How is this definition of "belief"?

@Cyracuz,

O.K., I'll rephrase my distinction between guesswork and speculation in terms of degrees of information. This is an example of how debate enables us to refine each others' theoretical contributions.

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@JLNobody,

JLNobody wrote:

I strongly prefer "speculation" to "guesswork." The latter is more blind than is the former. We usually have some basis in experience for those daily working hypotheses, I call speculations. Guesses are almost by definition with little or no basis.

Okay. Can you give me an example of "speculation" as opposed to "guesswork" in the instance of "There is a GOD"...or "There are no gods?"

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@Cyracuz,

Cryacuz, I understand that by" beliefs" you are referring mostly to those orientations reflecting our cultural conditioning. Enculturation and socializaation are the processes by which beliefs sneak up on us. Smile

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@Frank Apisa,

Yes, my "speculation" that there is no God is based on (what I consider to be) a lifetime of experience.

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@JLNobody,

JLNobody wrote:

Yes, my "speculation" that there is no God is based on (what I consider to be) a lifetime of experience.

Really!!!!

And you have been everywhere in the universe to obtain this "lifetime of experience?"

Even you should be able to see this as a blind guess...part of a prejudice. There is no experience that can make it other than that. It is not speculation...and if you consider it to be so, you ought to revise your assertion that "speculation" involves something more than "guesswork."

C'mon, JL. You are much better than this!

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@Frank Apisa,

Oh my NoGod, Frank, you're really trying too hard. Remember, the early Church founders formulated the Christian speculation long before the advent of scientific/secular astronomy. They were talking only about the earth and its celestial ceiling. My "experience" is vaster than their's since I was raised in the "modern" era. Nevertheless, despite its limitations my secular experiences have sufficiently contradicted the training I had in catholic school which attempted to instill absolutist and supernaturalist prejudices which today seem to be to be silliness pure and simple.
Come on, Frank, you're much better than that. Razz

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@JLNobody,

JLNobody wrote:

Oh my NoGod, Frank, you're really trying too hard. Remember, the early Church founders formulated the Christian speculation long before the advent of scientific/secular astronomy. They were talking only about the earth and its celestial ceiling. My "experience" is vaster than their's since I was raised in the "modern" era. Nevertheless, despite its limitations my secular experiences have sufficiently contradicted the training I had in catholic school which attempted to instill absolutist and supernaturalist prejudices which today seem to be to be silliness pure and simple.
Come on, Frank, you're much better than that.

Yeah...so your "vaster" experience has contradicted the training of the Catholic Church...so you now can make "speculations" that are mightier than guesses.

Jesus H. Christ. No wonder they are winning.

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@Frank Apisa,

You call that an argument? Rolling Eyes

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@JLNobody,

JLNobody wrote:

You call that an argument?

Nope.

I call it a comment.

And a comment you ought to give consideration.

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@Cyracuz,

Cyracuz wrote:

Quote:
don't you find it funny the expression "informed guessing" ?...I think is a ton of fun...

How so? We make guesses based on information all the time.
In horse racing for instance... Say there's two people betting on the races. One has no knowledge of the horses that will be racing, and just picks his bets without any specific reasons.
The other has followed each horse in the race. He is aware of their history, track record and any important events in their past. He has even poked around in the stables a bit, getting a sense of the individual moods of the horses that day.
He has a lot of information on which to make his assertions, and can perhaps make more successful guesses than the man with less information.

We can't say the first man has no information. He has the names of the horses, so his guess isn't blind. He's not going to bet on a horse that's not in the race, for instance.

The way I think of it, a guess is always informed, though in varying degrees. Beliefs are different. We can bet on God, but we have no indication that he's even in the race...

Sorry but you are confusing the matter once in the example you provided you are using reliable factual information to future predictions...that was not the example I was addressing...my point was, if and when guesses and not knowledge, all guesses are guesses, which is a trivially true assessment...information proves its value when you get to the truth and not before ! Ad you not know the final result of the races all the valuable information about the horses wouldn't have any meaning whatsoever...as an extreme example for all that I know horses and races might well be a figment of my imagination let alone tell who's winning or losing if anybody...

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Yep! I agree.

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@igm,

Quote:

Yep! I agree.

