Beliefs: how do they work?

[cj.23]

OK, following on from some comments in another thread, I am getting interested in how beliefs work. I have written a little on this before, a couple of years ago. On that occasion I was involved in a discussion on the "meme theory", which seemed to fail to me in it's basic analogy of beliefs as a virus. Here is the model I played with...

Obviously, assuming we are not solipsists, we have two basic things - External Reality and the Person experiencing that reality. The "compression" model suggests we create "mental shortcuts" or handy pieces of "mental code", that is beliefs, based upon on our experience which allow us to deal efficiently with reality. So beliefs are in fact a sort of mental map imposed on the universe, a shorthand for understanding how things work. That in itself is interesting - because obviously if you follow this model then the utility of a model is actually what matters, not its relationship to "external reality". So I suspect Dennett might argue about religion? It's provides survival/pay offs as a model, while being inherently "untrue"? The thing is that our brains are not wired for ultimate truth - they are wired for evolutionary adaptive advantage, through the process of selection.

That however immediately runs in to problems. While we might like HP Lovecraft conclude that the Universe is utterly indifferent to us, and indeed almost hostile in that indifference, and hold a somewhat nihilistic worldview (which HPL did not, seeking solace in "human level" beliefs), and assume therefore that people construct religious beliefs as a utility, many religious beliefs strike me as quite dysfunctional/survival negating at individual level. Therefore we have to shift up to kin selection (Hamilton's Rule?) but I fail to see why individual belief structures would arise at kin level. Phenotypes? Yet we have much evidence of altruism and religious structures operating at a much higher level than kin (gene) grouping -indeed many make claims about the whole of humanity - so we now have group selection? That belief structures can pass beyond ethnic and kin identity groups strikes me as quite obvious - we can have say "American Mythologies" which tie together many of the citizens of the USA, regardless of genetic diversity? Let's take a classic British line "Dulce et Decorum est, pro patria mori" - loosely, "it is right and proper to die for your country". That belief took hold in the form of jingoistic patriotism - yet wherein lies the survival value? Something odd is going on here.

I suppose if beliefs are "short cuts", or programs if you like, there is no need for them to be logically compatible with each other. That makes perfect sense - two radically opposed beliefs may both be useful in different contexts. Belief A and Belief B may be contradictory, but give a greater adaptive advantage than possion of Beliefs C & D which are mutually compatible. So we back to Athon's question about how confirmation bias arose - the answer may be simply "because it is useful, as a compressed rule for interaction with nature."

However, beliefs can and do change, as the fact we have so many converts from one belief system to another demonstrates. We all change our beliefs?

Now to return to my point I made in the other thread - Just as I see that the evidence of our senses is not actually unconditioned, but that the data has a reflexive relationship with the model (belief system) held, and that theists interpret the data reflexively, so I guess atheists interpret likewise in line with their own existing personal models. I see no reason to exclude any belief system from this filtration/interpretation process.

There is nothing new here at all - replace "sense data" with "thing in itself" or "noumena" and we are immediately in familiar territory, Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Where I would differ from Kant is I do not think that means we have to stop and call limits to reason. Our minds are capable of studying mind, including their own, so we begin by questioning every single assumption and dogma and belief we hold, and trying to understand if each is actually demonstrably true, and then by trying to falsify it and holding the conflicting position to see if that makes sense - decoding our own "mental shortcuts". This tends to render one severely uncompetitive i suspect, and quite possibly useless, but questioning every assumption has always seemed a good place to begin to me.

So what I think occurs with beliefs is that they do represent a series of "shortcuts", often expressed in language - and that those beliefs are based in evidence, but that the evidence is read through the filter of the belief system. If so, then when we "join" a recognizable belief system, we learn to interpret our experiences in the light of that system, creating a reflexive feedback loop. I think this applies to atheist members of the forum just as much as theists - the language and conceptual framework differs, but we all interpret our experience in line with beliefs, and those beliefs are then strengthened by the confirmation we are receiving.

Occasionally, the belief system breaks down through inherent contradiction, though probably not often - only when two radically opposed beliefs come to play on the same issue. Occasionally, we read or are exposed to ideas which allow us to look at the world through a different belief system, and then make a sudden shift in our viewpoint, and re-read the evidence creating new shortcuts.

I have no idea if any of this makes any coherent sense, but I thought I'd post my vague thoughts and ask opinions!

Anyone?
cj x

 

[Almo]

I think that many beliefs are held because of early installation during upbringing, regardless of any utility. Once they get started, they're hard to kill.

An example is the idea that you get colds from being outside in cold weather. If people would quit telling other people this, it would go away. This belief has no utility, yet it is remarkably persistent.

 

[athon]

While I still wait for you to explain your adherence to 13th c. scholasticism p) I'll have a shot at this.

That in itself is interesting - because obviously if you follow this model then the utility of a model is actually what matters, not its relationship to "external reality".

I guess we'd find it hard to go past Descarte's 'only one certainty' here; we can only be certain that we are undergoing the process of constructing a reality. That's it. Beyond that, we can only form conjectures which have some use in our mental model.

You are correct in suggesting that science no longer aims to describe 'external reality', as such. I think this lies more in the absurdity of the term than any change in process - it implies that reality is somehow distinct from our perceptions of it. However, reality is by its nature the process of perception. It's not like reality is a tv show we're watching - it's all part and parcel.

...many religious beliefs strike me as quite dysfunctional/survival negating at individual level. Therefore we have to shift up to kin selection (Hamilton's Rule?) but I fail to see why individual belief structures would arise at kin level.

