RE: virus: agnosticism again (was Site du jour (Temple of the V

Lena Rotenberg (lenar@hermesnet.net)
Wed, 07 Jan 1998 20:00:38 -0500


At 04:45 PM 1/7/98 -0700, David McFazdean wrote:

>I think we may be talking about two kinds of beliefs here:
>prescriptive and descriptive. The former are the kind that cause
>behavior, the latter kind explains behavior. We can't help but
>have descriptive beliefs; if one doesn't go to church then one
>is acting as if one doesn't believe in God, whether agnostic
>or atheist, there is no effective difference at that level.

Not sure I understand the above (so I act due to a prescriptive belief, but
why would I need another descriptive belief to explain my own behavior? Or
is it other people who are going to use a descriptive belief to explain my
behavior?). I'm also not seeing the relevance of this distinction to the
so-called "axiomatic" beliefs I alluded to when mentioning the "getting out
of bed" example. Would you mind clarifying?

>Godel's theorem actually only applies to formal systems.

The logic upon which we base our rationality is a formal system. Of
course, many of our beliefs and conclusions also have strong empirical
component. Other axiomatic memes are involved here: <my sense perceptions
are mostly trustworthy>, etc.

lena
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Lena Rotenberg
lenar@hermesnet.net