>I would argue that if an inidividual exibits no observable behavior then that
>individual cannot be said to believe. One can say "I believe in Martians" and
>then people in earshot may infer this is so. One can think to oneself "I
>believe in Martians" and know this is so.
I think you are conflating epistemological statements with metaphysical
statements here (or maybe I misunderstand your intent). I agree that you
can't *know* about someone else's belief if it doesn't lead to any observable
behavior but that doesn't say anything about whether the belief exists or not.
In the example above, if someone thinks "I believe in Martians" do they have
that belief, even if no-one else perceives any behavior?
-- David McFadzean dbm@merak.com Memetic Engineer http://www.lucifer.com/~david/ Merak Projects http://www.merak.com