Everyone has strange beliefs. What’s the strangest belief you have?
I generally try not to believe weird things. But my strangest belief is that someday we’ll be able to store our memories digitally and transfer them to other bodies (like our own, regrown). That is, if we survive that long!
So what’s yours?
I consider myself a skeptic and an atheist. But there is a theory that I find strangely appealing: a German historian is convinced that roughly 300 years of our history (the Dark Ages) actually never happened! They were “created” by the Vatican and a European Emperor to reshape the continent: calendars and documents were faked, evidence was burned. I know it sounds crazy, but Dr. Illigs reasoning is sound, and he has amassed an amazing body of evidence. Astronomy, architecture, archeology – they all seems to support his thesis. What’s more: this fullscale forgery actually explains a lot of mysteries from that period.
This is my pet weird belief.
I don’t see why do you think your belief is weird. I’m sure we will be able to regrown -although i don’t know if that’s morally acceptable in a crowded world-, at the end, our brain are only connections… maybe we could survive inside a computer, or in the net ;-)
(there are science-fiction works on both ideas)
I’m also pretty sure that we are going to terraform mars.
But maybe my weirdest belief is that one day we will achieve a really free and fair society, (and without famine)
sorry, it was intended to be an answer for Daniel
Another moral implication is that a cloned body isn’t “your” body… it’s your twin’s. It would be morally unethical to “download” your brain into someone else’s brain.
Say that this body was engineered to be grown without any cognitive function until your memories and consciousness have been uploaded. Is it still unethical?
No, I wouldn’t think so. It could be genetically engineered to not have a CNS/upper CNS. But then the new body would need the old brain or else an AI brain to function.
Old brains still get old- senile even. So if you downloaded yourself into a computer, which consciousness is really you? The one still in your head, or the copy on the computer? Also, can the copy on the computer *ever* really be you?
What constitutes “you-ness”?
I thought of another science fiction story! “Shed Skin” by Robert J. Sawyer relates and argument about who has the rights to continue living in the character’s life: the “new copy” the man made of himself, or the “original” man who made the decision to copy his mind in the first place?
Like the other story I remembered, it was a good story, but the events in it were horrible to contemplate.
Do you happen to remember the title of the other story you mentioned?
If I could be downloaded in another body, would It be only for survival purposes? I mean, can’t I have a lot of copies? 10 “me” in the world?
im a history buff, and that sounds wierd and interesting, can you link a ref?
There are a couple of variations. There’s the “New Chronology” advocated by the Russian Historian Anatoly Fomenko. Heribert Illig created the Phantom Time Hypothesis, which seems more conspiratorial to me.
Of course, both of them a bunk. But they’re fun.
your right, its bunk, Makes me wonder if any of these folks have traveled to see ruins of the ancient world.
Hmmm…Torsten,
I take it that you’re not this dude, then.
@ Torsten: LINKS PLEASE. I really wanna read about this idea of the Dark Ages not existing.
I believe that Predator 2 is a better film than the orginal. This is a wholly irrational belief, flying in the face of all evidence to the contrary, but in spite of myself, I would still rather watch Danny Glover screaming incoherent swear-words than Arnie delivering one of the most classic 80s performances on record.
I also believe that this may make me a bad person.
And I believe that Last Action Hero was the best movie Ahnuld ever starred in. Apparently, this makes me Evil Incarnate.
Better than Running Man? Better than Terminator 2? Blasphemy!
Running Man is a close second. I’m not really into the Terminator flicks. Total Recall was okay.
The Beatles weren’t really all that good.
*runs and hides*
Sacrilege! Ah, who am I kidding, we all know what everyone here thinks about that… My pet ridiculous belief that I sometimes entertain is the strange idea that maybe there is something like reincarnation, but it’s more like energy/molecules regrouping in different patterns. Though I am nothing close to a scientist, and I’ve never heard of any theory that sounds like that.
Disrespecting the Beatles is a clear sign that their is a disturbance in the force.
I used to think that too. Then for some reason I got on a Beatles kick and enjoyed most of their songs. Of course, some of them just suck, but I can see why they were very good for their time.
I agree and can also add Led Zeppilen and Pink Floyd to that list.
Man Jabster… you just named two of my favorite bands…
In the Republic, Plato talks about the Ring of Gyges. Even though I know we will be able to find how to get invisible, a ring at that time doing this sounds really silly. But if you read how the shepherd found the ring, you discover that it was in a plane or a space ship that crashed, and the ring was on one of the pilots. These pilots had human shape though a bit taller. It really sounds like some people from the future came to visit the past. You see, if you look at all the stories of UFOs, people usually see what they can imagine to see, but have never been able to experience something nobody could expect. This is why I think that all witness of UFOs were just victims of their imagination. But this story from the Republic is really different. And specially, he does not really care about why there was a big metallic object, empty with openings on it, that fell from the sky and exploded. It was just like that, but that is not interesting to him. Of course, it is certainly just by chance that this story is told like that. And we could only really think there is something if it happened several times in the history. But that is the only crazy story that made me doubt.
I don’t believe in free will.
Determinist?
You don’t believe in choice or that choice isn’t free?
I’m attracted to determinism, but I’m more like a no-free-will-either-way theorist. I do believe in choice (I don’t actually see how you could disbelieve in choice,) but I think that those choices must ultimately be traced back to factors that are outside ourselves either random or not. Basically I think that you can do what you want, but you can’t ultimately decide what it is that you want, so when an actor makes a choice in accordance w/their desires they are analogous to a river that freely flows along its’ determined path. If you want to call that ‘free will’ fine, but I don’t think it deserves the title, (also I don’t think that most people mean compatibalist free will when they talk about free will.)
I pretty agree with you. What I was thinking is, so, what do we do with the prisons? What’s the difference between us and a convicted criminal? If it’s not “free will”, should we punish them? Would i do the same in their exact situation? So what defines me as a person?
Maybe we only want to separate those elements of our society, as an evolutionary treat for society’s survival.
Ever read Douglas Hofstadter’s “I Am a Strange Loop”? Your belief about memories may not be as crazy as you think . . .
