[extropy-chat] Should we drop the "believe" word/concept/behaviour

[Brett Paatsch]

Jacques wrote:

[Brett's comment: This is way too long - I've actually made
the mistake of  addressing some things that are purely straw
men and of introducing too much extra material in an attempt
to let you see that what I do when you think I am believing like
you - is simply not the case- not anymore - one can grow
out of believing. My writing style changes as I react to what 
your saying - but its gotten to post or be damned time - so
post it is - sorry no more time to prune]

> (Was: Re: [extropy-chat] HISTORY:  Solv... Open the pod
> door pls Hal)
> 
> To clear up some potential mess and "home in on the nub"
> some more: if I speak of "believe", it will be the word; if
> I speak of <believe>, it will be the concept; if I speak of
> believing, it will be the behaviour. And if I want to use the
> <meme> concept, I will speak of the belief meme (whether
> this is the most fruitful concept to use we will see in the
> discussion). Sorry for <> which is slightly non standard, 
> but we need adequate tools for this kind of linguistic stuff.

Ok. But note. The above modifications are not generally 
included in written and spoken speech. In democracies, and
this is my core point, the folk that are voting on juries, in the
parliaments and congress and on the selection of which party
member should be supported to run for office, are doing so
not on the basis of what the speaker says to them but rather
on the basis of what they think the speaker said. When
words can be read multiple ways its the hearers not the
speakers interpretation that the hearers act on. 

My concern with the use of "believe" is a political concern. 
It is also a communications engineering concern. It is not
a fuzzy indiscriminant philosophical concern that all words
that are ambigous are harmful. Most ambiguities seem 
harmless to me. "I believe" does not. Its a special case. I have
come to consider it an *insult* to ask an intelligent person
what they "believe" and an insult to impute "beliefs" or
"believing" on someone that has not already professed to 
"believing" or "belief". You don't agree with this (yet). I know
that. That's part of the point of  this conversation. 

Please note (for completeness) that if someone professes a 
belief X it is fair comment to note that they said they "believe X".
It is also fair comment to disown belief as in saying "I do not
believe X". Not believing X does not imply that believing X 
would be valid. In politics and in human communication things
are ternary not binary, that is how political "spin" comes about.
People often mistakenly use binary logic when terniary is needed
and draw the wrong conclusion they were intended to draw by
the spin doctors. This need to see political and human 
communications in terniary rather than binary logic terms is an
important and non-obvious point. Most people do this I think
when they hears lawyers and spin doctors talking but I do not
know that most people know that they are doing it - ie.
working with terniary logic when they communicate with each 
other.
 
This is not the main point though. The main point is that it is better
for the propagation of transhumanist and extropic memes to
talk to potential voters and jurers etc in words that they won't
confuse and to use words that will not make us sound just the
same to them as the last bunch of believers. If you come up 
against someone like me whilst expressing your beliefs that
person is likely to think you are not a thinker of the first order
because of the way you are speaking. I have respected you 
enough not to dismiss you out of hand - they may not. If you 
come up against believers they will do what you already know
they will do when you use belief. They will hear your beliefs as
new beliefs and reject them in all likelihood as not better than 
their existing beliefs because both are just beliefs. They may if
you are lucky differentiate believing from reasoning and give 
you credit (they may be your sort of part-time believers) and 
prefer reasoning when they think they can get it - if you can
hold their interest long enough. Chances are though they already
"believe" the afterlife and all important matters are already taken
care of and your deepest convictions and best rational explanations
may be indifferently received or a source of amusement to them. 

> Also, I will kindly ask you not to modify my quotes, as
> quotes are, well, quotes. Feel free to comment however 
> you like, but please leave  what I said as I said it.

I will not remove what you say, but you have a habit of
using the word "you" when a kind reading of your meaning
suggests you are talking loosely and meant the word one.
A less kind reading leaves you imputing a bunch of things
to me (as the likely referent of your word "you"), that I don't
want to leave unchallenged. I can't be bothered denying
imputations that you make without even meaning to so I when
I read "you" as "one" I'll include [one] in brackets afterwards.
I will also add stuff inside your quotes in [] to show what
I am reading you as saying but I won't alter your words. 

[Jacques]
.. I will avoid using the word ["belief"], except when talking
> about it on purpose.

Thank you. 
 
> ..I will abstain from using the word ["belief"] for the time
> being to let you see that it is under my  control, but I will
> add an asterisk(*), so that people reading this understand
> there is something weird and this is not what I would 
> normally say.

