How does that make all belief equate to "knowing in one's mind what is true or factual without having experienced it?"



"Thinking that one knows something(X) is true or factual" and believing X is not the same thing.



Do you know where you were born?



I fail to see how that makes 'heaven/hell' relevant to my position here. Some still believe the world sits atop a turtle as well. That does not make all belief taken solely on faith alone. That is a mistake which results in throwing all belief under the same 'umbrella'.

Do you know the city in which you were born? Do you know what a tree is? Do you know that this is a hand, and here is yet another? Do you know that these are hands? If you claim to know, how exactly is that knowledge claim any different from believing what you've been told - taken upon faith alone, as I've set faith out here(trust in the truthfulness of a source)?

now you're arguing just to argue. i've been over and over i don't know how many times that TO ME, ME AND ONLY ME belief is meaningless BECAUSE it equates to knowing in ones mind what is true or factual without having experienced it AND that without experiencing it one CANNOT KNOW IT TO BE TRUE OF FACTUAL.



sute it's the same thing if the SOMETHING has not been experienced. to say you know something you haven't experienced to be true or factual is no different than saying you believe it to be true of factual. both statements are meaningless as both require faith.



i know only what i've read on my birth certificate. is my birth certificate a true, unaltered and unfalsified document? i've not a clue. if you keep asking such inane questions you'll simply never get it.



if we're talking now about your position on what belief is then it's time for me to bow out of the conversation. i've not questioned your reasoning on what believe is, you've been questioning mine. i'll submit that you're the only expert on how you think. what i cannot understand is how you can question the expertise of my own rendering of how i think.



perhaps this'll work. i've said belief is a word i simply don't use. as an agnostic, i can say that i don't use the word 'know' in regards to anything that i've not actually experienced and even then there are times when i've been confused by what i've experienced. so all that really matters as far as this discussion goes is what i've experienced so here we go.

city of birth. i've experienced reading on my birth certificat, houston, tx.

tree. i've experienced seeing big and small things growing out of the ground with leaves, needles, palms, etc., and i've been told they are called trees.

hands. pretty much the same experience as with trees except i have two of my own.

there ya go. i din't claim to know anything did i? i don't recall ever claiming to know anything. i've experienced many things. so perhaps we can put my thinking on belief and knowledge like this so as not to further confuse you. belief is meaningless to me as it regards something i've not experienced. knowledge is meaningless to me as it regards something i've not experienced. both require faith. belief is meaningless as regards something that i have experienced. it happend. no need for faith. knowing that it happend no longer requires faith to know. i experienced the happening.

Just one point, I'll attend to the rest later on.

If my asking how you've gotten from A to B amounts to my arguing just to argue, then I am guilty as charged. That's what philosophy is grounded upon(how we've gotten to B from A). It is common protocol that a claimant justify their own claims. That's all I'm asking you for jrbogie.

but i've made no claims, soul. i've done nothing but express my thinking on belief and knowledge. so now you've read how i've gotten from a to b. whether or not you accept my method for geting there is irrelevant. it's how i got there.

JR - I've read this thread and have been trying to understand your point of view. Like you, I try not to use the word 'believe' unless I follow it up with 'based on the information I have'. Because like you, I don't know everything but I also don't think we need to have the experience of - say, weightlessness, to understand how it occurs and thus 'believe', through the experience of others, that weightlessness is a real phenomena.

At any rate, not wanting to be agumentative, I have thought of a question for you and your answer may help me, and maybe Creative, better understand your point of view.

What drives your code of ethics?

In other words what stops you from driving recklessly, or from skipping out on debts you owe, or from steeling or other scrupulous activity? In summary, it comes down to one simple question...

What drives your code of ethics?

From my perspective this is an extremely misleading approach to the topic of "belief". Because the very term "belief" is far more abstract than this approach would imply.

As soon as I read your question "What drives your code of ethics?" I instantly realized that "belief" has very little to do with my code of ethics. And I know this because of my experience with religions and spiritual philosophies.

My code of ethics is not drive by 'intellectual beliefs', on the contrary it's drive far more by 'intuitive' notions that do not even require explanation or justification.

Of course, having said that, I think it should be clear even to you that refraining from doing something that you consider to highly dangerous would not be a matter of 'ethics' anyway.

