(no subject)

[pengke.livejournal.com]

I’m sure everyone has read someone’s post on this community or read a comment that made you stop and think, “I don’t believe you.” If you haven’t, either you don’t read the threads very closely or you work very hard not to think critically about anything you read here, because there have been some very outrageous claims made here over the years. (But that’s an entirely different discussion.) I want to know what people think when they come across one of these statements that they just can’t believe.

Do you:

A) Think the person is lying.
B) Think the person is knowingly role playing
C) Think the person believes that they are multiple but is probably unintentionally role playing or some other form of imagination
D) Think the system is lying about the experiences
E) Think the system is knowingly or unintentionally role playing the experiences
F) Think the system is adhering to the community’s cultural norms/trying to fit in
G) Think the system probably honestly believes their claims even though another explanation seems more logical to you
H) Think the system probably started out making things up but has since convinced themselves that their claims are true
I) Worry that you might be making things up too or that someone else might think you are
J) Think something else entirely – please share

Also, do your thoughts change depending on why you can’t believe the statement? For example, is there a difference between someone claiming to do/be something that you think is impossible and someone contradicting themselves or claiming that something happened in real life that could not have happened?

Comments

[appadil.livejournal.com]

J)Assume that it's real/true to them unless I have reason to think otherwise. (And I disagree with your assertion that such a point of view MUST be based on lack of critical thinking- it's just not necessarily your accustomed form of critical thinking. Though if I'm correct in surmising that you're a universalist, there's probably little I can do to convince you that phenomeonlogist rationalism count as rational.)

First off- because I'm a phenomenologist, I don't read any of the ideas put forth by people here in terms of 'claiming to do/be something', but rather in terms of 'experiences themselves as doing/being something'. There's no question to me of whether or not what they're talking about is 'real'- if they're being honest, if it's experienced as real, it's 'real' in all the ways that actually matter to my interaction with them.

As far as I'm concerned C, E, G, H, and J are essentially the same thing- "unintentionally roleplaying", "believes their claims", and "has convinced themselves" are all forms of "experiences this as true". I'm not interested in 'is objectively true' at all- I'm not particularly certain that such a thing is possible. All reality is experienced through perception, so the only realities that really exist are experienced realities. My experience of 'the sound of that car driving by outside is unbearably loud' is no more or less real than a synaesthete's experience of 'the sound of that car driving by outside is blue' or your experience of being many. Just because it's outside of the realm of anything which I could sensibly imagine experiencing doesn't make it impossible to experience. To some people, your experiences are likely just as unbelievable.

Certainly there may be cases of A, B, D, and F running around here, but how are we to discern them without turning things into a witch hunt and hurting people who don't deserve to be persecuted like that? Is their presence causing you or anyone else harm in any sort of way? If they're being disruptive or abusive or trollish, they should certainly be banned, but the same is true of anyone legitimately multiple who engages in the same behaviors. In any case, there's not usually any real way for me to discern the pretenders from the oddballs over the internet, so the best option is just to give them the benefit of the doubt. Again, all that I have to go by is the experiences they present to me, and their truth or lack of truth has no effect on me either way, so their claims are all that's relevant in my interaction.

If someone is contradicting themself, or is pretending very obviously, or is someone who I recognize from elsewhere as a troll, I'll certainly doubt them -though I don't really feel it's my place to call them on it in most cases, as I'm something of an outsider here. You might have reasons for this which I don't know, but I would experience this repeated concern with people's believability a waste of time and emotional energy. Mostly I just treat them the way I do any of the other people here who I've decided aren't worth talking to, and I ignore them.

[thehumangame.livejournal.com]

...

If I want to claim that x is objectively true, I say "x" or "I think x" or "I believe x".

If I want to claim that x may or may not be objectively true, but that it is a useful metaphor for me or that I have an internal experience in which it seems that way to me, I say "x is a useful metaphor for me" or "I have an internal experience in which it seems x".

