the ideas were allowed to flesh out, which I think is right. Then, once it was obvious that he was contributing nothing and simply evangelizing, he was banned.
Well, you seem to be stating two different opinions; I agree with the opinion about Banno revealing basic mistakes. If you delete crackpot threads at ground zero, then no one else will have an opportunity to witness a crackpot getting the beatdown. Seriously.
Ok, I appreciate that; we're on the same page, then.
If I PM my needed information, will you post me popcorn?
While I was definitely popping my own corn during that thread, what I meant in response to @jamalrob is that, generally, all philosophical ideas, no matter how ridiculous, should have their chance at the table, if only to be shot down in the public square for all to see, and to learn from.
I try to live by these axioms, and by and large it seems to work, though attracts criticism.
I don't think you can ban or outlaw belief, because you can't outlaw stupidity.
For my part I consider Faith to be the death of reason and enquiry.
Knowledge is the better part of belief, though the two terms can be interchangeable. I think the type of belief that Tyson was talking about is the idea that it is acceptable to allow the idea that people are free to believe what they want. That is a dangerous and damaging idea, that has been the ruin of human society for thousands of years.
Belief of that sort is a response to hopelessness and intellectual laziness.
But we can only discourage it.
I believe nothing. I seek to know.
When you know, you believe.
And when you take it to be the case that "the idea that people are free to believe what they want ... is a dangerous and damaging idea", then that is what you believe. You believe it's a dangerous and damaging idea. To take something to be true, or the case, is to believe it.
It's not belief that's the problem, but certain kinds of belief, for example, belief contrary to evidence.
ProgrammingGodJordan was unable to see this. I hope you're not.
There are subtleties, of course. One says, "I don't believe it, I know it", which is an attempt to give a guarantee of the claim's truth, or, more charitably, to show that the belief is well-founded. It's to say, "I don't merely believe it, I know it". But it doesn't escape the fact that belief is involved whether or not it's knowledge.
No. I know that. It is not a belief at all. I can demonstrate and argue the case.
What I am seeking here is a distinction between belief as a choice and belief as knowledge.
They are simply NOT the same thing at all.
When you know; you can back it up. When you can't back it up , you have to choose to believe - that is where the danger lies.
You are making the confusion, by using a definition of belief which is basically meaningless, as it encompasses 1+1=2 as a belief, and I believe in fairies.
I just think it makes more sense to use the word knowledge against belief.
ProgrammingGodJordan I think is making a similar point. You are privileging the status of the word above the meanings the thread is teasing out.
I don't see how it follows from the fact that some beliefs are true and some are false that this concept of belief--a very ordinary one, and also the philosophical one--is meaningless.
Could Neil Tyson be onto something? Does science stop being valid if we don't believe in science?
Yes. But it is those that I think we need to do without.
If we know things and have a rigorous method whereby that knowledge remains contingent upon the evidence and reasons that inform it then this would be a more practical way to live your life.
If I think that Jews are money grabbing, and do not challenge that idea, then I am simply going to see all acts of money grabbing as potentially jewish and find evidence of jews grabbing money to justify my belief. People like Wolfowitz, Greenspan, Bernancke, Soros, Rothschild, are going to re-inforce that prejudice. That will persist with the idea that it is okay to believe what you want.
And whilst you can know that these individuals control much of the financial systems, knowledge demands that you would have to compare this with Jews not involved in finance and non-jews involved that are also involved in finance. Or jews such as Bernie Saunders, and Stiglitz who constantly point of the failings of the current financial system.
A person that allows belief to persist over knowledge leads the jews to the gas chamber.
Belief as commonly used. Means accepting things as true you know to be lies; at one extreme. and matters of irrefutable fact on the other.
In a philosophical discussion I think we can do better than that.
He's not saying that at all. And you know it.
What do you believe Neil is saying?
I think he may be saying that climate change deniers who believe no climate problems exist, actually don't affect the fact that climate change does exist?
Remember Kwalish Kid at philosophyforums.com? When I fist engaged with him I really frustrated him. He said I can't quite place you, you're not like a normal crackpot (as if there's any sort of normalcy to "crackpot").
Quoting Banno
The problem is that some crackpots are really quite serious.
Quoting ProgrammingGodJordan
I'll give you a similar reply to what I gave Banno in the other thread; in the inverted form, because what I argue there is the importance of doubt.
That the ignorance of evidence is possible, does not necessitate that we ignore the evidence. So what belief does is allow us to ignore evidence it does not necessitate it. This is a good thing because it lets us get on with what we are doing, in an efficient way, without having to assess all the evidence as to whether we are or are not proceeding in the most appropriate way each time we go to do something.
But if your claim is that belief forces, compels, or necessitates, us to ignore evidence (as it appears to be), then you have misrepresented belief by ignoring the reality of free will, choosing a determinist perspective.
Quoting Banno
Crackpot, eccentric, or plain old genius?
Quoting jamalrob
What? You discontinued my source of entertainment.
edit: I take that back jamalrob, it's more like a waste of time than a source of entertainment, as bad attempts at entertainment are.
That's not at all what belief means or how it is commonly used. The concept of belief is very simple: it means having the notion that something is the case, without absolute proof. Whether absolute proof is truly possible is another topic that has no effect on the concept of belief. When you believe something, there can be very little evidence for it or there can be a plethora of evidence for it, but you cannot "believe" something that is "irrefutable fact"--that would be knowledge.
I think the confusion here comes from our inability to actually prove anything at all. And because of this, some people have this strong desire to hold into the notion of knowledge because they cannot accept the idea that they don't know certain things, so they redefine what knowledge is in order to allow them to keep it. This is definitely what the OP was doing, and it seems to be what you're doing, as well. As others have pointed out already, all of the confusion with this topic seems to stem from a semantic issue. We're all essentially saying the same thing with different words, but we think we disagree because we're using key terms in different ways.
Yes, even scientists have been known to ignore evidence in order to protect their pet beliefs.
What does "OP" stand for? I am new to this forum and want to understand what I'm reading. Please explain.
He has since been banned for evangelism, but "OP" can stand for either "original post" or "original poster"--meaning either the first comment in a discussion or the person who makes that comment.
