From: Brett Paatsch (paatschb@ocean.com.au)
Date: Sun Jan 05 2003 - 09:00:07 MST
Following my comment
>> ... I'm not sure I'd want to be connected to a belief system
>> either, I like Max More's approach to belief systems, as I
>> understand it. Beliefs are too [sic] be avoided if possible
>> and minimised when not - hence PCR.
Lee Corbin wrote:
> I think that it's a weird misuse of language to
> suppose that beliefs should be avoided. Just what
> are you trying to say? (I too, am a big fan of PCR,
> as are many Extropians.)
[Aside: CNN CROSSFIRE
transcript on the ExI page. (Some good stuff there Lee ;-) )
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0207/09/cf.00.html
(if you do a Find on the word *believe* with your browser
you'll see something like this....)
-----------
CARLSON: Dr. More .......Now, you're a believer in
cryonics. What -- if you're a believer, do you keep a -- I
don't know, a soup tureen of liquid nitrogen in your house?
What exactly are the methods you use to preserve a body
as it dies?
DR. MAX MORE, PRESIDENT, EXTROPY INSTITUTE:
Well, first of all, I'm not a believer. I don't like to be a believer
in anything.
----------
The word belief, like the word faith, is at best laden with ambiguity.
I assume that when transhumanists use 'belief' and 'faith' they are
using these terms more as a convenient shorthand to differentiate
qualitatively between that which they reckon they *know*
(eg. 1 + 1 = 2), and that which they reckon they don't *know* for
sure. If I use the word belief (I don't like it so I try not to) I would
mean it in the sense that I suspect or intuit that something is probably
true (usually without putting an actual probability value on it), but I'd
recognize I could be wrong. "Belief " then becomes for me
shorthand for "this is a useful operating principle which I/we are
assuming in the absence of certainty."
That said, I strongly suspect that that is not how the vast majority
of the population interpret the word belief (to the extent that they
think about it at all).
Alas, the vast majority of the population, imo, still live in what
Carl Sagan called a "Demon Haunted World" (in a book by the
same title). They have not yet separated themselves from
superstition and when they stick their uncritical, unweighted,
propositions in each others faces they do so proclaiming all too
often, all too proudly, as though it were a great virtue in itself,
"this is what I BELIEVE !". I'm not superstitious and I don't
want the words I use to help other people to characterise me
as superstitious.
When I was younger I just found it exasperating that many
apparently intelligent folk, seemed to have no operating concept
of probability or likelihood, of lines of reasoning, and of the
qualitative difference between knowing and merely "believing".
It seemed that, short of knowing, most folk only recognized two
other categories, that which they believed, and that which they
did not believe. Some had trouble telling the difference between
what they could legitimately claim to know vs what they just
believed.
Personally, I don't *know* for a fact that its not going to rain
here tomorrow, nor do I *know* that when I wake up the morning
that New Zealand (having heard certain propositions) isn't going
to launch a pre-emptive strike against the US, Europe and the
Middle East simultaneously using trained kiwis carrying bioweapons.
Clearly all the many things that one does not *know* but can
*conceive* of as possible are *not* equally plausible. But, if I think
something is likely to be true, and, I try and talk about it to people
who are superstitious, (most of the world's population), and use the
word "belief" to acknowledge my lack of certainty, then, they will
possibly class my "belief" which being the result of extensive
"homework" and analysis (sometimes) as being just another "belief".
I would rather use words that they are not excessively familiar with.
Say, perceive, suspect, think, reckon, deduced, inferred, analysed
etc, then they are going to find it a little bit harder to move onto
their default view that one persons "belief:" is just as good as another.
This is clearly *not* the case. If they try and recouch or paraphrase
what I've said back to me as being a mere belief, then I can at least
see that they are doing it, and can choose to exercise the option to
correct them and perhaps have a useful discussion, or not.
For me, one merit of PCR is that it acknowledges that whilst one
can't have certain knowledge about things, indeed one can't even
be absolutely sure that it is reasonable to have complete confidence
in reason (or rationality) as a process of finding truth, one can
potentially differentiate between different degrees of uncertainty.
When I go out in the world with my opinions, I *know* :-) I will
encounter many people who are predisposed to think that all
opinions are *only* beliefs and that therefore no view is ultimately
better than any other. And in democracies where one's "fates" is
linked to choices and judgements of ones contemporaries and
majorities are still inclined to exercise veto powers on the basis
of their beliefs, I reckon the view that all opinions are pretty much
equal or that one belief is as good as another is quite likely to
get me killed. Certainly, if I ignore it long enough, and maybe
anyway. Still, I see no point in "going quietly". I won't choose to
reinforce such a mistaken view. I'd rather work to ditch the word
belief from *my* working repertoire, with the view of propagating
the meme onward and hopefully making it harder for the majority
who are superstitious to stay that way and to kill me along with
themselves.
IMO, "beliefs", by their very nature, and as opposed to reasons,
are ultimately counter-social. They build barriers between people.
Whereas reason through the medium of language can potentially
build bridges. To go for belief, when a line of reason is available;
to take "leaps of faith" when none are unnecessarily, is to me, an
immature or immoral and anti-social act. Unless one has no choice.
In which case it is probably an a-social act.
If I could get others like me to purge the word "belief: from their
language it would become easier to distinguish quickly who is doing
some thinking and who is not. At present loose language, like the
use of the word belief, means I can't always tell quickly whether or
not the person I'm talking too converses daily with the supernatural.
Sadly extropes use the words belief and faith as shorthand as well.
(Maybe sometimes even as supernatural beliefs :< ).
I reckon that if the terms "belief", "human life" and "human being"
were all taken out of the repertoire of words that extropians choose
to use; if extropians, propagated the meme of not only not using
them, but also of explaining why they should not be used to those
of like minds, and of challenging them (asking for clarification -
"when you say xX - do you mean XX?" etc) then that meme could
be propagated and become a powerful force in the shaping of
political opinion. Alas, as has been pointed out elsewhere, points
about language, terminology, and the use and abuse thereof are
often too subtle to be recognized as having the potency they do,
even when the points are made by more articulate folk than myself.
Political opinion, imo, is not shaped mainly by two adversaries
having at each other, its shaped rather, in democracies, by how
the majority of non-combatants perceive the contest. This is why
its important to get one's terminology right. When one talks in
terms of "beliefs" in general, and in the biotech sphere of "human
life" and "human beings" one is both conceding ground that
should not be conceded and allowing oneself to be drawn into
word traps that the institutions that survive on superstition have
had many generations of experience in developing and refining.
Napolean once said never interrupt your enemy whilst he's
making a mistake. Perhaps the corollary is, one *should*
interrupt one's allies when they are. Of course ones allies
are less likely to be compliant.
Please do consider ditching "belief", "human life" and "human
beings" from your operating language when other terms are
available. The rate of change in the free world, the rate of
extropic meme propagation in political systems, (your life),
just may depend on it such subtleties.
Regards,
Brett
[sorry Lee this post is verbose and not as incisive as it
should be but its getting late and its now post and/or be
damned time ]
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