In my view, making the first sort of statement when you really mean the second is just dishonest.

[ridetothesea.livejournal.com]

But there are many people who could say that "I believe x" and still have x not be objectively true. Most beliefs still have subjective connotations, which is what makes them beliefs and not facts. Which is one reason why it is difficult to talk about anything completely in terms of objective or subjective. I don't think it's possible.

Of course if you're talking about things like "I believe in gravity" and the like, things that can be backed up with facts, I'm just misreading what you wrote. Those things are purely objective, obviously.

[thehumangame.livejournal.com]

"I believe x" means "to the best of my abilities, I determine that x is objectively true". I'm really not sure what else 'believe' could mean that is logically coherent. >.>

Some people are obviously meaning something that is not what I mean, but I don't know what it is or what to make of it.

[kiya]

I don't see a point in believing in facts. Facts don't care whether or not I put my trust in them, they just are, and if I'm wrong about them, they bite me on the ass. No amount of belief that they are or are not the case will make the slighest bit of difference. :}

[thehumangame.livejournal.com]

...

Can someone please explain to me this odd sense of 'believe' that does not mean "I think x is objectively true"? Because seriously, that's the only way I've ever heard 'believe' used off the Internet.

[kiya]

I would define it more as "I trust this to be the case", or "I think this is so". If there is certainty, I wouldn't use 'belief', because 'belief' is something that is done in cases of insufficient fact (or insufficient memory of fact). Dictionary I look at has "accept as true or real", "credit with veracity", and "to expect or suppose", all of which I would consider provisional. If something is known as a certainty or a fact, why say one believes it to be so? Just say it is so.

I'm also reminded of a Terry Pratchett quote. "Witches don't believe in gods. It would be like believing in the postman."

[luwana.livejournal.com]

Hrm. Mostly as above. a lot of people don't apply belief to facts (whether they use the phrase believe or not) simply because it seems a bit silly. "I believe in my coffee mug." Why? It's there.

I think the idea is that belief requires some sort of *faith*, and that fact supposedly doesn't.

that may not have been coherant but I tried.

Sure, you *do* believe in the postman. but one (sometimes) connotation of belief is that of faith/effort, not dissimilar to that you would place in God. Believing int he postman is not an active thing.

[pengke.livejournal.com]

There's also a difference between someone who says they're a dinosaur when they know full well that they're not a dinosaur verses someone who says they're a dinosaur, with or without the appropriate qualifiers, because they tend to think of themselves in terms of being a dinosaur or view their personal self-image as being that of a dinosaur, ect.

[ridetothesea.livejournal.com]

Well said.

[pengke.livejournal.com]

I didn't assert that assuming 'that it's real/true to them unless I have reason to think otherwise' requires a lack of critical thinking. You're critical thinking comes in when you see someone that you suspect is being dishonest. You're not just sitting there going "Lalala, everyone means exactly what they say all the time because thinking anything else would be judgemental."

And you are thinking in terms of someone claiming to be something verses someone experiencing themselves as being someting. When you think people are being dishonest, then you think they're claiming to be something they know they're not. Ordinarily, though you view people's statements as honest descriptions of their experiences whether those experiences are literally real or not. But that's starting to get into differences between when one person would think, "I don't believe you" and someone else wouldn't and I don't really want to go there because it only leads to drama.

It's not a matter of whether or not anyone thinks the person(s) should be told that you don't believe them or something should be done. That's an entirely different discussion that would also lead straight to drama.
I'm only interested in what people think when they do run into statements that, for whatever reason, they can't or don't believe. It's just interesting seeing people's different responses because we ourselves have different responses.

[kasiawhisper.livejournal.com]

"Lalala, everyone means exactly what they say all the time because thinking anything else would be judgemental."

obviously that's just silly.. just because someone prefers not to automatically jump to the conclusion that everyone is lying, doesn't mean that a person is believing the entire world to be telling the truth all the time..