Belief vs Knowledge - The Force

Hello there,
I've been following a path of positive actions to people around me. People that I never met. They were in need of help but we're not asking for it, I noticed and acted in consequence. People which i just crossed in the Subway, on the street, in a shop. They were so happy, smiling at me with eyes that were telling "why?". That gave me joice and made me happy. People around us saw that and were smiling too. Somebody else helped a new right away someone else in need. Good actions brings happiness to people around you, to the person you're helping and to yourself.
After a couple of weeks, opportunities jumped in front of me and I took then.
It's now been almost a year since I started acting like that, not because of a search of reward but because I was trying to connect with everyone I'd meet.
I was a junkie, I'm now studying to become a primary teacher.
So, is there a god? We'll probably never know. But I can tell you, there is some power, and you can harvest it if you let go of your ego and use it for others. Only then will you be able to receive and see the opportunities that this power brings you. Ego puts a real barrier between the two of you, it blinds people.
That being said, no sciences will prove my story, but it doesn't make it a fake.
Siences has it's limits. The probabilities of being in a simulation is much higher than having a god above us.
I'm a huge science fanboy, from all that I have read/watched/heard/talked, we are our owns gods, but if that's true, let's be pious gods, good for each other.
What do you say?

Robinhood wrote: I'm a huge science fanboy, from all that I have read/watched/heard/talked, we are our owns gods, ...

Well, you haven't read/watched/heard/talked that from a science journal, or text book, or lecture...
Tell me... as a "huge science fanboy", what makes you reject its methods? Now, I understand that you are probably not elected to represent any kind of science fanboy club, so I can't expect you to speak on behalf of your brethren in that fandom. Understand hence my question to be rhetorical more than a genuine query. Why is it that those who "love science" the most tend to be the first to insist and stress just how limited science is and how an utter lack of evidence doesn't mean anything about the reality of their pet woo-woo and how consistently science has failed to disconfirm said woo that is quite deliberately formulated to be maximally unfalsifiable? Why are the "biggest science fans" almost always the ones to most strongly oppose the methods of scientific inquiry?

@Gisteron

This is not to say that I disagree with you - in principle I probably don't - but this does not at all follow. Even if there be a reason our brains have two hemispheres (and by reason I assume you mean some kind of end goal rather than just a historical account of how this came to be), that by no means implies that therefore one "should" anything

Let me start by saying how much I enjoy conversing with you. You have a strong logical mind. I was hoping my point would be more so understood the function of the left brain, while you would be able to function to a large degree, would be significantly less than ideal in handling all of what life has to offer. You'll miss out on a lot of things if you only deal with logic (speaking as a computer programmer) just like you'll miss out if you only deal with creativity. They both draw on each other for balance and for expression. The logical side gives us a system of language but our creative side adds all the herbs and spices that make it interesting. I mean you can eat plain chicken just for the protein and calories but why miss out on the taste to which you can enhance with other flavors? That's how life is (imo). Many people favor one side, whether logic or creativity, over the other and that helps us specialize and work in our professional careers. But even the most creative people use things that exist by way of logical systems. And even the most Spock like logical thinkers use things that wouldn't exist without creativity and imagination.

I don't see (pun intended) that as quite so obvious. Sure, by a literal reading, just because I cannot see light reflected from air, as your example later goes, doesn't mean that there isn't any around.

which is exactly what I'm saying. Continuing from my paragraph above, we have 2 different approaches from which to interact with the world. One is physical. One is not. One is literal. One is metaphoric. You can literally feel something in your hands to know its real. But if the thing is something your hands cannot hold then you must feel it with your heart. Love, for example. Can you see it? Is there any spectrum of which love emits anything that science can read? If your answer is yes then you've completely thwarted my reasoning so congratulations; but if not, then not everything can be measured and this is where belief and faith come in. But know that I do appreciate the extensive to apply science to my example; however, physical sciences all offer "physical" "touching"... you get what I'm saying? It doesn't have to touching with the fingers. Other instruments simply offer alternative means of physical detection.

