What underlies beliefs?

Philosophy Forums Psychology and Mind
1

I’m compiling a list of things that support beliefs–that is, things upon which beliefs can rest and make it possible to hold them as true. So far, I’ve come up with four:

  1. evidence.

  2. reason.

  3. authority.

  4. faith.

These should be fairly self-explanatory, but I’ll briefly thouch on each one just to be extra clear.

Evidence refers to anything given to you. It is usually contingent and empirical (I’m tempted to say always, but I’m not certain about this).

Reason is arrived at through thought. It is usually (or supposed to be) necessary and logical.

Authority, like evidence, is given, but it is not empirical (unless you counts the sensual experience of hearing, reading, watching, etc. others as empirical). It is “given” in the sense that someone who you take to be in a position of authority relays it to you. You believe it because you take the person (or the book, or the document, etc.) to be authoritative on the subject being communicated (I find this to be a strange phenomenon of the brain–how it is extremely prone to passively accept the words of some identified source of authority). It should be noted, however, that this tendency to believe in the words of authoritative sources is not limited to authority–we very often simply believe what mere acquaintances tell us, sometimes even strangers, without giving it a second thought. But I would say that in those instance, we regard these sources of information as if they were authoritative.

Faith is based on emotion. When the emotion is positive, I call that “good faith”–examples might include feelings of inspirations invoked by a sermon, or the feelings one gets when intoxicated on chemicals, or when someone tells you something you like to hear. When the emotion is negative, I call that “bad faith”–examples might (and typically) include someone striking a convincing blow against something who held to be true for a while, something you liked believing, and so you end up feeling sentiments of repugnance against that person’s arguments/disproof, or things turning out contrary to what you expected or predicted based on beliefs that made you feel good. Whereas good faith is typically a self-contained support for beliefs (i.e. all you need to support the belief is the positive emotions themselves), bad faith is typically a resistance to other kinds of support for belief (i.e. the other 3 listed above)–that is to say, bad faith is resistence, driven by negative emotions, against evidence, reason, or authority.

Now we could expand the list–and that’s one of the points of this thread–and I’ve thought of a few fringe cases which I could have included, but they’re somewhat odd:

  1. hallucination/delusions

  2. dreams

  3. drugs

I’m sure the reader can see how any of the above might support, if only temporarily, beliefs of one kind or another, but these would be atypical to say the least. I also think they can be lumped into one: they’re all essentially experiences of an illusory sort–dreams aren’t real, hallucinations/delusions aren’t real, and drugs–well, drugs induce hallucinations/delusions. They may all come about by different chemical/neuronal processes but in the end, they’re all the same kind of support for beliefs. And as far as the subjective experiences of these go, they could be described in terms of the first 4. For example, a hallucination could be taken by the subject (erroneously) as evidence, delusions as reason. Drugs can invoke strong emotional experiences that may be the ground for powerful faith. And in a dream, you may encounter some authoritative figure who imparts sacred knowledge unto you–or so you think.

In any case, these (at least the first 4) are the kinds of soil in which beliefs of all kinds can take root and grow.

Agree? Disagree? Wanna add to the list?

2

Actually “evidence” covers all of those.
People merely choose different types of evidence.

So if you are going to separate the types out, that first one should be something like “direct perception”.
But then you also have “suspicion/doubt” = “anti-faith” = belief in disbelief.

3

I don’t think the 4 categories up top are mutually exclusive.

I think you may depend on one or another of them for one or another of them in almost any instance where you start trying to apply them.

4

Need, starvation, I believe if I eat this food, then I’ll survive. I believe if I drink this water, then I’ll survive.

You don’t know if you drink the water, then you’ll survive, because it could be poisoned. So you simply believe that you’ll survive. You don’t know.

5

Sure, we could say that.

I’m primarily thinking about this in terms of brain functions. It seems there at least these four ways–these four systems or algorithms that the brain uses–that result in beliefs: sensory experience, rational thinking, getting it from others, and emotion.

Quite possibly, but like I said to James, I’m thinking of this in terms of brain functions. I think there are at least these 4 distinct systems or functions in the brain, but they probably do depend or employ one another in order to get the job done.

You’re right that there’s a difference between believing and knowing, but I wouldn’t add need/starvation/thirst as a basis for belief. You believe that without food and water, you will die, but that’s because it was taught to you in school or by your parents. If you’re famished, and you eat food, that’s an action driven by an urge–beliefs need not enter the picture, nor does it tell you how your biology works. Does a dog believe it will die without eating or drinking when it’s hungry/thirsty?