When you believe something, you are proceeding as if the world is a certain way - usually it's a way you've taken on trust from others (e.g. something you got from a teacher or a book), sometimes it's something you're punting by yourself (e.g. a hypothesis you've come up with on your own).
Words, concepts, sentences, propositions, suggest or induce expectations. If I call something a "tree" or think of something as a tree, that carries with it logical implications for further experience if the thing really is a tree (i.e. if it really has the characteristics normally assigned the label "tree", then upon my further interaction with it, it will necessarily respond in certain ways and not in other ways - e.g. if I touch the trunk it will be solid and my hand won't pass through it). If you believe it's a tree, that means you just have those expectations.
Reading this thread and your message reminds me of an article I recently read:
Half of all Americans believe the media make up anti-Trump stories
Then after that, I remember the following:
84 percent of the world population has faith; a third are Christian
Then I remember how happy one of the places I recently visited was, and why:
World’s Happiest Countries Are Also Least Religious
So, I definitely can't say "there's nothing essentially wrong with belief", because I would be lying.
The massaging of statistics to align all the bad things with religion is also quite tendentious - it's more or less rationalist boosterism, and quite unbecoming for rationalists - in fact (speaking as a rationalist) it's a bit embarrassing.
Well something that allows people to mostly ignore evidence (namely belief), is actually counter to how humanity has progressed. Regardless of how much passion or belief we may want to pour in our work, none of that matters if we don't keenly follow the evidence, which belief does not enforce, by definition.
Do you have any proof of any such "massaging"? Because without proof, it would be embarrassing to make the claim you made.
But belief is based on evidence, it's just that sometimes people make mistakes in the interpretation of evidence, or in the construction of beliefs based on evidence. To condemn belief as such on the grounds that beliefs are sometimes mistaken is ludicrous.
Religious beliefs too are based on evidence. "Gods" are first-pass explanations of natural phenomena, God in the classical sense is an attempt to explain the existence of anything at all, etc., etc.
Religious beliefs are not based on evidence, just like there's something called "Christian Science", which doesn't actually make it science.
People don't have to be perfect/without mistake to avoid belief.
Science is something that has for a long long time, been allowing us to constantly consider evidence, without considering all possible evidence. Since we can't consider all possible evidence, we will make mistakes, but if we follow the evidence, we minimize error.
Belief on the other hand, by definition says that people are mostly not even required to follow the evidence. Most of all, believers tend to twist the evidence to suit their old beliefs, even when they know those old beliefs contradict evidence. This means it is not an issue of simply making mistakes, but instead adhering to old beliefs regardless of evidence. This is no surprise, because the by definition, belief can happen especially without evidence.
When it's all said and done, it doesn't matter how much belief or passion people put into their work, they must generally follow evidence in order to make progress.This means progress can be made with zero beliefs. (Unless you feel scientific evidence or whether things work in practice is dependent upon people believing in it?)
Nonsense, you may not think it's good evidence, or you may think the arguments based on that evidence are wrong - and you may be right. But it's simply untrue to claim that religious beliefs aren't based on evidence.
Quoting uncool
It sounds like you're conflating faith and belief. For religious people, faith in the particular tenets of their religion is based on their belief in the validity of divine revelation, but religious belief as such isn't based on revelation, it's based on something like philosophical demonstration (e.g. the arguments for God's existence - but of course everyone thinks it through to the level they're able to, and may or may not avail themselves of the more sophisticated arguments of theologians and philosophers).
Primarily, for most religious people, they have a sense of "why does anything exist at all?" and "God" (the usual monotheistic or henotheistic type of God that can be found in many religions) is one perfectly reasonable answer to that question. (And then there are proto-cosmological explanations based on "powers" or "emanations" of God, or "gods" or "spirits" or various kinds of hierarchies of sub-deities or whatever.) Many rationalists seem to be cloth-eared to that question for some reason.
It's true that religions have veered between thinking faith is enough and thinking that belief comes first and faith is like the icing on the cake, but the Christian tradition since Aquinas has generally settled on the idea that God's existence and attributes are rationally demonstrable on the basis of evidence (everyday, easily accessible evidence at that), while faith, having been secured by that rational belief, then takes a punt on divine revelation in particular texts as having come from the Being that they think reason demonstrates must exist.
I think you might make that statement about the fact that religious beliefs exist, but not about the actual religious beliefs themselves. 'Religious beliefs' and the belief in a creator of the universe are often conflated but they are not one and the same. A religion states that "There is a creator of all things...", not as a metaphysical answer to a question, but as a necessary precursor to the crucial part which is "... and he said you should do the following..." The second part is what makes a religion, the first is a metaphysical position about causality and time, many atheists have a position on that question.
So in assessing the extent to which religious belief stems from evidence, we need to examine, not the evidence that the universe exists, and so by law of causality needs a creator, but the evidence that, their particular book represents the desires of that creator, or the 'best' way to live, or some other metric regarding why that particular set of instructions and statements of historical fact has been chosen over any other.
Given the cultural and historical progress of religious belief, I think you'd have a hard time proving that such choices had anything to do with evidence. Was there some 'evidence' against the Roman gods of Olympus that meant people no longer believed in them? Did someone demonstrate by any means that Valhalla does not exist? Or is history a story of advancing (often in very bloody battles) the 'culture' of one religion over another which was then adopted, quite sensibly, by the population, largely out of a desire to socially conform, more than occasionally out of fear for their lives.
If religions are adopted largely on the basis of evidence, then why the inquisition, the crusades, Jihad, the slaughter of tribes in the colonies? It all sounds a bit bloody and unnecessary if people are just going to convert as a result of a convincing argument.
That's a great argument for the claim that the beliefs that ignore evidence are harmful, but there's a ton of beliefs that do not ignore it. I might even go as far as to say most of the beliefs are based on evidence and are the most logical and likely conclusions that can be drawn from that evidence.
There are two possible phases, one might call them, to religion:-
1) Is the stage that the religious person can share with some naturalistic thinkers (e.g. Aristotle, the Stoics, Daoists), whereby you can on the basis of argument and evidence get a reasonable answer to the question, "Why is there anything at all?" Further reflection can secure for this Creator/Absolute/God/Logos/Isvara/Dao-De, whatever, certain other qualities (e.g. omnipresence, omnipotence, all-good/perfect, all-knowing, with the meanings of these concepts not being quite the same as they would be in ordinary language, but analogous in some ways to ordinary language meanings). While this isn't as fleshed-out as most religions per se, it's not quite thin either, there is some substantive content.
