Anonymous #1 1w

Yes I think so. I think you can choose to do things which influence which attitude and beliefs you have. For example, you can reflect and ultimately be convinced or persuaded to have a belief or attitude. But I don’t think you choose when and whether to be convinced. I think that happens automatically. What you chose is to listen to and reflect on what convinced you, not whether it convinced you.

1

Anonymous OP 1w

Hm. I'm not sure I agree but maybe I'm misunderstanding. Do you have an example, maybe a time it happened to you?

1

Anonymous #1 1w

The best I can give is 2 demonstrations. You don’t at the moment believe that what I’m saying is correct, because you’re not sure that you agree. What I want you to do is choose start believing me now, I mean really actually believe me. I suspect that you can’t, at least I couldn’t in your position. The second thing I want you to do is consider any belief that you currently have. Now choose to stop believing it. Again, I suspect that you can’t, not really.

1

Anonymous #1 1w

I also think that it’s possible that you could be convinced to believe something that you don’t currently believe. But the point of those demos was to show that you don’t have direct control over when the transition from disbelief to belief occurs. If you did, then you could at any moment choose to believe or not believe something to be the case.

1

Anonymous OP 1w

I have control over values and principles that I choose to build my worldview around, though. I used to believe different things but after considering them, I stopped doing so. Sure, it's not a completely binary "no more of this" type of choosing, but it's not like I encounter some attitude that I've never before considered and just flip a coin in my head as to whether it works. I think about whether it fits my perspective.

1

Anonymous #1 1w

Also, you say that you have control over the values and principles that constitute your worldview. But I don’t think you have direct control over them. Otherwise, you’d be able to honestly drop any one of them. I think you have indirect control over them in the sense that you can choose to reflect on your beliefs and to put yourself in situations which can influence them.

1

Anonymous #1 1w

I think that your current beliefs, principles and values do influence the formation of new ones. I don’t think it’s a random process. I’m saying that it’s not a process that you have direct control over. So I think that what I’m describing is compatible with what you’re describing. It’s just that I think that the sort of control over your beliefs that you’re describing is indirect rather than direct. To me, direct control is what I have over lifting my arms for instance.

1

Anonymous OP 1w

Eh, okay, fair enough. I see your point.

7