Yes to all of that. So the idea that "think" and "believe" are synonymous is a non-starter. The OP would need to be much more specific about which uses of "think" are equivalent to "believe."

Yes to all of that. So the idea that "think" and "believe" are synonymous is a non-starter. The OP would need to be much more specific about which uses of "think" are equivalent to "believe." — J

I struggle to articulate the difference. It is tempting to say that they express different propositional attitudes. But I don't like propositional attitudes for reasons that don't matter for the moment. The "I know that p" is special, because speaker and subject are the same person. So that comes out as an emphatic assertion of "p" - pleonastic but expressing something nonetheless. "I believe" and "I think" come out as less emphatic assertions - normally.
But "S believes that p" is expresses S's evaluation of "p", of course, but is not contradicted if "p" is false. So it expresses the speaker's evaluation. Is that an illocutionary effect, possibly? Then there's the rest of the family - "think", "suppose", "imagine", "assume" etc.

There's an equivocation going on between two senses of "think":

Mary thinks the house is on fire.
Mary thinks, "The house is on fire."

The first usage is more or less synonymous with "believe." — J

Yes, fair point, but the question is: does it matter? If both work the same, it's all the same. Please explain how the distinction matters.

The first usage is really not synonymous with "believe" -- otherwise people would use them interchangeably, but they don't. "I think that P" and "I believe that P" are not totally different. P is the same. But "I think" and "I believe" are semantically different in specific, consistent ways that are important enough that common usage represents a clear pattern.

Consider:

"You're beautiful."
"I think you're beautiful."
"I believe you're beautiful."
"I know you're beautiful."
"I whatever you're beautiful."

You can see the differences, right?

Yeah, there's been some discussion here and much more on Reddit (/r/epistemology). What it's brought me to are:

• Recognition that we're dealing with exactly the same form of statement, "I ______ that P" regardless what you put in the blank.
  
• Recognition that these statements include an assertion P prefaced by a self-reference "I _____".

That raises two questions. One regards the self-reference: what are the differences between think/believ/know/whatever and what's the motivation for and significance of choosing one or another?

But here's the surprise (for me): Why interject the self-reference at all? Why add ego concerns to the mix? If the assertion is the message, why stick ourselves in there? Crassly, if the assertion is the important part, who cares whether I think/believe/know/speculate/guess/conjecture/SWAG (super-wild-assed-guess)/predict/prophesy/deduce/WHATEVER lol.

All the girl cares about is "You're beautiful." She's smart enough to know you think so, lol.

Most of what we know, we know on authority. Naturally, a good deal then hangs on the warrant for that authority, but it is not a marginal source for our knowledge. Of course, sadly, it is all to easy to misuse authority, once it is conceded, but that doesn't undermine its importance in practice. — Ludwig V

Yes, if a hypothesis were to be judged before being verified, authority (expertise) may put the odds in their favor, but they might not be privy to facts on the ground. But a claim to knowledge can be solely based on authority because it is transferable (in the sense of being aware of the answer). But in deciding what is the right thing to do (say, when we are at a loss), the authority is me, warranted or unwarranted, which does not hang on verification nor justification (it is not a necessity, categorically, but not thus “irrational”, as unintelligible—just a different “logic”). The State has its (supposed) own authority.

Why interject the self-reference at all? — Millard J Melnyk

This is our desire that everything be subject to the method and implications of science, which is the basis of its facts. If you follow its method, and I (competently) follow the method, we come to the same answer—it doesn’t matter about the person. We want what we do to not involve the personal (individual) nor the human at all. Knowledge can have this form, but not everything involves knowledge (although still rational, as having intelligible reasons). And “I know” does not only have that sense, as “I know you are in pain” is not to know their pain but to tell you I see your pain. I accept (or reject) you as a person in pain (in response to “I am in pain”).

NICE! Almost exactly, but far better job than I did. I suck at syllogisms, lol.

I'd say "instead of 'I think'" instead of "above another prefix". Also, sometimes the motivation is to embellish credibility unduly, but not necessarily. Sometimes it's an honest attempt to reflect one's internal level of credence and commitment to the assertion. Sometimes it's actually to downplay the issue, saying "I think" when the fact is that we're sure beyond reasonable doubt.

It's been pointed out that many alternatives to think/believe are available, and it turns out that they all work similarly: guess/speculate/conjecture/deduce/imagine/whatever. They're semantically different, but they perform the same function in "I _____ that P."

Yes, "All belief is irrational" was my "teaser headline".

C2 as you stated it is JUST PEACHY!

So, to the extent that thinking/stating/ascribing believe/belief to an assertion overshoots legit warrant, especially when illegitimately overshooting is the point, it doesn't make the assertion "believed" irrational, but it makes believing it irrational.

So, in that sense, under those conditions, all belief is, indeed, irrational.

What remains is to determine if you can involve belief without overshooting warrant. Yes, many people say "believe" when they mean think and everyone understands they mean think. However, I don't think our epistemics should accommodate that kind of sloppiness and confusion.

Consider:

"God exists."
"I think God exists."
"I believe God exists."
"I know God exists."
"I guess God exists."
"I infer God exists."

I could go on, of course. Each conveys something distinctly different. Where a lot of the confusion enters in (as became clear in this discussion and others elsewhere), the difference is irrelevant to the assertion "God exists". It's relevant only to the self-reference, "I _____" -- which is semantically irrelevant to the assertion, actually. That begs the question whether injecting an irrelevance is itself rational or not.

Of all those (and any others), "believe" is unusual. It's less firm/certain than merely "God exists" or "I know God exists," and yet it comes across as more firm/certain than "I think God exists."

And yet it's the same assertion, so the assertion itself can't be more or less true depending on the self-reference. So, how could the firmness/certainty change mere by changing the semantics of the self-reference? There's no semantic (let alone logically entailed) connection between them. So, the self-reference, rationally, reflects the state/relationship of the speaker in terms of certainty and commitment to the assertion, and doesn't reflect on or impact the assertion itself.