I believe – or maybe just hope really hard – that we’ll bring dinosaurs back some day. I hope it’s a really big one like seismasaurus.
I have two.
I believe in the multiple world interpretation of quantum mechanics. It essentially says that things aren’t ONE way, things aren’t this way and not another, but rather that it is ALL ways, some parts of reality are this way and some parts of it are another. If anything is at all possible, no matter how unlikely (and virtually anything is – like a pink elephant popping into existence in front of us), then it exists in some “world”, in some partitioning of reality. This strange belief stems from the fact that according quantum mechanics when we measure something we change its dynamics. But since we too are physical beings, measurement cannot really involve a change in dynamics, as we and the thing we measure keep changing according to the laws of physics. So this dichotomy between normal evolution and measurement has to be illusory. The only I can see to make it so is through a multiple world interpretation.
A second strange belief I have is panpsychism. This is the view that all matter thinks, or rather feels, in some sense. This is due to the fact that it is clear, to me, that we are both material beings and thinking beings, so we ARE matter that thinks. To believe that thinking is only done in humans, or mammals, or protazoans, or so on seems to be to be anthropcentrism of the highest degree. This is another fake dichotomy – something thinking and all the rest aren’t. I don’t feel this is true. I think things are more continous, that all things think and feel. Not like we do – just like chimps don’t think like we do – but still in some ways they are still thinking, still feeling. There is therefore no “dead matter”, all matter feels; there is just “incoherent matter”, matter that doesn’t form a single mental entity, just like our hands don’t think and our bones have even less of a combined thought, much like a rock or any inanimate body, they’re just a collection of incoherent thoughts/molecules bundled together without any thinking (information-processing?) process going on within them.
You should read some A. N. Whitehead, if you haven’t already.
I liked the comment by Yair about Pansychism- the belief that all matter might have some form of conciousness or thinking ability.
This seems to jive with reports of people who recieve organ transplants and then start mysteriously displaying personality traits of the the organ donor.(high sex drive where none was present before,passive personality becomes aggressive etc.).
They also sometimes have dreams about people from the donors life.
This suggests that we think and store memories with more than just our brains.- that the whole body may do some thinking, memory storage.
Thumbs up on the new site Daniel. More functional with the HTML, Reply button etc.
I believe that us humans have massively overpopulated the planet, and that our behaviour won’t change until our society has collapsed in way that is not unlike what happened to the roman empire.
Although our dark ages will look more like mad max, or waterworld.
“Although our dark ages will look more like mad max, or waterworld.”
So it comes down to Mel Gibson’s best movie vs. Kevin Costner’s worst?
All of Kevin Costner’s movies are the worst.
What was Postman not in the running? because that was Costner’s worst. Waterworld was just the biggest flop.
I thought the Waterworld premise was awesome, but the execution was terrible.
Word. There was so much to work with there! Evolution, maybe human experimentation, the irony of being destroyed by but still dependent on oil, shadows of the past, etc. etc. Just exploring how a future society would view us based on our lost artifacts would have been fascinating. Jeezy Creezy it could have been better. I vote Guillermo Del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth) directs the remake.
Which is by the way not a strange belief, but a simple fact.
All of Kevin Costner’s movies are the worst.
I thought Bull Durham was OK.
Also, check out A Perfect World (1993). It was directed by Clint Eastwood. It was an excellent movie, right up until the final scene. I maintain that if that scene had not been dragged out way too long, both Eastwood and Costner could have walked away with Oscars.
Here’s my weird belief: The Postman was a seriously awesome movie. XD Waterworld was crap, though. The problem with their premise was that while humans would evolve to be water-compliant, they would be building on the body they had, not reverting to a system that they had long since abandoned. In other words, Kevin would have a huge lung capacity, not gills. But I guess that’s just not sexy enough.
I know this is slightly old, and the post has wandered away from what I wanted to comment on but in response to Daniel; there’s a short story from Orson Scott Card called “Fat Farm” that explores this idea (though in an unrealistic way, admittedly, and it’s also pretty strange). The main character, Barth, pays to be “recreacted” every time his gluttony and deterioration make it impossible for him to function. Little does he know, however, when his double goes out to live, he is shipped out for hard labor–under the rule of previous Barths. The new Barth is ignorant of this forever, until he himself is cloned and cast aside.
Not all that relavent, but an interesting story.
I believe that if I’m polite and reasonable with people they will be polite and reasonable in return. Unfortunately, I’m proved wrong about that constantly by the students who I’m surrounded by.
Oh man. I retract everything I said was my weird belief. This is THE weird belief.
I saw a career/personality test website blurb on how a “rational” can appeal to an authoritarian boss by appealing to his or her authority. I go “fuck that man, if I can demonstrate that what i have is a reasonable, feasible, executable method or process that could produce something worthwhile, it speaks for itself and doesn’t need me to appeal to some control freak’s ego to be good”.
So yeah, my weirdest belief that people will actually look at themselves, their reasoning, their emotions, their jealousies and pettiness, and make the effort to rise above that when reason calls, keeps me from influencing people’s emotional storms or climbing corporate ladders.
Or reasoning with christians.
Mt wierdest belief? Has to be my hope for humanity.
I still have hope that we will wake the hell up and turn the boat around. There is still a part of me that believes that; despite all the evidence. When I really think about humanity I am pretty certain we will extinguish ourselves by one means or another, we are way too shortsighted.
For instance the first time I head of global warming was in a scholastic news magazine in 7th grade, that would have been 1973. the topic was ignored except for a few scientists and some extra crunchy individuals for 25 years, then peole started arguing about it, whether it was real or not. The planet is measurably warming folks, you can argue all day about why its warming, but it is warming and evidence points to us as a cause. We are up 1 degree F globally, co2 levels are higher now than ever in history and rapidly climbing. At 3.5 degrees we will reach then first tipping point model and at 7 we will have tipped. We are talking plesitizone climate models. Not to mention simple physics here but heated objects expand. Global expansion means things like tectonic plate shift.
