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Can You Choose What You Believe?

Left Coast

This Is Water
Staff member
Premium Member
That would be true. And you don't have the same criteria as them. It is a selective lens that sees what it will see. It is conditioned, and ultimately is a choice.

If it's conditioned, by definition it isn't a choice.

One can either follow the conditioning, by implicitly or subconsciously choosing to continue to follow it, or to make a conscious choice to examine it and challenge its presumptions, or basic lens it sees the world through.

You're making an assumption that one's conditioning even allows for the possibility that it can be questioned or overcome. This isn't a given. You're also employing a weird sense of the notion of the subconscious. If things occur subconsciously, then by definition they aren't chosen. Choices are conscious decisions, by definition.

Yes, but at the gate is a choice to be made. "Could it be that my perception is not allowing me to see something because of my conditioning? Can I set that aside and truly try to see through a different perspective?"

Again, no, there isn't a choice to be made. I am constrained, by definition, to believe what I am convinced is true. Given certain other unchosen beliefs, I could make the choice to investigate other belief systems to determine if they are true. But I can't choose to believe any of them until I am presented with a convincing reason. If I'm not presented with such a reason, my belief will not change. I have no power to consciously change it, in the absence of convincing evidence to the contrary.

Now, while someone can say yes to that, because we like to believe we are so self-aware and full of integrity, there are many layers to that. We may be willing to bend a little, to see another's perspective on something. But if that perspective seems far too much of a bend, then we are not so willing, as that now pushes over into emotional comfort zones, senses of security, etc. So at each one of these vectors, is a choice. And that choice, will absolutely determine the outcome of what can or cannot be seen.

So choice, sticking again with my metaphor of the faucet, is the opening and closing of the amount of what that is allowed to flow in, so as to not disrupt the system too far. Each incremental opening, is again a matter of choice, which is determined by signals of threat to its own well being, or sense of security in the world.

The degree to which we are willing to entertain alternative beliefs is, again, not chosen. It is a function of our unchosen beliefs about our own fallibility or lack thereof.

Point being, we are not nearly so rationally driven and in control of truth of knowledge as we'd like to believe! :)

I agree, but that conclusion is much more consistent with my belief than yours! :) You're arguing that we are completely in control of our knowledge of the truth - it's a choice. My whole point is, that's not accurate.

But actually, yes. You can choose to be more willing. Absolutely yes.

LOL how?

That's where one's emotional sense of security comes squarely into play.

Emotions are not chosen, either. So one's emotional sense of security is not a choice.

Fear, is a major motivator to make one retract into "safe spaces". In the case of having one's sense of reality utterly thrown upside down, then they will instinctively, through evolution, protect that at all costs. Violently if necessary in extreme cases, such as terrorists.

I agree. And that's consistent with my contention that their emotions, informing their beliefs, aren't chosen. They are automatic, almost instinctive. That's not consistent with your belief that these things are all choices.

If someone through emotional development is able to find that sense of security in themselves, without their ideas of reality absolutely needing to be right or they will be lost, that person is much more willing to be challenged. It's all a matter of how tightly one holds on to that need for their views to be safe for them, that will determine how evidence is seen and received. All of that is the program, and choice to follow or break the program is made every step of the way.

Individuals don't emotionally develop in the way you're talking about unless they are given tools to do so. Unless they are given convincing reasons to be less afraid and more willing to consider the opinions of others. That doesn't happen unless something happens to them. And once it happens, they have no choice but to become less afraid and more open-minded.

I would liken it to a plant that grows in the right conditions. If a plant has sufficient water, and sunlight, and good soil, it's going to grow. There's no choice involved. It happens automatically, organically. Our belief systems are similar. They are the natural outgrowth of the conditions we've been placed into through the accident of our birth and history to this point in our lives.

You're close. Yes, they cannot just turn that off, because it is the program that informs their worldviews, which creates the filter through which all other information must pass, and then be sorted into the structures of that worldview's framework. Therefore, that which threatens it, or they can't "bend" enough to allow a different perspective through, will disallow everything that you see and celebrate as true.

All of which is consistent with the view that their beliefs are...not chosen. And all of which is inconsistent with the notion that they choose that state of affairs. Look at the language you're using. It's not the language of choice.

It's the proverbial round peg into a square hole, in other words. "What we are, that only can we see", said Emerson. That's it right there. And those are choices, at a subconscious level to continue the functioning program, perceived as necessary for survival.

I'm sorry, but you're saying things that are contradictory here. If "what we are, that only can we see," that tells us that we can't see that which we aren't, ie that which we see is not chosen. Think through the language here. If I can't do x, then do I have a choice whether or not to do x? No.

