Make believe
sive.rs
sive.rs
This is in contrast to the more widespread Correspondence Theory of Truth, which says that something is true if it corresponds to the way things actually are. This is a classical theory of truth held by both Aristotle and Aquinas.
Personally, I think the Correspondence Theory is far superior to the Pragmatic Theory. I don't want to believe in a religion because it feels good to believe in it. I want to believe in it because it's actually telling us true things about the way things actually are.
By the way, there are many other theories of truth, some quite out there. This entry on truth in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy gives a good overview: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth/
I'm not versed in philosophy, but reading your comment, I think I adhere to the Correspondence Theory of Truth, in the way that science IS true, science is THE truth. But religion is useful to me, it reassures me, so it is true TO ME, it is MY truth, so I might also adhere to the Pragmatic Theory of Truth.
In the end, I know full well how to differentiate between those two aspects of my beliefs system, and I think both have their uses and both could live together in the human mind, as long as you know which one to use in which situation.
There can never be evidence from science on God, but there are logical proofs for the existence of God:
* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35592365-five-proofs-of-...
If you hold to a pragmatic theory of truth, these two questions might be related.
But if you instead hold to a correspondence theory of truth (as Aristotle did), you can still acknowledge that what is helpful to one person might not be helpful to another. But you would assert that it has nothing fundamental to do with whether something is true or not.
I've read a dozen comments and, except one by some adolph about models, all of you seem to have read a different article.
>>> "None of these statements are true." <<<
>>> "while knowing they are make believe" <<<
That doesn't sound like some alternative theory of truth. To me, at least.
[For me] All that seems to reinforce the need for the 'correspondence' variety of truth. Smith is free to believe all sorts of non-sense, and this in fact happens in real life all the time. People around us have all sorts of funny theories about the world and reality. We all have them. That sort of 'knowledge' -- actionable and informative theories about the world regardless of completeness or factuality -- serves its purpose in every day life. The degree to which it is false and contextually relevant determines the probability of a collision between actual reality and one's theories about reality modulo 'chance' events. This is basically how human society operates and has operated for ever. We have (hopefully) learning agents navigating a partially error tolerant environment. "Live and learn". So this is a practical sort of knowledge that can be well served by a pragmatic take on truth.
The only question really is more fundamental and this asks if philosophy is itself a sort of mental appendix, a part that really serves no purpose :_, for every day conduct of life. To wit, this 'unassailable' sort of knowledge, who needs it? And if we can't answer that, why ask the question?
Religion terrifies me, I don't feel wonderful thinking about eternal existence in the afterlife. Even if there was some proof that the afterlife did exist, I would most likely pretend it doesn't exist.
You can get a sense of community doing many other things.
> Same with philosophies, nationalities, norms, and concepts like loyalty, destiny, and identity. None of these are true. But they are useful.
I don't know what this means. How can nationalities not be true? Philosophies do not claim to be true, they are just a logically consistent framework.
No idea how it applies to concepts either.
As for philosophies, he’s referring to living your life by any particular philosophy, whether or not it’s “objectively” the best way to live.
I find it very hard to make the mental leap between religion and nationalities. I think the correct thing to actually discuss is if "nations" are true. Nationality just means you belong to a nation, by definition.
If we stopped believing in nations, people would still form groups. Groups would organise and govern, nations are reborn again.
I think as long as humans are social creatures, nations are about as "true" as you can get. They are inevitable in my opinion.
Religion on the other hand, if people stop believing in it, it ceases to exist.
> As for philosophies, he’s referring to living your life by any particular philosophy, whether or not it’s “objectively” the best way to live.
Okay, I misunderstood that part. I thought they were talking about the study of philosophy. I agree that living your life by a philosophy does not make it true. But I suspect most people that follow a particular philosophy would not claim it is "true", but maybe I'm in a bit of a bubble.
Well, nation-states didn't exist until the 19th century/late 18th century, so there's that.
Just for example, 'Italians' didn't exist until the late 19th century, and it took another 30 - 50 years for people in places like Sicily and Naples to see themselves as 'Italian': most immigrants from Italy to America spoke Sicilianu (featured in The Godfather and Boardwalk Empire) or Napolitano (featured in The Sopranos), not 'Italian', which IIRC is actually Tuscan, the language of Tuscany.