The majority here in America think the Rapture will happen to save them from any effect of Global Warming, that Global Warming is just a symptom of the end times, and that means Jesus will be here soon, yea! If a pandemic is caused by warming the globe and spreading malaria, its a sign of the end times, if complex chemicals combine in strange ways when loose in the earth and poison us in diverse ways, its a sign of the end times, and jesus will be here soon, Yea!
I hear them all the time, cheering our own demise, and think maybe we deserve extinction.
Yet I still hope that the majority will wake up, rather than wait on Jesus to save them.
Now that is an strange irrational belief.
Whoa, whoa. Calm down, take a deep breath…. Ok.
You didn’t hear much about global warming in the ’70s because at that time the fear fad was global cooling ( http://www.denisdutton.com/cooling_world.htm ).
Actually, the principle of global warming with increasing CO2 concentrations is already known for over a century… Google on Svente Arrhenius, for example.
If you didn’t hear about global warming in the 70s, you were probably not listening.
I can recall reading it in school in a scholastic magazine, pointing it out to the teacher, and getting an “ah so what response”. Its not only global warming that humanity reacrts to like that, its any bad news. Its the denial reflex, like “I cant really have cancer, or I’m not dying”. It seems we have this reflex societally, and then people wrok to reinforce that reaction rather than to work on the problem.
Yet I still believe-hope that people will wake up. I tell people all the time that the earth is in no danger at all, it is humanity that has the risk factor.
Yeah, but you heard a lot more about overpopulation in the 70s. So, it’s, like, oh, I dunno, NOT a problem now, when the world population is approaching double what it was then?
It still is. Where were you last year when there was food shortage in several countries?
Since 1970, the world population has already almost doubled. Thankfully, agricultural productivity has soared as well, but there is of course no guarantee that we can continue to do so in the future.
And, of course, once the oil is finished the fun is definitely over.
Please forgive my spelling I wrote before coffee.
Plesitizone climate models? Global expansion means things like tectonic plate shift?
Either you badly needed your coffee, or you need to read a good book. Or a good blog.
adittedly tectonic shift is way down the line, but it really is a simple physics question. I was taught that heated objects expand, so if we heat the globe it too must expand. Eventually that means things like tectonic plate shift.
Newest data on Global warming tempatures forecasts are included in a book titled Forecast.
Yes, but we’re heating the atmosphere, not the globe. And a little bit the oceans, so yes, they’re expected to expand. But ‘tectonic plate shift’ is really a bit far-fetched.
How “bout magnetic pole shift?
“Everyone has strange beliefs.”
Yeah, and that’s a rather strange one in itself.
You don’t think everyone believes something strange? Anyone I know why has some kind of strange belief. And it seems many of our readers do, too! I suppose there’s someone out there without weird beliefs… but I’m guessing they just wouldn’t admit it or wouldn’t classify something as weird that I would. Give me a few hours with anyone and I think I could find something they believe that someone would consider strange.
At least, we know they are that, beliefs; and that they are pretty improbable. We are not basing our lifes on them. It’s not like those kids that can’t distinguish between reality and a b… movie
I agree with you Daniel, I think we all have odd thought and beliefs. Endless universe theory intrigues me too, as does the continuation of energy after death. I don’t “believe” them , as in having faith they are true, but they certainly are interesting.
Sounds very much like the Richard Morgan / Takeshi Kovacs novels, with the whole memory transfer things (I know it’s done in a lot of Sci-Fi, but it specifically made me think of that).
I believe that we’re not the only sentient ‘life’ in the universe and that we will one day travel in space all Star-Trek like (Though it’s looking more and more like we may have run our planet into the ground before then and will may very well cause our own extinction before we get the chance. Plus, y’know, we’d probably still consider ourselves ‘better’ than the other life forms and try to kill them all anyway for being ‘different’).
My weirdest belief is also culled from science fiction.
I believe one day there will be a science-induced mass-resurrection. Scientists of the future will have conquered the problems of overpopulation, immortality, and bringing the dead back to life.
They will choose to bring us all back to enjoy the utopia.
I don’t remember what book I read it in, but I like it.
Of course, even if it happens, we’re all screwed when the universe expires anyway, but it could buy us a few billion years.
I am an only child and continue to believe after 35 years that the world still revolves around me; even though I am proven wrong daily.
I’m going to get flamed hard for this. But I believe that vaccines do have a, albeit a much overstated, role in autism.
I’m not advocating not vaccinating, that is insane. And I do believe that vaccines as a cause is WAY overstated, there are probably A LOT more causes that need to be investigated, but I do believe vaccines play a role.
I know many are going to talk about the science proving this, but there has yet to be a good toxicological study to convince me otherwise (if one is done I will gladly change my belief).
The big problem is we have two very angry groups on both sides and there needs to be middle ground. The possibility that vaccines play a role needs to be accepted. It also needs to be accepted that it is not the sole cause. I don’t think anyone can complain about seeing more science done on all the possible causes.
“I know many are going to talk about the science proving this, but there has yet to be a good toxicological study to convince me otherwise (if one is done I will gladly change my belief).”
There are multiple studies showing no link between autism and vaccines. If they fail to convince you, the problem is with you. At least you admit this belief is weird.
Centers for Disease Control
National Institutes of Health
“The big problem is we have two very angry groups on both sides and there needs to be middle ground. ”
When given two opposing views, the truth does not always lie in the middle.
“The possibility that vaccines play a role needs to be accepted.”
The _possibility_ has not only been accepted, it has been researched. One side ignores the findings of the research.
“The _possibility_ has not only been accepted, it has been researched. One side ignores the findings of the research.”
Exactly what I was about to say. The rallying cry of the anti-vac crowd seems to be “do more research!” And yet, multitudinous research has been done, and done well, and repeated, but is ignored, over and over again. This is not a fringe issue that requires someone to actually take an interest before research will be done, it’s an enormous issue of public health for all countries and has been thoroughly, totally debunked time and time again.
Except its not that simple. You both ignored the most important part of this sentence
“I know many are going to talk about the science proving this, but there has yet to be a good toxicological study to convince me otherwise (if one is done I will gladly change my belief).”
