I didn't say that I beleive nothing. Actually I do believe to be true hundreds or thouands of things.

I said, instead ---"I (consciously) try Not to beleive most things that are SAID To ME. Please notice the "SAID TO". By that I mean - "SPOKEN TO ME". or "WRITTEN TO ME".

A very large difference.

Also I spend lots of time in the internet. The net is full of hundreds of professional liers (LIERS )who spend thier lives thinking up words that will sound truthful.

My words,contrasting the two entirely different phrases : one, saying: "beleive" and the other saying: "beleive IN" have been accepted by many in this forum as having different meanings but also have not been accepted by many who use them interchangeably.

My initial words --"I believe nothing." were incorrect. I do, indeed believe things but rarely do I believe WORDS that are said to me.

But I have been wildly correct in saying that the these words are very tricky and self contradictory. The evidence for that is this extended forum itself.

You are slicing up the meanings of an inherently confusing batch of words into tinier and tinier shades of meaning. You are slicing them up into such teeny-weeny shades of meaning that you are going to end up with hamburger.

I am not saying I am against all this. On the contrary I love hambuerger.

Right on Janus. We are not dealing here with certitudes. We are dealing with numerous instances of carelas speach and badass, ambigous words and expressions.

Why don't you consult the most accurate and knowledgible of all scientests. The linguists.

Just look it up in the dicionary

I have thousands of beliefs. Most of them are intuitional but unfortunately
I can not express any of them to you because this correspondence is purely verbal.

I am interested in your knowing or perhaps feeling that I can't change certain beliefs. Perhaps I can. Try me out. Could you please phrase one or two of them for me to tackle?

Thank you in advance.

I agree.

Thank you for corecting my spelling. I have always been a bad speller and spelling is important.

You say: "Still trying to work out who those millions were, and why "Belgiums", especially considering that Belgium is actually a country."

I don't remember the history very well and I might make some mistakes but here is the way I remember it.

In the first world war, Germany attacked France with its army. Belgium is a very small country that is located partly between France and Germany. In order to get to France Germany attacked and occupied Belgium.

During the subsequent occupation it was reported internatioally, perhaps falsly, that Germany was very cruel to Belgium citizens and mistreated or murdered many.

As individuals, Germans liked and admired Belgiums. In order to maintain the moral of German soldiers the German government tried to convince Germans soldiers and citizens thst Belgiums were very bad guys and did very bad things like killing babies.

I hope I got it right.

This stuff about a joke about brain cells is all mixed up. Let me try to figure it out.

First remember that I, AM my braincells.They are me. Oops, not completely so. I am lots more. I am also a person with feet, knees head and shoulders as well as a brain. My brain contains brain cells that combine and recombine into patterns that produce electrical currents . We call that combining activity. "THINKING" or "Cogitating". That's what thinking is. It is an action, an activity performed by my greasy brain cells.

But my conscious mind, my word mind, which is that part of the brain located just above my eyes has created another me, a WORD ME, that only exists as words. Where does my word mind find those words? It finds them In my "vocabulay" which is stored just above my eyes in a vocabulary storage bunch of brain cells that function like a trunk in the attic.

And that "word me" right now, is typing these words that are being sent to you using the internet.

You are an equivalent "Word You". Please sit up straight and listen. But to do that typing I have to have fingers and the fingers have to be directed and controlled muscularly by another, non-word using part of my mind called the "subconscious mind".

Got it? I hope so because I don't.

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I agree with every single word you said. My concern about believing is irrelevent here I think.

I agree wholeheartedy. I think the general failure of members of the republican party to do as you say preceded Trump and is as responsible as he is for the present wreckage of the republican party

Thanks universeness. I did not know that.

We seem to have almost identical political positions. Mine date from the 40's. But I have lived in Mexico and Guatemala since 1955 which experiencec vastly reenforced the validity of those same positions and, of course, taught me many things about the ways and day to day practices of their mild despotism.

For instance upper class Mexicans and the upper levels of the rare middle class are never tortured but the lower classes are routinely and impersonally tortured without exception when they are arrested. The arrests are rarely the results of a police report . but usually result from a denunciation. The reason for torture is that torture is the only information retrieval system that they know of.

I bacame a "Born again athiest at the age of 17

(BTW,
You say:" I do get the often grave problem of unjustified belief treated as incontrovertible knowledge. But I so far take it that such isn’t equivalent to belief per se.)

I think that beleif per se would also apply to Justified belief.

I don't get it. Why should anyone joke about "Brain Cells". It is my own brain cells or, more correctly patterns and arrrangements of my brain cells that are typing these words.

Hi univereness. You sent me a big handful. Let m take them one at a time.