I was going to say more, but now I'm in exploratory territory and it turned into a brain dump, lol. I should probably write through it (it's how I think into new ideas) elsewhere and come back with something more intelligible than one of my meanderings.

What do you think so far?

Can you explain as clearly and as succinctly as possible then please? — I like sushi

Sure. Simply put, epistemics includes whatever we do to make sure that something we think is true actually is true (or find out it's not.) Especially when it comes to beliefs/believing, this often means we haven't done enough to say we know, but we want to say/feel more sure/certain than "I think".

Believing bridges the gap between what we've done to make sure we're right and the level of certainty/commitment to the idea where we want to be but haven't got the goods to show it's legit to be there, yet.

I guess epistemics is like a ladder. You can legitimately go as high as the ladder (warrant) is tall. If you want to act and feel more certain about it, it would take a leap. "I think" kind of indicates that you've got reason to assume Floor 5 is there, but your ladder only goes as far as Floor 2 at the moment, so "I know there's a Floor 5" really isn't justified.

But you could say, "I believe there's a Floor 5." The question then becomes: why say "believe" when you've got no more reason to believe than you do were you just to say "I think" ? Your ladder is exactly the same height both ways. Epistemically the same.

So, either you do the work to extend the ladder, or you say "believe".

And when you realize there's two important pieces, not just one, and that "believe/think" applies to only one of them, it changes how we usually talk about it.

"I ______" (think/believe/know) is a self-reference. It has nothing to do with "it's raining" in the statement "I _____ that it's raining." No matter what you fill the blank with, all versions are statements of the form, "I ______ that P" (P = "it's raining").

So, think/believe/know has nothing to do with P (whether it's raining). They indicate how sure/committed I am to the assertion. I'm implying but not saying how tall my ladder is.

Hope that helps.

If both work the same, it's all the same. — Millard J Melnyk

I'm not sure what you mean. They work quite differently, as I tried to show.

Please explain how the distinction matters. — Millard J Melnyk

It may not matter at all, for the points you want to cover. But as @Ludwig V has elaborated, any theses involving "think" and "thought" need to be carefully laid out so as to show which uses and concepts you mean to refer to.

"You're beautiful."
"I think you're beautiful."
"I believe you're beautiful."
"I know you're beautiful."
"I whatever you're beautiful."

You can see the differences, right? — Millard J Melnyk

Sure. But consider these:

I think it's raining.
I believe it's raining.

Wouldn't you agree they're nearly synonymous?

The point is, all these usages are linguistically dependent. They approach, or recede from, synonymy depending on context. And in another language, I'm sure the various usages would be different.

"I think" and "I believe" are semantically different in specific, consistent ways — Millard J Melnyk

They can be, and sometimes they aren't. Context again.

This takes us back to your OP premise:

Epistemically, belief and thought are identical. — Millard J Melnyk

I hope it's clear now why that's only true in the cases in which they are understood to be identical by language-speakers.

a rhetorical shift from “I think” to “I believe,” — Millard J Melnyk

Well, yes -- when the use of "I think" means "I believe", that shift often takes place. It doesn't have to. Not to belabor the point, but we can think many things without necessarily believing them. We can also think them in ways such that they're not even possible candidates for belief (such as my Case 2, above).

That's why it seems to odd that you want to ignore "know". — Ludwig V

I haven't ignored it since you first brought it up, and I've said so. After working it through, tho, I realized it doesn't matter.

We're dealing with exactly the same form of statement, "I ______ that P" regardless what you put in the blank. All these statements include an assertion P prefaced by a self-reference "I _____". P is identical in all cases, no matter if you fill the blank with think/believe/know/speculate/guess/conjecture/SWAG (super-wild-assed-guess)/predict/prophesy/deduce/WHATEVER lol. So the only thing that changes is the semantics of the self-reference, which has no epistemic bearing on the assertion.

That raises two questions. One regards the self-reference: what are the differences between think/believe/know/whatever and what's the motivation for and significance of choosing one or another?

But here's the surprise (for me): Why interject the self-reference at all? Why add ego concerns to the mix? If the assertion is the message, why stick ourselves in there? Crassly, if the assertion is the important part, who cares whether I think/believe/know/speculate/guess/conjecture/SWAG (super-wild-assed-guess)/predict/prophesy/deduce/WHATEVER lol.

All the girl cares about is "You're beautiful." She's smart enough to know you think so, lol.

Not really sure how to respond to the rest of your reply. Yes, we can think about it in ways that make it hideously complicated. That's what I'm trying to rectify. Setting it up as I described above simplifies it immensely. Much of the responses I've gotten here and elsewhere boil down to failing to recognize that think/believe/know have no logical bearing on the assertion being made. They're not really about the assertion -- they're about the person's subjective assessment about their relationship/attitude towards the assertion.

I’m not kidding or exaggerating even a little bit. — Millard J Melnyk

Does it follow that your OP and all of the posts you have written within this thread are irrational?

I'm not sure what you mean. They work quite differently, as I tried to show. — J

You showed the distinction, you didn't show how the distinction makes a difference to our topic.

Wouldn't you agree they're nearly synonymous? — J

In sloppy usage, sure. Are you saying that the difference is insignificant?

"I believe it's raining" is a rather trivial matter, and also easily checked empirically. "I believe the COVID vaccines are harmful" -- not so much. "Think" and "believe" mean something significantly different in that case.

Sure, I can see what you're saying. You're taking the position of a dissertation committee and faulting my weak defense attempts. Cool. My goal here was to evoke feedback that would clarify. "Not clear enough, there's more to it, you're vague here, here, and here" and the like are almost always valid, but rarely serve to clarify a topic. I'm not trying to build an airtight case here for the irrationality of beliefs/believing. I'm exploring horizons and limitations. I think I've gotten all I could hope to get from our discussion. Thanks, man.

I haven't ignored it since you first brought it up, and I've said so. After working it through, tho, I realized it doesn't matter. — Millard J Melnyk

I'm sorry I didn't notice. But disappointed that you think it doesn't matter. It depends what your project is, so I won't argue with you.

