The Error of Belief

Read my theory: http://www.mm-theory.com/

In my paper Reality and Perception, I attempted to resolve the "problem of the infinit regress" as I called it. Hopefully, this solution sits well with those who have read it. However, a question that has lately been brewing in my mind has been this: do I have the right to believe my theory? I ponder over this question because, if you think about it long and hard enough, the aforementioned solution seems to imply that to believe in the theory immediately invalidates that very belief. How so? Well, consider the solution in more depth: it says that we need to abandon the window-to-reality model of consciousness, and we need to abandon it even in light of the theory itself - that is to say, based on the theory's own tenets, we have no right to lay claim to any knowledge or proper conception of reality as it actually exists beyond our minds, but that we can settle for confidence in the logical integrity of the structure of the theory itself - that is, we can boast confidence that, regardless of whether the theory is right or wrong vis-a-vis its matching up with ultimate reality, it is internally consistent and makes sense. Now, to invest such confidence in that is to uphold belief in the logical structure of the theory - to take an affirmative stand on the valid relation between the premises and the conclusions, and any argumentation in between - but not so much to affirm the truth of the theory. So when the question comes up: do I believe the theory? - I am a little lost for words. To say yes intuitively implies that I take the theory to be true - to be the right "match" for reality - but to say no seems to imply, intuitively, that I ought to abandon the theory - disowning it as pure nonsense. So I'm going to devote this post to a thorough consideration of this question. What should I say to one who asks me: do I believe in MM-Theory?

First off, belief is typically a personal matter. The very question on the table bears nothing on MM-Theory - at least, not if we take the solution to the problem of infinite regress to heart. That is to say, if we present MM-Theory in the spirit of a system model of consciousness, boasting only that our theory is consistent and logically valid, and that listeners can take it or leave it on those grounds alone, it really doesn't matter, to us or anyone, whether we or those listeners subscribe to the theory and invest belief in it. That's a choice we can all make on our own and bears not the slightest consequence to the consistency or logical validity of theory as presented. That being said, however, each of us, in our considerations of whether or not to believe, ought to take stock of the question of whether such belief is self-annihilating - that is, self-annihilitating insofar as one understands the implications of believing - namely, that to believe in the theory seems to be equivalent to taking a stance on the nature of ultimate reality as it is beyond our minds. So the question is not whether belief in the theory invalidates its internal consistency or logical integrity, but whether committing ourselves to an exclusive focus on such internal standards rips us of our right to believe in the first place.

The correct approach to answering this question, I'm convinced, is the same approach taken towards the problem of the infinite regress itself. The approach we took there was to understand what it means for a theory to be "correct" according to a system model of consciousness. Likewise, therefore, we ought to understand what it means to "believe" accord to the same model. After all, to "believe" means to "take to be correct". But as we can easily see, the adjustment made to the meaning of "belief" becomes a tad bit dissappointing. If the meaning of "correct" turns out to refer exclusively to a theory's logical consistency, then "belief" turns out to refer to our recognition of that same consistency. In other words, when we say that we believe in the theory, we mean only that we believe it to be logically consistent. We have effectively abandoned any faith in its fitness for mirroring ultimate reality. Of course, this in no way implies that an alternative theory can be any better a match - as we argued in Reality and Perception, the whole problem revolves around ultimate reality being "unmatchable" - so no theory suites as the perfect match. Nonetheless, such a notion would seem to imply that we ought to abandon belief all together, and this seems rather unsatisfactory.

Therefore, for the remainder of this post, I would like to work towards embellishing this notion of "belief" - that which a system model of consciousness leaves us with - with concepts that are a bit more flattering. I intend to approach this from a variety of angles, one of which, I feel, fully restores our sense of flattery.

Angle 1

Before we get to this most flattering of embellishments, however, let's examine the meaning of "belief" we have so far derived. We said above that according to a system model of consciousness, a "belief" can be logically vindicated so long as it constitutes a valid appraisal of the logical integrity linking a set of premises to their conclusions. According to this meaning of "belief", I can say that I believe the following syllogism:

     All grass is green.
     All men are grass.
     Therefore, all men are green.

What it would mean for me to say that I believe this is that I take the statement

     If all grass is green, and if all men were grass, then all men
     would be green.

to be true. That is to say, it means that for any argument, theory, mental model, etc., if we express it as one all encompassing conditional statement - where the premises constitute the antecedent, and the conclusion the consequent - then we take that statement to be true.

But to say that a conditional statement is true is one thing; to say that the premises, on their own, are true is another. Returning to the syllogistic form of the statement, it is only to say that we take it to be valid - but not necessarily that it is sound. Soundness, of course, requires more than valid form; it requires that we also take the premises to be true, the conclusion becoming true consequently.

