5 ms·

This article is a very shallow take on an old question. I mean, clearly, yes, authority (and marketing) influence people's beliefs. Beliefs are hard to change

This article is a very shallow take on an old question. I mean, clearly, yes, authority (and marketing) influence people's beliefs. Beliefs are hard to change in others and in yourself. But the core question of epistemology is very well-trod ground. Going back to Socrates and his distinction between true beliefs and knowledge, the idea that beliefs are things we wear like clothes has been dismissed for millennia.

blix 5y ago
Changing your own beliefs is quite easy. At any moment you can simply choose to believe something else. Changing other people's beliefs is more challenging, but so is changing other people's clothes.
- goatlover 5y ago
  How do you choose to believe something else? Belief doesn't seem like a conscious choice to me. I can choose to seek out things which might challenge my belief in X, and ultimately this may lead to a belief in Y instead, but I can't go from X to Y from merely willing to do so.
  - blix 5y ago
    Choosing to seek out changing your belief by seeking contrary evidence is a form of choosing to change it. You can also do it while skipping that step, though it takes some practice. If you say something to yourself enough times, eventually you will believe it is true. Ultimately many beliefs are just selective readings of available evidence. Once upon a time, there was a viral meme featureing a striped dress that was either white and gold or blue and black depending on who you asked. People became very attached to their interpretation of the illusion and I saw a lot of very fierce argument. With a bit of practice, however, it isn't actually that hard to hold both interpretations simultaneously and choose between them at will.
- timoth3y 5y ago
  > Changing your own beliefs is quite easy. At any moment you can simply choose to believe something else. Can you though? Can you easily change your current belief that it is easy to change your belief? Once you changed that could you easily change it back? If you strongly believe that Elon Musk is a genius/fraud, could you simply flip your belief on a whim? No. You really can't. In fact, someone with such a weak belief structure would probably have little sense of self. We all like to image ourselves as rational beings in charge of our own minds while others are adrift on a sea of emotion, but research shows that beliefs change very slowly.
  - BurningFrog 5y ago
    You can't consciously decide to believe arbitrary things. But most of our beliefs are decided by unconscious processes that decide having a certain belief would be good for us. Another part comes up with a good sounding justification that we can tell ourselves and others. This is known as Motivated Reasoning, and is far more common than we want to believe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivated_reasoning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivated_reasoning
    - blix 5y ago
      Certain schools of philosophy/religion/meditation are devoted to moving past these unconscious processes and making these choices conscious. If you sit with a bowl of snacks next to you as you work, you may find that your hand wanders by itself over to the doritos and delivers them to your mouth, where you chew and swallow barely even noticing as your keyboard becomes covered in cheese dust and grease. It is also possible to make a conscious decision to do the same thing, or to decide not to eat them at all. An intermediate is to move the snacks away so you can work without wrestling your subconscious. Unconscious choice is very, very common but it does not mean concscious choice is impossible.
  - blix 5y ago
    Yes, I can. I choose to continue believing that I can can change my beliefs because it has brought numerous benefits to my life. I did not always believe this: one day I simply decided to start. Picking up or dropping an arbitrary belief about Elon Musk is trivial in comparison. > In fact, someone with such a weak belief structure would probably have little sense of self. This is, in fact, one of the explicit goals of several schools of philosophy and meditation. Being in charge of your own mind is extremely liberating, but like controlling any part of the body, precision requires practice.
- psyc 5y ago
  I can’t change my beliefs. I can seek better information that might cause my beliefs to change. I can apply a filter, like optimism or pessimism, that has the effect of filtering by selective attention more granular beliefs that are nevertheless fixed. I can temporarily try on a perspective to try to understand someone else, but that almost never convinces me of anything except how they see things (a fact about them, not the world).
  - blix 5y ago
    It's challenging to change a belief if you don't actually want to. Things are usually much easier if you want to do them.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- arvigeus 5y ago
  If you flip flop your beliefs, then you don’t believe in anything, just following the trend. Call people “brainwashed” for refusing to change, but at least they have a ground they firmly stay on. Not to mention people finding random articles online and use them to “debunk” other people’s beliefs. If things were that simple, certain beliefs would not had survived through out the years.
  - blix 5y ago
    Some time ago, there was a story where an alt-right 4chan troll woke up one day, converted to Islam and joined the Islamic State. I'm not sure what trend that flip-flop is following. Debunking articles exist to reaffirm the beliefs of the debunkers, not to change minds. In the face of a flood, choosing to firmly stay on low ground is a poor choice, but societally we place such a high value on ideological constancy that it often leads to dubious choices.