On the contrary, a person may actually do something that is quite dangerous for ethical reasons, like running into a flaming building to save a victim of a fire.

So ethics has very little to do with 'intellectual knowledge' or 'sound reasoning'.

In fact, I just heard on NPR radio that a women look in her back yard only to see a bear that had her pet dog in his mouth. She instantly ran up to the bear, punched it in the face and told it to leave her dog alone. The bear dropped the dog and ran.

There wasn't anything "rational" in her behavior at all. She was totally fixated on saving her pet dog. Her actions most certainly can't have been based on 'belief' other than in the moment one could argue that she 'believed' that by physically attacking the bear she could save her beloved dog.

But where did THAT ethic come from?

Certainly not from any core intellectual "belief". That was more of an irrational reaction. An irrational instantaneous "belief" based on the passion of the moment.

That is hardly a "belief-based" behavior.

Moreover, my personal objection to this whole notion that "beliefs" are the foundation of all human behavior is based on my own ethical values.

I had a set of ethical values which I feel were basically 'intuitive'. They were not based on "intellectual logical reasoning". In fact, there is no "intellectual logical reasoning" why a person would risk their own life to run into a burning building to save other people. That kind of behavior is not based on logical beliefs. It's based on a deeply innate emotional level that is as irrational and illogical as the notion of "love" itself.

I was born and raised as a Christian. What I discovered is that "my ethics" just happened to coincide with the ethics that were often attributed to Jesus. I didn't "learn" my ethics from the religion, but rather I simply recognized that the religion was trying to teach my innate ethics through this character of a demigod.

Far more importantly, I also discovered that after I dismissed the religion as being nothing more than mythology, or superstitious rumors, my core ethics did not change. I was still the same person I always had been. My 'ethics' were mine, not something put onto me via "beliefs".

This even holds true when I consider the possibility that atheism may indeed potentially be the truth of reality. It makes no difference to me, my ethics don't change. I am who I am. Period. I am a rock, that is totally independent of any intellectual 'beliefs'.

So as far as I'm concerned it's these philosophers and/or psychologists who "believe" that belief is what causes people to behave they way they do, who are actually buying into THEIR beliefs.

It's their "beliefs" that "belief" is the foundational cause of behavior.

Obviously, that is going to be true in terms of the laws of Physics.

That's a given!

Throw a large rock at anyone's face, and they are going to instinctively dodge being hit by the rock? Why? Because due to their physical experiences in life, they have learned that flying projectiles can hurt if they hit you.

And of course this can be carried over into social interactions as well. People have learned that if they treat others poorly they can expect to be treated poorly in return.

So, YES it's obviously going to carry over into social experiencestoo.

However, to then JUMP to the conclusion that everything is necessarily nothing more than a result of 'belief' is truly an unwarranted JUMP, IMHO.

From my perspective that shows nothing more than extremely limited thinking on the part of the philosophers or psychologists who have gone down that road. They have taken things that appear to be 'obvious' and just assumed that this must then be the basis of all human behavior.

That, IMHO, is an extremely weak and unwarranted conclusion.

There is far more to human behavior than what might be motivated solely by "intellectual beliefs".

In fact, I would truly feel sorry for any human who had actually been reduced to such a dismal state of existence.

One could not truly "love" based on that kind of motivation. At the very "best" all they could do is behave in ways that we associate with 'love', solely in terms of the logical expectations that they would expect to be "rewards" from such behavior.

That would not, nor could it ever be, the concept of 'love' that I know.

Having said this, it's actually safe to say, that anyone who truly believes that human behavior is solely based on 'beliefs' must not have ever experienced a true ability to 'love' another person beyond the logical consequences that they would expect to get in return.

In other words, the very philosophy that all human behavior is nothing more than an intellectual reaction to 'belief' (like dodging from a rock thrown toward your face), is basically to proclaim that 'love' does not even exist. It's nothing more than a reaction to avoid being hit by a rock.

This is why I am not a proponent of a totally 'belief-based' philosophy. Especially one that assumes that all that drives the human consideration is an intellectual brain that is based on pure logic.

No way.

