[extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solv... Open the pod door pls Hal

[Brett Paatsch]

Jacques writes:

> > Brett Paatsch a écrit (9.11.2003/14:02) :
> > >
> > If anyone can find the etymology of the word "belief" or
> > "believe" I would be interested.

[lots of interesting stuff - still in his post ] then....

> To me, we indicate (and this is coherent with the Latin
> origin) the amount of confidence we have by saying
>  "I believe that" instead of "I know for sure that". Which
>  sounds fine to me, no reason to ban this word.

Please be clear Jacques I am not advocating banning it
in the sense of prohibiting people from using it - that would
be impossible as folk who did not even care one way or
another would start using it just to assert their 'right' too.

It has to be a voluntary choice to use a more precise word
and I think that will only happen if individuals see that

(1) the word they use is sometimes not heard with the same
 meaning they intended to imbue it with
(2) in the case of *belief* as a word that consequence
- ie. the hearer hearing a different meaning than the speaker
meant - can be very harmful in that it makes it harder for the
listener to differentiate between two different sorts of
proposition.

It is a sublety that goes to the engineering of communication
(especially in important life and death circumstances). When
you absolutely positively must get every bit of your meaning
clear - if you use the word *belief* you find that the hearer
hears what *they* think you meant not what you think you
said.

The simple solution is to use another word that doesn't feed
into the listeners tendency to err.  And there are plenty of
substitute words the message sender can use that I think we
have seen.

The listener may be an empowered listener. ie. The listener
may be sitting on a jury or may be a parliamentarian about
to vote on a law.

I am definately not saying ban use of the word *belief*. I
am saying please *choose* not to use it voluntarily - as
using it propagates its usage and its usage results in less
sound decisions being made at the policy levels. The levels
where we want to have people understand therapeutic
cloning, gmo's, the-right-to-cryonics-if-it-harms-no-one-else
etc...

These discussions (and we are actually trying to pursuade here
and the duty of pursuading falls on those who want to make changes)
are already hard enough to have at the policy level lets not make
them harder by helping the listeners mis-perceive "beliefs-on-the
-one-hand" vs "beliefs-on-the-other". They don't get (if we don't
*say*) its beliefs vs reasons. Arguments vs blind-faith.

Does this make sense?

Regards,
Brett