blix 5y ago

Changing your own beliefs is quite easy. At any moment you can simply choose to believe something else. Changing other people's beliefs is more challenging, but so is changing other people's clothes.

goatlover 5y ago
How do you choose to believe something else? Belief doesn't seem like a conscious choice to me. I can choose to seek out things which might challenge my belief in X, and ultimately this may lead to a belief in Y instead, but I can't go from X to Y from merely willing to do so.
- blix 5y ago
  Choosing to seek out changing your belief by seeking contrary evidence is a form of choosing to change it. You can also do it while skipping that step, though it takes some practice. If you say something to yourself enough times, eventually you will believe it is true. Ultimately many beliefs are just selective readings of available evidence. Once upon a time, there was a viral meme featureing a striped dress that was either white and gold or blue and black depending on who you asked. People became very attached to their interpretation of the illusion and I saw a lot of very fierce argument. With a bit of practice, however, it isn't actually that hard to hold both interpretations simultaneously and choose between them at will.
timoth3y 5y ago
> Changing your own beliefs is quite easy. At any moment you can simply choose to believe something else. Can you though? Can you easily change your current belief that it is easy to change your belief? Once you changed that could you easily change it back? If you strongly believe that Elon Musk is a genius/fraud, could you simply flip your belief on a whim? No. You really can't. In fact, someone with such a weak belief structure would probably have little sense of self. We all like to image ourselves as rational beings in charge of our own minds while others are adrift on a sea of emotion, but research shows that beliefs change very slowly.
- BurningFrog 5y ago
  You can't consciously decide to believe arbitrary things. But most of our beliefs are decided by unconscious processes that decide having a certain belief would be good for us. Another part comes up with a good sounding justification that we can tell ourselves and others. This is known as Motivated Reasoning, and is far more common than we want to believe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivated_reasoning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivated_reasoning
  - blix 5y ago
    Certain schools of philosophy/religion/meditation are devoted to moving past these unconscious processes and making these choices conscious. If you sit with a bowl of snacks next to you as you work, you may find that your hand wanders by itself over to the doritos and delivers them to your mouth, where you chew and swallow barely even noticing as your keyboard becomes covered in cheese dust and grease. It is also possible to make a conscious decision to do the same thing, or to decide not to eat them at all. An intermediate is to move the snacks away so you can work without wrestling your subconscious. Unconscious choice is very, very common but it does not mean concscious choice is impossible.
- blix 5y ago
  Yes, I can. I choose to continue believing that I can can change my beliefs because it has brought numerous benefits to my life. I did not always believe this: one day I simply decided to start. Picking up or dropping an arbitrary belief about Elon Musk is trivial in comparison. > In fact, someone with such a weak belief structure would probably have little sense of self. This is, in fact, one of the explicit goals of several schools of philosophy and meditation. Being in charge of your own mind is extremely liberating, but like controlling any part of the body, precision requires practice.
psyc 5y ago
I can’t change my beliefs. I can seek better information that might cause my beliefs to change. I can apply a filter, like optimism or pessimism, that has the effect of filtering by selective attention more granular beliefs that are nevertheless fixed. I can temporarily try on a perspective to try to understand someone else, but that almost never convinces me of anything except how they see things (a fact about them, not the world).
- blix 5y ago
  It's challenging to change a belief if you don't actually want to. Things are usually much easier if you want to do them.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
arvigeus 5y ago
If you flip flop your beliefs, then you don’t believe in anything, just following the trend. Call people “brainwashed” for refusing to change, but at least they have a ground they firmly stay on. Not to mention people finding random articles online and use them to “debunk” other people’s beliefs. If things were that simple, certain beliefs would not had survived through out the years.
- blix 5y ago
  Some time ago, there was a story where an alt-right 4chan troll woke up one day, converted to Islam and joined the Islamic State. I'm not sure what trend that flip-flop is following. Debunking articles exist to reaffirm the beliefs of the debunkers, not to change minds. In the face of a flood, choosing to firmly stay on low ground is a poor choice, but societally we place such a high value on ideological constancy that it often leads to dubious choices.