[ExI] Basis of Belief

[Jeff Davis]

Anyone who wishes to acquire an understanding of human nature,
"reality", and the interwoven nature of the two, should save this post
in hardcopy and very large print, and read it over and over again.

Two organisms bearing the morphology generated by the H. sapiens
genome may be regarded as the same species.  But "cultural"
differences in the unseen "meme set" make them as different as apples
and oranges.
Your best bet when encountering a person of "faith" is to remind
yourself repeatedly that they might as well be aliens from another
galaxy -- they are that different, and walk away (from any attempt to
persuade).

Best, Jeff Davis

On Sun, Feb 24, 2008 at 9:25 AM, Harvey Newstrom
<mail at harveynewstrom.com> wrote:
> On Sunday 24 February 2008 01:15, giovanni santost wrote:
>  > I completely disagree,
>  >   the person of faith has strong believes that reason, evidence, scientific
>  > thinking is not to be trusted,
>
>  Right.  There is a misleading tendency in our brain to assume that everybody
>  else must see the same things we see.  When we look at evidence and reach a
>  conclusion, we falsely assume that other people looking at the same evidence
>  will reach the same conclusion.  This simply isn't true.  Different people
>  really do have difference values and beliefs.
>
>  People really do believe in their religions, or their politics, or their
>  social theories.  Corporations really believe they are doing the right thing.
>  Criminals really believe they are innocent.  People really believe the latest
>  fad, urban legend, or pop theory making the rounds.  It is a mistake to
>  interpret other people in terms of our own worldview.  This leads to the
>  classic strawman fallacy where you see your own projection of the other
>  position and really have no understanding of the actual other position at
>  all.
>
>  --
>  Harvey Newstrom <www.harveynewstrom.com>
>  CISSP CISA CISM CIFI GSEC IAM ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP
>
>
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