Topic2: *Belief*

Belief is our everything, how we understand and embrace it.

Does belief rule our world?

How do we change belief?

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Our senses and logic bring us belief.  Genetics and physical constitution must contribute, but still, belief seems to be mainly a mental production.

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Belief seems largely driven by our perception of the environment and our social learning.

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We build beliefs by perceiving our universe, learning from our own studies and those of others.

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We may built trust in a belief based on trust of our senses, our environment & our teachers.

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How we interpret our senses and experience, our reason, also directly builds and supports our beliefs.

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For each person each of these is without question different:

•life experience

•sense of reason

•location

•brain

•sensory organs

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Naturally our beliefs are different.

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 We face each day with a belief system that may or may not conflict with others around us.

How do we navigate this?

I often suspend disbelief (but still react to safety risks).

I remain agnostic about a subject to avoid conflict while I analyze data and to function socially.

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Does belief rule our world?

Most of our actions occur because we are acting on our beliefs.

Seems obvious that we should be careful what we believe.

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We learn what to believe.

Is it more important to learn how to believe?

Emphasis on verifying our senses & checking our reason?

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We may form a belief and take care doing so but

What if some new contradictory evidence arrives?

and maybe the evidence is suggestive but not convincing.

How do we change belief?

We must be fully convinced in a new belief & reject the old belief, otherwise we are left uncertain.

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In our life, we are often left uncertain, yet are still required to develop a belief regardless of the possibly confusing and changing data.

This is when society, especially our closest contacts and the media entities we follow, can really influence us.

Note: Verify our sources.

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Beliefs can form from conscious decision, such as induction and inference, based on (perhaps inconclusive) evidence that’s also influenced by social suggestion and pressure.

Social influence like modern media can cause a decision to believe that isn’t totally conclusive.

Be careful.

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Ultimately, belief changes with mounting evidence.

At a point, logical deduction concludes without question that new belief is true

because there appears to be no way it could be otherwise.

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We are always learning;

Evidence drives belief;

Our senses & social input also determine belief.

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