OK I used to believe that it should make sense in order for you to believe in it.
But self evident things (such as your body) exist by default (and sometimes don't make sense TO A DEGREE). Since you believe in them by default does that mean that the belief is NOT based on it making sense?
Does that then mean that beliefs in things that make sense but are NOT self-evident are meaningless?
Or is belief in self-evident things still based on what makes sense and it would be rational to believe in things that are not self-evident?
it's hard to make my mind up.

Of course not. Just look at physics, most of that shit doesn't make sense, but it's fucking true.

Human concept of "common sense" is only (somewhat) reliable when dealing on the human scale. For most other things it's horribly misleading.

Is this a homework question? You've got two threads asking very similar things.

no, it's a question related to my solipsism obsession

asdfjkl wrote:OK I used to believe that it should make sense in order for you to believe in it.
But self evident things (such as your body) exist by default (and sometimes don't make sense TO A DEGREE). Since you believe in them by default does that mean that the belief is NOT based on it making sense?
Does that then mean that beliefs in things that make sense but are NOT self-evident are meaningless?
Or is belief in self-evident things still based on what makes sense and it would be rational to believe in things that are not self-evident?
it's hard to make my mind up.

We naturally believe in what makes sense. Our beliefs could be wrong but they could be right too.

asdfjkl wrote:no, it's a question related to my solipsism obsession

The world doesn't exist, the sooner you accept that the sooner we can stop being figments of your imagination.

HughMcB wrote:Of course not. Just look at physics, most of that shit doesn't make sense, but it's fucking true.

True, but physicists aren’t happy when their theories don’t cohere, as opposed to not being intuitively obvious. If something doesn’t make sense in the sense of actually contradicting itself, believing it becomes tricky.

asdfjkl wrote:no, it's a question related to my solipsism obsession

Speaking as someone with the same obsession, I think the common sense division between thoughts and the external world has become incoherent now that scientific advances have shown that human brains are almost certainly objects like any other. We have one psychological system (the basic scientific one) for managing ordinary objects, and a different one (Theory of Mind) for dealing with people. We see objects as acting because of causes, while people are centres of consciousness and act for reasons. In working practice as a materialist I believe both, although they are not compatible. Either we act because of causes or we act for reasons, one or the other has to give. I don’t think that is a satisfactory state of affairs but I’m far from clear how else to see things – perhaps “reason” needs to be rethought as a complex set of causes??. I don’t think solipsism helps, because solipsism keeps the distinction between thoughts and the external world, and I think it’s that distinction which is causing the trouble. According to solipsism, as I understand it, I can know my thoughts directly but I cannot know anyone else’s thoughts or the external world.

Joshua Greene has an interesting line that philosophical dilemmas often happen when we have two (or more) systems inside the brain which usually work together well enough, but which occasionally come up with different and incompatible answers, so that we do effectively believe two things at once – it’s not logical, it’s biological. (On Joshua Greene’s home page he explains this straightforwardly, using the moral dilemma of the trolley problem as an example.

What I'm saying is this, if the idea that the self evident things "like yourself" you believe because they are self-evident (not because they "make sense") does that mean that there is no reason to believe in something just because it makes sense? Or that ideas that make sense aren't on the same level as self-evident things and therefore not as "real"?
Also if it made sense to believe that something self-evident (you for example) did not in fact exist, would it not be as self-evident any more?

bump can you reply plz

I like this video, she says there are "different degrees of knowledge and belief" and explains the idea well.

(watch from 1.35 to about 3.10)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7nLwjnP6pQ#t=95s

I don't know where you'd place self evident truths like "I exist" on the scale. Personally I'd put it at the very top.

DrWho wrote:

asdfjkl wrote:OK I used to believe that it should make sense in order for you to believe in it.
But self evident things (such as your body) exist by default (and sometimes don't make sense TO A DEGREE). Since you believe in them by default does that mean that the belief is NOT based on it making sense?
Does that then mean that beliefs in things that make sense but are NOT self-evident are meaningless?
Or is belief in self-evident things still based on what makes sense and it would be rational to believe in things that are not self-evident?
it's hard to make my mind up.