Scientific theories are not a matter of proof. None of them are proven.

I disagree. The scientific terminology in regards to theories isn't the same as a normal theory. A scientific theory is an explanation of something real that can be tested and proven. For example, the theory of gravity. As proof you can simply drop an object and observe what happens.

A theory is not just a belief. A theory is a model that relates data collected in such a way as to make testable predictions about future findings, and that has made predictions that have been matching subsequent data sets.

I apologize if it was confusing the way that I went from talking about scientific theories to regular theories. However, again, these are not the same; of course.

Part of the problem is that the word "theory" means something very different in lay language than it does in science: A scientific theory is an explanation of some aspect of the natural world that has been substantiated through repeated experiments or testing. But to the average Jane or Joe, a theory is just an idea that lives in someone's head, rather than an explanation rooted in experiment and testing.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/just-a-theory-7-misused-science-words/[/qoute]

No reason to go down the rabbit hole on that note because we don't disagree. But please note, I did say "scientific theories" when referencing scientific theories and just theories when talking about just theories. I have to say this because there is a little lawyer that seems to exist in many online posters that feels the need to correct everything. But continuing on, belief is sometimes given a religious overtone or connotation and thus anyone who is against religion may also struggle with words like faith and belief. My job involves a lot of problem solving so as I look at the behavior of the program I usually form a (lay) theory about what's happening and I "believe" that this change or that will either correct the problem or at least help to isolate the actual cause. How do I come up with these theories? Ideas inspired by experience, knowledge, and yes... imagination. I need to be able to imagine it. I can then simulate how something is working or how something should work in my imagination. So before I can "create" a solution I have to use both hemispheres of my brain.

I strongly disagree.

Why? Saying we "can" accept "not knowing" is not the same as saying, "we should accept". Can is just an ability. You can murder someone but that doesn't mean you should or that you would get away with it.

Allow me nevertheless this tiny nitpick: Yes, beliefs can lead to finding evidence. They especially lead to confirmation bias, where one filters gathered data through the belief, only to leave confirming - or indeed only disconfirming - evidence to be even acknowledged as such.

I don't consider that a nitpick in the least because I didn't discount such a possibility. However, confirmation bias is still a bias. Most people have biases. However, if you are aware of confirmation bias (as we both seem to be) it is less likely that you will be affected by it. Of course this is where testing comes in. Whether I believe something or not choosing not to test that belief is a separate issue predicated on the idea that one enjoys some level of infallibility. Because my ideas (going back to my occupation) are regularly disproved by my own tests I don't make assumptions that I'm not willing to test. Testing is simply part of the process. So to kind of reach back into my original point... the two hemispheres of the brain work together to function more effectively than either can on its own. So, imho, one should seek balance (in all things) specifically in this case, between knowledge and belief because we get to knowledge often by testing beliefs.

A piece of information spreads more rapidly if people who get to carry it believe it to be true/accurate and important to spread and to remember.

This is absolutely true. I look at belief as something of a virus. A virus is (imo) a "hack" by nature. If one, for example, observes a lot of negative impacts of religion on their society... imo... it would be more effective for them to try and piggy back new ideas under that old umbrella because otherwise those new ideas would not take root. In this case I'm specifically referring to Jesus since I was making reference to him before. If Jesus said "hey guys, I have a new idea but its not Judaism. It's simply love." the reality is that he probably would have been laughed at prior to execution. This was a society built on the Mosaic premise that if you did not accept YHWH as your God then you were subject to death (Ex 31:14, 32:27, etc). Operating under this foundation a new idea could not take root ("go viral") without mimicking the accepted religion. To do so would be a "mutation" but to use that 'canon' has the potential of evolving it. When I say belief in this context I mean all belief, including political beliefs. It would be harder to convert someone to the opposite party than to implant an idea from the opposite party and make it sound conservative or liberal according to that person's leanings. We could also talk about the parable of the sower here as part of his "hacker theory" but that may get too far off topic.

