Okay - let me correct myself: "Belief without evidence that can rationally be attributed to the thing being believed in is irrational." And their belief IS arrived at irrationally, if it is based on evidence that can not be rationally attributed to the thing they believe in (i.e. more rationally attributed to an alternative - or more rationally NOT attributable at all). Once they have accepted the evidence as such then I accept that the thought process from there to the "belief" can be rational - but if they assign evidence to their item of belief irrationally then everything that follows is irrational - albeit due to being based on the irrational attributing of evidence to their item of belief. So, bringing it back on topic, the burden of proof requires the evidence to be put forward AND for the demonstration that the evidence is rationally attributable to the item under investigation.
Hmmm - I have reread the opening post... and I see no reference or implication of "personal proof" required for belief. However, I do apologise if my response to your post did not take into account the possibility of a different understanding / interpretation. "Proof" is something more than mere evidence - but a sufficiency of evidence to be beyond any reasonable doubt. If one thus considers "proof" to be personal (i.e. sufficient for the individual to accept the claim beyond any reasonable dount) then they leave themselves open to accepting irrational claims if they don't analyse the evidence sufficiently. And then "proof" becomes purely subjective and, ultimately, pointless - when one person's "proof" is "Well, why not - I heard Joe Bloggs in the pub say it - and he had only had 10 pints to drink!" and someone else's proof is only satisfied after years of dedicated study. And how am I "proof of the afterlife"? If your issue is one of "proof" or "evidence" requiring to be empirical in nature, and that this thus discounts all things of a "non-empirical" nature - then the burden is on you to demonstrate / prove / provide evidence that there exists something that is "non-empirical". It might seem a non-sensical request (asking you to provide evidence for something which you are saying is unevidencable) - but until such time as one can demonstrate the existence of the non-empirical, and can differentiate between existence of the non-empirical item and a mere claim of existence of the non-empirical... the burden of proof will lie with you (or the one making the claim of non-empirical existence).
Of course what you say is true. If I am trying to convince you of something. I must use your standards, or it will not be convincing to you. However, If you tried to convince me of something, you would have to use my standards. For example, I see your belief system as being irrational. Like all belief systems, which are either based on their own principles, guilty of circular reasoning, or self supporting, or they are based on so many weak suppositions it is like a house of cards. Your belief systems appears to be of the former, a narrow and strong base, justified by circular reasoning, although it could have a different weakness or fallacy. When I see logical fallacies, I disregard it as the truth unless stronger evidence is available that overrides the fallacious argument. Do you have any nonfallacious arguments that your belief system is free of irrationality? ***************
Firstly... what is my "belief system", as far as you see it? And then why do you see it as irrational? Again, you'll need to tell me what you see as my "belief system". Personally I need no argument to demonstrate that my "belief system" is free of irrationality - because to me "belief" is, by definition, irrational - and I try not to hold beliefs. I do when I am not thinking critically but, when pointed out to me, I try to correct my position. Does this help answer your question(s)?
Sarkus I’m saying everyone has a belief system. Conscious or unconscious, developed or weak, but everyone has one, and they are all based on at least one fallacy, generally circular reasoning. One only has to be irrational once, and the remainder can flow from that, as being quite logical. I do not need to read your mind to say you have a belief system and it is based on at least one fallacy.
Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! But surely this belief of yours is based on a fallacy - and as such should be disregarded? Or is there a non-fallacious argument to support your claim? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I did not say all beliefs are fallacious. I said all belief systems have at least one fallacy as a basis. My statement that everyone has a belief system, is not a basis of my belief system. It is merely the opinion of all reasonable philosophers, and most unreasonable philosophers as well. Tell me, do you actually believe you have no belief system?
You still need to explain what you mean by "belief system" - so that I may accurately answer such a question. I certainly don't believe I have no beliefs... as explained - I'm sure I do when not thinking critically about them. But I do try not to hold beliefs.
Let’s make it simple and just say that a belief system is the system a person uses to decide what is true or important.
Those 'beliefs', even at their simplest, should be evidenced based. i.e I "believe" my cup of tea is hot. I come to that belief on the basis that there is steam rising from it and it burnt my lip. The 'system' one generally uses to decide what is true or important is 'evidence gathering' - apart from the ridiculous claims typically made by theists.
