this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2024
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I'm not interested in what the dictionary says or a textbook definition I'm interested in your personal distinction between the two ideas. How do you decide to put an idea in one category versus the other? I'm not interested in the abstract concepts like 'objective truth' I want to know how it works in real life for you.

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[โ€“] an_onanist@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Your description makes belief sound like willful ignorance.

It sounds like the real challenge is knowing when you have enough information to convert your educated guess into full-blown knowledge

[โ€“] NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Your description makes belief sound like willful ignorance.

Maybe, maybe not. In the absence of evidence, belief may be harmless, though somewhat pointless in the sense of Hitchen's razor:

What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.

and Newton's flaming laser sword:

That which cannot be settled by experiment is not worth debating.

It certainly becomes willful ignorance if the believer avoids and/or actively rejects contradictory evidence.

It sounds like the real challenge is knowing when you have enough information to convert your educated guess into full-blown knowledge

The educated guess (hypothesis) becomes knowledge when it can be demonstrated by direct experiment rather than inferred/constructed from related knowledge. Also it's important that the educated guess be testable/disprovable somehow, at least in theory (Popper's falsifiability principle):

Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or refute it.

So, belief is benign when it exists in an untested/untestable area and the believer is not bound to the belief emotionally. Belief is malignant when it exists in a tested area or when the believer clings to the belief emotionally. Belief is either harmless or extremely damaging, but in either case of no practical value.