Ok. Thanks.

[Brett]
>  >Is it your present judgement that it can be counterproductive
>  >to use the word 'belief' in some situations then?

[Jaqcques]
> It is my judgement(*) that using "belief", and consequently the 
> <believe> concept, is counter-productive in some propositions
> and some situations, yes.

Thank you for your judgement(*).  

Please note: Any concepts you don't articulate into words are 
of no concern from a memetic propagation and communications
engineering standpoint. What one does not say and does not write
will have no political impact.

The only point here is that if you use the word believe (which is
older than you and which you picked up in a social context) in
your own inner dialogue then you are also more likely to use it
in your communication with others and vice versa. ie. If you use
it in you communication it is likely to also be used in your internal
dialog. I think it unlikely that you will run two separate sets of 
inner dialog one in which you say "I believe" but only to yourself
and another in which you prepare your words for public
consumption and you remove the "I believe" stuff. 

I think that if one chooses to stop using "I believe" in one's
communication with others that one will find, as I did, that over
time one does not use it in one's internal dialog either. ie. The 
primacy of the "believing" meme is not hard-wired or necessarily
embedded in all sentient wetware. We install the "believing meme"
as a word picked up from our culture. We can outgrow it and
remove it replacing it with a sharper more discriminating way of
"seeing". 

One may still say "they believe" or "he or she believes" in one's
internal dialog but that is not endorsing believing personally.
That, on the contrary, allows one to decouple oneself from the
meme. But it doesn't happen by accident. To stop practicing
a bad habit one must want to stop. And one must see it as bad.

The prudence of not using the words "I believe" does not come 
to one with one's birthday suit - in the belief infested world of 
2003, when believing is the default, not believing is something that
one must learn (or not). Most will 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.
>  >>
>  >> I might (sic) 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 .. [one's]
>  >> belief can be a useful thing to do.
>  >
>  >["Might" is ambiguous - please resolve the ambiguity by
>  >answering the question]
>  >Can you make a provisional judgement without labelling
>  >that process a belief (even in your own mind)?
> 
> I can if I do a hypothesis, yes.
> 
> But not otherwise.

Actually if you couldn't also map the label "provisional-judgement"
how did you understand the question and produce hypothesis as
an answer?R  Seems that you do have a label other than hypothesis.
Perhaps you thought it had to be one word?

> Hypothesis is the only form of "judgement" (which I wouldn't call 
> judgmeent, but, precisely, "hypothesis") that I can make without 
> labelling it a belief in my own mind, because I cannot judge 
> something to be true without having some confidence that it is true.
> It makes no sense if you are [one is] mentally healthy.

Fine. Use any other word you like for now (except the one that
confounds our inquiry). There are choices in any thesaurus and in
ones mind one can hypenate words to make them one-word. 

[Jacques]
>  >> If I hire Harvey to manage the security of my network,
>  >> and th[en] 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.


>  >[Jacques  - [] are Brett's]
>  >
>  >> >  -- .. .. if [one is]  in a hostile situation, and
>  >> > .. [one] need[s] to convince people, .. [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".
>  >>
>  >> [Brett]
>  >> 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

[Brett]
>  >.. I want is to get your agreement that (a) belief is a word
>  >that is harmful (at least sometimes would probably do -and
>  >I think you and I are at that point already - by your comment
>  >below #2).

> Agreed.

Ok.

>  Like any word/concept in some propositions and situations. So 
> you should really reframe your initial advice not as linked to a 
> particular word, but as: when expressing transhumanist ideas to new 
> people, do not insist on the confidence you have in your visions, but 
> provide evidence and facts that will influence people's judgments(*).

That is not the point I am trying to make. Mere ambiguities are not 
the problem I am trying to highlight. The political and communication
problems I am concerned with addressing arises as a result of the use
of the word believe (especially "I believe") not as a result of the general
ambiguity of some words of which the believe word is just an instance. 

>  > (b) belief is a word that can *always* be replaced
>  >by you with no loss of ability to communicate should you so
>  >choose. (I don't see that you agree with this point yet).
 
> Any word can always be replaced by a synonym or a synonymous
> phrase. 

This is important it means you know you do have the choice in the
belief case in particular.  

> The important point here is that we cannot, and should not,
> dispense with the <believe> concept.
 
That is not the important point here. But if we can as you say, and its
harmful in some circumstances (as you acknowledge) why not do
without it altogether?