You say: "I appreciate what you mean but it's no different from your 'when I spoke to some of the German prisoners' memory. Did you know for sure that the comments expressed were supported by every prisoner in that group?

They were not supported by every member. They were denied by some. It was an issue among them and I got later reports from my interpreters.

But I have since noticed that believing the lies that are told to one or believing two different things at the same time or pretending to believe them or coming to believe ones own lies is, alas, very common every where. My God! - just look at the remnants of the republican party.

Incidently, about your words" "It's like that biblical story about sodom and Gomorrah. I mean really, that idiotic angel could not find any decent folks at all in either city! I for one, don't believe that biblical BS."

Did you ever stop to think that a major crime was commited by God? Anal sex is practiced or experimented with by millions everywhere but God burned to death an entire city including children and dogs in history's biggest single example of murderous arson. God is a major criminal and should receive tens of thousands of murder conviction.

You say "So what is it you mean or are implying when you use the phrase, "i believe in love.", if it's not that you believe that it exists."

I agree that when I use the phrase: "I believe in democracy" there is an implication that that I think the phrase exists but the thrust of my words is my attitude and feelings toward democracy.

Also, if I use any other word or phrase whatsoever or whenever I also imply that the phrase exists. All phrases. Examples. when I say -"I ate eggs for breakfast" I imply that the phrase exists.

Here you underline the message I am trying to send. That the use of the word "believe" is very tricky and should be carefully considered when used.

In your sentence you use two phrases - "believe in" and "believe". I hold that the meanings of these two are totally different. For instance to say "I believe in democracy is not, in the least, the same as saying "I believe democracy which is meaningless.

But several times in this discussion the two different statements seem to be used interchangeably.

Janus you just said: "Anything that is not known but seems reasonable can be accepted and entertained provisionally for pragmatic reasons; no believing needed."

That statement is fundamental and sums up and modifies this entire conversation.

Agreed emphatically

When I began this thread about the verb - "Believing." I warned that the word "believing" was a very tricky word and might lead to many different meanings and should be carefully examined before using.

I was correct in my warnings and then the discussion got wilder and wilder and went all over the place.

And got more interesting.

And lots of fun!

Continueing here I will answer some questions.

Did/do you believe it was correct/justified/advisable to fight against the nazis?

Yes I did.

When you heard these surrendered soldiers speak the way they did, did that strengthen your belief that you were correct in your personal efforts to stop them from continuing to do what they were doing?

Yes it did.

Do you think that it's important to believe IN the justness of a cause if you are going to kill in its name?

Yes, I do.

Should I stop another from killing someone because I BELIEVE they are not justified in doing so or help them.

No, I can't stop people from doing things because I am 97 years old and I can't walk.

If I BELIEVE their target is an evil nefarious b****** who might also threaten me and those I care about?

This is heavy stuff. I would have to know you very, very well along with your family and friends over a long period of time in order to be sure that you, yourself, were not delusional.

If I reject believing IN anything then can I still make judgments on what I consider right and wrong?

No. I believe IN hundreds of different things , maybe thousands. I if I should reject all of those things that would turn me mentally into a vegetable with the IQ of a carrot.

How can you build who you are without some kind of foundational beliefs?

I never knew I was building me when I grew up. That was 90 some years ago and I don't remember. But I like the sound of the words.

How can you build who you are without some kind of foundational beliefs?

I am an American and, like most Americans, I got lots and lots and lots of foundational beliefs. I got foundational beliefs I aint even used yet.

But I still can't figure out how we managed to get from the meaning of a single word to carrots and mice.

Please explain.

I seem to agree generally. I think we are discussing word meanings. Tricky stuff.

My sentence: "I carefully avoid believing anything at all" contains self-contradictions and maybe I should rather have said: "i carefully avoid the action of beleiving" For believieg is an action and I do avoid that action. Actions are sometimes easily avoided

I think there is a further distinction be tween believing and knowing. Beleiving is limited strictly to words. "I don't believe you when you said blah blah".

But knowing applies to everything that is knowable either by the conscious mind or by the total mind, the subconscious mind. I know thousands of things. But in order to tell you what some of them are I must somehow interpret them in stupid words, alway difficult, frequently impossible.

Please remember that, in dealing with you, who are a thousand miles away, we are reduced to using dumb words. We can not use the vastly more canny intuition.

Your last statement: " It is when this distinction is not made, when one equates believing with being absolutely, indubitably certainty, that believing becomes dangerous.

That Is horribly, tragically entirely true.

Bird up says:
We keep making the same mistake of over-trusting our viewpoint.

Agreed, emphatically

Agreed! Emphatically!

The authors of the last two mass killings proudly confirm and almost seem to be bragging about the fact that it was their "beleivings" that did the killing.

