The Problems With Beliefs

The problems with beliefs

by Jim Walker

originated: 29 March 1997 additions: 12 March 2012

Introduction

People have slaughtered each other in wars, inquisitions, and political actions for

centuries and still kill each other over beliefs in religions, political ideologies, and

philosophies. These belief-systems, when stated as propositions, may appear mystical,

and genuine to the naive, but when confronted with a testable bases from reason and

experiment, they fail miserably. I maintain that faiths (types of beliefs) create more

social problems than they solve and the potential dangers from them could threaten

the future of humankind.

Throughout history, humankind has paid reverence to beliefs and mystical thinking.

Organized religion has played the most significant role in the support and propagation

of beliefs and faith. This has resulted in an acceptance of beliefs in general.

Regardless of how one may reject religion, religious support of supernatural events

gives credence to other superstitions in general and the support of faith (belief without

evidence), mysticism, and miracles. Most scientists, politicians, philosophers, and

even atheists support the notion that some forms of belief provide a valuable means to

establish "truth" as long as it contains the backing of data and facts. Belief has long

become a socially acceptable form of thinking in science as well as religion. Indeed,

once a proposition turns to belief, it automatically undermines opposition to itself.

Dostoyevsky warned us that those who reject religion "will end by drenching the earth

in blood." But this represents a belief in-itself. Our history has shown that the blood

letting has occurred mostly as a result of religions or other belief-systems, not from

the people who reject them.

However, does rational thinking require the adherence to beliefs at all? Does

productive science, ethics, or a satisfied life require any attachment to a belief of any

kind? Can we predict future events, act on data, theories, and facts without resorting

to the ownership of belief? This paper attempts to show that, indeed, one need not

own beliefs of any kind to establish scientific facts, observe and enjoy nature, or live a

productive, moral, and useful life.

Relative to the history of life, human languages have existed on the earth for only a

few thousand years, a flash of an instant compared to the millions of years of

evolution. (Estimates for the beginnings of language range from 40,000 to 200,000

years ago). It should come to no surprise that language takes time to develop into a

useful means of communication. As in all information systems, errors can easily creep

into the system, especially at the beginning of its development. It should not come to

any surprise that our language and thought processes may contain errors, delusions

and beliefs. It would behoove us to find and attempt to deal with these errors and

become aware of their dangers.

The ability to predict the future successfully provides humans with the means to

survive. No other animal species has a capacity to think, remember, imagine, and

forecast to the degree of Homo sapiens. To replace our thoughts with intransigent

beliefs belies the very nature of the very creative thinking process which keeps us

alive.

Before I go on, I'd like to apologize for the sloppy writing style of this article. I

intend this as a work in progress as this reflects my thoughts about the subject of

belief along with what science has discovered about it. As new information arrives, I

either make changes or add information on the fly, so some things may seem out of

order, anachronistic or repeated. I have no expertise in neuroscience or psychology

and my main source for disowning beliefs comes from my own experience, thus I use

the word "I" a lot, something that authors of scientific papers should never use. Sorry.

I learned how to disown beliefs even before I had any scientific understanding on the

subject. Many people do not understand how a person can do this so I hope to explain

that one can indeed live without beliefs, or at least give them a better understanding

about the subject. I also hope to explain what belief means and what it doesn't mean

and the problems they can cause. If my experience only applies to me and no one else,

then I probably have an abnormal brain. Fortunately the scientific information that has

arrived has tended to support my case and diminished the argument against it. Nor do

I intend to proselytize or try to convince you that you should abandon your beliefs.

Perhaps some people can't disown beliefs, even in principle, because of some

unknown reason that I have no awareness of.

Origins of belief

"The closest relative of the chimp is the human. Not orangs, but people. Us. Chimps

and humans are nearer kin than are chimps and gorillas or any other kinds of apes

not of the same species."

-Carl Sagan

Very little evidence has yet appeared about how belief arose in humans. As social

animals, we probably have always held beliefs to some degree. Studies of our closest

DNA relatives, the apes, have suggested that primate social animals require both

followers and leaders. The followers must assume the codes of conduct of their

leaders if they wish to live without social conflict. Since there always occurs more

followers than leaders, the property of accepting the leaders without challenge and the

introduction of language may have led human primates towards the expression of

beliefs.

As one possibility, perhaps the human animal believes because of an inherent result

from expressed genes (phenotypes). Interestingly, some animals have in their DNA a

predisposition for imprinted programming. [1] One extreme example of maturation

imprinting occurs with newborn greylag geese where they regard the first suitable

animal that it sees as its parent and follows it around. In nature geese usually see their

natural mother when born, but if humankind interrupts the natural process and a

newborn goose first sees a human, then it comes to regard itself, in some sense, as a

human, thus compromising its natural life as a goose. Some young animals have a

kind of "eidetic" memory; they will believe whatever gets taught to them. Do humans

exhibit a similar kind imprinting while young as do many other animals? Or do we

learn how to believe from our parents, expressed from memetic inheritance? Most

people accept, without question, the religion of their youth. The degree that humans

have imprinted or learned belief memories, or the ability to control their beliefs, or

reduce them remains open for further investigation. Learning about the mechanism of

beliefs at this early stage may help us understand the consequences of impressionable

teaching and may lead us to modify the strategy of early learning so as to avoid the

debilitating effects of unexamined beliefs.

Some evolutionary biologists think that beliefs require an evolutionary explanation

because every known culture through history has had beliefs. And if beliefs have an

evolutionary survival advantage, how can they serve that advantage? Of course no one

knows how for sure because beliefs do not leave behind fossil evidence. Nevertheless

one can still propose a hypothesis and the best one I've heard comes from Richard

Dawkins. In his book, "The God Delusion," he explains this on pages 172-179. I'll

give you a brief section from this chapter. Although he writes about religion, it also

applies to beliefs in general:

"My specific hypothesis is about children. More than any other species, we survive by

the accumulated experience of previous generations, and that experience needs to be

passed on to children for their protection and well-being. Theoretically, children

might learn from personal experience not to go too near a cliff edge, not to eat untried

red berries, not to swim in crocodile-infested waters. But, to say the least, there will

be selective advantage to child brains that possess the rule of thumb: believe, without

question, whatever your grown-ups tell you. Obey your parents; obey the tribal elders

without question. This is a generally valuable rule of thumb to believe." [Dawkins]

(also watch a video of his explanation)

[Humans also communicate these belief rules through spoken or symbolic language.

Since other animals do not have the language ability to the degree of humans, that

explains why animals do not have religions.]

However, as children grow up, they no longer need to listen to their parents because

their brains have now fully developed and they can think for themselves.

Unfortunately, evolution has no way to clean up these evolutionary belief traits while

in adulthood so the beliefs they inherited from their parents remain.

The evolutionary advantage of utilizing beliefs while young, although they help the

survival of our species, can also lead to bad consequences later in adult life but not so

severe as to prevent the survival of our species. These bad consequences of beliefs

may have led early humans toward violence against members of their own. As early

Homo sapiens collected beliefs, some of them must surely have contained beliefs of

violence, possibly to protect them from other tribes who might harm them or who they

believed might harm them.

The earliest evidence of human culture from Paleolithic and Mesolithic societies show

that humans practiced some form of violence against fellow humans. These violent

actions appear similar to the brutality of other primate species (chimpanzees, our

closest primate relative, for example, reveals they engage in chimpanzee warfare).

Later, the skills of human weaponry increased during theNeolithic period, and

archeologists have uncovered evidence for executions and sacrifices. Although no one

has direct evidence for languages spoked in the Neolithic period, violence of this kind,

no doubt requires commination so they probably had language along with beliefs to

justify their executions and sacrifices.

Many early societies believed in spirits and animism, the belief that animals and

inanimate objects possess a spirit. Indeed, the Latin word, anima, means soul. The

word "spirit" also derives from the Latin word for breath. No doubt ignorance about

the nature of wind, breath and movement of animals led them to construct an

"explanation" about things in their world. How could they possibly know the

difference between beliefs, facts, and evidence? These early societies hardly had

anything that we would call multiculturalism, and this alone would isolate their belief

systems from other belief systems. Imagine, for example, that you lived in a tribe that

held strong beliefs and you came across another tribe that held an entirely different set

of beliefs. Without an understanding of cultural diversity, or even the difference

between beliefs and facts, how could they not feel threatened by another tribe that

held beliefs that conflicted with their beliefs?

With language came the contemplation and study of thoughtful systems. Socrates and

Plato introduced beliefs of "forms" of things existing independently of their physical

examples. These philosophical beliefs represented superficial representations of an

underlying and absolute "reality." Aristotle carried the concept further but placed

these forms to physical objects as "essences." He posited the existence of a soul and

introduced the concept of an immovable mover (God) to justify matter which moves

through the "heavens." These ghostly concepts live today, not only in religion, but in

our language. Many times we express essence ideas without thinking about them

because they exist in the very structure of common communication derived from

ancient philosophers. Since no one can see or measure these essences, the only way to

comprehend them comes in the form of belief. Sadly, people still accept these

essences as "real" based on nothing but faith without ever investigating whether they

exist or not.