2) On the basis of that kind of rationally supported belief (i.e. belief on the basis of reason and evidence, resulting in a basic theology and theodicy), religious people then have the option of various more detailed and elaborated religious beliefs that rest on faith - faith that their holy texts, or their personal revelations or whatever, come from or are sanctioned by this entity that they also believe in on rational grounds.
I agree with much of what you say, and as I pointed out, quite often religious people have jumped straight to faith as the primary factor, and in particular you often have the situation where people are simply born into a faith and take it for granted. But I think it's important to be fair to religion and lay out this two step process, because this has in fact been the main way that Christianity since Aquinas (both Catholic and many Protestant denominations) has viewed the matter (in terms of, say, convincing a notionally uncommitted non-believer), and I believe also certain schools of Islamic thought and Jewish thought too, as well as Vedanta and even Daoism to some extent (Buddhism is really more like some of the ancient Greek philosophies than like a religion, though it's absorbed or shared some features with deity-based religions as it has spread). And I think even if faith comes first for some people, they've bolstered their faith by reasoned arguments along the lines of 1).
Also: while it's true that religions have often clashed and felt themselves to be mutually exclusive, it's also true that religions have co-existed peacably too (e.g. the paganism of antiquity, the Indian form of paganism we call "Hinduism," the co-existence and mutual influence of many religions in the far East), and viewed their particular revelations in an "ecumenical" sort of sense, as more or less saying the same things in different ways, or of being revelations to particular people at particular times, for particular purposes. And it's also true that there is much in common between the core teachings of many religions of disparate origin (e.g. an emphasis on love, kindness, charity, social hierarchy, etc.) - of course for a rationalist this similarity would be expected on the hypothesis that religion is a kind of evolved "tribal glue" that's constrained by a) reproductive fitness and b) ethnic and group cohesion in an uncertain world. There's also a good deal of similarity between religions in their mystical teachings (though I wouldn't go so far as to say that forms any sort of easily-describable "perennial philosophy"), and from a naturalistic point of view that could easily be an artifact of neurological similarities between human beings generally.
At any rate, all I really want to flag is that while faith (which is what some here are calling "belief") is certainly a part of religion, belief based on reason and evidence-based argument has also always been a part of religion, although the emphasis has varied from time to time and place to place.
What I took issue with in your post is the use of 'most religious people'. I agree that there are some religious people who rationalise their belief in a deity, but I'm really not at all convinced that 'most religious people' do this. That's my point about the imposition of one culture on another in war. It really indicates that 'most' religious people simply adopt whatever belief system their culture has, it gets replaced by a new belief system when one culture conquers another. If people really did just arrive at their fundamental beliefs rationally, why would there be such a huge number of animists among tribal people (virtually no mono-theists), why would there an increasing number of atheists in the modern period as cultural conformity in belief has weakened?
If you're arguing that the majority of religious people freely arrive at the fundamental tenets of their beliefs by rational analysis (an omnipresent, omnipotent, all-good/perfect, all-knowing, creator), then why are there so few examples of such a figure in tribal cultures? Why such a massive surge in such beliefs post Christianity, and then a decline in such beliefs post-enlightenment? Are you suggesting that people's free rational faculties have changes over time for some reason?
Surely the simplest explanation for the changes in (even fundamental) religious beliefs over time, is that they're cultural. One or two influential thinkers rationalise some world-view and the vast majority of the population simply adopt it because it's "the done thing", without giving it more than a moment's thought.
Come on, it is empirically observed that religious beliefs generally don't care about evidence.
It is very strange that people use the products of science (these forums, computers, internet) while avoiding the fact that religious beliefs contradict science.
Nope, I actually took a look in the dictionary, and alas, belief is defined to especially occur without proof or evidence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belief
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/belief
You might feel that way, but I can't find any evidence that most beliefs are based on evidence.
Instead, just like sources in the OP state, most beliefs generally occur ignoring or distorting evidence.
People tend to distort actual evidence to fit their pre-conveived notions, and in doing that they are not paying attention to the evidence, but actually ignoring it.
Could you please show me evidence to support your belief or claim that most beliefs are based on evidence, because I don't detect any, and I've gone through many many many pages of search results (I didn't just stop at the first page although it agreed with what I am saying) and I also checked many google scholar results.
Yeah, that's not actual evidence. You can quickly see that religious "evidence" is not actual evidence, because religious stuff contradicts scientific stuff. If religious stuff was evidence, it wouldn't have been separated from modern science back in the scientific revolution.(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_revolution)
Doesn't mean it isn't evidence.
Yes true. religious evidence is evidence that people are gullible and generally stupid.
It's called knowledge and requires no belief.
If you throw dice 100 times and get a six 99 times, that's evidence the dice are rigged, and those 99 times are evidence for that. The one throw that isn't a six is still evidence that the dice are not rigged. Maybe that isn't good evidence or there's more evidence for the opposite claim, but it's still false to say the claim has no evidence.
Quoting charleton
Although those are heavily supported by evidence, they don't have proof, only evidence, and are therefore beliefs.
What has this got to do with anything?
I have no doubt religions exist.
I think there's a bit of confusion about this because there's a hangover from older ways of thinking about this where "monotheism" is considered to be some sort of advanced stage that nobody came up with until the Jews relatively recently, but I don't think that reflects the anthropological reality.
There's not really much substantive difference between having a carousel of gods any of which can slide to the front and "stand for" the ultimate God, and the idea of a single God with a pantheon of angels taking on a bureaucratic workload - the only difference is that the former understanding is more tolerant, and the latter less tolerant, of other religions (it's a "hardening" of the tribal position - "our tribe's stand-in for the ultimate God is the right one.").
IOW, the absence of overt monotheism in a religion doesn't mean that there isn't a reasoned appeal to some variant of an ultimate Creator in some sense.
Wiki says "with or without", Oxford 1.1 and 1.2 don't "especially" specify without.
Quoting uncool
And yet oddly, all the early scientists were believing Christians, and there are religious people all over the world today who don't think there's a contradiction between their religious belief and their science.
I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this.
And why would you need to believe in empirically observable things, like the body?
This makes no sense. Looks like you've ran out of arguments, given the evidence that I've laid out before you :)
As charleton says, there is no doubt that religion exists, however, this doesn't suddenly mean that religious doctrine is any evidence.
Notice that Newton is not known for his contributions to alchemy/religion, and in fact, if Newon did not invent things such as Calculus, and other scientific stuff, he would likely have not been well known today. (This indicates that science doesn't care about what scientists chose to believe in)
[IMG]http://i67.tinypic.com/1z4jvjq.png[/IMG]
http://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief/
Newton would probably be an atheist today, given today's statistics as seen in the capture above. (For example, Edward Witten who is alive is an atheist today and Edward is seen as someone similar to Newton in intellect.)
Yes, I know some scientists that believe in pseudoscience stuff, and one thing is clear, whenever they make scientific progress, they adhere to science, where beliefs don't matter, as long as they follow evidence.
This means that when you mention of theist scientists that express their feelings about the supposed non-contradiction of science and religion, this mention is irrelevant, because science doesn't care about beliefs.
Here's the anthropologist David Eller on tribal religions;
"Every religion does, of course, contain ideas of and about nonhuman and superhuman agencies in the universe; however, not all of these agencies are equally “agentive,” that is, not all equally have “personalities” or “minds” or “wills.” This is another reason why Tylor’s venerable definition is insufficient: not all religions have supernatural beings."
"...gods are not always particularly good or moral, nor do they always take an interest in human affairs."
I think you're clutching at straws trying to make a set of extremely disparate religious beliefs fit a model which conveniently explains the widespread adoption of monotheism in rational terms. An impartial overview of religious variety through geography and history simply doesn't support this.
yes, but...
Belief is also accepting as true regardless of the facts.
Whilst 'belief' is a marker for such a huge range of meanings it makes sense to use alternatives for "accepting as true regardless". This is a thing I like to called knowledge.
Wouldn't that just be "denial" or "confirmation bias"? Rather than belief, I mean.
Exactly. Believing empirical observations is a belief.
Quoting uncool
I never said you don't have evidence, but the evidence you mentioned is no proof. Science is not proven.
Quoting uncool
I didn't say it did.
Edit: it seems I never answered , nor did I fix or correct the comment that was an answer to, which led to some confusion - sorry, my bad. What I meant in this comment was evidence for the doctrines of religions being correct, not evidence for the existence of religions.
If by 'that' you mean belief as a wished for, no. It may have nothing whatever to do with bias.
If by 'that' you are talking about knowledge, no. There is a good body of study to nail down knowledge claims, which is distinct from belief.
No, I should have quoted this:
I was saying you were conflating "belief" with other ideas like denial and confirmation bias.
The thing about "empirical observations" is that they remain empirical, regardless of anybody's belief.
There is no "conflation" there. (Please take a look at the dictionary and or Wikipedia on belief)
Take a look yourself. Belief isn't always "regardless of the facts". It can also be "in light of limited facts". Such as when you need to make a decision given imperfect information, but your tiny brain can't calculate all possible variables and crunch the probabilities, so you act under the belief that something is probably true even though you're acknowledging it may not be.
No.
There is no confusion.
What I said was de facto correct; 'belief is used for taking as true regardless of evidence'.
e.g. I believe I am Napoleon, can be true de re simply because a person says it.
Were they to say "I know I am Napoleon", then you can challenge that claim.
You have the implication wrong way around. Taking something as true regardless of evidence is belief, but not necessarily vice versa.
Cars take petrol is true, even though cars take diesel is true.
As I said above "yes, but...
Belief is also accepting as true regardless of the facts."
FFS
I think the religious types would disagree.
And that is another reason why the abolition of belief is a good idea.
There is something that has enabled us to make progress without having access to all possible evidence.
That thing is called the scientific method, where you don't need omniscience.
We must note here that unlike the scientific method which generally promotes that we pay attention to evidence, belief permits that people can ignore evidence most of the time.
Do you now see how science contrasts belief?
Do you now see that that belief (which permits evidence ignorance most of the time) opposes scientific thinking (which does not permit evidence ignorance most of the time)?
First of all, science doesn't "contrast" belief. Science is quality control. That's all. Belief =/= religion. Belief =/= faith. Belief =/= dogma. Belief == belief. If you believe a scientific model is correct, then you have a belief. And chances are, you'll be proven wrong in the future as more evidence is discovered. If you accept the fact that you don't actually know anything and you can always be proven wrong given more evidence, then your current mental model of the universe is a "belief".
You don't need omniscience to avoid belief, you simply adopt scientific thinking, which is contrary to belief by definition. (Scientific thinking has promoted that humans are permitted to make mistakes, and continuously correct those mistakes, whereas belief tends to facilitate that old mistakes are reinforced)
Science doesn't require belief to be valid. (If science required belief, anybody could be successful all the time, just by believing in their equations or work no matter how far removed their work was from evidence, without putting in actual effort to follow evidence)
Belief permits that people mostly avoid evidence, contrary to scientific thinking which generally promotes that people be keen on evidence. (This will remain so regardless of your feelings)
Please look on Wikipedia or definitions of belief, before expressing your belief about what you feel belief means.
merriam-webster:
- conviction of the truth of some statement or the reality of some being or phenomenon especially when based on examination of evidence. belief in the validity of scientific statements
- a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing. her belief in God. a belief in democracy. I bought the table in the belief that it was an antique. contrary to popular belief (Notice it says "trust or confidence", but doesn't say "without evidence or proof")
oxforddictionaries:
- Trust, faith, or confidence in (someone or something). ‘a belief in democratic politics’
- An acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof. ‘his belief in extraterrestrial life’ (Notice it says "especially", not "exclusively".)
dictionary.cambridge:
- the feeling of being certain that something exists or is true: philosophical beliefs
collinsdictionary:
- If it is your belief that something is the case, it is your strong opinion that it is the case. Scientific models are human interpretations of empirical evidence. Peer review is a process by which other experts examine findings and are either convinced that it is true, or they are not convinced. There will be disagreement and the scientific community is often wrong. Thus, the current scientific model is the "strong opinion" of the majority of the scientific community based on the available evidence. Scientific "facts" are only facts until better facts come along.
wikipedia:
Belief is the state of mind in which a person thinks something to be the case with or without there being empirical evidence to prove that something is the case with factual certainty. (Notice it says "with or without", not "without")
Conclusion. Science doesn't replace belief. It is simply a framework for quality control.
