I don't understand. You're really saying that you don't think people can choose what to believe? That "culture, family, environment and personal experience" just force people to believe certain things?
That isn't my experience. Seems to me like individuals can choose whether they want to believe what "culture, family, environment and pers…
I don't understand. You're really saying that you don't think people can choose what to believe? That "culture, family, environment and personal experience" just force people to believe certain things?
That isn't my experience. Seems to me like individuals can choose whether they want to believe what "culture, family, environment and personal experience" tell them. These aren't homogenous things. We all have access to many different cultures and we can choose which culture's set of moral values we want to believe.
I'll put it this way. None of us were born into this world believing anything in particular, besides the need for the basics like food and water.
At some point, our environments shaped our beliefs. We didn't necessarily choose to start believing in anything.
A personal example: My politics have ranged from pretty far left to pretty far right to wherever the hell I am now. But I don't think at any point I made a conscious choice to be any of these things. Education, experience, growth, etc. convinced me to go this way or that way. I can't imagine most people don't have a similar experience.
And let's not forget there are a lot of people who pretend to believe in things they don't actually believe in. And people who believe in things that they pretend not to believe in. They may choose to appear a certain way, but we believe what we believe.
"But I don't think at any point I made a conscious choice to be any of these things. Education, experience, growth, etc. convinced me to go this way or that way."
You're removing your own personal agency here, though. It wasn't that your education/experience/growth made you believe something. You personally made the choice to change based on your education/experience/growth.
I totally understand changing from left to right to becoming somewhere in between. I made that journey too. But at each stage of the journey it was my conscious choice to change my beliefs, often to serious personal consequences such as losing friends or even needing to change career paths. The education/experience/growth informed my choices, but I was the one who made the choices.
Let me frame it this way. When I was a teenager I had been raised as a liberal Christian--my Dad's theology. But when I started going to youth group in 6th grade, I specifically chose to become an Evangelical Christian--the youth pastor's theology. And then over the next few years I did gain more education/experience/growth and ultimately CHOSE to return to embracing my Dad's liberal Christianity. But I was the one in the driver's seat on that decision. I specifically chose which set of theologies and moral values to believe.
And I assert that is how it is with everyone. We all get to choose what exactly we want to believe about anything. We aren't just passively pushed around by our experiences.
We are deep in agree-to-disagree territory, David =).
It's not a critical point of disagreement. Just a different way of looking at the same thing I guess.
Case in point: I used to think Donald Trump was a legitimate businessman. I don't anymore. New information changed my mind.
I used to think Bill Cosby was a standup guy. I don't anymore. New information changed my mind.
Hell, I used to think better of my country. But recent elections and whatnot revealed some things that changed my mind. It's not a case of, "Okay. Today, I'm gonna believe Cosby is a pure soul. Tomorrow, I'm gonna believe he's the devil. And next week I'll be back to believing he's the salt of the earth."
It's not about 'agency' so much, practically speaking. If I place my hand on a hot stove, sure, I can choose to keep it there and cause myself severe damage. But that wouldn't be logical or sane.
*You* chose to change your mind based on the new information you found. *You* assessed and analyzed the information through the values that *you* choose to believe in.
We all choose whether we want to believe particular information and then how we want to analyze it.
Here’s a quote from Robert Anton Wilson, the author who has most influenced me, which may better explain what I’m trying to get you to see here:
According to Zen Buddhism, and most forms of Buddhism, and quantum mechanics, any description of the universe which leaves you out is inaccurate, because any description of the universe, and the description of the instrument that you use to take your reading of the universe — if the only instrument you use is your own nervous system, you gotta include your own nervous system in your description of the universe.
So, ergo, any model we make does not describe the universe, it describes what our brains are capable of seeing at this time.
Long before quantum mechanics, the German philosopher Husserl said that all perception is gamble. Every type of bigotry, every type of racism, sexism, prejudice, every dogmatic ideology that allows people to kill other people with a clear conscience, every stupid cult, every superstition-ridden religion, every kind of ignorance in the world, are all results from not realizing that our perceptions are gambles. We believe what we see, and then we believe our interpretation of it, but we don’t even know we’re making an interpretation most of the time.
We think this is reality. But in philosophy, that’s called naive realism: “What I perceive is reality.” And philosophers have refuted naive realism every century for the last 2,500 years, starting with Buddha and Plato, and yet most people still act on the basis of naive realism.
Now the argument is, “Well, maybe my perceptions are inaccurate, but somewhere there is accuracy, scientists have it with their instruments. That’s how we can find out what’s really real.” But relativity, quantum mechanics, have demonstrated clearly that what you find out with instruments is true relative only to the instrument you’re using, and where that instrument is located in space-time. So there is no vantage point from which real reality can be seen.
We’re all looking from the point of view of our own reality tunnels. And when we begin to realize that we’re all looking from the point of view of our own reality tunnels, we find that it is much easier to understand where other people are coming from.
All the ones who don’t have the same reality tunnel as us do not seem ignorant, or deliberately perverse, or lying, or hypnotized by some mad ideology, they just have a different reality tunnel. And every reality tunnel might tell us something interesting about our world if we’re willing to listen.