Orthodox religionists hinged their "sacred" philosophies upon the shoulders of ancient

philosophers. Plotinus reorganized Plato's work as the bases for Platonism which

lasted for many centuries. Thomas Aquinas became the foremost disseminator of

Aristotle's thought. Aristotelianism and its limited logic still holds the minds of many

believers. Today people still believe in inanimate objects, spirits, gods, angels, ghosts,

alien UFOs, without ever questioning the reliability of their sources. Belief and faith

can overpower the mind of a person to such an extent that even in theteeth of contrary

evidence, he will continue to believe in it for no other reason than others around him

believe in it or that people have believed in it for centuries.

"Religion. n. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to ignorance the nature of the

Unknowable."

-A. Bierce

The meaning of belief

To establish a common ground for the general concept of belief, I hold to the common

usage of the term from the American Heritage dictionary:

Belief: 1. The mental act, condition, or habit of placing trust or confidence in a person

or thing; faith. 2. Mental acceptance or conviction in the truth or actuality of

something. 3. Something believed or accepted as true; especially, a particular tenet, or

a body of tenets, accepted by a group of persons.

Believe: 1 To accept as true or real. 2. To credit with veracity; have confidence in;

trust.

In its simplest form, belief occurs as a mental act, a thinking process in the brain that

requires two things: a feeling and a logical statement. To "believe" requires a

conscious feeling of truth. To communicate what this feeling refers to requires some

form of logical structure such as spoken or written language. Thus a belief requires a

thought and a conscious feeling of "truth" which, according to neurological brain

research, stems from the limbic part of the brain (discussed in the mechanism of

belief, below). Thus, belief occurs as a thought with a feeling or emotion "attached."

In other words: Belief= emotion + logic. Because belief requires emotion, it also

represents a psychological state, not simply a mechanical thinking state.

In all cases, I refer to beliefs as occurring in an aware state of consciousness. Beliefs

here do not refer to subconscious thoughts, or any mental activity occurring below the

threshold of consciousness. Nor do beliefs apply to sleeping and dream states, or to

unconscious habits, or instincts. When a person owns a belief, s/he consciously

accepts their own belief. The degree of feeling to which one accepts their own beliefs,

as valid, can vary from mild acceptance to certain absoluteness. Thus it would prove

meaningless to say that a person has beliefs without them knowing it or for them to

deny their own beliefs. Obviously, a person who does not believe in something, does

not believe in that something; a person who believes in something, does believe in that

something. Belief requires conscious acceptance.

How belief confuses arguments

In the mildest form of belief, that of acceptance without absoluteness, a speaker or

writer could simply replace belief words with more discriptive words to avoid

confusion.

Note that in most instances, one can replace the word "believe" with the word "think".

For example:

"I believe it will rain tonight."

can transpose into:

"I think it will rain tonight."

Most simple beliefs come from the expression of the experience of external events.

From past experience, for example, people believe that dark clouds can produce rain,

therefore, we attempt to predict the weather by forecasting from past events.

However, to believe that an event will occur can produce disappointment if the

prediction never happens. To make a prediction based on past events alone does not

require believing in the future event, but rather, a good guess as to what may or may

not happen. We can eliminate many of these simple beliefs by replacing the word

"believe" with the word "think." The word "think" describes the mental process of

predicting instead of relying on the abstraction of belief which reflects a hope which

may not happen. And if we replaced Aristotelian either-or beliefs with statistical

thinking we would reflect probable events instead of believed events.

Belief represents a type of conscious mental thought, a subclass of many kinds of

mental activity. Thinking may or may not include beliefs or faiths. Therefore, when I

use the word "think" I mean it to represent thought absent of emotional belief.

If "think" won't work as a substitute for belief, then it should prove easy to find

another substitute word. For example:

"Our challenge then, is to believe only evidence claims that are likely."

can transpose into:

"Our challenge then, is to use only evidence claims that are likely."

Because belief statements contain logical propositions, one should consider if

emotions and feelings have anything to do at all with our logic. The anecdote about

Archimedes running through the streets crying, "Eureka!" after discovering the

relationship between mass and volume describe his emotion after making his

discovery. This could have led him to believe that density equals mass divided by

volume, but do feelings and emotions add anything at all useful to his logical

statement? If feelings really do add to our logical structures then why not add them to

our mathematical statements? One could, for example, make up a table of ordinal

words to express the intensity of the feelings such as "eureka!" (for the highest

emotion), "good!" (for a lesser emotion), "meh" (an ambivalent emotion), etc. We can

then plug our emotions into our logical statement:

D[eureka!] = M/V

Now we have an attempt to use mathimatical statements as beliefs. Belief = emotion +

logic.

As you should see by this silly example, the variable of emotion, not only

does nothing to help the equation, the belief could vary from person to person. And if

the holder of that belief dies, so goes their belief. Archimedes died with his beliefs but

mathematicians today might think of his equation as: D[meh] = M/V, yet the truth

value still holds even if no one believes it.

The example above appears silly when you attach an emotion to a mathematical

statement, but the very same thing happens when you use beliefs in your language.

Once you take out the emotional aspect of your belief from your statement, it would

not, by definition, equal a belief. You would simply have a propositional statement. "I

believe that it will rain," would turn into, "It will rain." Now if that seems too certain

an expression, simply describe your uncertainty such as: "It probably will rain

tonight", or "It may rain tonight." In a mathematical statement you might include a

probability number.

Belief words can have many meanings. They can range from a guess (I believe so) to

absolute certainty (I BELIEVE in God). So when a person uses a belief word in a

sentence, the reader might get an entirely different meaning than you intend. It could

mean just opposite of what you mean to your audience. For example, If you say to

religious people that "I believe in science," they might think you mean it as an

absolute in the way they believe in god. It comes from this very kind of

misinterpretation that can lead a religious person to think that science represents a

religion. Realize that some religious people quote-mine popular scientific literature

just to prove what some scientist believes or has faith in. Carl Sagan, Richard

Dawkins, Danniel Dennet, for example, have all used "belief " in their books and

speeches but with the intention of justifying their belief with evidence and logic. The

reader, however, might think of it as the strong version of the word. So why use belief

at all? To avoid this problem, simply don't use belief and faith and substitute it with a

more descriptive word. Of course if you do have beliefs stronger than mild forms of

belief, for example, if you hold supernatural beliefs, then of course, you should use

the words belief or faith.

Many kinds of concepts occur without the need for belief. People can invent rules,

maps, games, social laws, and models without requiring a belief or absolute trust in

them. For example, a map may prove useful to get from point A to point B, but

to believe that the map equals the territory would produce a falsehood. Humans

invented the game of baseball, but it requires no need to believe in the game, or to

attach some kind of "truth" to it. People can enjoy baseball, simply for the game itself.

Technological societies invent "rules of the road" and construct traffic lights, signs

and warnings. We do not take these rules as absolute but realize that they form a

system of conduct that allow mass transit to exist. If any confidence results from the

use of models and rules, it should come from experience of past events predicted by

the models rather than from the emotions connected to beliefs.

Examples of non-beliefs

Many people misunderstand what constitutes belief and what does not. For many,

belief has so infiltrated their minds, that everything perceived or thought incorporates

a belief for them, including all of their knowledge and experience. This hierarchical,

top-down, approach, in effect, puts such a person entirely within a world of solipsistic

reasoning. Why? Because all thoughts describe a belief for them and since beliefs

only occur within the mind, every belief refers to the self.

However, beliefs have no bilateral symmetry requirements; although one can believe

in knowledge, one can obtain knowledge without owning beliefs; although one

certainly accepts their own beliefs, not all things accepted require beliefs.

Consider that if one defined belief to incorporate all forms of thought, then the word

belief would become tautological and meaningless, not to mention that knowledge and

experience would fall as a subset of belief. Need I remind the reader that words differ

not only in their spelling, but in their meanings? The following gives examples of

non-beliefs:

Acceptance: Although belief requires some form of acceptance, not all things

accepted require belief (beliefs have no bilateral symmetry requirements). Examples: I

can accept the premise of a fictional story, but I do not for one moment believe in it. I

can accept a scientific hypothesis without believing in it. Computers accept data and

produce solutions, but computers have no consciousness, let alone beliefs. Many

arguments can take the form of Devil's Advocate to oppose an argument with which

the arguer may not necessarily disagree.

Action: Although many people believe in the actions they perform, one can act

without beliefs (beliefs have no bilateral symmetry requirements). Actions can occur

out of a desire, a submission to an authority, or by unplanned events or even by

mechanical means completely absent of humans. Examples: I can act a part without

believing in it. I can act from a set of rules, but I do not need to believe the rules. I

might act from an order from the police or government. I may act out of a desire to

achieve something. There occurs no action which requires belief.

