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> 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 b

> 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.

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.