We naturally believe in what makes sense. Our beliefs could be wrong but they could be right too.

If we are aware that we may be wrong in believing the sensible thing then should we not be prepared to verify, validate or corroborate it in some way? If we are going to be sceptical about things then perhaps it is better not to believe anything just because it seems sensible. Then again, if we can and do verify, validate or corroborate the sensible thing by some appropriate rational means then might we not allow ourselves to accept that the sensible thing is, in this case, justifiably believable? Indeed, would it not be irrational to not accept the sensible thing in such circumstances. It seems to me that we have to distinguish between what merely seems sensible to believe and what actually is sensible to believe.

My question is, does the idea that self-evident things exist as they are work so well BECAUSE IT MAKES SENSE? Or for some other reason?

I'd go the other way - if something does not make sense, you shouldn't believe it.But if something makes sense it is believable but not necessarily true. If something makes sense it would seem to be a possibility - one that needs some further investigation for it to be believed. In many cases, that further investigation might be easy, and in others not so much.

asdfjkl wrote:My question is, does the idea that self-evident things exist as they are work so well BECAUSE IT MAKES SENSE? Or for some other reason?

How can we differentiate between the things we find sensible and therefore believe and the things we believe and therefore find sensible?

IDK but it sort of seems that if something is self-evident it is believed regardless of making sense or not.
On the other hand it seems that if it didn't make sense to believe in it you wouldn't (and the idea itself is based on making sense).

Time and place, is important to belief. Different times, different beliefs. Evidence, and the lack of, influence.

Give us an example of something that is self-evident but doesn't make sense.

"I exist" is a blatantly obvious fact that makes sense.

I also like this one. When theists say "something can't come from nothing" to atheists as if it is some kind of silver bullet. I say; "Yea, something cannot possibly come from nothing, but something exists...Therefore there never was nothing!"

Something exists - is self evident. And we can observe shit backing up this observation. What is the problem again?

What I'm saying is...
We believe in self-evident things because they are self-evident.
The idea of an external reality makes sense but isn't self-evident.
Does that mean that there is no reason to believe in external reality?
Because I used to think that "We believe in self-evident things because they are self-evident." is the same as believing in them because they make sense, same type of reason as believing in external reality.
But if we have no self-evident examples of why belief works because it makes sense does that mean that you shouldn't believe in an external reality?

asdfjkl wrote:What I'm saying is...
We believe in self-evident things because they are self-evident.
The idea of an external reality makes sense but isn't self-evident.
Does that mean that there is no reason to believe in external reality?
Because I used to think that "We believe in self-evident things because they are self-evident." is the same as believing in them because they make sense, same type of reason as believing in external reality.
But if we have no self-evident examples of why belief works because it makes sense does that mean that you shouldn't believe in an external reality?

What one should or should not believe is an existential quandary that we all have to deal with.

You're query seems less about whether one should believe what makes sense and more about what might justify a belief. The self-evident thing is that which is obvious, one's body for example or the boulder that breaks your toes when you kick it. One's body and the boulder are evidence of themselves in as much as they become self-evident when confirmed by perception. It literally makes sense to believe we have a body and that boulders exist apart from it - after all one can see the bruise and feel the pain, and one can confirm the existence of one's body and the boulder by repeating the action of bringing the two together.*

Why would someone not reasonably infer an external reality from the evidence of the senses - unless one were sceptical about the nature of perception and concluded that perception was so unreliable that any view one formed about the world based on it could not really be trusted? But then again, on what basis would someone conclude this other than from a belief that this conclusion about their perceptual experience was correct?

Some would say that belief is justified when it is supported by appropriate, proportionate evidence - but then the question turns to what might constitute appropriate, proportionate evidence for any given belief, and that is not the topic.

I think the scab you are reach covers the issue of whether personal experience alone can count as evidence to justify a belief, particularly in circumstances where the belief itself consists only in the experience of thought (i.e. that the belief is about an idea, notion, abstract concept; not a belief about a thing, etc.). Is this the scab you're looking to pick, and if so what is/are the given belief/s in question?



* This of course does not include the more poetic or rhetorical meanings of 'self-evident' such as, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal blah blah blah..."