6

Yeah man. Almost every distinction I’ve considered has upon enough investigation revealed itself as more of a lens through which I might see things than the way they actually are. It’s hard to find any object that falls solely on one side of any distinction uncontroversally but I could be missing a really big one lemme know if you can think of any.

7

Are you seriously claiming that organisms eat food, and combat starvation, because they learn this in school?? Please, don’t tell me this is what you believe in.

8 
   You can separate these types, but not completely.  They always have ovelappping associations, whether they be conscious or not, that might render them purely atypical. These depend on the perspective or situation one finds themselves in.
9

actually beliefs are based on what we believe is convient (conditioning),

evidence… we choose what evidence to pick when making arguments and making conclusions.

reason… or basically thinking are just associations which are regulated by conditioning.

authority… this is basically conditioning

faith… again this is also a conditioning of the masses. (be god go to heaven,be bad go to hell).

basically conditioning determines what is believed.

10

A great many humans will never experience starvation, only hunger. They will never face death from lack of food. Yet they still believe that they will die if they do not eat. So where do they learn this if not through their own direct experience? From what others say, and from what has happened to others.

What underlies belief?
Belief is an output or result, based on input that is taken as a presumable cause (that underlies it).

The causes can come from one’s own direct experience, or from one’s own direct experience of indirectly interpretating the experience of others:
you’re going to experience with your senses and make mental sense of this in the ways in which you are capable,
you’re going to make mental sense of the mental sense that others have made of things.
There probably are some beliefs that are easier to form than others, simply from people who are still alive to this day inheriting the genetic propensities that lean our capabilities toward the more “successful” beliefs that nature has so far weened out of us.

Some things are going to make more of an impression than others. The ones that make more of a sensual impact will be more imprinted on your mental map of the world and its ways:
Quality and intensity of response, and quantity/repetition of stimuli.

Reason is more of an exploratory tool to navigate and test the beliefs that unconsciously crystalise simply through the collection of information. I would argue that it is a lot less influential than many people like to claim it to be - even amongst the brightest.
Authorities may instill more fear or trust (or more suspicion and distrust) than others. Their information may imprint more strongly.
Faith is just the less supported sister of Evidence, though it is more of an output/result than an input like evidence is.

None of these things really “underlie” beliefs, they are a mixed selection of types of input that can contribute to beliefs (in an unspecified way), with a particular source of input and a type of output that is loosely synonymous with belief.
Hallucination/delusions, dreams and drugs are a mixed selection of specific types of experience and a cause of a specific type of experience.

Your list needs work, particularly in the form of consistently catagorising your suggestions specifically as supposed causes of belief.

11

Most fundamentally is Presumption.
The brain presumes the nervous system is behaving rationally because it has no choice to presume otherwise.

Every notion, from the most physiologically reactive, to the most cognitive logical algorithm, relies on the presumption of details, formally known as “axioms”. Every thought and experience is a bit of evidence to be summed into a coherent probability of reality.

Faith comes from an initial experience (evidence) that leads to a possibility that inspires the rejection of counter evidence, a presumption.

Perceived direct evidence relies on the presumption of both the accuracy of senses (perception) as well as the total encompassing of all available evidence (not leaving any evidence out).

Reasoning relies on the presumption of axioms.

Authority relies on the presumption of altruistic authority (which interestingly at the same time is always denied to exist).

I only know of one way out of the presumption curse - “Definitional Logic”.

12 
  But James, is that really a way out? Doesen't definitional logic itself presume definitions as logicaly/propositionally consistent?
13

No, I’m saying that without the first 4 foundations for belief I mentioned in my OP, I doubt being hungry would make you believe anything. And you don’t need beliefs to eat.

Ok, so you’ve got an overarching term that describes all 4 categories–doesn’t mean, however, that the dividing up of this overarching term into the 4 categories is an invalid move–especially if you consider these 4 categories as mappable onto different systems/functions of the brain.

Silhouette,

At first it sounds like you’re making a similar move as victorel–coming up with a single overarching term–and I think you are doing this. But I’m going to have to take some time to digest the rest of your post, so I’ll come back to this.

You mean honest authority?

James,

I’m a little skeptical about your “presumption” theory. It sounds kinda like rununder’s theory that hunger causes belief. What is a persumption to you? Is it a cognitive state? A conscious one? Is it something we think and accept before we’re able to make use of the 4 categories (or any category) as basis for belief? Isn’t a presumption a kind of belief itself?

You mean, rather than presume things, we define things?