Humans aren't an individualist species. They're collectivist to the core. We survive because of our fine-tuned social behaviours which help our genes to be passed on. Indeed, most of how our brain has evolved to work relies on our social environment more than than anything else.

As we evolved in tight-knit, familial social groups, it's of much greater advantage to develop shared community beliefs that deal with the social interplays. The individual evolution comes into it when you need your genes to 'represent' the group, and get the most benefit from the social network. The competition in this case isn't you versus other species, but rather you versus your siblings. Those genes that survive must work the best within the social network, meaning you need to be able to communicate well, read others intentions and meanings etc.

IMO, something of a knock-on from this is the way we then use this brain to interpret nature. We anthropomorphise non-human (and non-living) objects simply because our brain is so good at reading other people. We'll see faces where there aren't any, assume intentions where none can exist and feel emotions in sources where none can arise.

Phenotypes? Yet we have much evidence of altruism and religious structures operating at a much higher level than kin (gene) grouping -indeed many make claims about the whole of humanity - so we now have group selection? That belief structures can pass beyond ethnic and kin identity groups strikes me as quite obvious - we can have say "American Mythologies" which tie together many of the citizens of the USA, regardless of genetic diversity? Let's take a classic British line "Dulce et Decorum est, pro patria mori" - loosely, "it is right and proper to die for your country". That belief took hold in the form of jingoistic patriotism - yet wherein lies the survival value? Something odd is going on here.

It is indeed interesting. However, nationalistic pride is very recent, and I fear far more complex than you're alledging. Most older communities are collectivist and reflect more of a respect for familial relationships. Nationalism only arises once resources are plentiful (although I don't want to digress into a discussion on the arise of patriotism over collectivism - we'll leave that for another time).

So we need to look at collectivist ideals, where people will defend their own blood in competition over resources. Which is what we see happen.

I suppose if beliefs are "short cuts", or programs if you like, there is no need for them to be logically compatible with each other. That makes perfect sense - two radically opposed beliefs may both be useful in different contexts. Belief A and Belief B may be contradictory, but give a greater adaptive advantage than possion of Beliefs C & D which are mutually compatible. So we back to Athon's question about how confirmation bias arose - the answer may be simply "because it is useful, as a compressed rule for interaction with nature."

I've argued the same thing. We relax cognitive dissonance when we have need for both answers to be true. They both satisfy a need, even if they contradict one another. Hence why myth and religion can be such strong forces, even if they are internally inconsistent.

However, beliefs can and do change, as the fact we have so many converts from one belief system to another demonstrates. We all change our beliefs?

We change beliefs as our needs and values change. As you just accurately pointed out, we can hold two opposing values in our head at the same time because they both satisfy different needs. If our values change for some reason - either because we discover new resources or find ourselves relying on a different social group - we'll need different beliefs to deal with them.

Where I would differ from Kant is I do not think that means we have to stop and call limits to reason. *snip* This tends to render one severely uncompetitive i suspect, and quite possibly useless, but questioning every assumption has always seemed a good place to begin to me.

It depends on the environment in which you operate.

You're correct that in an environment where resources are in demand and risks are great, metacognition of any sort is detrimental. You cannot afford to be ostracised from your group, so the group's beliefs must be inherited. That's why we didn't see any metacognitive behaviour until the Greeks - a compatible social environment didn't arise until then (which is a fascinating discussion in itself).

In a social environment which embraces information which is often not dependant on coming from a culture, we need a way of 'ojectifying' beliefs. It's more worthwhile to be able to share an experience through empirical means than to rely on a shared faith, especially if you don't share that faith.

The problem with 'reason' is that on its own, it relies on what one finds to be reasonable. In a completely fictitous universe, such as within any fantasy series, there will be invented laws and rules which are internally consistent. They are 'reasonable' within this construct.

Now, such constructs are infinite. We can all invent our own, and each will be reasonable. If we share it with others and require that they also share it, without sharing any ratifying observations (or making it empirical), then we also won't have any problems. It's not very progressive in any technological sense, but if it keeps the community happy then it serves a purpose.

Unfortunately the world doesn't work that way. The only thing we all seem to share are observations of events that appear to be external to our thinking of them. Therefore reason alone cannot help us socially any more, nor can it be useful in a pragmatic sense. Reason alone becomes a useless act.

So what I think occurs with beliefs is that they do represent a series of "shortcuts", often expressed in language - and that those beliefs are based in evidence, but that the evidence is read through the filter of the belief system.

Good ol' Thomas Kuhn would agree.

If so, then when we "join" a recognizable belief system, we learn to interpret our experiences in the light of that system, creating a reflexive feedback loop. I think this applies to atheist members of the forum just as much as theists - the language and conceptual framework differs, but we all interpret our experience in line with beliefs, and those beliefs are then strengthened by the confirmation we are receiving.

I totally agree. I'm a great advocate of Kuhn's paradigm model, even if it has certain flaws.

However, have you read any Feyerabrand? You're starting to sound as if you have a little in common with his views, which (if you'll excuse the apparent slur - I don't mean any offence) I find rather ignorant of how science differs to other 'reality-describing' tools. To give you an example, Feyerabrand sees no real difference in outcome between witchcraft, mythopoeism and science.

Occasionally, the belief system breaks down through inherent contradiction, though probably not often - only when two radically opposed beliefs come to play on the same issue. Occasionally, we read or are exposed to ideas which allow us to look at the world through a different belief system, and then make a sudden shift in our viewpoint, and re-read the evidence creating new shortcuts.

Close, although this must be kept in context with the needs of the individual holding the belief. Conflicting beliefs can be held if the values for both exist at the same time.