The "strength" of a belief is what often makes the difference. It is the intensity to which one accepts something to be true. The more you believe you can win a game the better your chances of doing so. Why? Because its a mental hack. Your motivations and attitude and all the things that can make you successful are intertwined in the strength of your belief. This is why many religious believers have stories that, for them, are evidence to back up their faith. And while you could say "but that was just a coincidence" they would say otherwise. And even if you are objectively correct their beliefs can actually impact whether or not things happen and can effect the outcome because of how it affects them. For evidence consider this...

pla·ce·bo ef·fect
/pləˈsēbō əˈfekt,ēˈfekt/
noun
a beneficial effect produced by a placebo drug or treatment, which cannot be attributed to the properties of the placebo itself, and must therefore be due to the patient's belief in that treatment.


What does this mean then? Doesn't this indicate that there is a real benefit to belief?

I find it interesting that the word Theory is used quite a bit....

the·o·ry

noun

a supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something, especially one based on general principles independent of the thing to be explained.
"Darwin's theory of evolution"
synonyms: hypothesis, thesis, conjecture, supposition, speculation, postulation, postulate, proposition, premise, surmise, assumption, presumption, presupposition, notion, guess, hunch, feeling, suspicion; opinion, view, belief, thinking, thought(s), judgment, contention
"I reckon that confirms my theory"
principles, ideas, concepts;
principled explanations;
laws;
philosophy, ideology, system of ideas, science
"the theory of quantum physics"
a set of principles on which the practice of an activity is based.
"a theory of education"
an idea used to account for a situation or justify a course of action.
"my theory would be that the place has been seriously mismanaged"

Yet the words:
faith

noun

1. complete trust or confidence in someone or something.
"this restores one's faith in politicians"
synonyms: trust, belief, confidence, conviction, credence, reliance, dependence; optimism, hopefulness, hope, expectation
"he completely justified his boss's faith in him"
2. strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.
synonyms: religion, church, sect, denomination, persuasion, religious persuasion, religious belief, belief, code of belief, ideology, creed, teaching, dogma, doctrine
"she gave her life for her faith"

Or

be·lief

noun
1. an acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists.
"his belief in the value of hard work"
2. trust, faith, or confidence in someone or something.
"a belief in democratic politics"
synonyms: faith, trust, reliance, confidence, credence, freedom from doubt; optimism, hopefulness, hope
"I have no real belief in the power of reason"

Yet Faith and Belief gets torn apart but find in interesting the definitions of Theory, Belief and Faith have so much in common...

ZealotX wrote: Love, for example. Can you see it? Is there any spectrum of which love emits anything that science can read? If your answer is yes then you've completely thwarted my reasoning so congratulations;

Thanks!

https://www.livescience.com/33720-13-scientifically-proven-signs-love.html

Neaj Pa Bol wrote:
Yet Faith and Belief gets torn apart but find in interesting the definitions of Theory, Belief and Faith have so much in common...

Once again, this is not the same thing as a scientific theory...


https://www.livescience.com/21491-what-is-a-scientific-theory-definition-of-theory.html

I have no issue with people having "faith" or believing in anything.

The problem is when belief is confused for reality, and it is used to make decisions that affect others.

So, "I believe in God" does not bother me, whereas "I believe God created people to be less than 6 feet tall, and you are 6 feet 2 inches tall, so now you must die!" does bother me.

ZealotX wrote:

Scientific theories are not a matter of proof. None of them are proven.

I disagree. The scientific terminology in regards to theories isn't the same as a normal theory. A scientific theory is an explanation of something real that can be tested and proven. For example, the theory of gravity. As proof you can simply drop an object and observe what happens.