Its my deeper contention that you can do away with the believe concept
in your head as an active working concept in which you use "I believe"
as part of your inner dialog. You would of course retain the ability to
recall that you once used believe in the form of "I believe", but you 
would have transcended it, to use clearer words in your thoughts
and in your communications. Only the second is necessary to stop you
propagating the meme. 

>  > And
>  >therefore (c) you should freely choose not  to use it in the
>  >interests of better communication and to avoid propagating a
>  >bad meme that competes with the reasoning meme and is
>  >harmful to both of us.
 
>  >Finally (d) if I can persuade you, I'd like you to pass the
>  >innoculation service on to someone you respect at the
>  >appropriate time. Eventually it may be possible for even
>  >the least experienced meme-warriors amongst us to look
>  >at any towering ediface of baloney and spot the weaknesses
>  >by the conspicuous 'hanging thread' use of  'belief'-meme. Then
>  >we may home in on that weakness without having to worry
>  >about hitting a mis-guided friendly talking loosely and allowing
>  >the BS-artists and enthrallers to hide behind our desire not to
>  >hit our friends.  That's pretty much what I want.

 
>  >(#2  ? ) [Jacques]
>  >> > > 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".
>  >
>  >> 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 w[h]ich you think
>  >> that something holds).
>  >
>  >The example you gave was NOT good. You could have
>  >used alternate words. You could .. have also said:
>  >
>  >"Harvey, do you [see] this threat [a]s a concern for our
>  >network"?

> It's obvious enough that "see" and "perceive" are used here in a 
> metaphorical way (or "abstracted" way) to mean something else, 

Yes. And you could use any other word you think is a synonym for
the belief word it does not have to be "see" or "perceive". 

> which, I contend, is the <believe> concept, for which the word 
> "belief" is the most natural choice. 

Its natural because we learn the words of our cultures. Profanities
are natural too, but folk that are interested in communicating 
effectively pretty much leave them behind or for the use of folk that
can't express themselves precisely.  We don't have to choose to use 
every word in the dictionary however crude a communication tool
it may be just because its in the dictionary. 

> So, this only makes sense if one judges(*) the WORD should 
> be avoided at all costs, while still recognizing that the concept 
> expressed by that  word can and must often be used. 

At all costs is pretty melodramatic. I'm trying to persuade you not
coerce you. You have other words that you can use should you 
choose to use them. 

> So, is your contention only about avoiding the word, while you
> recognize that the concept expressed by this word is useful in
> some propositions, and that the behaviour that it denotes is
> useful in some situations?
> 

No. There are two separate points. You may still label concepts
in your head as beliefs but I don't do that. Or if I do it is very 
very rarely or when I hang out with others that use the word 
a lot and I start to reuse it because I have to track their meaning. 

This is not to say that I don't have uncertainty - of course I do,
but I tag the uncertainty with different terms in my internal dialog. 
Perhaps I can give an analogy.

Some people use the word fuck to mean fornicate and some 
mean it as a general purpose profanity to empress strong 
emotion. Because I find the word ambiguous and those that
use it pretty sorry specimens as communicators I don't generally
use their word at all because I see it as debased coinage. Then my 
internal dialog takes on over time some of the precision that I try
and practice because I want to communicate effectively. I have 
had a bad  feeling (if can put it like that) about the word belief
for probably pretty close to two decades - that is plenty of time
to get one's mind out of the habit of using a word when there 
really are other words available. Hypothesis, theory, notion,
concept, a probability (as a noun) are words I use in my head.
Also I don't in my normal day talk or come across all that many
people who use the word believe and when I do my negative
stereotyping of the word as associated with a sort of brain-fart
that maps to no reliable referent is almost always reinforced.  

It really is strange to me to see others attributing beliefs to
me. Its as strange and distasteful as if someone said Brett 
said "fuck shit damn ....(then the rest of any sentence" I 
just don't talk like that. The labels on the concepts in my 
internal dialog are not beliefs. They were once I conceed but
that seems a long time ago. I suspect others that have a 
strong negative reaction to faith-based world views
and long standing interests in science don't either - 
but I don't know that for a fact. If someone says that
"I believe x" they get mapped in my head as having used
the believe word. I would not accuse another intelligent
person of believing unless they said they were or used the
word to describe themselves. I read the WTA Faq 
recently and saw that humanist were described as
believing X, and I thought at first that I was reading a
put down of all humanists. It was like seeing a slander. 

