Talk:Belief
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Hmm. Im wondering, how come Hume and Kant seem to be quoted so often here in WP. Certainly they are pillars of western thought, but they do have some holes in their ideas, and besides, I thought we had long ago begun the process of weening ourselves off of our sacred cows of westernism.
"Westernism"? What's that? If you mean Western culture generally, um, no, I'm not aware that anyone other than some "postmodern" and extremely politically correct types are making a move to "weaning ourselves" off of this material. We've got to have a huge amount of such material on Wikipedia if it's going to be complete. But this doesn't stop you from adding as much "non-Western" (whatever that means) type material as you like. --Larry Sanger
Would it be relevant (or interesting) to mention the logical convolutions of Raymond Smullyan, eg characters who believe one thing, but consistently lie, so say the opposite, etc?
I'm not sure--why would it (on this page)? Wouldn't that belong on lying or something like that? --Larry Sanger
- Just a thought (I'll crib what I've typed here to pad out the stub on Smulllyan, at any rate). At one point he introduces characters who only believe only false things, yet lie: hence all their statements are true. -- Tarquin
I wonder what point he was making with that. Sounds interesting...
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Is belief voluntary?
Actually, there is something interestingly relevant we could add from the literature in epistemology: it's widely held that most people have no control over most of what they believe... --Larry Sanger
- I made a stub section on this matter. Please expand and improve. Andries 11:03, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)
If I may add my own experience (and I am quite sure many people would recognize a pattern here)... I have a firm belief that reincarnation exists because instinctively I can't imagine I could stop being conscious after death, but I also admit I can't live forever. But by rational thinking I also know that nothing to my knowledge can justify reincarnation. This is only one example among others where belief seems to oppose knowledge. I think there are many other such examples, essentially about concepts difficult or impossible to prove, for example involving the existence or non-existance of God. Fafner 09:47, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC) ---
Degree of certainty
Why is there no mention of degree of certainty? If I believe something then it means that I think that the chance that something is true is >50%. I can believe something with 51% or 99% certainty. Quite a big difference Andries 20:35, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC) ---
Belief system
Please help with the belief system entry at Talk:belief system. Thanks. Adraeus 02:06, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Because that article is on VfD and looks to be deleted due to no content, I am moving the associated talk page, which does have content to here:
Moved content from Talk:Belief system, currently on VfD
Note: This entry needs work. Adraeus 02:10, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)
A belief system (also system of beliefs) is...
Here is my small contribution. It will probably need lots of works, but after all we have to start from somewhere ;-) I don't know if the comparison has been used somewhere, but a belief system really looks like a mathematical logical system with a set of axioms (unproved beliefs) and inferring rules (reasonnings). Axioms (beliefs) are very debatable since it usually involves beliefs in God(s), supernatural, or even science after all (how many people among you has ever seen and verified an experiment in quantum mechanics? probably not the majority, certainly not my case but I believe in quantum mechanics) ;-) Inferring rules (reasonnings) are usually common to most people. Deduction is the most reliable, induction is used to assert probable conclusions (although I met someone acknowledging only induction as reliable and rejecting deduction). Fafner 08:05, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)
See also belief, worldview, paradigm, model
External links On Belief and Belief Systems (http://www.general-semantics.org/library/conf-papers/eddy.pdf) by the late Bob Eddy (Institute of General Semantics)
Belief Systems (http://www.cognitivebehavior.com/theory/beliefsystems.html) by CognitiveBehavior.com (http://www.cognitivebehavior.com/)
Eric Herboso 04:16, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Self-consistent sets of beliefs
I seem to recall something about the application of Gödel's proof to beliefs, to demonstrate that one's beliefs cannot, taken as a whole, be logically self-consistent. It seemed very interesting at the time, but I can't pull up a cite -- can anyone help? (Yes, I know that Gödel's proof actually demonstrates "incomplete or inconsistent", but the argument did something plausible at this point...) -- Karada 07:57, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)