And yet, "gravity" not being a proposion, it has no truth value. It cannot be proven any more than a question can, or an elephant, for that matter.
One can treat gravity as a fact, or as a set of observations, including the observation of the motion an object performs after you drop it. A scientific theory of gravity would then be a model that accounts for a subset of the "gravity" observation set that has been made in the past and predicts observations to be made in future. It is subject to testing, by all means. We want to measure its worth by the size of the set of past observations it accounts for, the size of the set of accurate predictions it makes, and the costs involved in making those predictions, but no amount of testing can ever serve to prove. You can perhaps prove that assuming a given theory of gravity, a certain prediction follows, or that a theory that contradicts it indeed does so and would fail to make accurate predictions within the same margins of error. And in some colloquial or perhaps legal sense one can say that as room for reasonable doubt ever more disappears the theory becomes effectively "proven", but it is not proof in any stricter technical sense. This hard barrier between "true" reality if there is any such thing at all, and our grasp of it is the entire basis of that sermon we keep hearing about the limitations of science, the problem of induction, if you will.

Neaj Pa Bol wrote: Yet Faith and Belief gets torn apart but find in interesting the definitions of Theory, Belief and Faith have so much in common...

Yea, and yet people don't mean one and the same thing when they use the terms. Weird, innit? It's almost like the one in half a dozen words a dictionary lists as sometimes used to mean the same thing in particular contexts might not mean that they have all that much in common. It's almost like cherry-picking a dictionary doesn't help in understanding what people are saying. So in the spirit of understanding, what is your point? What bearing do these entries have on anything else the thread has been about so far?

Gisteron wrote:

ZealotX wrote:

Scientific theories are not a matter of proof. None of them are proven.

I disagree. The scientific terminology in regards to theories isn't the same as a normal theory. A scientific theory is an explanation of something real that can be tested and proven. For example, the theory of gravity. As proof you can simply drop an object and observe what happens.

And yet, "gravity" not being a proposion, it has no truth value. It cannot be proven any more than a question can, or an elephant, for that matter.
One can treat gravity as a fact, or as a set of observations, including the observation of the motion an object performs after you drop it. A scientific theory of gravity would then be a model that accounts for a subset of the "gravity" observation set that has been made in the past and predicts observations to be made in future. It is subject to testing, by all means. We want to measure its worth by the size of the set of past observations it accounts for, the size of the set of accurate predictions it makes, and the costs involved in making those predictions, but no amount of testing can ever serve to prove. You can perhaps prove that assuming a given theory of gravity, a certain prediction follows, or that a theory that contradicts it indeed does so and would fail to make accurate predictions within the same margins of error. And in some colloquial or perhaps legal sense one can say that as room for reasonable doubt ever more disappears the theory becomes effectively "proven", but it is not proof in any stricter technical sense. This hard barrier between "true" reality if there is any such thing at all, and our grasp of it is the entire basis of that sermon we keep hearing about the limitations of science, the problem of induction, if you will.

Neaj Pa Bol wrote: Yet Faith and Belief gets torn apart but find in interesting the definitions of Theory, Belief and Faith have so much in common...

Yea, and yet people don't mean one and the same thing when they use the terms. Weird, innit? It's almost like the one in half a dozen words a dictionary lists as sometimes used to mean the same thing in particular contexts might not mean that they have all that much in common. It's almost like cherry-picking a dictionary doesn't help in understanding what people are saying. So in the spirit of understanding, what is your point? What bearing do these entries have on anything else the thread has been about so far?

https://medium.com/@EclecticScience/theory-idea-vs-theory-scientific-ab74e2d4f737

Oh, so nothing then. Just pointing out that words have various usages and that context matters. Alright. Thanks!

Just reading these last few. I kinda am feeling comfort in simply saying in general, "I don't know" and "Does it matter?" There is that freedom of not being tied down to a religious dogma that if you don't believe exactly like this your going to tell or I hate you kinda thing going on.

Not saying anyone's beliefs here or opinions d ont matter but, I get joy out of listening to others opinions and feelings and how they came to that conclusion if that makes sense? I always kind of take something out of it or at least try to

I know I like certain foods. I know I liked having hair in my 20s.

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote:

ZealotX wrote: Love, for example. Can you see it? Is there any spectrum of which love emits anything that science can read? If your answer is yes then you've completely thwarted my reasoning so congratulations;

Thanks!

https://www.livescience.com/33720-13-scientifically-proven-signs-love.html

Did you read all of this?

