From many perspectives the two are the same and that รญs a huge problem
this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2024
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For me, everything is a belief unless it satisfies the following criteria:
- It is generally accepted as true among experts
- There is ample evidence that is both personally convincing and leaves no room for alternate interpretations (not the same as #1, since many fields have "commonly accepted knowledge" that is generally acknowledged as most likely true but has no evidence to back it up)
- It is specific enough that it cannot be interpreted in a way that is misleading
I find that the one that trips up most people is #3, since some people speak in technically true but overly broad statements and the listener ends up filling in the gaps with their own biases. The listener leaves feeling like their biases have been confirmed by data, not realizing that they have been misled.
In the end, according to my criteria, very little can be categorized as true knowledge. But that's fine. You can still make judgements from partial or biased data or personal beliefs. You just can't be resolute about it and say that it's true.
Belief is either something I want to be true, or seems true although I don't have solid evidence. I believe that in the universe there will be many worlds with living beings that eventually evolve to be comparable to humans in mental capacity and the ability to create, but that due to how space time works we will never directly interact with them. They won't be close enough, or our time periods of existence won't match up if either of us attempt interstellar travel. Millions of years is a blink of an eye in the scope of the universe, but it is so vast that the odds are high that another planet will have similar conditions for carbon based life, not to mention other possible forms of life.
Knowledge is supported by evidence. It might not be a perfect explanation or understanding, but it is what is known based on the current information. We now know planets exist around other stars, but before we could observe them it would be a belief to say they existed. The difference is supporting evidence.
Belief is seeing that the light is green even when it isn't.
Knowledge is accepting that the light is red when it is.
Believing that the light is green will not help you when you get flattened by a truck. Knowing that the light is red will keep you from dying pointlessly.
Knowledge is the first step on the path to wisdom. Belief is delusion.
If you cannot demonstrate, or point to a demonstration, then all you can do is guess. You can make an educated guess based on other demonstrations, but if you cling to your guesswork as if it were demonstrated to be true, and you internalize your guesswork as part of your identity, and you refuse to let go of it when confronted with contradictory demonstrations, then you are a fool.
Your description makes belief sound like willful ignorance.
It sounds like the real challenge is knowing when you have enough information to convert your educated guess into full-blown knowledge
Your description makes belief sound like willful ignorance.
Maybe, maybe not. In the absence of evidence, belief may be harmless, though somewhat pointless in the sense of Hitchen's razor:
What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.
and Newton's flaming laser sword:
That which cannot be settled by experiment is not worth debating.
It certainly becomes willful ignorance if the believer avoids and/or actively rejects contradictory evidence.
It sounds like the real challenge is knowing when you have enough information to convert your educated guess into full-blown knowledge
The educated guess (hypothesis) becomes knowledge when it can be demonstrated by direct experiment rather than inferred/constructed from related knowledge. Also it's important that the educated guess be testable/disprovable somehow, at least in theory (Popper's falsifiability principle):
Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or refute it.
So, belief is benign when it exists in an untested/untestable area and the believer is not bound to the belief emotionally. Belief is malignant when it exists in a tested area or when the believer clings to the belief emotionally. Belief is either harmless or extremely damaging, but in either case of no practical value.
I want to know how it works in real life for you.
What works for me in real life is know as little as possible, view all beliefs as clouds moving across the sky
Keeping a close eye and tight rain on bias and fallacy, observation beats word of mouth. A peer-reviewed scientific study is exactly equal to observation.
Mathematical proof is also observation.
Lack of observation does not in any way indicate lack of truth. Because you feel or don't feel some way and have or have not seen something happen to someone else in no way influences whether something actually happened to someone else. Our perception filters are incredibly bad.
Appeal to authority means very little as single people easily get biased. Discount anything said if the person telling you the truth stands to gain money power or time from it being believed.
Knowledge is justified true belief.
You can't know whether you have it or not.
Belief is overarching concepts, knowledge is specifics, many in this thread are conflating belief with faith
I believe in science because I have knowledge of the scientific method.
A belief is a headline that seems to be accurate. Knowledge is when I actually read the article and checked other sources.
I have knowledge. People who disagree with me have beliefs. /s
nah but for real its all the same, innit? it's just a matter of how well supported you think your thoughts/beliefs/knowledges are. if i was drawing that kind of a distinction in my head, wouldn't that mean that i'm thinking things are true that i simultaneously know are false? if i was gonna have 'knowledge' and 'beliefs' rattling in my head as separate things, that seems like me it'd smack of willful self-delusion.
I know I exist. Everything else is varying levels of belief.
Solipsism is a dead-end of navel gazing.
Facts are made up by humans. If an opinion of mine regarding an empirical argument conforms with the general good of the public I prefer to spend time with, I accept it as a fact. When my opinions contradict with this, I accept that I believe it this way, considering neither options are testable or objectifiable.
I don't. Everything I think is true, I have various evidence that it is. If the evidence is stronger, the surety is stronger. Think, believe, know... all the same thing, all dependent on evidence.