"Rational" and "irrational" are characterizations of constructions, not constructions themselves. — Millard J Melnyk

And was this kind of characterization, "characterization" itself, not a construction? And if not, did it pre-exist human mind/history? Who or what put it here? Is it built into Nature? The universe? Do you see it appearing anywhere outside of mind/history? We must be careful we are referring to real and actual displays of rational/irrational and not just our constructed, super imposed characterizations.

It could be true, it could be false, but if I've done nothing to find out which, I can't regard it as truth. — Millard J Melnyk

The effort to find out if a thing is true or not already alienates the thing from its truth, displacing it with constructions. My statements here, no less. But its in mind's Nature to construct. It cant be helped. When the mind ceases constructing triggers out of representations, that's when the body [returns(it never left) to] Truth. It finally ceases becoming something out of empty nothing, and [just] is-ing (being). When I "regard" it as true or false, I am doing that. Looking at it through the image (code) which triggers the body's pleasant feeling which allows tge code: truth to manifest. At this moment, it is not a discovery of Truth, only a belief.

Exactly. And the "settlement" is a settling of relationship between a reference (the idea in question) to its referent (the reality it stands as the truth about). — Millard J Melnyk

Yes, but to be clear, there is an unbridgeable gap between the reference and the referent ( the latter, qua Real). In human mind/history, that gap is artificially bridged by the mechanism (no less a reference) "belief."

agree that "belief" is commonly used similarly to how you use it here, but I'm convinced that it's sloppy use of the term driven by habit instead of the result of clear understanding of what the idea of "belief" entails. — Millard J Melnyk

To be clear, I'm with our regarding the illusory effect of belief. Ultimately belief doesn't "entail" because it is a settlement, a cork put into a bottle, or a dam to stop the flow of "ideas". It's gotta end somehow (before it recycles) so reason, or upbringing, mythology, desire etc lead the dialectic to end here. "Now, because if x then y, I believe you " What? Poor us, conceited apes.

Check out what I said about lack of belief in children in my latest response to Ludwig V at — Millard J Melnyk

Yes, the analogy to the brain as hardware which re-wires itself, so that its programming is based not just on external input, but on internal activity. But to be clear, there rewiring is the real being adapting to the program displacing its factory setting. The factory setting is not tabula rasa. There are drives, sensations, feelings, images. But man, does the programming change things. And we think (because thinking is part of the programing, not the hardware) the real being is the programing, belief being a mechanism in the software that allows us to accept that, or any conclusion the prog4aming dreams up.

A belief is not the kernel — Millard J Melnyk

Yes! A belief is only reflecting what "it/its user" dreams up about the kernel. The kernel (the Real) cannot be accessed by belief; it can only be accessed by being [the kernel etc. re any object, including the Real that "I" refers to]

To arrive at a belief about those primal senses/experiences -- "about" signals relationship between TWO things, not one, a reference and a referent -- we must do something with them — Millard J Melnyk

Yes! Being nature access the truth, not referring to it, no matter how functional the references are. And they are. We've manifested Mozart and the Eiffel tower with our references and belief. But to access the kernel, be the kernel, or, as you suggest, crack open the shell and eat it

I enjoy your thinking. We're not on the same page, though.

And was this kind of characterization, "characterization" itself, not a construction? — ENOAH

No, in the same way that I'm one thing, my role as a father is another, and "6-0 tall" is another. I should have said "characterizations of constructions, not constructions themselves of the same kind as the constructions they characterize."

The effort to find out if a thing is true or not already alienates the thing from its truth, — ENOAH

Your statement is jumbled. There are 3 things involved, but you don't keep them straight: 1. the thing; 2. the truth P about the thing iif P is true; 3. the settlement that determines P is true about the thing, making P the truth about the thing. The thing is not something that could be true or false, because it is the thing that is just itself, against which the its truth is determined. The thing is one entity, its truth is another. There is no way that the effort to determine the truth P about the thing could alienate P. I think you're trying to say something else.

