So, you didn't create nonbeliefism? — Banno
It's not that I disagree with your idea of nonbeliefism, it's that I just don't see the reason for throwing out a term like that. Nonbeliefism sounds like you aren't believing things. But that's not true because you are still accepting claims so you are still believing by definition. People can believe things for a bunch of different reasons. Why don't you call. Science beliefism or something which implies that it is a type of belief that is only based off scientific thinking. Sort of like a subset of type of belief or something. — SonJnana
So humour me. Did you create nonbeliefism? — Banno
Did you create nonbeliefism? — Banno
So you, yourself, and despite your own protestations, believe. — Banno
Indeed, you rather missed the point that belief is not optional. — Banno
What do you make of this:
"Beliefs provide the basis for interacting with the world and are intimately involved in co-ordinating many other cognitive processes. Beliefs are also central to many social processes and provide the basis for identity, social cohesion, and social conflict". — Banno
As some species get more intelligent. The keyword there is some. Intelligence is a favorable adaptation for some species. But those species aren't even the majority of life on this planet. Bacteria, plants, fungi, viruses and insects vastly outnumber mammals, birds and cephalopods. And they've been around for far longer.
So it's hard to see how intelligence is the end result of evolution. It's not even clear that it's a good long term adaptation for humans. We might go extinct because of our intelligence. — Marchesk
How is "optimising ways of contributing to the increase of entropy" selected for by evolution? — tom
This doesn't make sense. In your nonbeliefism you are still believing things by definition (accepting a claim). A belief doesn't require nonscientific thinking. You are accepting claims based off scientific thinking which is still by definition believing. That's the same thing as telling people not to hold beliefs that prioritize nonscientific thinking. It's accepting claims that are based off scientific thinking which is essentially believing only in things that are based off of scientific thinking. We don't need this nonbeliefism term at all. — SonJnana
It's not whether AI can solve tasks performed by bacteria, it's the likelihood that bacteria will still be around long after the last machines rust away. All of human civilization is but a tiny blip in the history of life. — Marchesk
You're taking skepticism and open-mindedness and renaming it "non-beliefism". — Harry Hindu
If you don't have omniscience, then what do you have if not beliefs, or models of the way things are, (which according to your own definition of belief as a model means that you have beliefs if you have models, right?)? To say that you have non-beliefs is similar to saying that you have omniscience, or true knowledge. But I already showed you the problem of saying that you have knowledge. — Harry Hindu
Knowledge is a model too. When we find that our knowledge was wrong, did we really possess knowledge or was it only a belief?
Many psychologists view belief as an unscientific term that deserves to be phased out. Contradictory and ambiguous definitions may be to blame for this attitude. However, knowledge is even less well defined. For example, a skeptic would claim that we can never know we know anything. If this is the case, then knowledge is merely a well-supported belief that we falsely ascribe the comforting notion of certainty to. — Harry Hindu
I don't really understand. Are you against the word "belief" because of the baggage it carries? I don't see how your nonscientism is any different than individuals deciding to hold only beliefs based on science. It's essentially the same thing. What difference would there be if I were to be a non-beliefist vs. someone who only believes with only scientific thinking. — SonJnana
I think that's the idea. The guy's supposedly written some fancy A.I software and now he's answering all the questions as if he was a computer program. He's obviously getting his kicks out of imagining we're all slowly beginning to wonder if we're really talking to a human or not.
I suggest we don't humour him. — Pseudonym
Rather than complicating all of this, we can just encourage rational thinking and not believing things without good reason.
Belief is accepting a claim. When you say that belief generally permits ignorance of evidence, all you're saying is that people tend to accept claims while ignoring evidence. Rather than redefining the word belief, we can just be specific and say scientific beliefs or beliefs that are based on scientific thinking are the only types of beliefs people should have. Your term nonbelief is exactly the same thing. — SonJnana
14 pages of discussion and no one has defined belief or knowledge. How can anyone even continue this discussion in any meaningful way when neither has been clearly defined? The reason why it has continued without any clear argument being made is because neither term has been clearly defined. As usual, philosophical discussions fail to get at anything useful because the terms haven't been defined in any useful way. — Harry Hindu
But-
1. All men are ignorant of something even in their fields of expertise.
2. There is no science that has exhausted knowledge of its subject.
3. Therefore there is no science that can be more than belief. It is simply a matter of degree. Firm belief vs. weak belief. — Daniel Smith
Define "knowledge." How can you know what you say is true without believing it? — Hanover
Really? That's ok, just answer it and I'll draw the conclusion afterwards to make it easier for you. — BlueBanana
Dear lord...I feel like I'm talking to a malfunctioning A.I. — JustSomeGuy
You just avoided the whole "and even if I didn't" thing. Even if the words were synonyms, they would have drastically different meanings for this discussion.
