🚀 go-pugleaf

Someone wrote:
> I don't endorse Aparicio's further claim
> that life after death can be considered "true" because it's "useful"
> whereas no life after death is "stupid" because it's irrelevant.

I think the question arises: what BETTER criterion do you have for your
beliefs?  What's your "fitness function" for beliefs? :-)  Without a
function of this sort, any claim about belief in any X is hand-waving.

Now, some people lean towards "evidence" as a determiner for their degree of
belief in X, which ultimately relies on perception (whether direct perception
of X or perception of others asserting X or perception of something
caused by X is irrelevat -- it's still perception).

But if you look at the "evidence" of biology (smile -- I know this will be
self-referential, but I *don't* think it's a viscious circle) you find that
our structure determines the nature of our perceptions.  Biologically,
we evolved mechanisms to perceive that which benefits our survival.
Thus, we PERCEIVE things based on whether they are USEFULL.

Thus if you believe in X based on "evidence," ultimately you are
believing in X because it is useful to you are a living organism to
believe X, whether in a cognitive or fundamentally structural way.

So I don't see how you CAN argue against the belief-based-on-utility
stance.  I think you just have a different notion of what is "useful"
than those who proport to have found that believing in an afterlife
is the most useful stance.

I personally find no use for it, so I don't believe in it. I am not
internally, cognitively or biologically MOTIVATED to believe in it.

But I recognize that others may be.  People who believe that all of
life springs from intellectualism may have good biological excuses
for being able to feel that way, and motivating those beliefs --
i.e. not ever having encountered their embodiments as obsticles.
People who are oppressed and don't have the advantages of invisible labor
tend to develop very different theories of life and mind than those
who have cultural power positions.....

Greg

greg@santafe.edu
stevens@prodigal.psych.rochester.edu