Sure, and I don’t disagree with anything you said. But it is showing that we can actually push ourselves in specific directions and manipulate our own opinions at least to some degree. And some people are better at it than others.
Whether something is a choice isn’t a simple binary option. It’s possible for something to be partially a choice, and partially not.
For example, does someone with OCD choose to wash their hands repeatedly? Partially yes, partially no.
I think it’s the same way with choosing what to believe. You form beliefs based on what you see and hear, and you can’t really change that. But you can choose what to look at and who to listen to.
Here’s a blog post I wrote about it.
Do you think you could ever acquire a taste for poop?
Especially given that are a million other foods out there that you find tasty right off the bat without having to “acquire” anything?
I’m baffled why you are choosing something that has a pretty strong instinctive component rather than something neutral.
I suspect that finding the odor/taste of fecal matter unappetizing is an evolved trait, as it can spread parasites and such.
That’s funny, because I wondered why Blaster Master would use preferences for vanilla and chocolate ice cream to illustrate that we can choose what we believe.
Those two things are pretty dang similar. Sure, you might have a preference for one over the other. But few people will find just one of those things intolerable. When we’re talking about something like religious views, we aren’t talking about convincing a person that vanilla is better than chocolate. We’re talking about convincing them that a mystical entity with a long white beard will send them to hell for eating cookies in bed versus no mystical entity, no white beard, no hell. “Ice cream v. shit” is a much more apt illustration than “vanilla ice cream v. chocolate ice cream”.
One can agree to habituate to something so that it no longer ellicits a strong gag reflex. But the degree to which this happens is also not under a person’s control. I don’t know for sure, of course, but I don’t think any amount of practice would make me accept poop as a decent, tasty meal. I might eat it if it’s the only carbon source available to me. But I don’t think I’d ever be able to cultivate a liking to it.
Many anthropologist would argue that belief seems to have a very strong instinctive component.
Agreed: a better example might have been lima beans or brussels sprouts, which many people find odious. But suppose your dearly beloved elderly Aunt Tilly just loves them, and serves them at Thanksgiving dinner, and you don’t want to offend her. You could undertake a program of desensitization. First, lima beans in honey. Later, lima beans with lots of salt. Eventually, just plain lima beans.
If you have a reason to make a choice, the choice is a lot easier.
There isn’t any good reason to want to learn to like the taste of poop, but keeping Aunt Tilly’s good will is a fairly good reason to learn to like the taste of lima beans.
Since ya’ll don’t like poop, then I’ll ask it this way:
Do you think you can make yourself like brussel sprouts, lima beans, canned asparagus, and all other wretched vegetables you can name? Is the only thing standing between you and your least favorite food sufficient exposure?
Of course, irrational childhood prejudices can make a person dislike anything. As a kid I thought I disliked mushrooms. I thought I disliked all vegetables, mushrooms seemed like a vegetable, and thus that I meant I disliked mushrooms. But as an adult, I haven’t encountered a mushroom I didn’t gobble up with relish. And I was also wrong about most vegetables.
On the other hand, I HATED canned asparagus as a kid. No matter how many times my father threatened to beat me whenever I gagged over them, I couldn’t make myself acquire the taste. Fresh asparagus, LOVE THEM. The canned monstrosity? Hells no!
It doesn’t matter if I’m threatened with violence or if someone offered me a dream vacation…I’m never going to like canned asparagus. I might eat them with the right incentive (a billion dollars sounds about right), but eating is an action. It isn’t a feeling. A belief is neither a feeling or an action, but it is much more like the former than it is the latter.
I will say this, however: A belief is only as strong as the options a person is exposed to. A true believer is just someone who has not been heard a more compelling explanation yet. I was a Christian when I was a little girl because I had no awareness of any alternative. Everyone around me talked about God and Jesus, so I just assumed this was the only truth out there. As I grew older and I realized that there were other ways of knowing, my belief grew shakier. I didn’t consciously choose NOT to believe; it’s just as soon I was exposed to other “choices”, my belief system switched to something that was more in line with my own personal experiences and didn’t give me a headache.
So a person can choose to either reduce or expand the number of opposing ideas they are exposed to, thus tilting the chances of their current beliefs being displaced with another. But I don’t think a person chooses the beliefs that speak to them. Not any more than I choose my preference for broccoli over canned asparagus.
If you sufficiently desire to like the stuff, and if you work at it intelligently, you can (probably) get yourself around to liking it. Positive mental associations (eating it while happy) will help. Wanting to please the cook will help. Having a good reason will help.
