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Jan. 15th, 2002 02:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
johnpalmerI think the world needs more words for belief.
I was thinking about this earlier today. See, like, I "believe" that there's a computer under my fingers, and I "believe" that thousands of people were killed on September 11th, but even those are two types of beliefs. THe computer is here, and I see it, feel it, and can test it. For it to be false, I'd have to be insane.
(Let's not get too crazy, here... it could be that I only see the computer because I am insane, and the computer could only exist because I choose to perceive it. But that's not the type of silly philosophy I want to discuss)
The belief about thousands of deaths is one of those things... first, it's too abstract. I have a hard time imagining a thousand beings. Second, although the amount of secondary evidence is huge, I could be much less insane and still find out that I was wrong about it. (Wouldn't it be kind of funny if this were like the movies, and something terrible happened, and I just translated it into other images that my brain could handle? Hey, maybe I didn't actually wake up on September 11th, and I'm dead, and this is all being transcribed by a little kid who... never mind.)
("Yeah, but the really awesome thing about "Die Hard" is that Bruce Willis is actually dead. You see, the kid can see dead people...")
("Yeah, but the big thing about Star Wars is, see, Vader is actually dead. See, the kid can see dead people...")
(What if "the kid" is actually R2-D2, and Vader *IS* actually dead all along and... no, I *DO NOT* want to go there. Especially not with the "R2-D2: Secret Jedi Master" folks out there)
Ahem. Back to seriousness.
Anyway, there are classes of belief. But then I was thinking about something earlier.
I can declare that it's "true" that I can help people sometimes. I think it'd be foolish not to believe that, given how many times I can recall doing things that made people feel better, or happier, or something.
When I'm depressed, that 'belief' isn't there. Or, rather, yes, you could force me to admit it, but it'd be dry words.
Heck, you could catch me depressed, and maybe I'd say "sure, *SOMETIMES* I can help people, but right now..." and let the sentence trail off. And then you could say "You know, I have a friend who (etc.)", and my mind would start siezing on the clues you're dropping about your feelings, about the other person's feelings, and there'd be a good chance I'd throw off a few insights that might be helpful, and, if nothing else, you'd know I was listening, and that might make you feel better.
So you could even prove it to me, as much as you can 'prove' there's a computer whose keyboard I'm typing on right now.
But I don't have any real belief in it.
This is kind of important, too, because it touches on other things. People look down on, say, blacks growing up in the inner cities for not "valuing education enough". But these down-lookers believe that education is valuable, just as I believe I can help when I'm not depressed. I don't think black kids growing up in the inner city believe education can mean salvation, even if they are taught to parrot the words, and even if you 'prove' it to them the way you can prove that I can help folks.
I'd use the word "faith" versus "belief", maybe, but I consider "faith" to be akin to believing "I'm useful" or "I can help people" when I'm depressed. Faith is holding on to an idea when you know you can't prove it. Faith is saying "what I do matters" when you feel lonely and helpless and like a tiny speck on a tiny speck in a universe so big that you couldn't possible matter.
At least, that's what I consider it to be.
But then, the Catholic church (and probably others) consider faith a gift of the holy spirit, so it can't be the same thing... a conscious decision to hold on to an idea can't be a "gift". But then again, the ability to make that conscious decision, when you wouldn't have had that ability, could be a gift as well, couldn't it? Wouldn't it be a magical gift if, when I said "but I can help people", when depressed, I felt some essential truth, instead of complete emotional blankness?
But the key thing is, I think, belief has to have at least two parts... an intellectual part and a more emotional part.
Maybe what I want is "truth" versus "fact". I can believe a 'fact', but it's dry, and unemotional, whereas believing a truth requires something more fundamental.
What else am I thinking of these days? Well, if matter creates space, then more matter creates more space, and *THAT* is why gravity exists, maybe... a spaceship orbitting earth is sitting on a patch of space it's created, and laying on a much bigger patch of space that the earth has created. When it travels, it's travelling along its own space *AND* earth's space, and if it's travelling along both proportionately, it'll bend towards the earth, based on how much space it has (its mass) versus how much space the earth has (the earth's mass) and how much those two-space amounts affect each other (the square of the distance, just like Newton figured).
But the key is, as its travelling in "the earth's space", it has to move *THROUGH* the earth's space, and that is what shapes its path. The more of Earth's space it's moving through, the more its path is bent towards the earth.
So maybe gravity works because more massive objects have so much more "concentrated space" in them.
Boy do I wish I had the skills in analysis to do more work on this. (And that I wasn't trying to think of a story to write, and that I wasn't trying to program, and....) I think I might understand this model of the universe.
And I'm also thinking about why I used to be able to let a Caramello bar piece melt away totally (at least one side of it) before chewing. Pretty heavy stuff, eh?