But here's the surprise (for me): Why interject the self-reference at all? — Millard J Melnyk

In a sense the "I know" in "I know that it's raining" doesn't add anything to someone asserting "It's raining". The reason is simple. If you assert "It's raining" and I trust you, I can safely conclude that you know that it's raining. Equally, of course, if you assert "it's raining" and it's not raining, or I don't know whether it's raining, I can conclude that you believe it is raining.
It does not follow from the fact that it's raining that you know or believe that it's raining. So these implications are a bit odd. They follow from you asserting "it's raining".

But that's the strictly logical situation. Informally, when someone says "I know that p", they are borrowing the authority of knowing something, which, strictly speaking can only be given to by someone else. Why, because marking your own homework is meaningless. That's why, if you want to understand "know" and "believe" you need to think in the third person. The first person is a limiting case, not typical. Standard cases assume that speaker and subject are different people.

think/believe/know have no logical bearing on the assertion being made. — Millard J Melnyk

They have no logical bearing in the sense that they are not grounds for, or evidence for, the assertion being made. But since "I know that p" is only true if "p" is true, they do have a bearing on "know". It's not quite the same with "believe", but anyone who says either "I know that p" or "I believe that p" is asserting that p, and that is part of the meaning of those two words.

So, think/believe/know has nothing to do with P (whether it's raining). They indicate how sure/committed I am to the assertion. I'm implying but not saying how tall my ladder is. — Millard J Melnyk

I don't really get the business about the ladder. It is true that if I have good, but not sufficient evidence for p, there is what one might call and evidentiary gap. People probably do sometimes leap over that gap and assert more than they really have evidence for. So what?

Yeah you hit the nail on the head. You're coming at this as an epistemologist would. That's why 3rd person is important for you. You're taking a bird's/God's/universal viewpoint to look at the totality of the question.

I'm only interested in the 1st person aspect because I'm not creating an epistemology/epistemological theory. That's why I use the term "epistemic". My sole interest is how an individual can, for themself, DO epistemic work, and I'm trying to figure out how and why we as individuals fail either to do it at all or do it poorly.

So, yeah -- different projects, because all epistemic work -- just like all science -- is done, fundamentally, in the 1st person.

In fact, I'm positively disinterested in the 3rd person angle, because it doesn't inform the 1st person issues. I'm not saying ignore the 3rd person, period. I'm saying that the 1st person issues determine how you're going to take on the 3rd person stuff, so first, let's get 1st person epistemics right.

Hope I'm making some sense to you here.

No worries. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful.

So we have a lesson about the difference between illocutionary force and propositional content.

Cool.

The conclusion of the OP, that all belief is irrational, remains self-defeating.

I'm aware of mainstream term definitions and categorizations, of course, but I don't approach experience (mine and others') through that filter, and I dispense with accepted definitions and categories if they don't fit what's really going on. — Millard J Melnyk

Perfectly fair as this can allow room for creative thought. But if we're going to develop it into a coherent argument, we have to eventually come to definitions that accurately describe what's going on that all can agree on.

Until a conversation I had with one of my sons a couple of years ago, I assumed belief/believing had a modicum of legitimacy and value. Since then I've had the suspicion that isn't true, so I've been digging into it. — Millard J Melnyk

Yeah, its a realization some people eventually come to. "Hey, do I really know anything?" Descartes had this epiphany when he discovered that a triangle could exist that did not have a total of 180 degrees. Draw a triangle on a sphere for example, and the degrees are more than 180. So he began to doubt himself until he could come up with something he could not doubt, "I think therefore I am". So the question of, "Do I believe this, do I know this, can any of us know anything" is essentially the tradition of epistemology, or the study of knowledge.

So, I put what everyone says, including philosophers, out of my head, observe what's really going on, find the patterns resident in actual behavior, and then I go about reconciling the differences with academic and mainstream thinking. I think this is important because, to the extant that our most respected and most predominate thinking are responsible for the FUBARs in the world that look like they're increasingly threatening our very existence, I think it behooves us to assess and fix their psycho-social and ideological causes. — Millard J Melnyk

I am a big fan of first taking a fresh approach to problems and seeing what you come up with. That lets you approach the problem from your perspective instead of placing yourself into other people's perspective first. If you wish to read a few philosopher's perspectives, google "Epistemology" and see all the crazy stuff philosophers have come up with over the years. :)

Once I realized these statements have two parts and that the actual assertion part (P/"it's raining") for all forms is the exact same assertion, I realized that "epistemically identical" is an unnecessary qualification. They're the exact same. All that differs is the 2nd part that indicates the speaker's relationship to/attitude towards their assertion.
...So, that begs the question why it's important to the speaker to prefix the assertion with an irrelevancy. — Millard J Melnyk

Fantastic. You came up with on your own what is largely considered the difference between knowledge, belief, and truth.

Truth is generally agreed to be "What is". What do I mean? "Its raining". Its either raining, or it isn't. It doesn't matter whether you or I know, believe, or disbelieve that its raining. It is! Its true no matter what we think about it.

So why are belief and knowledge important? A belief is an assertion of what you think is true, but of course it may not be true. And knowledge is an assertion of what you think is true, but of course it may not be true. The difference between belief an knowledge is that a belief does not need any rational thinking behind it, while knowledge does.

For example, I could believe that the moon is made of green cheese. Why? Well it looks like it. Its more of an emotional assertion about reality, and while it may be accurate, there's no reasoning behind it. Why do we care about reasoning? Because if something IS true, and we have all the information to ascertain that its true, then we could use reason with the information provided to come to that conclusion. So while being reasonable may lead to us knowing something, and that thing which we know is not true, its far more reasonable and likely to be a correct assertion of what is true then a mere belief. Someone might believe the moon is made of green cheese, but we know its not because we've been there and found it to be made of dirt.

