Adrian Selby

"MY DEFINITION: "to maintain a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing or event, without sufficient evidence presented to support that state or habit of mind.""

I'm interested.

What kinds of thing could be an 'event', only this is the least clear of the 3 things you state someone might be confident about?

Also with regard to this statement:

"A belief cannot be "true," just accepted as true, nor can it be considered "absolute," which is why I hold no such beliefs."

Are you stating that you hold no beliefs simply because they can only be accepted as true?

I ask because it strikes me that it is possible for someone to believe something, in your sense of the word belief, and yet despite insufficient evidence, it could actually be justified by the person, object or event. For example, a scientific hypothesis is something that the exponent can believe, i.e. to place confidence in a person or thing or event, yet have insufficient evidence. This does not automatically rule out the truth of the hypothesis at any stage, whether or not the evidence was not yet forthcoming.

Adrian

Koyaanisqatsi

Perhaps the next term to be defined around here is "weasel." Oh, no, that's right. You've defined it perfectly.

John Page

Koyaanisqatsi:

You: I hold no beliefs

Me: However saying "I hold no beliefs" is a statement of belief in of itself -

You: No, it is not. It is a statement of fact

*sigh* Please provide the "sufficient evidence", as per your own definition of belief, that you believe makes your statement "I hold no beliefs" a fact.

If you would care to share this piece of objective reality with us it might be possible to return to the thread's topic.

Cheers, John

Koyaanisqatsi

Keep in mind that I provided this definition of a "belief" for WJ in response to one of his posts as a basis to be expanded upon or detracted from.

IMO, "beliefs" are spurious and pointless and necessarily, ultimately defined by uncertainty, regardless of the perceptions of the one holding the belief.

Yes, in context. Accepting something as "true" without sufficient evidence to support the truth claim (in the context we're discussing and not simply for the sake of argument) is little more than pointless self-delusion.

Let me clarify even further: to hold the belief that a Father-Warrior Deity magically created the universe is spurious and pointless and represents little more than self-delusion.

Is that clearer now?

Justification is irrelevant as a delineating qualifier for holding a belief, since any belief can be "justified," if only to the individual.

That's why it doesn't matter whether or not a "belief" can be personally justified and is never a relevant point to make in these fora.

Again, I think that using colloquial terms in this manner serves only to confuse the issue.

A scientific hypothesis is something that can be accepted as true in order to test the hypothesis, but the contingent quality is that once the hypothesis is demonstrated to be false, the scientist no longer accepts the exponent as true.

Conversely, to hold a belief is to never dismiss it, regardless of how conclusively it has been demonstrated to be false as a necessary component to the concept.

This is why I consider "holding a belief" to be a polar opposite to the scientific method, for lack of a better term.

One is locked and dismissive (holding a belief) regardless of the evidence; the other is open and permissive (scientific method) as a result of the evidence.

Clearly, when engaging in a discussion over "what is reality," that which is locked and dismissive regardless of the evidence is an inherently worthless and blatantly counter-productive approach to the question as evidenced by all of my points regarding solipsism.

If certain basic constructs aren't accepted as true based upon the evidence (i.e., that the evidence of my writing is sufficient to establish that I exist outside of and independently of your brain) then any further discussion or deconstruction is pointless.

But that isn't necessarily the case with a hypothesis (or shouldn't be). One should have sufficient evidence to at least support the acceptance of truth of the exponent claim in order to then prove or establish that claim.

It's a fine line, I agree, and more applicable to the exponent than to the hypothesis, but, like with my comment to John about the redundancy of the phrase "completely objective," ancillary.

Agreed, and as you and I have just abundantly clarified, accepting something as true for the sake of argument or hypothesis is therefore fundamentally different than simply holding a belief, regardless of the trivial similarities in terminology.

[ June 12, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>

WJ

"Agreed, and as you and I have just abundantly clarified, accepting something as true for the sake of argument or hypothesis is therefore fundamentally different than simply holding a belief, regardless of the trivial similarities in terminology"

Does this mean there are necessary synthetic apriori's?

Walrus

Koyaanisqatsi

Once again, I do not "believe" my statement to be a fact; it is a fact. I hold no beliefs, which, according to the definition I presented to WJ means that I do not maintain a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing or event, without sufficient evidence presented to support that state or habit of mind.