When you're in love, you begin to think your beloved is unique. The belief is coupled with an inability to feel romantic passion for anyone else.

Fisher and her colleagues believe this single-mindedness results from elevated levels of central dopamine — a chemical involved in attention and focus — in your brain.

"Functional MRI studies show that primitive neural systems underlying drive, reward recognition and euphoria are active in almost everyone when they look at the face of their beloved and think loving thoughts. This puts romantic love in the company of survival systems, like those that make us hungry or thirsty," Brown told Live Science in 2011. "I think of romantic love as part of the human reproductive strategy. It helps us form pair-bonds, which help us survive. We were built to experience the magic of love and to be driven toward another."

Do you disagree that these "thoughts and feelings" trigger chemical reactions and not the other way around?

This is an example how the intangible can become tangible.

Or are you suggesting that people love Jesus because of dopamine in their brains telling them to?

Neaj Pa Bol wrote: I find it interesting that the word Theory is used quite a bit....

the·o·ry

noun

a supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something, especially one based on general principles independent of the thing to be explained.
"Darwin's theory of evolution"
synonyms: hypothesis, thesis, conjecture, supposition, speculation, postulation, postulate, proposition, premise, surmise, assumption, presumption, presupposition, notion, guess, hunch, feeling, suspicion; opinion, view, belief, thinking, thought(s), judgment, contention
"I reckon that confirms my theory"
principles, ideas, concepts;
principled explanations;
laws;
philosophy, ideology, system of ideas, science
"the theory of quantum physics"
a set of principles on which the practice of an activity is based.
"a theory of education"
an idea used to account for a situation or justify a course of action.
"my theory would be that the place has been seriously mismanaged"

Yet the words:
faith

noun

1. complete trust or confidence in someone or something.
"this restores one's faith in politicians"
synonyms: trust, belief, confidence, conviction, credence, reliance, dependence; optimism, hopefulness, hope, expectation
"he completely justified his boss's faith in him"
2. strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.
synonyms: religion, church, sect, denomination, persuasion, religious persuasion, religious belief, belief, code of belief, ideology, creed, teaching, dogma, doctrine
"she gave her life for her faith"

Or

be·lief

noun
1. an acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists.
"his belief in the value of hard work"
2. trust, faith, or confidence in someone or something.
"a belief in democratic politics"
synonyms: faith, trust, reliance, confidence, credence, freedom from doubt; optimism, hopefulness, hope
"I have no real belief in the power of reason"

Yet Faith and Belief gets torn apart but find in interesting the definitions of Theory, Belief and Faith have so much in common...

Yes! That's what I was getting at. Of course, those who don't want to see it get overly attached to the whole scientific theory vs theory debate as if it's relevant here. It's not.

The bottom line is that "belief" is used commonly in science as a prediction of what will happen. That is a belief. If religious Christians believe Jesus will return that is a "prediction" based on what they consider to be evidence. I'm not going to debate that evidence. That's not my point. My point is that there is a place for belief just as there is a place for the logical processing of ideas which produces beliefs ("predictions"). Some people, I feel, want to discount certain terms because of other contexts in which those terms are also used. But those contexts, whether religious or scientific, do not get to own words that already existed and which they use to convey different meanings. If you don't like what certain people do who own vans that doesn't make vans bad. But that's not how we get to truth. Ignoring things because we don't like who else uses it is the same type of partisanship that religious people do by calling non-religious people "sinners" and "worldly". People pretend that they are not a part of the whole because they reject certain ideas but those ideas are human ideas shared by humanity as a species. You don't get to decide what is human and what is not. We are both our strengths and our weaknesses; our faults and successes. That's why the key is finding balance.