The specifics of what separates a belief from knowledge are of course tricky, and pretty much what the entire study of epistemology is based on. I have written a nice summary intended for a thinker who does not need to know any history of epistemology or deep vocabulary if you want to read it. You might find it interesting. I'll link it again here. https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14044/knowledge-and-induction-within-your-self-context/p1 Read it if you want, no worry if you don't. :)

I'm interested in your topic.
Essentially, the discussion revolves around the opposition between "I believe" and "I think"—and, importantly, the unspoken priority of analyticity over the sensory. Logic is placed above the irrational, the rational above the intuitive. I'd like to contribute by adding an aesthetic and epistemological layer to the discussion—through Alexander Baumgarten. In Baumgarten's time (the 18th century), the assertion "rational = good, sensory = nonsense" was not yet self-evident. On the contrary, he demonstrated that logical representation is formal perfection, but it is achieved at the cost of a loss of completeness. Sensory, "obscure" knowledge is the foundation of everything. It grasps the object in its entirety, immediately, in its concreteness and complexity.
Logical knowledge, on the other hand, is an extension, an abstraction, a rationalization, which impoverishes the original richness.

The more obscure the representation, the more complex, complete, and richer its attributes. The clearer it is, the poorer, but more structured it is.

For example: When we first meet a person, we grasp them sensorily—a general impression, a "feeling." We can only recall their eye color or height.
With each new encounter, we rationalize more: their character, habits, voice, facial expressions. But the initial, irrational feeling doesn't disappear. It is enriched, becomes deeper, more precise.
It is not replaced by logic—it feeds it.
This is the binary opposition: "holism" (sensory, holistic, primary) versus "analyticism" (logical, dissected, secondary).

Evaluating a statement using rationalism as the highest and only value is too impoverished an approach.
Faith is not a "hallucination," not a "psychosis," not a "thought defect."
It is holism, the first act of cognition, the foundation of action.
Without it, there is no trust, no society, no science—after all, a hypothesis begins with intuition, not proof.

Can the world be built on "I think" alone? - No.
Can it be built on "faith" alone? - Also no.

I think this is important because, to the extant that our most respected and most predominate thinking are responsible for the FUBARs in the world that look like they're increasingly threatening our very existence, I think it behooves us to assess and fix their psycho-social and ideological causes. — Millard J Melnyk

You remind me of Descartes and his project of universal doubt. But I think taking on everything at the same time, is unlikely to be fruitful. It would be like trying to map the earth from a satellite with the naked eye. It's not the word/concept "know" and "knowledge" that you should focus on but the different areas and kinds of knowledge.
Science and Mathematics are the (not unchallenged) gold standard in our culture. Philosophy of science and mathematics would give you a much more interesting take on that kind of knowledge. Other areas, Art, Ethics, Psychology, Sociology are more contested, but, again, you would learn more about what is and is not knowledge from looking directly at those, rather than a single, broad-brush concept.

I assumed belief/believing had a modicum of legitimacy and value. Since then I've had the suspicion that isn't true, so I've been digging into it. — Millard J Melnyk

Again, you remind me of Descartes. Like him, you have some sort of idea what a belief needs to have if it is to be legitimate and worth something. Like him, you are disappointed when you ask around. I would suggest, tentatively, that you think about the standards you have by which you assess beliefs. Where did they come from? What could make one belief more legitimate and valuable than another?

Thanks for the contribution. I don't subscribe to many of the categories you mentioned, let alone to their prioritization. For me, it's simple: Something's happening. I don't compartmentalize it before trying to understand it. Any categorization ought to map to the goings-on and add value to them. Otherwise, they're of no value to them or, more often, disruptive. In effect, I'm exploring the possibility that "belief" is a bogus category. Most of the pushback I get originates from, "But that's not what we were taught, and that's not how we're used to seeing things!", not from legit critique.

Again, you remind me of Descartes. Like him, you have some sort of idea what a belief needs to have if it is to be legitimate and worth something. Like him, you are disappointed when you ask around. I would suggest, tentatively, that you think about the standards you have by which you assess beliefs. Where did they come from? What could make one belief more legitimate and valuable than another? — Ludwig V

The likeness is legit to a point, except I fundamentally disagree with Descartes on his entire skeptical project. He sought to find a rock he could build on. That's cool, gotta start somewhere. His mistake was in thinking that once he found what seemed like rock, that was the end of the project. Wrong.

Jesus likened it to housebuilding, which is what I did for a while as a general contractor. What did he point out that Descartes missed? Rain and floods and wind. Empirical reality. Experiential reality. In short, embodied reality. How do you know you found rock you can build on? If the rain and floods and wind blow it down, it wasn't rock. So, you did deeper until you find firmer rock. Does that guarantee your house won't get knocked down again? No. If it doesn't, you found the firmest rock you need for that location. If it does, you dig deeper.

I've lived through 4 complete demolitions of my worldview houses: agnostic => believer => Bible cultist => no fucking clue what's really going on just gonna do the best I can => building on embodied truth and wisdom. That last includes a continual feedback/self-assessment loop that was exactly what Descartes wanted to escape.

But you're wrong about the "you have some sort of idea what a belief needs to have if it is to be legitimate and worth something". Nope. I don't approach things that way. I feel no obligation to accommodate prior thinking when it represents a break from real-world functionality and sense. I start with embodied experience -- actions from communication to experiment -- take the findings, then analyze them. That method has revealed plenty of monkey business. I have no interest in redeeming beliefs or anything else -- that's what I mean by preexisting attachments. I trust that the way things happen is obviously functional (except when psychosis interferes) and follows established patterns, so I trust that when I find goings-on that rupture or resist those patterns, we have a problem.

You suggest what I've already done and am well into developing further. Happy to talk about it if you're interested. It does beg the question why you thought I might have neglected it.

"Belief is a fictitious category." I'm intrigued by how your proof will look. I hope there's a flaw in your perfect syllogism that can be criticized, otherwise I'll have to stop feeling anything for my wife, my family, my community, and God.

Not "perfect" by a long shot, lol. Plenty of valid criticisms have been raised, but the syllogism isn't the point. I posted it to provoke criticism to see if there are considerations I mistook or missed.

Beliefs (like thought, idea, ideology, knowledge, on and on) are concepts of human construction that, at best, refer to something in reality. At worst, they contribute to bullshit and gaslighting.

