Something I've been pondering...

[oliegirl]

While watching TV I came up with this question:

Is it better to believe in something false, or not to believe in anything at all?

I was thinking about it for a day or so, and then last night while reading a book, The Gospel According to Disney, the same question was posed by the author. It got me really thinking about it and I was wondering what the "general consesus" would be on this. I am not trying to start a religious debate, it doesn't have to be something religious you believe in. I am just wondering, overall, is it better to believe in something that turns out to be false (a relationship, someone's love, a person, etc...) or is better to not believe in anything or anyone at all?

[rkmsuf]

I believe the children are our future.

[Blackadar]

Ooooh...a deep thread.

I think that not believing in anyone or anything at all would be very lonely. You have to at least believe in yourself.

[cartman]

Olliegirl,

To me it goes in stages. You feel good believing in something, until it is proved to be false. Then you feel like the best route is to not believe in anything at all, until the the next thing to believe in comes along.

[rkmsuf]

Is it possible not to believe in anything? Technically, I don't think it is. Even if you say you prefer not to believe in anything, you actually believe in not believing in something.

[sachmo71]

There is always some truth to believe in.

But assuming that we are talking about a universe where this isn't possible, then I would believe in nothing. I'm well on my way to that in this universe, anyway.

[sachmo71]

Is it possible not to believe in anything? Technically, I don't think it is. Even if you say you prefer not to believe in anything, you actually believe in not believing in something.

Who are you, Getty Lee? :D

[Surtt]

Is it possible not to believe in anything? Technically, I don't think it is. Even if you say you prefer not to believe in anything, you actually believe in not believing in something.

But is nothing something?

[rkmsuf]

But is nothing something?

I suppose it is. I've also noticed that no matter where I go I'm here.

[CamEdwards]

I can't believe no one's quoted Bret Michaels yet. Then again, Ksyrup hasn't yet arrived in this thread.

[sachmo71]

I can't believe no one's quoted Bret Michaels yet. Then again, Ksyrup hasn't yet arrived in this thread.

"Hey, where did my career go?"

-Bret Michaels

or

-Brett Butler

[QuikSand]

Fucking nihilists, man.

[rufusjonz]

Big Lebowski?
I'll haf de ligenberry pancakes.

[Radii]

To try to get some more serious responses here... ;)

From a religous/creationist standpoint, I have a very logical scientific view of things. If it hasn't been proven I have a very hard time believing in it. I have always felt that a large basis for religon is simply the fear of the unknown. Ancient societies had a large number of unknowns, and didn't understand a lot about how the world worked, and had a polytheistic religon with a system of gods to explain all of the unknowns of the physical world. Now most people believe in a single God of some sort that helps answer the fear of the unknown, what happens after you die? What's "better"? I dunno. It'd sure be nice to be able to through the world feeling with 100% certainty that if you're good you'll go to heaven and you're set for eternity. For me, I feel like I need to be the best person I can be, but i'm really not sure what drives that, if it's a fear of a Hell that I don't even know if it exists or not, or just a general set of morals my parents instilled in me. And even those of us that try to be good, we circumvent the rules a lot, and we know it.


I am just wondering, overall, is it better to believe in something that turns out to be false (a relationship, someone's love, a person, etc...) or is better to not believe in anything or anyone at all?

I hope there's nothing behind these thoughts that lead to me sleeping on the couch ;)

As for believing in someone/something/some relationshp, it depends on your goals in life I believe. If you're just floating through life and don't really have any idea where you want to end up, maybe you're better off not putting this much faith in someone else. If you're looking to find someone to spend your life with, and looking to find someone that you can put this kind of faith in forever, well, along the way you're likely to get burned a few times, but if you find the right person in the end, it's worth it, no?

I have so much work to do. Why am I not doing it and answering msg board posts instead? :D

[Daimyo]

Personally I think the key is to not believe anything to the point where you blindly ignore evidence that you're wrong. Be fluid enough in your position to adapt to new conditions and new information.

[gstelmack]

Without the bad, there can't be good. So yes, it's better to believe in something that turns out to be false than to believe in nothing.

Of course, you could argue that "believing in nothing" is believing in something, where the something is "nothing" (like atheists believe that there is no god or something similar), so it may be a moot point ;)

[Schmidty]

Until a few years ago, I thought the universe was decelerating.

[Desnudo]

I believe the children are our future.

I believe that knowing is half the battle.

