Authors Scott Hamilton
7 days
30 days
All time
Recent
Popular
Belief is a marriage between two functions of mind - emotion and explanation. It associates a feeling of confidence with an idea about how things are or should
Why should we be wary and cautious about our sense of confidence about what we know?
For the same reason Bertrand Russell's (metaphoric anthropomorphic) chicken should have been wary about the benevolent farmer (see quote at end of thread).
Had it conceived alternative theories about the farmer feeding it, it may have acted differently and had a better life outcome.
Although unlike in Russell's chicken metaphor, belief is not necessarily a consequence of the error of induction. Strictly speaking, it never is (again, refer to quote at end thread).
However, when one believes without an accompanying explicit argument (theory), it prevents any possibility for critically questioning the reasons for the belief.
Belief is an affective reflection on what one knows that applies some kind of inductive guess/bet as to what related knowledge will be discovered in future.
— Scott Hamilton (@DoqxaScott) December 7, 2020
Why should we be wary and cautious about our sense of confidence about what we know?
For the same reason Bertrand Russell's (metaphoric anthropomorphic) chicken should have been wary about the benevolent farmer (see quote at end of thread).
Had it conceived alternative theories about the farmer feeding it, it may have acted differently and had a better life outcome.
Although unlike in Russell's chicken metaphor, belief is not necessarily a consequence of the error of induction. Strictly speaking, it never is (again, refer to quote at end thread).
However, when one believes without an accompanying explicit argument (theory), it prevents any possibility for critically questioning the reasons for the belief.