Not only that but studies that seek to find more information about this are routinely put down by the CDC. RFK jr. talks about it here
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr-and-david-kirby/vaccine-court-autism-deba_b_169673.html
This hasn’t been proven time and time again and we have A LOT more to learn about all possible causes of Autism.
If you are accepting Robert Kennedy Jr. as a credible source on medical science, that in itself would qualify as a weird belief.
Dumb and dangerous—Kennedy and Kirby’s continued clash with reality
Stupid cubed: David Kirby, RFK, Jr., and Generation Rescue use the Bailey Banks case to tag team the antivaccine counterattack against the MMR
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has declared a crank-off!
That’s a godtard’s approach. If you are claiming that there is a connection between vaccination and autism, then you need to prove it, and not rely on others to disprove it.
And with proving I mean in a scientifically convincing way (needless to mention that, but still).
When I was enrolling in my current school, I had to provide proof of vaccinations. I’ve had all of my required vaccines but I’ve lost the records. The school allows personal exemptions if you sign a waiver, but you have to state your reason, and lost records are not accepted as a valid reason. So, I lied and said that I was afraid to take vaccinations because I’d seen studies talking about their mercury content or some such nonsense.
It totally worked.
I suspect that autisim rises and MS rises as well as other medical issues have some root cause in the pollution which is rampant in the world. All of us have traces of various complex chemicals, plastics, and heavy metals inside us. I suspect that these things are involved in some way.
I once spoke to a state scientist who’s job it was to test for lead contamination. After a brief conversation about lead paint (which was on almost everything when I was a child) I asked him if he had put any thought into the rise of latex allergies in recent years. It seems convieniant to me that we should switch from lead coating all around us to latex coatings all around us and then wonder why latex makes some of us sick. It seems to me that it might be that we now live in a latex coated world, and that might have something to do with it.
The scientist looked like I slapped him. He is so focused on his work that he had never considered that. That is the way humans are. Google Garbadge island sometime.
So Logan I guess you’re saying you totally believe in lying. Cool, lol.
I believe that a lot of the medical issues that have become common in recent years (autism, cancer, shortage of males, etc.) are brought about in part by all the synthesized gook that we’ve been taught to rely upon. I’m not talking medicine here – I’m talking hygiene products. All the fancy shampoos, conditioners, facial cleansers, deodorants, hairsprays, and makeup that people – especially women of childbearing age – tend to use has got to have an effect. Consequentially, I’ve completely given up regular hygiene products. Baking soda, vinegar, and Dr. Bronner’s are a bit unorthodox, but they work and I can be sure they’re not going to poison me.
The incarnation is a pretty strange belief I have.
LOL.
I actually believe that the Bee Gees did great music, and that the Vancouver Canucks will win the Stanley Cup.
Go Devils!
Luongo is on fire
Thank god the caps won last night. Oops I don’t believe in god, well I thank Yoda instead for the caps winning last night. Although I must admit I believe them to be chokers and sell outs. They will probably eliminated in the first round being the chronic underachievers they are.
Oh Yoda how could you be so cruel.
Luminous beings are we, markbey…not this crude matter.
indeed.lol
Disco still sucks!
Not weird. Disqualified. Disco never stopped sucking.
that was actually a reply to the liker of the bee gees.
I am a buddhist, and i believe that our day to day world is not the world that actually exists, but rather our perception of the world through our senses. Hence there are aspects of existence that we are not sensitive to. I also belive that by sharpening our awareness, through meditation, etc, we could bring our perception closer to the real thing, and in doing so we could become aware of things we otherwise ignore… And perhaps those aspects of reality could lead to realising some psychic ablities…
Even though I consider myself to be a really sceptical buddhist who only follows the philosophical aspects of the dhamma, this is one belief that I think you guys would find really wierd… :) In fact, it sounded more believable in my head…
We could try! But meditation will never help us see UV light. Or hear infrasound. Etc.
My strangest belief:
If somebody could write The Perfect Song, all war would stop.
Strange belief I used to have before I deconverted:
That when you die, you get to replay your life in some sort of video on fast forward. (here is the weird part:) To break up the boring parts, (brushing your hair, putting on socks, etc.) I would just bust out a rediculously silly face or noise. Then I would go back to what I was doing, as if I hadn’t just flipped out.
I didn’t even stop this practice until years after becoming atheist.
Well, if you’re dead and replaying your life, it’s safe to say you’re not using your organic brain, which starts to die after 3 minutes of no oxygen. So your replay speed wouldn’t be limited to cellular matter response and synaptic firing speed, would it? So you could replay that sucker so fast you wouldn’t have to be bored. Maybe you could sort the replay for meaning. Unless it was all meaningless, ha. (You know – a life of climbing the corporate ladder, evening barbecues to distract you, reproducing even more of the species so that they can grow up, climb the corporate ladder, and reproduce even more of the species.)
And if I’m wrong and you’re dead, dead, dead, then this whole thing is moot and nothing to worry about anyway.
Yeah, that whole strange belief was deeply rooted in my former belief in the afterlife. Now I’m in the ‘you’re dead, dead, dead camp’ ;) I was age 10-14 when I was doing this, so I never thought about ‘sorting for the meaningful’, very interesting that you even followed my crazy logic even further than I did. I smiled. Also, I was of the born-again christian type (brainwashed by mom’s YEC friends), so I was assuming that this replay was to take place in heavan or wherever, so time had no relavence, circumventing your 3 minutes of oxygen comment.
That last paranthetical bit about it ALL being meaningless was interesting too. I went through the agnostic phase after deconversion, and I pretty much felt that way for a year or two. It coincided well with my Pink Floyd phase. But then I found Talk.Origins, read some Dawkins, etc., and traded my Floyd for Flaming Lips. Much happier now with 10 years of science and obscure art-damaged self-help rock.
LOL. “Trading My Floyd for Flaming Lips” would make a good title for a book.
“Obscure art-damaged self-help rock” could be a subtitle or at least an article.
All together now, everybody!
