Is Belief (or Lack Thereof) a Choice?

[mikkel_the_dane]

2nd tier aperspectival? You sound like an Integralist. You may not be familiar with the terms, but I recognize this. All 1st tier views see their view as the correct view, and all other views other than its own as wrong. Hence, the mythic view of reality was wrong, and the rationalist view of reality is right. The mythic view sees the rationalist view as wrong, and themselves right.

But 2nd tier sees that "everyone has a piece of the truth", and that all 1st tier views are 'true but partial'. Each has function, each contributes, and higher levels 'transcend and include' the previous levels before them, bring forward the important lessons or perspectives learned, while discarding the bits that no longer serve or remain functional in the new level. And so forth. Sound familiar?

There is no way to God, only one way and many ways. Peace my follow traveler.

 

[Nakosis]

I don't have to have knowledge, because if you have it and I don't, then since it seems that we are both here, that is all I need.

Yes, I'm glad to be here for you and if you ever want to have knowledge about something, I'll be happy to talk it over with you.

 

[Audie]

Yes, I'm glad to be here for you and if you ever want to have knowledge about something, I'll be happy to talk it over with you.

" You can always tell a Dane
but you cannot tell them much."

 

[Audie]

OK. This one of yours might be such.

You understood it well enough enough
to see that. I better give my google translate a kick.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

Is belief a choice? Why or why not?

Is lack of belief a choice? Why or why not?

No, belief is not a choice. We are either convinced of something or we are not. If I am convinced that water is wet, I can't tell myself, "But I'll believe water is not wet." If I am convinced that there is no God, I cannot say to myself, "Well, even though there is no God, I'm going to believe in God." Etc.

This is in fact at the heart of my rejection of Christianity, because it makes God's grace dependent on something we do not control.

 

[Jimmy]

I’d have to say it’s a choice up until you discover the truth.

 

[Audie]

I’d have to say it’s a choice up until you discover the truth.

And you know from experience.

 

[Jimmy]

And you know from experience.

Haha I have found truth of life’s mystery, oui.

 

[RestlessSoul]

So does that mean you are real or you are not real?

So says one of the 20th Century’s greatest scientific minds

 

[Trailblazer]

" You can always tell a Dane
but you cannot tell them much."

That is because they already know everything.

 

[Nakosis]

View attachment 77350


So says one of the 20th Century’s greatest scientific minds

You might want to finish the quote so others will be able to understand the context.

Bohr also said the following.
“Isolated material particles are abstractions, their properties being definable and observable only through their interaction with other systems.”

IOW, we rely on physical objects ability to interact with other physical objects to determine physical reality not the abstractions of isolated particles.

 

[Heyo]

View attachment 77350


So says one of the 20th Century’s greatest scientific minds

What conclusion do you draw from that?
a) Reality is not real.
b) Reality is an emergent property of the unreal quantum world.
c) Something completely different. (Please elaborate.)

 

[RestlessSoul]

What conclusion do you draw from that?
a) Reality is not real.
b) Reality is an emergent property of the unreal quantum world.
c) Something completely different. (Please elaborate.)

I don’t draw any particular conclusion, partly because the more I read about QM, the less I understand. Bohr and the Copenhagenists took an anti-realist view of QM, whereas I would lean more towards Einstein’s assertion that “the programmatic aim of all physics is the complete description of [reality] as it supposedly exists.”

I supplied that quote as a rejoinder to those who believe scientific realism trumps all arguments from metaphysics, without any consideration or awareness of the question,
“What is real?”

One lesson philosophy should learn from modern science, is that much of what we perceive as reality is predicated on illusion resulting from perspective. That the sun rises in the east and sets in the west accords absolutely with our every day observations; but we have learned that this is not the case at all. Rather than hubris, and an inflated sense of his own developing omniscience, it seems to me that the last several centuries of scientific endeavour should inspire humility in man. Yet there are those, many on this forum, who appear to think the purpose of science is to eliminate mystery and wonder, and slam firmly shut the doors of perception.

 

[RestlessSoul]

You might want to finish the quote so others will be able to understand the context.

Bohr also said the following.
“Isolated material particles are abstractions, their properties being definable and observable only through their interaction with other systems.”

IOW, we rely on physical objects ability to interact with other physical objects to determine physical reality not the abstractions of isolated particles.

Or in yet other words, that at the fundamental level of material existence, when we have broken things down into smaller and smaller pieces we discover that when examined, the pieces are not there, only the arrangements of them are.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Yes, I'm glad to be here for you and if you ever want to have knowledge about something, I'll be happy to talk it over with you.

That is an illusion, because feelings have no strong objective referent, so you are deluded like most believers. Only the objective physical reality is real.

 

[Nakosis]

Or in yet other words, that at the fundamental level of material existence, when we have broken things down into smaller and smaller pieces we discover that when examined, the pieces are not there, only the arrangements of them are.

So what?
That's not exactly revolutionary news and it doesn't change how things work at the macro-level.
In fact what we observe in quantum mechanics explains the physics of things like toasters and computers.
IOW, quantum mechanics supports what we observe as physical reality, it doesn't negate it.

 

[viole]

This is a non sequitur.

Is it? What would it mean that belief in not a choice?

Ciao

- viole

 

[Nakosis]

That is an illusion, because feelings have no strong objective referent, so you are deluded like most believers. Only the objective physical reality is real.

Actually they do. I have posted several links to the physicality of emotions.

 

[viole]

Truth is a process in your brain.

Is that true?

Ciao

- viole

 

[RestlessSoul]

So what?
That's not exactly revolutionary news and it doesn't change how things work at the macro-level.
In fact what we observe in quantum mechanics explains the physics of things like toasters and computers.
IOW, quantum mechanics supports what we observe as physical reality, it doesn't negate it.

On the contrary, the light shed by discoveries in QM on the underlying weirdness of nature challenge our perceptions in various ways. Enough to cause physicist and writer Carlo Rovelli to observe that;

“The solidity of the classical vision of the world is nothing other than our own myopia. The certainties of classical physics are in fact just probabilities. The well defined and solid picture of the world given by the old physics is an illusion.”

- Rovelli, Helgoland