THE IMPORTANCE OF BELIEF SYSTEMS ================================ understanding yourself requires understanding your belief system its very difficult to learn anything that contradicts your beliefs any motivation you have to improve yourself or your life requires that you improve your belief system to accommodate how you want to grow ------------------------------------------------------------- A challenge means finding a solution to a problem. The challenge of virtue is to find solutions to various problems involved in improving yourself as a person and how to live a better life. Every person has a belief system they live by. All decisions involved in living your life are based on this belief system. Improving yourself and your life depends fundamentally on improving your belief system. Children can be taught to believe absolutely anything, whether right or wrong, or rational or not. As they get older, they will discover mistakes or omissions in their beliefs and make corrections. At some point as they mature, their belief system becomes fixed, and further corrections or improvements become very difficult. -------------------------------------------------------------- When I was about 6 or 7 years old, the mercury space program was happening. Every month or two, there would be a rocket launch for one of the mercury missions. Everyone would be at the TV, watching. The astronauts were launching into space, higher than planes fly, beyond the atmosphere, then orbiting around the entire world. This was unbelievably amazing to me. While watching one of the launches, I was so fascinated by everything that I asked the adults a question -- "How big is space?" They actually couldn't answer the question. The answers were something like "Nobody knows" or "Very big". I was very confused that they didn't know. I thought about a space ship travelling away from earth through space, going on and on. How far could it go? If it came to a wall, couldn't it just make a hole in the wall and keep going? No matter how far it goes, there would always be something farther. The ship would just keep going forever and there would never be an end. So, by working out the concept of infinity, I found the answer. This was a mystery to me, that I could find the answer, but the adults could not. It was confusing, but I didn't really see any significance in this at the time. Over the years since, I have occasionally thought about this and came to realize this experience changed my entire education. From that point on, I became very skeptical about what adults told me. I always questioned everything I learned, wondering if what they told me was correct. I never told them I was questioning them. I just never relied on what I learned to be correct, and would look for ways to verify what I learned. Even if something seemed to be absolutely right or wrong, I would still question it. I believe this skepticism led me to develop a very flexible belief system, never relying on anything I know to be unconditionally correct, being always very open to all possibilities. --------------------------------------- how powerful is belief. consider a very simple example. each fall as families get their kids ready for the new school year they go out and get all their supplies and a backpack when I was a kid, we got all our supplies each year, but no backpack for millions of years (slight exaggeration), kids never used backpacks to carry their things to school why did no one ever think of making it easier for kids to carry their things one day, someone gets a backpack for their kid, and virtually overnight, every kid in the world starts using backpacks for school it seems so obvious that it is hard to believe no one could see such a simple solution people are stuck with the way they believe things should be your brain is doing this automatically and subconsciously if you dont understand this, you will never see the information you need to find solutions to problems --------------------------------------- how to analyze a problem be positive - strong motivation to succeed identify all factors overcome biases don't interpret the problem to fit known solutions don't be controlled by your belief system learn what are the relationships between all the factors solutions are found (not created) biases in your belief system will prevent you from finding all the factors and how all the factors are connected if you believe something to be unconditionally true or false your subconscious mind will discard any information that contradicts your belief this is the primary obstacle to finding solutions to problems the objective is to reach the point where you can fully understand the problem when you reach that point, the solution will be revealed ------------------------------------------- BELIEF SYSTEM ============= Beliefs are our brain’s way of making sense of and navigating our complex world mental representations of the ways we expect things and people to behave (and how to behave in return) and how things should be related to each other patterns we expect the world to conform to Beliefs are templates for efficient learning (often essential for survival) shortcuts for pattern recognition while processing vast amounts of information Beliefs allow the brain to distill complex information enabling it to quickly categorize and evaluate information and to jump to conclusions beliefs provide shortcuts for interpreting and predicting our world often involving connecting dots and filling in gaps, making extrapolations and assumptions based on incomplete information based on similarity to previously recognized patterns our brains have a preference for familiar conclusions over unfamiliar ones (Procrustean) the default tendency is to fit new information into existing frameworks, rather than repeatedly reconstructing frameworks from scratch frequently leads to jumping to conclusions our brains are prone to error, sometimes seeing patterns where there are none errors may (or not) be subsequently identified and corrected by error-detection processes It’s a trade-off between efficiency and accuracy beliefs are stronger than knowledge ----------------------------------- we find it hard to accept that perceptions are sometimes subjectively distorted and that they are not necessarily reliable experiences of objective reality People tend to trust their physical senses and to believe their perceptions even when they are hallucinating and no matter how bizarre their perceptual distortions People will layer explanations over their perception of reality to explain away contradictions we give our beliefs and subjective experience too much credence We will more readily explain away evidence that contradicts our beliefs by expanding and elaborating beliefs with additional layers of distorted explanation rather than abandoning or fundamentally restructuring those beliefs beliefs preserve stable, familiar approaches to processing information about our world (cognitive homeostasis) when we experience cognitive dissonance, it is easier to resolve this discomfort by doubling down on our existing belief system ignoring or explaining away the challenging, contradictory information A consistent sense of self, and personal investment in one’s beliefs -------------------------------------------------------------------- our beliefs are often intertwined with how we define ourselves as individuals (self-concept) beliefs are associated with a part of the brain integrally involved in self-representation (ventromedial prefrontal cortex) We want to feel that we are consistent, with our behavior aligning with our beliefs We constantly try to rationalize our actions and beliefs trying to preserve a consistent self-image when forced to admit that we are fundamentally wrong it’s embarrassing and often costly in a variety of (psychological or emotional) ways people often have a lot invested personally in their belief system They may have staked their reputation on a particular belief many people structure their whole lives around a belief this may go far beyond a sense of self extending to large material and financial investments or a life’s career A change of belief for such a person could be emotionally traumatic and may produce intolerable personal losses The social dimension of belief ------------------------------ much of our belief framework is learned at an early age from parents and other adult authority figures Many human beliefs are the cumulative products of millennia of human culture Children are strongly predisposed to believe their parents and, as adults, inclined to believe authorities our brains have evolved to more readily believe things told to us than to be skeptical This makes sense as a strategy for efficient learning from parents as a social, tribal species, it promotes group cohesion People can be swayed by persuasive individuals or compelling ideas overriding and rejecting their previously received authority this is sometimes rational, sometimes not people are susceptible to influence by charismatic ideologues and by social movements Especially when these offer new attachments and new self-identities imbued with more powerful affiliation, validation, esteem and sense of purpose than the individual previously had in their life Science and the excitement of proving ourselves wrong ----------------------------------------------------- Science values the changing of minds through disproving previously held beliefs and challenging received authority with new evidence This is in sharp contrast to faith (not just religious faith) Faith is far more natural and intuitive to the human brain than is science Science requires training, a disciplined method to systematically overcome our intuitions and cognitive biases and follow the evidence regardless of our prior beliefs, expectations, preferences or personal investment Faith is based on belief without evidence, whereas science is based on evidence without belief