"Belief is used" for taking as true regardless of evidence. Yes.
"Belief is" taking as true regardless of evidence. No.
Cars generally speaking are not purple. My car is purple. Therefore my car is not a car.
No, that is another reason why you think the abolition of belief not supported by evidence is a good idea.
As I said, science doesn't care about beliefs related to final causes, the kinds of causes with which religion deals, and that's why scientists can keep their religious beliefs separate from their scientific beliefs. But science pretty obviously deals with beliefs - particularly if one thinks of knowledge as JTB, or of epistemology in Bayesian terms.
Again, we're going around in circles now, I don't think either of us is going to budge.
Not sure why you think those quotes are particularly relevant to what we're talking about. My contention is simply that people aren't stupid and have usually come up with the idea of some kind of Absolute/Creator entity (even if they've had all sorts of gods, spirits, etc., some of which may indeed be mad, bad and dangerous to know). It's not rocket science, it's a rational response to the fact of there being anything at all (though of course that doesn't mean it's correct).
Quoting Pseudonym
The point is that "Monotheism" is itself a rather dubious category and Henotheism (which always has the sense of an ultimate God above gods, which any god can "stand in" for) is the norm, throughout most cultures in the world, throughout history.
"Monotheism" is just a particularly pushy and exclusive form of tribal Henotheism, so it's not actually any sort of intellectual advance. In fact it's more of a tribalistic regression that's caused no end of trouble historically. It makes for a tighter "social glue" at the cost of causing tremendous problems for other cultures with other religions.
The quotes are intended to show that the properties of 'god' and 'gods' have changed over time, not with intellectual progress, but with culture. Meaning that people do not 'rationally' arrive at 'god', they just copy what everyone else is doing and saying.
There's two significant premises which it seems we may not share, but I think are essential to any debate about belief ;
1. Belief is a proposition of some sort, it is either something one states to be the case, or something one acts as if it were the case.
2. A belief (partly just as a logical consequence of 1.) has to be in something specific enough to make statements about, or act in response to.
So, accepting these two premises, belief in 'god' is not something unchanging (or gradually being refined) as we would expect with something rationally arrived at, because in order to satisfy that theory, 'god' (the thing bring believed in) would have to be so vaguely defined that we could not properly say anyone 'believed' in him, by the definition of belief above.
Meeting the required level of specificity for someone to justifiably say they 'believed' in God, we would have to conclude that the God they believed in was derived not rationally, but by cultural conformity.
No religions that I've ever heard of propose merely that 'something' must have created the universe, and then leave it at that. In fact, most scientists think that 'something' created the universe.
Religions specify what that thing is, what it's properties are. Having a religious belief is holding a proposition not just that something created the universe, but that one has knowledge of the properties of that thing.
As I've shown, the properties of that thing have changed radically over time and culture, so religious belief (the belief in the properties of the thing) is culturally defined, and so, for most people, not rationally arrived at.
Notice also that the word belief is not a contronym, so just because one may consider evidence using belief, doesn't remove that one may for the remainder of the time, mostly ignore evidence, as the definitions (especially the primary definitions indicate)
If belief was a contronym, the concept of belief could promote that (i) people generally consider evidence and (ii) people generally ignore evidence. Both definitions would be valid, but this is not the case, belief instead promotes that one may consider evidence barely, then the rest of the time, generally ignore evidence, as belief is not a contronym.
Because contronmys are words where opposite definitions occur under the same word, since belief is not a contronym, rare belief in evidence does not oppose the reality that the large remainder of beliefs need not occur on evidence; i.e. this way you have compatibility of definitions under one instance of belief that both occur on evidence, and non-evidence.
As you can see in the definitions you cited, none of them exclude the possibility to mostly ignore evidence; all the definitions you cited included some flavor of belief that permits that evidence is especially ignored.
Science doesn't work this way, science doesn't say consider evidence barely, and otherwise ignore evidence, Science generally promotes that evidence is considered.
And remember, the word belief is not a contronym, so just because one may consider evidence using belief, doesn't remove that one may for the remainder of the time, mostly ignore evidence, as the definitions (especially the primary definitions) indicate.
https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2012/06/12/contronyms/
"Beliefs ought to be abolished" do you hold that to be a true statement? If you do, that means to you believe that statement.
It's stupid when:
you ignore that belief tends to facilitate that people generally ignore evidence.
you ignore that scientific progress doesn't care about belief; i.e. unless people follow evidence, no amount of passion or belief matters.
PS: Your words are pristine examples of beliefs found on non-evidence; from data we see belief permitting mostly that people ignore evidence.
Based on evidence, and not my feelings, belief tends to permit that people ignore evidence.
The problem is probably that people feel we must be omniscient to avoid belief, but no, in reality, science has allowed us to make mistakes, and make progress or repair mistakes as evidence is followed.
Beliefs tend to reinforce old mistakes, (because it permits general ignorance of evidence), whereas scientific thinking generally promotes evidence consideration. (so it promotes that mistakes are repaired contrary to belief)
We can trivially avoid belief by generally being keen on evidence.(which is contrary to the concept of belief which generally permits the opposite, evidence ignorance)
Note that this thread looked stupid to me too (for several days in fact), until I actually payed attention to evidence, and not my feelings or pre-conceived notions.
We ought to strive to repair our mistakes based on evidence, and not old feelings.
I cannot believe how jumpy people have let their fear of the influence of religion make them become. Utter foolishness.
Man are you serious? Being "keen on evidence" literally just means believing what the current evidence seems to indicate. This is hilarious. Evidence is a nebulous term, which people can just as easily be fallible or even stubborn about. Not everyone agrees on what some set evidence suggests, nor even on what counts as appropriate evidence for some proposition or view.
