Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Terrapin Station]

"where would could call that" = "where we could call that"

[Consul]

A disposition to believe something isn't the same thing as believing something.
A disposition for a property to flood isn't the same thing as the property being flooded. We're not going to call the disposition to flood a "non-phenomenal flood" or a "non-actualized flood" or something like that. It's not a flood. We don't say that the flood is a "manifestation of the non-actualized flood"--that would be ontological nonsense. The disposition is just a tendency to flood under the right conditions.
Same thing for beliefs.

Yet another misunderstanding: Indeed, there is a difference between believing that p and being disposed to believe that p; but to call a belief a disposition (dispositional state) is to say that your believing that p disposes you to do certain other things such as silently or nonsilently saying "I believe that p". Beliefs are dispositions to verbal or nonverbal behavior.

[h_k_s]

I can envision the populations of the Earth someday progressing to the level of protein farming, such as with soy beans, peanuts, other beans, meal worms, etc.

But it would require a radical shift away from capitalism and warfare first.

If climate change and mining continue to reduce the amount of arable land available, then your prediction may come true sooner than expected.

Climate change simply changes growing seasons and moves growing latitudes towards or away from the equator or poles.

Mining must be regulated to prevent destruction of the environment.

[Terrapin Station]

A disposition to believe something isn't the same thing as believing something.
A disposition for a property to flood isn't the same thing as the property being flooded. We're not going to call the disposition to flood a "non-phenomenal flood" or a "non-actualized flood" or something like that. It's not a flood. We don't say that the flood is a "manifestation of the non-actualized flood"--that would be ontological nonsense. The disposition is just a tendency to flood under the right conditions.
Same thing for beliefs.

Yet another misunderstanding: Indeed, there is a difference between believing that p and being disposed to believe that p; but to call a belief a disposition (dispositional state) is to say that your believing that p disposes you to do certain other things such as silently or nonsilently saying "I believe that p". Beliefs are dispositions to verbal or nonverbal behavior.

In which case this wouldn't have anything to do with positing beliefs that we're not conscious of.

[Terrapin Station]

In other words, if I have a belief (represented by, not literally) a la "My car is parked on Main Street," then how could that possibly serve as evidence that I have (or had) an unconscious belief (represented by--and I'm not going to keep typing this stupid, unnecessary parenthetical) "My car is parked on Main Street"?

I think you are confusing "belief" with "knowledge." Semantics maybe, but still a definitional issue.

Knowledge is justified true belief. In other words, it's a belief for which we have justification and for which we judge it to be true.

So all knowledge is belief. Not all belief is knowledge (beliefs that has no justification and/or that we don't judge to be true wouldn't be knowledge).

[Consul]

In which case this wouldn't have anything to do with positing beliefs that we're not conscious of.

I didn't say that you are never conscious of your belief that p, or that you are never conscious that you believe that p. What I said is that your belief that p is not itself a phenomenally conscious state. That is, there are no belief-experiences or experiential, experienced believings. Beliefs are never part of the stream of subjective experience. It follows that you don't have direct introspective access to your beliefs. What you have direct introspective access to are episodes of thinking or inner speaking of the form "I believe that p", which are experiential expressions or manifestations of the underlying nonexperiential belief that p.

Oh hell, I'm sorry. This is absolutely off-topic here, so we shouldn't continue to discuss it here.

[Terrapin Station]

I didn't say that you are never conscious of your belief that p, or that you are never conscious that you believe that p. What I said is that your belief that p is not itself a phenomenally conscious state. That is, there are no belief-experiences or experiential, experienced believings. Beliefs are never part of the stream of subjective experience.

You'd have to explain why you'd say this/how it makes the slightest bit of sense to you.

You'd be positing that beliefs are something other than what you're aware of presumably, right? Why would you be positing that?

Why wouldn't beliefs be a phenomenally conscious state? How would any conscious state not be a phenomenally conscious state? How would any conscious state not be experience/experiential? How would any conscious state not be part of the stream of subjective experience? That all seems completely incoherent.

[Terrapin Station]

In which case this wouldn't have anything to do with positing beliefs that we're not conscious of.

I didn't say that you are never conscious of your belief that p, or that you are never conscious that you believe that p. What I said is that your belief that p is not itself a phenomenally conscious state. That is, there are no belief-experiences or experiential, experienced believings. Beliefs are never part of the stream of subjective experience. It follows that you don't have direct introspective access to your beliefs. What you have direct introspective access to are episodes of thinking or inner speaking of the form "I believe that p", which are experiential expressions or manifestations of the underlying nonexperiential belief that p.

Oh hell, I'm sorry. This is absolutely off-topic here, so we shouldn't continue to discuss it here.

And please don't just quote stuff in answer to my questions unless you're prepared to support/explain claims made in what you're quoting.

[Sy Borg]

My understanding is that cognitive therapy aims to find unconscious beliefs that hold people back.

Sure, which on my view amounts to working with a fictional picture that we have no reason to assert. It might be handy instrumentally, but it's not literally the case. (Or at least there's no good reason to believe that it's literally the case.)

People are often shaped by unconscious beliefs, generally ingrained in childhood.

