Is Belief (or Lack Thereof) a Choice?

[SalixIncendium]

Is belief a choice? Why or why not?

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

 

[vulcanlogician]

On both accounts, I'm tempted to say "no." Belief is not voluntary. Not when we're thinking clearly and carefully.

But people manipulate themselves (and are manipulated) to believe all sorts of things. Turns out, humans are complicated creatures. Accurate processing of information and formation of beliefs can be muddied by a number of factors, including unconscious motivations.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Is belief a choice? Why or why not?

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

The usual limited relative caveat. It depends on the assumptions.
But for choice as a process in a mind/brain both belief and non-belief as stated by a person are active cognitive processes.
I.e. if I actively state I have a non-belief I am doing something in my brain and not nothing.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

On both accounts, I'm tempted to say "no." Belief is not voluntary. Not when we're thinking clearly and carefully.

But people manipulate themselves (and are manipulated) to believe all sorts of things. Turns out, humans are complicated creatures. Accurate processing of information and formation of beliefs can be muddied by a number of factors, including unconscious motivations.

Well, that depends on automated cognition versus reflective cognition in some cases.

 

[Heyo]

Is belief a choice? Why or why not?

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

I don't believe in doxastic voluntarism. But I also don't believe in "free will".
I do believe that people can lie, even to themselves.

 

[Mock Turtle]

Is belief a choice? Why or why not?

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

I would ask, is accepting of evidence (of whatever sort) a choice, and if so (being a choice) then isn't the result (what inevitably follows perhaps - belief or non-belief) a necessary choice too? Given we usually do work with information, evidence and such so as to do our thinking.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I would ask, is accepting of evidence (of whatever sort) a choice, and if so (being a choice) then isn't the result (what inevitably follows perhaps - belief or non-belief) a necessary choice too? Given we usually do work with information, evidence and such so as to do our thinking.

Well, if we check your brain in a brains while doing how there are non-beliefs, I predict that there would be an active brain process. So in it non-belief is not nothing in a brain, it is an active process.

 

[Mock Turtle]

Well, if we check your brain in a brains while doing how there are non-beliefs, I predict that there would be an active brain process. So in it non-belief is not nothing in a brain, it is an active process.

Well I didn't say it wasn't, but I'd like to think I did make actual decisions as to accepting or not accepting of various evidence, and as to which then did affect any subsequent beliefs or non-beliefs formed.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Well I didn't say it wasn't, but I'd like to think I did make actual decisions as to accepting or not accepting of various evidence, and as to which then did affect any subsequent beliefs or non-beliefs formed.

Okay, here is a way to understand what some of us wonder about. How non-something works in practice?

Let us say, I claim I have a right arm. I could point to it, if I wanted to. Now I claim, I have a non-(right arm). What is that?
Okay, now beliefs referrer to formed thoughts as belief. But what is a formed thought as a non-belief? What is not accepting in practice?
It refers to that you think though something and has the experience of it doesn't make sense. but that is a feeling going from a slight feeling of feeling off to a more intense negative feeling.
So your non-belief is the feeling that it doesn't make sense.
At least that is how I learned that the psychological experience of negatives work. I learned that both in philosophy and psychology.
And both explanations include that those negatives are not from the 5 senses as external sensory experience.

So when you have a non-belief, you are in effect something doesn't make sense. And when you have a belief, that something makes sense. And when you do meta-cognition you can say that something that doesn't make sense, makes sense because it doesn't fit into how you understand the world.

 

[Yerda]

Is belief a choice? Why or why not?

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

Typically, I don't feel like I choose to believe things. That seems as good a reason as any to say no here. It wouldn't be a lie to say that we protect our beliefs at times though, or fool ourselves, because we don't like admitting that we are wrong.

 

[Hermit Philosopher]

Is belief a choice? Why or why not?

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

Good question!

In English, for example, we distinguish slightly between saying “I believe” and saying “I think”. Yet, some languages have only one word for both [“believing” and “thinking”].

We know that though thought happens automatically, we can change our way of thinking; not only by altering actual thought-processing (through surgery, medication, recreational substances, injury) but thoughts themselves are taught, can be reprogrammed and -with practice and patience- self-managed/controlled.

Is this different for beliefs? That is perhaps the question…

What, if anything, distinguishes “belief” from “thought”?

I’d say that the difference lies in how the two are experienced on a subjective level and not in what they physically are.

And in this sense; yes, beliefs [and thoughts] are unconscious choices that we can learn to choose consciously if we wish.

Humbly,
Hermit

 

[Yerda]

Good question!

In English, for example, we distinguish slightly between saying “I believe” and saying “I think”. Yet, some languages have only one word for both [“believing” and “thinking”].

We know that though thought happens automatically, we can change our way of thinking; not only by altering actual thought-processing (through surgery, medication, recreational substances, injury) but thoughts themselves are taught, can be reprogrammed and -with practice and patience- self-managed/controlled.

Is this different for beliefs? That is perhaps the question…

What, if anything, distinguishes “belief” from “thought”?

I’d say that the difference lies in how the two are experienced on a subjective level and not in what they physically are.

And in this sense; yes, beliefs [and thoughts] are unconscious choices that we can learn to choose consciously if we wish.

