define: belief (did i even spell that right?)

[sabianq]

what is belief?

belief in science?
a god?

is it different that knowledge?

knowledge seems to be information that is "absolutely"? "generally"? agreed by a society to be factual.
A belief can be a "fact" known by one individual.

through out history there have been many societies where knowledge has turned out to be a mere belief and individuals beliefs are actually real knowledge and become the knowledge society agrees to become mainstream.

speaking of "mainstream" as related to any scientific theory that is peer reviewed and produces verifiable results that even further bolster the societal knowledge of mainstream belief.

a mainstream belief can collapse when an observation of the "system" produces verifiable results that are contradictory to the predictions of the mainstream belief.

like what happens if we never, ever, (cause it isn't there*) find the higgs particle?

<i feel some of your shudders through the keyboard out there...>

if we find that there is no such thing and it really does not exist in nature, we just have solid mathematical proofs and tantalizing but not empirical direct verifiable evidence for it. but it simply doesn't exist...

do we change our math?
our simply sweep that knowledge under the table because every thing else works so far.

I am sure today, people would accept it and look to find the error.



*1 to clarify, in this thought experiment, the higgs does not exist.
please do not construe this as ATM

[Disinfo Agent]

You may enjoy this previous discussion (http://www.bautforum.com/general-science/75458-not-smart-enough-baut.html).

(Yes, you spelled it right. "Believe" is the verb. ;))

[Jens]

It seems to me that belief implies feeling strongly that something is true. By contrast, knowledge implies certainty.

If you say, "I know I've met him before," it implies that it is true. Whereas, "I believe I've met him before" implies that you think it's true, but are not certain.

So knowledge doesn't have to do with how many people know it. For example, I know my social security number, but nobody else here does. It's still knowledge.

[sarongsong]

Isn't the answer what dictionaries are for?
define:belief (http://www.google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=define:belief&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8)

[sabianq]

So knowledge doesn't have to do with how many people know it. For example, I know my social security number, but nobody else here does. It's still knowledge.

yes, but it is documented and verifiable, regardless of who knows it. so it is knowledge.
where as a belief is like me saying that there is a monster made of spaghetti flying around creating everything. that concept is not verifiable regardless of how many people believe it.

i think we are speaking of the same thing :)

it seems to me that a belief can be true knowledge while knowledge can become a belief.

[sabianq]

Isn't the answer what dictionaries are for?
define:belief (http://www.google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=define:belief&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8)

yes, but it seems to me that people seem to have different ideas of how to interpret words. causes all sorts of discontent in the forum world.


words and symbols have meaning, although not everyone may agree on the words meaning.

[Jens]

it seems to me that a belief can be true knowledge while knowledge can become a belief.

Umm, I'm not sure exactly what you meant, but I suppose so.

For example, I believe that Obama visited the Middle East over the last couple of days. It's a belief, because I only heard it through the media, but it's probably true, hence probably knowledge.

And for the second part, if something is true I guess it could be natural to believe in it. But would you really say that? Would it be natural to say "I believe that I just wrote this post?" In fact, I know it to be true, so what's the point of using the world believe?

[sabianq]

Umm, I'm not sure exactly what you meant, but I suppose so.

For example, I believe that Obama visited the Middle East over the last couple of days. It's a belief, because I only heard it through the media, but it's probably true, hence probably knowledge.

And for the second part, if something is true I guess it could be natural to believe in it. But would you really say that? Would it be natural to say "I believe that I just wrote this post?" In fact, I know it to be true, so what's the point of using the world believe?

well i can verify this post.
belief cannot be verified because once a belief is verified, it is no longer a belief and in fact, it becomes "fact".

while on the flip side, sometimes "knowledge" is not truth. like the 'knowledge' that the sun revolved around the earth. this was absolute fact in one society many many moons ago. one person believed this was wrong and had verifiable evidence his belief was fact.

all of a sudden, "knowledge" becomes a belief assuming some people are so stubborn as to not accept a change in dogma.

today, the concept of belief as fact is just as strong, just walk into and place of worship and ask...

[sarongsong]

...it seems to me that a belief can be true knowledge while knowledge can become a belief.
__________________________________
Disclaimer: I have no theories, I am not smart enough to come up with theories. I only have a hypothesis. So anything I may write, statement or otherwise is just a hypothesis based on what I observe...Hypothesis-to-theory; by Jove, you've done it! :)

[Jens]

while on the flip side, sometimes "knowledge" is not truth. like the 'knowledge' that the sun revolved around the earth. this was absolute fact in one society many many moons ago. one person believed this was wrong and had verifiable evidence his belief was fact.


OK, I can see from this post that we are actually talking about different things. You are defining "knowledge" and "belief" as social things, whereas I am talking about them as philosophical concepts.

According to my conception, there was never any knowledge that the sun revolved around the earth. It was belief. I suppose that as a philosophical concept, there really is no such thing as knowledge; it is only an unattainable ideal. There are only degrees of belief. So something that seems quite obvious, like that I made this post, might seem to me to be knowledge, but in fact it is only a strong belief. After all, a spirit could have occupied my body and typed it and then implanted a memory inside me. I'm not saying that is likely at all, but it can't be discounted and so I can not have "knowledge".