A belief is not the kernel
— Millard J Melnyk

Yes! A belief is only reflecting what "it/its user" dreams up about the kernel. The kernel (the Real) cannot be accessed by belief; it can only be accessed by being [the kernel etc. re any object, including the Real that "I" refers to] — ENOAH

The "kernel" is not the real, but an apprehension about the real. The kernel is the truth P that refers to the real. The entire nut (belief) is a conceptual construct, abstract not concrete (real), so it cannot contain the real.

Belief is a truth wrapped by a shell. The truth doesn't need a shell to protect it, but when our grasp on a truth is weak, flimsy, not implicitly reliable, we feel the need to protect it. Cognitively, nothing is apprehended through belief, since apprehension is what results in the kernel, which precedes the wrapping of the kernel, without which there is no belief. Belief occurs later, after apprehension has resulted in apparent truth, i.e., the kernel. The kernel can do just fine without the shell, if indeed it's true, because nothing exists to untrue it, although deluded people can pretend it's untrue.

We need to keep the different elements distinct and in both logical and chronological order.

There is no way that the effort to determine the truth P about the thing could alienate P. I think you're trying to say something else. — Millard J Melnyk

Very possible. I acknowledge and apologize for my laziness and shortcomings, plus appreciate the value in presenting the thoughts logically.

The truth doesn't need a shell to protect it, but — Millard J Melnyk

You're right we aren't on the same page, and yet there is value. ... The shell is not to protect the truth. The shell emerged out of a biological process in a very sophisticated "engine" and consequently displaces the truth. It is neither malignant nor benign. It's what it is, human mind, displacing consciousness with representations etc. belief being a mechanism in that process. Humans want to access truth (kernel). But because this drive is displaced by a thinking, desiring mind they unavoidable take the route of knowing (the shell) truth. But because knowing is alienated from the truth (because the former is a construction/process and the latter is real) knowing can only bridge the gap by that final leap of faith: believing. No matter how simple clear and manifest the dialectic, like the one that nears its end with 1+1=2, to accept 2, is a belief. One believes in the legitimacy of the process, if you prefer.

Or, belief may be irrational, but it is inevitable, built-in to mind's process of manifesting to the body (real consciousness) and world (nature and the species)

No matter how simple clear and manifest the dialectic, like the one that nears its end with 1+1=2, to accept 2, is a belief. One believes in the legitimacy of the process, if you prefer. — ENOAH

You repeatedly reframe the matter in terms of belief, as if belief were foundational -- which is why I mentioned vindicating it. Actually, the first word that came to me was redeem. You seem quite attached in coaching epistemics In terms of basic belief. I wonder if we're using the same term to talk about two different things? I had a similar experience in working through the nature of authority. Most people are quite enamored with what they call good authority -- that of an expert or a parent or a stellar teacher. But when you look the start differences between the nature of coercive authority and so called good authority -- their intentions, their methods, their structure, and their outcomes -- it only makes you wonder why people would be so stuck on calling donkeys and horses by the same name. Or, closer to the destructive realities of course of authority, why you'd put arsenic in one jar and sugar in another and call them both "sweet stuff". It makes no sense Karma which is prima fascia evidence nonsense is motivating the confusion.

So if we were to dig into it, would we find out that what you and I each mean different realities that we refer to by "belief"? I'm starting to think so.

I'm also starting to think that the parallel between authority and belief isn't coincidental. I suspect that the reasons for the protective shell revolve around ego concerns that demand a level of authority to back them up. At least that's what it seems like when I bump into the shell of a person's belief: authority and ego.

As far as belief being inevitable, no, it isn't. I'm not saying that as a deduction, I'm saying that as a report of ongoing experience. Most human beings are codependent because we were raised, trained, and mindfucked to be exactly that. All human beings have codependent tendencies. In the world of codependence, you're 100% correct -- belief is inevitable.

Here's how I'd restate your statement: "Or, belief may be irrational, but it is inevitable among codependent people, mind-fucked into mental processes of manifesting to the body (real consciousness) and world (nature and the species) as diminished, dehumanized objects at the mercy of their situations and other more powerful beings."

The problem is that most people are just like small fry who ask each other "What the heck is water?" when the big fish asks them "How's the water, boys?" Most people have no clue what codependency is because they've never known anything else.

