BELIEF is not complicated. (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, June 02, 2008, 13:55 (6016 days ago) @ Cary Cook

There are two separate strands to our discussion ... one relating to personal beliefs, and the other to clarification of concepts. I shall only comment on those areas that remain unclear to me. - Personal: I wrote that I didn't understand why you thought a just God's ethics would be different from your own, and you asked where you said anything that would imply that. In your posting of May 29 at 02.11, you wrote: "If I knew that this life is all there is, then the most sensible course of action would be to spend my resources on immediate pleasures, and suicide out before the karma catches up. But I don't know that this life is all there is. A just afterlife may exist...[You decide to bet on a just afterlife.] If I lose, then I have wasted this life." I apologize if I have misinterpreted this, but to me it implies that God would disapprove of your pleasures. If you yourself consider them to be unethical, I would hope that your own conscience would hold you back (and thus spoil the fun), but if you consider them to be ethical yet think God would disapprove, then you must think he has a different code of ethics from yours. With the one proviso that they should not cause harm to others or to oneself, I see no reason why anyone should sacrifice earthly pleasures in case there is a "just afterlife" (whatever that may be). - Concepts: You write: "I am trying to clarify existing concepts. Different interpretations of individual words is one of the things we must get beyond in the effort to clarify concepts. We're not talking about what a word is for me or for you or for anybody. We're talking about what a concept is." This implies that a concept has an objective meaning beyond our linguistic definition of it, and it also begs the question of who you are trying to clarify concepts for. You can only use language to clarify, so if other people don't understand or misunderstand the individual words you are using, how can they understand what the concept is? - You "admit that the term belief is not often...thought of as a decision to act. But a decision to act is the basis of what's implied by the concept belief-2" ... which you define as a voluntary decision to act, and so a decision to act is the basis of what's implied by a voluntary decision to act, which takes us round in a circle. The example you go on to give (the decision to pull the trigger) is clear in itself, but I still don't know why you call the decision a belief. Whatever the reason for the decision to pull the trigger, it will almost certainly be based on probability judgments, and so surely there are three stages: the judgment, the decision, the action. Only the first of these seems to me to be a belief, but it is still your belief-1. I can believe that my intended victim is a bastard, I would be happier if he was dead, and I would also enjoy the £1 million he has left me in his will. But I don't like hurting people, and in any case I might get caught. I weigh up the probabilities as to which course of action (to shoot or not to shoot) is likely to bring me maximum pleasure (using your criterion) and I take my decision accordingly. Whether I shoot or don't shoot is not ... in my book ... a belief, but an action based on a decision based on a belief. - You ask why I think my attempt to clarify the concept of belief is satisfactory, and you (rightly) say that it does not correctly identify the right two concepts. I suggested that belief = "acceptance that something is true, real, or has other qualities, underpinned by an emotional or spiritual sense and/or by a probability judgment. Lacks the certitude of knowledge, although the two concepts are sometimes confused, and the borders are indistinct." I have excluded your belief-2, for the reasons given above. My suggestion incorporates what I see as the possible mixture of conscious and subconscious influences, and also covers the inculcated acceptance that often underpins religion (not, as far as I can see, included in your own clarification). I have added the different concept of knowledge ... you yourself say that "all attempts to define this concept fail" ... because we need to know that belief and knowledge are not identical, even if we cannot define knowledge. - You say that if I want unclarity, there is no point in us talking. Let me say categorically that I do want clarity, but I have not found it in this particular part of your "concept clarifier". Perhaps we need the input of someone else to say whether this is due to my stupidity, to the complexity of your clarifications, or to a fault in the concept. I accept emotionally, spiritually and via a probability judgment that it may well be the first of these.