You say, To "believe in" something as in believing in love is the same as saying you believe "love exists" to be true."

It does not Say that love exists. It might or might not imply it depending entirely on the interpretation by the listener which is something else entirely..

Intuitional reasoning is every bit as powerful as Conscious reasoning. Frequently more powerful, vastly more so.

And, in fact, the intuition is used very much more frequently than is Word based reasoning.

The rest of your reasoning is extremely reasonable, highly rational, very convincing.

Perhaps the trouble is me. Perhaps I have an irrational complex.

But consider my life
.
In word war 2, right after the surrender, my battalion was put to guarding some of the millions of Nazi prisoners of war that were floating around Europe. Many of those Germans spoke English and I had extensive conversation with them.

It was horrifying. They assured me repeatedly that ordinary, every day Germans had firmly believed everything that Adolf Hitler had told them to believe.

Mad stuff, insane stuff. To the effect that fully justified them waging war and killing millions of people.

They had firmly Believed that it was morally wrong for them Not to kill.

Sitting there in Germany amid the ruins listening to these horrors I became an enemy of believing, not only rational believing but any believing.

The successful instilling of beliefs such as these frequently is used as a war weapon similar to a bayonet or a canon.

Believing half truths or carefully concocted lies kills thousands of people here and now every single day.

The recent school murderers killed children because they believed that it was right. They beleived things that they were taught to believe. They, themselves, said so.

The successful instilling of beliefs such as these is frequently used as a war weapon similar to a bayonet or a canon.

You say, Bird-up --
"Abstract ideas like "Love" or "Democracy" can't be proven/disproven in the objective world. When we "believe" in abstract ideas, I think we are just endorsing their usefulness as ideas."

I agree.

Well yes and know. How do you ike that as a straight answer?

You say - There's a whole lot of bullshit, falsehood, and truth being disseminated in society, and not all for the same reasons.

Alas, yes. And not just a lot. And not "by society". By pros, by experts. There are thousands of pros out there who spend millions of hours a day and millions of dollars a day trying to concoct clever, attention grabbing, truthful sounding lies or half lies that you and I and even Banno can be tricked into beleiving and then they get money out of us or power over us or maybe just enjoy fucking us over. They are good at it, they are pros.

There is no way I could have the time or the ability to examen the thousands of such dangerous falshoods that are aimed my way.

So I say 'I don't beleive anyone at all nor any words. Nothing - NADA!.

Of course I might make an exception in your case, creativesoul.

Yeah-- My mind.

I was refering to the verb beleiving which has nothing what so ever to do with "Beliefs"

But, since you bring it up I think that beliefs can be either expressed in words or felt subconsciously so in the case of the latter I got beliefs up the ass. I got millions. I got beliefs I aint even used yet. I even have beliefs about you, Banno, so watch your ass.

You are partly right. Much of the time I don't notice that I am beleiving some asshole but much of the time I do notice, since the whole issue is heavy in my mind.

. BRAVO!

Hi Praxis. Bless you, you used the words -- " Confident", "Put thoughts together", "type out messages", "speak (English)", "have reasons to think", "read", "respond to", "understand" and "judge" logically and clearly without once using the evil word - "Believe".

Thanks.

Hi Banno. I love being "Quaint". It appeals to my sense of humor.

I must repeat that the whole belief mess is tricky as hell.

I should have mentioned that the word "A Beleif" implies "A Conscious belief. That is a belief that is expressed in words and is an activity of the conscious mind only and not of the vastly more complex subconscious mind which I prefer to call -- the "Overmind".

It is subtly inaccurate to say "I beiieve I can speak English". The proper thing to say is - "I know I can speak English. The action of "knowing" is an action performed by my entire mind and the knowledge is part of my overmind not just my limited conscious mind.

Because of your words today this is the first time I have ever thought or said IN WORDS that I speak English. Why should I bother? But I have Known it for decades. I know millians of things that I have never used words to describe. As do you. A dog can "know" thousands of things without useing words. I know I speak English with my entire mind, including, because of you just now, my conscious mind.

(Word mind, Semantic mind, Conscious mind, The mind that functions only wih words. whatever you want to call it.)

But I have never used mere words to myself to say so.

I know I can type on a computer but I have never referred that knowledge, as such, to my conscious mind and I have never said so to myselfi in words. Why should I waste my time.?

Oops, Banno, you slipped up. You said - "beleive in" twice. You accidently added the "in" in spite of my ernest warnings and thus changed the meaning.

You said "Believe in good" plus "believe in clay"

Your word - "Beliefs" refers to something entirely different, God knows to what.

To which God do I refer to?

There is but one God and his name is Shiva.

I told you that that fucking word - "believe" is tricky as hell.

