What is belief?

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creativesoul
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Re: What is belief?

Post by creativesoul »

At the moment, I'm observing God...
creativesoul
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Re: What is belief?

Post by creativesoul »

Walker wrote:
What do you think about belief?
Belief is an element of knowledge(JTB). Everyone holds belief. A statement is a statement of belief(assuming sincerity). Belief presupposes truth. Thus, statements presuppose truth. Statements report belief.
Walker
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Re: What is belief?

Post by Walker »

creativesoul wrote:Observation by recollection...
With attention thus on memory the present goes unnoticed and then becomes a future, fabricated memory to hold attention within an ignored future present moment. The snake thus swallows its own considerable tale to a dimensionless point, a figurative pre-big-bang with similar implications.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GezIBBJkhME
creativesoul
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Re: What is belief?

Post by creativesoul »

Walker wrote:
creativesoul wrote:Observation by recollection...
With attention thus on memory the present goes unnoticed and then becomes a future, fabricated memory to hold attention within an ignored future present moment. The snake thus swallows its own considerable tale to a dimensionless point, a figurative pre-big-bang with similar implications.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GezIBBJkhME
Flowery babble that mistakenly presupposes one cannot do both, recollect something now and in the future... accurately. Moreover, none of this twaddle is germane to the fact that you've called recognition(recollection, mulling over thoughts) observation, in a futile attempt to save your physicalist/observationalist construct.
A Human
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Re: What is belief?

Post by A Human »

Walker wrote:Some folks steer clear of belief, saying it’s a filter that influences perception of reality.

Some say different.

“What you are is a belief; if you let one belief go, you must replace it with another; otherwise, you will drop dead. I am telling you, a clinical death will occur. It is not the near death experience of those ‘near death’ scoundrels.”
- U.G. Krishnamurti

What do you think about belief?
Beliefs do not actually exist. They're just metaphors for 'x causes y which means z' which is a useful shortcut for our neurology but not actually representing reality.
A Human
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Re: What is belief?

Post by A Human »

Terrapin Station wrote:That everyone has a large amount of beliefs, and hopefully, most of them are supported by rational arguments and/or empirical evidence, even if it's just rational argumentation of empirical evidence of practical/instrumental utility.
How do you know that everyone has a large amount of beliefs Terrapin Station, how many do I have?
A Human
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Re: What is belief?

Post by A Human »

Dubious wrote:
A_Seagull wrote:Beliefs are the basis for decisions and subsequently, actions.
A good way of putting it. Beliefs supply the motives for almost all decisions and actions. If not true what else might its underpinnings be?
So, if a mouse acts and eats some cheese then it that a result of a belief on part of the mouse?
A Human
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Re: What is belief?

Post by A Human »

Walker wrote:Some folks steer clear of belief, saying it’s a filter that influences perception of reality.

Some say different.
If they steer clear of belief, that exposes a belief about beliefs which filters as well.

(wtf with moderation time delays, this isn't 1983)
A Human
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Re: What is belief?

Post by A Human »

wirius wrote:A belief is an assertion of reality. Whether that belief is rational, or actually is real, is a question of knowledge.

Every statement, sentence, is a claim to knowledge about reality.

As an example, your first sentence asserts that beliefs exist, assertions exist, reality exists.

It's recursive when you talk about it as you are.
A Human
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Re: What is belief?

Post by A Human »

ken wrote:
Walker wrote:Some folks steer clear of belief, saying it’s a filter that influences perception of reality.

Some say different.

“What you are is a belief; if you let one belief go, you must replace it with another; otherwise, you will drop dead. I am telling you, a clinical death will occur. It is not the near death experience of those ‘near death’ scoundrels.”
- U.G. Krishnamurti

What do you think about belief?
I think belief is one reason why most people can not see Reality, yet. Letting go of beliefs un-covers the Truth.
Yes, putting those filters aside allows people to perceive much more clearly.

(if this message passes the time delayed moderation filter lol that proves this point quite accurately)
Londoner
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Re: What is belief?

Post by Londoner »

A Human wrote:
wirius wrote:A belief is an assertion of reality. Whether that belief is rational, or actually is real, is a question of knowledge.
Every statement, sentence, is a claim to knowledge about reality.

As an example, your first sentence asserts that beliefs exist, assertions exist, reality exists.

It's recursive when you talk about it as you are.
Some sentences are not claims to knowledge about reality; questions for example. Another would be ones concerning logical relations, or the meaning of words.

What is doubtful is if any sentences are purely assertions about reality. For one thing, no word directly corresponds to a piece of reality, it always does more than simply name it. To take one example; 'That is a table' is only comprehensible if we already have the idea of general categories,in this case 'table-ness', which we cannot get from any individual table.

Also, every claim hangs on other claims. 'That is a table' assumes that my sense are reliable enough to be trusted, that I am not dreaming and so on, and that tables have a permanence (it will remain a table from moment to moment).