Yeah, just as belief generally prescribes, you proceed to ignore evidence that:
Science does not generally permit that evidence is ignored.
whereas
Belief generally permits that evidence is ignored.
You ought to recognize by now, that a concept which generally permits evidence ingnorance (i.e. belief) is not compatible with one built on evidence (i.e. scientific thinking)
Remember, that evidence doesn't depend on beliefs; scientific equations don't suddenly work because scientists chose to believe in them.
It doesn't work until you follow evidence, and no amount of belief or passion poured into work, affords that said thing works.
That is completely irrelevant. Scientists *believe* (meaning they hold it to be true) that some such equation is veridical. No one is proposing some causal relation between "X believes Y" and "Therefore Y is true" in virtue of being believed. This should be extremely simple.
Look at cognitive science sources in the OP, like "A cognitive account of belief." or "Memory formation and belief”, or look at dictionaries or Wikipedia.
Regardless of what you personally feel or believe, belief is something that generally permits ignorance of evidence.
Science doesn't work when people generally ignore evidence, as belief generally facilitates.
And try reading that research in the OP. It is primarily about delusions (false beliefs, as defined in the research) and belief formation. You are misguided and misrepresenting research because of some silly fear of religion.
On the contrary, I underline that belief (which generally promotes ignorance of evidence) opposes scientific thinking (which generally promotes consideration of evidence) .
The above line obtains, given evidence, and not my personal feelings or pre-conceived notions.
How quickly did you "read" one of those papers?
Here is a snippet you should consider:
"Belief evaluation, even in the absence of frank pathology, has several limitations. People tend to adopt non-optimal hypothesis-testing strategies (Evans, 1989; Gilovich, 1991; Johnson-Laird, 2006; Nickerson, 2008). People, for example, tend to seek confirmatory information that supports their belief and be overly influenced by this information, but neglect information that is critical of their belief (Nickerson, 1998, 2008). People may also use inefficient strategies that waste effort on non-diagnostic data (Fischoff and Beyth-Marom, 1983; Evans, 1989; Johnson-Laird, 2006) or focus on heuristics (Kahneman et al., 1982; Gigerenzer and Gaissmaier, 2011; Kahneman, 2011; see also Gilovich et al., 2002). Indeed, the heuristic of anchoring and adjustment, which reflects the general tendency to rely on initial judgements and discount newly obtained information, means that knowledge received after the initial judgment may be distorted to fit the original hypothesis. In support of this, there is research suggesting that beliefs may persevere even when the initial evidence for the beliefs is discredited (Ross et al., 1975, 1977; Anderson et al., 1980)"
:
I mean if you literally get rid of one of the most basic concepts in human experience I guess being ridiculous isn't a problem for you.
Don't forget this line:
"There is, for example, no philosophical consensus on what belief is."
Those are the "philosophical" descriptions referred to in the paper, which you quoted.
Experimental data on the other hand, shows that belief generally occurs such that evidence is ignored.
I will now be "keen on evidence". Oh what's that, you have some evidence which contradicts what evidence I am currently "keen on"? Well that can't be correct, I will ignore your evidence and only pay attention to the evidence which supports the evidence I am "keen on".
See what i mean? This is the stupidest semantic deception I've seen in a good while. It's literally just changing the label of what we refer to as a "belief".
Your point? Are you serious? Yes people disagree on what exactly a belief is. What does that have to do with anything? There is no philosophical consensus on what "evidence" is either, and even about how evidence "supports" the truth of some proposition. This is more absurd by the minute.
The point is that beyond the philosophical definitions which you quoted above (on which there is no concensus) there exists experimental data on the other hand, showing that belief generally occurs such that evidence is ignored.
Just as belief generally prescribes, you quickly attempted to seek ways to adhere to your prior preconceived notions, regardless of contrasting experimental data/evidence.
I already answered this and showed the shell game. Let's try again:
Quoting MindForged
People will do exactly the same thing if they are "keen on evidence" (e.g. believe) as suggested by you. This is nothing but a smokescreen and ignores that the research you quoted was about people forming beliefs irrationally (overly driven by bia.
If you constantly observe evidence, rather than only looking for data that agrees with your prior stance (as you propose above), you do what is contrary to the concept of belief.
Belief generally facilitates that people ignore evidence, while scientific thinking generally promotes the opposite.
How does that change a thing? My point is people's biases will do the exact same thing if they are "constantly observing evidence" instead of believing. The evidence motivates believing some set of conclusions, that's the whole point of bringing up evidence: it provides reason to accept (provisionally) some proposition as being true or false. It is no less immune to the manipulation of personal bias and to try and pass it off as such is so naive as to be scary.
That statement of yours is demonstrably false, because scientific thinking has been less susceptible to evidence ignorance and evidence distortion, than what belief generally facilitates.(Scientific thinking has brought technological/scientific progress, and promoted that old mistakes were and are repaired rather than being maintained regardless of contrasting evidence)
If you go back to the OP, or my exchanges with you, you may quickly notice what I underlined all along; scientific thinking generally permits evidence consideration, while belief generally permits evidence ignorance.
Remember belief generally permits that people adhere to old mistakes, and ignore contrasting evidence; i.e. belief generally facilitates that people look for data that agrees with old mistakes.
Looking at your earlier quote below, that is precisely what belief generally promotes:
Quoting MindForged
Abandoning beliefs doesn't seem so "stupid" now does it? :)
What a whopping non sequitur. That science has improved over time doesn't show that it is above exactly the bias you complained about beliefs being susceptible to. See the move from Newtonian dynamics to 20th century developments, especially qusntum mechanics.
No one is saying false beliefs should be kept, yet simultaneously, it is the height of foolishness to always abandon a belief the moment it isn't 100% certain. There a balance here you don't seem to recognize exists. Beliefs ought to be formed rationally. That's why science is rather successful, not because scientists abandoned the concept of belief.
I don't know how many times I can literally just substitute your phrase "keen on evidence" to show its being used exactly the same as belief is until you get it. Beliefs are part of science. Ask a scientist if they believe quantum mechanics is the best theory we have of the quantum world and they will say yes. Do you know why? Because a belief is just what you hold to be true or false. The fact that it can be susceptible to bias (like literally everything else humans do) is the stupidest reason to discharge a concept that is used in every field of science, mathematics, etc.