Feelings are a completely different kind of thing, far more immanent and psychologically deep than any concept or, for that matter, cognition itself. Cognition is connected to affective capacity, but psycho-therapeutic processes (and cults, for that matter) prove how difficult it is to revise affect on the basis of cognition. The flip side -- cognition warped by affect -- is incredibly easy, ubiquitous, and durable.

So your feelings toward your wife, your family, your community, and God are quite secure, I assure you. :blush:

That's cool, gotta start somewhere. His mistake was in thinking that once he found what seemed like rock, that was the end of the project. — Millard J Melnyk

You mean that Descartes was looking for, and thought he had found something permanent on which he could build a whole system of knowledge - permanent and final. It's a common enough mistake. I should have said that I didn't think you would like the house that he builds.

That last includes a continual feedback/self-assessment loop that was exactly what Descartes wanted to escape. — Millard J Melnyk

Yes, indeed. It wasn't enough for him that he was able to recognize and correct his errors. He wanted to be able to avoid making them in the first place. But that's not how our lives work.

Jesus likened it to housebuilding, which is what I did for a while as a general contractor. — Millard J Melnyk

So are you saying that we shouldn't be looking for rock-like foundations, but only for foundations that are good enough for whatever purposes we have at hand?

Beliefs (like thought, idea, ideology, knowledge, on and on) are concepts of human construction that, at best, refer to something in reality. At worst, they contribute to bullshit and gaslighting. — Millard J Melnyk

It seems a bit over the top to dismiss all beliefs just because some of them are wrong. I would have thought that the challenge is to distinguish between those beliefs that refer to something in reality and the garbage. It seems a bit over the top to dismiss all beliefs just because some of them are wrong. (It's also a mistake that Descartes made, when he recognized that his senses sometimes deceived him and so decided he could not trust his senses at all. Sometimes our senses deceive us, sometimes they don't. The trick is, to know which is which.)

I start with embodied experience -- actions from communication to experiment -- take the findings, then analyze them. — Millard J Melnyk

So is that your rock? Fair enough. Can you tell me more about the process of analysis?

Feelings are a completely different kind of thing, far more immanent and psychologically deep than any concept or, for that matter, cognition itself. — Millard J Melnyk

So I'm thinking that feelings are the findings from embodied experience and action.

So are you saying that we shouldn't be looking for rock-like foundations, but only for foundations that are good enough for whatever purposes we have at hand? — Ludwig V

Not at all. I said we dig down -- under our biases, presuppositions, indoctrination, attachments, etc. -- until we find rock-hard foundations: hard enough we can't dig past them, same as Descartes. Where I differ is that I don't assume that seems hard is hard enough. I take the risk that Descartes wanted to avoid: build confident, but realistic that seems hard might not be hard enough, which translates into more caution, humility, less cut corners, less risk-taking. And then, when betrayal, overwhelming, "world-ending" events, etc., prove that the foundation was insufficient, the world doesn't end, and you dig it all up and dig deeper, this time.

This fable of once-for-all understanding, the Holy Grail of philosophy, is actually a hatred of wisdom, and it's a big reason why I've rejected the entire philosophical proposition as it's been pursued throughout history.

It seems a bit over the top to dismiss all beliefs just because some of them are wrong. — Ludwig V

I wouldn't say over the top. I'd say f*cking stupid -- which is something I don't do if I can help it -- and I have not done and do not do that in the discussions here.

I would have thought that the challenge is to distinguish between those beliefs that refer to something in reality and the garbage. — Ludwig V

Yes, that's a common approach, but it presumes (without warrant) that valid beliefs must exist. What if they don't? And what if the desire for beliefs/believing itself turns out to be pathological, and the formulation of beliefs (i.e., believing itself, regardless of content and referential validity and accuracy) turns out to be a symptom of underlying irrationality? That's the question I raised here, so I'm sure you can see that responses based on the presumption that beliefs/believing itself must be rational in some form completely miss the point (unresponsive).

So is that your rock? Fair enough. Can you tell me more about the process of analysis? — Ludwig V

No, that's the ground -- the data. It's the only stuff we've got to work with. We have to dig through it to find rock, no different than how science analyzes and theorizes from empirical data. Philosophically, the hardest rock I've been able to identify is, "It's happening." There's simply no way around or past that. But then you need to find out what "it" is and what "it" is doing/having done to it. That's not a philosophical process, because without experiential contact and the data it provides, there's nothing to philosophize about. By "embodied" I mean the entire spectrum of experience from sensory through to the extremes of the fantastic it might inspire. Limiting philosophy to cogitation is another big reason I've rejected its proposition. I do philosophy, but I don't confine myself to existing philosophical methods, obviously.

My process is thoroughly experimental and, in that sense, empirical. Subjective experience is our only way of contacting reality -- when people cry, "Anecdotal!" I just roll my eyes -- and thinking about it (hypothesis) and experimenting (test) which generates data (findings) and then making sense of it all (theory) is how we build a grounded understanding of things -- and then do it all over again and again, partly as a quality assurance method and (hopefully) to incorporate revisions based on new information. That's "my" method and it's best method I know. And guess what? Prior to the 20th century, not a philosopher I know of followed that method.

People think that the scientific method is a skeptical method, which just shows their understanding of it is superficial. One of the most imaginative and credulous things a person can do, short of becoming superstitious, is formulate a hypothesis. "It's raining." Stated as a fact. "God exists." Stated as a fact. And then, do the work to find out if and how much truth lies in the hypothesis, if any at all.

Notice that "belief" actually muddies all that. A belief is a hypotheses to which we have formed attachments prior to doing the work and, in most cases, specifically so that we can avoid doing the work. That's why "arguments" are so ubiquitous and notoriously interminable in philosophy.

In my experience and reading, beliefs are like nuts. When a person tells you they believe P, they're not just saying that they did the work and found P true. P is the kernel. In fact, they're often saying "believe" precisely because they're well aware that they didn't do sufficient work to call P true. But they're saying something in addition to that. They're saying, "Regardless what I did to become attached to P, even if I did nothing at all and have no idea why I'm attached to P, P is important to me -- so respect the fact that I'm attached to it."