Similiar story in France, where a national identity only emerged after the Revolution and the top-down imposition of French-ness; people largely spoke their regional derivative of vulgar Latin like Occitan or Picard. Hard to talk about a 'nation' when there are around 20 regional languages spoken in your borders. 'French', as we know it, is the language of the ils-de-France urban center that was imposed on everyone else; like wise with 'Italian'.
So I don't think 'nations' are inevitable, they're a fairly recent and well-documented phenomena that we don't really have to guess about its causes and origin.
A kingdom is not a nation-state, a kingdom is a large piece of real estate whose legal identity is that of the monarch's body, or, where breaking the law is a personal attack on the King or Queen (hence, the King's peace). Even if you are King of all England, like Aethelstan was, you are not the leader of a nation because that is an altogether distinct entity, one where the law is ostensibly an expression of the unitary will and identity of the people irrespective of the offices of power (read: a constitution).
So if people don't see themselves as a unitary identity with others hundreds of miles away, the nation will cease to exist. The American Civil War was just such an incident.
Those people are either Czech, Slovak, Serb, Slovenes, Croat... Rather easy to answer.
Many of those Eastern European languages are more of a sliding scale than divided by country borders. Moldovan and Romanian are basically the same thing.
I met someone on my travels from Italy who was Italian, but only spoke German, as they do in parts of Northern Italy.
Is something part of objective material reality. Is something a valid logical inference. Is something an action which had the desired result even if the result was not caused, even indirectly, by the action itself.
I've had a university course where Benedict Anderson's "Imagined Communities" was taught: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagined_Communities
It's been most interesting. I highly recommend it.
Do you have a strong sense of community yourself -- and what other things have you found most gives you community?
Citation needed.
Edit: the fact that this is being downvoted is hilarious. Religion is a helluva drug.
The primary benefits seem to be the sense of belonging, support, purpose, and convenient explanations that difficult circumstances in their lives have a higher meaning.
It’s not for me, probably not for a lot of people in this comment section, but it’s clear to me from my experience that a lot of people do derive significant benefit from their religion. If you can’t understand why that might be the case for other people, you might be projecting too much of your own personality and circumstances on to others.
For example: New-ish research is showing that some surgeries are no better than placebo. https://www.painscience.com/biblio/four-orthopedic-surgeries...
Another fun example is that allergy drugs, which clinical trials have shown are effective in double-blind studies, are less effective if you watch an ad saying that drug is bad right before taking it. Nocebo effect. If you have a strong belief the drug works, it will work better. Placebo effect is strong even in drugs we know are not placebo. https://freakonomics.com/podcast/is-the-placebo-effect-for-r...
And then you have the whole field of management and business books. Very close to a sort of federated decentralized religion.
With religion, "god did it" and "god works in mysterious ways" is always the answer and behaviors can't be adjusted.
Why do we do these needless surgeries? God works in mysterious ways.
More importantly, we have evidence that believing something, anything, is really good for the human psyche. You can pull a meaning out of your arse tomorrow morning and that leads to better psychological outcomes than no meaning. Even something as simple as “I need to keep this potted plant alive” will work.
Viktor Frankl’s work is a good intro to that topic.
As an entrenched atheist (and by definition an atheist is also an individualist), by love, I attended mass most sundays for several years. I understood that I underrated the community part and that to belong I didn’t need to believe only respect. I didn’t convert (and most likely never will) but it softened my views.
No? By definition an atheist doesn't believe in the supernatural or divinity. Nothing about that proscribes individualism, nor does community presuppose religion or "softening one's views" on the existence of the supernatural, as you have. Plenty of atheists are also social people who enjoy the benefits of community, while remaining perfectly comfortable in their skin.
However, religious people are more likely to attend regular religious services, where they are likely to develop social connections. As social animals, social connections are great for our physical and mental well being. This is probably one of the factors that leads to religious people living longer, happier lives (Association of Religious Service Attendance With Mortality Among Women https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...)
You got the citation you wanted?
That said, I have always been fascinated by the fictional religion of Bokononism, which is centered around "Foma". Foma are beliefs that are acknowledged to be untrue, but which will make your life better if you believe them (or act as if you believed them) anyway. I find the metacognitive aspect intriguing.
Edit: what OP may have wanted to say is that « following a religion is a make-believe that also makes you believe what you do is good ». Which is not much more reassuring either (but an apt « mise en abyme » observation of what religion without a sane self-criticism can become)
Self-criticism, humility, ability to take a step back on one's own belief system with its intrinsic limits and issues are. Which is often harder for fundamentalists, whatever their base is.