Oh absolutely, I agree with this. Perhaps, maybe the will is more subject to our desire for a sense of security? A desire to know love? At a really deep level, that is probably true.

Glad we agree. So how does that jive with your previous statement that, "The will is the Master at the helm of all of it, and everything the will directs, is a choice of the will." If we're agreeing that the will is heavily constrained by many different factors, than it seems erroneous to identify the will as some sort of autonomous "Master" that chooses our beliefs. It's much more consistent with the notion that we don't choose our beliefs.
 
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dfnj

Well-Known Member
Can you choose what you believe?
To be clear, I'm not asking if you can choose your religion or if you can choose what to label yourself or your views.
Can you choose what to believe or disbelieve? Or are such core convictions or biases inherent in the individual based on experiences? Or are they based on something else? If so, what?

I don't think there is any other choice but to choose. Unless you are philosophical materialist and you think consciousness is a delusion and the human mind is a finite state automaton machine.

But I think you have the question backwards. There are "choices" and there are "decisions". Decisions are based on reasons. True choices are not based on reasons. Do you like chocolate ice cream or vanilla ice cream? You can't answer with "I just like chocolate better" because this answer proves my point. Some things we choose are not based on reasons. It's just a choice.

Ideas are like clothing. You try them on and see how they look and feel. Sometimes you like it. Sometimes you don't.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
The only way for me to "let go" of the conviction that I'm right (and my conviction doesn't haven't to be absolute, it can be probabilistic) is to be presented with evidence that my conviction is unjustified. And that's not something I choose.
But bias taints the determined "evidence". We see what we expect to be there to be seen, and we don't see what we expect not to be there. Demanding "objective evidence" for the existence of a metaphysical ideal because one has pre-determined that existence is defined by it's physicality is an irrational bias. Yet I see atheists do this all the time. This is what I mean by one having to have the courage (and conceptual agility) to accept the very real possibility that their current truth paradigm is wrong (and biased). Anyone could do this, but few are actually willing to do it. And this goes for theists as much as atheists.
 

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
Can you choose what you believe?

To be clear, I'm not asking if you can choose your religion or if you can choose what to label yourself or your views.

Can you choose what to believe or disbelieve? Or are such core convictions or biases inherent in the individual based on experiences? Or are they based on something else? If so, what?
Generally no. I certainly can't change my beliefs in an instant by wanting them to change.

I have found that I can deliberately influence my beliefs over the longer term, though: I've found that if I immerse myself in a particular point of view, it starts to permeate my own beliefs... though there are limits.

For instance, when I attended a Quaker congregation, I found myself agreeing more and more with their pacifist positions. After I had given up on the Quakers, I took up martial arts and found myself drifting away from pacifism into the new position I was immersed in (i.e. that violence is acceptable in defense of onesself or others).

This doesn't work universally, though. I tried for years to come to belief in God by attending church, reading the Bible, etc., and this just pushed me further away from belief in God.
 

dfnj

Well-Known Member
I think you may be confusing 'belief' with 'make believe.' I don't see the two concepts to be the same.

I kind of see what you are getting at now. You seem to be under the delusion objectivity is real. We do not live in a clockwork Universe where matter is like billiard balls and the laws of physics are absolute and hard determinism is real. If you Google, "quantum mechanics debunks materialism" it seems based on the evidence all our ways of thinking about reality are a form of abstraction. Time is arbitrary. What is an object is arbitrary. The mathematics we use to represent nature's behavior is limited and contextual. And underlying all of reality is a strange spiritual force that is watching every piece of existence waiting to see if something is being observed then giving the order it is now time to collapse the wave function. And this funny quirk about observation has been shown to percolate up to the macro World. However, in spite of the evidence I find most dogmatic materialists just "choose" to ignore it.

“Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it.” Niels Bohr

So the deeper answer to your original question is on the surface we have no choice because experience dictates what we believe. But when we consider the smallest scales of measurement reality turns out to be nothing like anything we could have possibly imagined.

I don't think the philosophical materialists appreciate how strange reality can be. If we truly lived in a clockwork Universe with hard determinism life would be much more boring. But life is on the contrary. It's almost as if the way the Universe exists is it is determine to create the most outrageous and unpredictable outcomes in every place possible in spite of the laws of physics supposedly governing the whole process without exception. Yes, a lot of what I believe is dictated by reality. Yet, underneath it all, I'm amazed by what I am forced to believe.

Of course, what our experiences mean is purely subjective. I hope you do understand subjective experience is truly a choice each of us makes. We get to decide how we are going to experience our lives. Each of us choose what life means. I hope you can at least agree on this point.
 