I would look at the word 'belief', how it is used. If we ask 'Do you believe that is a table' we are asking them to clarify the sentence 'That is a table'. It might mean 'Have we been drugged?' or 'Could it instead be meant as a work of art?' i.e. we are inviting them to examine the assumptions about the perception, or whether they are using the right word.

Thus we can ask the question in all sorts of areas; 'Do you believe in God?', 'Do you believe Donald (is sincere)?'' Again, we are asking them to clarify the assumptions behind a claim, they do not have to be the same assumptions in every case.

(I think this is confused because 'belief' can also describe a psychological state of a believer. We might say 'Fred believes X', to imply they have an unconditionally held idea, one not based on reason or evidence. But if we ask somebody 'Do you believe X?' this is not usually understood as asking 'Are you irrational?'')
Walker
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Re: What is belief?

Post by Walker »

A Human wrote:
Walker wrote:Some folks steer clear of belief, saying it’s a filter that influences perception of reality.

Some say different.
If they steer clear of belief, that exposes a belief about beliefs which filters as well.

(wtf with moderation time delays, this isn't 1983)
That presupposes the necessity for belief.

To examine more closely, to steer clear does not mean aversion, which would require belief. To steer clear is to see something for what it is, and to have no use for it.

This is why renunciates steer clear of money. They have no aversion to money. They simply have no use for money, thus their activities don’t center around money.

Of course this does not apply to renunciation as a conscious, deliberate, willful practice. In such cases money is avoided based on the hope that renunciation will someday purify awareness to perceive a horizon more encompassing than cash and material assets. Until that day there is the mental conflict caused by the practice.

Another example is lounging on the beach. Aversion to beach lounging based on belief is not required to have no use for beach lounging. When it's not on the radar, steering clear is a natural.

Perhaps steering clear is a misnomer due to the angle of view. It’s not so much that belief, or money, or the beach lounging are steered clear of. More accurate to say that once these are understood for what they are, attention naturally steers elsewhere.
Last edited by Walker on Mon Sep 12, 2016 2:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Walker
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Re: What is belief?

Post by Walker »

creativesoul wrote:Flowery babble that mistakenly presupposes one cannot do both, recollect something now and in the future... accurately. Moreover, none of this twaddle is germane to the fact that you've called recognition(recollection, mulling over thoughts) observation, in a futile attempt to save your physicalist/observationalist construct.
Hogwash.
Walker
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Joined: Thu Nov 05, 2015 12:00 am

Re: What is belief?

Post by Walker »

A Human wrote:
Walker wrote:Some folks steer clear of belief, saying it’s a filter that influences perception of reality.

Some say different.

“What you are is a belief; if you let one belief go, you must replace it with another; otherwise, you will drop dead. I am telling you, a clinical death will occur. It is not the near death experience of those ‘near death’ scoundrels.”
- U.G. Krishnamurti

What do you think about belief?
Beliefs do not actually exist. They're just metaphors for 'x causes y which means z' which is a useful shortcut for our neurology but not actually representing reality.
There’s a meme floating around that says belief can move mountains.

Whatever can move a mountain must exist.
Walker
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Re: What is belief?

Post by Walker »

Londoner wrote:
Only the physical exists.
Thoughts exist.
Therefore, thoughts are physical.
Belief is a thought, therefore belief is physical.
I am aware that what might broadly be described as 'thoughts' come in different kinds.

Some thoughts impose themselves upon me, I cannot will them away. They are also have a persistency. For example, each time I look through my window I see (more or less) the same thing, I cannot choose to see something else.

Because of their special nature, I posit the idea that this sort of thought has an external cause. I say their cause is 'physical'.

So the situation with 'physical' is that I posit that some of my thoughts relate to something which is not thought.

Or one could make the same point by looking at 'exist'. The criteria by which we would demonstrate that a physical things 'exists' is not the same as that we would use to show a thought 'exists'. Same word, different meanings.
Did you ever have a thought pop into your head that is totally unrelated to your current chain of thoughts, and unconnected to current perception? A thought “out of the blue” as the saying goes. If you describe this thought it seems so out-of-place that you might say, it’s not even my own.

Everyone has had thoughts like these, thoughts that just seem to sail in from nowhere. In fact, every world view probably has a detailed and reasoned explanation for this phenomenon.

Some say such thoughts bubble up from the subconscious. Some say such thoughts are the whispers of angels. Some speak of synapses.

If you “unpack” any world view that speculates on first cause or its absence, eventually you’re going to find the box marked belief. What’s in there? Conditioning, and also chemistry that is devoted to the body staying alive, which is the biological imperative for the benefit of the species.

Folks do not say that a scientist’s incomplete knowledge of science implies non-existence of science.
This is because what a scientist’s incomplete knowledge actually implies, is belief.

Folks do say that a God-knower’s incomplete knowledge of God implies non-existence of God.
However like the scientist, what a God-knower’s incomplete knowledge of God actually implies, is belief.
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