Agreement: Although belief requires some form of agreement (believers agree that

their beliefs have validity), not all agreements represent beliefs (beliefs have no

bilateral symmetry requirements). However, for some people (myself included),

agreement requires no belief at all. Examples: I might agree that Captain Kirk served

aboard the Starship Enterprise, but I hold no beliefs in Star-Trek fiction. I may agree

with the rules of football, but I do not need to believe in football in order to

understand the game; I may not even like the game! I may agree with any premise,

without believing in it.

Knowledge: Knowledge comes from awareness of the world, or understanding gained

through experience. Although people may believe in what they know, knowledge has

no requirement for belief (beliefs have no bilateral symmetry requirements).

Examples: I may have knowledge of a story, poem or song, but I have no need to

believe it. I know the rules of many games, but I do not believe in games. I know the

mathematics of calculus, but I do not believe in calculus. I have knowledge of

information, but I do not believe in information. I have direct knowledge of my

existence through sensations, thought, and awareness, but I do not believe I exist:

I know I exist (even though I may not know how I exist).

Information: Although many people believe the information they receive,

information received does not require belief (again, beliefs have no bilateral symmetry

requirements). Examples: the information from books, stories, science, theories,

fiction, religion, etc., all represent communicated ideas, but one does not need to

believe in any communication in order to utilize it.

Differences between beliefs and thinking without beliefs

The two charts above represent a visual abstract concept of the differences between

the paths of belief and the path to knowledge. Both paths represent a form of thinking

or mental activity. Note that the chart on the left shows a convergence point at the

bottom where simple beliefs and thoughts coexist. At this level, they appear virtually

the same with the only difference amounting to its semantic designation ("believe"

can substitute for "think" and vise versa). However as each path progresses, they

diverge; the path of belief progresses towards intransigence and the path of knowledge

leads to factual knowledge. Each progresses as a matter of degree and each forms an

independent path. For example, beliefs requires no external evidence whatsoever

(examples: belief in ghosts, gods, astrology, etc.) The path of knowledge requires no

reliance on beliefs (examples: the observation that the earth orbits the sun and

airplanes fly, etc. appears regardless of whether you believe in them or not.) However,

the path towards knowledge requires external verification (observation and testing)

whereas the path of belief does not. The path towards workable knowledge

(facts) must agree with nature if we wish to utilize it. The path of belief requires no

agreement with nature at all (although it might coincide with it).

Unfortunately, the usual practice of thinking involves the combination of beliefs with

theory and factual knowledge (see the right chart). Most people tend to own beliefs of

facts and knowledge, including perhaps the most rational people of all-- scientists and

philosophers. A hypothesis or a theory may lead a scientist to strongly believe in his

or her theories, the verification of test results may lead them to have faith in the

results, and an established fact may lead some scientists to dogmatically hold to its

verification (even if later evidence contradicts it). Thus even a scientist can attach

beliefs to theories, faith to verification, and dogma to facts. Although scientists rarely

approach intransigence (although some do), they usually believe in their data and

theories and most philosophers believe in their philosophies and most of them will die

with their beliefs. As Maxwell Planck once said, "A scientific truth does not triumph

by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its

opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with

it." Fortunately, scientific dogmatic beliefs do not appear as prevalent as it once did

in the last two centuries. Scientists like Freud, Jung, Velikovsky, and even Einstein

held stubborn beliefs bordering on inflexible religious-like thinking, even when

presented with evidence that contradicted their beliefs. I suspect that much of the

reduced degree of dogma in the scientific communitiy today results in better

communication (especially through the internet), and a broader understanding of the

sciences around them, and a humbling realization that some other scientist will call

them out on their theories, but it still occurs to an unnecessary degree in my opinion.

If facts about nature come from nature itself, then every scientific fact can stand as the

evidence alone and the theories that explain those facts. At no time do we need beliefs

to understand facts and theories. Nature occurs without human beliefs and so does

reliable evidence. And once we understand our facts and theories we call it knowlege.

There simply exists no apparent necessity for attaching beliefs to knowledge.

Think about the following: Regardless of how strongly one has attached faith to

scientific facts, no matter how religious the disposition of a scientist, there has never

appeared a single workable theory or scientific fact that required the concept of a god

or superstitious idea. Not a single workable mathematical equation contains a symbol

for a "creator." There occurs not the slightest evidence for ghosts in our machines or

in our bodies. Even the most ardent non-believers can live their lives in complete

accord with nature and live as long as the most fanatical believer. The same holds true

for non-religious beliefs and in spite of the temporary mental comfort that belief

might bring, (as do drugs) then what purpose can belief serve in the establishment of

useful knowledge about the world? Note that when a person dies, so goes his or her

beliefs, but if that person lived as a scientist and provided a world with a workable

piece of knowlege about nature, then only the knowlege remains useful. The beliefs

during the person's lifetime have no bearing, whatsoever, on the usefulness of the

knowlege that he or she brought into the world.

Now you might argue that the knowlege brought to us by persons no longer living still

requires people to believe in the knowlege that they brought, but on what grounds and

to what degree?

"Have you ever noticed.... Anybody going slower than you is an idiot, and anyone

going faster than you is a maniac?" --George Carlin

I find it interesting to observe the state of belief in people. They most always see the

problems of fanatical belief above them on the chart, but they never accept the

disbelief of those below them. Believers always retain just the right amount of belief,

it seems, and they unconsciously put themselves in a kind of self-centered, subjective

dogma. I contend that most of us do not own beliefs of every kind and, indeed, we

disbelieve more than we believe. Just as some believers have fewer beliefs than

others, non-believers simply sit at the bottom of the scale. If you can, temporarily, put

yourself outside of your own beliefs, you can question why you dismiss the beliefs of

others, while perhaps understanding why non-believers dismiss yours.

The degree problem goes away once you understand that the amount of belief says

nothing about the usefulness or factual nature of knowledge. If you squint your eyes,

pray, or through sheer willpower force your belief to strengthen, will that improve

your knowledge? (It can certainly produce falsehoods, but how can it improve on

knowledge?) Conversely, if you act on your knowledge without belief,

will that change the status of your knowledge? If you think knowledge requires belief

between the extremes of strong belief and no belief, then just what degree of belief do

you think it necessary for the proper understanding of knowledge?

Some people have argued that all knowledge represents forms of beliefs. Well it

certainly can if you believe that and, no doubt, most people do believe that knowledge

describes a belief, but that doesn't mean it has to. Even Plato and Socrates defined

knowledge as "justified true belief," but this only describes what I already mentioned

above (combining beliefs with knowledge), and again, this certainly serves far better

than a belief without knowledge (I suppose Plato might call that unjustified false

belief). But can knowledge exist without beliefs at all? Yes. And I can give examples.

I could use examples of animals such as insects or reptiles but someone might object

on the grounds that they possess some form of consciousness and beliefs, so I will

give an example of non-life entities: Autonomous computers. Autonomous drones, for

example can take-off, fly and land without a human pilot or even a remote pilot.

These aircraft take in information from the world around them through cameras and

sensors, process that information, make algorithmic decisions and act on them by

navigating, taking photos, or sending lethal bombs to kill enemy targets. To give

another example, IBM's computer called Watson (also autonomous) defeated the best

Jeopardy players in the world. Its designers made it capable of understanding human

language and knowledge by data mining documents, dictionaries, anthologies, and

encyclopedias and deriving a correct answer. These computer systems, in fact, posses

some knowledge about the world around them, otherwise they would not have the

ability to carry out their tasks. These Autonomous computers have no consciousness

or emotions, so they cannot possibly have beliefs. Knowledge can indeed exist

without beliefs. Humans, too, can act on knowledge even without consciousness.

Sleep walking, driving a car while having a conversation, for example, can result in

actions from subconscious knowledge even without that person consciously knowing

what has happened.

Of course humans do not live like computers and we grow up with beliefs, perhaps

even ingrained into our genes, but I submit that to suggest that an intelligent conscious

human cannot understand knowledge without beliefs has no bases. Humans have a

unique ability to understand abstractions and even abstractions about abstractions

(metacognition) At least some humans have that ability (more on this below). One can

understand how a belief can adversely affect knowledge and thusly learn to act on

knowledge without owning beliefs. Nor do I claim that all people have the ability to

disown beliefs. Perhaps some people can't, even if they wanted to. It certainly seems

that some people, especially highly religious people, do not have that ability. Perhaps

their genetic and/or cultural upbringing forever prevents them from doing so, I don't

know. However, to suggest that every human must have beliefs belies the very fact

that some of us don't.

I submit that some, if not most, conscious human beings can learn to gather,

understand, and accumulate knowledge and act on it without owning a single

belief and that this provides far more of an advantage for the advancement of

knowledge than a disadvantage.

Problems that derive from belief

Although one can argue that beliefs supported by scientific evidence represent a

benign form of beliefs, they also act as barriers towards further understanding. Even

the most productive scientists and philosophers through the ages have held beliefs

which prevented them from seeing beyond their discoveries and inventions.