Clearly the best human qualities do not fit under the umbrella of such a sterile unfeeling philosophy. It just cannot be made to work. It makes no sense in terms of the genuine love that some people obviously do possess and emanate.

So it's a dead-end philosophy, IMHO.

A philosophy fit for zombies only.

There is no room in such a philosophy for genuine love or the genuine caring of another person. The whole philosophy, by its very nature, demands that all behavior is driven by "What's in it for me".

I truly feel sorry for anyone who actually believes that this is the sum total of human existence. It sure doesn't say much for the person who believes in such a philosophy, IMHO.

So I'm glad that you brought in the question of "What drives your code of ethics?", because that really opened it up. My code of ethics has never been driving solely by my experiential intellectual 'beliefs'. If that were the case my code of ethics would have changed over the course of my life as my beliefs have also changed. But that hasn't been the case. So my ethics cannot be driven by my intellectual beliefs. They are necessarily driven by something far deeper and more primordial than this.

However, I will agree that this does not appear to be the case for everyone. So perhaps I am indeed living among zombies. Now that I can believe! Unfortunately.

Hi Abra


I would agree that ‘belief’ tends to include a wide array of elements which lead to abstract concepts, love, charity, and other concepts that tend guide our actions. But can you further explain how you think ‘intuitive’ notions guide your actions?



I have to disagree, mainly because your statement is too broad, I’m not even sure if you are discussing danger to one’s self or situations in which the danger to self would have effect others.

Some people seek danger – (thrill seekers), while others avoid it, and still others, for whatever reason, tend to have a very high arousal trigger and some, like sociopaths or psychopaths seek emotional arousal at any cost, without regard for the lives of others or their own.



What you call an intuitive action, as in the statement above, can also be attributed to evolution. We depend on social qualities for survival and one could argue that what you might call intuition, in this case, could be part of genetic evolution.



I think you may be correct – ethics, as I’ve presented it, involves highly abstract concepts which are generally based on what individuals place value in or on.

Your description of the woman who punched a bear in the face because it held her dog in its mouth, is a case in point. We place or attach value in or on something.

Could the value we attribute to something stem from a belief or might the belief develop through the attribution of value?

In the case of the woman who punched the bear in the face,



like many people, it could be argued that her value was either misplaced or ill-considered in comparison with the value she placed on her own life and well-being. It might also be that the woman did not actually think at all but merely acted as one who's beloved family member was in trouble.

Instinct is considered to be inherent, having evolved because of its worth to our survival. If that’s the case the woman did not act on instinct because self-preservation should have overridden her action. Rather, she acted on a belief that she created when she assigned the value she did to her dog. The value she gave the dog made it worthy of being loved or she believed the dog was worthy of her love and so attributed it. (that does not take intellect, it takes the ability to love a dog as she did).

Had she seen a wild fox in the bear’s clutches, do you think she would done the same thing?



Although you have not verbalized what your code of ethics include, I’m sure you would be able to, or at least attempt to verbalize them.

So you have obviously thought about these things and in so doing you have attributed value to these ‘ideas’. If you have gone to the trouble of assessing your ethical code and assigning values to the concepts, then obviously you “believe” them worthy of value – do you not?

Furthermore, if you allow what you value to guide your actions without thinking about those values, would you then be acting on faith or might you simply be acting on the belief you have place in what you have attached value to?



You’ve made it clear that the value some individuals assign to a god can be changed because you did it. The value you once put in god was withdrawn. Could you withdraw or otherwise adjust the value you give to your various ethical ideals? Or do you ‘believe’ them to be innate/inherent?



Perhaps intellect is not necessarily a component of the values we attribute to our concepts, or the woman who punched the bear probably would have made a different choice.



You might want to rethink the logic in the above quote. Instinct is not learned – and we DO have a reflexive instinct to move when an object is speeding toward our face. Even a baby, incapable of voluntary movement, will blink if a projectile is perceived coming toward its face.



We do learn things through experience and the fact that we continue to “act” on what we’ve learned is because we’ve considered it and given it thought (just as JR said).

However, if our assessment proves the concept to be worthy of repeated action, we assign a value to it, or we would not be motivated to continue acting in the same way, especially when our actions do not always have the expected or best scenario results.

The question is, are we then acting on the belief that we have built around the value placed on a particular idea?