You do realize that I was using your proposal and you just agreed (umwittingly) that it was indistinguishable from belief, don't you? Your proposal is paper thin fear of religion or some other silly thing.
That scientists believe on non-evidence, does not suddenly remove that science generally facilitates that evidence is considered.
In fact, you've demonstrated that when scientists fail to prioritize evidence, they fail to make progress in a regime where evidence generally facilitates progress.
So you continue to ignore evidence.
The evidence simply states that belief does not largely facilitate that evidence is considered.
How in Bill Gates' name does something that mostly permits evidence ignorance (i.e. belief) become compatible with something that generally facilitates that evidence is generally considered (i.e. Science)?
You are unreal. It's not that they believed on "non-evidence", it's that only a fool immediately changes everything they believe at the first inkling of doubt. It was reasonable to be skeptical about new developments in physics overturning centuries of beliefs about the world that Newtonian physics gave us. It was precisely new evidence and new models which motivated *believing* that the newer theories were correct (or at least covered more cases correctly) than the old models.
I already demonstrated (from my initial exchange with you) that what I underlined contrasted your proposal; rather than seek data that agree with old mistakes, we ought to strive to seek evidence, regardless of belief.
And this was not hidden in my prior words; I clearly underlined that we ought to abandon beliefs, and seek data regardless of the need for belief.
Yeah your statement above doesn't remove that unless evidence is prioritized, no amount of belief or passion delivers results.
How am I ignoring evidence? Beliefs *don't* mostly permit ignorance, that's a vapid assertion. The whole point of evidence is that it motivates *believing* some proposition to be true or false. Evidence is *for* something, it is not an end in itself. If you can't understand that then this is a waste of time.
The obvious response is to ask "Do you believe what you're asserting?" If your answer is "no", then you're simply saying that what you're asserting is false and we can all get on with our day.
You tried to propose the following quote, to supposedly attempt to equate non-belief/keeness on evidence, with belief:
Quoting MindForged
And that was shown to contrast what I had initially mentioned, for we ought to seek data whether or not that data contrasts old mistakes.
Belief is not passion and if you cannot even understand the role of evidence in motivating believing or disbelieving some proposition, you are beyond my help. No one has said to prioritize blind belief and the fact that you think evidence is somehow immune to bias is stunning.
I'm done, I didn't think this thread could be as bad as I had assumed.
Nowhere did I state that belief was passion. (What I said was regardless of any amount of passion or belief, unless evidence is prioritized, no progress is made)
Yeah, and you constantly ignore evidence that belief generally facilitates that people ignore evidence.
Whether or not you admit it, Scientific thinking does not work that way.
Do you believe that or is it simply false? Seriously, read the research linked. It's about bad belief formation, not that the concept of belief is somehow flawed.
Evidence (regardless of anybody's opinion or feelings) shows that science generally facilitates that evidence is considered.
Refer to the sources, and see that belief generally permits ignorance of evidence.
I don't want to get drawn into a debate about it, and if you expect any further replies from me on this, then you might be disappointed. But, I'll give you a rundown of what I think in this here reply.
Although I agree that the one and the other are not the same, the whole thing is still ridiculous. It's utterly ridiculous, at face value, to call for the abolition of belief. And, in light of the argument put forward, it is a little less ridiculous, and ridiculous for different reasons. Rather than being outright stupid, as it appears on the face of it, it instead carries the consequence of being a tacit indictment of over-intellectualisation and the folly entailed by it. But then, that is to be expected, as this is a philosophy forum after all, and a philosophy forum attracts bad philosophy like nectar attracts bees.
Thought and belief are not the same, and thinking [i]about[/I] something is not the same as thinking [I]that[/I] something (is the case). However, thinking [I]that[/I] something (is the case), as it is commonly understood, has implications which makes the claim self-defeating by contradiction. This contradiction consists of an explicit denial of belief and an implicit affirmation of that same belief. That's how it is going to look, and that's how it is going to be interpreted, and the schmuck putting forward this silly position would have to expend undue effort into clarifying the semantics of it all, as I would hazard a guess has already happened over the many preceding pages of this discussion. (And don't bother quoting from a dictionary in an attempt to prove your point, because the words on the page of a dictionary won't trump my own collective experience of how the term is actually used and understood in common parlance, by real people, out there in the real world. In fact, I posit that the very reason that there is any controversy with regards to the claims under discussion in the first place is because of how the claims are typically understood, which is in turn based on how the terms in those claims are typically used and understood).
So, in light of the above analysis, my assessment is that adopting such a position would result in a lose-lose situation: a situation which could - and should - be easily avoided by not adopting such a silly position in the first place, and instead conforming with ordinary language use and the status quo commonsense thinking on the topic. My advice would be not to mistake (A) a failure to realise why the situation is as it is, for (B) a profound and novel insight which, for some reason, the rest of us have simply been missing; and, also, don't labour to construct a semantics when a use of language more closely in accordance with the ordinary understanding of the relevant terminology involved will suffice, and will be more likely to avoid failure in communication.
(Anyway, based on even a cursary glance of his profile, the original poster seems to be a troll or a crackpot, and has rightly been banned. As to which it is, I'm leaning towards the former, in which case: well-played).
Since you are talking bollocks we'll just have to leave it there.
So you agree that belief is used as taken as true regardless of evidence.
Since belief IS USED that way, that is exactly why it needs to be abolished, since we have a better more precise lexicon for taken as true BECAUSE of the evidence.
Since you are talking bollocks we'll just have to leave it there.
Personally I have rejected the use of 'belief' from my everyday speaking. If I think a thing is true then I either hold that as knowledge, or I just find myself to be more careful in the way I express such things as aspirations.
So, my personal abolition of belief has had nothing but positive effects on my thinking and communicating ideas. I take much less for granted and am more likely to examine what I think is the case.
Believing is lazy.
Sapere Aude baby.
Believe nothing.
>:O
I do not regard typing to idiots like you as "everyday speaking" obviously.
Exactly.
The OP may look like a crackpot at first glance, or several glances, but when one actually slows down and looks at evidence, one may see that the OP is not saying anything outlandish, but straightforward instead.
Perhaps there is the probability that atheists will find abolishing beliefs easier to grasp, while theists will find it harder to do so.
