Having a belief

[luckyme]

Ok, I'm ready to tackle this again.
We use the phrase, " I have a belief" and we tend to regard it as " I have a toe".
My understanding of mind is that, unlike the toe, the belief isn't there when we don't probe for it. There isn't a file somewhere in the brain that has belief X encoded on it. There isn't a fragged group of file parts that add up to belief X. Rather, beliefs are an emergent type of experience that manifests itself in response to a probe.

To bunny - I won't say I know this or believe this, it's just a view of the situation that I have.

Tear away, luckyme

[Philo]

There's a lot to untangle here.

First off, a toe is a physical part of the body, and I don't think we tend to regard having a belief "that p" as having a certain physical part of the body that is the belief that p. If there is more to the analogy perhaps you could explain.

Philosophers typically treat beliefs as propositional attitudes, i.e., if I believe "that p" for some proposition p this means that I think the proposition p is true.

Your description of beliefs as "an emergent type of experience that manifests itself in response to a probe" sounds a little invasive, but seems to be akin to a dispositional account of beliefs. We can distinguish between occurrent and dispositional beliefs. An occurrent belief is a belief that I am currently consciously entertaining, while a dispositional belief that p is understood as my disposition, say, to assent to the claim p.

The further question you raise about the relationship between the mind and the brain is of course a complex topic.

[bunny]

[ QUOTE ]
Ok, I'm ready to tackle this again.
We use the phrase, " I have a belief" and we tend to regard it as " I have a toe".
My understanding of mind is that, unlike the toe, the belief isn't there when we don't probe for it. There isn't a file somewhere in the brain that has belief X encoded on it. There isn't a fragged group of file parts that add up to belief X. Rather, beliefs are an emergent type of experience that manifests itself in response to a probe.

To bunny - I won't say I know this or believe this, it's just a view of the situation that I have.

Tear away, luckyme

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How about if the belief is something like:

A propensity to answer "yes" to the question "Do you believe <insert-statement-here>?" - you have that propensity whether someone has asked you or not or even whether you've considered it or are aware of it.

[foal]

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A propensity to answer "yes" to the question "Do you believe <insert-statement-here>?

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Very easily counter-example-able and clearly not what we mean by belief. Don't you know B.F. Skinner is dead?

[bunny]

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A propensity to answer "yes" to the question "Do you believe <insert-statement-here>?

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Very easily counter-example-able and clearly not what we mean by belief. Don't you know B.F. Skinner is dead?

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Well, it's not what I mean - I was merely groping for some alternative. I'd appreciate a counter example though.

[MidGe]

A belief is an impediment to knowing! If you believe you stop investigating, unless your belief is shaky! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[tame_deuces]

Is there a point in discussing the semantics of this expression?

Semantic discussion usually boils down to person A saying X=2 and disagreeing strongly with person B who has defined X=1, oh and the guy who somewhere in the thread quotes a dictionary or some such.

[carlo]

In the vernacular most thinkers see "belief" as not evidential or acting without reason otherwise one would "know". so "belief" in a sense carries with it its own contrary which is a sense of ignorance. When one looks at the written and spoken world today it would be difficult to find anyone who isn't acting within "beliefs" and therefore in ignorance. this is the result of the critical intellect offering no mercy to any thoughtful positions and this criticality is in fact a nihilist position. The word is being drive into a scattered corner of the world as will many other words if the critical intellect and those who use it in a nihilist manner prevail.

Looked up "lief' and I liked the verb as in the German "laufen" which is to walk with. "Lief' is the past tense of "laufen". Archaically it has been used as "willing" or "sweet".

So I'd offer that when one walks with Darwin makes more sense than the "belief" in Darwin. One can walk with "Darwin thoughtfully through error and truths and not feel that one must give him up due to these very errors. Is one not rational because he "walks with Darwin". I think not for life is full of paradoxes and inconsistencies and one will walk sweetly or willingly with always the possibility of "walking" in another way.

[foal]

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A propensity to answer "yes" to the question "Do you believe <insert-statement-here>?

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Very easily counter-example-able and clearly not what we mean by belief. Don't you know B.F. Skinner is dead?

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Well, it's not what I mean - I was merely groping for some alternative. I'd appreciate a counter example though.

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A counter example would be an atheist who lived in a theocracy and always said "yes" when asked "Do you believe in God?" for the sake of self-preservation. Or anyone who simply feels like lying.

[luckyme]

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How about if the belief is something like:

A propensity to answer "yes" to the question "Do you believe <insert-statement-here>?" - you have that propensity whether someone has asked you or not or even whether you've considered it or are aware of it.

[/ QUOTE ]

An old phonograph record reacts a bit like that. The sound is produced when the needle is dragged through the groove but in a sense the music is always there.
The view on beliefs I'm considering is that they aren't there, they are pulled together from a sources much more scattered and finer grained. That's one reason we get different answers to 'do you belief that?" or "what do you believe about ..". It's one reason people always can surprise you, and themselves at times.

I don't think we have a spot or a series of spots where the belief "the earth is a sphere" is stored. If we could watch the neuron level as the response comes, could we go in an erase that belief by, say, killing off the nodes. I suspect we'd find two things if we tried that -
1) the response may still be available.
2) other responses will be affected.

That would seem to be the result if we 'build' our answer each time we're asked rather than have it labeled and cataloged in some way ( even a scatterd way).

luckyme