> If someone says they know there is a teapot in orbit around Proxima Centauri and I disagree with them, neither of us can prove or disprove the other. That doesn't mean we both have an equal claim to being right.
I agree with you. No person is rationally justified in believing in such a teapot without evidence. However, a teapot is a contingent thing. Meaning it's very existence depends on the existence of other things (tea, water, the ceramic material that makes it up, Proxima Centauri etc.)
I suspect (I could be wrong here) that you are tacitly implying that people who assert the existence of God are making a similar move.
Please keep in mind that God is by definition base-reality and non-contingent and so exists necessarily.
To illustrate the difference here with an analogy: If we witnessed an alternative rendition of a conversation between Romeo and Juliet where they attempted to prove the existence of Shakespeare, we wouldn't be surprised if they failed to find evidence for Shakespeare from within the play and their own character existence. But at the same time we would find their conclusion absurd if they thought they had successfully proved that Shakespeare did not exist. They are Romeo and Juliet after all.
OP was referring to "billions of people" with certain beliefs. Most of these people believe in God as an entity with a personality who intervenes in events on Earth. That kind of God doesn't have to exist by necessity.
On the other hand, if we define God as base reality, then God exists by definition. In that case why not just call it "reality" or "the universe"? When most people say they believe in God, I don't think they are saying they believe in the universe. I think they are making a stronger claim than that.
I don't get what the Romeo and Juliet example is supposed to show. The base reality for Romeo and Juliet is our physical world rather than the play world, and God is Shakespeare who exists contingently in base reality. Yes, it's impossible for them to prove that God (Shakespeare) doesn't exist. But what reasons could Romeo and Juliet have for believing that Shakespeare exists or that they are living in a play world rather than base reality? Unless Shakespeare explicitly writes evidence of his existence into the play, their claims are on the same footing as Russell's teapot.
> if we define God as base reality, then God exists by definition.
Right. You are stating the conception of God that is advanced by Judaism and Christianity. Its succinct expression is put forth by Thomas Aquinas and can also be found in the thinking of Aristotle.
To get even more concrete, the Roman Catholic Church teaches that God is ipsum esse subsistens or roughly subsistent being itself.
> In that case why not just call it "reality" or "the universe"?
I think you're touching on a good point. Let me take each case separately because I see them as slightly different:
>> ... why not just call it "reality" ...
You sort of can. As long we acknowledge that reality is made up of things that are more and less contingent. For example I'm looking at my headphones as I type. I can say 'these headphones are reality'. Even though these headphones are real, we both know that they would be a terrible candidate for base reality itself since the headphones can't explain their own existence and are clearly contingent on other things in being. (similar to the teapot)
>> ... why not just call it ..."the universe" ...
Typically when people say "the universe" they are implying the sum total of all material reality as we observe it.
The question is: is this the best or even a good candidate for base-reality. I think the answer is no for a very simple reason. The universe changes. energy changes form, objects change in an emergent phenomena we call time, they move through space, there are stars and not stars, and atoms and not atoms etc.
Everything else that we know of or can conceive of that changes as much as the universe does is coupled to a more fundamental reality that is the cause and explanation of the change.
So the universe is real, like the headphones, it just can't be the best candidate for base-reality itself.
So what is a good candidate for base reality?
* For starters there is only one base-realty. If there were 2 or more then you would need something more fundamental to distinguish them.
* Whatever this base reality is, it's utterly simple. It has no parts since parts would require distinctions and more fundamental explanations to identify them.
* Base reality needs to be outside time and space, because of the whole can't change thing I eluded to earlier.
* Finally, anything that has the potential to actually exist in reality, is in some weird way already present in base-realty. This is just a different way of saying that base-reality is the cause (directly or indirectly) of all things. cause of all possible potential things -> all possible potentials -> all-potentials -> omni-potentials -> omnipotent.
So, by necessity there must be a base-reality that is at a minimum: one, simple, eternal, immaterial, and omnipotent.
We then assign (like a reference pointer :^) ), the english word God to whatever this best candidate for base reality is, being sure to acknowledge that we are really dealing with the best candidate.
const God = (maximally full expression of base reality)
> I don't get what the Romeo and Juliet example shows.