I wonder if we're using the same term to talk about two different things? — Millard J Melnyk

You are correct. I'm not referring to belief in its strictly conventional use, as in one believes in x or that y will occur. It's the same word with the same definition, applying--you are right--as the first/last* epitemic mechanism. *last step of the process of manifesting knowledge/first step before knowledge manifests.

But...

the parallel between authority and belief isn't coincidental — Millard J Melnyk

...ultimately are you not also? It is the same with this immediately preceding statement with which I agree.

Authority, clearly a construction, plays a role in that same epistemic process. Like reason, logic, desire, various emotions, authority can be the construct which contributes to or even triggers belief (again that final mechanism necessary for truth settlement).

I guess what I'm trying to say re "ultimately are you not also [dealing with belief as the epistemic mechanism]" is that when we are inclined (as critical thinkers irrespective of the vocation) to dismiss belief in arriving at so called truths, as though belief were a choice or a cop out, we ought to recognize that even the truths we arrive at through authority or Reason etc, are finally or first triggered by belief. Even when that mechanism is undetectable (as in 1+1
= 2).

In the world of codependence, — Millard J Melnyk

Yes. For sure. (And sorry for the but) But none one born into history lives outside of that world. If we believe (ha!) the claims of Zen etc that one can silence the dialectical process and allow the being (sitting in Zazen) to sense a world [truth] before/beyond the process requiring belief, it is inevitably temporary and the sitting being finds themselves returning to the codependent world and relying upon belief.
Mind is codependency, hence you and I needing to reflect upon one another, our beliefs. We don't even really care who's ultimately so called correct. It is the codependency which is inevitable because we are humans born into a world where human history is input into our bodies like programming taking over the regulating of our experiences. And belief is an aspect of said programming

we ought to recognize that even the truths we arrive at through authority or Reason etc, are finally or first triggered by belief. — ENOAH

I have not seen any reason, let alone convincing argument, that establishes that claim. It continues as a baseless claim until someone can provide some reason to see it as something more. Crassly, say-so doesn't make so. I'm not saying that people can't or don't use "belief" referring to that unchosen recognition/apprehension/realization of truth. Of course they do. And I'm not "dismissing" belief: I'm calling it out. Exposing a fraud is not the same as dismissing it. I'm at the "I for the life of me cannot but see belief as a fraud" point. The next level is "I've looked at it more deeply and thoroughly than anyone I've ever known, and I can tell you -- it's a fraud, and what's more, you will fail when you try to demonstrate (not merely ipse dixit) that it's non-fraudulent." Notice the difference between that and "Belief is irrational/incoherent/a fraud" claimed as case-closed truth. No case is every "closed" as far as I'm concerned.

But none one born into history lives outside of that world. — ENOAH

Sorry, but false -- unless you mean "no one born since history started being recorded, in which case I'd say partially true.

We're born into a codependence-inducing world now, but we have no clear, definitive evidence that all humans were born into such a world. Recent archaeology is rapidly disintegrating old, 17th/18th-century thinking like that. Hobbes is doubly dead, lol. The belief that codependence is the natural norm, inherent to human nature, and always has been, is at best wildly evidence-free. For many reasons -- psychologically, sociologically, and having studied cultism for the last 30+ years -- I consider it utterly false. Human children can, indeed, grow into mature, self-enabling adulthood. And those who grow up into codependence can -- I did -- extract themselves, escape it, and mature even though they're way late.

Even during the time of recorded history, though -- even today -- there are big differences between the codependence levels of various societies. Here's Copilot's comparison of two:

United States: High Codependence
External validation loop: Identity, worth, and competence are mediated by institutions—school, work, therapy, media. The adult self is often a performance for systems.

Dependency masked as autonomy: The myth of rugged individualism conceals deep reliance on corporate, romantic, and bureaucratic structures.

Emotional outsourcing: Crisis is often met with consumption (products, services, diagnoses) rather than communal or embodied response.

Zapatistas: Radically Lower Codependence
Deliberate rupture from dependency systems: The Zapatistas explicitly reject state, capitalist, and patriarchal structures that foster dependency. Their autonomy is not abstract—it’s infrastructural (health, education, justice).