Athon

 

[Soapy Sam]

Mental laziness.

At least, that's my belief. (YAWN!)

 

[Iconoclast08]

...However, have you read any Feyerabrand? You're starting to sound as if you have a little in common with his views, which (if you'll excuse the apparent slur - I don't mean any offence) I find rather ignorant of how science differs to other 'reality-describing' tools. To give you an example, Feyerabrand sees no real difference in outcome between witchcraft, mythopoeism and science.

Paul Feyerabend's Against Method, which was originally intended to be a discussion between he and Imre Lakatos, is a wild ride indeed. Ever read all the way through that one?

I always took him to be a provocateur and trouble-maker who reveled in stirring people up. I don't believe for a minute that he truly believed "anything goes" in the loose sense that critics point out but rather used it to convey that there is no universally applicable method in an obtuse, obnoxious way.

 

[athon]

Paul Feyerabend's Against Method, which was originally intended to be a discussion between he and Imre Lakatos, is a wild ride indeed. Ever read all the way through that one?

I read enough to find it difficult to want to continue. I could imagine poor Lakatos in that situation trying to deal with the insanity.

I always took him to be a provocateur and trouble-maker who reveled in stirring people up. I don't believe for a minute that he truly believed "anything goes" in the loose sense that critics point out but rather used it to convey that there is no universally applicable method in an obtuse, obnoxious way.

Yeah? I wish I could believe that. It would help. But sadly I really think he believes in what he says. Even if you're correct, I've met a few too many who support his brand of philosophy and who do take him at face value.

Athon

 

[cj.23]

Never read any Paul Feyerabend, though I have caught the name in discussions of Philosophy of Science. Er, Against Method? You make it sound like the Necronomicon or extreme post modern relativism, which does not appeal aty all to me - well the second doesn't, I'm all up for a bit of kinky shoggoth action - anyhows I'll order a copy as a Christmas present to myself. If it's dreadful I shall blame you all for ruining my Christmas!

cj x

 

[Iconoclast08]

Never read any Paul Feyerabend, though I have caught the name in discussions of Philosophy of Science. Er, Against Method? You make it sound like the Necronomicon or extreme post modern relativism, which does not appeal aty all to me - well the second doesn't, I'm all up for a bit of kinky shoggoth action - anyhows I'll order a copy as a Christmas present to myself. If it's dreadful I shall blame you all for ruining my Christmas! cj x

'Twill make some nice "light" bedtime reading.

Yeah? I wish I could believe that. It would help. But sadly I really think he believes in what he says. Even if you're correct, I've met a few too many who support his brand of philosophy and who do take him at face value.

You're probably right, actually. That rag of an essay he wrote, Defending Society Against Science, or whatever it was, really turned me off to reading much else by him. I guess I just tend to give people the benefit of the doubt more than I should.

Feyerabend was a deep, complex thinker who actually started out as a "raging positivist", but something got knocked loose at some point and sent him zooming to the opposite extreme.

 

[cj.23]

While I still wait for you to explain your adherence to 13th c. scholasticism p) I'll have a shot at this.

Oh yes! I'd forgotten about that, I'll have to head back and answer. (Incidentally I would not take my claims to Scholasticism too seriously! I think you have probably already guessed that though...)

I guess we'd find it hard to go past Descarte's 'only one certainty' here; we can only be certain that we are undergoing the process of constructing a reality. That's it. Beyond that, we can only form conjectures which have some use in our mental model.

You are correct in suggesting that science no longer aims to describe 'external reality', as such. I think this lies more in the absurdity of the term than any change in process - it implies that reality is somehow distinct from our perceptions of it. However, reality is by its nature the process of perception. It's not like reality is a tv show we're watching - it's all part and parcel.

If it helps I'm an Objective Instrumentalist. At first I tried to change, I hid my shameful secret from my friends, but now I'm out and proud! Jokes aside, sure agreed with above -- but what I was actually getting at was far more prosaic. Basically, regardless of the value of instrumentalism as a philosophy of Science, at the individual biological level and indeed at the species level we evolved for adaptive advantage, not for capacity to comprehend objective reality. So Instrumentlaism merely reflects a larger evolutionary imperative: the utility of a belief trumps its relation to objective truth, in that an idea which gives an adaptive advantage to an organism will be selected as that organism prospers? So my claim is really "our brains did not evolve for truth" -- but for survival.

Humans aren't an individualist species. They're collectivist to the core. We survive because of our fine-tuned social behaviours which help our genes to be passed on. Indeed, most of how our brain has evolved to work relies on our social environment more than than anything else.

Again, complete agreement. I think Dawkins might object vehemently - he would see the social environment as an epiphenomena of genetic determinism? However as it happens i think all the evidence can be read the way you suggest. Organisms and species shape their environment, so their is a reflexive relationship between the beastie and the world shaped by it, and this modifies selection?

As we evolved in tight-knit, familial social groups, it's of much greater advantage to develop shared community beliefs that deal with the social interplays. The individual evolution comes into it when you need your genes to 'represent' the group, and get the most benefit from the social network. The competition in this case isn't you versus other species, but rather you versus your siblings. Those genes that survive must work the best within the social network, meaning you need to be able to communicate well, read others intentions and meanings etc.

Right - and as you know, I think a lot of what we regard as thinking errors arose in precisely this manner, for selective advantage. The compression idea gives a quick way of expressing how this might work...

IMO, something of a knock-on from this is the way we then use this brain to interpret nature. We anthropomorphise non-human (and non-living) objects simply because our brain is so good at reading other people. We'll see faces where there aren't any, assume intentions where none can exist and feel emotions in sources where none can arise.

