Belief Informs Perception

We only know what we think we know because we believe we know it. Because of how we form what we think of as reality based on what we believe we have perceived, and extrapolate the vast majority of what we think is real based on our prior experience, it is our beliefs which determine what we think we have perceived; seen, heard, felt, or smelled, or otherwise detected with our senses.

While discussing his extremely important posts with @ura-soul, we somehow got on this topic, and began an extensive conversation in his comment section. Because I believe it is important to understand how we know, and the topic of belief is but tangential to the topic of his post, I didn't want to either digress from that post topic, nor to simply abandon the discussion.

Therefore I have created a new post where the discussion can continue, without derailing his post.

I suspect that, like me, many of us simply ignore how our minds work, and set about using them. I have found that this has caused me to act based on beliefs that I have later discovered to be erroneous, and based on assumptions and biases that I accepted without adequate examination.

We, as biological entities, are designed to become part of a cultural entity, and in our childhood absorb many cultural definitions and much bias as part of the process of growing up H. sapiens. Fortunately we are more than just animals, and have the ability to reason. This potentiates the happy circumstance that we can examine our beliefs, our culture, and reality itself, so as to discover inaccuracies and propaganda, and change our minds.

We can learn what is true, and if we discard what is false when we do, we have changed society itself. It can seem pointless and petty to think of one's beliefs as the foundation of not only our own reality, but of our entire culture's, but since culture is simply the sum of the beliefs and knowledge of the members of society, when we change our mind, we change our world.

Propaganda is the attempt to create a culture suitable for a given purpose, usually to potentiate the control of resources by a select group. While we think of propaganda as lies used by evil people for their aggrandizement, in truth we are all propaganda machines, and engage in attempts to craft culture - as we are biologically designed to do.

The truth about science, politics, religion, and many other cultural artifacts are incessantly discussed in the attempts we all undertake to craft our culture, to make it better. It is that propaganda which, rather than seeking to benefit our neighbors and communities in ways we think best able to do that, is intended to benefit only ourselves, or our clique, to the detriment of others, which degrades not only us, but all the people touched by it.

This is why I think understanding how we understand is so important, so that we can intentionally act to better the world around us, and rather than simply do what we have been told. If we never examine what we know, or why we think we know it, we are going to serve someone's agenda, as there is no doubt that propaganda has been used on us.

I don't want to serve evil masters that intend me and my community harm. I am extremely disappointed in myself when I discover that I have been doing so. I bet many of you feel the same way, and so I want to enable us to consider how we know what we think we know, because only by examining it can we consciously choose what is true, and discard what is false.

Because cultural stability is so important to individual survival, there are strong biological mechanisms that actually prevent us from doing this. Studies have shown that 'true believers' that deny facts denigrating their belief are rewarded with a shot of dopamine when they do it. We have all run into people that seem to be so deeply in denial of what seems to us to be obvious facts that counter their beliefs that no argument or demonstration could penetrate to their ability to reason.

People resist cognitive dissonance, and the experience of discovering that our beliefs are false is painful in proportion to how foundational and important we feel those beliefs are. It is true that people kill themselves and others, wage war and imprison their 'enemies' when denying facts is more important than life itself, because of the powerful mechanisms that cause us to cling to our worldviews rather than embrace reason, and change our minds.

So when I say that it is what we believe that determines what we think we see, hear, and feel, this is how important it is to examine what we believe. We all feel the need to be part of a community, and therefore are motivated to accept the cultural norms of that community. When our community is being manipulated with propaganda for the benefit of a select group of profiteers at the expense of our community, if we do not carefully examine what we know, we are prone to destroying the very culture we are designed to strengthen.

I am pretty strongly convinced that there is an historically unprecedented propaganda attack underway on us today, and that the most venal and conniving people are undertaking to profit from our distress. From climate change to nuclear war, the harm that is potential to people from propaganda has never been more dire, and our natural biology is incapable of instinctively safeguarding us from those threats.

Thankfully, we are also rational people, not just animals, and are capable of overcoming instinct with reason.

Let's.