For example, Aristotle believed in a prime mover, a "god" that moves the sun and

moon and objects through space. With a belief such as this, one cannot possibly

understand the laws of gravitation or inertia. Issac Newton saw through that and

established predictions of gravitational events and developed a workable gravitational

theory. Amazingly, Newton began to think about relativity theory long before Albert

Einstein. However, his belief in absolute time prevented him from formulating a

workable theory. Einstein, however, saw through that and thought in terms of relative

time and formulated his famous theory of General relativity. But even Einstein owned

beliefs which barred him from understanding the consequences of quantum

mechanics. He could not accept pure randomness in subatomic physics, thus he bore

his famous belief: "God does not play dice." Regardless, physicists now realize that

for quantum mechanics to work, nature not only plays with dice, but randomness

serves as a requirement if one wishes to predict with any statistical accuracy. And on

it goes.

Even though great scientists, like any human, can fall prey to beliefs, their discoveries

live beyond the barriers of their naive beliefs. Not only did they establish new

knowledge about the universe but they also established its limits and, with them, the

elimination of absolutes (and if you think about it, only a believer could pretend to

know about absolutes, something not even in principle testable for mortal humans).

For example, Einstein found the limits to velocity and time (once believed as

absolute), Heisenberg saw the limits to reality (uncertainty principle), and Kurt

Gödel's incompleteness theorem set a limit on our knowledge of the basic truths of

mathematics. A belief in absolutes that directly contradict these scientific discoveries

can only bar one from further understanding.

Although thinking without beliefs does not, by any means, guarantee that people will

make scientific breakthroughs, it can, at the very least, remove unnecessary mental

obstructions. Belief, even at its lowest form of influence can create problematic and

unnecessary barriers.

As belief progresses towards faith and dogma, the problems escalate and become

more obvious. We see this in religions and political ideologies, especially those that

contain scripts (bibles, manifestos) which honor war, intolerance, slavery and

superstitions. We see this in the religious inquisitions, "holy" wars, and slavery.

During the period of the black plague, millions of humans died out of ignorance of the

disease with beliefs that God or Satan caused it. Meanwhile their religious leaders did

little or nothing to encourage experimental scientific investigation. In the 1930s and

40s the world saw the fanatical idealism of communists (which has far more in

common with religion than it does with atheism) as they destroyed millions of lives.

We saw how Christianized Germany produced Nazism and the holocaust in order to

defend against the Jews in order to fight for the Lord (Hitler's belief). To this day, one

can observe religious and ethnic beliefs creating war and intolerance in Bosnia, Sri

Lanka, Israel, Africa, Russia and in Muslim countries. The tragedy of 9/11 could not

have occurred without religious belief in an afterlife. Only religion produces the

concept of moral war. Only a religious minded government would allow science to

flounder while emphasizing faith-based programs.

Why does religious belief create such monstrous atrocities? Because religion

expresses everything into terms of belief, faith, and absolutes, without need for reason

or even understanding. Religion puts reality, morality, love, happiness and desire in a

supernatural realm inaccessible to the mind of man. How can humans ever achieve

peace when their religious scripts has their god condoning war and violence, while

man must accept the superstitious belief that their unknowable god does this for

mysterious reasons, forever beyond the comprehension of man? How can you

understand the physics of the universe if you believe that an unfathomable

supernatural agent created everything just a few thousand years ago? How can you

live a full happy life if your religion denies the nature of sex, desire, and mind? How

can you have workable government if you believe laws derive from an

incomprehensible super-being? How can you have the future of the planet or your

grand children if you believe that supernatural predestination will end the world?

Parents teach children at a very young age to believe in abstract concepts such as

Santa Claus, the toothfairy, and supernatual gods. These parants have no

understanding of the dangers that their beliefs might cause. Thus we prepare our

society to not only accept beliefs, but to honor and fight for them. This commonly

results in conflicts between free expression and censorship. For a believer, expression

of ideas in-and-of-themselves represent beliefs. Thus violent television, movies and

fictions present opportunities for the unaware to believe in them.

If, instead, we taught our children about beliefs and how they infect the mind and the

dangers they can produce, society would have little need for censoring ideas. For

without believers, there would live no one to believe them and the violence and

fantasy portrayed by their fictions could only represent just that-- fictions.

"Don't believe anything. Regard things on a scale of probabilities.

The things that seem most absurd, put under 'Low Probability', and

the things that seem most plausible, you put under 'High

Probability'. Never believe anything. Once you believe anything, you

stop thinking about it."

--Robert A. Wilson

The mechanism of belief

Because belief requires a mental process involving neural activity, this allows

scientific investigation into its mechanism. Although the abstractions of belief sit at a

hierarchical level above the neuron level, there obviously occurs a connection

between neuron activity to mental thought and vise versa. Unfortunately we still have

only minute knowledge about the working of the brain, let alone the complex process

that produces thought. However, studies have shown that some forms of delusional

thought involve problems with the neocortex. Indeed, one of the characteristics of

schizophrenic delusion involves grandiose and religious thinking [3] Some have even

suggested that schizophrenia involves beliefs and attitudes taught to them while young

[4]

Also, in epilepsy, neurological storms can trigger feelings and thoughts divorced from

external events. Although the neocortex and its sensory equipment gets its information

from the external world, the limbic system takes its cues from within. The

neuroscientist, Paul MacLean became fascinated with the "limbic storms" suffered by

patients with temporal-lobe epilepsy. [5] MacLean reported:

"During seizures, they'd have this Eureka feeling all out of context-- feelings of

revelation, that this is the truth, the absolute truth, and nothing but the truth."

"You know what bugs me most about the brain? It's that the limbic system, this

primitive brain that can neither read nor write, provides us with the feeling of what is

real, true, and important."

This provides an important clue as to the mechanism of belief because it suggests that

what we think of as true or real, actually produces or triggers a feeling. Belief in this

sense then means a thought with a feeling attached where the feeling gives us a sense

of conviction or truth. In normal people, a well reasoned thought can trigger a eureka-

like feeling, thus the generation of a belief. This emotional tag attached to a thought

may very well have served an important evolutionary role because it would allow

Homo sapiens a way to prioritize thoughts that give a survival advantage. These

eureka-like emotions also feel good and might very well enhance the memory of

survival thoughts.

In abnormal thinking, even an irrational thought can trigger the same eureka-like

feeling. In other words, regardless of a reasoned thought or an irrational thought, both

can trigger a feeling of "truth"; or in other words, a belief. In its most extreme form,

epiphany-like beliefs can result from the ingestion of hallucinogenic chemicals,

fanatical religious rituals, extreme fasting, or chemical imbalances in the brain (i.e.,

manic-depressive, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, etc.) All of these mental disorders

can lead to excessive beliefs and intense feeling, yet with only irrational thoughts

attached to them.

The worst forms of schizophrenia almost always involve extreme forms of delusional

beliefs. Schizophrenics hear voices, act on impulse, think they hear the voice of God,

Satan, or act out whatever belief-myth they grew up with. Interestingly, it appears that

only thinking animals develop schizophrenia. We have no other animal model for this

disease for holding false beliefs and the perception of unreal things. [6] Schizophrenia

appears to exist only in humans.

According to V.S. Ramachandran, patients with temporal lobe epilepsy may

experience a variety of symptoms that include an obsessive preoccupation with

religion and the intensified and narrowed emotional responses that appear

characteristic of mystical experience.

I present epileptic storms and schizophrenia here because they represent examples of

mental disorder that can result in beliefs pegged to their extreme limit. I trust that

most people will recognize that these mental diseases can result in dangerous forms of

thinking. If the extreme beliefs held by schizophrenics represents a danger and an

undesirable trait, then at what point below this do we consider beliefs desirable?

Since I first posted this article, further research has arrived on the subject that supports

the connection of emotions to belief. In 2007, Sam Harris, et all, used functional

magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study brains of 14 adults while they judged

written "truth," "false" or "undecidable" statements. They found "strong reciprocal

connections from the limbic system, the basal ganglia, and the association cortex of

the parietal lobe. This region of the frontal lobes appears to be instrumental in linking

factual knowledge with relevant emotional associations." The study suggests an

anatomic link between purely cognitive aspects of belief and emotional reward. It also

suggests that "the physiological difference between belief and disbelief can

be independent of a proposition's content and affective associations." (italics, mine)

[Harris] This suggested independence means that a proposition, or knowledge itself,

does not require any emotion at all. In disbelief (a form of negative belief, and not the

same as no-belief), the researchers also found a similar pattern of activation as that of

belief.

Many believers seem to think that all humans believe and that belief represents a

requirement for human life. We can show the falsity of this assumption by simply

eliminating thought entirely. Not everyone can do this, especially schizophrenics, but

for those that wish to, there exists methods for doing so.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, some people can completely stop their thoughts.