So let me ask you AND JR, what do you think we are doing when we are assigning value to our thoughts and ideas?



And how much value do you place in your own perspective? Would you be motivated to make a judgment call against the perspective of others without a thorough understanding of those perspective?

It seems that you have done so here. Doesn’t that sound like a fundamentalist view? I think we both consider fundamentalism to be based on misguided “beliefs”.

I’ve only just entered this discussion because I had a question I could not answer given JR’s perspective. There’s no need to be insolent or argumentative.

Kindly put your ethics on its best behavior if you intent to answer my response to you. I have offered alternate views, NOT NECESSARILY beliefs. I appreciate it when you offer you views from a calm and clear perspective.

OK – MOVING ON.

In reading the end of your response I’ve noticed that you keep referring to something you call “intellectual beliefs.” I responded once (I think) to this term above trying to take its meaning from the context. Now however, I don’t think I know what you are referring to with the term “intellectual beliefs”.

I never mentioned such a thing so I want to make it clear that some people go about placing value on things without much of an intellectual component being involved, which is why some people have a problem verbalizing what they truly value or what motivates their actions.

If you think there is a place for your term in the discussion, you will need to better define it so we all understand what it is and how you are using it.

I personally think this whole reductionistic approach attempting to categorized things into "beliefs" with "value assessments" placed on them is the problem.

I can see that having some value in analysis. But where it fails is when it's taken to be the core essence of existence. That's where it becomes an overly-simplistic explanation which misses the point.

When it becomes the sole focus presumed to be the basis of all behavior then it has basically become philosophical extremism.

That's all I'm saying. It has value to a point, but to try to take this as the reductionistic explanation for the essence of the human condition in general is when it fails dramatically.



I think what we are doing at that point is indeed engaging in analysis.

Clearly we do have that capability! No question about that. But it's also extremely easy to become lost in analysis and the analytical aspect of our mind.

Analysis is interesting and it can even be beneficial within the limits of its domain of applicability.

However, just like anything else, it can't apply to everything.



Absolutely not.



Well, I'm no doubt responding to the extremism that has been portrayed in this thread thus far. And that may have come across as though it was directed at you specifically when it was not.

My apologies for that.

I actually responded to your post because of your mention of ethics and how we arrive at our ethics.



Well, I didn't mean to sound argumentative toward you personally. I was attempting to address the topic at hand. My apologies if it came across that way.



Well, I'll certainly try to do this. All I'm saying is that from my perspective there is far more to human behavior than can be explained via logical analysis. Yet, logical analysis is precisely the mechanism that would be required to support a philosophy that reduces everyone's behavior to being purely a function of their 'beliefs'.



Yes, I understand. Thank you for pointing this out.

I often speak from a vantage point of the teachings of the Eastern school of though. Such as Buddhism, etc. In that school of thought they have recognized "Two minds" of human nature.

One is considered to be the "logical mind" (which I often refer to as the "intellectual mind"). That's basically the brain. The biological computer that we use to do logical analysis.

But from the Eastern point of view, that's not the end of it. They speak of a "non-intellectual" or "non-logical" mind. This is the mind of pure awareness. In fact, this is what they refer to as the "True You".

Whether you think of this in terms of spirituality or in some secular sense shouldn't truly matter. Through mediation you can actually experience this state of consciousness where you do not intellectually analyze anything. You are simply "aware" of it without judging it or assessing it in any. This is called "Transcendental" meditation becasue you are transcending the analytical mind.

That is the "real you" (the spiritual you, or at lest so Eastern Mystics say)

So what I'm saying is that, yes, this analytical philosophy were the 'intellectual mind' is assessing, judging, and evaluating things, is indeed one aspect of human existence and behavior, however it most certainly is not the entirety of it. (Transcendental meditation is prove of this)

This other aspect of the mind, this "non-analytical" mind, if you will, is actually the basis of your true essence. The 'intellectual mind' is merely a tool that your pure awareness uses.

So in other words, to suggest that human behavior is driven solely by the analytical mind (the mind that judges, assesses, evaluates, etc), is a philosophy that totally ignores and fails to even recognize the existence of the non-analytical aspect of human conscious awareness. (pure awareness itself)

So I guess my entire perspective stems from an Eastern view of things. I accept and understand this distinction that they have recognized, and it makes perfect sense to me.

