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No worries, we're just having a friendly, intelligent discourse so there is no cognitive dissonance !
And quite possibly a side result of this is establishing territory, boundaries, and maps of where to go and not go !
Last edited by NickofDiamonds; 02-15-2016 at 03:07 PM..
NickofDiamonds: Reread your #3 above and tell me what that has to do with what I wrote in #1.
I'm willing we start over. Nick read #1 again and address the subject please.
You start with your judgements about it and generalizations, you did not address the topic nor the question.
Let's make it real easy and start with the title; "What's your premise of believing?"
NickofDiamonds: Reread your #3 above and tell me what that has to do with what I wrote in #1.
I'm willing we start over. Nick read #1 again and address the subject please.
You start with your judgements about it and generalizations, you did not address the topic nor the question.
Let's make it real easy and start with the title; "What's your premise of believing?"
I'm not going on your fool's errand of going back to #1 and #3.
However, the premise of believing is the mind's way of learning what's right and what's wrong with the consciousness of changing one's beliefs through trial and error through feedback from their interaction with the environment that surrounds them.
If you live in the mountains, the woods, or in Saudi Arabia, you will have beliefs that are different then others but there are some axioms that don't change no matter where you go on this planet.
Science, math, physics are some examples of these beliefs by humans.
I hope that this is real easy for you to understand without resorting to circular questioning.
I'm not going on your fool's errand of going back to #1 and #3.
(cop out?)
However, the premise of believing is the mind's way of learning what's right and what's wrong with the consciousness of changing one's beliefs through trial and error through feedback from their interaction with the environment that surrounds them.
Good answer.Why is there so much emotional misery/hurt? Are humans slow learners? Why are so many false thoughts believed? Their our thoughts, by believing false ones, we are in effect, "shooting ourselves in the foot" so to speak.
quote; "....believing is the mind's way of learning what's right and what's wrong....etc" unquote
Does that mean; "believing is the mind's way of learning which thoughts are true and which thoughts are erroneous?
Believing false thoughts is too rampant for your definition to be acceptable. (to me).
I agree with your part where you said "interaction with the environment..."
How about when we interact with our thoughts, but don't recognize our thoughts but 'mistake' them for the environment; that's a case of "confusing the map with the territory".
(the classic example of confusing the map with the territory is 'believing the thought 'bogyman' as being really 'territory', when in fact it's only thought.)
Is that the Don Quixote syndrome? It's very prevalent.
Not everyone has 'maps', and even those who do may not have enough layers to formulate a clear belief. I'm reminded of Richard Feynman's recollection in youth of when asked to understand a cat, he asked for a 'map' of the cat.
I'll give your query a try. I think some people will wait until they have enough 'layers' (i.e. data points / variables) before they will form a belief. And there are others who will willingly accept 'beliefs' of various types to give them comfort, or make sense of something they do not have enough data points to do so (probably the most common premise, if admitted) with greater degrees of certainty (sort of analogous to the old adage that 'there are no atheists in fox holes').
Statements can hurt (some) people's feelings if they value the statement maker and then impute the statement as negative. The nuance of intent is often not clear and the recipient can often interpret a statement one way or another.
Automatic 'believing' is a tool used to control people; sometimes instilled for good reasons (say, safety for the non fully developed human i.e. guardians often instill beliefs into progeny for their own safety-sometimes easier than explaining cause and effect) and sometimes bad reasons (leaders instilling 'beliefs' into other adults to not challenge or (usurp) their control over the mechanisms of control (educational, financial, judicial/ legal, mass media, religious, scientific, etc...) in the economic political realms of their time.
I surmise your point is more attuned the latter 'conditioning'. Breaking that conditioning is difficult when it bathes a large population continuously through various means.
There's also the realm of delusional belief; believing one's own thoughts without any concern for verification i.e. the bore and blowhard who thinks he's god's gift to women or the internally wrought who contrive fantasy worlds like The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.
Conceptually you can think of the realms of influence being the nine dots exercise and the only way to connect the dots is to go 'outside' the nine dots to do so.
"Man's mind once stretched never goes back to its original dimensions" - Oliver Wendell Holmes
Ciceropolo: Thanks for your contribution, it's a refreshing change from what you see I've got thus far.
(It's getting late so I'll 'sleep on' what your wrote and reply more to-morrow.)
We believe the wind is real - we can't see it but we see the effects of it. And we can feel it.
Jim Jones' followers believed his false teaching as he led them to mass suicide.
We believe there are only the colors that are visible to us, when in fact there are many other colors that we aren't able to see this side of heaven. That's what I believe to be true.
Hi. Some things may be "likely," but not absolute. Although I tend to agree with your basic thought there -- there are realities we do not see, but suspect (if that's a good word) are there. (true) :-)
Of course it isn't. We are given free will or choice. There are such things as good and evil. We choose which path to take. Nations do the same. The 20th century was the most violent in word history. The forces of good eventually prevailed, but the forces of evil keep flaring up in regional areas.
Once again, mankind must choose whether to sit and watch or to intervene for good. Sometimes we are frozen in place by analysis paralysis such as in Rwanda around 1993 when 600,000 Christians were massacred - with machetes. Today on Mount Sinjar there are Christians, Kurds and Yasidis (sp?) surrounded by evil forces who find joy in beheading men and raping women. They follow a book that advocates evil.
Some of us have fought for good.
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