And when someone can stop their thought process, beliefs cease to exist, at least

temporarily. Ancient meditation or modern biofeedback practices show how to reduce

or stop the semantic noise within our heads. During this practice, concentrating on a

single idea or word (mantra) can reduce the thought level to a minimum (ekaggata).

The final aim at eliminating this single thought results in a state of no-thought

("higher" levels of jhanic samadhi). While in such a state, all thoughts, ideas, and

beliefs cease. Indeed EEG (electroencephalography) scans reveal that during

meditative states, theta and alpha brain waves (brain waves associated with relaxed

attention) dominate whereas delta waves (associated with goal-oriented and mental

thoughts) are eliminated.

I bring up meditation and delusion to show that there occurs some range of degree of

intensity of belief between the two extremes.

DEGREES OF BELIEFS

The curve above represents a population of beliefs from 0 (no beliefs, no thinking) to

1 (extreme beliefs, irrational thinking), charted with only two data points (x). The

dotted line represents a guess since I have no data to plot actual probabilities (future

investigators will have to gather this information). The degree of belief determines

dispositions to hold an idea as absolute or true. Thus, insane forms of thinking

(delusional, schizophrenia, etc.) would appear on the far right end of the graph. The

extremists (far-right-political and religious-right, for example) might appear at around

.8-.9. The opposite of extremism would fall toward the left end of the chart

(meditators, day dreaming, etc.). From my personal observation, most people do not

fall at either end of the spectrum; most fall somewhere well between the two limits.

For the general population, I suspect the graph would appear as a Bell curve as shown

above.

Although schizophrenia describes an obvious dysfunctional disease that causes harm

to themselves and possibly to others, many schizophrenic properties can coexist in the

"normal" human thinking process without causing notice to people observing them.

Delusional thinking usually accompanies schizophrenia. But note that delusions

represent false beliefs, virtually the same as the conditions for faith. Faith has become

acceptable mainly because powerful social institutions support it.

Symptoms of mental disease, of course, do not appear identical for everyone. Some

people may have only one episode of schizophrenia in their lifetime. Others may have

recurring episodes but lead relatively normal lives in between. Others may have

severe symptoms for a lifetime. Indeed, many who we consider sane commit the most

atrocious criminal acts without a diagnoses of insanity. Even legal acts such as war,

inquisitions, and pogroms can cause harm to its believers as well as to others. Yet we

do not diagnose these acts of belief as a mental disease because the very engine of

belief puts them in the context of acceptability. Most societies do not abhor war;

instead, they honor it because their belief-systems support the notion of solving

problems through mass killing called war. If, instead, we approached belief supported

violence the way we attempt to solve mental diseases, perhaps we might produce

solutions to some of our cultural problems.

A question arises out of these low-to-extreme forms of beliefs: If extreme beliefs

represent a symptom or cause of mental disorder, then can a lack of belief produce a

better, healthier, [or whatever desirable characteristic word you may want to use] way

of socially interacting with people? At the low limit, that of meditation, one not only

stops belief, but all forms of thought. This of course would result in a dangerous

living condition if continued indefinitely, but only at the expense of the meditator. At

worst the meditator might die for lack of food, but he or she could hardly harm

anyone else. But what if one could learn how to think without beliefs? Might it not

serve and advantage to make our thoughts more efficient?

Of course accidents will happen and tragedies will occur. Errors in our models of

perception will no doubt always happen. But if we can reduce or eliminate beliefs,

wouldn't we have fewer reasons to harm others through prejudice or violence?

Without beliefs, our thoughts would follow the prevailing evidence instead of

blocking them with unnecessary convictions.

Even if we cannot solve all mental diseases or prevent dangerous beliefs from

forming, we might at least become aware of the mental processes that create beliefs

and why they sometimes lead to intransigence. Although no one yet has a clear

understanding of how schizophrenia originates, it appears that it may have some

connection with genetics, brain damage, chemical imbalances or social upbringing.

Fortunately treatments have become available for many mental diseases. For those

who have mild cases of mental problems, education alone may redirect the neural path

towards productive thinking. For others, drugs and therapy can help alleviate mental

problems. Likewise, early education in critical thinking, identification of logical

fallacies, and the mechanism of belief may alleviate many of our dangerous beliefs.

Disowning beliefs

From the meaning of beliefs as described above, a person who owns a belief must

possess two things: a thought and the feeling of that thought as 'true." The first

requires a functioning neocortex and the second requires a functioning limbic system

(note, by functioning, this also includes abnormal as well as normal functioning). This

evolutionary and biologically inherited function brings up a valid question:

If a functioning human brain produces thought along with a feeling of 'truth,' then all

humans who have functioning brains must experience beliefs, no?

Yes! And although this seems to contradict the very concept of no-beliefs, we humans

have something that other animals don't have (except for, perhaps, some other

primates): the power of retrospection and the ability to see our own abstractions (at

least some humans have this ability). Psychologists call this

ability, metacognition (coined by John Flavell). Metacognition simply means

"cognition about cognition." Indeed, I have the experience of belief as when reading a

convincing novel or watching a movie or a play, but I know that novels and movies

represent fictions because I have the ability to think about my feelings and thoughts.

Although I buy, temporarily, the belief for the entertainment value, I do not own the

belief. It would prove not only silly but dangerous to walk out of a theater (say The

Exorcist) and still believe the story. The same goes with any belief experience

whether it comes from rational scientific reasoning or to fictions or myths. I

may feel (believe) that I have discovered a scientific truth, but I know that my belief

comes as a property of brain function and I have the ability to disown the belief. I can

say that it feelsright, but I also know that feelings don't represent facts or knowledge

any more than color exists as a property in matter. I also know that feelings-of-truth

can mislead, especially when future evidence contradicts the truth-valve of the belief

and can lead to intransigence. I can acknowledge the feeling but I don't have to

acknowledge the belief.

By putting yourself in a higher abstraction, you can 'see' the abstractions below you.

In this sense you act at the arbitrator of your thoughts, picking out which produces the

best results and dismissing those which don't work, all without owning any belief.

Owning beliefs means that you blind yourself to seeing them as what they represent:

abstractions. You must also defend the beliefs you own or else feel oppressed when

someone attacks them, and this can lead to depression, argument, violence, or to any

ultimate tragic end. By disowning beliefs, you not only don't have to defend them, but

you avoid the problems associated with them.

If you still don't understand how you can disown an inherited biological function, let

me give you an analogue using an even older biological function: the sense of

balance.

Every normal human has it, those little grains of calcium carbonate, the otoconia, in

the inner ear that tickle the hairs of the maculae, that detect gravity and acceleration.

Pilots of early aviation used to rely on this sense in what they called, "flying by the

seat of the pants." But during stormy weather or night flying, pilots became

disoriented and began to lose their lives. At first the survivors chalked it up to high

winds (how dare they accuse these brave pilots of becoming disoriented). But the

aviation scientists knew better. When they invented instrument flying, the old timers

balked, but pilots grudgingly learned to rely on the instruments. They learned to

distrust their own senses and replaced it with more reliable instruments. One might

even ask the heretical question: Do humans really need a sense of balance to fly at all?

Note that nowhere in that statement does it say that one should eliminate the sense of

balance.

I simply ask a similar question about belief. Do humans need beliefs to survive?

Nowhere in that statement do I claim that one should eliminate the feeling of beliefs,

only that one can eliminate theownership of them. We humans have an evolved brain

that can contemplate our own abstractions and beliefs. We can disown beliefs and

replace them. So in the analogy of the sense of balance, what mechanism serves as the

flying instrument that replaces belief? Critical thinking coupled with empirical testing

(science).

You can feel that something seems true, even if false, while at the same time you do

not have to think of it as true.

Inside our head vs Outside our head

Many people have a difficult time telling the difference between what happens inside

their heads as opposed to what happens outside their heads. And I don't mean just

schizophrenics or psychopaths, but also sane people. Most of us have had confusions

about "reality" at some times in our lives. Since all sensations and information comes

to the brain filtered, we experience all our perceptions in our head. To establish the

difference between outside verses inside events, we usually derive, through intuition,

some sort of comparative test. Most of our sensations instinctively tell us what occurs

outside. As infants, we quickly learn that the sounds we hear in our heads actually

emanate from the outside. We learn to manipulate objects through touch, observe

movement through sight, etc. As we grow, we begin to form abstract thought and we

attach these abstractions to our perceptions. Observation, reasoning, and

experimentation gives us the means to determine the difference between outside our

heads and inside our heads.

Errors can creep into our thinking process. And from there it can invade our language

system. This happens, virtually in any information system. If we do not correct these

linguistic and logic errors, we may go for years propagating ancient errors without

thinking about them. It seems obvious that this has already occurred to many cultures

that have promoted dangerous belief sets. Although most will agree that dangerous

beliefs present a threat and that we should do something about them, many beliefs that

seem inconsequential receive no concern at all. These, seemingly, innocent beliefs act

through our language system and can give us a false sense of "knowing."

