meaning in the form of belief

I see it backwards, that belief determines the possible forms. But yes, there is the huge error of taking meaning from the form. This is a huge error that not many see, and to me, is responsible for all circular repetition resulting in a solidified experience of the lie believed, in this case. But the same process can be applied to the dissolution of ha’satan.

I think that your point about destroying life is important and I could be tempted to start a thread about destruction, but won't do so for now, as there are several addressing the climate and environmental concerns.

So, I am thinking of how it connects to the nature of belief. What may be important is how there is often a consensus of belief maintained by those in power. Many people do not question authority and may be lulled into a security that the leaders know what they are doing. So, the issue may be about blind belief. — Jack Cummins

No that doesn't seem to explain what I see. My city has a board to discuss climate change and we have an organization that plants trees and our streets have been changed to better accommodate bicyclists, but the whole community is divided on all issues and some people are really angry about streets being changed to accommodate bicyclists. As some people are really angry about masks mandates.

When our strange weather first occurred and we had warm sunny days when we should not have had warm sunny days, I had no idea what was happening, only that nature was not right and this concerned me. While the people I knew were happy to have more warm sunny days. No alarm bells went off for them. I don't think our different reactions were about belief, but some of us enjoyed the nice weather and some of us were alarmed. Yes, the nice weather was nice, but nature being out of whack indicated something was wrong, to me.

My sister is as alarmed as I am, but she believes her granddaughters will have good lives because they are set to go to college and have high-paying careers. The future does not look that good for my family because I don't think any of them will go to college. Climate change is apt to hit low-income people much harder. That makes resolving problems more urgent for me. People with money will be safer than the poor. So my sister and I believe global warming is a serious problem, but her grandchildren will have a better chance of surviving. That changes the quality of our shared belief.

That is, differences in our anxiety levels, and differences in our circumstances can influence our beliefs, and if we feel like we must act on something or not. Like when I did start hearing about global warming, that was way in the future, right? I was telling the children in the family difficult times were coming and they needed to get educated so they could effectively deal with the problems that were to come. But it didn't seem urgent until serious forest fires began threatening us, and my thinking went from questioning the reality of global warming, and not caring too much because it was way into the future, to no longer questioning and realizing something has to be done now, not long off in the future. And this is like believing we need to wear masks and have covid shots or thinking that really doesn't matter. The covid threat is more serious when we know someone who has died. Until we begin experiencing the reality of something bad, we tend to not believe the threat is real. Like being young and invincible, bad things are what happen to other people, not me.

I think that your reply captures the way in which sentience is an essential part of belief. It is not as if knowledge is some abstract aspect 'out there', because as human beings the way people search for meaning in the form of belief is an essential part of living existentially. — Jack Cummins

Perfect! I didn't read this before posting another reply. I needed the word "sentience" for the explanation I was trying to form.

When I hear or see something without concrete evidence for knowledge, beliefs are formed in the mind by intuitions.  Therefore the origin of beliefs is perception aided by autonomous intuition. I don't need anything else such as claims / acceptance in between the process in most cases.

For the country USA,  it is an impossible place to understand from outside of the country.  I wonder if I lived in the USA, maybe I could understand and form a more accurate belief about the country.

  One minute I hear something about the USA, and my belief is formed about it.  But then I also hear about something totally different or see something opposite to what I heard or seen in the media.  Maybe it is such a large area with many states having all sorts of different people, environments and situations?

For example, I hear / read about the negative and desperate situation in the USA with various issues with detailed explanations,  photos and even videos.  But then when I go to Twitter, and some of the photos and videos and their stories from the people in the USA, they are totally different and opposite stories. 

When I hear or see something without concrete evidence for knowledge, beliefs are formed in the mind by intuitions.  Therefore the origin of beliefs is perception aided by autonomous intuition. I don't need anything else such as claims / acceptance in between the process in most cases.

For the country USA,  it is an impossible place to understand from outside of the country.  I wonder if I lived in the USA, maybe I could understand and form a more accurate belief about the country.