That's the shell. If the kernel was the only thing that's important to them, they'd focus on the kernel and skip the shell.

Obviously, the fact that we're attached to an idea has shitall to do with ascertaining its truth. The shell isn't there to assure us that the kernel is ripe or rotten, nutritious or poisonous, or anything else of the sort. The shell has one and only one job: protect the kernel.

I just explained why it's so difficult to get believers to change their minds.

Since I'm dumping anyway, one more reason why I've rejected philosophy as we've known it, and this is probably the elephant. Philosophy has been compartmentalized from real life, both in the minds of philosophers and "laypeople". Even the best, most stellar philosophy ever done wasn't done with the intention of creating a reliable method for individuals to live their lives -- which is what I was after when I started my philo major in 1972. Boy, was I in for a shock. Philosophy's goal is to create an explanation/understanding which can be used to rationalize actions. That's at its best. More realistically, its goal has been to serve its patrons -- the parasitic "ruling" classes -- providing a basis for their rule, a pre-rationalization for what they want to do, and a post-rationalization for what they did and were dead-set on doing, regardless.

That's why philosophy has always taken a God's-eye-view for its cogitations. Phenomenologists tempered this somewhat, but only partly. Not only has most philosophy omitted but downright denigrated the individual's perspective as "subjective" -- another eye-roller, because the only knowledge there is resides in finite form within individuals who cannot in any way transcend the finiteness that limits them subjectively. No matter how far we extend those limits -- the subjective knowledge of 100 billion, trillion, quadrillion subjects never stops being limited and subjective.

The compartmentalization has led to a bizarre situation where sensemaking in philosophy is a completely different proposition than sensemaking in science, which is a completely different proposition than sensemaking in real life. Different goals, different standards, different expectations. One of the most frustrating things for me is how easily people write off irrationality in real life, as if "well, people are basically irrational" and then worship "science" like it's a religion and pooh-pooh philosophy as some strange mental affliction of a strange sort of nerds. It's bizarre.

under our biases, presuppositions, indoctrination, attachments, etc. — Millard J Melnyk

All of that is what we start with - the inheritance we are lumbered with. We do well to examine it closely. There are good things in it, however. The habit of asking questions, for example.

This fable of once-for-all understanding, the Holy Grail of philosophy, is actually a hatred of wisdom, and it's a big reason why I've rejected the entire philosophical proposition as it's been pursued throughout history. — Millard J Melnyk

Do you mean that the suspicion of "once for all" is wisdom. I wouldn't argue with that.

I wouldn't say over the top. I'd say f*cking stupid -- which is something I don't do if I can help it -- and I have not done and do not do that in the discussions here. — Millard J Melnyk

That's all right, then.

Yes, that's a common approach, but it presumes (without warrant) that valid beliefs must exist. What if they don't? — Millard J Melnyk

I'm not sure it's a presumption. If one understands when a belief is invalid, then it follows that one understands when a belief is valid, don't you think? That's true even if one has never encountered a valid belief. I would say that that approach hopes, even expects, that there will be some true beliefs to be found. Proving that there are none is very hard, since you would have to examine every possible belief and discard them all. That's an endless task. As for your "what if", it is not a great worry - you'll never know for sure.

That's the question I raised here, so I'm sure you can see that responses based on the presumption that beliefs/believing itself must be rational in some form completely miss the point (unresponsive). — Millard J Melnyk

Presumptions may be found to be true or false. Good arguments are a different matter.

That's "my" method and it's best method I know. — Millard J Melnyk

That sounds very reasonable. However, the proof of any method is, in the end, the results it produces.

The compartmentalization has led to a bizarre situation where sensemaking in philosophy is a completely different proposition than sensemaking in science, which is a completely different proposition than sensemaking in real life. Different goals, different standards, different expectations. — Millard J Melnyk

I don't think that's bizarre at all. It's horses for courses. Philosophy, Science and everyday life are different environments and our different ways of making sense in each environment are, on the whole, pragmatically successful - mostly.

Premises:
[1] Epistemically, belief and thought are identical.
[2] Preexisting attachment to an idea motivates a rhetorical shift from “I think” to “I believe,” implying a degree of veracity the idea lacks.
[3] This implication produces unwarranted confidence.
[4] Insisting on an idea’s truth beyond the limits of its epistemic warrant is irrational.

Conclusion ∴ All belief is irrational. — Millard J Melnyk

I completely agree. That includes your belief that [admittedly hijacked and reworded liberally as] all knowledge/truth settlements start as belief. And, that includes my confidence that your belief is an expression of knowlege/truth.

Now why, if all belief is irrational, would I have a belief that knowledge/truth settlements start as belief? I don't believe that -- not because I believe the opposite, but because I don't rely on believing, period. In fact, I don't want anything to do with beliefs. For me, they're incoherent, unnecessary, and soiled. I go commando! :lol:

Beliefs are constructs. So is knowledge. They are categories of something far more basic we've manipulated into certain forms to fit those categories. Wittgenstein was right-on that philosophy reduces to word games, or we could call them map games. Map is not territory, the words are not what they signify. They are references which hopefully have referents, but manipulating references to the furthest extent possible does nothing to change the referents they refer to.

So, if you couch what I say in a framework where "belief" is both sensible and meaningful, you're talking about a whole different ball of wax than I am.

All of that is what we start with - the inheritance we are lumbered with. — Ludwig V

Well, we're not born tabula rasa, but neither were we born with indoctrination, presuppositions, etc.

Since computer/Internet/AI analogies are all the rage, we could say we were born with an operating system. Within the constraints of brain morphology and the physics of neurology, it's self-assembling and self-coding, which we haven't achieved with digital tech yet. We could take a step nearer it by having two apps which rewrite each other based on what the other app just rewrote in them -- or make two AIs talk to each other and see what they come up with. But human beings actually rewire their own brains based on what they experience and what they make of the experiences. To some degree, experience (in the broadest sense, to include environmental exposure) impacts gene expression, if not gene mutation. So far as we currently know, this is an almost exclusively deterministic process, but nothing structural in the human make up (not that we know) prevents conscious interventions that could impact gene expression.

