alt Hacker NewsThat's an interesting perspective. It all starts to get a little too semantics oriented for my taste, but I think the basic idea you're proposing is that the beliefs live in what the neuro-folks would call the default mode network, where-as knowledge lives in some higher function part of the brain like the cortex.
Regardless of the mechanisms, I think we're agreed that it's important not just to examine your priors, but to be aware that there ARE priors in the first place.
> I think we're agreed that it's important not just to examine your priors, but to be aware that there ARE priors in the first place.
Yes, absolutely.
And I think there's a practical extension to my framing that goes beyond semantics.
When there's a seemingly irresolvable conflict between knowledge and belief, i.e. reason says “yes" while the heart says “no”, simply doing the thing a few times will often resolve the tension.
That's the practical advantage I see in my framing:
1) In Gendler's framing, the cerebral and emotional aspects are presented as two different modes of cognition. Belief is thinking, while Alief is just another type of thinking about some other stuff. Taken too far or misinterpreted, this can encourage overanalysis.
2) In my framing, belief is fundamentally about how I operate. So when my reason has exhausted its arguments but I'm still not convinced, as long as my knowledge seems reliable, I know that forcing a behavioral change could be all that's needed to turn me into a believer.