Makes perfect sense to me. I have often wondered why at the age of say 2-5 anthropomorphic animals feature so strongly in Children's literature - it may be just a cultural thing, but if you are right it might possibly have something to do with the child's emergent sense of identity and control over nature.

It is indeed interesting. However, nationalistic pride is very recent, and I fear far more complex than you're alledging. Most older communities are collectivist and reflect more of a respect for familial relationships. Nationalism only arises once resources are plentiful (although I don't want to digress into a discussion on the arise of patriotism over collectivism - we'll leave that for another time).

OK, we will skip this for now.

I've argued the same thing. We relax cognitive dissonance when we have need for both answers to be true. They both satisfy a need, even if they contradict one another. Hence why myth and religion can be such strong forces, even if they are internally inconsistent.

I am very wary of invoking cognitive dissonance as a) I'm not sure it's partiicularly supported by evidence - you can take the results from the experimental work and explain them exactly the same way with Personal Construct Theory and b) in the popular sense it is used today it is quite a way from the original research premise.

We change beliefs as our needs and values change. As you just accurately pointed out, we can hold two opposing values in our head at the same time because they both satisfy different needs. If our values change for some reason - either because we discover new resources or find ourselves relying on a different social group - we'll need different beliefs to deal with them.

Yep: it leads to the interesting question about why we attempt to impose some beliefs on others. It could be as simple as "Transcedental Frodoism helped me relax, cope with work and made my life better - therefore it is true, and i must impart it to Bob to improve his efficiency." So our programming spreads (like a computer virus) and in the right context such programme alterations can be helpful: but if i am right and a brain is a complex set of learned shortcut rules, then the new code might just as well conflict and lead to a mental "blue screen of death" crash -- in short the urge to help the other individual may fail, or be harmful, because they are running X,Y,Z,G and you are running X,Y,Z,H,M. Rule M is given to oyur friend, but it conflicts with rule G, or combines with rule G to have unforseen deleterious circumstances. So we may well be naturally resistant to adopting others code (scepticsm) but have an inherent urge to pas son succesful shortcuts of our own (education/proselytising?)?

Hey I need to go grab some breakfast.If I remeber I'll carry on playing with my little "model" later, and finish replying, but i don't think we disagree on much really??? (apart from the desirability of the New Aristotle that is! )

cj x

 

[athon]

If it helps I'm an Objective Instrumentalist. At first I tried to change, I hid my shameful secret from my friends, but now I'm out and proud! Jokes aside, sure agreed with above -- but what I was actually getting at was far more prosaic. Basically, regardless of the value of instrumentalism as a philosophy of Science, at the individual biological level and indeed at the species level we evolved for adaptive advantage, not for capacity to comprehend objective reality. So Instrumentlaism merely reflects a larger evolutionary imperative: the utility of a belief trumps its relation to objective truth, in that an idea which gives an adaptive advantage to an organism will be selected as that organism prospers? So my claim is really "our brains did not evolve for truth" -- but for survival.

I can't disagree there. While I don't think science is purely instrumentalist in nature (not every conjecture supported scientifically results in predictions or applications, yet I'd resist saying that they couldn't be scientific), I do think that those ideas that prove to be useful are the ones that also tend be the ones which gain the strongest belief.

Again, complete agreement. I think Dawkins might object vehemently - he would see the social environment as an epiphenomena of genetic determinism? However as it happens i think all the evidence can be read the way you suggest. Organisms and species shape their environment, so their is a reflexive relationship between the beastie and the world shaped by it, and this modifies selection?

I firmly believe so. A significant feature of our brains deals with the complexities of language. Of course, there is the argument that this structure is necessary for analysing the world (having symbolic structure for events and objects certainly helps make sense of observations), but I tend to feel this progressed out of interpersonal communication first and then adopted other applications later. That's the sense I get from much of the research on neurological development and language evolution, at least.

Makes perfect sense to me. I have often wondered why at the age of say 2-5 anthropomorphic animals feature so strongly in Children's literature - it may be just a cultural thing, but if you are right it might possibly have something to do with the child's emergent sense of identity and control over nature.

I feel that animism is our default way of dealing with nature, on account of those social tools we already possess. I feel it demands the imposing of social beliefs to overcome that sense of describing nature animistically - scientific ways of seeing the universe have to be dominant in the child's culture as they grow, or else they will retain the animistic descriptions (or at least modify them to become more akin to a religious view).

This is hard to find evidence for, let alone falsify, I admit. After all, if a child remains animistic within an animistic culture, is it because it is a default or because it is the dominant philosophy? Finding an adult who wasn't raised in any culture and asking them their philosophies is damn near impossible. Still...I feel it's a worthwhile hypothesis.

I am very wary of invoking cognitive dissonance as a) I'm not sure it's partiicularly supported by evidence - you can take the results from the experimental work and explain them exactly the same way with Personal Construct Theory and b) in the popular sense it is used today it is quite a way from the original research premise.

Hmm, I'd have to think about that, but for the purposes of this discussion I'm not sure it matters. Whether there is a natural tendency to feel discomfort with mutually exclusive ideas or whether we can simply do it, I feel our ability to believe in two things at the same time which contradict is due to their appealing to two different personal uses. One might satisfy that need to subscribe to one subculture's beliefs, which another might satisfy another's, or to our need to something to follow a logical sequence.

but if i am right and a brain is a complex set of learned shortcut rules, then the new code might just as well conflict and lead to a mental "blue screen of death" crash -- in short the urge to help the other individual may fail, or be harmful, because they are running X,Y,Z,G and you are running X,Y,Z,H,M. Rule M is given to oyur friend, but it conflicts with rule G, or combines with rule G to have unforseen deleterious circumstances. So we may well be naturally resistant to adopting others code (scepticsm) but have an inherent urge to pas son succesful shortcuts of our own (education/proselytising?)?