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Martin

Spam, wonderful spam (bloody vikings!)
Generally no. I certainly can't change my beliefs in an instant by wanting them to change.

I have found that I can deliberately influence my beliefs over the longer term, though: I've found that if I immerse myself in a particular point of view, it starts to permeate my own beliefs... though there are limits.

For instance, when I attended a Quaker congregation, I found myself agreeing more and more with their pacifist positions. After I had given up on the Quakers, I took up martial arts and found myself drifting away from pacifism into the new position I was immersed in (i.e. that violence is acceptable in defense of onesself or others).

This doesn't work universally, though. I tried for years to come to belief in God by attending church, reading the Bible, etc., and this just pushed me further away from belief in God.

Yes, its interesting how other peoples' beliefs and ideas can sort of rub off on you over a period of time - up to a point, anyway. I have some Quaker friends, and join them for "silent worship" from time to time. I think the idea is to become aware of the "God within", or something. I used to be a staunch atheist, but my attitudes have softened as a result of that experience.
 

dfnj

Well-Known Member
For instance, when I attended a Quaker congregation, I found myself agreeing more and more with their pacifist positions. After I had given up on the Quakers, I took up martial arts and found myself drifting away from pacifism into the new position I was immersed in (i.e. that violence is acceptable in defense of onesself or others).

I thought the true purpose of martial arts was to be able to create the conditions where violence did not happen in the first place. So in this sense, martial arts is completely compatible with pacifism.

Judo - known as the gentle way where you use your opponents force against him so as to gain an advantage.
 

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
I thought the true purpose of martial arts was to be able to create the conditions where violence did not happen in the first place. So in this sense, martial arts is completely compatible with pacifism.
Thank you - I was hoping that someone would show up to tell me the "true purpose" behind something I did for years.


:rolleyes:

Judo - known as the gentle way where you use your opponents force against him so as to gain an advantage.
Well, I've never studied judo.

In iaido, every kata ends with your (imaginary) opponent dead by the sword.
 
Can you choose what you believe?

To be clear, I'm not asking if you can choose your religion or if you can choose what to label yourself or your views.

Can you choose what to believe or disbelieve? Or are such core convictions or biases inherent in the individual based on experiences? Or are they based on something else? If so, what?
No, of course not. We believe that of which we have been convinced. You can not choose what convinces you of something. That's just not how the mind works.
 
I thought the true purpose of martial arts was to be able to create the conditions where violence did not happen in the first place. So in this sense, martial arts is completely compatible with pacifism.

Judo - known as the gentle way where you use your opponents force against him so as to gain an advantage.

I once had my rib fractured in training from a judo reap(a type of throw). Martial arts are a harnessing of violence, nothing less.

At least the ones that work.
 

Left Coast

This Is Water
Staff member
Premium Member
But bias taints the determined "evidence".

Often, sure.

We see what we expect to be there to be seen, and we don't see what we expect not to be there.

Sometimes. Definitely not always, or no one would ever change their mind about anything. And yet people do.

Demanding "objective evidence" for the existence of a metaphysical ideal because one has pre-determined that existence is defined by it's physicality is an irrational bias. Yet I see atheists do this all the time.

It's not irrational to apply the same standard of evidence to religious entities that we apply to everything else. It's actually irrational to special plead by declaring that religious ideas should be evaluated by a different set of criteria than everything else. And I see this from theists all the time. We've been over this, as I recall.

But it also has nothing to do with whether our beliefs are chosen.

This is what I mean by one having to have the courage (and conceptual agility) to accept the very real possibility that their current truth paradigm is wrong (and biased). Anyone could do this, but few are actually willing to do it. And this goes for theists as much as atheists.

Although I reject your moral framing, it's still the case that even if I admit my beliefs might be wrong, that doesn't mean I choose them.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
It's not irrational to apply the same standard of evidence to religious entities that we apply to everything else.
Of course it is. Especially if you are insisting on objective evidence of something that is not objective (physical evidence of a non-physical phenomenological proposition).
It's actually irrational to special plead by declaring that religious ideas should be evaluated by a different set of criteria than everything else.
They should be evaluated by the criteria within which they are proposed.
And I see this from theists all the time. We've been over this, as I recall.
And still you fail to understand. :)
But it also has nothing to do with whether our beliefs are chosen.
Nearly everyone chooses what they believe based on the presumption that it "works" for them within their limited and biased experience and understanding of existence. And since we do not all experience or understand existence in the same ways, we naturally do not all choose to believe the same things about it. To expect that we would, or should, would be illogical.
Although I reject your moral framing, it's still the case that even if I admit my beliefs might be wrong, that doesn't mean I choose them.
You choose them the same way everyone else does, whether you're able to recognize this or not.
 

