Is Unbelief Possible?

[Hezekiah]

Think about what you're saying: not believing is believing. Is that really the route you want to be on?

Yea, as illogical as that sounds, I suppose that is close to the route I'm trying to present an argument for. Maybe I should phrase it better this way: If I know something to be true through evidence provided (no matter what it is) that evidence still needs to be understood through my own mind. But how can I trust my own mind when it is faulty, and full of errors? I have to "believe" or "trust" in my own logically ability to think, in order to come to any conclusions, despite knowing that logic makes mistakes.

Is that better worded?

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Yea! Exactly, I guess that's the direction of the idea I'm looking for. If belief is unreliable, why believe in anything at all? Why not choose to surpress your belief or suspend it?

In some instances, we cannot quite suspend belief completely if we want to act, but I think it makes sense to suspend belief in some instances. For example, if I roll a die, I do not have any preconceived ideas how many eyes it's going to be, I seriously suspend any belief in possible results. Now that's the extreme case because we know all outcomes are roughly equally likely, but it's also still kinda true for other things in real life. It's ok to say "I don't know".

There was a related discussion on a different thread where discipulus wantet to school us silly atheists and tell us that we are all really faith based, because we have to have faith in rationality and the scientific principle, which cannot be "proven" to be reliable using science, because if science is not reliable, it could give you a false positive on itself... well you get the idea.

My reply (slightly edited) was thusly:

You meant to say: hey, but you use the scientific method to find whether the scientific method is reliable (aha!). And I say: in a sense that is correct, for what I can check is self-consistency of its findings. It cannot in principle be possible to prove it correct in any way because there is the possibility of solipsism. However, the scientific method is not an artificial construct entirely separate from our everyday experience, it is a slight formalization of the mode of operation in which you live your life. To deny it on grounds of our inability to prove its validity from first principles therefore has the profound consequence of sliding into solipsism. The hypothesis "the scientific method is unreliable" is unfalsifiable, but living your life accepting it means denying the reality of your life. You can do it, but there is no reason to do it. Now I understand that you can't actually want to accept it (the hypothesis of unreliability), because you are arguing with us. Thus, you want not only to reject it, given that we reject it as well, you call this move faith-based. In a philosophical piggy back, you then declare that 1. we are no better than the theists, 2. because we live faith based lifes. The latter is true, but almost trivially so, as we are forced to make working assumptions in order to act (the point of your schtick is calling those faith)- the former is not, for you either make a huge unnecessary additional assumption for which there is no evidence in the sense of the scientific method which you already accept, or you want to take theism as the alternative, in which case you deny all of reality and this conversation does not take place.

Your next stop from here is presuppositionalism, have fun

Emphasis mine. duh.

Wow! You make a clear and potent point. I definitely agree. (Plus personally, between you and me, solipsism is too boring for me ). I don't mind if other people believe it, it's just not for me.

Also, I wasn't trying to level atheist and theist but rather discuss the sollipsism that I have recently been introduced too. Thank you! That really clears up a lot!

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I believe that plants turn sun light into sugar.
I believe that exploding stars create heavy elements.
I believe that Hydrogen atoms each have 1 proton.
I believe in things that are supported by evidence.


I do not believe in any gods.
I do not believe in fairies.
I do not believe OP asked a good question.

Sorry! It's my first thread.. hopefully I'll get the hang of it!

[Mudhammam]

Yea, as illogical as that sounds, I suppose that is close to the route I'm trying to present an argument for. Maybe I should phrase it better this way: If I know something to be true through evidence provided (no matter what it is) that evidence still needs to be understood through my own mind. But how can I trust my own mind when it is faulty, and full of errors? I have to "believe" or "trust" in my own logically ability to think, in order to come to any conclusions, despite knowing that logic makes mistakes.

Do you have reason to think your mind is infallible? No, of course not. That should be the first red flag that arises when people suddenly become experts at interpreting the phenomena they attribute to God (strangely, it is always a deity that they were taught or cultured with...hmmm.).

Is your mind generally reliable? Well, you'd think so, considering that you're still alive and relatively functional to be interacting with all of us. Therefore, the experience of your mind receiving wavelengths of lights and sounds that it then translates into vision and noise, which you then analyze introspectively, should give you at least some basis to form a "belief" or "trust" in your mental faculties, though it's good to question them from time to time and beware that they could all be a computer simulation. There you go. Already you find a distinction between the belief in your functioning mind and the belief in the Christian God--one is based on evidence, your experience of being alive, the other based on faith, what other people have told you and you've apparently accepted without further questioning.

You do realize that the scientific method works precisely because it doesn't depend on one person's claim to truth, yes?

[Esquilax]

Yea, as illogical as that sounds, I suppose that is close to the route I'm trying to present an argument for. Maybe I should phrase it better this way: If I know something to be true through evidence provided (no matter what it is) that evidence still needs to be understood through my own mind. But how can I trust my own mind when it is faulty, and full of errors? I have to "believe" or "trust" in my own logically ability to think, in order to come to any conclusions, despite knowing that logic makes mistakes.