To give an example, we usually think of color as "out there." We observe green

foliage, blue skies, red apples, etc. Yet color, demonstrably, does not occur "out

there," but rather, exclusively inside our heads. Matter contains no color. Color has no

bases from the physics of light. Color, rather, describes a sensation. [10] However,

matter does "reflect" or produce light (photons). Our eyes absorb this energy and our

brains interpret this information by "tagging" a sensation of color to it. Many times we

express this perception through an error of language that projects color as "out there."

We use ancient "essence" words like "is" and "be" that put mystical properties to

events which occur only in our heads. For example, "the grass IS green" seems to

project the property of "greenness" to an external plant form. Regardless of how much

chlorophyll a plant may contain, it contains no "green." The color green occurs in our

brains as a "tag" to an indirect reflective property of light. Yet our "essence" words

and ideas continually fool us into thinking that things exist outside our heads, without

the slightest evidence to support it. To help eliminate these "essence" verbs, we can

simply replace them with descriptive verbs. Instead of saying "The grass is green," I

might say, "The grass appears green (to me)." The descriptive verb "appears" connects

perception to the observer instead of placing it outside the body. Many sentences

which use "to be" verbs produce false or misleading statements. [9]

From belief to faith

Many rational people, including most scientists, still insist on utilizing beliefs with the

rationale that beliefs must accompany evidence to support them. Of course it proves

more prudent to attach evidence to one's beliefs than to own beliefs without evidence,

but why should anyone feel compelled to attach beliefs to evidence at all? Why not

stand on the evidence without beliefs? Consider a measurement, for example the

velocity of light. I can simply state the calculated or measured velocity as a numerical

figure or I can say "I believe that the speed of light equals 299,790 KPS. But the

velocity represents a measurement of an external event, not a belief. The belief of the

velocity of light adds nothing to the information about the velocity of light. The belief

only reflects an intransigent property of the believer and nothing at all about the

measured property. Regardless of how mild the intransigence, the belief itself

provides no scientific value at all. On the contrary, the belief within that individual

may grow to such extent that it overshadows the evidential data and may cause the

believer to hold on to his theory even if future evidence contradicts it. As a theory

only, without belief, the possibility of future evidence may reveal new data that would

modify and improve the theory.

I have met such believers before and when shown evidence of the differing velocity of

light in crystals, their belief of an absolute value of light rose to the occasion to

combat this new (to them) information. Note that when I say that belief appears

unnecessary to evidence, I do not mean that ideas and thoughts should not accompany

them. On the contrary, instead of beliefs, we can establish theories and models about

the evidence, a predictive and productive way of understanding the consequences of

the evidence. (I'll add more about this later.)

Although the reasons why people tend towards certain belief-systems remains unclear,

Frank Sulloway, a research scholar, has proposed that family dynamics and birth order

influences social survival strategies [8]. In general terms, firstborns tend to think

conservatively and laterborns tend to think as liberals. In the extremes of both liberals

and conservatives, the beliefs can take on a fantastical form of thinking. In its most

dangerous form, belief can take its most intransigent property as faith, the reliance on

hope and ignorance. Indeed, many psychopaths and schizophrenics provide extreme

examples of faith as the beliefs inside their heads take over the evidence from outside

their heads. Some researchers have noted the higher prevalence of schizophrenia in

certain religions [11].

Hypotheses, theories and models

Many religious people who challenge scientists, attempt to make their scientific

theories equivalent to faith. I suspect this gives the faithful comfort, as reducing

theory to the level of faith puts both on an equal plane. However, useful theories do

not rely on faith and do not even require belief. Scientific theories must agree with

nature to some degree, faith does not. If a theory's prediction fails to produce results,

then the theory itself cannot provide usefulness and the scientists must throw it out. A

hypothesis represents nothing more than a good guess subject to further verification

and usually precedes a theory. A workable theory, however, represents a good guess

based on evidence and makes useful predictions.

"It does not make any difference how beautiful your guess is. It does not make any

difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is-- if it

disagrees with experiment it is wrong. That is all there is to it."

-Richard Feynman

Newton's theory of gravity, for example, represents a useful set of guesses that make

predictions about matter traveling through space. Newton's mechanics, however, does

not give us absolute or exact predictions. It only allows predictions about matter

within acceptable tolerances. Einstein's theory of gravity carries Newton's theories to

ever more exact figures and we can make even better guesses. But note that the

theories of gravity must rely on outside evidence, and the guess must agree with

experiment. A theory, therefore, without supporting evidence has no meaning. The

following provides some examples of theories:

The kinetic theory of matter depends on the measurable properties between the forces

between particles of matter.

The theories of gravitation depend on the facts of the measurable results of matter in

the field of gravity.

The theory of natural selection depends on the facts of evolution as confirmed by

observation, evidence and experiment.

Note that understanding any scientific aspect about the physical world requires some

form of theoretical thought.

Models differ from theories, in that they usually represent an abstract copy of the

event or thing that we wish to understand. They may provide us with predictions, but

they can never fully represent the subject in all its nature. A model represents an

incomplete abstraction of a thing outside our heads. Maps, scale models, computer

simulations, etc. all provide us with methods to predict the future of an event or thing.

For an example of scientific modeling, look at the history of the investigation

of atoms. As the evidence accumulated, the physicists made better and more accurate

(although incomplete) models of the structure of matter.

A hypothesis may lead to experiment and both may lead to a theory. If the theory of

the evidence provides accurate predictions every time, sometimes we call these "laws"

or "knowledge." Note, however, that "knowledge" does not mean that it comes

absolute. A fact or theory may change in the future and we may have to modify our

knowledge to accommodate the changing evidence.

By utilizing hypotheses, theories and models, we can express thoughts about the

world without resorting to beliefs and faith.

Logic, mathematics, and reason

Unfortunately, many people misuse the concept of logic and believe that it provides a

method of arriving at "truth" about the world; that if they propose a logical argument

it, somehow, has validity to external events. However, logic, by itself, says little about

the world and does not guarantee "truth." Logic provides a language of self-consistent

reasoning that pertains only to the construction of itself. A logical conclusion based on

sound reasoning, in fact, might disagree with the external event we wish to

understand. For example, in the following logical construction:

All judges are lawyers

No bishops are lawyers

Therefore: No bishops are judges

The above syllogism consists of valid logic. However, each of its propositions must

agree with observation before its conclusion can provide any usefulness. Does every

judge actually serve as a lawyer? Have no bishops ever served as lawyers? Reason

and logic without evidential support cannot determine much about the world until the

evidence supports the propositions.

All ghosts are spirits

No cartoons are spirits

Therefore: No cartoons are ghosts

The logic above appears sound, but what in the world does it mean and how does it

relate to the world? In what context does it refer? What about Casper the ghost?

Interestingly, one of the signs of mental illness, especially schizophrenia, involves

their irrational thinking and the errors they make in syllogistic reasoning [12].

Note also that many different "Logics" occur for many different fields. Traditional

logic, for example, simply does not work in the world of quantum physics. The math,

the reasoning, and the logic of the quantum world differs widely from the macro-

world. Unfortunately, today most people rely on only one kind of logic, usually some

from of aristotelian logic. We tend to think in terms of black/white, true/false,

good/evil, guilty/not-guilty, up/down, inside/outside, etc. Although many things,

indeed, follow this simple kind of logic, a plethora of things operate through a

continuum. Although aristotelian logic may work great for digital circuits, or simple

syllogisms, it fails miserably when trying to understand the human condition or things

that work through calculus.

Mathematics represents a symbolic language of logic and provides us with a tool for

reasoning. But mathematics and logic must accommodate the external events if it

wishes to explain them. Of course people may have beliefs about one mathematical

system over another, but any philosophical belief always fails in light of nature. Only

the results of the accuracy of the predictions matter in the mathematical world; beliefs

have no requirement in the outcome, regardless of how good it may make its believers

feel. In fact, it has appeared commonplace in physics, especially quantum mechanics,

where two entirely different mathematical approaches derived from different starting

points turn out to give identical quantitative answers [13].

Although logic and mathematics may provide a useful tool for reason, scientists may

encounter information about the world that matches no logic whatsoever. Unknowns

and incomplete information occurs many times, but that does not necessarily prevent

establishing useful results. Doctors knew that aspirin, for example, worked as a pain

blocker, but for many years they had no workable explanation of how it worked. Even

gravity, to this day, with all the mathematics predicting its effect on matter, has

stumped physicists as to the nature of its mechanism. Many times the physicists do

not even understand why their system works. They only know that it works. The

prime requirement of making useful predictions must come from nature herself, from

things outside our heads. All the beliefs, theories, logics and models, regardless of

how well they got constructed, cannot do us any good unless they have some support

from evidence. Many times events outside our heads provide us with life sustaining

support without our thinking about them at all (such as breathing air)!