A purely analytical approach is the anti-thesis of this.

This would be like the 'analytical mind' attempting to analyze the human condition purely from the analytical perspective. But that would be the analytical mind analyzing itself.

I actually responded to your post mainly because you brought up the concept of a code of ethics.

You see, my ethics do not come from my analytical mind. They arise from pure awareness. They are not the result of analysis, judgment, assessment, or anything associated with the analytical mind or analytical methods.

So I guess that's the point I was really trying to make and botched it up pretty bad.

Sorry about that. My apologies.

I was also attempting to refer to this state of pure awareness as the "intuitive" aspect of the mind. But that might be grossly misleading, because many secular people view "intuition" as nothing more than an analytical approach to emotions and feelings. So from that perspective, what they consider to be 'intuition' would still be analysis. And that's certainly not what I'm talking about.

There is no 'analysis' associated with the pure awareness that I'm attempting to address. And therefore it cannot be based-on, nor driven-by "beliefs".

well as an accomplished aerobatic pilot i have indeed experienced weightlessness, red. i don't have to fly into space for that experience, nor do you. just leap off i high object. the weightlessness i experience at the top of a hammerhead stall or what you experience falling from a high object is no different than what astronauts on the shuttle feel. the astronauts are simply FALLING along with their craft around the earth as they orbit. after all, there is no such animal as 'zero gravity' anywhere in the universe is there?

but of course the point is moot. before i learned to fly the only 'knowledge' i had regarding weightlessness was what i'd read and seen on tv watching the early astronauts. that was my experience, i'd read it and seen it but i did not 'know' that it existed. made sense of course but that's not what i refer to as believe. refer to it as a phenomena that seems to make sense.



ah, that is an easy one. experience coupled with commmon sense drives my code of ethics. i was raised a presbyterian and the church and my parents drove my early code of ethics. part of that code was bigotry and racism as my parents were highly racist as was everybody in the church. when my experiences with high school science coupled with an unplanned trip to vietnam became a part of my experiences i saw that there were alternative explanations for the beggingings of the universe, the ascencion of humans and that all of us bleed the same color blood. now with those and other experiences behind me i've developed an entirely new and different code on ethics than the one i BELIEVED was correct in my youth. having lived as a racist because i was taught to BELIEVE that whites were a supperior race and concluding later THROUGH EXPERIENCE that it was not so i came to the point where i BELIEVE NOTHING AND QUESTION EVERYTHING. in fact i think that i have less trouble when an ethical stumbling block comes along that my code or experiences haven't covered. unlike the faithful who derive their ethics and morals from their religious teachings, as i once did, today i'm well practiced in giving thought to the new ethical delima and i find that i actually stumble less than most of the religious folk i'm familiar with.

i don't drive recklessly because i've experienced reading about auto accidents. even went to a high school assembly where i experienced having to sit through a movie called 'blood alley.' booooooooriiiiiing. at any rate, driving envolves risk and i've considered those risks and drive accordingly but do i BELIEVE that ten mph over the speed limit is always a risk to my life and limb? no, not in the least. but from experience i do understand that i risk a ticket and fine but i cannot know it will happen so i don't bleieve it will happen. indeed, those time's it did happen i couldn't believe it. lol.

i pay my debts because i've experienced reading the agreements that i've signed and it goes along with my self derived ethical code to do what i promise to do.

Well, too hot to sleep last night so I fell asleep at the computer, decided it was time to hit the sack and this morning I realized I never exited. Does that count as 'patiently waiting for reply'?


I have to get ready for work but I had read both JR and Abra's replies. Very good, thanks. I think I'm getting a clearer picture and I also believe that both replies contain enough similarities to indicate that you are both on the same two pages of this volume.

I have a long busy day at work, going on about 4 hours sleep. While I 'intend' to respond tonight - I can't say I 'believe' it will happen.

But I will respond becuause I a long weekend (a one day reprieve from school work)and I find this interesting.

Have a good day, I'll be back - at some point.

By the way: Creative what do you think is going on here? Could it be that the terms (especially the term belief) have not been thoroughly defined or understood? Could there be other aspects such as hueristics, innate personality traits, and instinct can somehow be incorporated into the definition of belief thereby adding components that would broaden the scope of behavior based on "belief"?

