Some beliefs don't submit to facts, because they are more than mere thoughts. They structure our thoughts, given them meaning within a frame of reference, and also filter what is allowed to flow into our stream of consciousness and what is not allowed. That'd be why you can't talk an atheist into believing in god, or vice versa. Beliefs are not like a carpet that we can easily change. They are the supporting and defensive walls of our mental house, and we constantly repair them, invest in them and defend them. If a fact comes in that contradict cherished beliefs, that fact will simply be filtered out. It won't be accepted as a fact.

We get attached to our beliefs - that's the main reason we hang on to them in the first place, regardless of their epistemic virtues or lack thereof. We rarely question what we are long used to hold true, and when we do for the sake of form, we rarely admit actual doubt into our hearts. Still, our noetic structures are not impregnable fortresses, and every once in a while a secure belief begins to crumble. But it won't go easily. Unlike logical systems, our minds are not so brittle - they can tolerate some amount of inconsistency.

My God, yes. We all do this, myself included. It was this realization that made me give up Philosophy as a career. I thought in my youth that if you could solve certain logical problems, people would be happy to find them out.

No. They will hate you when they cannot counter you (In a polite and non-arrogant discussion). They will slam doors in your face. They will listen to five percent of what you are saying while ignoring the other 95%. They will work to twist your words out of context to fit their personal outlook on the world.

VERY few people want the truth. They want a truth that fits themselves. Most people are not rational beings, they are rationalizing beings that try to fit the world into their own ideal.

If they don't care to try to find truth, why should I? Why should I fight people who don't want to hear it? Further, why should I listen to others when most aren't trying to impart other truths, but simply trying to convince others of their own view of the world? It was one of my more depressing realizations about people. Again, including myself. I am not innocent or above this myself. However, I do try and fight that inner demon that makes us worthless beings.

I vibe with this.

That's one problem with a dialog. Two points of view may each be true, but neither need be right, either singly or in any combination.

For each of the believers in the two stories, there seems to have been a prior state in which there was an inferential structure:

The pictures on a tv screen move and change because there are little men in there.

We could add a bunch of steps (something needs to move them; little men could move them) and make it a modus ponens and so on, but that's the start and finish.

Similarly:

If I'm a space ranger, then I spent years at the Space Ranger Academy training to be one.

It looks to me like the consequent in each of these cases gets detached -- in one case because there's an alternative explanation that doesn't need little men, so the necessity of the inference is denied, and in the other because the premise is denied.

That leaves each of these conclusions not falsified but floating free, unsupported. There are little men in there, but not for any particular reason (and then you could rationalize that -- they make sure everything works smoothly); I went to Space Ranger Academy but for no reason, or only to become a toy not a Space Ranger.

This is a funny thing, because it's not exactly illogical not to deny the conclusion of an inference, just because the inference or premises were defective. It could still be true, and in neither case was the particular conclusion that is still affirmed challenged.

The engineer could have just opened up a tv and said, "See, no little men," but you might have to do that with a bunch of tvs, and even then maybe our guy would think, surely some tvs have little men in them. How would you convince Buzz that he never went to Space Ranger Academy? Maybe showing him the Space Ranger Academy playset at the toy store (Buzz Lightyear figure sold separately).

All that to one side -- consequent cut free, still possibly true, never specifically challenged -- we might want to say there is a standard of evidential support that these beliefs no longer meet. We still have grounds to criticize, if we want, but these grounds are a little shakier. "Don't believe anything you don't have strong evidence for" is a rule begging to be selectively enforced.

But what do we say about the persistent or vestigial credence accorded these free-floating beliefs? Is that just habit, doxastic inertia? Will these beliefs maybe just fade away over time now that there's no obvious way to continually reinforce them?

Or do we think that we can see here that belief is not really a product of inference at all? Maybe it's more like Hume might describe it, just a sort of emotional accompaniment to a thought, because you can undercut the inference and leave the feeling of belief intact.

Btw, can anyone provide a case from real life instead of these stories? Or if not from real life then from philosophy?

Now for something completely different...

Always loved that bit! (And his many appearances on QI.)

Another example, slightly different, is the "falling beams story" from The Maltese Falcon:



John Huston's film is almost a word-for-word adaptation of the novel, but they had to cut this because it doesn't advance the plot appreciably.