Instead of relying on one logical system, as most people do, we might instead

incorporate a language that incorporates a system of logics and we might choose the

system that best fits the object of investigation. Sadly our English language contains

severe limitations and cannot possibly express many of the extraordinary discoveries

of the new physics. Mathematics allows a language of continuum, multiple

dimensions, and infinities and all without the need for introducing ghostly beliefs.

Preconceived beliefs

I once heard an amusing story about the artist, Picasso. I don't know if this actually

happened but it makes a point about how people construct beliefs of reality from

abstractions:

A stranger recognizing Picasso asked him why he didn't paint pictures of people "the

way they really are." Picasso asked the man what he meant by "the way they really

are," and the man pulled out of his wallet a snapshot of his wife as an example.

Picasso responded: "Isn't she rather small and flat?

To believe that an abstract representation shows the actual thing leads to an

unnecessary biased form of perception. Belief of any kind puts a kind of shield on the

thinker and puts in its place a form of thought which in effect says: "This is real."

Preconceived beliefs coupled with the lack of information can lead to false

conclusions.

To take another example, I might say to a group of people, "I love fish." Everyone

may hear me correctly, but because of their preconceived beliefs and a lack of context,

some may interpret my meaning as a statement about dining and others may believe I

have a love for aquarium fish. Virtually all expressions of thought contain some

limitations and to add preconceived ideas without evidentiary support can produce

false statements and beliefs.

Without resorting to belief, I can look at a photograph and see that it only

resembles some aspect of a particular thing or person, and that it represents an indirect

abstraction. Without belief, I can question a proposition before arriving at a

conclusion.

Limitations of knowledge

"It used to be thought that physics describes the universe. Now we know that physics

only describes what we can say about the universe."

-Niels Bohr

"It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to

believe what is wrong."

-Thomas Jefferson

Our thoughts and expressions through language represent abstractions about the

world, metaphors and models about things and not the things themselves. Language

and thought cannot describe the totality of a thing anymore than a painting or picture

can. A picture does not equal its subject, and a map does not equal its territory. But

our myths, maps, models, and abstract thoughts do provide a limited means to

understand the world and to make predictions about external events. They provide a

way to quantify and simplify our communication systems so that we can perform

desirable and useful actions in the world. But if we allow unnecessary thoughts and

beliefs to reside with our abstractions, we develop semantic noise which can lead to

incorrect information.

As limited humans, we do not possess absolute knowledge. Our perceptions and

information comes to us incomplete. When we look, touch and measure an object, for

example, we only observe part of its totality. Belief, on the other hand, can produce

the illusion that we understand without limitations. Eliminating concepts of beliefs, at

least puts us closer to the range of our perceptions. We inherit mortal limitations, we

cannot know with absolute certainly about the external world; we cannot completely

remove doubt about our conclusions. Many philosophers and scientists have come to

this same observation [14]. Doubt leaves the door open for further investigation.

Intransigent belief puts a mental barrier to further knowledge.

Bias (point of view)

Because our models and theories represent limited knowledge about the world, this

forces us to examine the universe within boundaries. This produces a point of view.

Bias represents a focus, direction, or preference towards a point of view without

examining or ignoring existing evidence. One cannot avoid a point of view.

Regardless of how one might try to prevent bias, there will most always occur

something left out of the description. Similar to Heisenburg' Uncertainty Principle, as

a focus becomes narrow, the more outside its focus gets left out. And vice versa, the

more general a view becomes, the more the details get left out. If one tries to include

the details with the general, a view can bog down with an overblown aggregation of

information, turning a direction of thought into a cloud of complexity; and even still,

the entire system would reside within a framework of limitations. Regardless of how

one may reject beliefs, a point of view occurs if only because we represent a unique

and limited spatial entity within the universe.

The negative aspect we usually associate with bias does not come from bias itself but

rather the belief that comes with it. Belief produces a set of brackets around a point of

view that says in effect "The answer lies here." Once you believe you have

found the answer, your point of view becomes biased, (intransigent and prejudiced)

and prevents you from looking at other possible alternatives. Again, beliefs act as a

barrier to further understanding. If a person develops a faith in a point of view, then it

becomes overwhelming to the point that nothing, even in the light of convincing

evidence, will the faithful yield to better information. A biased belief can convince its

believers that they hold the key to all understanding and "truth" without providing any

evidence to support it.

A point of view, however, does not demand a predisposition to belief; it can simply

represent a direction of thought. Ideas, by their very nature, represent limitations of

thought. As long as a point of view produces a reasonable explanation, uses only

pertinent information necessary to make predictions and leaves open the possibility of

change in favor of better evidence, then it serves as a useful and productive tool. As

we learn and understand our limitations, that a point of view represents an understood

direction, we have the possibility to transcend it into an even more productive point of

view.

Imagination, fantasy and wonder

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."

-Albert Einstein

As humans, we have the remarkable ability to make things up and to pretend.

Imagination and fantasy provides us with one of the most pleasurable ways to

experience thoughts and gives us one of the fundamental requirements for the ability

to create. Our imagination provides us with the mental capacity to express models in

our heads and to act out scenarios of love, conquest, gamesmanship and adventure. I

can't imagine any new invention, art, or literature deriving without its author engaging

in the pleasure of a fantasy. The feeling of wonder about things in the world and the

mysteries of the universe fills us with imagination and speculation. Although Einstein

put imagination above knowledge (something I don't necessarily agree with), it

certainly serves a very useful function.

Fantasies and imaginations, of course require no belief in them. They provide us a

way to model and hypothesis non-actual events that may eventually lead to knowledge

of actual things or perhaps even a novel invention. Fantasy coupled with ideas about

actual events can lead to great insights about future events. Many a science fiction

story, for example, has inspired scientists to construct hypothesis that lead to

verifiable experiment and the invention of useful machines. Even fantasy by itself

provides an enjoyable way of expressing thoughts. But if an individual begins to

believe in his own fantasy, or worse, has faith in it, then usually only disappointment

or tragedies result.

Natural desire

"We always move on two feet-- the two poles of knowledge and desire."

-Elie Faure

Desire comes to us as a natural feeling. As biological animals, we cannot avoid

desires. We desire food, shelter, freedom of expression, etc. As exploratory animals,

we humans use our minds as a tool to help satisfy the desires within us. With

reflection and thought, we learn the limits to our desires. Eating too much, for

example, can lead to limited heath and the prevention of satisfying other desires. By

understanding the consequences of desire, we can avoid the excesses and blockages of

desire. To express and satisfy our desires (sex, feelings, hunger, etc.) provides a

human need. And if we do not satisfy our natural needs, then severe consequences can

result.

Sadly, many of our belief-systems put a stranglehold on our natural instinctive desires.

If a belief-system teaches that "sex is evil," "only godly belief will help you," or

suppresses expression and communication, we may turn depraved, depressed, or

violent.

Believers many times express desire indirectly in terms of hope, a form of wishful

thinking. Indeed faith hinges on the requirement of hope and ignorance. Hope without

an adequate method of achieving our desires can lead to debilitating disappointment

and sorrow. I can only imagine the number of tragedies that have occurred from

failures due to excessive wishful thinking. Instead of relying on faith and hope, we

might analyze our desires and use our knowledge and creative minds to find a way of

satisfying them.

Morality

Many people think that morality stems from religion, usually from some form of

'divine' instruction in the form of scripture, holy writ or from the teachings of shamans

or priests. However, research from evolutionary biologists and sociobiologists have

shown that the precursors of human morality occur in many other social animals,

especially primates such as chimpanzees and bonobos (our closest animal relatives).

Religion emerged after morality and, thus, human morality cannot have come

originally from religion. As an example from personal experience, I remember as a

child that I learned about golden rule behavior by interacting with my fellow school

mates in the sandlot before anyone taught me about religion, nor did I even know

about what the golden rule or morality meant! I simply behaved in a manner that felt

right to me at the time. (A few other children acted through Iron rule behavior, the

"bullies").

Morality ultimately stems from the brain and it requires emotions and consciousness.

The science of human behavior suggests that innate morality comes to us from birth,

perhaps similar to the language instinct where humans have an innate capacity for

language even though any particular language comes from cultural development

(see Steven Pinker and Noam Chomsky). Religion may have served as the first system

to control morality through religious belief instruction (and force) but that says

nothing about the workability of a moral system. In fact, one can argue that religious

morality creates more moral problems because it does not conform to reality (because

it relies on supernatural beliefs, not on nature) and it produces dogma which can

prevent one from establishing workable morality in light of new evidence. After all,

the three most influential religions in the world (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) stem

from books written during the Bronze and Iron ages long before people understood

the science of biology and human behavior. Clearly thousands of years of moral

instruction from these religions have never produced a workable moral system (do I

really need to go into wars, slavery, pogroms, witch hunts, intolerance's, etc. to

explain this?)

Since humans live in the natural world and science provides the only tools to

understand the natural world, it follows that science might provide us with the best

way to establish workable moral systems. Unfortunately, much of human nature

remains unknown to us and scientists have barely begun to study moral systems.