Now back to your point. It *may* be harmless if you
use the word "believe" and "belief" in your internal 
dialog so long as it stays there as a concept and is
not propagated out as a word by your saying it.

However I am very doubtful as to whether one can
have two sets of dialog one for internal use and one
for expressing oneself. I expect the habits of 
expression take over over time and become the
words we use in our internal dialog as well. This
is another reason why I'd like transhumanists and
extropes to choose to avoid using the believe word.

You are right though that the main point I had was 
about the propagation of the believe-meme. What
is in a persons head as a concept stays there unless
they express it by using the word believe or belief.
You have a theory and express it as a theory, or 
a notion, or a hypothesis then that is the word others
hear. If they don't understand it then they can ask 
or look it up or not. (As it happens I don't much talk to
folk who can't understand these words as even the
believers I know are pretty well educated and also
know about science so my words don't phase them. 

I use words like I think or I suspect or I reckon - this
is rarer. If you have a belief and express that belief
using the word believe then that is what the hearer 
will hear. And if they know that their beliefs have 
frequently got bugger-all basis behind them then they
are pretty likely to think that yours don't either. Or if
you are a person of authority like a political leader
or a judge or an expert then the person hearing you 
use the word may hear into your words the lofty or
poetic language of shamans and persons of authority
down through history. When a president talks of
beliefs people give him credit for the second far 
more often than they think "well he's just mouthing 
his prejudices like I might". I've seen the Australian
Prime Minister (quite an intelligent person) use the
words I believe to cover the fact that he has done
nothing like the amount of investigation and analysis
that most people would think the seriousness of 
certain major decisions warranted. 

The above (largely off-point waffle) is an effort to explain
in good faith because you genuinely don't seem to "believe"
that a person can have an internal dialog and not tag their
own uncertain positions "beliefs". 

>  > Even if you get the desired outcome from Harvey
>  >using "believe" that wouldn't mean that you had 
> > chosen well not to use another word like 'see' or
> > 'perceive'. Because in using those words instead 
> > you would not be propagating the believing meme
> > and getting you and hypothetical Harvey over-comfortable
> > with a way of speaking that might one day trip you and 
> > him or both of you up. And I think you have
>  >agreed that sometime the belief-word can trip folks
> > up.

> What I think is true here, is that you may be better off asking
> your security expert some kind of justification, rather than
> treating him like an oracle. But this is because the trust in his
> abilities, rigor, vigilance, honesty, etc., is limited. It is not
> useful otherwise. And using "believe" or "perceive" doesn't
> change anything, you have to ask him a report instead of
> just asking him his conclusion.

This is all off topic as far as I am concerned. I didn't advocate
treating the security expert like an oracle. There is no prospect
I would. 

> 
>  >> 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.
>  >
>  >On the contrary I am concerned with the ramifications of 
> > the propagation of the view that believing as opposed to 
> > reasoning is a better way of operating in a social and 
> > *political* world where believers and reasoners get one 
> > vote each.
> 
> I am sorry to say that you do make the previously
> mentioned confusion, or let us say "fusion" to use a neutral
> word. There is no opposition between reasoning and 
> believing. A sound belief is the product of a good 
> reasoning. That's how the concepts articulate. Belief 
> and reasoning are not alternative, they are different 
> stages of the process.
> 
> You can reason all you want, if you don't end up
> *believing* [used on purpose] something, then you
> will never DO anything.

This is not so. Just because I don't label my uncertainties
with "believeing" doesn't mean either that I don't have
uncertainties or that I don't manage them in a practical way. 

>  Belief is the way propositions make people do things.
> It is the vital connection between propositions and 
> people. No belief, no behaviour.

Bollocks. Children act in the world before they learn words
of any sort including the word belief. Therefore they must
act prior to conceptualising what they are doing - trying to
understand and build up a model of the world that
works for them - without ever having to call it a belief.
 
> Belief is a central behaviour (not really the right word,
> let's say  mental state), <belief> is thus a central concept,
> and there is only one word reserved in the language to
> denote/express them, and that word is "belief".

To you maybe. To most people perhaps but it is possible
to grow out of it. One doesn't have to be stuck there.
People can coin new words and the brigher ones
do because they need to label new concepts in their fields
of exploration. It is very easy to split the "believe" concept
in ones mind into stuff that relates to faith-based systems 
and reject that class of synonyms wholesale and then to
use the other synonyms that are not to do with faith-based
world views and are not potentially confused as endorsing
faith-based world views. 

