The difference between a belief and a theory is no one was ever burned at the stake disagreeing about a theory.
In my view, beliefs are important. To me, a person is built from their beliefs.
Beliefs are mutable and can change for all sorts of reasons, at all sorts of speeds, and in all sorts of ways. They’re not permanent, but I do think they’re fundamental to the character of a person.
People do that. Like kids talking about their favorite baseball team. The same focus on things that move them to the core, while having no effect on to their life apart the place they willingly give them.
Yeah, of course they do. They literally form the cornerstone of your worldview. If you change someone’s beliefs, you change how they see the world. That sounds pretty damn big and important.
I wish I got to be as militant about my atheist beliefs as some nut jobs can be about their faith.
Not that I really want to, but must be nice sometimes just acting like everybody that doesn’t think like me is wrong
Cornerstones, my ASS. Beliefs are just goofy fiction. I believe you’re wearing fruit as a hat. Nobody gives a shit. Nobody should ever give a shit. It’s not a cornerstone of my life, it’s a fleeting nothing, based on nothing, worth nothing.
Some asshole taught you that beliefs are everything? They lied. You know what IS everything?
Fucking everything is! Matter, energy, reality, facts, - that’s what’s important. You believe you can walk on the Sun? “Fuck you” - Reality.
So what you are saying is that it is your own belief that the concept of beliefs encompasses only false beliefs.
So why are beliefs so important for ao many people then?
I mean sure, maybe it’s just indoctrination.
Or maybe it’s utility. Believing a nice scientific model or car repair manual can deliver definite advantages.
Or maybe it’s habit. I’m stuck in my head so arranging my mental furniture becomes important.
Or something else
So why are beliefs so important for ao many people then?
They’re a coping mechanism.
Reality often sucks, so how do you go about your day knowing that so many suffer so many injustices every day? Easy! Just ignore them and pretend like everyone will get what’s coming to them in the afterlife 👍
It’s the perfect system for tyrants: Think I’m a monster who abuses my power and intentionally makes people suffer? Well, if you even try to do anything about it you’re going to hell! Overthrowing an openly evil government is not what Jesus would do!
It’s the same mental gymnastics that people use when they blame minorities for their problems. It’s not me or my beliefs (about the world) that are wrong! It’s those trans furry kids and immigrant invaders who are destroying the very concept of everything I believe in!
It can also be a tool.
For example, the model for gravity is just a useful fiction. But it’s useful. And it being constantly useful like that, one becomes attached to it.
Nietzsche would be proud 🥲
Why does it get that special role of “cornerstone”.
You have a thousand things in your perspective. Sights, sounds, vibes, random thoughts… Why does belief get this special treatment?
I think by cornerstone, they are referencing that beliefs are assumptions that form one’s model of the world.
You think by logically building on assumptions. “I remember putting leftovers in the fridge last night, so I don’t need to make dinner tonight” You assume your memories are accurate (or accurate enough) and then build on other things you “know” to construct every thought.
Sights, sounds, and vibes are a different story. They are called qualia and the raw experience of them cannot be described.
Think of qualia like the raw data you collect from an experiment. Your worldview is the scientific model you’ve built to describe this data and it rests on both fundamental logic and the beliefs/theories you currently believe in.
Unfortunately people don’t like having to change their worldview. And when you’ve held a belief for long enough, it becomes foundational to many of your other assumptions. Some people would rather say reality is wrong than change their beliefs.
The word for a belief that cannot be changed via evidence is called a “delusion” in case you ever want to piss off a religious person who says “nothing can shake my faith” like it’s a good thing.
Sounds like the idea of “belief” is just being accepted as a religious or spiritual idea. Beliefs are the cornerstone because it’s a tool we use every single day.
At the center of how we think is the fundamental idea of The Way Things Work and that comes down to how we believe the physical things around us will act and react. Just about everyone will start making a choice by comparing what we know to be real or true for ourselves and the things around us.
That cornerstone of belief is what we use to define “real and true”. Ghosts or spirits are absolutely real and true for some people while others don’t see the same evidence.
Beliefs get the special treatment because we are a collection of our experiences and each one of us has a different way of understanding how things work.
Ahhh. Yes, they are thinking religion. I didn’t think they’d lunge that way. I mean, with all the politics and gender stuff around these days, I figured the term would bee seen as broader. A wider range of options.
That said. Meh. Your thesis sums to “beliefs are important because beliefs are important”.
if a belief is a model/theory/assumption that a person will not change regardless of evidence against it, it is by definition a delusion.
If a belief is an opinion, it is a personal statement. Statements like “Vim is the best IDE” are really conveying the information “I prefer Vim over all others IDEs” which is a true statement.
If a belief is a hypothesis then the person holding it will accept if it ends up being wrong.