It would be nice if we could take the premises of MM-Theory to be true, and thus the theory overall to be true. But the solution to the problem of the infinite regress seems not to allow us this priviledge. It doesn't allow us to believe our own premises. We are reduced merely to demonstrating the valid form of our arguments. On a brighter note, it doesn't compel us to take our premises as false either; rather, what the solution to the infinite regress problem demands is that we disregard the whole question of the truth or falsehood of the premises, focusing exclusively on logical form.

Of course, if it is form we're interested in, we should note now that we won't find a stringently deductive structure to the theory's logic through-and-through. In many places, we quite openly go out on a limb, make inductive leaps, invest somewhat in faith, and so on. These shouldn't be taken as flaws in our theory, for when we boast internal consistency in our theory, we mean that it is free from internal contradictions (so my use of the term "logical validity" is to be taken informally). We can freely venture into a bit of speculation here and there without necessarily contradicting what we have said elsewhere.

Nevertheless, what we are concerned with, according to the meaning of "belief" under consideration, is the truth of the conditional form of our theory - that is, the truth of our theory when expressed as: if our premises are true, then our conclusions are also true. If we make certain inductive leaps here and there, the proper form of this statement ought to read: if our premises are true, there is the possibility, even the plausibility, that our conclusions are also true.

It's important to include such words as 'plausibility', for our theory certainly has more value than a syllogism about green men. The validity of its logical form - or rather, its consistency - is perhaps the least it has going for it. The fact that it's persuasive, even believable (the current question on belief notwithstanding), and effectively solves the problem of mind and matter (which itself could be taken as only a problem in the logical consistency of certain relevant concepts*), gives our theory value above and beyond its internal consistency.

Thus, it is perhaps not so bad that we interpret "belief" in this way. Even if we are reduced to taking a stance on the truth of our theory expressed as a conditional statement, it is still quite a significant statement, one whose implications many may find interesting and of value in one way or another. After all, if the premises of MM-Theory were true, then it is this sense of "belief" that we must apply to any theory of reality - even objectivist ones like materialism or niave realism (giving them the benefit of the doubt, of course, vis-a-vis their logical consistency). Nothing on the matter can be proven one way or another otherwise. That is to say, neither model of consciousness - whether a system model or a window one - can be proven conclusively; therefore, whether we are all dealing exclusively with mental models of reality, none of which can be said to bear the slightest degree of resemblence to reality outside the mind, or we are apprehending reality for what it truly is, our beliefs on the state of reality depend on which model we uphold. Thus, it can be said that any such belief is always theory dependent, always reliant on some model of reality. All we are ever doing, in the end, is adopting one model of reality or another, along with one model of consciousness or another, and starting with that, building all our other beliefs upon them. These primal models and theories are selected for many reasons, often good ones, but they are indeed unfalsifiable, and as such they are selected somewhat by free choice. Nothing ever proves one over any other to be the ultimately correct and final one. Each one is a fundamental and quite significant premise, held up only as an assumption, from which all our other beliefs follow. All we are doing, in the end, is trying to build a model from it as consistently and persuasively as we can.

Angle 2

Even though I generally take an agnostic view of my own theory - saying more often that I don't know whether or not it is true (and therefore refrain from full fledged belief) - there is another sense in which I say it is my belief. I don't mean this in the sense that if I can't rely on infallible reasoning or conclusive evidence, then I must rely on something like faith or educated guessing (although I could mean it in this sense); rather, what I mean is that the theory belongs to me - I created it, I take pride in it, and I use and defend it in philosophical discussions as well as my private thoughts. In short, I use this sense of "belief" to mean that the idea is mine.

This is not an uncommon sense. Most religious views are clung to for this very reason. Most people don't believe their religious convictions because they have been proven in any way, but simply because they have been passed down to them. "I am Christian" often means that I have been raised to observe Christian ideas or that I come from a Christian community. It is a part of one's identity and stems from the fact that the beliefs in question have been "given" to them (by parents, by community, by teachers, by authority, etc.). Being given, these beliefs become one's own - as though it were a piece of property - and therefore become referred to as "my beliefs".

One harbors a special sense of ownership over one's beliefs when those beliefs are not so much given but invented. The inventor of anything is duly recognized as the owner of his invention - probably more so than one who has been given something instead.

Even if we regard MM-Theory as only a model whose value lies in its internal consistency, that model is still invented. I created it, and therefore I regard it as mine. It is my idea. I defend it in discussions and I use it to answer questions if I deem it relevant. I put it to use, just like a tool I own. We don't question the truth or falsehood of a tool, and it has nothing to do with its usefulness. The same can be said of a model in the mind - regardless of whether it is true or false, or whether truth/falsity even applies, it can still be useful. It might be regarded as a computer program, as my paper Practical Applications makes clear, a sort of abstract tool that we implement on the more concrete tool we call the brain. This, therefore, may be acceptable criteria for calling it a "belief". In this sense, when I say that I believe in MM-Theory, I mean that the idea is mine and that I use it, like a tool, on a regular basis.