And…maybe you’ll fail. It could happen. I’ve tried one or two foods that I simply couldn’t gag down, even to be polite to the cook. Hugely embarrassing, so there you are. I desperately wanted to be able to swallow that swill, and physically could not.
If I had a really good reason, I think I could wrangle my mind around to a belief in the divinity of Jesus. It would be an artificial contrivance at first, but, with time and comfort and familiarity and support, it could become a belief. The human mind is at least somewhat “plastic” in this way.
The Red Queen wasn’t kidding when she said she believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. (“Which is to be master – that’s all.”)
Many believers would say that you do have a good reason. If eternal life in heaven and salvation from the ravages of your sins aren’t decent motivators, what would be?
I think a billion dollars would be a pretty good incentive to do just about anything. But I don’t think I’d be able to believe tomorrow is Friday for a billion dollars. I would certainly shout from the rooftops that it’s Friday. But without external proof that I was wrong, I would continue to believe that it’s actually Wednesday.
The only thing that might make me question myself is if everyone acted as if it were Friday. Cuz I’m sheeple.
Religious belief is about 40-50% genetic according to twin studies. So there is a genetic component to it.
I sadly think I am predisposed to ‘believing’. I read a lot of new age crap when I was younger and even though I know its bunk (it can be disproved with critical thinking, reading historical records and an understanding of evolution and human nature and how that compares to what new agers teach about the purpose of life) I keep getting sucked in.
Part of me wonders if singularitarianism is a form of religion. I’ve heard it derided as religion for the IQ 140 crowd (not that most people who believe it are that smart). Singularitarianism has arguments that life has a ‘purpose’ (increased levels of accelerating complexity) that is its ‘destiny’ and that we are on the cusp of an apocalyptic event that will transform the world, ushering in a utopian post civilization free of want, death and pain.
Perhaps that is why I took to it so well.
Well, sure, but that’s bootstrapping. That reason isn’t a reason unless I already believe in the dogma! The reason has to come first, before I will make an effort to change my beliefs.
I wish you would tell this to this one woman I work with. She seems to think the idea of going to heaven alone is a compelling enough reason to believe. In her opinion, those who don’t agree are making the “choice” to go to hell.
This is a misuse of the word believe. If you believe something, you take as fact that which is not proven.
Using your example of car keys, I would use “I think the car keys are on the kitchen table.” Thinking it is there, allows error. I was wrong, I wonder where I put them. Your memory is not perfect, so trying to remember where you put them, the act of thinking, is what you are doing. No belief required.
No. I know it.
An obvious counter would be anything about yourself that has changed over your life time that you didn’t immediately realize.
For example, maybe you liked ice cream when you were younger, and later you realize you don’t like it as much.
Or maybe you believe you still have all of your hair until someone points out the developing bald spot.
The list is endless.
Things you enjoy in life can change over a life time. But what does that have to do with belief? Nothing what so ever. I know I liked chocolate icecream best when I was a kid. I now prefer coffee icecream. My tastes have changed, but there is no belief required.
As for your second point, if you are unaware of the bald spot, your fact is based on the last verified proven observation and is therefore knowledge based on the latest data you have on the condition of your hair. If you then get an update from someone pointing out that you have a bald spot, you have now updated your data to include a new development in your hairpattern. No belief required.
And if you chose to ignore the update about a baldspot, then you are in denial, but that’s a different issue.
Using life experience over time is not a good way to describe belief. Everybody knows we all age, and that we will transform as we get older. That is fact. There is no belief required when we are unaware that we have changed until it has been pointed out or we discover it for ourselves, we are temporarily ignorant until we discover the change. That is simply an update and confirms the evidence of the fact that is aging.
Ignorance does not equal belief, on the other hand, belief is often based on ignorance.
I’d say ‘think’ and ‘believe’ are pretty nearly synonymous in this context.
“I believe my car keys are where I left them on the table”
“I think my car keys are where I left them on the table”
Same thing. Both are describing an internal state of something approaching confidence regarding the truth of something. Either could be wrong.
Similar, but not quite. When you say: “I think I left my keys on the table”. There is a subtle nuance of doubt. You are already admitting that your thought on where you have left your key could be an error and therefore you are open to correction if so proven.
“I believe I left my keys on the table” doesn’t have the same nuance, even though it could be wrong and we know it could be wrong.
That is a minor point, though. In this context, I think the word “believe” is incorrectly used.