Humbly,
Hermit

Without getting into the metaphysical nature of beliefs and thoughts a good way to distinguish between them is to note that thoughts come and go while beliefs persist over a longer time period. It is the case that to belief something is to "think" that it is true. But you can have the contradictory thought if you like. You can think "this laptop is made of cheese" whenever you like, but you won't believe it on any occasion.

 

[Hermit Philosopher]

Without getting into the metaphysical nature of beliefs and thoughts a good way to distinguish between them is to note that thoughts come and go while beliefs persist over a longer time period. It is the case that to belief something is to "think" that it is true. But you can have the contradictory thought if you like. You can think "this laptop is made of cheese" whenever you like, but you won't believe it on any occasion.

Good. So, we can have thoughts that we don’t believe in and it would not be accurate to call those thoughts “beliefs”.

But can we have beliefs that are not also thoughts? Even belief-systems are made up of “thoughts” (that we believe in).

Humbly,
Hermit

 

[Mock Turtle]

Okay, here is a way to understand what some of us wonder about. How non-something works in practice?

Let us say, I claim I have a right arm. I could point to it, if I wanted to. Now I claim, I have a non-(right arm). What is that?
Okay, now beliefs referrer to formed thoughts as belief. But what is a formed thought as a non-belief? What is not accepting in practice?
It refers to that you think though something and has the experience of it doesn't make sense. but that is a feeling going from a slight feeling of feeling off to a more intense negative feeling.
So your non-belief is the feeling that it doesn't make sense.
At least that is how I learned that the psychological experience of negatives work. I learned that both in philosophy and psychology.
And both explanations include that those negatives are not from the 5 senses as external sensory experience.

So when you have a non-belief, you are in effect something doesn't make sense. And when you have a belief, that something makes sense. And when you do meta-cognition you can say that something that doesn't make sense, makes sense because it doesn't fit into how you understand the world.

Are you suggesting that thinking plays second fiddle to feelings - and all the time?

 

[RestlessSoul]

Are you suggesting that thinking plays second fiddle to feelings - and all the time?

Best perhaps if both fiddles are in harmony; but this still leaves us with the question, who is the listener? For it seems axiomatic that I am not my thoughts, nor am I my feelings; I am rather the observer, and the occasional director, of these ephemeral phenomena.

 

[Mock Turtle]

Best perhaps if both fiddles are in harmony; but this still leaves us with the question, who is the listener? For it seems axiomatic that I am not my thoughts, nor am I my feelings; I am rather the observer, and the occasional director, of these ephemeral phenomena.

Seems a waste of time then for some of us to weigh up the evidence and evaluating such in our thinking, and find it lacking, given so many don't seem to have any feelings (for or against) as to whether religions or the existence of God/gods are correct or not. I don't seem to have had such throughout my life - it just doesn't matter to me - and I do recognise that so many do find religions to have value in their lives. To me it purely is down to the weight of evidence being against religions having the truthfulness that they espouse. And that we can live without such beliefs.

Hence, my choice not to believe the evidence used to promote religions leads to a non-belief in such things - apart from their existence of course.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Seems a waste of time then for some of us to way up the evidence and evaluating such in our thinking, and find it lacking, given so many don't seem to have any feelings (for or against) as to whether religions or the existence of God/gods are correct or not. I don't seem to have had such throughout my life - it just doesn't matter to me - and I do recognise that so many do find religions to have value in their lives. To me it purely is down to the weight of evidence being against religions having the truthfulness that they espouse. And that we can live without such beliefs.

Hence, my choice not to believe the evidence used to promote religions leads to a non-belief in such things - apart from their existence of course.

Do you never wonder who you or what you are? Or have the sense of being a part of something greater than yourself? Have you honestly never tried talking directly to God, or listening in the silence for an inner voice not perhaps your own?

 

[PureX]

Is belief a choice? Why or why not?

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

It's a choice only so long as we have not allowed ourselves to become enslaved by our own biases. And by the dictates of our own egos.

Personally, I see belief as little more than an unnecessary expression of egotism, anyway.

 

[Mock Turtle]

Do you never wonder who you or what you are? Or have the sense of being a part of something greater than yourself? Have you honestly never tried talking directly to God, or listening in the silence for an inner voice not perhaps your own?

Of course I have wondered about myself as an individual and as part of existence, but mostly I try to place myself and all humans within the sphere of reality - as to where we have come from (long line of ancestors and such - from good evidence) and as to how we relate to all other life. This is foremost in my thinking.

And I seem to know enough about how our minds work - evolved over time - to know that we can so easily be deceived by our thinking. Hence why I would not necessarily trust any inner voice - which could be mistaken for any God replying to any such supposed communications. I've mentioned this before, in a quite trivial way, as to catching my inner voice out - as to not telling the truth. But no, I've never really tried to communicate with God - given that I doubt I would know if any reaction was true or not. How would I know?

Why would you accept anything as coming from God - apart from a desire to believe such?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Are you suggesting that thinking plays second fiddle to feelings - and all the time?

Well, yes, in a sense.
Here is an example. E.g. when someone says - God is real - then that matters to the person. Likewise when someone says - Objective reality is real and physical - then that matters to the person.
It is not so much that there is something as whatever God/objective reality is, it is that it matters to a given human, that it is.

And in the general sense look at Maslow's model of psychological needs.