the belief mechanism

Posted by: Ed_Morris

the belief mechanism - 08/19/08 01:16 AM

anyone have any of your own thoughts on how the belief mechanism works? I think it can be a civil conversation as long as no specific beliefs are focused upon.

we know somewhat the physiology and likely behavior patterns of something like how fear works - and people are comfortable with analyzing it's mechanism with concepts such as adreneline, 'flight or fight', 'survival instinct', 'fear of the unknown', 'mass panics' etc.

just speaking in general concepts, the same way fear is addressed, I thought it may be interesting to open a conversation about how the belief mechanism works.

I'll throw some questions out to get the gears turning:

Is belief a survival trait? Is it a manifestation of fear? Is it a psychology? does a philosophy use the same mechanism as a belief? is belief gifted to humans and only humans? is it a socially learned behavior? is it a sortof social acceptance survival mechanism? are beliefs pre-determined or learned?

if it's pertinent to your study of MA to know how fear works to raise awareness of it - then it would seem investigating a bit about how our belief mechanism works might lead to discovery of something also pertinent.

can you analyze your belief mechanism with the same objectivity and clarity that you can analyize fear? if you can't, or aren't willing to - then what does that say about the power a belief can have?
Posted by: puffadder

Re: the belief mechanism - 08/19/08 06:56 AM

Belief is an interesting concept. It's like an on/off switch - either you believe something or you don't. It seems to be like having a theory that you have mentally tagged with a yes or no in the brain. Once tagged with a yes then you also tag yes all supporting theories and tag no all theories that go against it.

Beliefs can and do change but it's almost impossible to change another's belief (hence all the arguments in these forums). Often only personal experience will change a yes tag into a no tag or vice versa.

Maybe it originally came from a survival instinct but, of course, millions have since died for their 'beliefs' and so hardly ranks as being needed for survival in modern times.
Posted by: harlan

Re: the belief mechanism - 08/19/08 10:39 AM

How much analyzing needs to be done when a fist hits your face? The 'desire' to intellectualize belief systems is untenable because one only has the imperfect tool of rationalization. The ridiculous desire to split hairs, thinking at one point halving and splicing notions can somehow arrive at 'truth' instead of devolving into reductionist nihilism.

The 'problem', if there is one, and as I see it...is 'attachment'. Attachment to beliefs in the face of unresolvability. Our beliefs define us, and we invest in them. Look inside...where are 'you'? Put your finger on 'you'. Can you find your 'self'? No...it's a conglomeration of junk...of beliefs glued together and representing a self that doesn't exist.

Beliefs have no inherent power. However, attachment does. Cut the attachment...and it can be like seperating atoms.

Quote:

can you analyze your belief mechanism with the same objectivity and clarity that you can analyize fear? if you can't, or aren't willing to - then what does that say about the power a belief can have?


Posted by: butterfly

Re: the belief mechanism - 08/19/08 12:42 PM

Interesting comments so far and a neat thread. One of the few that more than vaguely interersts me lately.

"Attachment to beliefs"..... Hmmm? And severing them, if one can? Interesting. After you have deconstructed belief, what's left? You'll still have believers and non-believers, despite evidence and reasons for and against that belief. Impartiality and disinterest are hard to come by if you are already tied to a belief system and have invested in it.

However, I do think there is something to be said by using an imperfect tool to try to see what's going on. Curiosity and an attempt to get at one aspect of empirical truth seems as good a reason as any.

Belief by itself perhaps has less weight than more concrete and better understood reasons for explaining actions, but it gives insight into the reasons people do what they do without evidence to buoy those actions. Belief in No Touch Ki effects. Terrorist killings motivated by a belief in the supreme rigteousness of these actions. Hatred motivated by religious dogma outside of any connection to the group targeted by that anger. Or on a simpler note, the placebo effect...no doubt about it's utilitarian benefits... but the reasons for its positive effects should not be dismissed or not looked into simply because the tools for eeking out reasons are not as well formed as others when looking at less abstract concepts.