As Abra indicated and JR seems to agree that the term belief (as they are interpreting it)is too narrow and restrictive to agree with your premice and conclusion.

i wouldn't know whether abra and i agree. mean no offense abra but i just won't spend the time reading such lengthy posts. but, red, belief really isn't a term that needs defining for me. i simply don't use the term unless i'm answering a question like 'what do you believe?' i could be asked, 'what do i worship?' and my reply would be the same. i worship nothing so i never use the word when talking about MY mindset. the word 'worship' is meaningless to me. if the words 'belief' and 'worship' and 'faith' and many other words like 'socker' and 'triganomotry' were stricken from the english language tomorrow and penalties levied i'd likely never be affected because i cannot imagine ever using the words other than in response to somebody else as occured in this thread. i quite simply just don't do those things and they mean nothing to me.

I don't know how well jr's thoughts and mine coincide, but I tend to feel the same way regarding terms like 'belief'. If you ask me what I 'believe', I'm basically going to roll my eyes and suggest that I believe very little if anything.

A far better question would be to ask me what I know. What I know is what I know, there is no 'belief' required.

Once again, ask me if what I 'know' is the 'truth' and again I'll roll my eyes?

Truth? What's that?

Truth is relative and subjective as far as I'm concerned. Not at all unlike this universe. People who are still hung up on concepts of such things as "absolute truths" are basically living in the dark ages, IMHO. They are living in a pretentious world that simply doesn't exist. That world itself is an idealized figment of human imagination as far as I can see.

There is no human philosophy, theory, construct, or even totally abstract idealism that doesn't ultimately lead to a logical contradiction and paradox if taken far enough.

In short, if I'm convinced of anything at all from an analytical point of view, it is that we are indeed living in an illogical reality that will never, and can never, be rationalized in terms of what we consider to be 'logical'.

In fact, when it comes to things like Quantum Mechanics, etc., the very BEST explanations require accepting notions that, to us, do indeed fly in the face of what we consider to be 'logical' or 'reasonable'.

Yet at the same time, we can, (or at least some of us can), imagine that such seemingly 'illogical' worlds can indeed exist. They simply exist in a way that we cannot rationalize. Kind of like imagining a 4-dimensional world, when in fact, we can truly only experience 3-dimensions.

In other words, to 'rationalize' our understanding of the world we ultimately need to turn to ideas that seem 'irrational' compared to how we normally think.

If being 'convinced' of a concept constitutes holding a 'belief' of that concept, then I suppose it would be fair to say that I "believe" that our existence can never be explained in terms of pure classical notions of logic and reason as some people continue to pursue.

So you might say that I've moved 'beyond' that restraint, and I've found a far more interesting world can actually exist once we surrender our previous (and unwarranted) restrictions and notions.

Things that were previously deemed to be "irrational", "illogical" or even "impossible" now move into the realm of real possibilities.

~~~~~

Like I say, the bottom line for me is that no human being has yet been able to propose a philosophy, theory, or explanation that does not ultimately lead to logical paradox and contradiction.

Therefore, there is absolutely no valid reason to continue to hold out that things must be confined to "logical reasoning". Even our mathematical formalisms, which are the most logically sound systems of reason we have ever been able to establish, ultimately lead to contradiction and paradox when taken far enough.

Gabriel's Horn in geometry is one such example. A mathematical object that has infinite internal surface area, yet it only encloses a finite volume. So you can fill it with a finite amount of paint, but if you actually just try to paint the walls, it would require an infinite amount of paint. If that's not a logical contradiction and paradox, I don't know what is.

Of course, this "paradox" can be explained away in terms of the formalism itself. But that's a bit of a cheat. All that basically says is that the formalism itself is logically flawed and is not continuous over the concept of varying dimensions.

Another example is the concept of cardinally 'large and small' infinities. This is an idea that is central to transfinite number theory, yet it's as paradoxical as things can be.

So even mathematics, our best shot at building sound logical systems, ends in paradoxical catastrophes in many areas. Thus it needs to be restrained, by the restrictions of domains of applicability, and specific assumed premises, etc.