I don't understand. You're really saying that you don't think people can choose what to believe? That "culture, family, environment and personal experience" just force people to believe certain things?
That isn't my experience. Seems to me like individuals can choose whether they want to believe what "culture, family, environment and personal experience" tell them. These aren't homogenous things. We all have access to many different cultures and we can choose which culture's set of moral values we want to believe.
I'll put it this way. None of us were born into this world believing anything in particular, besides the need for the basics like food and water.
At some point, our environments shaped our beliefs. We didn't necessarily choose to start believing in anything.
A personal example: My politics have ranged from pretty far left to pretty far right to wherever the hell I am now. But I don't think at any point I made a conscious choice to be any of these things. Education, experience, growth, etc. convinced me to go this way or that way. I can't imagine most people don't have a similar experience.
And let's not forget there are a lot of people who pretend to believe in things they don't actually believe in. And people who believe in things that they pretend not to believe in. They may choose to appear a certain way, but we believe what we believe.
"But I don't think at any point I made a conscious choice to be any of these things. Education, experience, growth, etc. convinced me to go this way or that way."
You're removing your own personal agency here, though. It wasn't that your education/experience/growth made you believe something. You personally made the choice to change based on your education/experience/growth.
I totally understand changing from left to right to becoming somewhere in between. I made that journey too. But at each stage of the journey it was my conscious choice to change my beliefs, often to serious personal consequences such as losing friends or even needing to change career paths. The education/experience/growth informed my choices, but I was the one who made the choices.
Let me frame it this way. When I was a teenager I had been raised as a liberal Christian--my Dad's theology. But when I started going to youth group in 6th grade, I specifically chose to become an Evangelical Christian--the youth pastor's theology. And then over the next few years I did gain more education/experience/growth and ultimately CHOSE to return to embracing my Dad's liberal Christianity. But I was the one in the driver's seat on that decision. I specifically chose which set of theologies and moral values to believe.
And I assert that is how it is with everyone. We all get to choose what exactly we want to believe about anything. We aren't just passively pushed around by our experiences.
We are deep in agree-to-disagree territory, David =).
It's not a critical point of disagreement. Just a different way of looking at the same thing I guess.
Case in point: I used to think Donald Trump was a legitimate businessman. I don't anymore. New information changed my mind.
I used to think Bill Cosby was a standup guy. I don't anymore. New information changed my mind.
Hell, I used to think better of my country. But recent elections and whatnot revealed some things that changed my mind. It's not a case of, "Okay. Today, I'm gonna believe Cosby is a pure soul. Tomorrow, I'm gonna believe he's the devil. And next week I'll be back to believing he's the salt of the earth."
It's not about 'agency' so much, practically speaking. If I place my hand on a hot stove, sure, I can choose to keep it there and cause myself severe damage. But that wouldn't be logical or sane.
*You* chose to change your mind based on the new information you found. *You* assessed and analyzed the information through the values that *you* choose to believe in.
We all choose whether we want to believe particular information and then how we want to analyze it.
Feels like splitting hairs to me. But as I said, 'agree to disagree.' Nice chat as usual.
Here’s a quote from Robert Anton Wilson, the author who has most influenced me, which may better explain what I’m trying to get you to see here:
According to Zen Buddhism, and most forms of Buddhism, and quantum mechanics, any description of the universe which leaves you out is inaccurate, because any description of the universe, and the description of the instrument that you use to take your reading of the universe — if the only instrument you use is your own nervous system, you gotta include your own nervous system in your description of the universe.
So, ergo, any model we make does not describe the universe, it describes what our brains are capable of seeing at this time.
Long before quantum mechanics, the German philosopher Husserl said that all perception is gamble. Every type of bigotry, every type of racism, sexism, prejudice, every dogmatic ideology that allows people to kill other people with a clear conscience, every stupid cult, every superstition-ridden religion, every kind of ignorance in the world, are all results from not realizing that our perceptions are gambles. We believe what we see, and then we believe our interpretation of it, but we don’t even know we’re making an interpretation most of the time.
We think this is reality. But in philosophy, that’s called naive realism: “What I perceive is reality.” And philosophers have refuted naive realism every century for the last 2,500 years, starting with Buddha and Plato, and yet most people still act on the basis of naive realism.
Now the argument is, “Well, maybe my perceptions are inaccurate, but somewhere there is accuracy, scientists have it with their instruments. That’s how we can find out what’s really real.” But relativity, quantum mechanics, have demonstrated clearly that what you find out with instruments is true relative only to the instrument you’re using, and where that instrument is located in space-time. So there is no vantage point from which real reality can be seen.
We’re all looking from the point of view of our own reality tunnels. And when we begin to realize that we’re all looking from the point of view of our own reality tunnels, we find that it is much easier to understand where other people are coming from.
All the ones who don’t have the same reality tunnel as us do not seem ignorant, or deliberately perverse, or lying, or hypnotized by some mad ideology, they just have a different reality tunnel. And every reality tunnel might tell us something interesting about our world if we’re willing to listen.