excreationist

Gurdur:
Hiya Excreationist,

Just come back from a Terry Pratchett convention - if you haven't read any of his books you should most certainly read them - they're very applicable to this debate, since Pratchett explores this concept among others in his novels (plus it's fun to get drunk with him and other fans).
Hi man. I don't really read fiction books... unless it's a Mad magazine or something... I think there's a Terry Pratchett cartoon video at my library that I'll probably check out... I get distracted or bored very easily though...

People do choose beliefs - take a look at the people who first of all choose to belong to a certain group, then gradually adopt all the beliefs espoused by that group, for various reasons.
I don't know about that... I think the reason they'd join the group is probably because they agreed with some of what that group believed in... and then the rest just made sense... I think ordinary people can choose to believe in something to some degree - e.g. they can choose to have more pessimist or optimist beliefs than they usually though... but this isn't really about going against what they genuinely believe.

Another wee thing to keep in mind is the difference between what people believe, and what they think they believe.
I think one involves more primal childish-type desires and the other involves a desire to conform or be civilized... kind of like the id and the super-ego...

Anyway, since I've noticed an ideological drive towards the (albeit atheist) fundy determinist position preaching from some posters here, as well as this new stance that somehow beliefs "cannot be chosen", I will be doing this as a new thread later for you, in addition to two others I promised you (nope, haven't forgotten, just slow).
Don't be too concerned about it... I've got some other threads that I am way behind in...
What I'm saying about beliefs is that I don't think ordinary (non-hypnotized, mentally well) people can adopt arbitrary genuine beliefs.
By that I mean just being able to switch on a genuinely strong belief in something in which you have no justification for believing.

WJ

Ex!

I'm afraid your answers are not enough to *explain* the existence of self-awareness and intellect otherwise known as consciousness. Nor did I find that you explained such nature of why we posses certain forms of intellect when it confers no *biological* advantages for survival.

You've, rather, *described* possible reasons for human behaviour and associated characteristics, but do you not see that you've left out the ultimate *explainations* of such existence in terms of the *why's*?

Again, covering old ground, there is no biological advantage to knowing the laws of gravity in order to dodge falling objects!

Now, you mentioned sentience is learnt. I find this extreamly puzzling (to say the least) in the face of conscious existence. The fact that we naturally wonder about our existence directly suggests sentience is the cause to our being curious. We *feel* the need, thru our emotions, to find possible explainations to our existence in the world in some way shape or form. Whether it is thru ethics, science, humanities and so on, the need is inescapable and relates to a sense of purpose in life. Which in turn, relates back to certain 'innate' needs viz. consciousness.

In short, and to answer your question, the will to believe comes before making decisions about what to believe and/or what is (considered by an individual) appropriate to believe. As Kant would say; questions like what 'shall I do' and 'what can I know' are 'innate' to the human experience and existence.

If you had no sense of purpose or need, what would happen...

Any thoughts?

Walrus

[ August 21, 2002: Message edited by: WJ ]</p>

Keith Russell

Jamie said:
My opinion, as expressed in other threads, is beliefs are not chosen. We can choose to do or not do things that have impact on our beliefs, but the beliefs themselves are conclusions we come to base on observations and experience.

Jamie, it seems that you are saying that people are rational. Some are, but others clearly are not. From your statement, above, it seems that you are unaware that quite a few people are not rational to any significant degree.

Jamie: The excellent example from a previous thread (forgive me for not looking up who posted it - my apologies to that poster as well for stealing it):

Can you choose, right now, to believe in Santa Claus?

Yes, I could, but I have another choice already in place which overrides the possibility of choosing to believe in Santa. I have chosen to be rational.

Jamie: Can you choose, right now, to believe in fairies and elves?

I could, but I don't. Yet, I know people who do choose to believe in fairies and elves, even though they have absolutely no evidence that such things exist. They believe in the face of an utter lack of such evidence, because they choose to.

Jamie:
If you believed in Santa at one time, did you choose to stop? Or did your belief change because of evidence you discovered that made you believe differently?

[b]I never believed in Santa.

Jamie:
We believe those propositions which make sense to us based on the knowledge of the world that we have. We cannot choose to have something make sense to us. It either does, or it doesn't.

Again, it seems that you believe that all people are fully rational. They clearly are not. Many people choose a religious belief in spite of the fact that it makes no sense. They believe because they want to, not because of any knowledge of the world--not because of evidence, and certainly not because of any rational assessment of same.

Keith.

Gurdur

Actually, I could, were I so to desire; and in fact to some tiny degree I do every time I willingly suspend disbelief for the sake of a good read of a work of fiction, or some great musical lyrics.

Furthermore, this by-now-standard-cliché argument "Could you now believe in elves/Santa Claus/responsible, well-versed-in-history deep-thinking and deeply humanitarian Libertarians?" is getting terribly stale; it's simply a strawman caricature, a rhetorical and greatly exaggerated statement that completely ignores all the interesting discussions and research on the nature of beliefs and their construction.
Keith, coould you possibly use the "quote" function, or at least make your posts a little clearer to distinguish between your own words and those of others ?
Your post above is somewhat difficult to parse.

As to your statement above, it's wrong.
Dead wrong.

We can adjust beliefs around a central statement / premise; that is, where there is a clash between beliefs, often something is simply altered for the sake of cognitive assonance (or should that be consonace ?).
People do constantly alter their beliefs, and adopt beliefs that at first blush make no sense to them, simply for the sake of (just one example) group/clique membership.

