On 3 July 2014 10:02, Kim Jones <[email protected]> wrote: >> Yes, primary belief, though necessarily incorrigible in the first >> instance, is nonetheless vulnerable in the second instance to >> correction or reinterpretation. Just as well, really. > > But is it?
Only in the primary sense of immediate cognition. > If primary belief (your belief in where the buck stops) were vulnerable > to correction then why has Christianity for example, persevered so long > without revision or updating of beliefs when say, knowledge of the universe > progressed. I think you're using primary belief in a different sense here. What you're describing is what psychologists like to call cognitive dissonance. Rather disturbingly for our cherished assumptions of rationality, an ability to keep contradictory beliefs apart within a single mind seems actually to be indispensable to what is often thought of as "mental health". > First impressions seem to count for a lot in forming the patterns of > recognition > the brain uses. Well, I would say that "the patterns of recognition the brain uses" are part of the "visual belief system" and hence constitute embodied primary beliefs in the sense I intended. > A powerful primary belief in matter seems to be a very difficult thing to > have > some people admit to. Yes, though I'm not sure how much this owes to primary patterns of recognition and how much to more abstracted habits of mind. In the first instance, a "belief" in the materiality and causal relevance of matter is clearly crucial to survival and hence would be expected to have a long and deep history in the evolution of brain function. Secondarily, it might be the case that such deeply embedded "survival prejudices" may be difficult to overcome even in the context of more abstract reasoning. That said, there is a very long history of belief not in one, but two, "primary realities": i.e. body and soul. This seems to be the default human assumption, and you can even detect it in secular form in the apparent narrative plausibility of movie plots involving "body swapping". I think the problem comes in moving from the default dualist assumption to some form of monism. Then it starts to look as if the only viable options are the elimination or trivialising of "soul", on the one hand, or the relegation of "body" to a secondary manifestation of a generalised theory of cognition, on the other. Neither of these options is particularly easy to swallow. David > >> On 3 Jul 2014, at 9:09 am, David Nyman <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> Yes, primary belief, though necessarily incorrigible in the first >> instance, is nonetheless vulnerable in the second instance to >> correction or reinterpretation. Just as well, really. > > But is it? If primary belief (your belief in where the buck stops) were > vulnerable > to correction then why has Christianity for example, persevered > so long without > revision or updating of beliefs when say, knowledge of the > universe progressed. > First impressions seem to count for a lot in forming > the patterns of recognition > the brain uses. A powerful primary belief in > matter seems to be a very difficult > thing to have some people admit to. > > Kim > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
