Belief systems

[PolyPeter]

I died, came back, and now belief systems seem silly.

To me belief systems now feel like training wheels on a bike. Once you learn how to ride, you better ditch them so better tricks can take place! 

Why would anyone believe in anything when you can know directly?

Common responses:

- Fear of going crazy.

- Fear of pain.

- Fear of being wrong.

- Fear of Truth.

 

Extracts from conversations I've had with people:

"It is impossible for a human to live without a belief system" 
"Questioning my beliefs about belief systems??? I don't want to go crazy, thanks"
"If it were possible to see reality from outside all belief systems, that would be painfull and horrible"

 

[LastThursday]

It's an interesting thought: do you need beliefs at all?

I think beliefs allow you just to get on with living, without the burden of having to work everything out from scratch. Beliefs are heuristics for living. You can have good and bad beliefs, if you define them as being helpful for you on average, or from a more collectivist standpoint, helpful for your community in general.

But beliefs can be more fluid, if you work at it. I think it's also possible to have context dependent beliefs (even if socially that seems odd), which naturally loosens what you hold to be true.  You could even pick and mix beliefs as it suits you day-to-day. Although, I think it would take effort to live that way, it's far easier to be more rigid in your beliefs.

I think it's probably nearly impossible to live without beliefs, because you have to live in a society with social rules and laws, and you need quick heuristics to judge what to do in many different situations and not get paralised with indecision.

Edited Monday at 12:17 AM by LastThursday

[PolyPeter]

Yes inded, I can see that. Beliefs can be useful for survival or practical things.

But that does not mean Beliefs should not be modified over time or that the act of believing itself should not be observed.

I mean, a dog walks around, takes a nap, barks at a bird, sleeps. A dog acts instinctivley, influenced by the context, and the biological needs, but they never go around believing if it's gonna rain or be sunny.

When you say this 

6 hours ago, LastThursday said:

I think it's probably nearly impossible to live without beliefs,

Why nearly and not 100%?

[LastThursday]

8 hours ago, PolyPeter said:

Why nearly and not 100%?

If you're constantly observing your own beliefs then that erodes your confidence in their truth. You will still go around holding beliefs, but you know are only partial truths. You carry on believing, but don't believe in your beliefs, you just know that they're useful like a screwdriver. <- hopefully that wasn't word salad.

Dogs don't believe in screwdrivers, and you could live without one, but hell, they're useful for screws. In other words, we deliberately live in vastly more complex worlds than dogs do.

[UnbornTao]

Yeah, recognizing a belief for what it is tends to undermine our certainty in it; it is seen as invented and adopted, and therefore not true in itself.

But how deep does belief go? We might assume it is just a trivial notion we hold in our minds. There may be deeper layers to it, though. 

What do you take for granted about any aspect of reality? What do you think is true about X and Y? (These are meant to be contemplated.)

[Hojo]

This is why gurus are toxic. They bring in beleif systems. I got like 99 beleif systems listening to a guru after I awaken and I'm like fuck now they keep repeating in my mind.

Edited Monday at 09:28 PM by Hojo

[PolyPeter]

On 1/19/2026 at 0:18 PM, LastThursday said:

In other words, we deliberately live in vastly more complex worlds than dogs do.

Yes. Dog's do not have the need to understand because their biology does not allow them.

On the other hand, humans can go insane out of believing or imagining things that exist only within the conceptual domain.

[PolyPeter]

On 1/19/2026 at 0:18 PM, LastThursday said:

If you're constantly observing your own beliefs then that erodes your confidence in their truth.

Just like when you observe any particular thing for a long period of time

No appearance is ultimatley True

The only thing (not a thing) that always remains the same is Consciousness

[PolyPeter]

On 1/19/2026 at 1:37 PM, UnbornTao said:

recognizing a belief for what it is tends to undermine our certainty in it

Yes, it is even weird to say that you had any real certainty from the act of believing in the first place, and I mean, why would you choose to believe in something if you were sure it is a certain way? 

Beliefs will arise when a certain logical narrative cannot fulfill the explanation a human is looking for

Becuase it is easier to believe in something that you are not certain, rather than to just say "I don't know"

The comfort of believing is what destroys the curiosity towards the unknown

[PolyPeter]

On 1/19/2026 at 1:37 PM, UnbornTao said:

What do you take for granted about any aspect of reality? What do you think is true about X and Y?

"Sorry sir, I do not want to go insane tonight!"

