On Dec 26, 3:59 pm, "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I regard the idea of "believing" to be unsound, because it is a pre-Freudian concept, which assumes that each person has a "single self" that maintains beliefs. A more realistic view is that each person is constantly switching among various different "ways to think" in which different assertions, statements, or bodies of knowledge keep changing their status, etc. Accordingly our "sets of beliefs" can include many conflicts--and in different mental contexts, those inconsistencies may get resolved in different ways, perhaps depending on one's current priorities, etc.
Dr. Minsky, In your book, Society of Mind, you talk about a belief in freedom of will: "The physical world provides no room for freedom of will...That concept is essential to our models of the mental realm. Too much of our psychology is based on it for us to ever give it up. We're virtually forced to maintain that belief, even though we know it's false." Are you saying that we must use an unsound idea (belief)? Regarding Stathis' question to you about truth, your calling the idea of believing unsound seems to imply that you are assuming that there is no truth that we can discover. But on the other hand, if there is no discoverable truth, then how can we know that something, like the existence of freedom of will, is false? However, the belief in freedom of will seems to be a belief that is rather constant, so there seem to be some beliefs that provide evidence for an invariant reality and truth, not necessarily freedom of will, but something. And I think that looking for ultimate sources would be circular (as you've said on the Atheist List) only if there were no ultimate source that we could find. Do you agree with this statement? Tom Caylor --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