Angle 3

What the solution to the infinite regress problem prohibits us from doing is believing in anything beyond our minds. What lies within our minds, however, we are free to believe in. A moment ago, we looked at certain syllogistic forms and concluded that we had no right to believe in the truth or falsity of the premises, for that would lead one necessarily to the truth or falsity of the conclusion, a conclusion about things beyond our minds. But what if the premises were about things within our minds? Would we then have the right to believe in them? It seems we should, but the problem, of course, is that if they lead irrevocably to the conclusion, which posits the existence of things beyond our minds, then the truth we attribute to the premises also gets carried through to the conclusion, and thus so does our belief.

The premises MM-Theory starts with are, more or less, the three defining features of all experience - their being an instance of qualitivity, their possessing the essence of realness, and their being meaningful - and we get these premises from reflecting on our experiences and describing their commonalities. These experiences are, of course, within the mind, actually constituting it, and therefore we have the right, not only to incorporate these premises into our model, but to believe them. We might also include the correlative formula we gave for the relation between mind and behavior in the Basic Theory as an additional premise. Whether or not "behavior" counts as a phenomenon beyond our minds depends on the context, but I believe the context in the Basic Theory was conciliatory to this - meaning that "behavior" can be said to refer to that which we see within our subjective realities, and therefore within our minds.

In any case, we seem to be free to grant the truth of these premises since it doesn't seem to initiate the infinite regress. We can know about our experiences. In fact, we gain such knowledge because those experiences entail that knowledge. That is, the truth of this knowledge is justified by the experience it is about. Such is how entailment works.

So we can at least believe in the premises of our theory, but what happens when we try to carry this belief through to the conclusions? What happens is that we have to make an inductive leap. Even in generalizing the three features of experience to all experience we have access to, we hit a limit, the limits of our own minds. If we want to say that these three features apply to all experience - not just all our experience - we have to argue inductively. The notion that the truth of the premises carries through to the conclusion only works when the argument in question is thoroughly deductive. We have stressed above that MM-Theory is not thoroughly deductive but makes innocuous leaps of faith here and there, the inductive leap currently considered being one of the major ones. This is not just happenstance. It is inherent to the kind of theory that MM-Theory is. It is the kind of theory that requires an inductive leap in order to posit anything beyond our immediate experiences. So the answer to our question is no, the truth of our premises don't carry through to the conclusion (not that it makes it false either), and therefore neither do our beliefs.

What we get, then, is a model that works consistently with premises we can believe in, but it is still only this consistency which we hold up as valuable. It is still persuasive, however, especially given the believability of the premises. Although we have to rely on induction, induction can still be very tantalizing. If not, no one would be persuaded by scientific evidence (see Hume's argument on induction and the limits of science), no one would be persuaded by statistics, no one would be conditioned by their own life experiences. So long as we have a large enough sample size to draw inductive conclusions from (and there is quite the qualitative diversity within the human mind), induction is quite alluring. It is for this reason that I say MM-Theory has value above and beyond the mere fact that it is consistent.

We still don't get to invest full belief in MM-Theory, but what we have is the right to believe in the premises and the right to be persuaded by the plausibility of the model suggested by an inductive leap from the premises. We have the right to believe in the premises and to find the conclusions reasonably plausible. This squares quite well with our longing for a more flattering sense of "belief". It means that we only need to suspend full belief in the theory to the extent that we would admit it rests on a bit of faith. In other words, if we are willing to admit there is some faith invested in our theory - that is, a few inductive leaps - we are doing nothing different by denouncing absolute belief. It amounts to the same thing. Nothing can be known for certain. Nothing can be believed in full.

Now in my next post, I'm going to do our sense of flattery one better. I'm going to go further than where the solution to the infinite regress problem seems to leave us. It leaves us at the point where we have to settle for the consistency in our theory as opposed to its truth, but I think I can conjure up a way according to which we can say that our theory is "right" - not just in terms of its internal consistency, but in its "matching" the world out there. It won't be the same sense as the window model would have it, but it does restore our sense of "connection" with the outer world. So stay tuned.

* I often consider the problem of consciousness - what it is and how it arises - to be like a logic puzzle, or something from a book of brain teasers. It therefore need not reflect anything real - that is, there doesn't have to be consciousness in order for there to be the problem of consciousness. What makes it a problem is that the inherent concept are problematic - they don't work together - and that we cling to certain assumptions about the nature of consciousness because we have trouble dismissing these concepts. Like I said in the introduction to my website: the strength of MM-Theory is that it reduces two seemingly distinct philosophical problems - that of ontology and that of consciousness - to one - but neither ontology nor consciousness need be real for this, only that our concepts of them be clearly defined.

Read my theory: http://www.mm-theory.com/