“All we are saaaaaaayiiiiiiing… is give peace a chaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaance.”
Give peas a chance… especially snow peas (not English peas so much though… they’re gross! *willlies!*)
Why do I hear the echo of a gunshot?
I’ve included a link to the site of one of the top researchers into Near Death experiences and the whole life video-playback thing.
http://www.pmhatwater.com/
I believe that good sex would stop war. My thesis: if people got over their sexual hangups, and got properly laid on a consistent basis, there’d be a lot fewer angry/pissed-off/hung-up on Gawd people in the world. Unfortunately, there are a few people I know who constantly disprove my argument.
“Unfortunately, there are a few people I know who constantly disprove my argument.”
Maybe you’re just not as good in the sack as you think?
Heh. These are people I’ve not had sex with. And for many, many good reasons (not the least of which being that with a few of them, they’re not the gender that I find myself attracted to).
@ roger
Nothing you said addresses the relevant point that Sock made. Please stop trying to pawn your personal romantic inability to make proper time off as a larger point about society. Shame on you. :)
The reply function is working now, thank Yoda.
For a half-second, I thought you were serious…I was like, “Huh? Wha–? Oh–he’s kidding.”
Yeah, I’m real quick on the uptake.
i was only joking my friend. i left out a few words that might have made what i said clearer.
I believe that some day a super model will come to my door and tell me she can’t live without me in her life and spending her hard earned money.
I don’t believe that Jesus was real. My mother told me that the bible was just fairy tales and, growing up, I had no reason to doubt her. She was a highly-educated and well-read person. I think I was a teenager before I found out that people really, truly think this guy was real and I was flabbergasted! But as much as I try, I just cannot believe he really existed. I don’t think I ever will.
Sorry, not weird. disqualified.
It’s strange to me that you’re just taking your mother’s word for it, full stop. No offense intended, I certainly don’t meant to questions that she was well-read or well-educated.
Or perhaps you have researched the issue for yourself and come to the same conclusion.
It’s interesting to me, though, that both you and I have been biased by our upbringing, just on different sides of the issue. And, we’re both willing to admit that. That’s interesting to me.
I grew up believing Jesus really existed and was God incarnate. Then I thought Jesus existed but was not God, just a Roman-era rock star that legend was built around. Now I don’t even think he was alive, that that was made up too, seeing as how our entire knowledge about him came from writers who had lived long after Jesus died (and resurrected), basing their entire story on hearsay.
well Im sure it’s wierd as hell to a believer.
Unfortunately, the evidence suggests that Jesus probably did not exist, so the belief that he did not is reasonable, and the belief that he did is weird. Sorry!
I have 2 “odd” believes.
1. i believe that i’ll grow up to be 120 (at least).
2. i believe that about 75% of the human population needs to die due to disease, some nature disaster, a meteor or something before we learn the lesson to be more carefull with our earth.
i believe that about 75% of the human population needs to die due to disease, some nature disaster, a meteor or something before we learn the lesson to be more carefull with our earth
Sounds a lot like apocalyptic rants I hear from Evangelical Christians I know, except they would probably substitute something like abortion for not taking care of the Earth. And they would obviously understand it to be God’s judgment and not just a natural occurrence. Interesting parallel nonetheless.
Yeah, we had a chance just to stop squeezing out so many babies and overpopulating the planet. In my teens, I thought people were going to wise up and do that. Nope, I hear people talk less of overpopulation now that the earth is almost 7 billion than they did when it was 3.6 billion. Go figure. Alternatives weeklies in Bellingham, Washington, would run a year of “green” articles, some of them about the impact of humans, without ever once using the word “overpopulation”. Even if they did, they would mean people moving into their precious county from “outside”. I don’t have anything to do with the articles or green movement; if they ask what I’m doing, I’ll tell them I didn’t produce another little carbon footprint to feed.
I agree that it is apparently going to have to take something Really Bad happening to unite humanity on earth. Which is too bad.
Something that bugs me about the modern portrayal of environmentalism is that “it’s about the flowers, hug the trees, bask in the views, check out this photo of blue sky and fluffy clouds”. Really, it’s not about the planet. Despite the absolute worst possible things humanity could do to the planet, 500,000 years later there will be no trace of us at all. The planet will be fine. It’s about keeping the planet habitable for humans.
Are you volunteering you and your family to be part of that 75%? Because I’m certainly not volunteering! :)
Thankfully, we’ve been getting quite environmentally conscious without such drastic measures. I think that trend will continue.
I don’t think she expressed a wish to bring that about, merely an observation that it is a necessary condition.
…which may or may not be true. I kind of think it is probable, though.
Wierd situation…
If i could chose.. to either let the world go on like this.. or let a disaster happen (dissease, comet, vulcano, big ass shit) and whipe out 75% of the human population, but not be sure if I or family would survive…
I would still let the disaster happen.
I guess i just hate humanity..
Actually.. i don’t guess.. i know that for sure :)
I really hope that if it occurs you are part of that 75%, you human hating fucktard.
I really hope that if it occurs you are part of that 75%, you human hating fucktard.
I really don’t think you can hate humanity. You can hate some humans, or hate/dislike the concept of humanity as an abstract thing that you have in your head.
That’s like saying: “I hate french people” -only an example, no pun intended- and when you know some of them you like them. What you were hating was not the real french but your concept of them.
I’m pretty sure too that you love some humans. Maybe It’s a weird believe too, but I do think that humans in general are “good persons”. The problems would be then:
1.- As a mass, we are pretty stupid. It could be a matter of “game theory”
2.- Our rulers are specially handicapped
3.- You may remember more easily the bad people you have find
But I accept those are my beliefs, I don’t have any proof of them
Less a belief than a thought experiment that’s difficult to refute:
There are only a couple of hundred real people in the world. Any other people you may meet are illusory, perhaps put there by some kind of controlling AI, or perhaps a figment of one’s own imagination. There is no reliable way to tell “real” people apart from the “non-real” people, but nevertheless, some people are real, others are not.