Apologies if this is not helpful. I offered this analogy to get closer the proper definition of God that I outlined above. In the same way Romeo and Juliet can never step outside of the play, we can nonetheless see that Shakespeare is the their creator and is in a sense closer to Romeo and Juliet then they are to themselves. You and I cannot step outside of base reality but it should be obvious that we are held in existence by something that is more fundamental then ourselves.
> Its succinct expression is put forth by Thomas Aquinas and can also be found in the thinking of Aristotle.
And its succinct refutation was put forth by Hume and Kant!
Edit: Sorry about the snarky reply. I just don't have the patience for these kinds of semantic games. I'll just stick to physics, which tells us non-trivial things about the world without defining things into existence.
That's more than enough to safely say that belief is full of shit. Unless it's a religion, then you have to respect it
Everywhere else "that belief goes against thermodynamics" is good enough argument to consider the belief bonkers
Does that sound like religion has helped these people “improve their daily actions”?
For many of us “crapping” on religion is not some metaphorical concept, but a direct reaction to bullying, harassment, and otherwise disdainful treatment at the hands of the devout.
I was about 10 when stumbled upon carbon dating (being already familiar with children adaptation of Old Testament from grandma's library), at at that point it was clear Christianity is horseshit and the biggest mistery became why so many people still believe a fairy tale.
The Ussher and other timelines are examples of making the incomplete and conflicting data of ages and lineages given in the text fit a pre-conceived idea, that being the Earth is was created by God and Adam placed on it in the Garden of Eden, and the date of the creation is therefore just prior to Adam's creation. Given that assumption, the biblical literalists and young earth creationist have invented a timeline that ignores the inconsistencies, fills in gaps, and basically plays hash with anything in the actual text.
Certainly reading a children's version of the Bible will result in a child's conception of what the text says. I remember learning similar dumb ideas as a child. But now I'm an adult and I've expanded my knowledge to adult understanding. Yes, when I was a child, I spoke, thought, and reasoned like a child. Becoming an adult means giving up those childish things and bringing one's fully mature thinking and reasoning.
Holding on to a childish version of Biblical stories and a childish understanding of how believers think does a disservice to intellectual curiosity.
His use of the word ‘useful’ implies he classifies things as ‘useful’ and ‘useless’ according to some absolute value system that he considers evidently true but that in reality is no more or less valid that those things he lists as merely useful.
Yes, we know, opinions are like assholes, everyone has one. You don't have to believe him or agree with anything he says. That's ... how it works.
I generally find his posts quite helpful and useful. Even ones where I might not agree with him.
Your comment is noise. It's just blind criticism without actually saying anything. I don't find it helpful or useful. "His value system could be valid or not valid". Also, water is wet and British food sucks.
Also, I really don't understand why your comment is so biting and aggressive and how you finding his posts helpful and useful is responsive to GP's point? Did GP offer some general critique of his posts? Maybe GP also finds them generally helpful and useful, but had a point to make about this specific post? Your entire response is generally strange and the rudeness is unwarranted.
Sivers' perspective is subjective. As most opinions are. So even if he is implying an "objective truth", none of us are obliged to treat it that way. But that isn't specific to Sivers or his above post. That literally applies to everybody.
Again, it's like saying water is wet.
Religion is like the OG social network - designed to hook its members and extract value from them.
"But I get value from my Instafeed" its users decry.
Yeah, but it's also a lot of non productive doom scrolling, causes social issues and can be used as a political tool to manipulate the masses. The people running the platforms can buy themselves a nice boat though, so there's always that.
When you base your belief on bullshit, you have the ability to justify anything, because nonsense can mean whatever you want it to mean.
Obviously not all religious people are homophobes or racists or bigots but it does seem like a lot of demagogues have an easy time using religion to justify homophobia or racism or bigotry.
There are so many amazing Tabletop Role Playing Games (TTRPGs) these days. They span every genre: sci-fi, horror, fantasy, bronze age, lovecraftian horror in the 20s, pretending to be babies pretending to be jumping over lava... you name it, there's probably a game out there in a genre and play-style that you would enjoy.
If you're interested in something like this, but don't know where to start, or don't think D&D is the right thing for you, feel free to message me. I love helping folks find the right game for their kind of play.
It is also possible to have the positives (community, sense of connection) without any unjustified beliefs.
I think it's amusing trying to guess what in my comment caused it to get downvoted. Could be suggesting that religion isn't "fun", calling role playing "dumb", or the note about anime and video game fans. I feel like any one of those things could have been polarizing on HN. I'll imagine it's the last one, since I think that's the funniest interpretation.