Janus! Be careful how yo talk. My inner world is very young and innocent and is shocked by some of the things you say.

But that will soon change. We are going to read Kinsey and it's anybodies guess where that may lead to. Yummy!

Basically you say that we should do our best to see that good persists and to activelly and energatically promote and teach healthy living. Healthy for everyone.

Thanks!

Well, actually I have used logic and reason my whole life in everything I do because I was taught to. And I still do.

I also use Intuition very intensively much more so than most people do, being an artist.

You also seem to be comfortable with the use of intuition.

It is probable that the words "My innerUniverse" are only words and refer to nothing "real". In any case I don't really much care one way or the other.

And creative greetings to you, dear brother from a living body. But not so much a walking one. I am 97 and don't walk too good.
Much love, Ken Edwards

I want, as you suggest, to simulate something and apply that simulation to myself and, perhaps to you.

I want to simulate Logic and Reason, and Objectivity, verbal of course, and apply them to me and to thee.

You seem to be "Comparing" the two worlds, one with another. Is that possible?

Soppose I say: " Let's compare a corkscrew with a pickup truck."

Then you would answer: " Impossible! There are no common grounds with which to compare."

So?

I agree with all that you say because I must.

Your inner world is omnipotent because it is all that you have but I am troubled, sometimes, with how far you take it and that your efforts to control it or improve it contain strong emotional elements.

Basically we have a very fundamental problem which is that our world, our inner world, is attempting to observe and think about and talk about ITSELF and even morally judge and change itself for the better.
But it has no tools to do such with. It has only itself with which to pursue that investigation.

Absurd!

Itself judges itself. The psychiatrist is trying to cure the psychiatrist and the patient is trying to cure the patient. We desperately need objectivity but can have no objectivity because objectivity comes from the outside and we have no outside.

Thus our inner worlds can believe and say or deny whatever nonsense that they like with no disapproval except from us in other, similar, inner worlds.

The world's scientists once had similar problems but, perhaps a hundred years ago, they solved those problems and today, science not philosophy rules the roost.

But we have one important advantage. We are bright. We are incredibly smart and our thinking can sometimes do the unthinkable.

For instance I am trying to look at what "objectify" is and to try to imitate it. I and others, have even partially succeeded. Witness the present words.

But I need help lots of help.



Sage comments, Hillary.

Angelo. You say "After all, it looks just like a materialistic conception of what you call the "real" universe. Calling it "real" looks metaphysic, so that the wonders of the second universe are totally slave of the big real universe, totally unable to do anything really new, really different from the big universe. But I appreciate your effort to find a difference, when you try to find things that the seconds universe does and the first one is unable to do.[reply=

"Angelo from Ken Edwards.
I very much appreciate that a person of you mental profundity should take me, an amateur, so seriously.

But I don't understand much of it and I would like to, at least partly, understand it.. Could you perhaps give me a simplified explanation? -- populerizng it, so to speak, In the manner Of Isaac Azomoth?

Thank you, Ken Edwards
Cannata;691348"]

You got the question wrong, Janus. The right question is __ Which is best? Lick or get licked?

J Yo
You say - "I would say that the smartest second universe is the one that can exist without having any effect on the real universe. Want to try?"

That would be a total impossibility. For the simple reason that the second universe would be part and parcel of the real universe.

If I should lift a finger that movement would be part of both universes.

Better we play poker or something.

Thank you all! Thank you thank you all. You give me much pleasure!

Hillary. The word stoneware is an inside the trade word meaning "Ceramics Fired at a very high temperature resembling hard Porcelan. The main difference between porcelan and stoneware is that porcelan is always white and stoneware canbe any color. My stoneware, which I made in Mexico, (see google. Ken Edwards pottery.) was a light bluish gray. The stoneware I make in Guatemala is white with a dark brown foot.

I would love to see photos of some of your tree trunks. But I'm not sure how to do that.

I think your definition is incomplete. I learned that we have two different things - Memory and the Recall of eventsl. I learned that memories are only memories of one's own thoughts during the event and are not a reconstruction. But "Recall" is the revisiting of the event and listening and watching the event again. A photographic memory is a good example.

I am personally very aware, alas, of the difference between memory and recall because all my life I have suffered from having very poor recall although I have an excellent memory. I can remember things that occured ninety years ago very clearly. Some eighty years ago I remember that, in college algebra classes during examinations of quadratic equations I could never recall the formulas.

However since I had a firm grasp of the mathematics I just invented my own formulas. This amused my teacher and he alway gave me full credit as long as I got the right. answer.

But also I takemild issue with your other statement -- "Here I disagree."

Both of the mental actions that you describe are "Thinking" and all thinking consists of changing Patterns and Arrangements of brain cells.