General Discussions > Religion / Philosophy Talk
Beliefs. Where do they come from?
Hanes:
sorry :-[
leonet:
I think that if you differentiate between the abstract world of philosophy and the real /empirical world, you can stop worrying about whether some beliefs are ultimately unjustified.
For theoretical purposes, I'd go with skepticism; there's no way to establish an ultimate, transcendent belief.
But for practical purposes, foundationalism seems correct. Beliefs formed through observation of the world will always include unjustified assumptions and even some incorrect assumptions. I don't think that's a problem as long as we recognize where the potential gaps are.
I kind of view it as analogous to the use of un-nested trees in the study of genetic evolution. A scientist may not know where a common ancestor is in the scheme, but there are algorithms that draw useful inferences even without knowing the "root" of the tree.
Evil Eye:
Hanes is absolutely right, but he left out something.
Even "wrong" beliefs play a part in the memes.
Pareidolia is a perfect example of how evolution of the brain included the possibility to make mistakes that were actually advantageous.
Is that a tiger behind those trees? Or something else? No time to find out. Run.
See how that works?
Better to believe that it is a tiger and protect yourself, than to waste time finding out that it was just a shadow of branches, because if it HAD been a tiger and you were skeptical, you would be dead. That meme would instantly be weeded out.
NiroZ:
Hmmm, I thought meme's were transmittable thought viruses. Pareidolia comes under pattern recognition that is innate not just among humans but also predators across the world. Why else do some butterfly's wings look like giant faces?
IMHO, meme's are a nice framework for understanding how idea's transfer in a similar way to viruses, but gives me the same cautious feeling I get when talking about sociology. Vast generalisations, appeal to intuition and not a lot of concrete evidence.
Can I request that we not talk about memes? It doesn't seem wholly relevant.
leonet,
That's exactly what I was looking for.
I find it interesting that you chose scepticism, as it offers a rather bleak worldview where reasoning and justification, while toyed with, are not actually used. However, it really depends on how high you set the demands for justification. If you allow the justification, 'because I feel it', then almost everything is justified.
Evil Eye:
--- Quote from: NiroZ on Mar 21, 2009, 06:26:31 AM ---Hmmm, I thought meme's were transmittable thought viruses. Pareidolia comes under pattern recognition that is innate not just among humans but also predators across the world. Why else do some butterfly's wings look like giant faces?
IMHO, meme's are a nice framework for understanding how idea's transfer in a similar way to viruses, but gives me the same cautious feeling I get when talking about sociology. Vast generalisations, appeal to intuition and not a lot of concrete evidence.
Can I request that we not talk about memes? It doesn't seem wholly relevant.
leonet,
That's exactly what I was looking for.
I find it interesting that you chose scepticism, as it offers a rather bleak worldview where reasoning and justification, while toyed with, are not actually used. However, it really depends on how high you set the demands for justification. If you allow the justification, 'because I feel it', then almost everything is justified.
--- End quote ---
I was just showing a correlation. You don't have to be attacked by a tiger to believe that it can kill you. On the other hand, being skeptical of that fact can also put you in danger, so the belief whether right or wrong is advantageous in an evolutionary sense.
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