>"Each of us have arrived at certain points of view, and we promote these points of view. It appears to me we attract ideas and continue to be attracted to those ideas that reinforce our personal belief structures, and to that extent which we hold these ideas, we will correspondingly perceive the ideas of others as being erroneous."<

yeah, that's pretty much it.

but it's really so much simpler if *i'm* always right and the rest of you just bend to my will. i appreciate for your cooperation in this.

ch: genetic predisposition is a vital element of how our beliefs are formed, and that our perceptions "what seems right" doesn't necessarily coincide with what is more objectively right.

So much so that statisticians do as horribly on simple real statistics as any body else.

ch: Maybe you could clarify what you mean when you say that, "our ways of determining what is actually right are barely a couple hundred years old, if that."

Science as a serious discipline really begins in the 19th century and has yet to fully blossom.

I believe that our minds are essentially Bayesian belief networks, and a "belief" is not so much a thought-content as it is an emotion.

The network starts out with core beliefs, often those inculcated in childhood (ie what your parents told you). There's a good evolutionary reason to accept these beliefs; they worked for your parents (they had you, didn't they?), so they should work for you to.

When faced with potential belief (ie. do I believe in evolution), your mind (subconsciously) references it against your pre-existing network (your axioms). If the reference is generally negative (ie the potential belief contradicts more axioms than it agrees with), one will feel that the potential belief is incorrect. If it generally agrees, one will feel that it is correct. So a belief is basically an emotional "feeling" based on the congruence of the potential belief with one's axioms. With enough support or repetition the potential belief will itself become an axiom (I wonder if perhaps dreaming has something to do with this process), and the network will grow.

The actual process is probably much more complicated than this, and likely there are different 'weights" depending on what axioms are involved. But a network of this sort explains why it is so hard for (most) people to change their beliefs; changing an axiom will require a re-weighting of the entire network, a highly computationally intensive process. As the baptists say, "get them while they are young". Once you've programmed the core axioms (for example, God created people), even clear evidence for evolution, for example, will be discounted, since it will "feel" wrong when referenced against those axiomatic beliefs.

But the mind also seems to have the ability to compartmentalize; it can, to some extent, separate its networks into compartments, allowing one to hold self-contradictory beliefs. If such self-contradictory is explicitly questioned, the result will likely be either denial, (ir)rationalization, or, in some cases anger. So insofar are people have the ability to hold contradictory beliefs (false consciousness), people are basically irrational.

Some people have sufficient mental flexibility (or just plain intelligence?) that in the face of self-contradiction they can re-weight their networks and change their axioms. But in my experience the majority of people are unable to do this.

Well, that's how *I* think it works, anyway.

Forgive me if this is long...

First a bit of context. I have spent the past year recovering and living with the results of unfinished business regarding major surgery to remove life threatening tumors and nearly died in the process. It has been contrary to what many people might think, a very affirmational experience that I consider a great blessing. I have realized both renunciation and bodhichitta throughout the ordeal. Tomorrow, one year to the day, they open me back up for six hours or so to reverse an colonostomy, perform radio-thermal oblation on three metastasis in my liver, and repair an eight inch herniated scar from the last surgery. I have supreme faith in all three surgeons who will be performing 'yet another days work' on my behalf. During the past month I have been preparing myself for another potential brush with mortality by engaging in retreat at my local Dharma Center, preparing a proper will, and debating ideals of free will and determinism with y'all here on Tribe. Its been to quote my son; 'All Good'. (except when my delusions get in the way ;) During this retreat I have been almost exclusively studying the topic of emptiness in order to develop a strong conceptual understanding of it and in particular how it relates to wisdom and the mind itself.

Tonight, I had a strange phenomenon occur that might fit in with our discussion here.

As I prepared for sleep, I re-read several passages from The Bodhicaryavatara Chapter IX: The Perfection of Wisdom for perhaps the hundredth time and then prayed to the Buddha Avalokiteshvara that I might have a direct experience of this wisdom realizing emptiness. I gathered my winds in the central channel as I have been instructed, witnessed clear light mind, and then into deep sleep. I awoke two hours later when my partner became very startled that a book had fallen off the shelf, landing on my forehead. I was not startled at all but picked it up, glanced at the cover, and placed it back on the shelf where it was before. It was The Bodhicaryavatara! It was a moment that I can only describe as precognition why I was not startled, reacted calmly, 'knowing' what had happened.

So I posit, what to 'believe' from this event:

a) Newton was right.
b) My wife is a light sleeper.
c) I read too much.
d) Everything becomes emptiness.
e) My wish was fulfilled.
f) Tribing is a meaningless activity.
g) All of the above.
h) Some of the above.
i) None of the above.
j) There is no 'correct' answer listed.

Anyhow, the passages...

96. It is impossible for consciousness, which has no form, to have contact; nor is it possible for a composite, because it is not a truly existent thing, as investigated earlier.

97. Thus, when there is no contact, how can feeling arise? What is the reason for this exertion? Who can be harmed by what?

98. If there is no one to experience feeling and if feeling does not exist, then after understanding this situation, why, oh craving, are you not shattered?

99. The mind that has a dream-like and illusion-like nature sees and touches. Since feeling arises together with the mind, it is not perceived by the mind.

100. What happens earlier is remembered but not experienced by what arises later. It does not experience itself, nor is it experienced by something else.

101. There is no one who experiences feeling. Hence, in reality, there is no feeling. Thus, in this identity-less bundle, who can be hurt by it?

102. The mind is not located in the sense facilities, or in form and other sense-objects, or in between them. The mind is also not found inside, or outside, or anywhere else.

103. That which is not in the body nor anywhere else, neither intermingled nor somewhere separate, is nothing. Therefore, sentient beings are by nature liberated.

104. If cognition is prior to the object of cognition, in dependence on what does it arise? If cognition is simultaneous with the object of cognition, in dependence on what does it arise?

105. If it arises after the object of cognition, from what would cognition arise? In this way it is ascertained that no phenomenon comes into existence.

106. Objection: If conventional truth does not exist, how can there be the two truths? If it does exist due to another conventional truth, how can there be a liberated sentient being?

107. Madhyamika: One is an ideation of someone else’s mind, and one does not exist by one’s own conventional truth. After something has been ascertained, it exists; if not, it does not exist as a conventional reality either.

108. The two, conception and the conceived, are mutually dependent; just as every analysis is expressed by referring to what is commonly known.