What you're talking about is "what people consider to be knowledge" and "what people consider to be belief." And then, yes, certainly, what people consider to be knowledge and what they consider to be truth can certainly change.

[Whirlpool]

Belief IMO is an information passed through generations after generations, not necessarily a Fact or a knowledge.

Say I have a belief that when I wear Red color dress today , It will give me good luck .
But I don't have "Knowledge" that it will really give a good luck by wearing a Red dress.

Or there are verified facts that a Person wearing a Red clothes got rich or something like that .

:doh:

[Neverfly]

Belief is what you have when you don't have all the facts.
Some of what I consider a sound theory in science- still could be called a "belief" simply because I don't have all the facts. yet, science is not a belief system. Because those notions and theories can change if new evidence arrives.
"I 'believe' that the Moon and Earth system was created when a large body collided with proto-Earth". This is based on Evidence, and is the best I have.
"I believe the Earth was created by a diety." This has no evidence in its favor, but a lot of evidence against the notion. Yet, the belief in this case will overcome the facts. It is a belief system.

"I believe in this person..." - And this person, believed in, is inspired, tries harder and overcomes obstacles. Belief was an influence.

Belief is solely the most powerful aspect of humanity. It can make us and it can break us.

[farmerjumperdon]

A belief is what a person believes to be true. It applies only to individuals. I have a bunch of them, and some may be similar or the same as other people's beliefs, but they are singular and owned by me (just as our arms may be very similar or even exactly the same but they can not be shared - - except for that conjoined twins thing).

As somebody else said, knowledge is had by a group and is more of an unattainable ideal; but one we seem to strive for anyway. We have a large degree of consensus as is evidenced by many similar or same beliefs, but the philosophical issues around truth and reality probably make agreement on what is knowledge impossible.

Politics is what happens when contradictory beliefs vie for social prominence.

[Argos]

A belief can be a "fact" known by one individual.

In this circumstance it could not even be a 'fact'. Any delusion would do. Trust no one, including your eyes.

[sabianq]

According to my conception, there was never any knowledge that the sun revolved around the earth. It was belief.

Yes, However this "belief" that the sun revolved around the earth was engendered by the verifiable observational evidence of everyone who was standing on a "non-moving" world. The sun would come up in the morning, travel across the sky, then do down in the evening with no apparent motion of the world. This was direct evidence that the sun revolved around the earth and did in fact become what was thought to be 'knowledge'. the geocentric model of the solarsystem/universe persisted, but was eventually replaced by the heliocentric model.

as Neverfly said
Because those notions and theories can change if new evidence arrives. it is very easy for 'knowledge' to become a belief and a belief to become knowledge,

However,. one could argue that only 'knowledge' is capable of building something physical. like say a working nuclear breeder reactor.

where as if a persons has a belief that he can build a working nuclear reactor and he succeeds, then it is safe to say that his belief is/was actually 'knowlegde'.

[Argos]

it is very easy for 'knowledge' to become a belief and a belief to become knowledge,

I think we´re playing word games here. You can have a knowledge of a belief and a belief of knowledge, conversely. I know that people believe in ghosts and I believe relativity is a good description of the universe.

I think the word 'knowledge' needs a modifier to be meaningful, and that modifier would be the adjective 'scientific'.

[sabianq]

I think we´re playing word games here.

That is the main reason i started the (define: word) thread. I see so many word games here on this forum that it is no wonder so many people get banned, feelings get hurt, people become enraged, arguments about exactly the same thing... it all seems to come down to the meaning of words (except for the people who just flat out say their belief is fact and everyone else is wrong).

oh and sarcasm is a biggie too. it is so hard to convey sarcasm.

if people could just agree on the meaning of words, the internet may someday become more civilized.

[slang]

what is belief?

Depends on context.

Glad I could help! :)

(except for the people who just flat out say their belief is fact and everyone else is wrong).

And people who just flat out say that their meaning for a certain word is correct, and everyone else is wrong.

[NEOWatcher]

...if people could just agree on the meaning of words...
Nope; can't work that way.
There is a reason that language has adjectives and adverbs. It is because the nouns and verbs have an imprecise meaning.

It's not always the meaning that people are abusing. Many times it's the intentional omission of clarification.

[korjik]

If you are talking pure science, belief is irrelevent.

Taking the Higgs boson example.

If you do an experiment, and the experiment should detect your particle, then there are several possibilities.
1) your experiment is flawed.
2) your experiment was misunderstood
3) the subject of the experiment was misunderstood
4) the subject of the experiment dosent exist.

The first two are alot more common than you might think. It is one of the reasons that you have scientific conferences. Getting a large group to look at your work and point out the weaknesses helps mitigate any bad effects.

When the first two on my list are not a problem, then you hit 3 and 4. Here you hit one weakness of experiment. You cannot prove a negative. The fact that you did not see something does not mean it does not exist. We had no first hand proof of neutrinos for a few decades, but people were pretty sure they were there. If the higgs boson example, it wont be until experiments cover all possibilities that there will be real trouble. Should it not be seen, then some enterprising theorist will take the data we do have and come up with a new theory. Should it be seen in an unexpected way, then some enterprising young theorist will see how that modifiys the existing theory. At no time is belief in the Higgs needed.