That is science. The formal discipline of science is only five hundred years old. Other belief systems are not scientific. Other beliefs are more powerful. These were named "archetypes" by Jung. They are instinctive beliefs preprogrammed into our synapses during evolution. Some instincts serve survival, like caring for children. Some were obviously survival-related at in the past, like fear of predators before they were all locked up in zoos and fear was tamed into thrill. Others are more difficult to understand and may simply be the result of a mutation passing through a genetic bottleneck. Nonetheless, regardless of the reason, a certain set of instinctive beliefs in the power of a supernatural universe and its inhabitants occurs in all cultures in all eras, and collections of these beliefs with their various embellishments become "religions." It's important to understand that these beliefs feel true and therefore are stronger than beliefs that are the result of experience, teaching or reasoning. Since, in addition to that, they are also a source of comfort, they are exceedingly difficult to unseat. As noted, these archetypal beliefs are codifications of ones we were born with, so we never go through the process of choosing them, A person has to become highly rational, highly skeptical, and finally downright iconoclastic--a course which generally requires quite a bit of discomfort with his life--before he will consider the need for evidence gathering to justify an archetypal belief.
Surely this is called evidence gathering, as Snakelord has suggested - and then hopefully rational thought - both in interpreting the evidence (i.e. assessing what it is actually evidence for) and then in using that evidence. How many people do not use such a system, based on evidence? And do they still try to consider those systems "rational"? What other systems are there? What is YOUR system?
That's not science, that's mankind - (and even animal kind). It is through experience, training and 'evidence' that lions learn to hunt, otters smack nuts on rocks and is used continuously throughout everyones life be they scientific minded or not. These are not 'beliefs', (unless you were to use the word so loosely as to render it pointless). Chemical responses and so on are no more a 'belief' than blinking or breathing is. They are instinctual mechanisms and most certainly not 'beliefs' in any real sense of the word. Nobody will contest that people now and especially in the ancient past had 'beliefs' in many bizarre and wonderful things from gods to leprechauns, from mermaids and banshees to hobgoblins and anal probing alien abduction but you would most certainly have a very hard task ahead of you trying to support your claim that any of these are 'instinctive'. It's easy for you to say such a thing while ignoring the thousands of years of indoctrination that have gone into providing you with such beliefs - stemming from those early people with less knowledge of universal workings than a decapitated sea sponge, through the centuries of murder against those that didn't believe, through forced schooling and so on. I don't understand in what context you're using the word 'stronger'. Kindly explain. Indeed, and that's probably more of a valid suggestion as to why they appear in all eras etc than those beliefs are "instinctive". Your evidence for that claim is...?
Although Jung described (I think) "archetypes" essentially as beliefs /ideas/ concepts etc. I am not sure they are. Perhaps they are more "behaviors." I am not a "behaviorist" as most scientists were for nearly 5 decades at start of last century. Certain linguistic behaviors (not only Chomsky’s "grammar", but that too) especially "spoonerisms" are very destructive to the pure behaviorist's stimulus / response POV as applied to speech. I do not want to detour too much the surprisingly civil exchange in progress, but need to note that "Archetypes" are not necessarily "beliefs" at all. As you know a lot about birds, perhaps you already know of an old experiment with the Baltimore Oriel? - Eggs taken to a large cage with many other birds in region where no bird made the hanging nest the B.O. makes. Yet, later when adults, these transported B.O.s made their unique nests from their generically stored instructions. I suspect this was a "behavior" not a "belief" they got from their genes. They probably had a strong "good feeling" when it was done, so that also does not make a behavior into a belief. (Lots of related studies about unique bird songs, most, but not all, birds do need to hear them.) For some, how to "sing" their song is genetic information / again a behavior, more than a "belief." I know many other animal examples: monkeys fear* snakes instinctively, etc. Why should complex genetic encoded human behaviors be called "beliefs"? The experiments with "split-brain" humans show how easily and sincerely man instantly creates a "belief" from his observation of his behavior. ------- *Yes "fear" is more of a belief than a behavior, but perhaps the behavior came first, was self observed and then "understood" as fear - like the sequence the split brain humans exhibit.
No. This misses the point. The belief system decides what is evidence. The belief that science, and only science, can gather evidence, is a belief system (or part of). The belief that science can validate all truthful things, is also. The application of the scientific method requires certain things, such as examining competing models or explanations. In order to justify the scientific method as a stand alone belief system, and being fallacy free, it needs to compare itself against competing models. In the everyday use of the scientific method, it is not expected to compare itself to religious explanations. However, at the very top, to validate the method itself, surely it needs to be compared to competitive models. I’m not talking about woodland fairies and unicorns. I’m talking about belief systems held by over half of the world. When choosing a belief system, science sometimes competes against religion. It is another choice, honored by many people, and if advocates of science ignore it, they has failed to examine competing models. The problem is, most models competing against the scientific process, use non-rational tools to find the truth. Science is based on the rational, so has no way to test the non-rational. It can only test by rational means, and by definition, the non-rational will fail a rational test. Accepting sacred texts as a basis for a belief system, is non-rational. Science cannot prove their sacred truth (or lack). Science cannot comment on the truthfulness of sacred texts. It cannot comment on them, except in a historical context. If it cannot comment on their spiritual truth, then it has failed to examine a reputable competing model. Any decision arrived at to accept this particular model is based on a fallacy, because the scientific method itself, was not able to validate it, one way or the other. I believe everyone would agree that at some point, rational thought becomes part of the validation process, but not everyone puts it at the top of the list. Everyone’s system is based on evidence, but certainly not the same meaning of the word. The importance of rationality is part of a belief system. Many people would rather be right than rational. Some, such as yourself, would say one cannot be right, if one is not rational. Other disagree. One for every person. I believe that knowledge was acquired before the scientific method, before science. I can see no argument against this. I believe this is convincing evidence science is not needed to discover truth. Again, to me this is an undeniable truth. Science’s primary role is validation of truth, and discovery is secondary. I believe that science has the potential to validate all truth that exists or will exist, but that it has a long way to go. A long was as in we are at the very beginning, not even the tip of the iceberg. I believe the human mind is capable of things no scientist even imagines. I believe some shamans have had mystical experiences which revealed truth, that science is not currently capable of validating, not because it if false, but because science lacks the maturity. (Not a supernatural mystical, as I do not believe in the supernatural.) ~ ~ ~ Very Important: All belief systems have a fallacious basis. Not all fallacious arguments are false.