Collective maturity: Children and adults participate in assemblies, decision-making, and defense. Responsibility is distributed, not deferred.

No savior myth: Their political grammar rejects external rescue. Liberation is not outsourced—it is enacted, collectively, daily.

Emotional-political integration: Suffering is not privatized or pathologized. It is named, shared, and politicized—without collapsing into victimhood.

⚖️ Relative Guess
Codependence is structurally and ideologically disincentivized in Zapatista communities. Where the U.S. breeds dependency through institutional saturation and ideological contradiction, the Zapatistas cultivate autonomy through material self-governance and collective responsibility. The contrast is not just cultural—it is infrastructural, epistemic, and existential.

It continues as a baseless claim until someone can provide some reason to see it as something more. — Millard J Melnyk

Yes I recognize that "we", especially philosophy as a discipline, require [a] reason(s) in order to establish a proposition as a truth.

For phiolosophy and science, Reason (tye process/tool) provides such reason(s). Isn't reason just a cause for belief? At some point some entity must be the arbiter of when such reason(s) may safely transport the thinker to the settlement called knowledge or truth. Is Reason itself that arbiter? Does Reason function in the Universe independently of human thinkers? Etc etc. Is it a case of convention? If the elite majority agrees that there is adequate reason to settle, we all settle?

Im not providing the proof. Perhaps I will need to master the tools, at which time I can provide the basis for convincing others. Perhaps someone who has mastered the tools might pick up on these "intuitions" and provide the basis. For now, though they are presented as propositions, they are actually questions.

The primary point from this side of the fence remains. With respect to any question or claim, any truth accepted by any or all, has arrived at that acceptance because belief has been triggered. Whether belief was triggered by something conventionally accepted as legitimate (reason, culture, etc) or not (fantasy, blind faith), it remains belief at the beginning/end.


By "no one born into 'history'" I mean that fictional line when Homo Sapiens presumably crossed over from sensing the world by its animal nature, to one governed/dominated/saturated by representational structures.

Note, you are genuinely right about the baselessness of my seeming "conclusions." But this too illustrates the process of mind. A thought is presented as a candidate for acceptance, a counter thought follows, and by a trial of thoughts, a qualified adversarial process, truths are settled upon. They are never uncovered. If you and I settle this for e.g., and were certain we have uncovered a truth, in two hundred years, or tomorrow, we might become unsettled by yet another counter thought, reigniting the process.

Yes I recognize that "we", especially philosophy as a discipline, require [a] reason(s) in order to establish a proposition as a truth. — ENOAH

You're reframing what I said. I'm not talking about propositions and their truth values. I'm talking about real-world behaviors: how people think, speak, and act regarding "belief".

Isn't reason just a cause for belief? — ENOAH

That tells me you still haven't grasped what I'm suggesting, but at this point to say more I'd just be repeating myself.

At some point some entity must be the arbiter of when such reason(s) may safely transport the thinker to the settlement called knowledge or truth. — ENOAH

For me, the only arbiter there is, is the universe itself as I experience what little of it I can. No other person and not all the thinking of all other people together arbitrates my experience or what I make of it. They inform me, they do not judge or arbitrate. Their thinking is based on their experience of the same universe, much like mine, so no one's is privileged over anyone else's, including mine. The judgment others might use to arbitrate or judge my thinking rests on thinking equally vulnerable to my arbitration and judgment. When everyone is arbiter and judge of everyone else, no one is either.

For now, though they are presented as propositions, they are actually questions. — ENOAH

That's why I like reading you so much. Me too. Except I'd say, "they are actually hypotheses". Hypotheses can be falsified, but never proven. That's why I like to point out "lack of proof". It really bothers absolutists, but it's their "narrow gate" into the realization that nothing can be proved.

By "no one born into 'history'" I mean that fictional line when Homo Sapiens presumably crossed over from sensing the world by its animal nature, to one governed/dominated/saturated by representational structures. — ENOAH

OK, then I'm back to straight up "false" for the reasons I mentioned.

Thanks man, this has been a sweet discussion.

Thank you. Same!