Careful - it's almost sounding like a memetics scheme there.

It's an interesting idea, and I can't see any inherent flaws in the concept, I admit. Maybe it's just because it doesn't conflict with any of my shortcuts....*ahem*

Athon

 

[Soapy Sam]

A lot of stuff is complicated.
Most people really are not that smart - and time is limited, especially if you only live thirty years even if you don't get eaten by a cave lion.
We believe things that seem complex because they are simpler than reality and they work well enough to get by.
Governments believe they control economies by fiddling with interest rates and money supply. Complete bollocks- but we have no idea of how to predict reality in the marketplace. (Look around, if you don't believe me!)
Nobody outside the physics community "believes in" General Relativity. Most folk don't believe in Newtonian Mechanics.
People believe in astrology, not astronomy. Too complicated.

We are lazy and stupid. We believe the minimum we can get away with and trust other people to believe the rest. Usually, it's enough.

Hedgehogs believe curling into a ball keeps you safe. That's why the roads of Britain are paved with hedgehogs.

People believe missile shields keep you safe. What are those lights coming down the road?

 

[RandFan]

I like Soapy Sam's response. Cool.

My complaint with the whole "beliefs is beliefs" meme is that there is a coherent accumulation of human knowledge and understanding that can be demonstrated in an objective way so as to increase the acceptance of that understanding by experts in their fields. Further that there is a decrease in the dissonance for scientific theories and clarity to what we might call the picture of the natural world. In other words, if we view various and seemingly disparate scientific concepts as a puzzle then the picture that the puzzle reveals is becoming more and more clear. The pieces fit and we can make predictions based on those pieces for other pieces.

Religious belief is outside of the picture. Aside from anthropological understanding (religion as a Rorschach test) religion doesn't fill in pieces of the puzzle. It doesn't advance understanding of the natural world beyond our understanding of human thought and culture and in fact is far more likely to cause dissonance and distort the puzzle.

I might not be able to rigorously defend and understand my beliefs with a high degree of certainty but I have a rational basis for those beliefs. I can't say that about religion.

I reject, for good reason, religion as belief comparative to my other beliefs.

 

[athon]

My complaint with the whole "beliefs is beliefs" meme is that there is a coherent accumulation of human knowledge and understanding that can be demonstrated in an objective way so as to increase the acceptance of that understanding by experts in their fields.

I fully agree. Yet we have to take care to understand what this means - most people accept this knowledge because it is coherent. Yet 'understand that it can be demonstrated' is an article of critical faith. I say 'critical' as it's not blind faith, but rather a form of trust that says that others who have tested the knowledge have done so according to a process that shows that knowledge to be useful. It still amounts to a form of knowledge that is inherited from others, which amounts to a belief.

I realise that 'belief' has negative connotations which equate blind trust. Yet the word still has a fundamental meaning which goes beyond that.

Further that there is a decrease in the dissonance for scientific theories and clarity to what we might call the picture of the natural world. In other words, if we view various and seemingly disparate scientific concepts as a puzzle then the picture that the puzzle reveals is becoming more and more clear. The pieces fit and we can make predictions based on those pieces for other pieces.

I've used a similar analogy in my classes. If the universe is like a painting, then science is a way of making sense out of the pixels, creating a clearer picture.

I know that people often abuse terms like 'theory' and 'belief' in order to make all speculations equal. We know damn well that there is a way to evaluate ideas for their worth, and some ideas are clearly better than others. Yet to resort to notions that some ideas therefore transcend 'beliefs' is also abusing the term.

Religious belief is outside of the picture. Aside from anthropological understanding (religion as a Rorschach test) religion doesn't fill in pieces of the puzzle. It doesn't advance understanding of the natural world beyond our understanding of human thought and culture and in fact is far more likely to cause dissonance and distort the puzzle.

Agreed. It doesn't make it useless to understand why and how people inherit beliefs from their social group, though.

I reject, for good reason, religion as belief comparative to my other beliefs.

I'm not sure where this is relevant. I don't think this thread has compared science and religion on any level other than as a collection of beliefs, which both are.

Athon

 

[RandFan]

I fully agree. Yet we have to take care to understand what this means - most people accept this knowledge because it is coherent. Yet 'understand that it can be demonstrated' is an article of critical faith. I say 'critical' as it's not blind faith, but rather a form of trust that says that others who have tested the knowledge have done so according to a process that shows that knowledge to be useful. It still amounts to a form of knowledge that is inherited from others, which amounts to a belief.

We drive our cars and operate our computers and take our medicine and take for granted that if our faith were ill founded then our world would not function the way that it does. It would be perverse to think that our cars would blow up at any moment or simply not run. Or that elevators all over the world would stop functioning. It really is more unreasonable to think that there is a conspiracy of the elite to foist falsehoods on us purposefully or ignorantly than to think that science actually works. Not perfectly but pretty damn well.

• I can assume all religion is bunk and function in the world just fine.
• I can't reasonably make the same assumptions about technology and science. To do so would be to become paranoid and would be more along the line of delusion. In other words it takes far more "faith" to assume that science and technology are bunk.

I realise that 'belief' has negative connotations which equate blind trust. Yet the word still has a fundamental meaning which goes beyond that.

Oh, I understand, I don't have a problem with the word itself so long as people don't equate beliefs based on experience and rational and objective thought with superstition.