But fine, let's forget the synonym topic and all that mess, and see the question from another angle. Do you admit the difference between the concepts of evidence and proof? — BlueBanana
You were using the terms to mean the exact same thing. I demonstrated multiple times that they do not mean the exact same thing. Now, it seems you have changed your argument, claiming that you only ever said they were "synonyms" (which is not what you did, you demonstrated their meanings through use) and that synonyms can just be words that are similar or the same, and you are apparently using the former definition of the term. — JustSomeGuy
We are all aware of the things you have said, the claims you have made.
The point is that you are wrong
The flaws in your reasoning have been demonstrated many times by many people. Your refusal to acknowledge them is irrelevant. — JustSomeGuy
I have seen, read and acknowledged your URLs, and I refuse to recognize the authority of them. And even if I didn't, the words might be similar in colloquial use, which wouldn't have any weight in this topic. And even if it did, it would only mean they'd be similar, not the same. — BlueBanana
A claim is not a valid response to its own counter. The only thing it implies is that you either didn't read or understand my reply.
Similar words are synonyms. The two words are not similar. Therrefore the two words are not synonyms. — BlueBanana
False. Belief does not prioritize proof. — BlueBanana
Explain how scientism underlines and how belief takes the possessive. As best I can decipher, you believe science ought be relied upon and not faith. Your view might be different but your writing is poor. — Hanover
Its relevance is that science is a belief (with the exclusion of mathematics). Therefore you must reject science in the name of non-beliefism. — BlueBanana
#1 - that it tires you is unresponsive and irrelevant. #2- is an incoherent comment. It offers nothing and means nothing. — Hanover
And what exactly counts as similar? Synonym is a grammatical term, and your OP does not concern grammar. In the context of this discussion proof and evidence have huge differences, so whether they're concidered synonomous by dictionaries is irrelevant. — BlueBanana
Summarize this for me. As far as I can tell, "belief" is being used to mean "faith," which is being used to mean "reliance upon something other than empirical evidence." And as a result of conflating belief with faith, 12 pages have been spent trying to explain how you can't have an epistemilogical system without belief.
Did I get it right? Is the OP just a butchered form of scientism, both unaware of its existence and of its limitations? I ask because I didn't find the text of the OP or the explanations of PGJ at all helpful. — Hanover
If it's supposed to be a counter to 3, I'll answer by fixing my argument into the form: "there're no proofs in science, excluding mathematics, only evidence". — BlueBanana
Because it's more technically correct than what you claim. I oppose calling words with similar but not the same meaning synonyms. — BlueBanana
Proof and evidence are not exact synonyms.
1.2 Stop writing your arguments in numbered lists, using screenshots of dictionaries and copypasteing your previous arguments. Dictionaries are not exact, often using colloquial meanings of words. And your comments are unpleasant and inpractical af to read.
2. Thinking anything unproven to be true or false is a belief.
3. There're no proofs in science, only evidence.
4. Thus science is belief. — BlueBanana
Also Popper said something about letting our theories do our dying for us.
In short, unbeliefism seems like old news. As I understand it, it has its charms. But what's offensive is the lack of awareness of its lack of novelty. I feel like I'm being told the sky is blue. It is more or less the common sense of secular/negative philosophers, which is why they tear one another's fancy theories to shreds. They self-consciously subject their beliefs to more criticism than non-philosophers. Their criticism-enduring views are more reliable, more trustworthy, weightier. That's their ideal virtue. They are less full of shit than the average bear. Or that's at least one guiding ideal as I understand it. But there is also the Dr. Pangloss archetype. I suppose actual philosophers tend to be both negative and system-building. They slash and burn to clear space for the system that finally gets it right and conquers time and chance. — dog
Hey, you have to give him more than that! I remember him substituting "believe" with at least two more words besides "prioritize". "Garner", "observe" etc; he's built a whole arsenal of synonyms! :) — Πετροκότσυφας
If you agree that not all beliefs are false, then you also agree that some beliefs are true or you do not know what the fuck you're talking about. I'd like to think that you do know what you're talking about to some degree or other. I'm trying to provoke answers which bear witness to that. Your answers are evidence. It has not been forthcoming.
Do you agree that not all belief is false? — creativesoul