--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <jstein@> wrote: > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues" > > <curtisdeltablues@> wrote: <snip> > > > So the bigger point for me is that humans are > > > wrong about all sorts of stuff but we have a > > > tendency (this includes me) to become attached to > > > beliefs and mistake their intensity for > > > epistemological solidity. > > > > I think you really have to make a distinction > > between a belief adopted from external sources > > and one generated by powerful subjective > > experience. Not that the latter is necessarily > > any more valid than the former, but you can't > > use the same kind of epistemological analysis > > that you do for externally acquired beliefs to > > evaluate them. > > I'm not sure that the source matters for proving > something.
Well, in the first place, the demand for proof of such beliefs as reincarnation or the existence of God is a category error. I'm talking about epistemological analysis, not "proof" per se. In terms of externally acquired beliefs, they're pretty well defined as to their specifics and provenance. Any externally acquired belief is by definition one that is shared by multiple individuals, and we can gather empirical data about the circumstances of its acceptance by any given individual. We can know much more about its nature and grounds than we can with beliefs arising from subjective experience. As an example, take the kid who grows up in a fundamentalist household. We know where the kid acquired his/her beliefs and what they are; we know the social imperatives influencing the kid to accept the beliefs. Now take a kid who grows up in an atheist, materialist household who has a profound mystical experience at a very young age. Nobody around him is going to validate the experience or validate any beliefs the kid may develop as a result. There's no way to trace the origins of those beliefs because what generated them was a purely internal, private occurrence. If the kid holds on to the beliefs, it isn't because of parental pressure; if there's any pressure, it's to drop the beliefs. So it seems to me there's an element operating in this situation that doesn't exist with externally acquired beliefs, one that isn't subject to examination or analysis, at least in anything like the same way as with externally acquired beliefs. It's pretty well established that there's a psychological component to accepting external beliefs, but that isn't necessarily the case with beliefs arising from profound mystical experience. Psychology may influence how the experience is interpreted, but we don't know what the role of psychology is in the experience itself. Subjective experience of this sort is really an epistemological black box. That's why I think making a distinction is important.