Some on these forums have argued for religious data as "evidence", so it may be extremely difficult for those people to grasp. The result is that what is straightforward for atheists to grasp, may seem like crack-pottery to the theist, especially when they are invested in belief systems that are tough to abandon.
No, it is outlandish, because that it is used in one particular way does not mean that it isn't or can't be used in other more acceptable ways. It's not worth going out of your way to consciously alter your vocabulary all because of a trivial semantic point based on a single definition strictly adhered to as if that were all that mattered.
Try it before you knock it.
What's the point of all this philosophy if you don't put any of it into action.
Indeed.
I not sure what the OP's critics think they are achieving here. So, commonly on such forums people seem only to keen to nit pick and attack for the sake of it without thinking it through.
On the face of it I have found this to be true in many instances. "Belief" and "Faith" are like sacred words which atheists tamper with at their peril.
"Faith", like belief, is also ubiquitous and vague, and theists like to accuse non-theists of having faith when it is more like ordinary "trust" - the sort of thing you tend to have with a doctor, who deserves it.
On the contrary, if anyone is coming across as picky, I'd say that it's you. You want me to rigidly adhere to this one particular meaning of "belief" and even go so far as to refrain from any further use of the word? I'll pass, as I believe that that's asking too much, impractical, unnecessary, and lacking good reason. I think that in the right contexts, the two terms can practically be used interchangeably, and any charitable reader would simply accept that without fuss and not quibble over semantics.
Is that all???
Urummph!!
I've been doing this for at least 18 years. I passed ten thousand posts years ago. I was probably studying philosophy when you were in nappies.
Quoting Sapientia
It's shame you have not yet learned to pay more attention in all those posts you have been writing.
See the comments I already made above.
It wasn't meant as a boast. You're the one that raised the issue. I was responding to it and providing some context. Been there, done that, this is my considered position, and I stand by it.
Quoting charleton
Seen 'em. Can you be a little more specific and a little less childish?
Childish??? LOL
When you stop using pathetic strawmen I might be more inclined to repeat myself. Until then I'll just leave it up to you to pay attention and address the points I actually made and not the ones you want me to have made.
It's not rocket science. ( ?° ?? ?°)
Belief allows us to mostly ignore evidence, (so it promotes that we only barely consider evidence sometimes, while promoting that we mostly ignore evidence)
On the contrary, scientific thinking promotes that we mostly consider evidence.
Your objection is invalid because you quoted me out of context. So where is the alleged straw man you refer to? You left out the question mark. That's why I put it there: I was seeking confirmation on whether that was what you were suggesting, as you seemed to be.
Again, you need to be more specific. I'm not even sure what you're referring to.
I had been debating for slightly longer than that, although that didn't matter when new evidence arose. (i.e. sometimes evidence or new data doesn't care about how long or how we do things before)
You ought to know that I had been a theist, and then I had been an atheist subsequently for several years while not really paying attention to the concept of belief before finally scrutinizing the concept of belief.
And note that I don't underline that all belief concerns non-evidence, but instead that the concept of belief generally permits evidence ignorance. ("Generally permits evidence ignorance", does not mean "merely permit evidence ignorance".) Regardless, we can avoid belief, by generally considering evidence, and belief by definition opposes scientific thinking, which generally promotes that evidence is considered.
Sapientia is exhibiting signs of what belief generally promotes; Sapientia is adhering to old mistakes while ignoring contrasting/valid data.
One day Sapientia may come to find that scientific evidence doesn't depend on whether he or she chooses to believe in said evidence.
Do you see that this is the whole problem, right here? I don't strictly adhere to that definition. I find a broader meaning more conducive. It's as simple as that.
The broadest meaning of belief, permits both consideration of evidence, but also, general ignorance of evidence. (And belief is not a contronym, so the general ignorance of evidence definition coincides with the alternate definitions; which may occur on evidence, however barely)
It looks like you finally caught on.
What I've been underlining, is: That belief may occur on evidence, does not remove that belief generally permits that evidence is ignored.
Not only are definitions in line with the above, but also, experimental data shows that belief mostly permits ignorance of evidence.
That has been my position from the start, so that last little dig says more about you than me.
People have been arguing that they don't contact the portion of belief that doesn't deal with evidence.
However, people fail to see that belief doesn't generally exist as that small portion they chose to follow, the broad concept includes generally ignoring evidence.
So although you may generally chose to believe based on evidence, belief is a concept that promotes consideration beyond merely evidenced based sequences, that is, it also includes largely non-evidenced sequences.
This means: That you may believe in science, does not remove that belief typically promotes that evidence is ignored; i.e. that you personally believe in science, does not change that most people believe in non-evidence.
Wow. You're quick to make assumptions about me. But I'm not going to waste my time correcting them, so I'll leave you to it. Have fun.
You're going to have to repair your own mistakes.
Anyway, see ya. You're not cool enough for the likes of me.
Data shows that the only pre-requirement for scientific progress, is that people follow evidence.
This means that regardless of belief, evidence must be constantly considered.
And, finally, if you ignore non-evidenced beliefs, you can ignore evidenced beliefs also, because scientific evidence persists regardless of beliefs, i.e. evidence based beliefs are redundant. This way one can abandon beliefs altogether.
Cheers.
That's why my username is what it is; I predicted that what I underline, may be contrary to popular expression; i.e. contrary to what is generally "cool".
It looks like you think scientific evidence depends on belief.
If that were the case the earth could viably be flat, seeing that there are people that believe that the earth is supposedly flat.
Whether or not you'd care to admit, this matter is not about "phobias", but instead evidence clearly shows that belief generally permits that people ignore evidence, and being keen on evidence or generally considering evidence is not the same thing as, and is rather opposite to generally ignoring evidence.
It's true that people are born into cultures and sets of ideas, etc,. but that doesn't mean they don't think rationally about the beliefs they've been given.
I think your position is uncharitable and you think too little of people - even if someone isn't particularly smart, that doesn't mean they haven't thought about things to whatever degree they're capable. To take a non-religious example, in my experience many philosophically untutored people I've spoken to about politics have come up with something like a social contract theory by themselves, they may not be able to articulate it crisply, but they have the general idea.