Two legs bad, four legs good !
(from Animal Farm)

Mad Kally

You can't be serious.

excreationist

Gurdur:
People do constantly alter their beliefs, and adopt beliefs that at first blush make no sense to them, simply for the sake of (just one example) group/clique membership.
Of course people can alter their beliefs.... the question is whether they can choose to genuinely believe in things which they have no compelling reason to. As far as the group thing goes, perhaps they think to themselves "I don't quite understand the reasons for this belief yet, but since I've decided that this group is right in other areas, they are probably right about this too".

"Can you choose, right now, to believe in fairies and elves?"
Actually, I could, were I so to desire;
Perhaps you mean "I could genuinely believe in fairies and elves, if I had a compelling enough reason to..."

and in fact to some tiny degree I do every time I willingly suspend disbelief for the sake of a good read of a work of fiction, or some great musical lyrics.
In those examples you are just believing in their existence within hypothetical alternate realities... but I'm talking about whether you can genuinely believe in fairies and elves in this current everyday reality.

Furthermore, this by-now-standard-cliché argument "Could you now believe in elves/Santa Claus/responsible, well-versed-in-history deep-thinking and deeply humanitarian Libertarians?" is getting terribly stale; it's simply a strawman caricature, a rhetorical and greatly exaggerated statement that completely ignores all the interesting discussions and research on the nature of beliefs and their construction.
I think it's a good example to see whether we can choose to genuinely believe in things for which we have no other reason to believe... in the case of fairies and elves, other people don't really believe in them, so we don't even have that as a piece of evidence that they exist. So basically there is little evidence, including evidence based on trusting someone else's testimony that fairies and elves exist... so that's why the example is arbitrary.

Gurdur

Actually, in my own experience, people can choose to genuinely believe in things which they have no compelling reason not to believe in, i.e. people can choose to genuinely believe in things which they have no compelling reason to disbelieve, a vital difference.

The more remote and distant the actual pressing consequences of any particular belief in practical terms are, the easier many people find it to accept it or drop it.

Yes, this also commonly happens, but my point still stands that many people accept beliefs solely as group-membership markers.
I.e., the actual beliefs have little importance to them either way for the sake of the actual beliefs, often.

And so was I.
Your induction that I was talking about "just believing in their existence within hypothetical alternate realities" is simply wrong.

See my point regarding the absence of disbelief above.

The AntiChris

It seems to me that if we are unable to choose our beliefs, then:

All atheists must be blessed with perfect rationality and all theists must be cursed with imperfect rationality.

I think Gurdur's spot on.

Chris

RogerLeeCooke

I was surprised to find so many people defending the view that beliefs can be chosen, so I picked your post to respond to. If we simply accept at face value the claims of people to believe some of the outlandish things they do believe, such as abductions by aliens, we do have a problem of explaining (to ourselves) how they came to be so deluded. That's hard, because you can't really get inside someone else's head. However, I see two ways of explaining it. In the case of believers in astrology, dowsing, ghosts, and other paranormal claims (some of whom I know and like and who are very intelligent) I think they probably weigh the evidence differently from me. I'm more inclined to hypothesize observational errors in the reporting of the evidence than they are. Naturally we come to different conclusions.

In the case of theological beliefs, where there isn't any evidence at all, I tend to think that the belief is not as firm as the claimant implies, that deep down inside there is a lot of nagging doubt, suppressed in the name of harmony with one's own mortality and one's peer group.

excreationist

Gurdur:
Actually, in my own experience, people can choose to genuinely believe in things which they have no compelling reason not to believe in, i.e. people can choose to genuinely believe in things which they have no compelling reason to disbelieve, a vital difference.
I agree. But as I said, "the question is whether they can choose to genuinely believe in things which they have no compelling reason to." (this includes emotional reasons)

The more remote and distant the actual pressing consequences of any particular belief in practical terms are, the easier many people find it to accept it or drop it.
I agree. Maybe the consequences of having a belief in fairies and elves isn't very serious so perhaps it should be easier to adopt...

Yes, this also commonly happens, but my point still stands that many people accept beliefs solely as group-membership markers.
I.e., the actual beliefs have little importance to them either way for the sake of the actual beliefs, often.
They trust the group's dogma... perhaps they want to feel secure about things so that's why they don't want to question the dogma... when you question someone's statements it can make you feel apart from them rather than being as one. So basically they aren't allowing themselves to fully scrutinize the group's dogma for emotional reasons... they would want to belong and not be an outsider...
It comes down to how much it means to them to be a part of the group... if they are more individualistic I think they'd question the group's beliefs more...

I guess people choose beliefs... I'd call this "blind faith".

In those examples you are just believing in their existence within hypothetical alternate realities... but I'm talking about whether you can genuinely believe in fairies and elves in this current everyday reality.
-------------------------------
And so was I.
Your induction that I was talking about "just believing in their existence within hypothetical alternate realities" is simply wrong.
Ok I agree with your statement
"and in fact to some tiny degree I do every time I willingly suspend disbelief for the sake of a good read of a work of fiction, or some great musical lyrics" (emphasis added)

***

The AntiChris:
It seems to me that if we are unable to choose our beliefs, then:
All atheists must be blessed with perfect rationality and all theists must be cursed with imperfect rationality.

Well as I said just before, I think now people can choose beliefs that have next to no evidence - this could be called "blind faith" or "wishful thinking"... though I think these are still motivated by emotional reasons... I think everything we do is motivated by an emotional desire...
Atheists could have stubborn faith in lots of other areas, such as politics or something. Christians might be very logical in other areas but just believe in the afterlife because it sounds good and they might dismiss materialist explanations for spiritual experiences because they see materialism as being too bleak. So basically they don't seriously evaluate the alternatives because of the perceived consequences of those beliefs.

Hmmm... so I'm sometimes agreeing and sometimes disagreeing with the thread's title... I guess it depends on how I look at it...

[ August 21, 2002: Message edited by: excreationist ]</p>