I have a newfound respect for belief. It is powerful. It shapes our thoughts, what we see and experience.
I recently got out of a serious relationship. Anyone who has gone through this experience knows it to be rough and disturbing. I think the disturbing nature of a break up experience is the change in the belief system. Essentially, things you believed, suddenly aren’t the ones you can believe in any more. The world goes upside down!
When I look back and recall an experience with my girlfriend, I see signs of the deep disconnect between us. But I also remember remembering that same experience when we were a couple. And that was a very positive and uplifting memory! Why is it that the same experience can seem positive once and negative the other. It is because the context has changed. And the context isn’t simply because I am bitter or emotional (or whatever else the psychoanalysts would say). The context is different because I believe in different things now!
When the belief changes and suddenly our history changes.
It goes further. Belief system essentially changes how we perceive everything, and this is not limited just to the past.
We are constantly tied and bound to our beliefs. We swim in them. We see and perceive with them. They are like goggles. Belief Goggles.
We not only wear these belief goggles on our eyes, but on all our five senses. Lets consider an example. Similarly, in the medieval times everyone believed that earth was flat. The flat earth believers could prove this claim when questioned. Then it was proven to be incorrect by Columbus (when he did not fall off the face of the planet) and suddenly everyone believed that earth is a sphere. That was a change in the belief goggles. The world did not suddenly change from a flat plane to a sphere. The goggles changed. Our current belief goggles show us a world that is a sphere. Some time from now that might change!
That is the power of belief. We experience its shear power in absolutely every single facet of our lives. We wear these goggles all the time. And these are very good goggles because when you go in front of a mirror, you don’t see yourselves wearing them. You just see yourself. These goggles don’t let you see their own reflection!
So what we call real and unreal is basically our view from behind the goggles. If we change or modify the goggles, we see different things. So that means, we essentially can change reality by changing our goggles.
This is a very powerful idea. Something I would like to further develop.
It doesn’t matter for your point, but in fact people have known the earth is a sphere since the 1st century; see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth
Sorry, but I think the Bush administration scooped you on this thesis.
Pete, thanks for pointing that out. I have been aware of this fact. In fact, I remember one of the common Greek arguments about the earth being a sphere goes as follows.
There are elephants in Morocco and there are elephants in India; But no Greek has ever seen elephants migrate across the land of Greece. So they must have gone around the other side of the planet.
I find this one quite amusing. Even though via these goggles, earth was proved to be spherical, our current goggles tell us that this argument is not true. African and Indian elephants are quite different and do no migrate. But that is our goggles talking.
The whole flat earth notion was a relatively new “fad” of the dark ages that got crushed by the end of Medivial age. And it certainly isn’t a cross-cultural notion.
Well I was interested til I encountered the myth “in the middle ages everyone believed the Earth was flat”.
Nonsense, that’s myth. Almost no one ever believed this.
Some resources
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v16/i2/flatearth.asp
http://www.bede.org.uk/flatearth.htm
http://www.lewrockwell.com/woods/woods46.html
As long as you will repeat, easily refuted myths I have no interest in anything else you have to say
Kevin: Then perhaps you missed the point. The main notion behind this post is that myths and facts are all temporary and malleable. What you consider as fact today is only what you view from your goggles. Every concept including supposed fundamental ones like truth or beauty are impermanent.
Every single last concept is illusionary because it is a concept.
“Every single last concept is illusionary because it is a concept.” That’s not goggles, it’s those dark glasses blind people wear to hide their lack of eyes. If you mistake thought, belief, emotion, concepts, for reality, you are lost in your own imagination with eyes wide shut. When I look at the world without goggles I don’t see it as flat or round; it’s lumpy, complex, porous, and more marvellously wierd than words can say - and that’s just this little bit I call my body!
bob: very funny :)
If you aren’t being funny, then I should point out that all disagreements will be resolved on realignment of the subscribed metaphysical structure is performed.
“What you consider as fact today is only what you view from your goggles. Every concept including supposed fundamental ones like truth or beauty are impermanent.
Every single last concept is illusionary because it is a concept. ”
Postmodernist drivel. It’s so skeptical it goes nowhere. Very sad.
Truth is “the adequation of the intellect to reality.”
Beauty is tougher to define, Aquinas says “that which being perceived, pleases” but that’s not a very adequate definition admittedly. There’s an essay here that explores the topic.
http://www.leaderu.com/theology/williams_beauty.html
Get rid of the postmodernist skepticism, it leads no where. If man had always thought like the postmodernists we’d still be living in caves.
Truth is knowable.
Kevin: Thanks for a posting an opposing point of view. I love them! It contains seeds for further discussion and discourse :)
Let me first clarify that this is not postmodern drivel, i.e. it isn\’t exclusively postmodern! (It may very well be drivel). The world being an illusion is one of the very old ideas known to man! Look at ancient texts and thoughts from the East. Read the Hindu Vedantas or the Tao Te Ching (much more approachable). This idea is getting popular support onces again thanks to modern philosophers like William James or Albert Einstein.
Secondly, this \”skepticism\” does lead to great places! This is one of the emerging goals from my blog; something I intend to develop as time goes on.
We may disagree on what is great and what is beauty. But to dismiss something that you do not comprehend and understand is a sign of there being a lack of philosophical maturity.