Every belief is not good nor is every belief bad. Some beliefs are good in the right person's hand (like a gun) while terrible in others. You cannot predict which hands are the right ones without knowing the person. And so we judge people when we should not judge and that "unrighteous judgment" simply reflects back on us as showing us to be guilty of the same kind of intolerance we see as so bad and so problematic when other groups do it. Everybody wants to be on a side and in the end both sides share blame for fighting. We can exchange ideas but when we start trying to change people on the other side to our way of thinking we become the enemy; always thinking "the other guy" needs help. Arrogance.

Perhaps "the other guy" is getting more out of something fictional (ex: star wars) than you are getting out of your preferred fiction (insert religion here) or maybe the opposite is true. And if someone wakes up tomorrow thinking they're a Jedi and they go out with a mission to save the world then it doesn't matter if it is a dream or delusion. And if someone else wakes up tomorrow having lost all faith and stops caring about the world then what does it matter how scientifically correct they might be? We're all going to die one day. What matters is how you live. I'd rather be the delusional guy trying to save the world than the guy who watches it burn from the sidelines. I've been both believer and non. What matters is your perspective. But if your perspective drives you to discount the perspective of others then how are you any different from those on the other side who also claim to have the truth? You're all going to die anyway. How will you live? And if you're miserable why try to convert others to misery?

"Science is not reliable because it provides certainty. It is reliable because it provides us with the best answers we have at present. And it is reliability we need, not certainty. The most credible answers are the ones given by science, because science is the search for the most credible answers available, not for answers pretending to certainty" Carlo Rovelli

ZealotX wrote:
Do you disagree that these "thoughts and feelings" trigger chemical reactions and not the other way around?

This is an example how the intangible can become tangible.

Or are you suggesting that people love Jesus because of dopamine in their brains telling them to?

Yes I disagree that thoughts feelings trigger chemical reactions. In fact your comments never state that is the process either. It is the chemical reactions that trigger the thoughts and feelings actually. Do you have a thought that you are thirsty and then your body realizes it needs water? No, your body realizes it is dehydrated and signals your brain that you need water and that creates the thought that you are thirsty. Same with love. The pheromones and subtle behaviour triggers physical chemical reactions in the body and that generated thoughts of attraction and lust and love. This is actually the tangible becoming intangible in each case. Peoples physical need to be connected to others, to belong to a group as a survival technique is what created the love for Jesus. totally different thing but same concept.

ZealotX wrote:
Yes! That's what I was getting at. Of course, those who don't want to see it get overly attached to the whole scientific theory vs theory debate as if it's relevant here. It's not.

The bottom line is that "belief" is used commonly in science as a prediction of what will happen.

You completely ignored every comment here about scientific theory except this one. This is a level of confirmation bias that cant be argued against... :pinch:

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote:

ZealotX wrote:
Do you disagree that these "thoughts and feelings" trigger chemical reactions and not the other way around?

This is an example how the intangible can become tangible.

Or are you suggesting that people love Jesus because of dopamine in their brains telling them to?

Yes I disagree that thoughts feelings trigger chemical reactions. In fact your comments never state that is the process either. It is the chemical reactions that trigger the thoughts and feelings actually. Do you have a thought that you are thirsty and then your body realized it needs water? No, your body realized it is dehydrated and signals your brain that you need water and that creates the thought that you are thirsty. Same with with love. The pheromones and subtle behaviour triggers physical chemical reactions in the body and that generated thoughts of attraction and lust and love. This is actually the tangible becoming intangible in each case. Peoples physical need to be connected to others, to belong to a group as a survival technique is what created the love for Jesus. totally different thing but same concept.

In my opinion that's backwards and therefore impossible. I already mentioned the placebo effect as evidence. But consider it this way. The chemicals in your body do not have any outside input. So a chemical reaction without external or internal stimuli would be like a computer typing words on the screen by itself. This simply does not happen. What happens is that you press a key. An electrical signal fires from the keyboard, through the computer's "nervous system", gets processed, and the reaction is to display the corresponding character. Not to be crass, but a good example is sexual arousal. You see something sexual. A thought is generated (consciously or subconsciously) and then you have a "physical reaction" to the stimuli. Chemical reactions can be automated but there is almost always a trigger or input... an "action" for the "reaction". In the case of thirst, you're talking about neuroscience (https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/321089.php) which lags behind actual hydration (absorption). So when you drink enough to quench said thirst it may take 10-15 minutes to actually "register". So it's not the absoption or the endocrine system that makes you feel thirsty but rather the nervous system.