For those who shout “Hah! Matrix!”, no, I’ve had this for way longer than that film’s existence, though yes, it does have parallels for sure. I started out with a kind of “everything is illusory” thought experiment, which subsequently evolved.
It’s entirely bullshit, but can be a useful tool, on occasion.
Tangentially: I used to say “only 100 real people”, then facebook and twitter expanded my social circle to large (and measurable) dimensions, so I had to expand to “a few hundred”.
My believe is certainly even more bizarre: I actually believe that I don’t exist. Would you please follow me:
1) Null hypothesis: I do not exist.
2) There is no objective evidence on my existence (every evidence is perceived by the
hypothetically non-existing me, hence no objective evidence is possible).
3) Therefore, I do not exist.
Problem is the Cogito, ergo sum stuff. Really spoils this otherwise fun game. The point is: There is (afaik) no way to prove that you exist, that you have conscience, intelligence, emotions, you name it. You only acknowledge that (Creatard’s style) “nothing can only think nothing”, yet we have some nice clues about nothing generating everything (btw, how do they know our universe is “everything”? It might just be a sub-atomic particle in another universe, for all we know)… Sooo, maybe nothing can think something.
About my weirdest belief is that big girls really are beautiful. I am so 16th century. :(
Actually, no!
My weirdest belief is that anything that ails you can be cured with willpower. If you’re strong enough, mentally, you can cure any illness or disease without medicine.
What?!?! Sock! NOOOOOOO!!!!!
C’mon! You think smallpox was cured by will power?
In agreement on belief number one.
On belief number two – I’l take the medicine thanks
Just for you, Sock! Reubenesque…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rubens_Venus_at_a_Mirror_c1615.jpg
Marry me, Sock? ;)
Oh, I’m a sucker for the Gambler’s Fallacy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_fallacy
“the belief that if deviations from expected behaviour are observed in repeated independent trials of some random process then these deviations are likely to be evened out by opposite deviations in the future. For example, if a fair coin is tossed repeatedly and tails comes up a larger number of times than is expected, a gambler may incorrectly believe that this means that heads is more likely in future tosses.[1] Such an expectation could be mistakenly referred to as being “due”.”
I can’t help it. I know, quite well, that it’s false… but I still catch myself believing it.
lol, you aren’t a mathematician, are you?
Just remember, probability has no memory :-)
There was a science fiction short story (not “I Am a Strange Loop”) about the government executing someone, implanting his memory onto another cloned body, and executing him again and again and again… It was awful. Not the story, the subject of it.
On this site, belief in a human soul and reincarnation is weird.
It does not always go together with trying to escape into the next life, wanting to be a fairy or an angel, or having been Cleopatra in a previous life, or any of the things Tim Minchin sings about the weirdo dinner guest. (All these ideas come from someone I knew who did believe it about herself.) On the contrary, we are responsible for ourselves and for living a life that contributes value to life. And if you were Cleopatra, how some you’re such an idiotic mess and a frackin’ weenie in this life?
That’s interesting–do you remember the title of that sci-fi short story?
No – That’s what’s bugging me. I keep a list of favorite sci fi stories so I can remember these crazy ones I read once. But I read this one *so* long ago. WIth my list (which I made because it’s maddening to remember a plot without remembering a title or author, and SF stories make it hard to search by subject), I can sometimes even answer questions other people ask about the smae problem.
I may try
http://en.allexperts.com/q/Science-Fiction-Books-2157/
eventually – I have answered some follow-ups to the original answers, but haven’t found what *I* need on it yet!
Ok–cool. I’ve got a friend who’s into sci-fi literature…I’ll ask him. I tried googling…but that didn’t help at all. Drat the luck!
*Please* get back to us if you find the story title!
I remembered another sci fi story about executing (killing) someone multiple times. It was “macs” by Terry Bisson. People could buy their own clones of someone – apparently Timothy McVeigh – and kill him as they wished. Gruesome.
Most of these stories show how vicious, nasty and cruel people can be, and still feel right about it. The one that did that best was “The Public Hating” by Steve Allen. Ugh. Gruesome.
Yes, the comedian (or whatever you call him) Steve Allen wrote a science fiction story.
That’s funny, I had a similar experience with the Beatles. I didn’t like them for a long time, then I started realizing that a lot of old songs I liked were Beatles songs. After I started getting albums and stuff though, I realized that it was just a few songs that I liked here and there. I thought I was the only one :)
My strange belief is that plants can communicate. Its based on some stuff I have read about certain trees releasing a chemical into the air when they are being eaten that causes other trees in the area to begin producing a different chemical that makes their leaves taste bitter.
I am the Walrus. :)
That reminded me of *another* science fiction story!
It was one that drove me nuts not knowing the title or author until i finally found it again. It is “The Sound Machine” by Roald Dahl. Written decades before we had the electronic equipment we have now, the man could hear plants.
My strangest belief is that Jesus will come back on judgement day. Whenever that is. Try not to flame me too hard for that one :). But I also semi-agree with Sock that you can cure things with willpower. It’s kinda like when people take placebos for drug experimentation and it actualy works. They think they’re getting better, so their brain tells the body it’s getting better.
My weirdest belief is that life is worth living. I can see the enormous amount of suffering and pain most people endure, today and in the past, but, somehow, I still think that life is worth living.
Life is always worth living, no matter what.
No matter what? I don’t know if that is obvious for you NT but i guess it is not obvious at all for a mother whose children are dying of hunger or for a kid who is born inside a sweatshop and dies at 7, exhausted and blind, making nice carpets or for a starving jew waiting inside a gas chamber or…
Doesn’t matter if it’s obvious or not. It’s still worth living. Just because someone might not see it through the clouds of suffering doesn’t mean it’s not. And I wasn’t implying that it’s obvious to everyone, anyways. At one point, it wasn’t even obvious to me. But now I know better.
I actually kind of agree, though I’m not sure you’d consider it agreement. I hypothesize (I don’t totally believe this, just suspect) that any degree of suffering is preferable to not existing at all. Certainly many people have decided that ending their life would be preferable to further suffering (say, a terminally ill cancer patient), but that shows that it is a common belief that oblivion is better than misery, not that it is true. Maybe they’re wrong. It is extremely difficult (possibly impossible) to tell.
