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What would need to be true to make what you believe false?

UniqueMixture

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This is not necessarily something you need to answer publicly if it makes your uncomfortable, but [MENTION=14676]Ism[/MENTION] 's thread got me thinking about questions and answers.
 

AphroditeGoneAwry

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Are you struggling with something in particular?


It will just keep being a recurrent issue in my life, or thought I'm having. It will keep nagging at me. I will start trying to find the truth on my own, but if I cannot, I generally turn to others for input until I have enough opinions that it helps me to refine mine. :huh:

For one example: I used to think incest was gross (like everyone prolly does), but I think it's not disgusting anymore, as long as it's between adults and not in my family. It took me a while to figure that out though. I believed in Jesus for a while--that he was God--but the truth pervaded because I just could not suspend my disbelief anymore. I believe in God and that he is the 3O's, but I could even change my belief on that over time...perhaps come to see God as less anthropomorphic and more universal? Stuff like that.
 

pv255

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This is not necessarily something you need to answer publicly if it makes your uncomfortable, but [MENTION=14676]Ism[/MENTION] 's thread got me thinking about questions and answers.
I think about this ALL the time. What, where, when, how do people prove something to themselves? :shrug:
For me logic + observations.
 

UniqueMixture

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I dont understand the question and stuff.

You have a lot of thoughts that run in your head. Others have thoughts that run oppositely. Both imo are formed by patterns within experience that arose different thoughts. So, what are the experiences that they have had that make your thoughts impossible? Perhaps they have knowledge that you do not have, etc.

Another way of looking at the question is more existential. If you had a belief and that belief was contradicted, would you stop believing it. Under what conditions would you lose that belief? These can be active beliefs that you keep in your mind daily or passive beliefs that you have that you're not even aware that you have. So what would need to happen so you no longer believed in X? (X can be anything.)
 

EcK

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well... evidence .. of course.

Information, statistics would be nice. I can believe several seemingly opposite things at once so it's not a huge leap. Maybe if i have some concrete example.

Now seeing things from different perspectives and open ended (new evidence can arise, situations can change etc.) and 'truths' as mental tools to interpret 'the world' (again, a mental tool too) means my beliefs are pretty fuzzy to begin with.

I hold stronger beliefs in structures rather than what they describe (Ti), but in face of information I can accept that this structure doesn't fit the 'situation'.
 

Tiltyred

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If I see X disproven over and over again, I will come to disbelieve in X no matter what anybody says, no matter how much anybody prove X on paper. If X = fail in my life, I don't care what you say, X = fail. I reserve the right of my own lexicon. I think what I do believe in is alternate universes. Maybe that we each are one. So X can be true for you and false for me at the same time. I don't have a problem with that.
 

UniqueMixture

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well... evidence .. of course.

Information, statistics would be nice. I can believe several seemingly opposite things at once so it's not a huge leap. Maybe if i have some concrete example.

Now seeing things from different perspectives and open ended (new evidence can arise, situations can change etc.) and 'truths' as mental tools to interpret 'the world' (again, a mental tool too) means my beliefs are pretty fuzzy to begin with.

I hold stronger beliefs in structures rather than what they describe (Ti), but in face of information I can accept that this structure doesn't fit the 'situation'.

I meant the question to be more specific and less theoretical. What is a belief that you have that may be false that you do not accept because it contradicts assumptions you have about yourself, reality, other people/things, etc?

If I see X disproven over and over again, I will come to disbelieve in X no matter what anybody says, no matter how much anybody prove X on paper. If X = fail in my life, I don't care what you say, X = fail. I reserve the right of my own lexicon. I think what I do believe in is alternate universes. Maybe that we each are one. So X can be true for you and false for me at the same time. I don't have a problem with that.

There are things which are disproven again and again which still turn out to be true, but because we lack a way of evaluating them in another context they elude us. For example, there were many experiments proving light to act like a particle (and thus according to the thinking of the time NOT like a wave) until Huygens found a way to interpret previous experiments in a way that still allowed light to be thought of as a wave theoretically which was later corroborated by Young and Fresnel with the double-slit experiment. How can you apply this principle to find "deeper" patterns within phenomena that you experience that might contradict the current belief you have of them?
 

EcK

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I meant the question to be more specific and less theoretical. What is a belief that you have that may be false that you do not accept because it contradicts assumptions you have about yourself, reality, other people/things, etc?