Is that better worded?

Man, I always shudder a little when I hear arguments like this one, because it's just a stone's throw away from presuppositionalism, which is the most profoundly dishonest position I've ever encountered. In your case though, I think you're just missing an important factor.

We don't trust our brains, or at least, we are wise not to. An honest person always leaves open the possibility of being wrong, or of new evidence altering what we think we know right now. That willingness to change removes any need to merely believe whatever your mind intuitively tells you is correct, and places your trust solely on the evidence.

Hell, whenever you see an atheist bring a theist to task for a logical fallacy, that's what you're seeing; you're seeing someone directing the theist to look at the evidence, and not just what their brain deems seemingly true. There are whole segments of the scientific method devoted to stripping away the biases and lazy shortcuts of the brain, after all.

We may never have a solution to the problem of hard solipsism, but so long as we actively attempt to defy our cognitive biases, we can hardly be considered to be laying belief in our brains, can we?

[psychoslice]

I try not to have beliefs, but conditioning makes it hard.

[tor]

I try not to have beliefs, but conditioning makes it hard.

Your posts speak the opposite

[Hezekiah]

Yea, as illogical as that sounds, I suppose that is close to the route I'm trying to present an argument for. Maybe I should phrase it better this way: If I know something to be true through evidence provided (no matter what it is) that evidence still needs to be understood through my own mind. But how can I trust my own mind when it is faulty, and full of errors? I have to "believe" or "trust" in my own logically ability to think, in order to come to any conclusions, despite knowing that logic makes mistakes.

Is that better worded?

Man, I always shudder a little when I hear arguments like this one, because it's just a stone's throw away from presuppositionalism, which is the most profoundly dishonest position I've ever encountered. In your case though, I think you're just missing an important factor.

We don't trust our brains, or at least, we are wise not to. An honest person always leaves open the possibility of being wrong, or of new evidence altering what we think we know right now. That willingness to change removes any need to merely believe whatever your mind intuitively tells you is correct, and places your trust solely on the evidence.

Hell, whenever you see an atheist bring a theist to task for a logical fallacy, that's what you're seeing; you're seeing someone directing the theist to look at the evidence, and not just what their brain deems seemingly true. There are whole segments of the scientific method devoted to stripping away the biases and lazy shortcuts of the brain, after all.

We may never have a solution to the problem of hard solipsism, but so long as we actively attempt to defy our cognitive biases, we can hardly be considered to be laying belief in our brains, can we?

That's a great response. Thank you! And I agree we do account for human error in many ways (for instance, putting down our pride in the face of evidence). By doing this I try to maintain a path towards truth. And since I also personally believe that Ultimate Truth exists but is unobtainable, when acknowledging human error I take into account that I could always be wrong. This is the only path towards Truth that I can "believe" and engage in.

[tor]

Man, I always shudder a little when I hear arguments like this one, because it's just a stone's throw away from presuppositionalism, which is the most profoundly dishonest position I've ever encountered. In your case though, I think you're just missing an important factor.

We don't trust our brains, or at least, we are wise not to. An honest person always leaves open the possibility of being wrong, or of new evidence altering what we think we know right now. That willingness to change removes any need to merely believe whatever your mind intuitively tells you is correct, and places your trust solely on the evidence.

Hell, whenever you see an atheist bring a theist to task for a logical fallacy, that's what you're seeing; you're seeing someone directing the theist to look at the evidence, and not just what their brain deems seemingly true. There are whole segments of the scientific method devoted to stripping away the biases and lazy shortcuts of the brain, after all.

We may never have a solution to the problem of hard solipsism, but so long as we actively attempt to defy our cognitive biases, we can hardly be considered to be laying belief in our brains, can we?

That's a great response. Thank you! And I agree we do account for human error in many ways (for instance, putting down our pride in the face of evidence). By doing this I try to maintain a path towards truth. And since I also personally believe that Ultimate Truth exists but is unobtainable, when acknowledging human error I take into account that I could always be wrong. This is the only path towards Truth that I can "believe" and engage in.

Your belief is unjustified.

[Hezekiah]

That's a great response. Thank you! And I agree we do account for human error in many ways (for instance, putting down our pride in the face of evidence). By doing this I try to maintain a path towards truth. And since I also personally believe that Ultimate Truth exists but is unobtainable, when acknowledging human error I take into account that I could always be wrong. This is the only path towards Truth that I can "believe" and engage in.

Your belief is unjustified.

I see. Could you elaborate? Do you mean my current Christian belief or my belief in maintaining a path for truth despite belief?

[tor]

Your christian belief and

And since I also personally believe that Ultimate Truth exists but is unobtainable

this belief.

[Hezekiah]

Your christian belief and

And since I also personally believe that Ultimate Truth exists but is unobtainable

this belief.

True. That's why I labelled it "personal belief". The idea stems from my personal choice to be a Christian, and I recognize that.