  One minute I hear something about the USA, and my belief is formed about it.  But then I also hear about something totally different or see something opposite to what I heard or seen in the media.  Maybe it is such a large area with many states having all sorts of different people, environments and situations?

For example, I hear / read about the negative and desperate situation in the USA with various issues with detailed explanations,  photos and even videos.  But then when I go to Twitter, and some of the photos and videos and their stories from the people in the USA, they are totally different and opposite stories. — Corvus

When the facts do not agree, they might not be facts but opinions. Or when something happens people may see it from different points of view. That is why we struggle to define what our words mean, but this is kind of like a dog chasing its own tail. It is another way of checking our beliefs. Is it based on facts or opinions?

We believe what we think is true but we can not be sure until we check the facts. Daniel Kahneman explains why we can feel confident about what we think, even when it is wrong. Especially the intuitive beliefs can be problematic. Our brains can play tricks on us. Some of our mistakes are common. Advertisers study those tricks and learn how to control what we think. One can pretty well control the outcome of a survey by asking questions that lead a person's thinking.

:100:

One minute I hear something about the USA, and my belief is formed about it.  But then I also hear about something totally different or see something opposite to what I heard or seen in the media.  Maybe it is such a large area with many states having all sorts of different people, environments and situations? — Corvus

Personally I think we should be less confident about what we think we know. I live in Australia - have done for 6 decades. But I don't know this country at all. What is really the case is I live on and access a handful of streets in a couple of parts of town in a big city. Apart from the odd trip and some media input, the country is a mystery to me. We often kid ourselves about what we think we know, just because we seem to be there on the scene.

I do agree with your point. All the information I read or hear about other countries are totally via media reports. But why should I trust them? There is no foundation to say that what they report are 100% true. I don't even trust what they report about where I am.

But these are some recent reports on Australia from the media. I am not sure if it is true or not. My belief are formed vaguely with the reports but my reason says, where is the evidence?

Not sure how accurate these reports are from the media. But we keep seeing the similar reports more often recently than any other time in the past.

The source of information is important. I personally would be unlikely to accept anything by Nomad Capitalist. :wink:

The source of information is important. I personally would be unlikely to accept anything by Nomad Capitalist. :wink: — Tom Storm

There have been many reports of the similar content about Australia. NC is just one of the hundreds, and is the most conservative view from the rest.

Maybe, but there are thousands of tendentious channels and websites run by ideological crackpots. What does it prove?

It does not prove anything for now. But you see, they are contributing in forming the beliefs, not knowledge, but beliefs :)

Which is why skepticism is more than just a pretty name...

You have made clear that even if you have been in Australia for all your life, you don't know it all. So what is the basis for your belief that the current media reports about the country are false?

I hold a belief that almost any news from tendentious Youtube sites is bullshit.

I hold the similar view. I have my own ground for the belief. What is yours?

I don't have much of a foundational springboard. How I justify a belief generally depends on the nature of that belief. Most of my beliefs can be tested empirically. The others are based on presuppositions, I make no claims of consistency or coherence.

In my case, it has to be inductive reasoning. I have seen hundreds of youtube videos about apocalypse predictions. But none of them were true.

Back in the days when Trump was a US president, there were hundreds videos on North Korea and US engaging in war, giving all possible reasons, scenarios and even with the timings of the war breaking out. None of them were true.

Because none of them had been true in the past, I believe most of the youtube videos are lies and comedies for quick money making scheme of the youtubers.

I should actually only be following and watching Philosophical debates videos.

This channel is quite left wing and also popular. It was talking about Australia in the same tune as the NC channel. After all what we can have on most of the worldly topics are vague beliefs, not verified true beliefs.

The left and the right meet at the extreme back end. I work in the area of health services and directly liaise with government. I don't need to see anything about COVID on line. Empiricism. :wink:

Sure. But for the rest of the humanity outside Australia, and the ones who has never been in the country like me, the media reports are the only source of information, and they play major role in forming consensus about the country. :)

I will remain to be a sceptic of course.

