No.

They can act in a manner that would allow them the option to change their view on their own. No one, and I mean NO ONE, is willing to change their mind unless they feel they made the choice.

People can be manipulated though, but I assumed you wasn’t talking about that.

I think an equally interesting question is, can/do people change their own deeply rooted beliefs?

Of course. Provide them with proof that they are wrong and that you are right.

If one cannot provide such proof, perhaps it is time to rethink one's own standpoints.

With the necessary time and methods can a man change the belief of another man, no matter how powerful that belief is, or are there certain beliefs that are rooted so strongly that they simply become irreversible and they cannot be changed not even in an eternity? — Eugen

I think it is rare that someone can decide to have as a goal to change someone's mind and then do it - regarding deep set beliefs. Unless one can torture them or control their lives and even then it will take a while and may not last.

But people can certainly change their beliefs and other people can be a part of that. Experience, however is key.

If the person has experiences that challenge their beliefs, then change is quite possible.

In online forums there is 'in the air' this idea that one can and should be able to convince people via argument. I think this can happen, though around deep beliefs, very rarely and over very long periods of time and probably other factors would be key in the change.

We learn by experience, much of it as children and much of it is set in deeply there, though even those can change. But usually we
need
new
experiences.

See, I have no faith in the power of argument, so I repeat myself.

People need to experience things to change, and generally not just the thoughts of other people. They need to live through something that changes them.

I think they can, but generally if they do it, then they wanted to, to some degree, and went looking for experiences and arguments that undermined their previous beliefs.

And people's deep beliefs can also be changed by experiences that one did not choose but just came along and had the impact.

Racism can change in both the former and latter ways, for example. If one has not been around a specific race and one has a lot of judgments, experience that goes against those ideas can change the belief. Someone uncomfortable with their own racism could choose to go out and find counterexamples and undermine their own beliefs.

I went from being a practicing Catholic to being an agnostic.

It was a sea change.

I doubt I will ever change from being an agnostic, because one thing I know for certain...is that I do not know if any gods exist...or if no gods exist.

"Proof" is a strong word. How about "evidence" instead?


It is a interesting question. To expand on that thought: if people are capable of changing their inner framework what is the catalyst that causes that change?


The first question I would ask is what does it mean to successfully torture someone/something?

"Experience" is either a major component or the sole factor in what moulds a individual's world view.

But my thought is what of the influences on a person? To what degree is change created internally vs externally?



It's funny how life appears to be straightforward when in truth there's a bend in the road. I was Protestant, turned agnostic then atheist, and now I self describe as spiritual.

Was I convoluted in my reply? I thought y'all had some momentum before I showed up..

When we have changed a belief of another man, we normally say that we have convinced or persuaded him. You have said it in your own example: "Could someone/something convince those Budhist monks who...". If we want to convince anyone of doing anything, we must be good at convincing. There are people who are good at convincing from birth. But in this case, when we are in front of beliefs rooted so strongly, it seems not to be enough that natural capacity of convincing. You say it will be necessary a certain time and methods. Well, it would be said that the time is not as important as the method, because if you master the method to convince, you won’t need so much time to persuade anyone about anything. What is the method for persuading? Indeed, it is not a method, but an art or a craft. Gorgias called it rhetoric, and he said it is the power to persuade by speech. Even more, to Gorgias, “it practically captures all powers and keeps them under its control”. And he gave us this example of the power of rhetoric: “I have often in the past gone with my brother and the other doctors to some sick man refusing to drink a medicine or let the doctor cut or burn him; when the doctor couldn't persuade him, I persuaded him, by no other craft than rhetoric”. So, it seems that it doesn’t matter how powerful is a belief when you master rhetoric, because, as it keeps all the powers under its control, that who controls rethoric can defeat any belief.

The first question I would ask is what does it mean to successfully torture someone/something? — ISeeIDoIAm

IN terms of changing their beliefs, success would be where they are so broken they want to please you and will take in your ideas much as a child will in relation to a parent. I mean, I think such a process is a horrific one. Success only in the sense of achieving a goal, not in any sense that implies I approve.

"Experience" is either a major component or the sole factor in what moulds a individual's world view. — ISeeIDoIAm

Yes, i think so. I mean, we have temperments, we are not blank slates, so our temperments and eariler experiences and desires and proclivities will affect how we are affected by experience. But when we talk about fundamental changes I think new types of experiences are a must.

But my thought is what of the influences on a person? To what degree is change created internally vs externally? — ISeeIDoIAm

I think you can head yourself in a direction. You can choose to explore. You can choose experiences that will change you and even perhaps in a specific direction. One can challenge one's own beliefs. In a sense risk them. One can try to get rid of beliefs that plague you - cognitive behavioral therapy can be quite successful with this, for example. You can't simply decide to belief X, but you can move yourself in that direction and see if you can, through a variety of experiences come to that belief.

