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

[Brett Paatsch]

Jacques writes:

>> [Brett]
>> Please be clear Jacques I am not advocating banning [belief
>> as a word] 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.

[Note: Jacques - your arguments below imo are honing in now 
on the nub and it matters now - if our time is not to be wasted 
in getting to this point (where the truth may be clearer) to be
careful with our (yours and my) language - so apologies in
advance for what may seem like an overdose of pedantry. The
use of the word "one" as oppose to 'you' or 'me' in some cases
makes things clearer and I have substituted it.  Please also note
that anybody who hasn't followed this thread will not 
NECESSARILY intuitively get it now coming in at this stage.]

> "I believe that X" allows me [one] to express some degree of 
> confidence that X holds: nothing more, nothing less.
>  If the audience doesn't give a damn about your [one's] level of 
> confidence  that X holds, then using this concept is not useful in
> that particular situation.
>
> Thus, it is true that in debates, and if you are [one is] unknown 
> to  the audience, you [one] might as well not use that word at all, 
> and only provide facts and arguments for other people to
> consider and form their own belief 
                                            [#1 !!!!] 

    -I think you mean opinion or  judgement here do you not? -or
are you in fact inadvertly presuming the outcome of our inquiry 
- I think that may make my point about the danger of the belief 
meme - .i.e. if *you* can't hold the-matter-under-inquiry (belief)
separate  from the inquiry process itself !!
(No criticism of you - I think the belief meme critter is really that
slippery - especially for those who think it is harmless).

> But that is not a problem with the word "belief". It is simply
> that in this situation, no one cares about your "level of 
> confidence".

No as I indicate above it is also that the word is used to prejudice
inquiry. It slips past the guard of those that use it. It is a very, very
slippery meme. I think it just slipped past your (Jacques') guard 
above at #1 did it not?


> Suppose that in such a debate, one guest is a famous and
> respected Nobel Prize [winner]. Her use of "belief" is going 
> to matter, because people (rightly or wrongly, doesn't matter
> here [in this contention]) are interested in her level of 
> confidence that X holds.

So you think that people (generally) make judgements not on
evidence but on the perceived authority of the presenter ? - On
the whole I think this is true but this is part of my point - It 
hurts the cause of shared-truth-discovery to encourage this
natural human tendency to laziness though. And the Nobel 
Prize winner does the audience a disservice if she deliberately
engages in persuasion by appeal to authority (ie. if she uses 
the statement 'I believe X') rather than ('the evidence indicates
X') by appeal to reason. 

> So, I can agree with you on something -- and you'll tell me
> if this matches your preoccupation 
                                 ***
                         [ :-) I prefer contention if  you don't mind]

>  -- namely that if you are [one is]  in a hostile situation, and 
> you [one] need[s] to convince people, you [one] may as well
> give up on any explicit belief  self-attribution, as people may
> seize the occasion to think, "oh, this is just  a belief, then".

That is pretty close to my contention yes. Except to push it
further the *belief* meme is SO SLIPPERY that they may
not even need to formally think the sentence "oh, this is just
a belief, then" - they may do that or they may not even be
*that* aware. 


> I can also agree that when bringing new ideas (like
> transhumanist ideas) into society, we may often find 
> ourselves in such situations, and hence it may (sic) 
> sometimes be preferable to avoid the use of "belief". 

What do you mean may - can you think of a particular
instance or not?

> (But at other times,
> I think it may (sic) on the contrary be useful to say that
> yes, you do believe in it, and you are not just playing
> with words.)

How can you know what they *believe* in? This is part 
of my point - You can't - even if they use the word belief
as it reliably maps to no specific referent - they are leaving
you to guess at their meaning (and if indeed they even 
*have* a meaning and are not merely articulating a 
PREJUDICE ?!!!). 

> Still, I think that 1) potential problems with the use of this
> word are not really linked to a common misunderstanding 
> of its meaning, 2) it is a useful concept, and 3) using it here
> and there in our discussions when it comes naturally, to
> express just what it means, causes no particular problem.

I think you erred in the process of arriving at the above 
conclusion for the reasons I articulate above.

Please demonstrate your contention that the word belief is useful
by giving an instance where you think it better (than any alternate
word) conveys meaning between people.
 
- Without of course using it in a self-referential way - that doesn't
count. I.e. we of course need to use the word to talk about the 
word as a word and to consider its harmfulness (my contention)
as a meme or its usefulness (your apparent contention above). 

Regards,
Brett