I would add to this that there is a common assumption that the most rational thing to do is not to believe in something unless it has been proven by scientific methodology. This is an epistemological belief, but also a belief about lifestyle. In other words if you with some regularity use other methods to determine what is true or what you believe in, you are making a mistake both in terms of methodology and lifestyle. Enjoyed the whole post.
At it's ultimate core one might state that everything is a 'belief', but such a statement is both misleading and corrupt. Evidence at it's basic is the repeated testing and the 'confidence', (not belief), that the same result will continue to occur. A small baby for instance goes about chewing everything - from socks to the dogs toy, from books to sofas gathering evidence on what is an is not edible. A level of 'confidence' develops from that evidence gathering. The young baby comes to the conclusion that socks do not taste nice and are ultimately inedible from repeated chewing on them. The 'belief', (which is a highly misguided word here), does not come before the evidence gathering. Indeed it seems a case of using the word 'belief' in the place of 'confidence level achieved due to available evidence'. They're not the same thing unless one uses the word 'belief' in an incredibly lax manner. Most certainly. Who stated such a thing? Now there's a 'belief', (Most typically espoused by theists), which equates to: "The more proponents a belief has the more true it is". It's bullshit at best. Furthermore, you were indeed arguing that science must compare itself to "competing models" which would include woodland fairies and unicorns absolutely irregardless to how many people believe in them. And, purely as a side point, the bible features unicorns. These same "half the world" must, if they are to live up to their claims of belief, also believe in unicorns, (along with giants etc). You simply cannot come to the conclusion that something needs to be considered because it has many followers.
Then please tell us how to find models competing with a scientific belief system. Or is it that you have no interest in considering opposing viewpoints?
If I had a creed, this might be it: 'A special transmission outside the scriptures; Depending not on words and letters; Pointing directly to the human mind; Seeing into one's nature, one becomes a Buddha.'
My apologies, I don't quite get what you mean by 'find'. One can find models *trying* to compete with scientific 'understanding' all over the place. For instance, there is one such model that claims that everything was created by the noodly appendage of a rather large flying spaghetti monster. At what stage would you suggest this 'model' be given real consideration? At the claim stage or at the evidence stage? Ok, so there is none, it's an issue for sure. Ultimately is it wrong because of that complete and utter lack of evidence? No, there might very well be a large flying spaghetti monster that exists and created the universe using his noodly bits, (regardless to how many followers the notion has). But, given my point that we are a species that gathers information by using evidence as opposed to "belief", it cannot be considered valid, or if you prefer, 'real' until it satisfies that criteria, because that is how humans work and have done since they were born. The difference is that evidence shows us what is, (to the best of it's ability, it is never an absolute), while 'belief' merely shows us what might be. One draws conclusions based upon what it wants to be true or what might be true whereas the other draws conclusions, (and levels of confidence), based upon what is shown to be true. Right now, and I hate to sound rude, but god have zilch. This statement always seems to crop up the second someone actually disagrees to something as if disagreement somehow ultimately means they simply have no interest in other views. It is silly and uncalled for, especially given that I did even agree to something you said, which can be seen with the "Most certainly" that featured on my last post. I understand that I am quite blunt, but that does not hint at lack of interest or that I do not take on board other viewpoints. I simply return a comment with what the evidence suggests. That evidence in this case, (if you take a look at a newborn), suggests that they gather evidence first and foremost. The same seems true of adults from crossing the road to taking a dump. One could certainly consider it a 'belief' or, (disgusting word that it is), "faith" if that person just walked out into the road without looking, but that's not typical of people [or even animals for that matter] I find the issue here most likely to be one of the difference between 'belief' and 'level of confidence based upon the evidence'.