Got it? When I state, "I hold no beliefs," that means, according to the definition I provided that I do not maintain a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing or event, without sufficient evidence presented to support that state or habit of mind.

It was not I that "hijacked" the topic no matter how many times either you or WJ wish to pretend is the case.

In this instance, it is you that has taken us off topic with this pointlessness.

Koyaanisqatsi

Since you have repeatedly demonstrated that you have no clue about the proper use and application of the terminology you use, clarify that question and I will address it.

This I can't wait for.

John Page

OK, where's the proof of this "fact" for the third time of asking. I'm looking for something that would pass muster as a scientific fact, "Science and Skepticism" being the forum.

WJ

John!

I don't think koy is getting it. Maybe ask him what his belief in pragmatism consists of? (Is pragmatism a belief in a "thing" like a concept or a human construct?)

(Again, I asked jenn this question about the meaning of reality but he/she thought it was a trick question.)

I still think that one has to determine what a belief is before one can state whether there is a reality. (ie, if I didn't know water could boil, how could I know the possible differences between looking at a glass of water or air?)

So, what is that belief based upon scientific eveidence? Yes I would say so. but, what if I gave you a glass of water and told you it was boiling 5 minutes ago. How would you verify the truth of that reality, for instance? You would hold a belief that what I said was either true or false.

What does a belief about reality mean? Koy has never answered the most basic question about expectation levels of his reality, before we can proceed with more definitions of a so-called objective one.

coocoocachoo!

Adrian Selby

From your post I get the impression that the defining quality of a belief is merely that it would be held despite evidence to the contrary.

"Conversely, to hold a belief is to never dismiss it, regardless of how conclusively it has been demonstrated to be false as a necessary component to the concept."

If a belief can never be shown to be false, does it stop being a belief?

For example, if I have a belief that the universe is one of many, I have placed trust in a thing or event without sufficient evidence. You seem to be arguing that such a belief is pointless and self delusional, yet if it is in fact the case that there are more universes than ours, it follows that I cannot have been deluding myself, even if I had been mocked. How can one delude oneself about something that is a fact, albeit one that may never be proved. We may never prove that a star in a galaxy exploded far from our telescopes, but if a star had, it is still a fact that it did, despite us not observing it.

To hold that there once was a star, and here I might point to a galaxy on a map, and say "there, and it exploded exactly 80 billion years ago to the day" is either true or false, and yet if it is true, I cannot have been deluding myself. At least, despite insufficient evidence, it is a belief that can never be disproved and it could marry to some fact.

If a belief cannot be demonstrated to be false, must it be meaningless? I'm not here saying cannot 'in principle'. Especially as I'm not talking about God here, which has many more problems as a thing or event than a mere star exploding, when it comes to beliefs.

Further, to address the labelling of such a belief as pointless might reflect on how you value beliefs, but it does not in and of itself deny their potential or actual status of being true, unless, again, for a belief to be a belief there must be contradictory evidence that would be denied. Until that point, I'm not sure if its a belief or not, only there is an alternative to complete contradiction, and that's complete affirmation, and either are possible with beliefs at given points in time.

"IMO, "beliefs" are spurious and pointless and necessarily, ultimately defined by uncertainty, regardless of the perceptions of the one holding the belief."

What is your opinion based on? Here, I take it you have confidence in this opinion and that confidence is based on sufficient evidence, lest it be merely a belief. What counts as sufficient evidence for being able to state that a belief is pointless? Is it merely because it would be held despite contradictory evidence, only this would then depend on contradictory evidence being available, and where there was none, but could be some, the status of the belief, or more accurately, your claims about it, have no basis.

A lack of certainty does not mean that a belief cannot marry to a fact.

"Justification is irrelevant as a delineating qualifier for holding a belief, since any belief can be "justified," if only to the individual."

With regard to this quote, could you clarify whether the belief in the star exploding, if evidence were found for it, changed it so it wasn't a belief, or would it be a belief that was justified by evidence. After all, it might not just be justification for the individual, it might be universally intersubjective justification (in this example, by all astronomers).

A final point about sufficient evidence, at what point can we be sure that we have arrived at sufficient evidence, is it only when it is logically contradictory to maintain a statement in face of the facts, if so, the question about synthetic a priori statements seems valid.

Adrian