thread: 2011-07-11 : Hooray for Religion
On 2011-07-18, C Luke Mula wrote:
@Vincent, David
Yeah, I definitely agree as well about the actual causality of beliefs and decisions being different than we intuitively grasp it to be.
However...
It seems like it's a similar issue as "free will." For instance, there doesn't seem to be any indication scientifically or philosophically that our choices can be, in any real sense of the word, "free." Whether everything is determined or whether indeterministic events are thrown in the mix, our choices are never really free.
But "free will" definitely describes our own personal experience of choosing. We very much seem to ourselves to be free agents making uncaused decisions, and all of our talk of "free will" is still valid to the extent that it speaks to our experiences. Yes, our understanding of the mechanisms of free will have to change, but that doesn't mean that we stop making choices in the way that we've been making them.
It think the same is true of beliefs. No, the mechanisms of beliefs and actions don't seem to be what we intuitively think they are, but that doesn't mean that our talk of beliefs and actions are invalid because of it. We still definitely seem to ourselves (and even to others) to hold beliefs and act on those beliefs.