I see you are 100% sure but you provide no reason or proof. I guess you are a believer (If you are not, receive my most humble apologies!). I do not know if rodneyAnonymous (see his comment) is a believer or not but at least he thinks.
If I were to specify that this hypothesis does not apply to embryos (possibly any unborn fetus, but definitely embryos) because they do not have any perception and are thus disqualified from the discussion of whether perception of suffering is preferable to lack of perception (that is, introducing the ideas of “potential perception” and “potential suffering” completely changes the argument), would it give you any hints about my religiosity? ;)
Well, let’s say that before your last comment I just had a (very) strong belief about the nature of your religiosity; now there’s no belief anymore, just certainty. ;-)
ARRRG! I just typed a freaking essay practically, and I’m using a different computer than normal and forgot to type in my name and stuff, so it didn’t go through. :( Waah… *sigh* In short, what I would have said was that I can’t convince that life is worth living unless they want to believe it, regardless of evidence or proof. Just because I’ve always found a reason to live, doesn’t mean someone at the end of their rope is going to see it the same way.
Idk if I even made a point just then. I’m too exasperated over losing all that typing…
Doh! Sorry to hear that.
However, I’m afraid I must nitpick. You said:
Let’s say you’re right, it is objectively true that life is always worth living, in the same sense that I meant, that agony is preferable to death (you don’t believe in oblivion on death, I’m guessing). You are certain of this truth. You are trying to communicate this to the victim of a terrible accident. The accident has left them without arms or legs, and partially paralyzed. They are in constant, horrible physical agony. However, they are relatively stable, and would live for (say) at least ten years without medical assistance. But, it would be ten years of immobility and perpetual pain.
They say they want to die. They’d prefer to die than to suffer any more.
How would you reply?
Interesting… Hmm.
I would probably try to help them find something that they thought was worth doing. I mean, there’s not much an armless and legless person can do physically, but they still have an intellect. I would tell them they have a chance to find a new purpose.
They’d probably be angry along with the constant pain, so chances are, they wouldn’t be open to my opinion.
But ultimately, it’s up to that person to decide for themselves. It’s all about the will to live. When you lose that, that’s when it gets icky. If they’re willing to make something new with their lives, they can. If they’re not, they can’t, and there’s not much I can do but try to show them the good in life, and that probably wouldn’t work.
I’m going to a children’s home in Mexico in about 2 weeks, and the children there usually come from the lowest slums of life, maybe slightly better than the starving children in Africa. They’ve been abused sexually by strangers and relatives, many have contracted STDs, they’ve been severely beaten and left for dead. They’ve seen murder, drugs, and prostitution right in their faces. They deal with nightmares and terrible memories. Many of them with irreversible trauma-induced psycotic breakdowns and so forth. Yet they can still manage to crack a genuine smile.
I haven’t been there before, but I’m going with some people that have. I’m expecting it to be really eye opening. But the people at the children’s home, even with their lack of essential funds, manage to give these children a reason to live. Who’s to say they’re better off dead? Are these children with permenant mental trauma and conditions, diseases, dirty water, little if any education, and no family (with exception of family that has abused them) any better off than the armless and legless man? Maybe they are if you take into account that the children’s home workers care about them. Idk.
Thank you for the thoughtful answer.
This means one of two things. Either you are not certain that agony is preferable to death, or you claim you are certain but can’t make a strong case out of the evidence upon which this certainty is based, which calls into question the validity of your certainty.
Being certain doesn’t make you right. As long as you’re aware of that, it’s all good.
* …and please excuse the “you”s, it’s a general “you”; I tried replacing it with other pronouns, including “me” and “I”, and it didn’t flow.
By contrast, you no doubt believe that murder is wrong, or “not-murder is preferable to murder”, to put that in the same syntax. You are so certain of this truth that you would not leave it up to a potential murderer to decide whether to carry out their murder; you would stop them, if possible. You could also make a strong case supporting the statement “murder is wrong”, if pressed.
You cannot make a similar case for the statement “suffering is preferable to death”, nor would you control someone else’s decision on the matter of their own suffering or death.
I am certain that agony is prefferable to death, and yes I know that doesn’t make me right. But I can’t make a strong argument for the basis of this belief because it is based on my own personal experience, and that of those close to me. My experience also leads me to believe that it’s the same way for everyone, some people just have less willpower. Hence suicides occur. Or, I believe that many suicides occur simply because there was no one around to tell the person they still have a chance to make things better (or at least learn to work around them, in the cases of physical disabilities). If you believe that it’s all over or that death is the solution, and no one is around to tell you anything different, what’s to stop you?
“You cannot make a similar case for the statement “suffering is preferable to death”, nor would you control someone else’s decision on the matter of their own suffering or death”
No, but that wouldn’t stop me from trying to influence them.
I agree with you as well!
Life is always worth living, no matter what.
Personally, I don’t feel that anyone is in a position to generalize on this subject, especially, the “no matter what” part. It’s up to me to determine what hardships, pain, suffering, etc. I can endure; not endure. Thus, it’s up to me to determine whether my life is “worth living”.
This is one of the things that I definitely don’t miss about “the faith”—-its “one-size-fits-all” mentality.
This argument seems irrational to me. In the inquisition all types of horrible tortures were devised by christian peoples to elicit “confessions” from others. Everyone eventually confessed, I know of no case where they did not. If you did not confess they tortured you more, increased your suffering and wore you down until all you wanted was for it to end. Then you confessed and they burned you alive. Everyone will eventually break under enough duress, it is why we have a “need to know” basis in military operations. You cant twist my arm and get me to reveal what I dont know. I see painful disease and injury as the same type of situation. Pain increases and continues until you reach a breaking point, for many that point is death, for others science prolongs thier suffering (in the name of humanity mind you), until they only want it to end.
Never judge a man till you’ve walked a mile in his mocassins.
Simple statistics will tell you that a large percentage of the people who were ever born have never died. So I think I stand a fair chance of never dying.