Believing that anti-biotics will cure infections IS NOT the same as believing that 4 leaf clover or prayer will cure infections. There is a substantive difference and we need to see that. If people want to believe that 4 leaf clover will cure them I'm fine with that so long as they make an informed choice and understand that their belief is an unreasonable one.

I've used a similar analogy in my classes. If the universe is like a painting, then science is a way of making sense out of the pixels, creating a clearer picture.

I know that people often abuse terms like 'theory' and 'belief' in order to make all speculations equal. We know damn well that there is a way to evaluate ideas for their worth, and some ideas are clearly better than others. Yet to resort to notions that some ideas therefore transcend 'beliefs' is also abusing the term.

I wouldn't say that they transcend beliefs only that some beliefs are reasonable (founded) and some are not

Agreed. It doesn't make it useless to understand why and how people inherit beliefs from their social group, though.

Of course, which is why I made the point that they are are beneficial from an anthropological POV.

I'm not sure where this is relevant. I don't think this thread has compared science and religion on any level other than as a collection of beliefs, which both are.

I might have misunderstood the purpose of the OP given the other thread. I thought this thread stemmed from that one. I want to be sure that we are careful not to equate founded and reasonable beliefs with unfounded and unreasonable beliefs. The two are quite different.

I'll back off from that point then.

Thanks,

RandFan

 

[athon]

Believing that anti-biotics will cure infections IS NOT the same as believing that 4 leaf clover or prayer will cure infections. There is a substantive difference and we need to see that. If people want to believe that 4 leaf clover will cure them I'm fine with that so long as they make an informed choice and understand that their belief is an unreasonable one.

No, of course. I couldn't agree more. I have a friend who supports alternative medicine simply because she finds it morally sound to provide placebos. Fundamentally we agree on all accounts except the moral basis of whether it's ok to lie to somebody to make them feel better.

Yet I find it interesting that for all purposes, she is a damn fine scientist. Great critical thinker. Her family is heavily into CAM, and I must admit, watching her struggle with dealing with the inherited beliefs from her upbringing with her values as scientific thinker are (perversely for me, being a friend) quite fascinating.

I might have misunderstood the purpose of the OP given the other thread. I thought this thread stemmed from that one. I want to be sure that we are careful not to equate founded and reasonable beliefs with unfounded and unreasonable beliefs. The two are quite different.

Of course. You won't find an argument from me on that basis. Yet from the point of view that both are value-laden beliefs, with those values inherited from a social group, it's worthwhile addressing how both sets of beliefs are developed and how they are dealt with by individuals.

I'll back off from that point then.

No need. I appreciate your input, as always.

Athon

 

[cj.23]

I like Soapy Sam's response. Cool.

Agreed.

My complaint with the whole "beliefs is beliefs" meme is that there is a coherent accumulation of human knowledge and understanding that can be demonstrated in an objective way so as to increase the acceptance of that understanding by experts in their fields. Further that there is a decrease in the dissonance for scientific theories and clarity to what we might call the picture of the natural world. In other words, if we view various and seemingly disparate scientific concepts as a puzzle then the picture that the puzzle reveals is becoming more and more clear. The pieces fit and we can make predictions based on those pieces for other pieces.

I don't believe "beliefs are beliefs", lest that is not clear. Well actually it is probably not, because on another level I do believe "beliefs are beliefs".

Firstly, I suspect as I have outlined above that all beliefs are processed in the same way, and act in the same way. I have suggested a model of how beliefs might work, and made a few vague intuitive suggestions which may be testable somehow. I've thought of a further refinement, but I'll leave that for now. Athon, has anyone else who actually knows what they are talking about developed a similar model? Anyway I believe all beliefs belong to the set "beliefs". There is at this level no reason to differentiate between a belief in Bigfoot being an FBI Superagent, and a belief in the Third Law of Thermodynamics. Both are beliefs: the category itself is content neutral. Belief in this sense is just a description of a type of "thing" which can populate human minds.

This is incidentally true of the proposed memes. Meme theorists often become very indignant when I discuss the addition, subtraction, multiplication and division memes. Yes of course they are more useful than the Bigfoot meme - and they are as I would predict more prevalent - but the fact a meme is respectable does not make it less a meme, any more than the fact Einstien and a serial killer both being humans makes them somehow equivalent morally.

So: Entity N may be a member of Set R without being functionally equivalent to all other members. A set of all washing machines will include washing machines that are high performance models, clothes destroying models, and ones that don't work at all. They are all washing machines. Ditto beliefs. The set of ll beliefs held by person X will contain some which are highly logically demonstrable, some which are subjective and personal, and some which are way out and wacky, and possibly harmful. These different types of beliefs can all exist in the same person. The beliefs are all beliefs: but all beliefs are not equal. They share the label belief because they are processed and dealt with in the same manner, because they share a methodology, because they share a quality of being beliefs. Nothing more, nothing less.

SO I am NOT saying all beliefs are equal. If I did after all there would be little point in my attempting to defend, critique, analyse or promote beliefs. I certainly would not work in education, or argue on forums. It would be an utter waste of time. We can still test a belief in two critical ways

i) with reference to external reality: does it pass tests which promote a high level of confidence in its objective truth?

ii) with reference to utility, in allowing its host organism to be a highly successful member of our species?

Both are employed, but as I have argued, evolution favours category ii over category i. An idea which may or may not be true, or even that may be demonstrably false may suceed, replicate if you like and thrive in the correct social or physical environment, regardles sof failing in category i. Scepticism sadly does not necessarily equate to adaptive advantage: even worse neither does objective truth.