Moreover, the dogmatic belief that morality can only come from religion further bars

people from thinking about it, even from many scientists. Nevertheless, the science of

morality started with the philosophical ideas from Jeremy Bentham, the philosophy

ofconsequentialism, the research on human cooperation from Robert Axelrod, and

many scientists now studying how the brain creates moral judgments.

Innate morality does not require ownership of beliefs because it acts through our

biological system in response to stimulus and our environment (although many people

do attach beliefs to them). I do not have to believe in order to act. However religious

morality almost always requires belief because it involves religious instruction which

one must believe in order to accept the dogma. In both cases, innate morality or

religious morality might prove tragically wrong because of particular circumstances

(for example, I might treat someone altruistically not knowing that that person relies

on deception and trickery to get what he wants, or I might turn the other cheek to an

enemy which could result in the death of myself and others).

Instead of relying on innate feelings or belief, I can spend more time thinking and

evaluating my feelings and the feelings of others around me and to try to establish the

consequences of my actions (ethics).

Morality requires feelings and emotions because our subjective values stem from

emotions, and we need values to establish morality. Here we have emotions that

trump logical reasoning (just opposite of beliefs). For morality, we want to use

emotions with logical structures but not as beliefs but as a way to achieve desires and

wants. Beliefs involve statements about external truths which do not require

the feelings but in morality we must use our feelings to direct us toward a workable

moral system. But one does not need to use belief statements to do this. Instead one

need only use desire statements. For example, I want people to live together

peacefully because everyone will feel better as a result. And then I might describe a

way to achieve this want by using a theory to establish it. At no time do I require

beliefs to establish statements about morality.

Much of our innate feelings already drives us in this direction but only a full study of

the behavior and feelings of humans can result in any kind of consensus on the right

action to take. And this requires science. In any case, one could construct an ethical

system that remains flexible, based on human nature and science, all without owning a

single moral belief. Of course disowning beliefs does not guarantee a workable moral

system but it does get rid of all the belief based systems that have no connection at all

with human nature. At the very least, this opens up opportunities to create a moral

system that works for both the individual as well as others.

Everyone believes in something?

Many a believer, religious and atheist alike, will become astonished at any statement

against belief, if for no other reason because they believe and the people around them

have beliefs. They tend to form a belief-of-its-own that projects beliefs onto others.

However, simply because most people own beliefs does not necessarily follow

that all people own beliefs. To claim the knowledge that everyone on earth believes in

something portends an astonishing proclamation. It would require an omniscient

ability to see into the minds of every human on earth. Moreover, many people fail to

understand that belief requires conscious acceptance. People who own beliefs (unless

they lie) do not deny them. Quite the contrary, people who believe, admit their beliefs

quite readily. Furthermore, few people stop to ask what we mean by beliefs or

understand that one can replace belief with other forms of "thinking."

I don't believe the sun will rise tomorrow, but I predict it will

Not believing in something does not mean thinking something may not happen. The

absence of belief does not prevent one from predicting the event. It may seem fatuous

not to believe the sun will not appear the next day. However, as a limited human

being, I maintain no absolute certainty that a sunrise will occur. At best. I can only

make a prediction based on past experience. Since I have experienced daylight every

day of my life, and know of no human who hasn't, I have little evidence that a sunrise

will not occur tomorrow. Therefore I can make a prediction based on past experience

that a sunrise will appear highly likely to occur the next day. Note that I do not require

believing to do this, only observation, experience, and good guessing. Prediction

based on experience, in this case, replaces belief. But note that my prediction may

prove wrong, regardless of how remote the chances. We have evidence that

supernovas exist in the universe that can destroy local solar systems. If, indeed, such

an event occurred in our part of the galaxy, our sun could possibly get absorbed, along

with the earth and all humans on it. So although there exists a very remote chance that

the sun will not appear, I can at least predict with great (but imperfect) accuracy that I

will see sunlight the next day.

By replacing belief with predictive thought, one can eliminate the need for belief, yet

still maintain an outlook on life and make useful predictions.

Don't you believe you exist?

To the believer who poses this question, I can only respond with "I know I exist, but

apparently you only believe you exist."

Questions about belief of our own existence aim to put a philosophical end to the

discussion by proposing an impossible (to believers) proposition that no one could

possibly deny. However, eliminating belief does not deny the evidence of existence.

This appears so obvious and apparent that it only shows the power of belief to blind

people from the world around them.

Any fair observer will note that no animal, including humans, require a need

to believe in their existence. Humans, however, have the power of knowledge and the

ability to express themselves. I know I exist because I get knowledge of my existence

every second of my conscious life directly from my feelings, perceptions, or thoughts

- no belief required. Belief only introduces an unnecessary proposition. I can simply

say "I exist," instead of "I believe I exist." My knowledge of existence comes from

experience, not belief. The elimination of beliefs, makes our statements more concise,

accurate and meaningful.

However, when one only believes in their existence, they automatically reduce their

entire life to an abstraction: a belief. In effect, they have put an unnecessary barrier

between their minds and the world around them.

Owning no beliefs does not result in nihilism

To characterize no beliefs as nihilist only creates a straw man. Of course a nihilist

might very well claim to abandon knowledge of existence but usually it comes in the

form of a belief-- one who believes that nothing exists or one who believes that no one

can know anything. Nothing I have written rejects the notion of existence or

knowledge, whether it comes from metaphysical, political or ethical thought.

Abandoning beliefs does not prevent one from reality, morality or sociality. On the

contrary, I submit that eliminating ownership of beliefs tends to enhance the

knowledge of things by the very act of eliminating the very obstruction which

prevents us from knowing how things work in the universe. The elimination of beliefs

as I describe it illustrates the very antithesis of nihilism. The problems that derive

from beliefs prevent us from knowledge of existence, morality and workable political

systems.

Ironically many believers who accuse others of nihilism follow a similar path of

nihilism by denying reality in favor of superstitious beliefs. How in the world can one

know about reality when one believes in a supernatural force which (according to

religious philosophers) remains entirely separated from the world, and in principle, no

one can know?

So if you think (or believe) that I submit to a form of nihilism, then you will have

abandoned a main premise and put yourself at a personal disadvantage by ignoring or

denying an idea (a valid and very workable idea in my opinion).

No, I don't believe my own words

And neither should you. But I do ask questions, and because you've read this far you,

and even if you strongly disagree, you must ask yourself this: Which method works

best: acting on beliefs or acting on knowledge? If you have difficulty answering this

question, then perhaps your beliefs prevent you from acknowledging the obvious.

This text presents points of views based from my (and others) experiences,

observations, and research about the thought process. I do not present them as beliefs

but rather as an investigation into the mechanism of belief. If any of my statements

prove false, then they will show simply that, and subject to further revision.

Disowning beliefs does not guarantee "truth" or accuracy, only a method to help clear

away superstitions and falsehoods.

Summary

Beliefs and faiths represent a type of mental activity that produces an unnecessary and

dangerous false sense of trust and wrongful information (thinking coupled with the

feeling of 'truth'). Faith rarely agrees with the world around us. History has shown that

beliefs and faith, of the most intransigent kind, have served as the trigger for tragic

violence and destruction and sustained the ignorance of people. Replacing beliefs with

predictive thoughts based on experience and evidence provide a means to eliminate

intransigence and dangerous superstitious thought.

Beliefs and faiths do not establish "truths" or facts. It does not matter how many

people believe or for how many centuries they have believed it. It does not matter how

reverent or important people think of them, if it does not agree with evidence, then it

simply cannot have any validity to the outside world. All things we know about the

world, we can express without referring to a belief. Even at its most benign level,

beliefs can act as barriers to further understanding.

I present a very simple observation at the limits of ignorance and knowledge: If you

don't know about something and you submit it to nothing but belief, it will likely

prove false; if you know about something, then you don't need to believe it, because

you know it. Between ignorance and knowledge you have the uncertainties about the

world, and the best way to handle uncertainties involves thinking in terms of

probabilities. So what use does belief have?

If you have awareness of abstracting, you can then begin to replace believing with

thinking.

Instead of owning beliefs, we can utilize hypothesis, theory, and models to make

predictions about things in the world. In its semantic form, we can replace "belief"

words with "thinking" words which better describes the formation of our ideas. We

can use our imaginations to create new hypothesis towards desired goals. The wonder

of the universe gives us a powerful feeling of inquisitiveness. Certainly we will fail

sometimes, but disowning beliefs allows us to correct our mistakes without submitting

our ideas to years or centuries of traditional time consuming barriers. Theory coupled

with imagination can yield inventive thoughts and points of views. By further

understanding our language and eliminating unworkable essence words, we can

communicate without resorting to preconceived ideas based on past beliefs. Our

feeling of wonder about the universe provides us the fuel for exploration; how much

more magnificent the results from useful thoughts than ones based on faith.