So yes, there are reasons to look at belief and to not dismiss its effects. However, it might be prudent to evaluate why something works....and when that fist hits that face....why it doesn't.
Posted by: Ed_Morris

Re: the belief mechanism - 08/19/08 09:26 PM

one of the things that interest me is the observation that while mahy can sit down and have an in-depth conversation about the mechanisms of fear - they can also watch and accept documentaries about how fear works within us. the physiological effects, emotion responses, trama recall, how flashbacks work, adreneline systems, etc ...but use the same language and objectivity to talk about the belief mechanism and how it works - and for many, they knee-jerk into defensive mode. objectivity shuts down, walls go up and the subject of belief attempts to get altered to promote an emotional response, in the hopes the person presenting the conversation will also surround their wagons. it's uncanny.

We don't accuse people of missing the point if they decide to analyize and understand the mechanisms of fear in order to raise awareness of it - yet propose the same line of thought with how belief works, and suddenly the person misses the forest for the trees. when in actuality, what we are witnessing is the defense of that belief system. people don't want belief mechanisms to be understood, since belief itself might be found to be a form of self-deception or something less than etherial and mysterious. - many are abjectly afraid to look behind the curtain, so the questioner gets the rack.
Posted by: harlan

Re: the belief mechanism - 08/19/08 11:48 PM

Actually...are you sure? People seem to be able to view the most atrocious and disturbing things...on tv. A documentary about fear, basically is 'out there' and safe. Quite a different thing when someone is in therapy dealing their traumas/fears/issues. My understanding that the deeper the fear (dare I say...one's attachment to it?)...the more emotional a response when it is broached.
Posted by: Ed_Morris

Re: the belief mechanism - 08/20/08 01:56 AM

no, not sure...hence the discussion. my thought was, if someone can watch 'the most atrocious and disturbing things' as you say, and contemplate the mechanisms of something like fear with the objectivity of being removed at a distance - why can't the same thought process and objectivity be applied to contemplating belief mechanisms?
Can something like the topic of fear be separated/isolated and examined, but the topic of belief cannot?
One observation is in the perception of terms. it's ok to talk about and examine 'irrational fears'...but yet a term like 'irrational belief' gets construed as a pejorative. many seem to put the walls up or shut down.

My understanding that the deeper the belief (dare I say...one's attachment to it?)...the more emotional a response when it is broached.
Posted by: puffadder

Re: the belief mechanism - 08/20/08 01:12 PM

Emotions are different from beliefs although beliefs obviously can be a trigger for deep emotions.

Emotions are states of mind and the mind can seem to split in two with the result that it's possible to remain unattached with part of the mind and ferociously angry with another. It's also possible to have emotions about your emotions eg feeling guilty about feeling angry or feeling scared about being in love. Emotions are complicated things and can trigger a rush of energy or freeze you solid.

As you say a belief is an attachment to an idea and the stronger that attachment then the more likely it would be to trigger fear or anger when seriously challenged. As I said earlier it's almost impossihle to change another person's beliefs and usually only direct personal experience will change your beliefs. You will have attached yourself to different ideas than I and so we could end up arguing, fighting or going to war about our respective beliefs.

One of the goals of many of the world's great philosophies and religions is to let go of attachments, particularly the strong attachments that we call beliefs. Although that's a paradox in itself as you have to believe in that philosophical pathway in order to want to get rid of belief!!
Posted by: fileboy2002

Re: the belief mechanism - 08/23/08 03:20 PM

A lot has been writtien about this question from a variety of perspectives. You should look up an essay by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins called "Viruses of the Mind." Dawkins' question is how false beliefs--in this case,religion--manage to spread, and compares their dissemination to the spread of computer viruses.
Posted by: Ed_Morris

Re: the belief mechanism - 08/23/08 08:55 PM

agreed, that's an interesting read, as are others by Dawkins. A little less formal but just as interesting is some of Michael Shermer's works on the subject as well.
Posted by: Stormdragon

Re: the belief mechanism - 09/27/08 12:21 PM

I'm not sure if this has been asked yet, sorry if it has, but what do you all think about whether or not we "choose" what we believe? I suppose you can compartmentalize something in order to believe it when it doesnt agree with something else, doublethink you know or denial, but really, if we know the truth can we actually believe something else?
I know a guy whose always hounding me for not believing the way he does, and tells me I can decided to believe or not and my response is, when I know (or think I know) the truth how can I "believe" anything else? Even if I try to compartmentalize or something to accept 2 contradicting ideas, there is still some major unbelief going on hence why I would need to do that. I think that, deep down, you believe what you believe and you can't do a anything to change that.