And then stuff just happens, and this can change your mind.

So that hinges on the individual willingly giving up their agency. In other words: no you can't force your will on others. So success is dependent on the torturee agreeing to give up.


Here's my understanding of how change occurs:
I call them the levels of influential development:
1. Acting out
2. Thinking
3. Feeling
4. Seeing
5. Hearing

1-2 are individual traits. 4-5 are group traits. Feeling is a communicative trait imo so it bridges the personal and interpersonal.

Sorry to sound pompous, that's just the best way I can illustrate my understanding.

So that hinges on the individual willingly giving up their agency. In other words: no you can't force your will on others. So success is dependent on the torturee agreeing to give up. — ISeeIDoIAm

Well, that's not what I believe. I think you can force it.

Sorry to sound pompous, that's just the best way I can illustrate my understanding. — ISeeIDoIAm

i don't know what part of that sounds pompous. I didn't understand it however.

Can people change other people's extremely rooted beliefs? — Eugen

No, change my view.

If it can be forced how?

I know that men have forcefully changed other's will through the coercion of pain throughout time. It can be done. But in all those cases the people being tortured decided to give in. They decided to think the thoughts that allowed their tongue and vocal chords form the sounds that describe submissiveness. No matter what both parties must agree the torture was successful. Until then the torture would be considered a failure.

A man can own another man's body. A man can never own another man's mind. Men decide to give in the will of others because their own is fragile; weak.

A man can own another man's body. A man can never own another man's mind. Men decide to give in the will of others because their own is fragile; weak. — ISeeIDoIAm

Wow, that's harsh. Been through torture yourself?

But in all those cases the people being tortured decided to give in. — ISeeIDoIAm

Minds can be broken. You don't decide to break, though there are likely gray areas and some who decide before being broken. So, sure, sometimes people give up and in. But you can destroy a mind and then fill it. Long term probably that person can regain their mind. Solitary, sensory deprivation, then various pain assaults, interfere with sleep. We need thing to remain whole. Minds need things to remain whole. If we starve a body it does not make a decision to give in - at a certain point it simply has not had enough nutrition and stops functioning. Some may give up early, sure. But bodies have needs. And minds need things to stay organized, to have boundaries, to even know what is happening.

Approaches like psychic driving (in the Montreal experiments for example) and other modern torture techniques that combine pain, fear and depriving the mind of what it needs to remain whole are extremely effective. Throw in some hypnosis, drugs and rape and minds fall apart.

If you think you could hold out, I think you're an armchair general. If you think it's a choice then, it seems to me, you think we only have emotional and sensory wants, no needs. I think we have needs to hold a mind together.

I don't think we can get past this impasse. But start a thread if you ever survive with your mind the way you want it after being tortured and mindraped by professionals.

Professionals with freedom. Not like say, the torturers on Guantanamo, who had a lot of freedom compared to, say, law enforcement, but nothing on the level of what is going on outside of any monitoring.

For a person to be changed, then need to be open to change. "Rooted beliefs" are beliefs that the person already believes is true, and anything else is wrong. They also make emotional attachments to their belief, as if anything that contradicts what they believe is emotionally detrimental to them.

To change someone's beliefs, they would already need to be in a mode where they are questioning their own "rooted beliefs". For instance, I was raised a Christian. I believed in the existence of the Christian god. In my late teens, I began to see inconsistencies and asked questions to try and resolve them. The answers I received created more inconsistencies instead of resolving the prior ones. I began to understand my emotional attachment to my belief in god. I realized that truth is not reliant on my emotional state. The truth may be something that I may not like to hear. I decided to be true to myself (intellectually honest) and seek the truth wherever it leads me even if it's not the answers I like.

I began reading alternative views - open to an explanation that was consistent with observations and with other views. The truth would need to be able to explain why we have a variety of beliefs and why a majority are based on where you were raised and who you associate yourself with (the bubble you surround yourself with, ie religion and politics).

So others did change my views. I should probably say that they helped to change my view because I was already in the mode of changing, but they gave me a direction and a method - science.

I don't need to have experienced it, I've anecdotally heard of it experienced. The Buddhist monk that lit himself on fire with gasoline. That event was referenced earlier in this thread and I can't imagine a worse way to die. And he didn't scream, he just sat there in lotus position (apparently). If the condition for torture is pain and that monk could withstand potentially the worst form of it I would say logically successful torture is conditional.

There's a Nietzsche quote that I think is parallel to your thought: "I was in darkness, but I took three steps and found myself in paradise. The first step, was a good thought. The second, a good word; and the third, a good deed."

