Understanding Beliefs

Posted on 23 January 2018 by Nils J. Nilsson

What beliefs are, what they do for us, how we come to hold them, and how to evaluate them Our beliefs constitute a large part of our knowledge of the world We have beliefs about objects, about culture, about the past, and about the future We have beliefs about other people, and we believe that they have beliefs as well We use beliefs to predict, to explain, to create, to console, to entertain Some of our beliefs we call theories, and we are extraordinarily creative at constructing them Theories of quantum mechanics, evolution, and relativity are examples But so are theories about astrology, alien abduction, guardian angels, and reincarnation All are products with varying degrees of credibility of fertile minds trying to find explanations for observed phenomena In this book, Nils Nilsson examines beliefs what they do for us, how we come to hold them, and how to evaluate them We should evaluate our beliefs carefully, Nilsson points out, because they influence so many of our actions and decisions.Some of our beliefs are strongly held than others, but all should be considered tentative and changeable Nilsson shows that beliefs can be quantified by probability, and he describes networks of beliefs in which the probabilities of some beliefs affect the probabilities of others He argues that we can evaluate our beliefs by adapting some of the practices of the scientific method and by consulting expert opinion And he warns us about belief traps holding onto beliefs that wouldn t survive critical evaluation The best way to escape belief traps, he writes, is to expose our beliefs to the reasoned criticism of others. Best Read Understanding Beliefs by Nils J. Nilsson For Kindle ePUB or eBook – kino-fada.fr Good book not great, but good Here s my take away We never experience reality directly it is too big and too complex Hence we can never know reality Instead, based on limited information that comes to us through our limited experiences and sensory perceptions including what we may read or hear from other people , we form models or mental constructions of reality We call these mental constructions beliefs These models help us make predictions about the world and choose our actions Good book not great, but good Here s my take away We never experience reality directly it is too big and too complex Hence we can never know reality Instead, based on limited information that comes to us through our limited experiences and sensory perceptions including what we may read or hear from other people , we form models or mental constru...Don t misunderstand this book s title Nils Nilsson, an engineer and artificial intelligence specialist, isn t interested in how we usually understand beliefs, which may mean religious convictions, opinions held without ironclad evidence, or partisan loyalties Rather, Nilsson focuses on how we know concepts While philosophers debate how we comprehend processes riding a bike, speaking our native tongue, whatever Nilsson questions how we know facts.Nilsson begins with the premise that we canno Don t misunderstand this book s title Nils Nilsson, an engineer and artificial intelligence specialist, isn t interested in how we usually understand beliefs, which may mean religious convictions, opinions held without ironclad evidence, or partisan loyalties Rather, Nilsson focuses on how we know concepts While philosophers debate how we comprehend processes riding a bike, speaking our native tongue, whatever Nilsson questions how we know facts.Nilsson begins with the premise that we cannot know very much directly ...UNDERSTANDING ALL KNOWLEDGE AS BELIEFSThis book is no treatise on religion or superstition, conspiracy thinking or self help nonsense Nilsson believes that all declarative knowledge is just belief we can tell about reality but not how reality is Our theories are limited by our perception and our perception is biased by other beliefs.Nilsson is neither a constructivist nor a relativist though.He finds himself in the group of scientific instrumentalists who avoid the dispute over the realit UNDERSTANDING ALL KNOWLEDGE AS BELIEFSThis book is no treatise on religion or superstition, conspiracy thinking or self help nonsense Nilsson believes that all declarative knowledge is just belief we can tell about reality but not how reality is Our theories are limited by our perception and our perception is biased by other beliefs.Nilsson is neither a constructivist nor a relativist though.He finds himself in the group of scientific instrumentalists who avoid the dispute over the reality or non reality of thinking that is isolated from practice Scientific Instrumentalism considers the truthfulness of ideas determined by their ability to enable accurate predictions ...I enjoyed this book It s not great but its language is simple enough that even the layperson would understand it, and I think that s very important that it s not over complicated to the point where understanding where our beliefs comes from become off limits only to the superior man Sometimes in our quest to all become superior man because none of us wants to become inferior man, I think we are really missing the point that we are all just common man and that there are actually no real defini I enjoyed this book It s not great but its language is simple enough that even the layperson would understand it, and I think that s very important that it s not over complicated to the point where understanding where our beliefs comes from become off limits only to the superior man Someti...Pretty good, as I ve come to expect from the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series the information is detailed but succinct A good introduction to understanding beliefs, Understanding Beliefs feels like a delightful precursor to explorations intoacademic texts.I initially bought this so I could try to understand the other side, i.e those who believe in god s , or crystal power, or past lives or even the type of person who watched Crossing Over with John Edward As such this was a monumental fail.What it did do was encourage me to question my own beliefs, beliefs on their own merit and beliefs I admittedly do not even see as such.It explains a few things in depth and touches upon other relat...A gem of a book that I was able to read and understand even with a raging upper respiratory infection Overall it was simple enough to be clear, while introducing a handful of complex philosophical concepts without overwhelming the reader I had just one small complaint there was a six page or so recitation of the history of the development of electromagnetic theory from Newton to quantum mechanics, which seemed to...Interesting little book More from the perspective of what scientists learn about beliefs when they program robots to behuman like It is a tough problem Essentially the beliefs we have is a model of the world that we create inside our head We then act according to this model and our actions are limited by the boundaries of these beliefs Just like in programming a robot, many of these beliefs can be changed once we become aware of them and take action to adjust them The field of roboti Interesting little book More from the perspective of what scientists learn about beliefs when they program robots to behuman like It is a tough problem Essentially the beliefs we have is a model of the world that we create inside our head We then act according to this model and our actions are limited by the boundaries of these beliefs Just like in programming a robot, many of these beliefs can be changed once we become aware of them and take action to adjust them The field of robotic...A nice and easily digestible overview of some basic philosophies of beliefs I found the sections regarding the scientific method to be the most interesting aspect, though there were thought provoking tidbits throughout most of the chapters.Short and easy to read Nilsson posits that there are no facts, only beliefs, and I couldn t help but laugh when he said that this, too, was only a belief, albeit a strongly held one.

English
23 January 2018

Nils J. Nilsson