>  > By using belief as a word you unnecessarily 
> > propagate it as a meme.
 
> Do you promote buying stupid things by buying what 
> you buy, and by saying it with the word "buy"? 
> SHould we stop using the word "buy" to avoid people
> to buy stupid things? SHould we rather say: "Honey, 
> did you exchange some of your money with some bread
> this morning?" Your suggestion seems as reasonable as
>  this to me.

Somewhere you've distracted yourself I think that this
is about words being ambiguous. It is not it is about one
word that is both ambiguous (at best) and very dangerous
to propagate in democratic societies that are already 
predisposed to intellectual short cuts and cop outs 
already.

>  >> 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.
>  >
>  >You have not demonstrated that it is essential.
> 
> This is a new evidence that you are not clear about 
> whether you speak of  the WORD "belief" or the CONCEPT 
> <belief>. Please clarify.

Have I clarified. I want the word out of circulation if I
can get it. I think the exercise in self-monitoring that
some will have to do may actually help them think clearer
as well but I doubt that they will do it for that reason as
I think their egos will rail against the notion that they
are not thinking clearly already. Some will do it because
they can see it costs them nothing to do it but a little
effort and its simply better to be clear. Perhaps some will
not do it regardless of what I say.  
 
>  >Your conception of trust differs from mine too. But your concept
>  >of trust is less dangerously propagated than the belief-meme.
> 
> Please tell me what you think is false in my account of trust in the 
> previous paragraph.

Your comment on trust was off-topic. My thoughts on trust are
still in the Exi archive I imagine under the subject "On Trust". 
 
>  >> 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.
>  >
>  >This is a little worrying. This is the implication of "believers"
>  >everywhere. That they can only believe and so that is all
>  >that is available to everyone else as well. This is part of what
>  >makes believing as a meme so dangerous. Reasoners invites
>  >the other to look at what is unsettled between them. Believers
>  >(and bs-artists) make unsupported assertions and act on their
>  >beliefs and try to get others too. By using their word you
>  >actually help them.
>  >
>  >> What else could you mean?
>  >
>  >If you stop using the word belief whilst we step through
>  >the arguments together you may be able to see what I mean.
> 
> 
> This is yet another evidence that you are unclear about whether it is 
> the word or the concept (and the behaviour that correspond to it) you 
> have a problem with.
> 
> To sum up:
> 
> If you are talking about the concept and the behaviour, then yes, 
> obviously in some circumstances it is not what is required. If I ask 
> Helmut (I figure Harvey might get tired to be in our argument :-)): 
> "What makes you think that this is not a threat", and he answers, 
> "Because I believe so", then this is not what is desired in the 
> situation. Likewise for other situations / propositions, and it may 
> possibly make sense to talk about such things, and give persuasion 
> advice and such.
> 
> If you are talking about the word, thinking it's bad because it 
> "reinforces the belief meme", meaning by this the beliefs based
> in thin air, in particular the belief in God, then my answer is that
> 1) I judge(*) this effect is not real except in some situations 
> (discussions on this list being no such situation), 

I think it to persuade you it should be enough that you know it can
be misunderstood and that you know that you can use other words
that will be less misunderstood out in the world. Most of my other
comments are a result of trying to explain how believing in the mind
is not inevitable it can be transcended. The believing behaviour you
refer to I don't think is a fundamental of sentience at all.  

If you are really convinced its bad to propagate the meme out in the
world of voters then I don't think you'd want to bring in an 
ambiguous word that doesn't map to reliable referents in interpersonal
communication onto the list either. Why use sloppy words here that 
you wouldn't use out there?

> 2) we need the
> concept, we have one word in our languages reserved for that 
> meaning slot, and it is not desirable to remove the word, even
> on an individual and voluntary basis.

We can improve out of the slot. We can choose not to use words 
that hurt our cause and that become habits in our thinking and weaken
our thinking. We don't need believe for good internal dialog to handle 
uncertainties its just a bad habit.

>  >I am not yet convinced that you did understand it. Perhaps
>  >you will (or do). Perhaps you don't and wont. Perhaps you
>  >can. Perhaps you can't.
> 
> And they say *I* am arrogant... :-)

"They" say lots of things and for reasons other than understanding
what is true ;-) One doesn't have to repeat what "they" say 
- it is a choice. 

Regards,
Brett