If people are basing beliefs on Murdoch owned media or dubious self-appointed YouTubers, they are likely to hold erroneous beliefs.

:100: :up:

His take on the civil war issue is not the same as mine. I don't think anyone promotes civil war more than Trump and this division of those who seem to worship Trump and those who can not stand him is so bad it is tearing families and friendships apart. This division is not exactly about money, but very different values and beliefs.

I thought the Trump time had passed, and it is a new era for the USA with the new president and new government. Are you still under the influence of the old government? Perhaps it is a historical issue and difference in beliefs which had been dormant for many years in the past within the society and nation? But then which society or nation is 100% unified with one idea and opinion in modern times?

I thought the Trump time had passed, and it is a new era for the USA with the new president and new government. Are you still under the influence of the old government? Perhaps it is a historical issue and difference in beliefs which had been dormant for many years in the past within the society and nation? But then which society or nation is 100% unified with one idea and opinion in modern times? — Corvus

It is a matter of liberty and power. When Roosevelt was the president he and Hoover created a government with much more control of everything. We did not give up our education for citizenship that made our culture a strong democracy until 1958. In 1958 we began preparing the young for a technological society with unknown values, and no one educated to determine what our values should be. This means we have an amoral society and we are at each other's throats. The whole world can see this and it is not only embarrassing, but a dangerous sign of weakness. Jefferson understood what education has to do with being a strong republic supported by democratic culture. We no longer understand this.

Amazingly Trump has maintain as much power over half people, as Hitler had power over the people. The US is being ripped apart. This is the result of replacing the education we had with education for technology and before this began the right thing to do, we replaced the inefficient and weak government bureaucracy we had, with the Prussian model that is efficient and strong. That is until the people are at each other's throats. :rofl:

Does " belief' make any sense at all beyond the scope of personal meanings, and how can the idea of belief be seen in the wider scope of philosophy, especially in relation to objective and subjective aspects of thinking? — Jack Cummins

The idea that a belief is dependent on personal or subjective meaning is just nonsense. Meanings occur within a culture of rule-based linguistic use. However, don't confuse this to mean that there are no subjective experiences or mind-based states, they are two different things. If we are talking about beliefs as expressed in language, then we are referring to those beliefs that can be said to be true or false based on what we, as language users, mean by those words, viz., true and false. This doesn't mean that there can't be subjective truths. For example, "I like orange juice" is either true or false based on my preferences, but what we mean by true and false is not determined by your preferences or your subjective experiences. It's a matter of understanding the difference between conscious experiences and language about conscious experiences, or any language that describes reality. So, whenever we speak about anything, subjective or objective, the language we use as a community has an objective component to it, viz., the meanings of the concepts/words.

My own view is that there can be beliefs (states-of-mind) that are quite apart from language, and these are reflected in our actions (i.e., we know that such beliefs exist based on the actions of individuals). These kinds of beliefs are not true or false (true and false are reserved for propositions, states-of-mind are not intrinsically propositional, no more than a pain is intrinsically propositional). To speak of them as true or false is to bring them into a linguistic setting. Part of the confusion is that we don't always see the difference between these two kinds of beliefs, i.e., the different settings or environments in which they occur.

Distinguishing between beliefs which are based on mental states and those which are propositions is important indeed. Sometimes, this distinction is not recognized fully and the subjective nature of experience may be mistaken for knowledge. That is almost a soliptist error. However, language comes into play in both the understanding of subjective mental experiences and propositions or rational explanations, and the ability to navigate clearly this area. In a way psychological understanding and philosophical explanations both require the ability to articulate clearly as a basis for analysis.

There are epistemic distinctions which, more often than not, are confused, conflated, or elided:

• dispositions (subjective, private)
• avowals (subjective, doxa)
• suppositions (reflective, heuristic)
• propositions (semantic, mapping)
• theorems (deductive, proving)
• theories (algorithmic, modeling)

and I think e.g. Witty's 'meaning is usage of adequate (valid) moves in a language-game played against the background of a distinct form-of-life' makes explicit how discussions of "belief" usually go wrong or in circles just chasing their own tails.