Religious belief is outside of the picture. Aside from anthropological understanding (religion as a Rorschach test) religion doesn't fill in pieces of the puzzle. It doesn't advance understanding of the natural world beyond our understanding of human thought and culture and in fact is far more likely to cause dissonance and distort the puzzle.

Well I regard religious beliefs as exactly like any other belief. I think here you are making a qualitative distinction about the value content of the belief - the value of the washing machine: it still remains a washing machine, t use my example above. I suspect that even if religion can not be demonstrated to meet criteria i, that is to have objective proof with reference to an external utility, for religious beliefs to work at all and propagate they must possess option ii, utility. This could get very complex, and my refinement of my model will hopefully clarify m thinking here, but I suspect a major issue may be the divide you make between human culture and thought and the natural world, which to me is a curious distinction. I regard New York City, an operetta or say our current economics models as inherently natural and part of nature, as natural as a beaver's dam or an ant colony f'r instance. I'll explain my thinking here later if it is of any interest to anyone, but i am painfully aware that I am inherently tedious!

I might not be able to rigorously defend and understand my beliefs with a high degree of certainty but I have a rational basis for those beliefs. I can't say that about religion.

I disagree. I think you do defend your beliefs ably and rationally with a high degree of understanding from what I have seen: we share an inherent pragmatism in dealing with reality that many people appear to me to lack. We both agree that what works is more important to us than than metaphysics or these conversations - the urge to eat, sleep and deal with our fellows can exist independently of any metaphysical framework. We both stress action over "belief" in that sense. Perhaps surprisingly Randfan based on what I have seen of your writing on the forum I feel a strong affinity for your essentially functionalist worldview. Obviously we disagree on much - but there is also much agreement, as my "sermons" i posted a while back may show.

However you imply rationality is not a property of the religious argument. on the contrary, I think one can make a perfectly rational case for say theism or atheism, because rationality is a property of an arghument, not a conclusion. The reasoning can be completely sound but mistaken, unless we possess all relevant evidence, as the history of say science demonstrates. I don't think religious people or atheists are rational - I think individual arguments made by each may or may not be rational, in that they are logically internally consistent. An argument can be completely rational and yet completely wrong, if the premises are incorrect.

I reject, for good reason, religion as belief comparative to my other beliefs.

Yes, but you make a qualitative judgement here, based on certain other premises. Hey we can talk about this later. I'd better go do some work. Interesting as always

cj x

 

[Dancing David]

There are a number of things we label as beliefs. The theories, stereotypes and projections we make about the behavior of things.

Then there are also the ones about 'how you know what you know', memory and perception sort of stuff. So then we have abberant beliefs or beliefs not shared by others : delusions. the people who have delusions have thos memories and memories of perceptions and they are very valid for them, not the 'president is stupid' sort of beliefs but the ' I saw the sun rise in the west' sort of beliefs.

 

[cj.23]

I fully agree. Yet we have to take care to understand what this means - most people accept this knowledge because it is coherent.

I think this is a key point. My readings of medieval theology (back to the scholastics!) demonstrates a massively internally consistent internally coherent mode of thought and knowledge. Ditto my reading of Aristotleian Philosophy. Hell I could probably create a coherent Empedoclean philosophy, to grab one example at random. Yet clearly I favour modern sciences reading of reality to those of Aristotle or say Anselm, or to give a better example of a systematic thinker, Aquinas. As I suggested before, I think rationality is the property of an argument not the arguer - so Aquinan theology is almost mahematically logically coherentin many ways, if one accepts the premises.

Often one can change a paradign to incorporate new data, and find logical ways to amend it. Yet if, as i think is the case, Aristotles or Aquinas basic premises were flawed, the whole structure while internally coherent remains flawed. A better paradigm often to me seems to arise from a reexamination of the premises, rather than the data, but I could be talking bilge. I often do. Is this waht happened with General Relativity? I am reasonably aware of the 1909 revolution in Cosmology, but I lack the real knowledge to work this example through... Coherence however can be illusory.

Do I therefore believe that science is flawed, and we should only take in to account revisions that make us reexamine the model wholesale? Of course not! However, I dod think that such revolutions which allow us to interpret the data in a new light could occur. The functional utility of the paradigm we have does not preclude it not being an accurate depiction of ultimate reality -- yet the increasing coherence and logical realtionship inside our paradigm does mean that we should and must invest a very high degree of confidence in it.

In short my attitude to our science is much like my attitude to my religious beliefs -- I invest a great degree of confidence in them, because of their explanatory and predictive utility (and I must get back to another thread sometime soon where i need to actually discuss my religious beliefs in this light), but I remain open to anomalies in the current model showing revision is required. Coherence is not (given partial data) necessarily equal to truth, sadly, though I believ it is a very strong indicator of such. The history of science is the history of successive models refinement and increasing utility, but also a serach for improved coherence. We are making huge progress, and to oppose modern science as potentially flawed is frankly ludicrous, especially given everyone accepts that our science is a working provisional model. Sadly many non-theologians in the faith and without fail to undertsand theology is equally provisional!

Yet 'understand that it can be demonstrated' is an article of critical faith. I say 'critical' as it's not blind faith, but rather a form of trust that says that others who have tested the knowledge have done so according to a process that shows that knowledge to be useful. It still amounts to a form of knowledge that is inherited from others, which amounts to a belief.

Agreed. I happen to believe it is a belief in which we can invest a VERY high level of confidence, because of the nature of the scientific method and scientific community. All beliefs are beliefs, but not all beliefs are equal. The post modernist idea that all beliefs are somehow equally valid, and yes I am aware that is a painful misrepresentation of the best po-mo thinking, is clearly ********.

