Thursday, March 10, 2005

Be Careful What You Believe In

At Kuro5hin,

"Beliefs are powerful, because they are not only the basis for our decisions, but also filters through which we view the world. We are constantly bombarded with huge volumes of information from our senses. Our eyes take in a full 120 degree sweep, much of this at a very high resolution, our ears are constantly responding to sounds, our sense of smell always probing the air around us for food or threats. The vast majority of this torrent of information is effectively ignored. Based on the information we get from the senses, we form a model of the world and it is this model, which forms the basis for our decisions. Absolute truth is out there, but in our heads everything is to a greater or lesser extent an interpretation. For any set of sensory data more than one interpretation is possible, and it is our beliefs, implicit and explicit, which we use to decide between the interpretations available...

Simply being aware of the effects that our beliefs have on our perception, frees us to some extent from their power and enables us to view the world from other perspectives. Once we have decided what to believe, we can then fix that belief by examining the world in the light of the new belief and looking at the form which it takes on. If we so decide then we can further fix the belief by acting at all times as if it were true. The mind does not deal well with contradictions between thought and action, and after sufficient time the actions will cement the belief. In this way, we can decide rationally on what to believe and thus shape for ourselves the world in which we live."

No comments: