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Explorations Outside
Explicit beliefs are mostly attempts to justify or explain an intuition. Intuitions are the result of implicit processes in our mental basement. Explicit beliefs are interpretations of intuitions – for the benefit of an audience (anthropologist, psychologist, self).
If a proposition taps into our neurocognitive proclivities, it’s likely to be vivid, intuitive, plausible, and relatively easy to remember. The idea that there are weird but still person-like supernatural agents, who care about what we do, is one such proposition.
I once belonged to a cult where awareness, non-attachment and being present were highly valued and practiced. Being aware didn't protect against craziness, though: cult members observed the panorama as it unfolded in the moment and yet remained deluded fools...
If one acquires insight and loses attachment in conjunction with years of meditative practice, how much credit goes to the awareness and how much to the teachings that promote a specific worldview?
Implicit beliefs are assumptions. To assume is not the same thing as believing something is the case. To assume is to take for granted. When I walk, I assume my feet will encounter resistance.
Beliefs are confident opinions about something. To feel confident about a belief requires that one entertain the belief. To entertain a belief is to entertain the possibility of it being untrue.
Here I am thinking about the type of beliefs much discussed in clinical psychology, such as the following “irrational” beliefs identified by Albert Ellis: It is a dire necessity for adult humans to be loved or approved by virtually every significant other person in their community. One absolutely must be competent, adequate and achieving in all important respects or else one is an inadequate, worthless person....
... anxiety and fear are more responses to the absence of comforting beliefs than the presence of uncomfortable beliefs.
What lets fear in is the uncertainty, not the belief. Uncertainty without the compensation of belief - that ultimately it will work out, that there is a secure harbor, despite the present confusion – creates a vacuum that is filled by alarm.
There is a time to give into temptations and a time to resist them. Whenever there’s a tug-of-war among competing goals, and you have to override one behavior or goal in favor of another, self-regulation is involved. Enjoying what the moment has to offer is a worthy goal. When to honor that goal is the question.
We want witnesses to our witnessing. Most of the time, eyes glaze over. You had to be there. Except for the blessed: those who are good story tellers. They gather witnesses. And so their worlds live on a little longer.
Linguistic conventions keep tripping me up when I write about thoughts and thinking. It sounds like there is a little homunculus in the head listening to thoughts, encouraging them to proceed, or directing them to more worthwhile topics.
Some thoughts and thought-streams lead to slightly lower mood – so what? A slightly lower mood isn’t the end of the world. If a line of thought leads to identification of problems, unresolved issues or as yet unrealized goals, fine.
What exactly is a ‘belief’? The dictionary says, to believe is to have confidence or faith in the truth of something. People may ‘hold’ beliefs or ‘entertain’ them. To hold is to adhere or remain steadfast. To hold is to continue in the relationship – to be committed. To entertain is to be in an uncommitted relationship.
Ideal # 2: Everyone has a right to safe and sanitary living conditions Questions (focusing on ‘safety’ only): Re-wording ‘safety’ as protection from danger, what types of dangers should we be protected from? What types of dangers should be tolerated? How much danger should be tolerated within each category of danger? ...
The immediate future looms large in human psychology. People tend to care more about near-term payoff or danger than what might be coming down the pike in a few years. This tendency to downplay later rewards or threats – called hyperbolic discounting – probably evolved because prehistoric conditions were too harsh for long-term calculations to be of much benefit. Live for today because tomorrow may never come.
You can’t fix a problem you don’t understand correctly. And you can’t begin to understand a problem unless you see it as a problem. And you won’t perceive it as a problem unless it conflicts with some ideal of what you want the world to look like: a vision of the good (not just a vision of a fixed bad). In that spirit, here’s an outline of my ideal society...
Like scientists, medical doctors appreciate their own limitations. Yet they are tasked with making important decisions – possibly life-and-death decisions – despite not knowing for sure they’ve got it right. Wait and see? Try something? Try something else? All the while observing and thinking and investigating further. Doctors need to be willing to act boldly, willing to do nothing, and willing to change their minds.
Ideology is not a collection of beliefs and opinions. Ideology is a system of beliefs and opinions. The parts (beliefs and opinions) are interconnected and form a complex whole. The whole is organized according to some core principles or themes.
At any given moment the spotlight of awareness leaves almost everything in darkness. People vary in where they point their spotlight. Perhaps some people have a wider or more quickly oscillating spotlight, so they see more stuff. Or maybe it only seems so.