[rkmsuf]

I believe that knowing is half the battle.

I'm shocked there hasn't been a Bull Durham quote.

[Ksyrup]

I can't believe no one's quoted Bret Michaels yet. Then again, Ksyrup hasn't yet arrived in this thread.
Well, I could have gone the comical route, but since you've already ruined that one, I'll just go with this:


If your back is pinned against the wall
And the stress is killing you,
And the cross you carry on your back
Makes it hard for you to move
In yourself believe, it's all right
In yourself believe, you're all right

If you ran away to lose your soul
And you're scared to death you're wrong
If you're past the point of turning back
And your innocence is gone
In yourself believe, it's all right
In yourself believe, it's all right

If it's something that you can't forget
That somebody did to you
If you've had your fill of being down
Then there's nothing left to prove
In yourself believe, it's all right
In yourself believe, you're all right

[Surtt]

I remember back in collage, my physics instructor telling me that "nothing" was the hardest concept for most students to comprehend.
They kept trying to fill nothing in with empty space.

Of course this was about the same time I was learning the total number to integers is the same as the number of odd integers and 1 + 1 = 10.

[Schmidty]

I've read more bad poetry on FOFC this week, than Jesse Jackson has spoken in the past 10 years.

[Brillig]

Hmm, tricky needle to thread... In all, I'd say it's not good to believe in something that's provably false, and I think most would agree with me.

So then the question is about things that either cannot be proven false, or cannot be proven false right now.

Belief in things that cannot be proven false (e.g., most religious beliefs fall into this category) can only be judged based on their results. For example, belief in an afterlife.

(Brief aside to plug some favorite books of mine "Why People Believe Weird Things", and "How We Believe", both by Michael Shermer - publisher of Skeptic magazine. The first is a more general look at some of the odd beliefs that people have (e.g. past life, alien abduction, etc...), while the second is a look at religious belief specifically. Anyway, now back to our program...)

If belief in a hell causes people to eschew looting and rioting in the streets, then it seems to be a good thing. If it causes people to feel less insignificant in the face of the cosmos, if belief in a heaven makes them feel better about friends and loved ones they've lost (credo consolans), that too, would seem to be a good thing (except for drug companies making anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds). On the other hand, if belief in an afterlife causes people to embrace suicide-bombing, well, perhaps we'd be better off without such a belief.

It seems that belief in the unknowable is a mixed blessing. Is it splitting the razor too fine to say that beliefs never harm, it's the actions that those beliefs impel? And so a belief, in and of itself, cannot be good or bad, except in light of the actions that you take upon that belief. You cannot say whether you would be better off with or without a belief, [b]true or false[b] though that belief might be, without understanding the actions that such a belief would guide you towards...

Moving on to beliefs that could be proven/disproven in the future... Mainly, things like believing in other people fall into this category. Believing in a friend, lover, etc...

I'm not sure this isn't a no-brainer. Friendship is trust, trust is belief. (Ditto love). While the cost of having a false belief in someone is well known to everyone through personal experience, is it possible to function as a human being without believing in anyone else? Wouldn't that reduce us all to scraggly hermits living in huts posting on internet message boards? (Err, wait a minute...)

You can't believe in people without having some of them let you down. (Some might say "all of them", but that's an entirely different topic). If you don't believe in anyone, you can't function in human society. So, if we grant that being part of society is a good thing, then you have to accept that you need to believe in people even though some of those beliefs will be false.

[/Ramble]

[QuikSand]

I wish Brillig spent more time in the General Discussion forum.

[oliegirl]

You can't believe in people without having some of them let you down. (Some might say "all of them", but that's an entirely different topic). If you don't believe in anyone, you can't function in human society. So, if we grant that being part of society is a good thing, then you have to accept that you need to believe in people even though some of those beliefs will be false.


So you are saying that in order to be a functioning person in society, you have to believe in people in general and expect to be let down. Wouldn't it be easier, and less painful, to not believe in them, expect that they are lying, cheating, whatever, and then if/when they prove you wrong, then start to believe in them? Why are we so inclined to give people the benefit of the doubt if we are expecting them to hurt or betray us based on our past experiences?

[SplitPersonality1]

I wish Brillig spent more time in the General Discussion forum.

I was thinking the same thing. Very nice post Brillig.