I realise that 'belief' has negative connotations which equate blind trust. Yet the word still has a fundamental meaning which goes beyond that.

Yep: I'm using belief here ot describe a type of phenomena that exists in mind: the level of confidence ascribed to that belief is a different matter. It's actually why I fear uncritical dogmatism more than I fear the actual beliefs. A belief only becomes dangerous when it causes actions, otherwise it is irrelevant. A belief held irrespective of evidence and uncritically, or a belief which somehow trumps all other beliefs as invested with a special authority is the dangerous part, and the hallmark of fundamentalists, religious or secular.

I've used a similar analogy in my classes. If the universe is like a painting, then science is a way of making sense out of the pixels, creating a clearer picture.

I like the analogy. It's also worth noting one can go further, and often make predictiosn about other parts of the picture, or create new parts of the picture. Science is inherently fuctional - combined with economics it provides technology and understanding. I am a huge fan of science in case you have not guessed -- there does appear to be a suspicion sometimes that religious folks and third rate ghosthunters like me are opposed to science in some way.

I know that people often abuse terms like 'theory' and 'belief' in order to make all speculations equal. We know damn well that there is a way to evaluate ideas for their worth, and some ideas are clearly better than others. Yet to resort to notions that some ideas therefore transcend 'beliefs' is also abusing the term.

Agreed, and i wish I had read this before replying to Randfan, as it is considerably more elegant than my formulation of the same point.

Religious belief is outside of the picture. Aside from anthropological understanding (religion as a Rorschach test) religion doesn't fill in pieces of the puzzle. It doesn't advance understanding of the natural world beyond our understanding of human thought and culture and in fact is far more likely to cause dissonance and distort the puzzle.

Agreed. It doesn't make it useless to understand why and how people inherit beliefs from their social group, though.

Here we disagree: apart from my inclusion of human culture as a part of nature, I also believe religious beliefs can have predictive and utilitarian value. The argument that religion, which uses supernatural premises does not fot in with science is sound, but it strikes me as an artefact of the basic (sensible) scientific premise of methodological naturalism. If you exclude teleology and supernatural imoacts upon nature by default from a bosy of knowledge, and predicate rationality, materilaim and internal physical causality, it is unsurprising if your science excldes the possibilities of deities - it is written in to the assumprions after all... The science still works just fine: but you won't find a scientific demosntration of a metaphysical truth, anymore than you will find a scientific cause for the outbreak of the American Civil War or asaination of JFK. hose events still had natural causes through. Much of this will depend on wher eone draws the limits of scince, but history clearly si abody of knowledge for example which stands outside Popperian science - something I frequently think causes issues here, or when say Dawkins suggest the evidence in the New Testament for the Resurrection s a scientific question. Science within the usual frameworks is a valid, useful and very productive way of knowing -- but not the only way.

Anyway, I really should go work. Apologie sif talking rot, I often do. It's a human thing.

cj x

 

[cj.23]

I think that many beliefs are held because of early installation during upbringing, regardless of any utility. Once they get started, they're hard to kill.

An example is the idea that you get colds from being outside in cold weather. If people would quit telling other people this, it would go away. This belief has no utility, yet it is remarkably persistent.

Back in my medical days I actually thought it would be fun to test this. The survival of the notion struck me as peculiar. My grandmother was always telling me "you'll freeze and catch your death, cos you left your coat behind" (well not in those words - that was Bowie from the song Time. )

Actually, I think it does work. We need to think it through though....

1. The cold virus is likely to be dormant or less active in winter at sub-zero temperatures?
2. Yet people still get colds in winter, and cold weather does appear at the anecdotal level to be related to the common cold.

So why?

Well, what if we are constantly esposed to cold viruses? Then we might expect that given equal exposure, we would all be ill equally across the climatic variation of the year.

Except: our immune systems might vary. We might be equally exposed, but more susceptible if the immune system was depressed.

So does immune resistance vary with body temperature? Makes no sense, as our internal body temperature remains relatively static? However, what if variation in exposure to external temperature conditions leads to physiological shifts in the immune system? If so, going from a war environment to a veyr cold one or vice versa MIGHT actually depress our immune system resistance, even for only a few minutes -- allowing a window for the cold virus to take effect in the host.

Logically then in an English winter going from a hot room to a freezing cold night could lead to an increase in cold infections by temporary immuno-suppresion, and as the virus despite the cold consitions which are less than optimum for replication is then more common, colds increase. It would be exposure to rapidly varying temperatures rather than the cold itself which would lead to the illness.

An obvious objection: then we would expect to see more of all viruses in times when people pass from very warm environments so to very cold ones -- but we may well do so, it is just that the highly infectious and environmentally prevalent common cold would appear more than say measles, allowing for the folk belief to arise from actual observations.

Of course this is probably rot -- I know nothing worth knowing bout the subject, just speculating. FLS is your person here, she probably has hard data, or someone active in epidemiology if we have such a poster. Logically however i think my hypothesis may be worth testing?

cj x

 

[cj.23]

I just spent thirty seconds googling and discovered that while no one seems to have come up with my hypothesis above, which at least is consistent with the idea of homeostasis I think, respiratory tract infections are in fact statistically associated with cold weather,
http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0954611108003429
Suggesting that the idea they are not which we have all heard may be a false "debunk" of popular belief, a sceptical myth. Of course the idea is contrary to common sense at first glance, but I think the mechanism I propose can at least be tested, at least in theory, and meets with the data. Anyone think of a way of testing it? I very much doubt my reasoning constitutes a useful breakthrough, but it does at least have the benefit of making some sense?

cj x