~~~~

Trying to create an "absolute logical philosophy" that has no limitations whatsoever, and never leads to a paradox, is an unrealistic goal that had never been achieved, and even has even been proven to be unachievable by Kurt Godel.

So, it's truly unwarranted to even pretend to demand that everything must be totally 'logical' without ever leading to a contradiction.

We have never seen anything that can even approach such an idealized goal.

So yes, if you want to say that I have a 'belief', I guess I do. I believe that the reality of this universe can never be restricted to what we consider to be "logical".

That is to say that I am highly convinced that the most likely truth of our reality is most likely 'illogical' to our way of thinking.

So people who are trying to demand that it should be contained within a nice neat 'box of logic' are truly doing so without sufficient grounds.

I'm trying to figure that out. I cannot find much coherency in either view.

Knowledge void belief is nonsense.

And what would that statement itself be?

A) Knowledge?
B) An opinion?
C) A belief itself?
D) Other?

here i think we can agree, kinda/sorta, as regards knowledge of something i've not actually experienced. indeed to KNOW something that you've not experienced DOES require BELIEF. but i'd never suggest that i KNOW anything that i've not experienced. as such, i'd never believe anything that i'd been told. long ago i was told things by people i trusted. i'd had faith in the truthfulness in what they told me was factual and came to discover as i matured that my faith was undeserved. and it wasn't that they were being untruthful, as i'm certain they really BELIEVED what they were telling me was true but their facts turned out to be false, or at least highly implausible in my mind. as such, i now longer put faith in anything that is communicated to me from another living being, therefor i never consider, or believe if you'd rather, to have knowledge of aomething because i've been told it was true or fact. i can only have knowledge of what i experience. so in a sense we agree here although as opposed to 'knowledge void belief is nonsense' i'd say 'knowledge requires belief if one is to think that one knows something they've not experienced.' but of course to think that one knows in such a case is nonsense.

We're close jrbogie. The difference is that you're claiming that one can spread falsehood and be truthful simply by believing the falsehood. Yet, I suspect that you'll respond by saying that you're not claiming anything.

To know X requires beliving X. It simply makes no sense to say I know X, but I do not believe that X is true.

correct. i'm claiming nothing. merely relating an experience where a falsehood was told to me but the tellers did not know it to be a falsehood.



as i've said, when x is something i've not actually experienced then i agree. but in that case i'd never say "i know x" so i'd likewise never say, "i believe x." the words "know" and "believe" are simply not words i would ever use when describing anything that i've not experienced. if YOU THINK THAT YOU KNOW x then you MUST BELIEVE x. and to BELIEVE x requires that YOU HAVE FAITH that whatever information that led you to your belief x IS FACTUAL. fine for you. BUT i never consider anything as fact other than, here it comes again, what i've actually experienced myself. my facts are simply different than your facts.

Here you've claimed that spreading falsehoods is not being untruthful if the claimant believes it to be true.

Is that correct?

There may be truth to that statement. But it does not follow from that statement that all knowledge is based on belief. On the contrary, a person may actually believe something because they know it to be truth. In this case knowledge would be the basis of belief, rather than the other way around. So you would have things precisely backwards.

In other words, you seem to be implying that belief must come first, but where is the justification in that?

Moreover, if you reduce all knowledge to nothing more than beliefs, then you are also simultaneously demanding that all beliefs equal knowledge, necessarily so.

In fact, if you can even make a distinction at all between belief and knowledge, then your implication that belief is required for knowledge is necessarily false, because at that point, you will have already defined knowledge to be something other than mere belief.

So it appears to me that your whole thesis here is standing on highly irrational and illogical grounds and faulty reasoning to begin with.

You can't very well demand that knowledge is entirely based upon belief, whilst simultaneously demanding that all beliefs do not constitute knowledge. That is an untenable position, IMHO.

They only way that you could possibly hold that knowledge is not entirely dependent upon belief is to claim that it does indeed require something other than belief to be considered valid knowledge. But then you've violated your very own thesis that belief is foundational to knowledge.

So I don't see any logical consistency in your presentation here at all. It appears to be totally superficial and circular to me. Totally devoid of any rational merit.

This is just a logical assessment of the position you are proposing. Not meant to be taken personal in any way.