This is the kind of replies I get when I ask this questions

Edited 11 hours ago by PolyPeter

[PolyPeter]

On 1/19/2026 at 6:25 PM, Hojo said:

This is why gurus are toxic. They bring in beleif systems. I got like 99 beleif systems listening to a guru after I awaken and I'm like fuck now they keep repeating in my mind.

Toxic gurus are the best at spiritual bypassing

It's been hard for me to find someone talking about this matters, other than Leo, that I can actually listen to for hours on end. 

Do you know someone online I could listen to talking about this topic of belief systems?

Btw I'm starting to read this work https://metarationality.com/, and it its very good, is something Leo reccomended not long ago

[UnbornTao]

3 hours ago, PolyPeter said:

Yes, it is even weird to say that you had any real certainty from the act of believing in the first place, and I mean, why would you choose to believe in something if you were sure it is a certain way? 

Beliefs will arise when a certain logical narrative cannot fulfill the explanation a human is looking for

Becuase it is easier to believe in something that you are not certain, rather than to just say "I don't know"

The comfort of believing is what destroys the curiosity towards the unknown

Definitely. Add to that the taken-for-granted nature of a certain domain of beliefs. Some of them are not just notions but rather show up as "reality" for us. The alleged certainty lies in not recognizing them as such. And not all of them are deliberately taken up.

Still, what is a belief?

[PolyPeter]

2 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

Still, what is a belief?

Great question, difficult to answer simply.

I think that considering a belief as something separate is a mistake.

Maybe, as stated in the early chapters of the metarationality book, we could think in terms of "The believing" instead of a "Belief" alone. 

And in this case, believing is something humans do, they believe what they don't know, because of the previously mentioned discomfort.

 

If your arm starts to itch, with the other one you go and scratch it if you decide to do so.

In a similar manner, if a human encounters the unknown, or at least their unknown, many things can happen, but usually when a narrative goes inside the mind of that human, and the narrative has holes, like, explanatory holes, then the human could start believing in things that are there to patch this holes.

Let's take very religious people. The have it complicated here, because they truly believe in God. And no matter what goes on in life, everything is an expression of God, which is absolutley true, but in this case, they are choosing to believe in something that is true, not because they are silly, but because swimming in the sea of their own believing feels much better for the optimization machine that we call our brain. 

 

There are no beliefs out there alone in the universe, rather, people creating stories to explain things they don't know. 

People are afraid of saying "I don't know", which is understandable since the egomind will always try to stick to a worldview where it feels safe.

Edited 5 hours ago by PolyPeter

[DocWatts]

Here's my definition:

Beliefs are heuristics with emotional attachments.

What  makes something a belief isn't whether it's true or false - it's whether our ego is invested in it being true or false.

Edited 2 hours ago by DocWatts

[UnbornTao]

4 hours ago, PolyPeter said:

Great question, difficult to answer simply.

I think that considering a belief as something separate is a mistake.

Maybe, as stated in the early chapters of the metarationality book, we could think in terms of "The believing" instead of a "Belief" alone. 

And in this case, believing is something humans do, they believe what they don't know, because of the previously mentioned discomfort.

 

If your arm starts to itch, with the other one you go and scratch it if you decide to do so.

In a similar manner, if a human encounters the unknown, or at least their unknown, many things can happen, but usually when a narrative goes inside the mind of that human, and the narrative has holes, like, explanatory holes, then the human could start believing in things that are there to patch this holes.

Let's take very religious people. The have it complicated here, because they truly believe in God. And no matter what goes on in life, everything is an expression of God, which is absolutley true, but in this case, they are choosing to believe in something that is true, not because they are silly, but because swimming in the sea of their own believing feels much better for the optimization machine that we call our brain. 

 

There are no beliefs out there alone in the universe, rather, people creating stories to explain things they don't know. 

People are afraid of saying "I don't know", which is understandable since the egomind will always try to stick to a worldview where it feels safe.

To build on your point, we might say that belief encompasses everything we think we know of which we have no personal experience - which should make up most of our knowledge base. While this distinction appears clear in theory, closer examination reveals that much of our so-called "experience" is intertwined with a great deal of conceptual thinking. Which is fine, concept is a powerful tool too.

Yes, we could argue that if we directly knew something there would be no need for belief. So belief is an admission of ignorance (nothing wrong with this per se; it is simply a fact of the human condition). Belief, then, is expected to fill (or at least cover up) this gap. Yet, ultimately, it remains a superficial effort, a pretense. Deep down we probably recognize the fact that this condition of not knowing cannot be altered by belief.

Edited 35 minutes ago by UnbornTao