You are familiar with the term psychosomatic, yes?
https://experiencelife.com/article/emotional-biochemistry/

The placebo effect would not exist if you were correct. Moreover, this would be terrible for sexuality because that suggests that any time your chemicals decided (anthropormorphically guiding themselves a la 'miticloriates') you would be sexually turned on. The fact that you need stimuli means the nervous system is what controls (or at least starts) this process. You don't fall in love because all of this dopamine is released. You fall in love because of how you feel about that person and your body simply reacts to those thoughts. Otherwise, it would have no idea when to trigger any thoughts because it cannot "See" without your eyes and your nervous system! So particularly because these reactions aren't random, and therefore humans getting turned on by turtles may be a thing for only a few people on the planet (I don't even know if that exists. I'm just accepting the freakish possibility), but is not a thing that happens to most of us. Most of us need a human that typically fits into a certain set of criteria before we're turned on. I know personally using Tindr I've never swiped left so hard in my life!

The pheromones and subtle behaviour triggers physical chemical reactions in the body and that generated thoughts of attraction and lust and love.

Even in the animal kingdom, mating is not always quite as simple as suffering from a tantrum of chemical reactions. Animals will compete with each other, display their strength and dominance, and "entice" a female to mate with them. Look at the peacock. These behaviors help to generate thoughts of attraction. Now where some confusion might be is the concept of "heat". A female, because of her reproductive cycle, may be more primed at different times to engage in sex. However, if you think by walking up behind them at the "right time" that they're going to be turned on you might be disappointed. And we all spend much of our lives under the physical... influence of our reproductive cycles. However, we're not a species of horny slaves. Yes, we may think about sex a lot because of that input. But then our bodies react to those thoughts. So on one hand there are autonomous inputs (or more of a "clockwork") influencing the mind but at the same time every chemical reaction isn't autonomous.

Imagine if the adrenal gland simply pumped out adrenaline whenever it felt like it. If the reaction has "situational awareness" then one should conclude that it must be predicated on thought or stress as a trigger. If you can get adrenaline pumping by simply watching a horror movie then this is a case of mind over matter as well as direct evidence of thoughts and feelings triggering chemical reactions. https://www.healthline.com/health/adrenaline-rush Not to mention there are many other things that you can do to influence or "stimulate" the release of other chemicals via the nervous system.

So no, I wouldn't equate "I'm horny" to "I'm in love".

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote:

ZealotX wrote:
Yes! That's what I was getting at. Of course, those who don't want to see it get overly attached to the whole scientific theory vs theory debate as if it's relevant here. It's not.

The bottom line is that "belief" is used commonly in science as a prediction of what will happen.

You completely ignored every comment here about scientific theory except this one. This is a level of confirmation bias that cant be argued against... :pinch:

because when I was clearly talking about scientific theory I said "scientific theory". I actually do not think anyone is confused about the differences. Someone simply got confused and I apologized for using both variations so closely together thereby enabling that confusion. That doesn't mean we need to talk about it as that is not what the conversation is about. This might actually be an example of other people displaying confirmation bias and not recognizing that I wasn't confusing the two types of theory.

Belief works best as a dynamic context, not a static context, or an internal context. Knowledge would seem to be that which represents static context. Belief then can then be used where it does not conflict with knowledge, and even become knowledge. Knowledge itself is only relatively static, so that also gets updated and improved. Same with internal context ie self identity, we use what works best. The interaction of all three allows one to have a sensation of freedom from hard determinism.... probably by virtue of the way we're wired. So engineering improvements and advantages in all those three domains of processing can bring benefits over and above what might occur from limiting them, IMO.