Only in the first and second cases do people usually place importance on their beliefs, and typically, only the first case leads people to harm others or themselves with no way to convince them to stop.
To generalize it, I’d call a belief “an idea that you are attached to”. And it bears upon your more general blob of beliefs, thoughts, memories, etc accordingly. Like a constant among variables in the midst of an algorithm.
The word for established assumptions is “axioms”
Definitions are kind of the most fundamental axioms. Abstracting things helps us build with them and they’re true because you say they are.
We use axioms in models to derive new theorems/information. But that is often what makes us resist changing them. If you build your other assumptions on an axiom, you have to rethink all those assumptions or even throw them out when it gets proven wrong.
However, attachment to a belief, holding to an assumption even when it’s been proven wrong, is called “delusion” and yeah those beliefs tend to be the most destructive
Beliefs lead to actions. Actions affect others. It’s not super complicated.
Lots of things lead to actions. Feelings, habits, inertia, inspiration… Beliefs are not special in this.
Well, they are.
They define one’s view of the world, your paradigm.
That depends on the person.
You perceive a thousand things. Sights, sounds, nameless feelings… as well as beliefs.
One can be guided by any of that. And one can treat any of that as central.
Whether or not one treats one’s beliefs as centrally important appears to be a matter of preference or perspective. Or something .
Judging by all the vaguely hostile comments, you seem to have struck a chord here.
Well that’s a terrible truth.
To some people it is.
Yes and I believe this isn’t really a showerthought
So defensive. I believe that I have struck paydirt.
Defensive? Now who’s stooping to insults because someone doesn’t believe in your belief?
In the wrong community
All I know is that nobody knows shit.
If you don’t know shit you need to eat some real food!
Nonetheless we definitely get attached to certain ideas. For various reasons.
But more than that, getting attached to certain ideas (believing stuff) is widely considered to be normal, right, healthy and necessary.
So you gotta ask why that is.
You definitely assumed that the message you typed could be understood by a random stranger and be delivered through a series of wires and rocks that can think, and possibly sent over magical waves which cannot be seen. Maybe it’s all just your or my imagination.
What does that imply? I want the complete statement here.
You believe in something that you cannot see.
I’m not seeing how this illuminates that why.
Believe in yourself - if nothing else.
So you stand for nothing? You’ve no values? I mean, I guess one doesn’t need to have an ideology to be a hedonistic, consumerist pig, lol, it would get in the way!
Please, go on. You seem to be having a perfectly nice conversation with yourself here.
I mean, I assumed you didn’t believe beliefs were fundamental and important since your whole post consists of being shocked by it, lol. Don’t retreat now, silly man.
Your thesis so far consists entirely of trite accusations. You got something with more substance?
Thesis? Substance? Do you hold any beliefs, are there any value systems or ideas you appreciate greatly and by which you live by? Or don’t you? Cause if you do, then your initial post is either a bad attempt at comedy or, idk, a social faux pas? Regardless, it’s false, cause you do understand how beliefs are important. And if you don’t, then why do you care? Why did you act out when I said values and ideas get in the way of hedonism and consumerism? It’s not your case, right? That would be shameful, but whatever. And if it is, then at least admit to it the same way you ‘admitted’ not to understand the importance of beliefs, or else it’s double shameful and a certain sign of a silly man.
This asshole thinks that religions and beliefs stop people from being hedonistic, consumerist pigs. lololololol.
How do you think you pass over riches, drugs, sex, etc that you can easily acquire one way or another? You don’t cheat on your wife because of your beliefs, you don’t do coke because of your beliefs, you don’t undercut your employees because of your beliefs, etc etc. There literally isn’t any other way to curtail your hedonistic impulses (and other impulses, ofc) but to BELIEVE in something, a sentence or a group of sentences that resound within you at least, that tells you “no, it’s okay, I can hold it in cause if not I’ll regret it later”. It’s either that or, idk, locking yourself up in a room? 😅
I dunno, I’d say people do things like coke, cheat, etc, because of beliefs.
They have a belief that “it doesn’t matter”.
But yea, our beliefs, our paradigms, are what help us be better people to each other.
Hell, science is founded on the belief that the universe is rational, that “God does not play dice with the universe”.
Studying quantum mechanics makes me wonder otherwise. Nothing about it is rational. Not to say I don’t operate on a day-to-day basis that the underlying framework makes sense, what other choice do we have?
If we manage to understand pretty much everything about the universe above the quantum level, I’d consider that a great success for some bipedal primates on the 3rd rock from the Sun, looool. 😁
You brought religion into this, and your sophist insults.
Sounds like someone has a belief and is upset it’s being exposed.
who asked you?
Asked me what?
For your belief on this matter.
I did. I asked.
Fuck off.
Whoosh
