On the Nature of Belief

ON THE NATURE OF BELIEF, LOGIC AND EXISTENCE

ANIL MITRA PHD, 2001 REFORMATTED June 4, 2003

Document status: June 4, 2003

Possible action: infinities in logic

Essential content is in Journey in Being; it is interesting to note how many and what variety of ideas contributed to Journey in Being

No further action

From a letter to a friend April 16, 2001

I am not sure whether you know what my position regarding the identity of the individual with Brahman, the finiteness or otherwise of human existence... is. Despite all my thinking and experience on such issues I think that my position is rather like the state of Schrödinger’s cat. In a thought experiment, the cat was in an opaque box and some kind of beam is a trigger that may or may not set off a poison gas that will kill the cat. The odds are even that the cat will die. The experiment is done. Is the cat dead or not dead? In quantum mechanical description the cat is in a state that is a superposition of dead and not dead. It is only when we open the box that the state collapses into either dead or not dead. The thought experiment is serious but for the present purposes it is a fable. It describes my state. I am not merely uncertain, merely in between, merely undecided. I believe and “not” believe. I could go into all the aspects - emotion, thought... but when all is said my belief state is a superposition of belief and not-belief. I am lonely and not lonely. I want to be with M. [my girl friend] for ever, I want to be poring over books with aging spectacles by my lonesome always, I want to be out shivering in the cold of snow filled mountain nights with my friends – the chipmunk, coyote, bear and jay and eagle

And I believe that thought alone is insufficient to, even, thought itself. The creation of basic knowledge requires action, commitment, and cultivation of one’s being

Comment: this is the beginning of something profound in the nature of belief, knowledge, being, and relationship – in the nature of these things – read on. It is the beginning of something profound – or the formulation of an understanding of something already known – in my relationship with the world, my life: facing choices, living with responsibility

Continuation, Monday, April 24, 2001…

Introduction: the analogy from Schrödinger’s cat. Regarding fundamental issues: my state of belief is superposed “belief and non-belief”... how this is fundamental. What does it say for knowledge and existence? ...Think on these issues

What about logic? Let us say:

Logic is the process of arriving at knowledge or truth

We show that all normal concepts of logic follow

What are the presuppositions? First, that there is something: “knowledge”, “truth”. Second, these are not merely given or interwoven into the organism but – they are and can be arrived at. Truth: I have a picture in my mind and the picture is a valid depiction of a state of affairs in the world. The picture could be a sentence. The idea is that the picture is true or faithful. Now there may be some purposes for which “almost faithful” could count as “faithful enough” and, so, true. For, if the origin of “knowledge” is in adaptation, knowledge, for that purpose does not have to be very faithful; just faithful enough. And, it is not clear that adaptation implies faithfulness at all. Against this, there has to be some correspondence between the subjective feeling of faithfulness and adaptation – and perhaps between the feeling of faithfulness and “faithfulness”, but, note that faithfulness itself has not been given meaning: in what is it anchored? There is no foundation, for the idea of a picture that corresponds to reality is also a picture? In the end, what we arrive it is that there is, likely, a realm in which faithfulness is good. But, is it ever absolutely good? Or, just good enough. So, it is not clear, a priori, that truth has any absolute and independent meaning. The second presupposition is arriving at knowledge. But is knowledge arrived at? Surely sometimes – but universally, and if not universally then is there a realm where it there is full freeing of knowledge from the loop of action – knowing – adaptation? Or, perhaps, even in the citadel of truth, “true enough” sometimes goes astray, sometimes lacks mooring? What are the processes of arrival: acquaintance from sense data – perception; patterns from facts – induction; and knowledge from knowledge – deduction. None of these has an absolute citadel or fortress. There is no inner chamber that is free from the contamination of the lack of an external yardstick. Thus the realm of logic is not pure, logic is not absolute – despite “appearance”.

Incorporate ideas from the first chapter of Companion to Philosophy of language

The question of “context of discovery” and “context of justification” – of intuition and understanding vs. formal proof – that, too, is important. Clearly, from the above, intuition, understanding, experiment, even faith are there when formal proof falters. And this is to say that action is important; being over mechanization of knowledge

The discussion is repeated from a different point of view. What is the necessity of logic and how do that necessity and the superposition of belief, knowledge, and existence states impact one another - for example the thought that one can be at two places at once. Analyze that thought. There is a seeming physical or commonsense contradiction. Before that is the logical contradiction: a person is an entity and part of the concept of an entity includes being at a single place - here means not there. But the physical and the logical are, in this case connected. The idea of an entity is, usually, that of being in a restricted location. However that is an empirical and not a logically necessary concept. What is the crux of logic? There are two parts: 1. The existence and nature of truth and falsity, and 2. The concept of implication. A implies B means that whenever A is true, B is true. These are the main ideas that, of course, can be fleshed out by the variety of possible propositions “A” - simple statements, ones with existential and universal quantifiers... the world of mathematical concepts, propositions, proofs and systems... see my essay Kinds of Knowledge... Implication is quite powerful if there are instances of truth, but it is empty if there is no truth. And what are the concomitants of truth - not only what does it mean but, what are the associations... it is normally thought that if x is true then ~x [~x means not x] is not true, but from the above it seems to be possible for x and ~x to be true in a most fundamental sense. So now what happens to implication? What, for example, of the fundamental axiom of implication - that of transitivity: if A => [implies] B and B => C then A => C; or A_i => A_i+1 i=1,2,3, ...? ...Think on these issues.

Especially, these infinite processes and the law of the excluded middle require clarification. Repeated use of implication is “shaky” if “truth” is “fuzzy”; it is not that there is no precise implicational structure but it is not clear that the structure corresponds to anything real. In the infinite case it is the structure itself that is also in question

Any justification from quantum mechanics – quantum logics – here and there reconceptualizes being so that x and ~x is not possible, ...? From basic or common knowledge?

Causal and non-causal relationships Consider the sequence of the universe: E ® ~E ® E ® ~E ® E ® ~E ® E ® ~E... where E is “existence”. Consider also that what is necessary in the day to day is not so in the universe; and what is necessary in one existence is not at all necessary in the above sequence. Individuals affect each other in this life, affect each other differently but similarly in another life, there is no causal connection, but in a higher realization the “individual” can know the difference and similarity. In this [!] realization, here and now, the individual can know these things and so of the existence and beauty of the potential of non-causal possibilities. Remember that there are multiple infinities of times and places but in the spaces between being and sentience, these infinities have no significance as infinity. Also... since the individual can know these concepts, mind can effect [quasi-causal] relationships

Think on these issues: Entire systems of thought [as absolute] and conceptions of reality crumble!!! Complete the circle to the everyday