Belief - repost

[andrewducker]

Question three was borked. Rewritten to actually cover all the bases, and not be internally contradictory. Apologies to the 7 people who already filled it in!

[Poll #1427776]

Comments

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

You can't be sure that your beliefs are accurate. They're beliefs. Anyone who didn't tick the last option is a) wrong, b) deluded, c) irrational or d) a monkey who can't use a mouse properly. (I might be persuaded to make exceptions for people who ticked the second one, on a case-by-case basis.) The use of the word 'belief' clearly implies irrationality, because beliefs are irrational! Belief in anything is irrational, because the word 'belief' implies, at least to me, that you don't have proof for it.

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

You can't be sure that your beliefs are accurate.

Equally, what proof do you have that any of the people responding to this actually exist?

[andrewducker]

Of course I can't be _certain_ that my beliefs are accurate. I can merely be confident that they match with my observations of the universe and logical hypotheses based thereon. That's as good as it's going to get, and good enough for me to be _near_ certain, and to act as if they were true outside of philosophical discussions of this nature.

[khbrown.livejournal.com]

But do we ever have proof for anything? I believe the sun will rise tomorrow, or that gravity will continue to apply tomorrow, but I don't have proof. I do, however, have probability, though that might also be questionable (what if I believe in probability?)