Belief

We all think we know things. Everything we say contains a sign of this confidence. Any expression of belief (and communication), large or small, shows that we think we have truth. This does not mean that our knowledge is true or accurate, it means in fact that we believe some things and not others and hold these as belief. It also means this if we constantly assert that we believe nothing.

There is a reason we talk and express ideas and a surface reason might be unique to each situation, but whatever the reason for it, it is based on some belief. It does not mean or guarantee that the belief is true, it means that we make choices in our lives between what is and what is not true and we express this to ourselves and others.

Think for a moment what it is that you said last. What you might find, though it is not always the case, is that there is an entire world of belief and context underlying that sentence. What we say and think is a product of an entire life; it is interconnected with thousands of things that we think we know and it makes our social self.

For my part, the last thing I said was "Most people should not be able to vote." At this point I'm not sure why I said it. What is important is that if we examine this we see a moral claim that seems to be the product of multiple beliefs. There is a belief that the average man is stupid. This is quite a claim because it means that I believe many things as certain, including the idea that people are not equal, that some are dumb and some are not. It suggests that the dumb ones don't even know what's good for them (don't know who their leaders should be) and that, I suppose, it suggests there should even be a test and a law that guides the process of voting. This is a lot of information.

But is this the only belief I can find in that claim? What about a more basic belief? The claim that "Most people should not be able to vote" also assumes that people are real and when I say real I mean it in a number of possible ways. There is so much complexity to the skeptical question about whether or not people exist, and to the one about whether, if they do exist, they have real stable identifiable selves, that I don't have time to debate it here. What we can is that this belief (that people exist and are real in a number of ways) comes before the question about whether they are equal. If they don't exist it doesn't matter how equal they are.

But what else? What really is voting? It is choosing between one thing or another. So what about the skeptical question about choice? If in fact all outcomes are determined by fate (as some of us believe some of the time) then does it matter if we vote? By making my claim I must believe there is such a thing as choice and, if you examine this, it is also quite a claim. If I believe in real choice I must not believe in fate and a good part of what humans talk about over and over, about things happening for reasons, etc, is being discarded in the concept of choice. What is this fundamental belief then that I must hold? It is the idea that individual choice is real. That if I make a choice one way, I could have, in fact, made it a different way with a real different outcome that will now be gone.

It is at least interesting then that that so much belief is contained in one simple remark. But why do I point this out and why does it matter?

Firstly, it is interesting how little we consider these ideas when we speak and share ideas with others. I don't mean that we fail to consider specific beliefs, I mean that we fail to consider what belief itself means. We can see this also in what people say on the surface about truth. It is fashionable to say that "there is no truth at all." I assume what they often mean is that all claims are merely opinion. Without examining this surface comment about opinion, we may miss a problem at the heart of all understanding that it shows. It can be visible by asking this: How can I be certain there is "no truth" when, if I say it, I am asserting a truth? The claim "there is no truth" is itself a truth-claim and, once understood, it contradicts itself. If we cannot know anything as absolutely true, how can we know absolutely that there is no truth?

Yes, I know this is annoying. But what we see in these deeper contradictions is what I call "process breakdown." We may be confused by much of a discussion and yet, in the contradiction, if we can identify it, we see that something is wrong and because of this we might want to change things.

Anytime you have a breakdown of this sort you should be wary of your ability to understand things. The answer to why we need to talk about this is that we need to be able to see these logical errors or problems and stop to at least attempt correction. Why? Because this is the first step in learning to think and if you can't think you can't solve problems and if you can't solve problems you can't survive without a lot of help. What makes this whole breakdown thing insolvent is, in addition, that when one fails to think, they fail to see that they are not thinking. The less aware one is of the processes of though, the less one can even tell when they are failing. There is even seemingly a correlation between absolute ignorance and absolute confidence, in the sense that the most ignorant fail to see everything and think what they are saying is "perfect."

Being a thinking animal in a complex world is extremely complicated. One of the options the human brain has is to pretend the world is simple in order to avoid the work of understanding things. This challenge, being aware of belief and our own participation in it, is THE fundamental that makes us reasoned thinkers. The example I've given of the person claiming n0-truth is a clear example of this. The moment you hear this claim (nihilism) you need to be aware that there is work to do and that someone, at least the person saying it and maybe yourself, are missing concepts about what it means to think and believe.

All people believe there is real truth, it is a requirement of speaking (or conceptualizing), and so when you are talking to them, communication is impossible if one or both of you also believes that truth doesn't exist at the same time. This is not the SAME thing as arguing a concept (voting is for the elite), or what is called "disagreeing." It is a failure to even understand what it means to believe; this understanding is necessary so that you can hold an actual belief tightly enough to be able to argue it with someone who disagrees with you.

Emmanuel Kant attempted to make this point centuries ago. Even though it is not as important to see the actual belief, it is mandatory that we see that people believe in belief, they hold things as true and discard other things as false, and this process, believing, cannot be and not be at the same time in the same mind. Even in this contradiction we showed earlier it is apparent that people believe.

it is extremely valuable to be consciously aware that all people believe things and that these beliefs make them who they are. It should seem obvious at this point that if one ever wants to communicate with another, contradictions and fundamental errors and "pure ignorance" (I don't need to think) and superficiality and random thought, makes communication impossible. If your problem is communication, if you NEED to get through to someone, this is the basic diagnosis. All people hold beliefs. They need to know first that they hold them and second that beliefs are in fact what they are - statements of truth in a world that can be understood truly.

Only from there can one examine ideas and then share them.