Short story, human psychology is the process of using a biological apparatus designed not only to change and adapt to external experience, but also to internal experience, even consciously-driven/directed internal experience (e.g., meditation, psychedelics etc.) We are self-changing biological engines by design. We don't seem to have an "Undo" key, though. It's more of an "Do-over-better" key. We literally process past experience and change our own makeup (within broad constraints) to handle future experience differently.

So, we're able to do examine the substrate elements that people who subscribe to "belief" build their beliefs atop -- which begs the question: Then why are believers so resistant to that examination? People like to talk about the human characteristic of resistance to change, as if it's innate to human nature. Pshaw. Up to a certain age, children show no signs of that but precisely the opposite. Until what I call the "My dad's stronger!" age when they develop identity attachments, they literally have no beliefs. They'll argue with each other about things -- but not because they "believe" them, because believing necessarily implies the possibility of disbelieving. They do neither, just like small fry who don't know what water is can't "believe" they're swimming in it. What kids know is, for them, all there is, so "It IS bigger!" isn't even the kind of thing that could be "believed" in the first place.

So, no -- change resistance isn't a structural, immutable characteristic of nature. Something induced it as we grew up. And it's just a symptom. Believers display resistance to the examination of their biases, presuppositions, indoctrination, attachments, etc. before the prospect of changing their beliefs even comes up -- not because they think examination would force them to change their beliefs, but merely because it has the potential to put them in a position where they might have to change them. They're not just resistant to changing, they're resistant to looking. So, in this way, children are smarter than they are. (Which is one reason why Jesus recommended we become like children, I'm sure.) [<-- So what's the difference between that and saying, "I believe" ? :grin: For me, they are not synonymous.)

Do you mean that the suspicion of "once for all" is wisdom. I wouldn't argue with that. — Ludwig V

No, "once and for all" isn't suspicious in my view. It used to be, but I've resolved my suspicions. "Once and for all" is a fantasy, a Holy Grail, a delusion that arises from psychosis (when taken generically, not as defined currently in notorious psychiatric fashion as a quantum instead of an analog affair, i.e., a spectrum). A little hysteria that makes us misinterpret an obviously friendly gesture is still hysteria, for example. It still caused a minute break from reality. The motivation for hoping and searching for "once and for all" is contrary to every obvious aspect of existence because existence is continually changing, and we don't have a fucking clue to what extent it's capable of changing or even if there are any limits at all. I like to tell people that "absolute truth" isn't just impossible, it's incoherent, because it's not truth if it doesn't inform us about reality, and there is nothing immutable about reality other than that it's mutable. If everything absolutely stopped changing so that the truth about it were absolute, there would be no way to know if anything still existed for there to be a truth about. The truth is always changing, as far as we can tell. Ideas like "once and for all" actually have nothing to do with truth. They are vain attempts to resolve psychological dissonance by people who cannot bear the vagaries of mutability. I call them "codependents".

I'm not sure it's a presumption. If one understands when a belief is invalid, then it follows that one understands when a belief is valid, don't you think? That's true even if one has never encountered a valid belief. I would say that that approach hopes, even expects, that there will be some true beliefs to be found. Proving that there are none is very hard, since you would have to examine every possible belief and discard them all. That's an endless task. As for your "what if", it is not a great worry - you'll never know for sure. — Ludwig V

I think you missed my point, partly my fault because of how I worded it. Saying, "If one understands when a belief is invalid, then it follows..." demonstrates presumption that there is a belief, whether valid or invalid. You can't determine anything at all about something unless it's there. So, "If one understands when a belief is invalid, then it follows..." presumes the existence of a belief which is coherent enough that evaluating its validity would, in turn, be coherent. If believing itself is incoherent, then all beliefs are the result of that incoherency. (I wonder, maybe the it would have been better to use "incoherent" instead of "irrational" in the OP?) That is the presumption I meant.

Presumptions may be found to be true or false. Good arguments are a different matter. — Ludwig V

Yes, but you need to consider the chronicity and timing here -- something that philosophers, in general, have been deplorably negligent in, given their obsession with freeze-framing the truth. At the point that it's a presumption, it cannot have been found true or false, because once it's found one way or the other, it's no longer a presumption. Problems arising from pretending that presumptions are self-evident or treating them like conclusions when no work was done to arrive at the conclusion can't be redeemed by "but maybe later we'll find out it's true or false".

That sounds very reasonable. However, the proof of any method is, in the end, the results it produces. — Ludwig V

Of course, which is the only reason I'd have adopted it and stuck with it so far. Works great! :blush:

I don't think that's bizarre at all. It's horses for courses. Philosophy, Science and everyday life are different environments and our different ways of making sense in each environment are, on the whole, pragmatically successful - mostly. — Ludwig V

That's simply not the case. Everyday life is primary. All of our fields of study are at best (when not compromised or fabricated) secondary processing efforts totally dependent on primary experience for their validity, meaning, and significance. The everyday life of a scientist in the lab or in the real-life "field" or at the telescope is the basis for all the science they generate. So, science is not something that's non-anecdotal like people pretend it is. We have merely exempted the primary experience of a person trained in processes and equipment, then recorded in lab notes, as something "more than" mere (pfft) subjective experience. It might be of a higher quality/caliber than the "everyday life" lived by untrained people, with respect to training/lack of training, but it is in no way different in kind with respect to subjectivity.

All that to say, no: everyday life is primary experience in specific real environments, but academic fields (whether done inside or outside academic institutions) are not just the same kind of things. Being secondary processing, they do not belong to the real-world environments that the data they process was obtained from. They aren't the same kind of thing, so it makes no sense to say they are "different environments" as if they were ontologically and epistemically similar.

What's more, the real world is not compartmentalized. We compartmentalized our processing of it. That doesn't mean our compartmentalization necessarily or best reflects reality, and it certainly doesn't impose itself on reality in any material way. Academic categories (or any other abstract compartmentalization) have no bearing on reality. They are just reflections (at best) which do not divide, shape, or alter phenomena—only perception. Their only impact is through human mediaries that impose them on a naturally integrated world.

