Re: virus: Two levels,

Marie Foster (mfos@ieway.com)
Mon, 16 Feb 1998 11:58:38 -0800

Tim, I am wondering if you are speaking from personal experience on this or is
there a study of human behaviour that tested it. I think, *reasoning here*,
that both are true. The person in my experience who uses a false belief as a
tool, is more likely to cling to it to justify their behavior. Some, do use
them out of ignorance (I observe this in my work with my own child and the
children in my former caseload (some of whom were adults at least in the sense
that they had children of their own)).

And I further challenge you to consider that it is possible that there is no
such thing as a false belief or a true one for that matter. Beliefs seem to me
to be what is behind actions. The only success I had as a social worker was to
try to assess the belief and then try to get the person to determine if the
belief furthered them as human beings (in achieving the goals they had) or
not. I never ever found one individual who did not respond to this approach...
(with the exception of those profoundly affected by mental illness or
developmental delay).

Marie, who like Brett is a bit more than what she has revealed to the list to
date.

But again, this is only my gut feeling....

Tim Rhodes wrote:

> Paul Prestopnik <pjp66259@pegasus.cc.ucf.edu> wrote:
>
> > People generally hold false beliefs because of a lack of information.
>
> Wrong. People generally hold false beliefs because they are useful tools.
> If they overlook an even *more* useful tool (the truth) out of ignorance of
> it, that is another thing entirely.
>
> -Prof. Tim