Mod note: edited for swearing and religious reference.
Posted by: Ed_Morris

Re: the belief mechanism - 09/30/08 10:30 PM

I'll assume the basic gist of your question was not lost during mod editing.

"if we know the truth can we actually believe something else?"

From what I've seen so far, the only constant is that things can and do change - including minds, beliefs and truths.


another way to look at your question is to ask:

"if we already have a belief, can we actually know the truth?"
Posted by: JMWcorwin

Re: the belief mechanism - 10/01/08 02:53 PM

"Beliefs are fine... I just think it's better to have ideas. You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier. People fight for them; people die for them... people take a good idea and ruin it by making a belief structure out of it."

One of my favorite philosophical movie lines that just seemed to fit this thread perfectly.

The main thing I got from my study in philosophy is , imo, belief and truth are oxymorons. These concepts themselves are never truly attainable. We only have theories that haven't been disproved yet .

edit- well belief is attainable but whether or not the belief is correct is unattainable. Do truths make our beliefs or do our beliefs make truths? Both? Neither?
Posted by: BrianS

Re: the belief mechanism - 10/03/08 03:39 AM

Faith, hope, and love. Three things I believe in deeply tht I cannot see,touch, or prove that exist.
Posted by: butterfly

Re: the belief mechanism - 10/03/08 11:34 AM

Brian, nothing wrong with that, but I would change these a bit and label them as things I feel. The reality of which I am secure in. The question would be then, why do you feel what you feel? And it's all good.
Posted by: Stormdragon

Re: the belief mechanism - 10/05/08 12:55 AM

Quote:

I'll assume the basic gist of your question was not lost during mod editing.

"if we know the truth can we actually believe something else?"


"if we already have a belief, can we actually know the truth?"





Yeah these are exactly what I was meaning. Example, say you are convinced of one belief/idea, and out of irrational fear of something taught in another, for a just in case sort of thing, you change your beliefs even though the other belief/idea makes more sense. Is that really possible?
Posted by: Ed_Morris

Re: the belief mechanism - 10/05/08 08:42 AM

fear of death has proved that is possible. At the 11th hour, many people turn to beliefs they haven't believed in their whole lives. In psychology, it's described as a form of barganing.
Is it genuine? I'll let you know on my deathbed.
Posted by: harlan

Re: the belief mechanism - 10/05/08 09:13 AM

To be precise, in the realm of beliefs, I suspect the fear of death is really fear of death of ego.
Posted by: TKD-Skippi

Re: the belief mechanism - 10/05/08 11:07 AM

'There are no aethiests in fox holes'
Posted by: Stormdragon

Re: the belief mechanism - 10/09/08 11:18 PM

I guess fear can make a person believe anything, if the belief alleviates their fear, whether it's true or not.
Posted by: Cord

Re: the belief mechanism - 10/12/08 12:42 PM

Rather than offer my homespun beliefs regarding belief (!), here are some more eloquent than I, articulating sentiments that ring true to me.

"What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires -- desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way."

Bertrand Russell.

"One needs something to believe in, something for which one can have whole-hearted enthusiasm. One needs to feel that one's life has meaning, that one is needed in this world."

H. Senesh.

"Habits of thought persist through the centuries; and while a healthy brain may reject the doctrine it no longer believes, it will continue to feel the same sentiments formerly associated with that doctrine."

Charlotte Perkins-Gilman.

"Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true."

Demosthenes.
Posted by: jkdwarrior

Re: the belief mechanism - 10/13/08 10:36 PM

I agree Harlan.

A post like this would usually only have been written by a person who has had direct experience beyond thoughts/ego (unless of course you are relaying a teaching). Would I be right in believing that you are one of the true meditators? A rare thing indeed to have experienced death of ego even for a second. If only it could be experienced by the masses, they would stop thinking that we are insane, and realise that they are the insane ones.