Besides, I wasn't making a philosophical statement there, I was making a historical one. The divisions between our fields have study have, in fact, caused plenty of problems that only recently we've taken steps towards rectifying. One example is "interdisciplinary studies". Well, we wouldn't have needed to reintegrate them if we hadn't compartmentalized them in the first place.

I was actually talking about the cognitive compartmentalization effected by all this. Except as a self-defense against horrific trauma, cognitive compartmentalization is always detrimental. A great example is how we presume violence on the part of government is ipso auctore virtuous, but violence on the part of non-governmental parties -- even if it's exactly the same actions in far less severe and detrimental degrees -- is considered "criminal". A Madoff is regarded as far less vile than the neighborhood racketeer.

I want to say thank you for this discussion, I'm enjoying it -- but especially, I appreciate your openness and honesty and effort to understand what I'm saying as opposed to what I usually get: reactions against whatever spooks were triggered in people's heads by what I said. It's really cool. Refreshing.

Now why, if all belief is irrational, would I have a belief that knowledge/truth settlements start as belief? — Millard J Melnyk

Knowledge and so called truth are constructions.
rational and irrational are too.

A so called "truth" is a settlement which mind arrives at following a dialectical process which takes place partially "unconsciously" i.e. before manifestation to aware-ing, and partially consciously, I.e. manifesting to aware-ing.

At the latter "stage" a "truth" is settled upon when that dialectical process reaches the point where the aware-ing body is triggered to [having] a certain real and natural feeling. There, the body, feeling appropriately, triggers the mind to [temporarily--because the cycle continues] stop the dialectic and manifest the "result" as "truth". That settlement or acceptance is never absolutely conclusive but rather, it is that mechanism, triggering the end of the struggle by way of a [settled] feeling, which we think of as belief. Sometimes the feeling and corresponding settlement are vague and subtle, sometimes, for example if based on a "solid" reasoning (also constructed) or an imprinting (input in childhood) the settlement is triggered by 'strong" feelings. But they are never actually absolutely verifiable Truth/Reality. Always constructed code, out of a process in mind, triggering as a conditioned response, a certain feeling in the real body aware-ing.

A truth for human minds is never an absolute truth, always a settlement started by (or ended by, depending upon where in time we are observing it) belief.

I'm very much enjoying your thoughts.

Knowledge and so called truth are constructions.
rational and irrational are too. — ENOAH

Kinda sorta. Knowledge is a construction: a collection of truths deemed reliable and operable. "Rational" and "irrational" are characterizations of constructions, not constructions themselves.

Truth can very often be a construction -- in which case it's better known as bullshit. For me, to qualify as truth, no matter if it's an idea or an experience or a feeling/sense/impression/intuition/premonition/gut feel/inspiration -- which kind of stuff I call "gutma" -- or a deliberated conclusion, it must be grounded by means of real work in space and time. Epistemic work. Otherwise I won't treat it as truth but as merely a somewhat convincing idea, even a greatly convincing idea, that might or might not be true. 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.

So, you can see why I rarely deal in "truth" other than as a point-in-time, provisional understanding that I must handle as true if I'm to be honest. No one, but no one, has figured out a way to get a guarantee that they're not wrong.

"But according to that, your 'truth' could in fact turn out to be false."

Exactly -- just like every other truth known to man. We rely on reflective analysis, subsequent experience, and the grace of the universe and our fellow humans and other conscious animals to clue us in about our mistakes. There is no coherent way I've ever seen to escape from that dependency, although many crap-thinking bullshitters pretend there is.

A so called "truth" is a settlement which mind arrives at following a dialectical process which takes place partially "unconsciously" i.e. before manifestation to aware-ing, and partially consciously, I.e. manifesting to aware-ing. — ENOAH

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).

A truth for human minds is never an absolute truth, always a settlement started by (or ended by, depending upon where in time we are observing it) belief. — ENOAH

That settlement or acceptance is never absolutely conclusive but rather, it is that mechanism, triggering the end of the struggle by way of a [settled] feeling, which we think of as belief. — ENOAH

I understand what you're saying, but it embodies precisely the same confusion I've been trying to parse, differentiate, and articulate (poorly so far). I 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. Check out what I said about lack of belief in children in my latest response to @Ludwig V at https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/1023823.

The more I think about and discuss this, the more I'm seeing the metaphor of a nut holds. The important part of a nut is its kernel. A belief is not the kernel. The kernel is what you're talking about here:

At the latter "stage" a "truth" is settled upon when that dialectical process reaches the point where the aware-ing body is triggered to [having] a certain real and natural feeling. — ENOAH

There's two parts to the kernel: the idea itself (content) and our "settled feeling" (our conviction/its credibility). No content, no kernel. No settlement, no kernel, although the content could be the beginnings of one. Settlement might be the result of a dialectical process, or it might precede it, ("settlement started by (or ended by, depending upon where in time we are observing it)") or both. The kernel might consist of gutma; or of inspiration, revelation, dream, epiphany or psychedelic experience, etc., which are too real and convincing to be dismissed or not taken as conveying truth; or of something resulting from a conscious process, such as a finding, a discovery, a conclusion, etc. All of these can leave us with a "this has gotta be/there's gotta be something to this" feeling of some convincing magnitude.

Those are not beliefs, although we're often very sloppy and say they are.

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. What do we do? We put them in a shell. Putting a shell around a kernel makes a nut. The nut is the belief -- the actual content plus a protective barrier.

I'm not interested at this point in arguing whether "all beliefs" fit this structure. I'm far more interested in approaching it scientifically, quantitatively: of all the usages of "belief" and "believing", how many fit that structure and how many don't fit? Answer those questions and we'll know what the proportions are and, therefore, how much attention to give each and how much weight each carries.

People don't couch their cogni-affective "kernels" inside a "shell" until they've developed an attachment to them that warrants protection. A belief involves both parts, and I've yet to find someone who sees this with much clarity, much less anyone who has clearly explained it. I'm doing my best, haha, but I've still got a ways to go!