The Messiah

I think that you need to think about what you mean by 'think about'.

Philosoft

How do we visualize things or abstractions of things without prior sensory data? The implications of truly not believing that what you are sensing corresponds to reality is that all things give (probably) identical sensory returns. Unless you can suggest another way of sensing things without using senses?

Godless Dave

I have pretty good empirical evidence that I exist.

Mu

Splendid quote from the Discordian mind fuck :

"Convictions create convicts".

Can't really argue with that one. Your beliefs serve principally to limit you, in the feedback loop that is perception...Sense data is filtered through your belief system and projected back outside yourself to be experienced as stream of consciousness.

So, unless it is something so HUGE and brain dissolving that you are FORCED to create new maps and metaphors for the experience (say, "being abducted by aliens" or "George Bush making an eloquent and believable speech"), you will edit and 'artistically modify' the sense data to fit your current model.

A belief is a self fulfilling prophecy. Big up ya doubts, and light up ya snouts !

fnord

The Messiah

I think our trains of thought are begining to diverge somewhat. I was attempting to illustrate how we can act in the absence of facts (or in the example I used, in the absence of sensory returns) and this in turn means you make assumptions which means you BELIEVE something is true, conciously or unconciously. In fact it is necessary to do this in order to live, I place my cup down on the table in the firm belief that it will be there once I come back from the loo. Beliefs are like opinions which are like intestines, everyone has them.

Brahma's atheist

My original message was obviously about belief in the supernatural. There seem to be a lot of desperate arguements about belief in gravity and walking and coffee cups. Are these to distract from that the fact that your(whoever you are) beliefs in various supernatural things are ridiculous and fill some void in your life?

Philosoft

I have no idea what an 'unconscious belief' is. Doesn't believing require some kind of volition? If you haven't made an initial choice to believe the cup will remain on the table, how can you choose to believe otherwise? Really, can you describe a belief which would suppose that the cup won't still be on the table? What is the scope of that belief? Does it just cover cups and tables or does it include the laws that govern cup-table interactions? If the latter, it seems to me that such a belief would have profound effects on other interactions similarly governed, like person-floor. It's this kind of thing that makes me seriously doubt the classification of senses-actually-correspond-to-reality-ism as a belief. The counter-belief seems entirely untenable.

The Messiah

You clearly have a different definition for the word belief than the cup-tablists. What is the definition used in senses-actually-correspond-to-reality-ism? I beileve the counter-belief is believe-able because the taking-the-cup-to-do-the-washing-upists could have usurped the cup for their own ends.

[ July 10, 2002: Message edited by: The Messiah ]</p>

Keith Russell

Greetings:

An unconscious belief is one where the person who holds the belief, has never thought about the belief, why he or she holds that belief, and whether or not the belief contradicts other beliefs he or she may also hold.

I think many people form beliefs unconsciously. They see an example of a thing, and form a belief that all such things are similar to the one example they personally experienced, never thinking that they might have witnessed the exception, rather than the rule.

From my experience, most people do not ever take the time--or make the effort--to consciously examine their beliefs. I'm not even convinced that most people even know that this type of 'mental inventory' and 'editing' is possible.

Introspection isn't automatic; it is a conscious process, and one has to choose to do it.

Keith.

Philosoft

How about this one: Assent to a proposition or affirmation, or the acceptance of a fact, opinion, or assertion as real or true, without immediate personal knowledge

I can't envision a way to do this unconsciously.

<strong> Is the counter-belief simply that one's senses are wrong about the status of the cup or that one's senses are unreliable altogether?