Contradicts? Define contradict?
if it contradicts 'reality' whatever that is, why would I hold this belief. Also its like a pantheon, a statistical spread of 'beliefs' I'd go 'down' on the pile, but if there is also evidence 'for it' I'll always sometimes consider it as part of the solution pool. (if i think of it)
 

Tiltyred

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How can you apply this principle to find "deeper" patterns within phenomena that you experience that might contradict the current belief you have of them?

I can hold someone else's test results in my mind, hoping to also have the same test results. If I never do, I conclude that what's true for you is true, but it might not be true for me, and I let it go at that.
 

Fluffywolf

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I don't.

Within me, there exists no such thing as belief. There exist only possibilities.
 

sprinkles

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The Aneristic Principle is that of APPARENT ORDER; the Eristic Principle is that of APPARENT DISORDER. Both order and disorder are man made CONCEPTS and are artificial divisions of PURE CHAOS, which is a level deeper than is the level of distinction making.

With our concept making apparatus called "mind" we look at reality through the ideas-about-reality which our cultures give us. The ideas-about-reality are mistakenly labeled "reality" and unenlightened people are forever perplexed by the fact that other people, especially other cultures, see "reality" differently. It is only the ideas-about-reality which differ. Real (capital-T True) reality is a level deeper than is the level of concept.

We look through the world through windows on which have been drawn grids (concepts). Different philosophies use different grids. A culture is a group of people with rather similar grids. Through a window we view chaos, and relate it to the points on our grid, and thereby understand it. The ORDER is in the GRID. That is the Aneristic Principle.

Western philosophy is traditionally concerned with contrasting one grid with another grid, and amending grids in hopes of finding a perfect one that will account for all Reality and will, hence, (say unenlightened westerners) be True. This is illusory; it is what we Erisians call the ANERISTIC ILLUSION. Some grids can be more useful than others, some more beautiful than others, some more pleasant than others, etc., but none can be more True than any other.

DISORDER is simply unrelated information viewed through some particular grid. But, like "relation", no-relation is a concept. Male, like female, is an idea about sex. To say that male-ness is "absence of female-ness", or vice versa, is a matter of definition and metaphysically arbitrary. The artificial concept of no-relation is the ERISTIC PRINCIPLE.

The belief that "order is true" and disorder is false or somehow wrong, is the Aneristic Illusion. To say the same of disorder, is the ERISTIC ILLUSION.

The point is that (little-t) truth is a matter of definition relative to the grid one is using at the moment, and that (capital-T) Truth, metaphysical reality, is irrelevant to grids entirely. Pick a grid, and through it some chaos appears ordered and some appears disordered. Pick another grid, and the same chaos will appear differently ordered and disordered.

Reality is the original Rorschach.
 

xisnotx

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Ironically, objectivity.
If objectivity is true, then x can be false.
But if objectivity is false, then x can't be false.
x, all x, could be true.
 

UniqueMixture

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Contradicts? Define contradict?

It was not meant to be complicated

if it contradicts 'reality' whatever that is, why would I hold this belief. Also its like a pantheon, a statistical spread of 'beliefs' I'd go 'down' on the pile, but if there is also evidence 'for it' I'll always sometimes consider it as part of the solution pool. (if i think of it)

I did not say it contradicted reality, rather that it would contradict an assumption one might have about reality.

You don't have to play if you don't want to. Nobody is holding a gun to your head.

The Aneristic Principle is that of APPARENT ORDER; the Eristic Principle is that of APPARENT DISORDER. Both order and disorder are man made CONCEPTS and are artificial divisions of PURE CHAOS, which is a level deeper than is the level of distinction making.

With our concept making apparatus called "mind" we look at reality through the ideas-about-reality which our cultures give us. The ideas-about-reality are mistakenly labeled "reality" and unenlightened people are forever perplexed by the fact that other people, especially other cultures, see "reality" differently. It is only the ideas-about-reality which differ. Real (capital-T True) reality is a level deeper than is the level of concept.

We look through the world through windows on which have been drawn grids (concepts). Different philosophies use different grids. A culture is a group of people with rather similar grids. Through a window we view chaos, and relate it to the points on our grid, and thereby understand it. The ORDER is in the GRID. That is the Aneristic Principle.