Well, maybe you can explain it to me then, cause I don't quite follow what Fil is driving at. I agree that too little information is really no information at all. At worse, it implies that an informed guess is a lot about guessing and very little about information. But having a few clues, even not enough to conclude, is always better than not having them (unless there are lies/fraudulent/tampered with).

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Black-or-white, all-or-nothing thinking is said to be typical of adolescence. It seems to me that I have to make a totally blind guess when I have no information about the issue, I can make a slightly better (more probability of desirable outcome) guess with a little more information, etc, and if researchers have done a few dozen controlled, double-blind studies, I can make an even better guess. Will this extract of mugwort cure my stomach ulcer? Hell if I know. I've never heard of it, but it's here, it's cheap and it's not poisonous, so I'll give it a try. Will this antibiotic treatment for H. pylori cure my stomach ulcer? I don't know, but doctors say it cures a lot of people's ulcers, so I'll give it a try. It may not be comfortable to hear, but your doctors are doing more guessing than you might realize. I worked in the medical field (not as a doctor, as a technician) for 10 years. I have a lot of stories I could tell about that.

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@JLNobody,

This is true. It seems to me beliefs get their relevance from our cultural identity, so to speak. They are at the foundation of our societies, enabling us to function together. True or false becomes less important in this context.

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@Cyracuz,

Yes, at least for most ethnic groups beliefs regarding notions and values in the group's ideology may form the boundary between "insiders"and "outsiders". This goes beyond truth and falsity.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Quote:

information proves its value when you get to the truth and not before ! Ad you not know the final result of the races all the valuable information about the horses wouldn't have any meaning whatsoever..

I don't understand why people insist on flogging that particular horse. If you knew the final result, it wouldn't be a guess, now would it?
A guess is not either true of false. It is an assertion that is functional despite our lack of definite knowledge. It seems this is a much more defining characteristic of any guess that it being either true or false.
Assertions can be either true or false, but that's not what making a guess is about. It is about picking one; either true or false, despite not knowing for sure, allowing you to move with a purpose.

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@Cyracuz,

I am sorry Cyr I like and I am not going to start a fight on this with you again just will leave with one central idea...whatever it is that propels you forward in life and even in cognition are true functions not approximations...whether you know what they are or not is relevant, that is to say there is a state of affairs that you might or might not know anything about...a guess informed or not, imply s a missing link on that ladder...a single missing link on a long chain of deeper and deeper degrees of depth can turn upside down everything about everything you think you know. That and that alone was the point I was trying to make.

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@Cyracuz,

I don't think a guess is even quite an assertion of anything other than, "Well, this looks a little better than that. Let's see what happens."

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@FBM,

Your 2 sentence is very interesting...it reports to what is true...the problem is what happens and what you believe did happen often (perhaps always) are not the same...

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@Cyracuz,

Cyracuz wrote:

Quote:
information proves its value when you get to the truth and not before ! Ad you not know the final result of the races all the valuable information about the horses wouldn't have any meaning whatsoever..

I don't understand why people insist on flogging that particular horse. If you knew the final result, it wouldn't be a guess, now would it?
A guess is not either true of false. It is an assertion that is functional despite our lack of definite knowledge. It seems this is a much more defining characteristic of any guess that it being either true or false.
Assertions can be either true or false, but that's not what making a guess is about. It is about picking one; either true or false, despite not knowing for sure, allowing you to move with a purpose.

I can actually agree with that, Cyracuz.

A comment on one part, though:

Quote:

Assertions can be either true or false, but that's not what making a guess is about. It is about picking one; either true or false, despite not knowing for sure, allowing you to move with a purpose.

Unfortunately, this does not often come into play in the areas where I have been speaking...the areas of guesses about the true nature of REALITY.

Is there a GOD?

Are there no gods?

Is what we call "the universe"...an illusion?

Are there actually many minds...or is "all this" just a single mind at work?

You can guess "yes" or "no" on all those things...but all they are...are guesses. They truly do not move you on to anything else. Or at least, I do not see how it could. All are just blind guesses...to no purpose whatever.

Seems to me a simple, "I do not know and I do not have enough unambiguous evidence upon which to make a meaningful guess" works best.

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How is this definition of "belief"?

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