[Desnudo]

Well, I could have gone the comical route, but since you've already ruined that one, I'll just go with this:


If your back is pinned against the wall
And the stress is killing you,
And the cross you carry on your back
Makes it hard for you to move
In yourself believe, it's all right
In yourself believe, you're all right

If you ran away to lose your soul
And you're scared to death you're wrong
If you're past the point of turning back
And your innocence is gone
In yourself believe, it's all right
In yourself believe, it's all right

If it's something that you can't forget
That somebody did to you
If you've had your fill of being down
Then there's nothing left to prove
In yourself believe, it's all right
In yourself believe, you're all right

I don't think anything could ruin this:

Will I see him on the TV
Preachin' 'bout the promised land
He tells me to believe in Jesus
And steals the money from my hand
Some say he was a good man
But Lord I think he sinned

Twenty-two years of mental tears
Cries a suicidal Vietnam vet
Who fought a losing war on a foreign shore
To find his country didn't want him back

Their bullets took his best friend in Saigon
Our lawyers took his wife, his kids no regrets
In a time I don't remember
In a war he can't forget
He cries forgive me for what I've done there
Forgive me for the things I did

***********************************************

CHORUS:
And give me something to believe in
If there's a Lord above
Give me something to believe in
Oh Lord arise

***********************************************

My best friend died a lonely man
In some Palm Springs hotel room
I got the call last Christmas Eve
And they told me the news

I tried all night not to break down and cry
As the tears rolled down my face
I felt so cold and empty
Like a lost soul out of place
And the mirror, mirror on the wall
Sees me smile, it fades again

***********************************************

CHORUS!

***********************************************

Sometimes I wish to God I didn't know now
Things I didn't know then
Road you gotta take me home

***********************************************

SOLO!!!

***********************************************

I drive by the homeless sleeping on a cold dark street
Like bodies in an open grave
Underneath an old broken down neon sign
Used to read JESUS SAVES

A mile away lived the rich folk
And I see how they're living it up
While the poor they eat from hand to mouth
The rich drink from the golden cup
And it just makes me wonder
Why so many lose while so few win

***********************************************

CHORUS2:
And give me something to believe in
(Give me something to believe in)
Give me something to believe in
(Give me something to believe in)
If there's a Lord above
Give me something to believe in
(You take the high road and I'll take the low road)
Oh Lord arise
Give me something to believe in
(You take the high road and I'll take the low road)
Oh Lord arise
Give me something to believe in
(You take the high road and I'll take the low road)
Oh Lord arise
Give me something to believe in
(You take the high road and I'll take the low road)
Sometimes I wish to God I didn't know now
Things I didn't know then

And give me something to believe in

[Brillig]

So you are saying that in order to be a functioning person in society, you have to believe in people in general and expect to be let down. Wouldn't it be easier, and less painful, to not believe in them, expect that they are lying, cheating, whatever, and then if/when they prove you wrong, then start to believe in them? Why are we so inclined to give people the benefit of the doubt if we are expecting them to hurt or betray us based on our past experiences?
Hmm, let me rephrase.

At it's most basic level, you can't have a functioning society without trust. Not necessarily trust of friends or lovers, but trust of strangers.

I trust that I'm going to have electricity, clean water, phone service, edible groceries, a secure bank account, etc... I trust that the driver waiting at the red light is not going to floor it and slam into me. I trust that the mailman is not pulling my credit cards out of the mail. Now I don't put a $20 bill on the sidewalk and expect it to be there in the morning, but you can't escape the fact that our society works because we trust other people to behave at a certain level of reliability. To a large degree, we're able to do this because things do work, we see this, and we trust them to work in the future.

On to more intimate relationships... I'm not sure that you don't have a logic loop there - sure, it might be more comfortable to be able to wait until someone proves themselves worthy of trust, but... how long do you propose to wait? Aside from the Harrington College of Design, I don't repose immediate trust in anyone. (Sorry, joke from another thread). It is impossible for someone to prove that they will never betray you, just like it is impossible for the power company to prove that you'll never have an outage. But based on past experience we all know the following, I'd guess:

a) Many/some/few people are untrustworthy.
b) Many/some/few people are trustworthy.
c) Many/some/few people who appear trustworthy are, in fact, untrustworthy.

Your personal experience will dictate which of many/some/few you choose.

The problem is you can't tell the difference between b) and c) until some later date, which is, hmm, the whole issue...