Western philosophy is traditionally concerned with contrasting one grid with another grid, and amending grids in hopes of finding a perfect one that will account for all Reality and will, hence, (say unenlightened westerners) be True. This is illusory; it is what we Erisians call the ANERISTIC ILLUSION. Some grids can be more useful than others, some more beautiful than others, some more pleasant than others, etc., but none can be more True than any other.

DISORDER is simply unrelated information viewed through some particular grid. But, like "relation", no-relation is a concept. Male, like female, is an idea about sex. To say that male-ness is "absence of female-ness", or vice versa, is a matter of definition and metaphysically arbitrary. The artificial concept of no-relation is the ERISTIC PRINCIPLE.

The belief that "order is true" and disorder is false or somehow wrong, is the Aneristic Illusion. To say the same of disorder, is the ERISTIC ILLUSION.

The point is that (little-t) truth is a matter of definition relative to the grid one is using at the moment, and that (capital-T) Truth, metaphysical reality, is irrelevant to grids entirely. Pick a grid, and through it some chaos appears ordered and some appears disordered. Pick another grid, and the same chaos will appear differently ordered and disordered.

Reality is the original Rorschach.

How do you know this to be true?

I don't.

Within me, there exists no such thing as belief. There exist only possibilities.

How does looking at the world this way impact your life?

That the puddle is diveable.

What if I told you that it was possible, but extremely unlikely?

Are you struggling with something in particular?

No, this is just a problem solving thing I do with myself and my friends and I thought doing it in the form of Ism's cartoon might be interesting.


It will just keep being a recurrent issue in my life, or thought I'm having. It will keep nagging at me. I will start trying to find the truth on my own, but if I cannot, I generally turn to others for input until I have enough opinions that it helps me to refine mine. :huh:

For one example: I used to think incest was gross (like everyone prolly does), but I think it's not disgusting anymore, as long as it's between adults and not in my family. It took me a while to figure that out though. I believed in Jesus for a while--that he was God--but the truth pervaded because I just could not suspend my disbelief anymore. I believe in God and that he is the 3O's, but I could even change my belief on that over time...perhaps come to see God as less anthropomorphic and more universal? Stuff like that.

Sure. What would convince you that that was actual. What experience could you have that would make the belief you have now false?

Ironically, objectivity.
If objectivity is true, then x can be false.
But if objectivity is false, then x can't be false.
x, all x, could be true.

What if information is statistical and things have a probability of being true or false?
 

Fluffywolf

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How does looking at the world this way impact your life?

It doesn't have an impact, but then that is the point.

In terms of bodies of water, I am not a sea, lake or river. I am a canal, calmly moving in a straight line.

To explain the analogy. I'm an observer and the observer is not the one experiencing the impact. I am comfortable enough with existing and expanding in orderly fashion.
 
G

garbage

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Cool, I get to copy-paste.

Essentially, "there is sufficient evidence" would need to be true. .. for some definition of "sufficient."
I'd hope that evidence is important to me, though I suffer from bias and internal lawyer-logic like everyone else.

Evidence is important to the extent that a view that is consistent with the evidence is important, and such a view is important to the extent that it's actually a beneficial guide. .. ... which it usually is.

We shouldn't exactly slam the brakes on our own worldview every time we come across some single piece of evidence that might indicate that we should turn ourselves around, though, as we'd be absolutely aimless. We also have to own up to the fact that changing our worldview, even for the better, and/or even with resounding evidence, can be pretty damn difficult.
 

Mole

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A better question is, what does it take to falsify a belief.

And this is a better question because the scientific method is falsification of beliefs.

For instance, Israeli archeologists have falsified the belief in the Exodus.

The Exodus is an important belief in Judaism, Christianity and Islam and is a founding belief of State of Israel. So the Israeli archeologists, in applying to scientific method to this belief, demonstrated their intellectual integrity and courage.

And as you read scientists are trying to falsify the belief in quantum mechanics, and so far they have failed to falsify quantum mechanics with every experiment they have tried.

And we are still trying to falsify relativity. For instance, relativity predicted that light would bend near the Sun. And when we did the measurements, we found light bent to exactly the amount predicted by relativity.

So we have been able to falsify the belief in the Exodus but unable to falsify the belief in quantum mechanics or relativity.
 
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