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

[JDP]

Brett Paatsch a écrit (10.11.2003/13:10) :
> 
> [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?


Not, it did not. I am not trying to avoid the use of the word
"believe", as it seems to me to be (as I said) a perfectly
well-defined and useful concept.

What I said above is that in some situations, it may be appropriate to
avoid to refer in any way to what you believe, and to only provide
facts and arguments for other people to consider and form their own
belief, i.e. so that they form some picture of reality in which they
put some confidence.

It's quite plain and I don't think it deserves four exclamation
points...


> > 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. 


I might agree with this, too, depending on the context. If someone's
belief is based on evidence and theory that he can readily explain, or
at least usefully point to, to his audience, it's probably better to
do that. But it's often not possible, and in certain situations,
stating your belief can be a useful thing to do.

If I hire Harvey to manage the security of my network, and that I hear
about some threat, I may tell him: "Harvey, do you believe this threat
is a concern for our network"? I don't necessarily want him to
explicate all the evidence, the experience, the theory, etc. he has.
Maybe I couldn't even understand all that, he's the expert in computer
security, not me. For some reason (maybe his certification list, maybe
a long experience of fruitful collaboration), I trust his competence.
So I just want to know what he believes in the instance, and I will
make my decision based on this.


> > 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]

Well, you have a contention, but you also seem to have a
preoccupation. You are not just arguing about some linguistic thing
for the sake of linguistics, it seems to matter a lot more than that
to you ("matters of life and death", etc.).

(In fact, I wouldn't bother to argue about this if you didn't seem
genuinely preoccupied with it.)


> >  -- 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. 


Good. I understood your point then, and I agree with it. Are you sure
you want to extend it so that I cannot agree? :-)


> > 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?


First, let me tell you right away that I will also keep using the word
"may", not only the word "belief" (unless you persuade me otherwise),
as I find that word useful and non-problematic, too!

Now to answer your question, yes, I can think of instances when it
should be used, and instances when it should not be used. I gave above
examples of the former (asking my security expert, "do you believe
this threat should be a concern to us?") and of the latter (useless to
talk about your beliefs qua beliefs if the audience doesn't give a
damn about the level of confidence with wich you think that something
holds).

> > (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 ?!!!). 


You seem to be making a confusion between two things, the belief on
one hand, and on the other hand the way it was formed, and what it is
based on.

A belief is bad when it was formed in a silly way and is not based on
anything solid. It is not bad *because it is a belief*.

The fact that some people have silly beliefs is far from being a
sufficient reason to discard the concept of belief, which is actually
absolutely essential.

In fact, it's exactly the same with trust. Trusting some guru that you
should commit suicide to see the light is bad. Does that make trust a
bad thing? Of course not. Trust may be a very good thing. And it's
necessary in many circumstances, we couldn't do much without it. Trust
in the others, trust in oneself. You just need the trust to be based
on something solid, or else it's risky. Same with belief.


> 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.


I believe I did that above in a way that should match your
expectation. If not, tell me more precisely what you want and I will
try to deliver.

Let me add one thing, to make my point even more clear: every time you
say "I think that X", you may feel safer and more rational by refering
to thought rather than to belief, but what you really mean is actually
that you *believe* that X. What else could you mean? Certainly not
what is literaly said, namely that you just entertained this thought
at that moment (which would not commit you to anything). "Believe", in
the family of concepts that serve to express the confidence an
individual has in the holding of some fact, is the central one.
Removing it is not desirable.

But again, I understood your original point about avoid this word in
certain situations, and I agree with it.

Jacques