Hmmm, my initial reaction would be to ask: What would you gain by having belief system you could update at will?
My goal in life is not to be as correct as possible about how my mind works such that I can better control it, but to experience the things that are most important to me. So that was my starting point. Unfortunately I quickly discovered that my old truth frameworks were the main thing preventing me from fully experiencing the wonder/connection/love for existence that I wanted to feel. Releasing them has so far been worth the cost for me (mostly social pressure and discomfort around shifting identity).
So the takeaway for me isn’t so much the logical conclusion that truth frameworks ARE in fact groundless, but the practical application of that fact, which has freed me to believe in and experience what feels most true to me without as much cognitive dissonance.
That said, it has been a slow and painful process. Truth frameworks don’t shift without massive amounts of shame/judgement/fear cropping up along the way.
Okay, this helped me a lot. I certainly think that taking a single step towards a more flexible belief system would behoove myself (and many others) more than a step towards a more rigid belief system. If nothing else, it's good to know that it's not just 'copium' to adopt new beliefs if those beliefs serve you better. I'm not sure why I jumped to the extreme of being able whimsically update your beliefs from one day to the next (perhaps jumping to extremes is my way of sniff-checking the validity of your proposed way of thinking).
Reading your article I think you might not have fully understood the concepts of nebulosity and pattern (or you’ve arrived at a different understanding than me). It feels important to me to understand that you can’t cleanly separate the nebulous from the known, the border itself is nebulous. Likewise I would be surprised to find a completely ungrounded truth system, just because it isn’t possible to fully logically ground a system doesn’t mean that it is not valuable to spend time understanding what the foundations and logical implications of a would view are.
To return to the changing beliefs at will question, I think having a belief system you can change at will would put you at great risk of getting lost in the nebulosity, or caught up by some clever cult leader. Practicing non judgementally inhabiting a given truth system without accepting it is seems to give you the advantages of a belief system you can change with less risk.
I'll admit, my diagram isn't ideal since it implies that the nebulous/known divide is clean. I was intending to keep that aspect of the article relatively high-level; my aim was mostly to demonstrate that truth systems *are* inherently meta-rational, and that that perspective on them can change how you interact with them.
I do think getting into the details of where/how the nebulous/known divide exists in the context of truth systems would be interesting and useful though. And I definitely agree that not having a fully logical ground isn't a good reason in and of itself to disavow a truth system (since then you'd be stuck with nothing); it's more just a reason to be open to the different values of different beliefs. But as you mention, it's a risk to be *too* open to changing your beliefs. I think my stance is to move towards holding belief systems lightly, treating them as useful but not necessarily factual.
Circular logic and emotional reasoning are important requirements for a truth system, if you couldn’t justify a system in its own terms that would imply that your belief system says you should switch to a different belief system it can justify or (waving hands wildly because I don’t have time to refine my argument right now) your system is too limited to be of general use.
If you can’t justify your belief system using emotional reasoning then that looks like a belief system that has too little to say about things that matter to you.
Oh nice, yeah that's very important, thanks for bringing it up. On one hand, circular logic and emotional reasoning aren't enough evidence to say "my truth is universally correct", but on the other hand, both of those things are what make a truth system worth having in the first place (as you described).
> If you don’t believe me, try steelmanning your own truth framework without using either of these techniques.
Defeating my existing belief system so easily helped me be more open to the idea that it's valid to have a malleable belief system. I still struggle with the part that requires 'actually believing' in a belief system that can be updated at will.
Hmmm, my initial reaction would be to ask: What would you gain by having belief system you could update at will?
My goal in life is not to be as correct as possible about how my mind works such that I can better control it, but to experience the things that are most important to me. So that was my starting point. Unfortunately I quickly discovered that my old truth frameworks were the main thing preventing me from fully experiencing the wonder/connection/love for existence that I wanted to feel. Releasing them has so far been worth the cost for me (mostly social pressure and discomfort around shifting identity).
So the takeaway for me isn’t so much the logical conclusion that truth frameworks ARE in fact groundless, but the practical application of that fact, which has freed me to believe in and experience what feels most true to me without as much cognitive dissonance.
That said, it has been a slow and painful process. Truth frameworks don’t shift without massive amounts of shame/judgement/fear cropping up along the way.
Okay, this helped me a lot. I certainly think that taking a single step towards a more flexible belief system would behoove myself (and many others) more than a step towards a more rigid belief system. If nothing else, it's good to know that it's not just 'copium' to adopt new beliefs if those beliefs serve you better. I'm not sure why I jumped to the extreme of being able whimsically update your beliefs from one day to the next (perhaps jumping to extremes is my way of sniff-checking the validity of your proposed way of thinking).
Reading your article I think you might not have fully understood the concepts of nebulosity and pattern (or you’ve arrived at a different understanding than me). It feels important to me to understand that you can’t cleanly separate the nebulous from the known, the border itself is nebulous. Likewise I would be surprised to find a completely ungrounded truth system, just because it isn’t possible to fully logically ground a system doesn’t mean that it is not valuable to spend time understanding what the foundations and logical implications of a would view are.
To return to the changing beliefs at will question, I think having a belief system you can change at will would put you at great risk of getting lost in the nebulosity, or caught up by some clever cult leader. Practicing non judgementally inhabiting a given truth system without accepting it is seems to give you the advantages of a belief system you can change with less risk.
I'll admit, my diagram isn't ideal since it implies that the nebulous/known divide is clean. I was intending to keep that aspect of the article relatively high-level; my aim was mostly to demonstrate that truth systems *are* inherently meta-rational, and that that perspective on them can change how you interact with them.
I do think getting into the details of where/how the nebulous/known divide exists in the context of truth systems would be interesting and useful though. And I definitely agree that not having a fully logical ground isn't a good reason in and of itself to disavow a truth system (since then you'd be stuck with nothing); it's more just a reason to be open to the different values of different beliefs. But as you mention, it's a risk to be *too* open to changing your beliefs. I think my stance is to move towards holding belief systems lightly, treating them as useful but not necessarily factual.
Circular logic and emotional reasoning are important requirements for a truth system, if you couldn’t justify a system in its own terms that would imply that your belief system says you should switch to a different belief system it can justify or (waving hands wildly because I don’t have time to refine my argument right now) your system is too limited to be of general use.
If you can’t justify your belief system using emotional reasoning then that looks like a belief system that has too little to say about things that matter to you.
Oh nice, yeah that's very important, thanks for bringing it up. On one hand, circular logic and emotional reasoning aren't enough evidence to say "my truth is universally correct", but on the other hand, both of those things are what make a truth system worth having in the first place (as you described).
> If you don’t believe me, try steelmanning your own truth framework without using either of these techniques.
Defeating my existing belief system so easily helped me be more open to the idea that it's valid to have a malleable belief system. I still struggle with the part that requires 'actually believing' in a belief system that can be updated at will.
Attempted to reply to this but it somehow made a new thread; see comment below