I, amongst others have had the experience of death of ego during deep meditation. It feels like you actually die or disappear. Since then, my fear of death has diminished considerably as I have felt my mind disappear. Death now is no big deal, just the process of bodily death still creeps me out a little.

I'm expecting some criticism for this one, but expressing this simple truth seems more important than getting a bit of agro from random people from across the globe who I will never meet.
Posted by: Cord

Re: the belief mechanism - 10/14/08 01:00 AM

I think that one can accept the inevitability of death whilst retaining a healthy fear of it.
After all, if you truly felt no concern over your demise, you would stop looking before crossing the street, not check you were about to dive into the shallow end of the pool, not care if you were drunk driving etc etc.

If your rational about avoiding some of these acts is to prevent death of others through your own negligence, then you still fear death- after all, if its not a bad thing for you, then how can you see it as a problem for anyone else?

Remove fear of death, and you remove sanctity of life. Accept that death will happen, and you create a mindset geared towards squeezing the last drop out of every minute of life.

I'd take that over your outlook anyday.
Posted by: harlan

Re: the belief mechanism - 10/14/08 07:49 AM

Welcome to the forum. Nice to meet a fellow travelor. Thanks for sharing.

Quote:


I'm expecting some criticism for this one, but expressing this simple truth seems more important than getting a bit of agro from random people from across the globe who I will never meet.


Posted by: harlan

Re: the belief mechanism - 10/14/08 07:59 AM

Probably a semantical difference, but personally, it's more like one develops a high degree of appreciation of each moment/life.

Quote:

Accept that death will happen, and you create a mindset geared towards squeezing the last drop out of every minute of life.


Posted by: jkdwarrior

Re: the belief mechanism - 10/16/08 08:35 PM

You say you would rather have the outlook of accepting the inevibality of death so that you could develop the mindset of squeezing the most out of life.

"Squeezing" the most out of life sounds like the actions of a person living in fear of death, not in acceptance. Accepting death brings peace, not the desire to squeeze more.
Posted by: dandjurdjevic

Re: the belief mechanism - 10/16/08 09:39 PM

I'm not entirely sure whether people actually "believe" in things when they say they do. I think often enough people WANT something to be true and then block from their mind any critical analysis of it.

So it's not so much a "belief mechanism" so much as it is a "suspension of critical analysis" mechanism. Such a mechanism is, I believe, very much rooted in our biological make-up; if we were to keep confronting certain uncomfortable truths on an hourly basis we would not be able to function as a species. Blocking them out is useful from a evolutionary perspective.

I've been confronted many times with: "why don't you believe in X - don't you like the idea of...?". My answer is: "wishing don't make it so".

Hence I don't "believe" in the theory of evolution, for example. It is merely a theory that makes inductive sense to me. I incline towards it on a strong balance of probabilities - like the theory of gravity. If something comes along that logically displaced evolution as a theory, I'd incline towards that new theory without any hesitation, qualms or sadness. In other words, I have no emotional or other "investment" in the theory of evolution; no biological impulse/mechanism has operated to inline me towards it.
Posted by: Cord

Re: the belief mechanism - 10/16/08 11:22 PM

Quote:

You say you would rather have the outlook of accepting the inevibality of death so that you could develop the mindset of squeezing the most out of life.

"Squeezing" the most out of life sounds like the actions of a person living in fear of death, not in acceptance. Accepting death brings peace, not the desire to squeeze more.




Not so. Keeping death in mind, knowing that it will happen, accepting it as part of natural law, has nothing to do with fear, it is merely a reminder that existance as you know it will end, and so, it is in your best interest to make the most of it.
It is a positive force, that influences you to do your best, enjoy every moment, and to never take your loved ones for granted.
Your way would appear to offer nothing I would want. Apathy, be it justified in spiritual, or academic terms, is never a good thing.
Posted by: jkdwarrior

Re: the belief mechanism - 10/18/08 08:31 PM

I think you misunderstand me. Apathy does not play a role in my life. Maybe its not what you would like, but I view my life like a fantastic adventure and I love every minute of it, even the hard times. I just understand that death is not as big a deal as most think.

Your view is very similar to mine Cord. Just an unimportant difference. You are figuring out how to enjoy your life as best possible, and I'm doing the same.