Why isn't it possible to have no beliefs

Why can’t an adult human be a blank slate ?

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I have a candidate for the next of these:

Why can’t I crush crunchy looking leaves with just my piss stream?

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an adult human probably could be a blank-ish slate, if you like kept them in a coma for 18 years from the moment they were born.

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@The_Emotion

We’re born with a blank slate but we don’t keep it for very long.

:clown_face:

Because the ‘brains’ of religious fuckturds can’t grasp that ‘enormously difficult concept’, therefore ‘no belief’ is actually a ‘belief in No’. You’re welcome.

I assume you are referring to ‘non belief’ in God/the supernatural, and not ‘belief’ in general.

Would they acquire beliefs once they wake up from the coma.

That is a really hilarious following to the previous. Was it on purpose?

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Almost died. 15 ch

When you are hungry, do you believe the cereal is usually in that cabinet or do you have no beliefs and start looking anywhere? in the yard, in your pajamas, behind the toilet…

Of course, you might have used the last cereal yesterday, you might have put it, distracted, into a different cabinet. You’re not dealing with 100% certainty. You have no proof it is there until you find it there again. But that belief in most situations shortens your search.

pretty quickly, just like babies do

I suppose I think about it like this:

All thinking things develop predictive models of the world. Even some non-thinking things (arguably) like LLMs do this as well. A belief is merely an element of your model of the world.

Not having beliefs means not having a model, and not having a model means not having the ability to predict, and to flourish in this world it very much requires a good ability to predict.

Obviously not all beliefs produce good predictions. Some don’t produce any predictions at all. But that’s why beliefs are so fundamentally important at a root level, I’m thinking - they’re part of our predictive systems.

You are not your beliefs - why would you need to believe anything?

A belief is a prejudice: an unwillingness to think that stuff is otherwise

I don’t have beliefs as much as I’m aware of

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What leads you to look in the fridge for food and not under the sink?

I have a memory of food being in the fridge, so I bet it is there

There you go, a belief. Of course, It might not be in the fridge. Perhaps someone stole your food. Perhaps you have early dementia. But you have a strong belief, based on memory and habit that it is there. It’s a strongly justified belief, most would think.

I’ll bet you have some beliefs about what works well and what should be avoided in an interview. I’ll bet even before your first interview you had some beliefs about that.

I’ll bet you have some beliefs about when to share very personal information with someone.

I’ll bet you have beliefs about what are good ways to communicate to people and what are not so good.

I’ll bet you have beliefs about how men and women tend to be different or, perhaps, that they are the same.

I’ll bet you have beliefs about which way of getting news is more reliable than some other ways.

Memory, intuition, trust in certain authorities, and all sorts of justifications lead to beliefs. We have degrees of believing our beliefs. Some we would be utterly stunned to find out are wrong. Some we are less sure of.

What belief? I said I bet it is there. I can even bet against my memory

So, you are willing to bet on things where you have no belief that what you are betting is true is true? I hope you don’t bet much. How are you defining belief and believe?

So I guess this is what people are talking about these days in Philosophy forums.

Man wants to have beliefs but just doesn’t like to call them beliefs. He has a memory, so he makes a bet - he is quite clearly using beliefs.

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Start simple and basic and move up. It’s hard to deny that one believes that’s where the food is, unless you have a unique definition of ‘believe’ or you are a radical skeptic.

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