I was thinking about this earlier today. See, like, I "believe" that there's a computer under my fingers, and I "believe" that thousands of people were killed on September 11th, but even those are two types of beliefs. THe computer is here, and I see it, feel it, and can test it. For it to be false, I'd have to be insane.
(Let's not get too crazy, here... it could be that I only see the computer because I am insane, and the computer could only exist because I choose to perceive it. But that's not the type of silly philosophy I want to discuss)
The belief about thousands of deaths is one of those things... first, it's too abstract. I have a hard time imagining a thousand beings. Second, although the amount of secondary evidence is huge, I could be much less insane and still find out that I was wrong about it. (Wouldn't it be kind of funny if this were like the movies, and something terrible happened, and I just translated it into other images that my brain could handle? Hey, maybe I didn't actually wake up on September 11th, and I'm dead, and this is all being transcribed by a little kid who... never mind.)
("Yeah, but the really awesome thing about "Die Hard" is that Bruce Willis is actually dead. You see, the kid can see dead people...")
("Yeah, but the big thing about Star Wars is, see, Vader is actually dead. See, the kid can see dead people...")
(What if "the kid" is actually R2-D2, and Vader *IS* actually dead all along and... no, I *DO NOT* want to go there. Especially not with the "R2-D2: Secret Jedi Master" folks out there)
Ahem. Back to seriousness.
Anyway, there are classes of belief. But then I was thinking about something earlier.
I can declare that it's "true" that I can help people sometimes. I think it'd be foolish not to believe that, given how many times I can recall doing things that made people feel better, or happier, or something.
When I'm depressed, that 'belief' isn't there. Or, rather, yes, you could force me to admit it, but it'd be dry words.
Heck, you could catch me depressed, and maybe I'd say "sure, *SOMETIMES* I can help people, but right now..." and let the sentence trail off. And then you could say "You know, I have a friend who (etc.)", and my mind would start siezing on the clues you're dropping about your feelings, about the other person's feelings, and there'd be a good chance I'd throw off a few insights that might be helpful, and, if nothing else, you'd know I was listening, and that might make you feel better.
So you could even prove it to me, as much as you can 'prove' there's a computer whose keyboard I'm typing on right now.
But I don't have any real belief in it.
This is kind of important, too, because it touches on other things. People look down on, say, blacks growing up in the inner cities for not "valuing education enough". But these down-lookers believe that education is valuable, just as I believe I can help when I'm not depressed. I don't think black kids growing up in the inner city believe education can mean salvation, even if they are taught to parrot the words, and even if you 'prove' it to them the way you can prove that I can help folks.
I'd use the word "faith" versus "belief", maybe, but I consider "faith" to be akin to believing "I'm useful" or "I can help people" when I'm depressed. Faith is holding on to an idea when you know you can't prove it. Faith is saying "what I do matters" when you feel lonely and helpless and like a tiny speck on a tiny speck in a universe so big that you couldn't possible matter.
At least, that's what I consider it to be.
But then, the Catholic church (and probably others) consider faith a gift of the holy spirit, so it can't be the same thing... a conscious decision to hold on to an idea can't be a "gift". But then again, the ability to make that conscious decision, when you wouldn't have had that ability, could be a gift as well, couldn't it? Wouldn't it be a magical gift if, when I said "but I can help people", when depressed, I felt some essential truth, instead of complete emotional blankness?
But the key thing is, I think, belief has to have at least two parts... an intellectual part and a more emotional part.
Maybe what I want is "truth" versus "fact". I can believe a 'fact', but it's dry, and unemotional, whereas believing a truth requires something more fundamental.
What else am I thinking of these days? Well, if matter creates space, then more matter creates more space, and *THAT* is why gravity exists, maybe... a spaceship orbitting earth is sitting on a patch of space it's created, and laying on a much bigger patch of space that the earth has created. When it travels, it's travelling along its own space *AND* earth's space, and if it's travelling along both proportionately, it'll bend towards the earth, based on how much space it has (its mass) versus how much space the earth has (the earth's mass) and how much those two-space amounts affect each other (the square of the distance, just like Newton figured).
But the key is, as its travelling in "the earth's space", it has to move *THROUGH* the earth's space, and that is what shapes its path. The more of Earth's space it's moving through, the more its path is bent towards the earth.
So maybe gravity works because more massive objects have so much more "concentrated space" in them.
Boy do I wish I had the skills in analysis to do more work on this. (And that I wasn't trying to think of a story to write, and that I wasn't trying to program, and....) I think I might understand this model of the universe.
And I'm also thinking about why I used to be able to let a Caramello bar piece melt away totally (at least one side of it) before chewing. Pretty heavy stuff, eh?
