Curious George
Veteran Member
But is it the type of choice that is unconscious or how it is made that is unconscious. It is grammar.
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Choosing One's Beliefs
- Thread starter PureX
- Start date
You're right. I'm just being stubborn.
(Not that I believe in unconscious choice.)
Ponder This
Well-Known Member
Okay, good, then I think we are on the same page with this. I'm not certain, but I will choose to believe that we are.
Some things don't have convincing evidence, but we choose one way or the other.
A person contemplates two options for a long while and then his friends get impatient with him.
"Just pick one," they say. How can a person do that?
The Road Not Taken
But even deeper than that is the question of what constitutes evidence. At a certain point, you have to choose to accept it as evidence before it becomes evidence capable of convincing you. You simply passed the buck when you claimed that evidence convinces you and that you didn't actually make a choice about what you believe...
Will the judge simply allow anything into his courtroom as evidence? Or does he make a decision regarding what to accept as evidence? He must make a judgement. He is obligated to make a conscious choice.
leibowde84
Veteran Member
"Picking one" doesn't mean that you are convinced. You aren't choosing to believe, you are just randomly choosing. If you say you believe in that thing, you aren't being honest. You don't believe anything until you are convinced it is true.
Believing something doesn't mean that you hope it is true or you were pressured into claiming it is true. It means that you, in your heart of hearts, are convinced that it is true.
I disagree. The judge doesn't choose what evidence is acceptable. The judge is convinced by a piece of evidence. Obviously there are rules of evidence that the judge has no control over, but that is irrelevant to this conversation.
If a person testifies, for example, the judge is either convinced that the person is being honest or he isn't. He is convinced by things like the person's background, consistency of the testimony, and even a mere feeling that the person is telling the truth. But, there is no choice. The evidence is either convincing to the judge or it isn't.
Ponder This
Well-Known Member
The choice creates your reality. If someone buying a car has to decide between a red car and a blue car, the choice results in the color of the car he is driving around. He has to live with that choice. If he picks red, then you can't say he is driving around in a blue car: that would be dishonest. If he wants to trade the red car in for a blue car (change his mind), then he can do that, but he's going to have to make a conscious choice to do so. Then we can say he is driving around in a blue car and we can be honest about it.
You can argue that he wasn't truly convinced that he should be driving a red car, but he certainly was driving a red car.
If someone chooses to believe in a god, you can't say that he's being dishonest if he actually believes in a god.
If something happens to him that shakes his faith and causes him to give up his devotion to a god, you can argue that he wasn't truly convinced in his heart of hearts, but that doesn't mean he didn't believe in a god.
Evidence is not required for belief; imagination is required.
You appear to believe that evidence is required for belief, but evidence is really only required for justified belief. It also seems like you don't believe that people make choices (about anything).
'judge' means "decide (a case) in court"
'convict' means "declare (someone) to be guilty of a criminal offense by the verdict of a jury or the decision of a judge in a court of law"
We can also ask: was the decision just? And you seem to be saying that it must always be justified.
I would hope that it is.
leibowde84
Veteran Member
I'm not sure what this has to do with belief being a choice, but I don't disagree with anything you've written here. The man choosing to buy a red car isn't believing anything, necessarily. Maybe he was convinced that the blue car was the better option for him, and, as a result, chose to buy the blue car. But, there is nothing here that suggests that we choose to believe anything.
A belief that is not justified is not an actual belief. The person is not convinced of anything if a belief is not justified in any way.
Ponder This
Well-Known Member
belief is merely the acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists.
to justify is to show or prove to be right or reasonable
I hold that:
You don't have to show or prove things to be right or reasonable for you to believe them.
You can choose to believe things.
You hold that:
You must show or prove things to be right or reasonable for you to believe them.
You can't choose to believe things.
For example, although you appear to agree that a person can choose between a red car and a blue car. You don't believe a person can choose to believe in a god. You appear to hold that even though a person doesn't need to justify his choice of car, he needs to justify his choice of god.
It was nice discussing with you. Peace.
If knowledge is a justified, true belief, then your assertion is absurd.
Belief is founded in evidence, not justification.
Mister Silver
Faith's Nightmare
Personal evidence, perhaps.
leibowde84
Veteran Member
You have my claim wrong. I hold that one must be convinced to actually believe something. Thus, one cannot choose to actually believe something. One does not have to justify the belief to anyone else in order to believe something themselves. Belief has nothing to do with providing justification to others.
When it comes to the choice of color of a car, that has to do with preference. You aren't saying "I believe red is a better color"; you are saying "I personally (subjectively) prefer the color red". Your choice is based on that preference.
When it comes to God, we have either been convinced that God exists or we haven't. Personally, I feel like I would be much happier/comfortable if I believed that God existed. But, I haven't been convinced yet. So, I can't choose to believe that God exists just because it would be preferable.
leibowde84
Veteran Member
By "justification" I was referring to being justified to oneself. In other words, we believe because we are convinced.
leibowde84
Veteran Member
Btw, when I said "justified belief", I meant justified to one's self; not to anyone else. When we are convinced that something is true or likely true, the belief is justified. If we aren't convinced that something is true or likely true, then we don't believe as the belief is not justified.
If by "personal' you mean private, then then yes.
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Curious George
Veteran Member
leibowde84
Veteran Member
I agree. I don't see how anyone could choose to believe something they are not convinced of in any way.
Curious George
Veteran Member
I don't see how anyone can choose to believe something at all. I think the people are mistaking belief for acceptance.
See Belief (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
While I am much closer to your view, I think you are still making a mistake regarding degrees of certainty behind belief.
See Belief (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Ponder This
Well-Known Member
Definition of justify: to show or prove to be right or reasonable.
I mean precisely that you hold that you must show something to be right or reasonable to yourself as a prerequisite for you to believe it.
If we agree that I've stated your position correctly, then I don't see anything further to discuss. The point upon which we disagree is clear. You don't accept my arguments and I don't accept your arguments. I don't think there are any points being misunderstood.
If I haven't stated the issue to your satisfaction (or if you have an additional argument to add), please do so.
The point about the car is precisely that he isn't convinced about red until after he has chosen red. It was explained that he didn't have a preference for red cars over blue cars or vice versa. If you now wish to insist that he must have had a preference, that's fine, but I don't accept your argument. I see it as attached preference after the fact. I understand that you insist there must have been a preference even if we weren't aware of it and I reject this argument. He had no compelling reason to accept red over blue or vice versa.
This is just restating things already said.
leibowde84
Veteran Member
Can you expand on this a bit. I'm interested.
Curious George
Veteran Member
I thought the link did expand on it. I would say a belief forms the moment one concludes a proposition is more likely than not. The amount of confidence that we credit such a belief is likely to be small (however our valuation is but a belief in itself so it could vary person to person). But a belief is an attitude toward a particular proposition. It does not matter how much you continue question it, or how little confidence you have in it as long as there is some confidence. My understanding of what you are saying is that while you might believe one proposition more likely than not you do not want to commit to that proposition because you still do not have enough confidence in that proposituon to intellectually claim it. My point is this shifts the conversation from belief towards knowledge. You are now discussing beliefs in regards to certainty and what evidences are valuable enough. Just because you have very little confidence in a belief does not mean it is not still a belief. I would suggest that the degree of belief relates to how closely held a belief is, not whether or not the belief is a belief or not.