If you could wait forever, you wouldn't need to choose between trusting and not trusting, you could wait for proof one way or the other. Since none of us can wait forever, we have two choices. Trust, knowing that in some cases we'll get hurt. Or never trust, and live as hermits.

(Why is my back brain thinking about the movie "As Good As It Gets"...)

Now, in theory, you'd think there'd be some sort of balance point, that some people can be (or have been) so hurt by betrayal that they are, in fact, better off never trusting (again). While this seems reasonable, I don't think this is ever true for the vast majority of us. And, while absolutely not being cavalier about this, but anyone that fragile probably needs therapy.

Meh, I think I've come round in a circle. Society doesn't work without the first form of trust. But intimate trust isn't required for society, it's what we need for our own humanity.

[/ramble]

[judicial clerk]

Brillig is to "Thread about believing in stuff" as Ken Jennings is to "Jeopardy"

[oliegirl]

Brillig is my new God and I am going to put all my belief and faith in him...just kidding :)

After a very long discussion with radii about this, I have come to a couple of conclusions:

a. This is something that people have very different thoughts on
b. It's very personal
c. You can never understand how someone else thinks unless they think like you
d. We could discuss this for hours and hours and never, ever see eye to eye

I am still not really sure why I came up with this, or why it has been stuck in my head, but it's still stuck there. During our conversation tonight I brought up evolution. Most species develop and evolve over time to adjust to their surroundings. Why don't humans? Why, after all of these years of people being hurt, betrayed, etc...do we still give our trust and faith so willingly? Why haven't we learned to protect ourselves and in effect, keep that part of ourselves to ourselves until we know the other person deserves it? I am not saying I think this is how it should be, I just think it's an interesting question.

[Yossarian]

Most species develop and evolve over time to adjust to their surroundings. Why don't humans?

They do.

[Brillig]

Evolution, hmm...

There are a couple of answers I can give you:

1). Evolution only works when negative behavior impedes reproduction. Judging by the number of divorces with kids involved, this sort of thing often happens too late to have an evolutionary effect.

2). Evolution works only on time scales of many hundreds of generations - in human terms, thousands to tens of thousands of years. We haven't been 'civilized' long enough for this to be a factor.

3). (You should check out Shermer's books, really :) ) Anyway, in one of them he talks about the evolution of belief.


... I would like to suggest that we evolved a more general Belief Engine...We evolved to be skilled, pattern-seeking, causal-finding creatures. Those who were best at finding patterns (standing upwing of game animals is bad for the hunt, cow manure is good for the crops) left behind the most offspring. We are their descendants. The problem in seeking and finding patterns is knowing which ones are meaningful and which ones are not. Unfortunately out brains are not always good at determining the difference. The reason is that discovering a meaningless pattern (painting animals on the cave wall before a hunt) usually does no harm and may even do some good in reducing anxiety in uncertain situations. So we are left the the legacy of two types of thinking errors: Type 1 Error: believing a falsehood, and Type 2 Error: rejecting a truth. Since these errors will not necessarily get us killed, they persist. The Belief Engine has evolved as a mechanism for helping us to survive because in addition to committing Type 1 and Type 2 errors, we also commit what we call a Type 1 Hit: not believing a falsehood and a Type 2 Hit: believing a truth...

(emphasis mine)We make Type 1 and 2 Errors because we need to make Type 1 and 2 hits
I'm afraid that was rather dry and a little out of context - I truncated a tad, being scanner-less. Anyway, the last line is very interesting - Shermer suggests that human beings are wired to believe and are capable of believing things that are incorrect because it's necessary for us to be able to believe things that are correct.

I believe that jumping from my third story window is a bad thing, but in order to be able to believe that, I am also capable of believing that the world is flat.

Back to questions of intimate trust, then, if we are to be able to believe in the ones we love, the Belief Engine also makes it possible to believe in people who will hurt us.

I guess what it boils down to is - the ability to trust is necessary to our survival as a race. The ability to trust only the right people, isn't - it's only necessary that we trust some set of people that includes some of the right people. (Except in such cases where believing in the wrong people kills us, but I think we're talking about things a little gentler than that).

Finally, a true cynic would say: evolution actually works against a better "trust" mechanism. Judging by the statistic that over half the marriages end up in divorce, most people are not trustworthy - therefore, if humans only procreated with people who were trustworthy, the human race would soon be extinct. :eek:

[oliegirl]

Wow.

Let us all bow down to Brillig and worship him...

;)