Mass Delusion

[schmangle]

as i do not have beliefs. they are logically counter-productive.

whoo, just noticed this one. Course it all depends on how you define "beliefs"... but everything you've posted has been your personal belief. I don't think its possible for a human being not to have beliefs. I think its possible you may believe you don't have beliefs.

Query: if somebody beat up your mom/person you cared about most in the world in front of you, how would you feel, what would you do?

A person without beliefs would do nothing... would you really do nothing???

 

[Medatripper Tates]

"A belief system is not something one believes but a conceptual construct that organizes and interprets experience."

 

[Alephnul]

"A belief system is not something one believes but a conceptual construct that organizes and interprets experience."

Wow, you guys were clearly buring the midnight oil, as this well structured and meaninfgul debate has descended into a bit of a mire!!

‘A Belif system is not something one believes’ (?????)
‘i find cognitive rigidity disturbing

people who can't comprehend abstract or "different" concepts’ (??!!??)

I think you were getting tired by this point? Having read the latter half of this thread early this morning it was abundantlky clear that for The Idler, Ockham’s Razor is a handy rhetorical device to keep the majority of his statements logically consistent (which he does very well), but the outright refulsal to accept that alll thought is predicated on subjective analysis of experience into....opinion is arrogance, nt intellectual rigour.

You’ll only tie yourself up ion knots by (to my mind) affecting an epistemology that allows for the concomitant acceptance of traditionally Skeptical arguments against induction (Hume etc), AND a deterministic approach to ‘practical epistemology’ that guides your daily life. Saying ‘I hold no beliefs, just probabilities of outcome, based on inductive reasoning, that guides my life, whilst accepting that the whole edifice of one’s inductive reasoning is theoretically not only an illusion, but also so evidentially underdetermined that it may not exist at all, is not only having your cake and eating it, it is heavy on opinion, derived from sitting between both ‘direct realism’ and strict-solipsism.

For a debate, taking these positions to test the various theories of perception, epitemology and ontology is normal (though to insist that none of these positions holds any of the qualities of opinion is semantic legere-de-main).

But to insist that these are the axiomatic principles that direct your every waking action and thought (ignoring the existence of your subconsonscious beliefs, culturally conditioned prespectives, and the already-adopted SUBJECTIVE analysis that lead you to such a world –view) weakens what IMO should remain a discussion grounded within the confines of human experience.

Hume’s deconstruction of inductive reasoning, Berkeley’s immaterialism, Plotinus’ de-individualisation offer facinating skeptical arguments to make us continually question what can we really know, but in the final analysis they must all be understood through the subjective lense of a Kantian Category, the me-only perspective that imbues every thought and observation with opinion.

At what point does ‘probability’ collapse into opinion-derived belief? And what differentiates the latter, from logical axioms???? (that require at least a belief in the validity of logic itself)??

AN

 

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

Wow, you guys were clearly buring the midnight oil, as this well structured and meaninfgul debate has descended into a bit of a mire!!

Welcome to our humble abode, kind sir. %)

At what point does ‘probability’ collapse into opinion-derived belief?

This is a very poignant question, AN, that I feel lies at the heart of really all philosophical inquiry. I have my doubts that it's really possible to answer this question in a way that would click with everyone's personal experience of the world.

Imagine a person put into a completely dark room. No sources of light whatsoever. He's allowed to spend as much time as he wants in the room, touching, bumping into things, yelling and listening for echoes, etc. Once he leaves the room, his task is to draw as accurate a picture as he can of what the room must look like. Looking at his drawing, which will obviously strike anyone who's seen the room illuminated as grossly inaccurate, is it really possible to separate the products of his sensory faculties from those of his imagination and assumptions?

Now let's take it a step further. Many, many people are subjected to this same experiment in the same pitch-black room. It's as random a sampling of people as possible, covering the whole gamut of ages, genders, class and cultural backgrounds. None of them have spoken to anyone else who's done the experiment already. After they've all finished, they're all allowed to look at everyone else's drawing, and then have a big debate, where their task is to reach a consensus on what the room indeed looks like.

I imagine this debate would be quite heated. There would be many people who would quit the experiment in disgust, especially those who held an unpopular vision of the room's contents with great conviction, supported strongly by their own experience of it. In the end, the majority would probably be able to reach a consensus on the major pieces of furniture. But the finer the details got, the more elusive the consensus would be. When all present were finally shown the room illuminated, doubtless ALL would be astonished by what they saw, for one reason or another. The title of this thread -- mass delusion -- very much comes to mind here.

This is a microcosm of the human condition. The room is our world. The darkness represents the limits of our faculties as sentient animals. The drawing is our worldview, based on what we've picked up by our senses, with the 'blanks' filled in by our imaginations, based on extrapolations of what we've already experienced and heard about others experiencing. The debate is the social realm, where people help shape each others' worldviews. There is a strong political element here -- consensus of opinion involves as much coercion and fear of loneliness as it does open sharing.