Yeah, that too.

14

the problem with dividing it, is that they are really very ambiguos terms. For example what would make authority different from faith?

scientifically how would you differentiate them?

then it comes the idea of reason and evidence. i will call reason associating (thinking) and evidence memory.

they are necessary for thought yet nowhere did you adress the motivation needed to think and what drives that motivation. i think their you missed out on the most important factor since associating and memory are inert the determinant factor would be, motivation.

so… i would say:

they brake up like this.

  1. motivation

which is determined by memory. (associations between sensations, pain and pleasure).

this then triggers

  1. thinking and then evidence (memory) is used to support that. ( what created the motivation is then used to reinforce it).

there are different things that determined the motivation.

  1. religion/authority (social factors)

  2. conditions, and geography (enviromental factors)

  3. biology (genetic structure differences between humans). “specifically pain and pleasure sensitivity”. assuming the person is normal no genetic difference.

a belief can be thought as a way of thinking, thinking is actually an action, so a belief is really a way of acting.

so determining makes you believe is the same as determining what makes you behave the way you do.

15

No. Not at all.

Definitional logic basically says, “if you are going to use the thoughts presented here, THIS is what those thoughts are referring to…”.

The definitions are not presumed truths of reality. They are declared statements concerning the meaning of the terms being used within the reasoning being presented. They are communication declarations, not presumed truth statements.

16

That’s exactly what I’m trying to do.

If you grant me my definition of “faith” above (i.e. as something believed in based on emotion) then you’ll see very different brain processes in a fMRI scan than you would for someone who believed something because some authoritative figure told him so.

Again, you seem to be identifying an overarching factor that accounts for the 4 foundations for belief that I mentioned–which is fine–but “motivation” as you call it seems to be a precursor to the 4 I mentioned, not a substitute.

If believing is an act, as you say, then one does need some kind of motivation to carry it out. But the three factors you mentioned above seem somewhat odd. 2) and 3) seem more like causes for certain beliefs rather than motivations (I’m thinking of motivation as that which drives you to believe, what makes you want to believe). Religion/authority is also odd, unless you’re saying that one believes X because one wants to conform to authority (as a means of getting “brownie points” from authority?), which does happen sometimes, but it’s not quite what I was thinking when I mentioned authority as a foundation for belief. I meant simply recognizing them as an authority, listening to what they say, and on the basis of those two things, believing them.

James,

How do you go from definitional logic to belief? How do you go from defining your terms to making actual statements about reality?

17 
   I didn't imply necessary truth, I meant truth neutral consistent definitions.
18 
   Exactly.  That is the problem.
19

is not god, budda, jesus and mohammad authority figures? what is the difference between a religious authority and a “mundane” authority?

based on emotion? everything is based on emotion.

the four you mention could be seen as causes of motivation, e.g. social, enviromental and genetic factors.

2 and 3 cause the motivation, when i say that the moviation was determined i meant that it was caused.

religion /authority are examples of social factors you can also put there peer pressure. what i really meant was social factors.

the way you express authority is not different from religion at an early stage. (once religion becomes institutionalized it becomes a social power where in they subdue the masses to belief through various methods. (catholic church, the pope).)

20

There’s no need to make the distinction. Of course these guys were authoritative in the eyes of some. But you can certainly imagine a religious man reading some passage from the Bible and believing what he read without any emotion being involved. I would call that belief based on authority. Now that does not mean that faith isn’t involved in related beliefs, nor does it mean that faith can’t be brought in as an additional supporting factor in the belief, but if there’s no emotion involved (which is certainly possible), I don’t call that faith.

How so?

That’s fine, but motivation for what? If I come across some evidence for some claim, that may be enough for me to believe the claim, and that in turn may motivate me to act according to that belief–but this is motivation to act, not to believe. This isn’t circular.

What do you mean “subdue”? I’m still fuzzy on this. Certainly there are political/religious powers that have a brainwashing influence on the masses, and I guess that’s a kind of glorified peer pressure, but what do you think goes on in the mind of the subject to whom this happens? Are they still thinking “This guy’s an authority, and he’s telling me X, so I guess X is true” or are they thinking “This guy’s an authroity, and he’s telling me X, so I’d better find some way of believing X (or at least pretending that I do).” ← I know the latter is possible, and I actually try to practice this on myself (I call it self-programming–finding ways/reasons to believe something I don’t as yet believe), and so it might count as a fifth foundation for belief (although I’m hard pressed to imagine how it would do it without employing at least one of the other four).