Left Coast

This Is Water
Staff member
Premium Member
Of course it is. Especially if you are insisting on objective evidence of something that is not objective (physical evidence of a non-physical phenomenological proposition).

If a thing is not objective, it's definitionally contradictory to say it objectively exists. What evidence can there possibly be for something "non-physical," ie supernatural? If you claim a thing only subjectively "exists" in your head, then a) I don't particularly care, and b) it still "exists" within the physical limits of spacetime, because it's in your mind, and your mind exists within spacetime.

They should be evaluated by the criteria within which they are proposed.

If your criteria are unfalsifiable, then no, they shouldn't.

And still you fail to understand. :)

Sure. ;)

Nearly everyone chooses what they believe based on the presumption that it "works" for them within their limited and biased experience and understanding of existence. And since we do not all experience or understand existence in the same ways, we naturally do not all choose to believe the same things about it. To expect that we would, or should, would be illogical.

You're using the word "choose" without explaining how any of that process is a choice. What "works" for us is automatically apparent to us as we experience it. We don't pick what works for us, what works for us organically emerges from our experience.

You choose them the same way everyone else does, whether you're able to recognize this or not.

So wait, I can "choose" something without knowing I'm choosing it? In that case you're using a very weird definition of the word "choice." Eerily reminiscent of people who insist I "choose" to be gay.
 

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
Can you choose what you believe?

To be clear, I'm not asking if you can choose your religion or if you can choose what to label yourself or your views.

Can you choose what to believe or disbelieve? Or are such core convictions or biases inherent in the individual based on experiences? Or are they based on something else? If so, what?

Kind of...

I can believe in some alternate dimension, unicorns and leprechauns might exist.

Since I have no firm beliefs my beliefs are pretty malleable. I can believe in an infinity of possibilities. None of which I need direct evidence for.

Belief for me is flimsy and doesn't require a lot of effort. I can believe in the possibility even though if asked I would say it's existence is unlikely.

OTOH if asked if something was true/factual, without being able to support it with some evidence I have to say IDK. :shrug:
 

Fool

ALL in all
Premium Member
Can you choose what you believe?

To be clear, I'm not asking if you can choose your religion or if you can choose what to label yourself or your views.

Can you choose what to believe or disbelieve? Or are such core convictions or biases inherent in the individual based on experiences? Or are they based on something else? If so, what?
Without experience = belief. Without the ability to test a belief, or the refusal to test a belief, there is only belief. ignorance literally can mean the want of knowledge. knowledge only comes from 1st person experience.

ignorance
 

Ponder This

Well-Known Member
Can you choose what you believe?

To be clear, I'm not asking if you can choose your religion or if you can choose what to label yourself or your views.

Can you choose what to believe or disbelieve? Or are such core convictions or biases inherent in the individual based on experiences? Or are they based on something else? If so, what?

Yes, you can choose to suspend your disbelief.
This is the first step in having an open mind.
All you have to do is ask the question: What if... ?

That said there are deeper cognitive levels. People can choose to breathe, but most of the time people breathe automatically without making a conscious choice to do so.
 

Koldo

Outstanding Member
Of course it is. Especially if you are insisting on objective evidence of something that is not objective (physical evidence of a non-physical phenomenological proposition).
They should be evaluated by the criteria within which they are proposed.
And still you fail to understand. :)
Nearly everyone chooses what they believe based on the presumption that it "works" for them within their limited and biased experience and understanding of existence. And since we do not all experience or understand existence in the same ways, we naturally do not all choose to believe the same things about it. To expect that we would, or should, would be illogical.
You choose them the same way everyone else does, whether you're able to recognize this or not.

1) If a non-physical entity is claimed to have a causal relationship in the physical it is fair to ask for physical evidence as long as one is aware of the limitations involved.

2) Can you explain in detail what thought process is involved when you choose what to believe ?
I take it you believe there is someone actually replying to this post of yours. Can you explain in detail how you have come to choose that ?
 

night912

Well-Known Member
Can you choose what you believe?

To be clear, I'm not asking if you can choose your religion or if you can choose what to label yourself or your views.

Can you choose what to believe or disbelieve? Or are such core convictions or biases inherent in the individual based on experiences? Or are they based on something else? If so, what?

There is no clear answer here because of "definitions." That is the problem with what is being asked. The two problematic words are, "choose" and "choice." They get complicated here because they relate to subconscious and conscious, which also needs to be agrees on. If "choose" is based on only our will, then it must be based on conscious only.

With that being said, belief and/or believe is based on subconscious. So that means that we cannot choose what we believe.
 
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