And the illuminated room represents enlightenment -- the legendary and long sought-after removal of all our human sensory and mental limitations to see the world exactly as it is, minus all the filters we can't help but put on it, even if only for just a fleeting moment. Is such a thing really possible? Whom among us is qualified to say?

I hedge my bets it is real and possible. But that's just a product of my own worldview.

Just a little mind candy for your day, folks.
-- MDAO

 

[The_Idler]

I like what those above have said suring my sleep ^

very nice conceptualization there, MDAO.

and aleph, you can imagine that i do not consider probabilities as i do mundane tasks,
but i make assumptions, based on previous subjective experience and logical reasoning.
there is no belief in the inevitability of one particular outcome.

and schmangle, i said earlier that there is one thing i "believe" and that is in the existence of the world outside my head.
I know, really, that it may not exist, so i don't really believe it, i suppose.
but i HAVE to act as if it and everyone is real, to remain sane.

 

[namelesss]

ok so you never have any beliefs, sure.
but that don't mean you never have opinions .

Sure!
What does one have to do with the other?
(Tentative) opinion can form with the barest of evidence.
No evidence at all is necessary for a 'belief'.
(Such as the 'belief' that everyone 'must' have 'beliefs' (for which there is no evidence in support...).)

 

[namelesss]

Originally Posted by namelesss
Hahahaha! Really?No, I 'identify' with nothing (but Consciousness).
I entertain no 'beliefs'.

you just projected a belief.

Perhaps the 'projection' is in your notions/concepts, which is where 'I' actually reside? Hmmm? We don't see anything as 'it' is, but as 'we' are! Ever hear that? I am speaking of 'self' and you are speaking of 'me'? And arguing, to boot! Hahahahha...
Perhaps you might learn the distinction between a 'belief' and, for instance, an 'observation'? And it is juvenile to argue that an observation is a belief, if one does not 'believe' it.
So, in summation, you are acting symptomatic of a 'belief' structure, not I. I have nothing to defend; no 'beliefs' to be threatened no matter the words or behavior of any other person! What I see from you, though... well, from the data presented here, I feel safe, at the moment, to suggest that there are people with a whole spectrum of 'beliefs', from one end to the other. All perspectives have their 'opposite'.

if you didn't have any beliefs you wouldn't be saying that.

Nonsense. I'd love to see you defend that statement with logical reasoning..
There is obviously a hitch in our communication here (always happens when one's 'beliefs' are involved, BTW). I think that in order to continue this rediculous conversation (and I won't), we would have to come to a concensus of the meaning of 'belief' as we both are using it.

i suggest you look at the definition of belief and try to notice the hypocrisy in your words.

If you open your eyes and see hypocrisy, I suggest that the hypocrisy is not 'in the words' but in the mind conceiving those words.
An ad hominum attack is one of the commonest symptoms of a 'belief' being threatened. (Especially after diverting the conversation fails.) As is application of the red-herring and non-sequitor fallacies. Then, if allowed to continue, it can get quite viscious and ugly.
(Notice the opaque cloud of ugly around people excercising their 'beliefs' around the world. (See; middle east) Beliefs must be fed, must survive, must be propagated (and the ends always justify the means!))
So, this is the last I will say on the subject of my 'personal' lack of beliefs.
You can consider me a liar or whatever you like (must).
I have always been honest here, what have I to gain by dissembling? (of course if I am a liar, the previous sentence would not hold much weight... but wait... If I am a liar, in truth, then the sentence that "I am not a liar" would be the truth and I couldn't have said it.... *__- )
Peace

 

[namelesss]

I know, really, that it may not exist, so i don't really believe it, i suppose.
but i HAVE to act as if it and everyone is real, to remain sane.

This existence is the only 'reality' that any of us can know. Whatever one calls it; illusion, reality, whatever... For each of us perspectives there is, at any moment, 'this' reality/existence. 'Illusion' is a meaningless term unless it comes from an insecure ego and refers to 'someone else's' perspective...
Perhaps the only real illusion is (the egoic illusion) that one's perspective is any more 'real/valid/important...' than any other perspective.
Besides, doesn't 'Truth' trump 'sanity' for you? There IS 'Truth' in Madness, perhaps? Maybe stopping at the gates of madness will also halt you at the gates of Truth? How can you take that chance?? To me, that would have been unthinkable...

(BTW, there has never been any evidence of any 'world outside your head', none! An interesting question might be "Why would there 'need' to be?".)

 

[Medatripper Tates]

I think that in order to continue this rediculous conversation (and I won't), we would have to come to a concensus of the meaning of 'belief' as we both are using it.

we obviously are defining the word differently...

but it's been fun