A conceptual perspective on belief

[GliderGuider]

7. It's OK, I doubt we can eliminate it all.

Last edited Thu Jan 26, 2012, 10:27 AM - Edit history (1)

Much of it happens at a level that we're not normally conscious of yet, as you point out.

Emotions will always be with us - we're human after all. I'm talking about a possible technique to reduce our enslavement by them, and allow us to perceive reality more clearly.

The possibility that we can become more conscious, push back the veil of awareness and in the process begin to decide for ourselves whether and how to react is intriguing to me. Such cognitive work offers the chance that we can choose not to be victims of our feelings.

In the case of the moving branch, belief is operating at a number of levels. On the most overt level there is the belief that the wind is blowing the branch. If one is an animist, there might be a belief that that the soul of the tree is greeting you. At a deeper level, there is the belief that there is a tree. Even below that there is the belief that there is an external world that "the tree" exists in. Of course, below that is the belief that there is a "me" who is having the experience in the first place.

It's just turtles, all the way down...