Remember the Jesuit claim¹ 'give me a child until the age of seven and I will give you the man'. Conditioning of the young mind to hold automatic beliefs in maturity.

-------------
1. This quote seems especially sinister after the findings of various commissions of inquiry!

[h_k_s]

I think you are confusing "belief" with "knowledge." Semantics maybe, but still a definitional issue.

Knowledge is justified true belief. In other words, it's a belief for which we have justification and for which we judge it to be true.

So all knowledge is belief. Not all belief is knowledge (beliefs that has no justification and/or that we don't judge to be true wouldn't be knowledge).

Sorry Terrapin Station but I don't agree that one is a subset of the other, either way.

"Belief" is more of a notion somewhere on the scale or continuum of understanding:

- guess
- suspicion
- idea
- assumption
- belief
- knowledge
- understanding
- proof

Here, a "guess," "suspicion," "idea," "assumption," and "belief" are simply unfounded notions.

Whereas "knowledge," "understanding," and "proof" are certain and well founded.

You know you parked your car somewhere.

You guess it is still where you parked it.

You suspect that nobody has moved it or taken it away.

You have an idea of where you parked it.

You are assuming it is still there.

You have a belief that it is safe there and still there.

But you don't know and you have no proof at the moment.

You won't know until you go back and find it in the same place.

And even then you can only assume it has not moved since you parked it there.

Semantics, I know, but there are very subtle differences in the meanings and usages of these precise words.

[Terrapin Station]

People are often shaped by unconscious beliefs, generally ingrained in childhood.

Obviously that's something I don't buy, as I don't agree that there are any good reasons to posit that there are unconscious beliefs.

People are definitely influenced by various things they experience in childhood, but I wouldn't say that unconscious beliefs have anything to do with it.

[Terrapin Station]

Knowledge is justified true belief. In other words, it's a belief for which we have justification and for which we judge it to be true.

So all knowledge is belief. Not all belief is knowledge (beliefs that has no justification and/or that we don't judge to be true wouldn't be knowledge).

Sorry @Terrapin Station but I don't agree that one is a subset of the other, either way.

"Belief" is more of a notion somewhere on the scale or continuum of understanding:

- guess
- suspicion
- idea
- assumption
- belief
- knowledge
- understanding
- proof

Here, a "guess," "suspicion," "idea," "assumption," and "belief" are simply unfounded notions.

Whereas "knowledge," "understanding," and "proof" are certain and well founded.

You know you parked your car somewhere.

You guess it is still where you parked it.

You suspect that nobody has moved it or taken it away.

You have an idea of where you parked it.

You are assuming it is still there.

You have a belief that it is safe there and still there.

But you don't know and you have no proof at the moment.

You won't know until you go back and find it in the same place.

And even then you can only assume it has not moved since you parked it there.

Semantics, I know, but there are very subtle differences in the meanings and usages of these precise words.

Do you think it makes sense to say, "I know that 2+2=4, but I don't believe that 2+2=4"?

If you met someone in a bar, where you were having a casual conversation with them, and they said, "I don't believe that 2+2=4," you wouldn't think, "Wait a minute--you don't believe that 2+2=4?!?!? What do you think that 2+2 equals?"

[Pattern-chaser]

Harvesting trees and plants is a right of the land owner under common, Federal/National, State/provincial, and local law.

Plants are fodder for animals. That hardly suggests a notion of equality. Everything occupies a different level on the food chain.

The ownership of land, and the 'right' to harvest plants, are human inventions. Your responses seem to show an antipathy toward other living things, a belief that all of these other lives are there exclusively for humans to [ab]use as they see fit. Sadly this leads to the conclusion that it doesn't really matter if plants are alive or not, or if they are in any sense on a moral par with animals. All of them are there for you, and the many, many humans who share your view, to use as you see fit. To you, I suggest, this topic has neither use nor meaning. Is that about right?

[Sy Borg]

People are often shaped by unconscious beliefs, generally ingrained in childhood.

Obviously that's something I don't buy, as I don't agree that there are any good reasons to posit that there are unconscious beliefs.

People are definitely influenced by various things they experience in childhood, but I wouldn't say that unconscious beliefs have anything to do with it.

You took the quote out of context, removing what was already a counter to your reply. Context removal is an issue on this forum, resulting in circular "discussions".

Remember the Jesuit claim 'give me a child until the age of seven and I will give you the man'. Conditioning of the young mind to hold automatic beliefs in maturity.

All people have unconscious beliefs, including you. It is unavoidable. Most are trivial, but not all.

[Terrapin Station]

You took the quote out of context

Nope. The context is there for everyone to see. It's idiotic to think that one has to quote the entirety of something or one is "taking the quote out of context." The reason to quote just a section of something is to emphasize what one is commenting on. If the original text weren't immediately above in its entirety, then maybe this would be a problem, but that's not how message boards work.

All people have unconscious beliefs, including you.

Again, there's zero reason to believe this. You'd have to present evidence of unconscious beliefs, but you can not, because you can't present evidence of someone else's mental content period. The best we can do is to present a report from the bearer of the mental content in question, but the presumption here is that the bearer has mental content that they're not aware of. So how is anyone supposed to present evidence of something that no one can gain access to?