I stand to think that my previous question was left unanswered. To what degree is influence derived from internal sources vs external?

What if there is a matter in which the truth is not demonstrable? Eg religious vs atheist

Interesting that you've mentioned torture, I actually wanted to bring that up into this discussion. Do you think unlimited torture can make absolutely anyone break his principles?

Yes. I think so. Hard to demonstrate. I think combinations of sleep deprivation, pain, isolation from any social contact, sensory overload and deprivation, physical and sexual abuse over a long period of time would break anyone. A number of torturers have had great success with just position torture alone. Putting people in uncomfortable physical positions. That's nothing compared to depriving people of hope and contact and then not letting the brain recover. Sleep if food to the mind. You starve them. I don't think anyone can avoid being broken.

Good one! I personally think that many of our beliefs, including very strong ones, can be changed. I also believe that there are certain people who actually identify themselves with their beliefs.
1. I am not sure if "identifying" with something would shift the paradigm from "finite resistance to change" to "infinite resistance to change".
2. I am not sure what it takes to reach that level.

He died in a very short time. He did not have his personality mind and body ravaged over a long period of time. I could not possibly sit still like he did in that situation. But to protect my children I could probably set myself on fire and not reveal where my children were hiding before I died. Time and torture rip the mind apart. Most of us can sprint. But long distance torture runners, no way. And torturers know this. They throw in waiting and undermine the health of the mind that allows people to be stoic over short periods.

I also believe torture has a huge role in this matter. I involved torture in my previous posts and I hardly kept myself from bring it up here as well. The interesting aspect here is that Coben always mentions that mind will eventually break and I think we could all agree that if someone induced us into a state where free will is simply turned off, than anyone would break. So for the sake of the argument let's presume that one has unlimited resistance to any trick that could put his free will to sleep; now let's take the Budhist monk and also give him eternal life. Now the question is: under unlimited torture, will the Budhist monk eventually freely break?

You'd be surprised how many GI's died after horrendously creative and drawn out torture sessions implemented by Imperial Japanese. You apparently don't know your history too well. Maybe you would give in, but would they? I'm not sure and I know I never could be when discussing hypotheticals. But my intuition tells me that torture has gotten progressively worse throughout time because people have the tendency to resist torture.

I am not on board with the idea of "deeply rooted beliefs." Belief is not a function separable from others. I can breathe. I can chop wood. Belief is neither a function of an organism nor an action upon a set of objects.
When someone is wrong about what they believe, it is not a defect like a missing member or a badly designed machine. Any story about incorrect belief is always welded to another story of really good belief.
I don't understand the idea that being able to change another person by one means or another is a measure of value. The original question assumes that a right thinking person is trying to stop the wrong thinking person from their worst impulses. The stubbornness goes much deeper than that.
Righteousness may be a way to organize and see oneself and other people. But I am not certain of that either. It would be wrong to make it an article of faith.

You'd be surprised how many GI's died after horrendously creative and drawn out torture sessions implemented by Imperial Japanese. — ISeeIDoIAm

There's nothing I have said that remotely implies or acts as evidence I didn't know this.And, in fact I did know the Japanse treated, for example, POWs horrifically in WW2.

But my intuition tells me that torture has gotten progressively worse throughout time because people have the tendency to resist torture. — ISeeIDoIAm

Of course people resist torture, many for quite a while.

Doesn't the fact that many who resisted for so long eventually broke represent a tricky temptation to believe that eventually anyone would break under continuous torture?

With the necessary time and methods can a man change the belief of another man, no matter how powerful that belief is, or are there certain beliefs that are rooted so strongly that they simply become irreversible and they cannot be changed not even in an eternity?
EG. Could someone/something convince those Budhist monks who set themselves on fire for their cause to become atheists and think Budhism is wrong? — Eugen

If we look at it from the point of belief-centered mental illnesses I'd refer you to the most common psychological failure I'm accused of - the delusion. The last I read up the topic, a delusion is a belief that 1. doesn't conform to one's socio-cultural and religious milieu and 2. can't be changed despite strong evidence to the contrary

It seems therefore, in psychological terms, beliefs are either inherited from one's culture or are supposed to be reasoned positions. Given that there are two modes of acquiring beliefs and that these two are independent of each other the most common occasion where a belief's acceptance or rejection, i.e. a change of mind, is the issue, is when a culturally inherited belief clashes with evidence that contradicts it.

So, the question is, should we hold onto beliefs even when evidence points in the other direction? I reckon most people will answer this question in the negative and so, it follows, that if one wishes to alter beliefs, such beliefs should, first and foremost, be disproved.

What if there is a matter in which the truth is not demonstrable? Eg religious vs atheist — Eugen

You tell me. Should I try to convince others of things I have no evidence for?