First problem is that odd can have several definitions. One would be beliefs that will cause people to turn around to stare at you at parties. Another is beliefs that are divergent from reality. We all think our beliefs are congruent with reality or we wouldn’t hold them, so asking about the second category is a nonstarter. (Plus, I really *am* better-looking than Brad Pitt. ) As for the first one – probably that many comets do in fact harbor primitive life, possibly distant descendants of von Neumann probes, possibly not. It’s one of those conclusions that seems outlandish but when I tried to think about rigorously, I couldn’t escape. By extension then, if there are aliens around the Solar System, they aren’t necessarily on Earth, and even if they were, I think we underestimate how provincial is our nervous systems’ particular method of building a picture of the world, and might be missing them all the time (and they us).
But that Fomenko is a nutbar and so is Torsten for believing him. :)
Mike, I don’t believe in Fomenko, I believe in Illig. Their theories are different. I can’t even say that I truly believe (I lack the scientific understanding to properly evaluate the thesis), but it intrigues me, and it sound plausible enough.
I was kidding Torsten, even in your short post you seemed like a non-nutbar. No doubt the “non-political” revisionists are interesting indeed! By non-political I mean: not motivated by a specific desire to obscure the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide, to prove that American Indians are descended from Hebrews or Genghis Khan was actually Japanese, etc. No doubt our current understanding of history will continue to expand as we apply newly available concepts to what happened long ago, but I expect that will result more in new connections (“ah, so THAT’S why Islam didn’t spread into Siberia”) as opposed to finding missing or extra millennia. But if the evidence is there, it’s there – bring it on!
My strangest belief is that at some point people and machines will merge.
The current technology of attaching electrodes to the brain to transmit information to our body will advance from simply recording activity, relative to the intended muscle or motor movements, to being able to inplant those recordings into machines. This sounds very ” Blade Runner” but not outside the scope of advanced genetic technology, that may one day be able to create biologically engineered beings.
Good, maybe someday I can upload and live forever in a digital reality.
“Damn it! The server is down again! I don’t exist!”
LOL….realistic?…maybe not, but weird? Yes!
I’m a newbie to this site, and am very glad to have found it. I appreciate the intelligent dialogue, and the kindness that is shown for one anothers ideas. Although I feel I have little to contribute at this time ( in the midst of discovering my own lack of growth as a result of “god life”) I’m finding a sense of relief in reading of others experiences so close to my own. Thank you again.
I believe that Jesus Christ was born in a manger, lived as God incarnate, that He died, rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven. I would consider that strange. Wouldn’t you?
I believe that humanity’s over-reliance on technology will cause us to evolve into physically weaker beings with less native intelligence, kind of like the end of The Time Machine. Then, another species will evolve to fill the space left by humans.
Dude! I’ve just finished rereading that book! THAT’S weird!
watch Idiocracy, you love it I think, lol
It is my belief that all of our emotions, tears, joy, depression, need for religion, heterosexuality, homosexuality, anger and so forth, are induced by and influenced by what we eat and our chemical structure. Predefined at conception and further influenced by out diets and environmental chemical exposure. I believe that there is no higher power influencing any of it.
I believe I’ll go have a beer. Oh wait, that’s not so strange.
Unless it’s some kind of American beer.
I’ll drink a Belgian beer to that. Cheers!
We have some pretty good Australian beer! ;)
My strangest belief is that the universe is a manifestation of some sort of uniform consciousness that gives rise to all form.
I don’t think that’s a strange belief at all, Daniel. In fact, it sounds more like a hope to me and I would second that hope/belief. That would be so cool.
I guess I don’t have any strange beliefs. Well, I believe all of the hair on my head will be grey/silver before I die.
Have you ever wondered whether a mathematical structure “exists”? Does it need a mathematician to think about it before it “exists”? And what about mathematical structures that are complex enough to contain self-aware patterns? Isn’t our universe such a mathematical structure?
My strangest believe is in Max Tegmark’s “Ultimate Ensemble Theory”, which answers the above questions. It’s a modern take on modal realism by a cosmologist. I find it hard to imagine how it could be wrong, unless it is in some fundamental way impossible to describe the rules which make up the physics of our universe.
Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_ensemble
Paper:
http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9704009
This subject is incorporated into Neal Stephenson’s (fictional) novel Anathem. Many cognitive barriers to discussing the nature of the Universe (or Multiverse) can be obviated by the narrative taking place in a different universe. But I really like fiction, especially science fiction; I realize it’s not for everyone.
Really? I didn’t know that and I was already considering to buy Anathem.
*whips out credit card and surfs to amazon*
Well that link was definitly brain candy. An interesting theorem for certain. Good thing i’m comfortable with Not Knowing, cause I certainly lack the expertise to critique it on its merits.
My strangest belief is that there is a god and that I have a soul. I am functionally a naturalist, but there’s a little part in the back of my brain that still longs for some kind of ultimate meaning/purpose– even if it’s irrational! :( Oh, well!
Weeellll…. If you put it that way, my entire life is based on irrationality. But the funny thing is, it works wonderfully.
Well, I can’t prove either way that there is a god or a soul, but I can tell you that my studies of consciousness/neuroscience/philosophy of mind have led me to believe that my mind is definitely tied to my brain (although my mind may not be my soul— my soul may be something else):
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness/
It’s gonna take me a good while to read all that. Lol. But I will. I love reading.
Hello Everybody;
I Have two that I’m not embarrassed to share. I believe that one day, we will have the option of having a computer chip implanted in your brain. How cool would be to tune out boring poeple with the internet? Second, I believe in the chupra cabra, or Mexican goat sucker. Gives me the willies.
Great answer! Actually we are implanting computer chips now into people’s brains– to help them communicate and to move robotic arms:
http://www.livescience.com/health/050317_brain_interface.html
http://www.livescience.com/technology/050218_monkey_arm.html
Also, I have some weird fears too: fear of heights, fear of the dark, and (recently since 9/11) fear of flying (although that one is getting better).
Thank you as always LRA. No matter what I type, you have something usefull and insightful to write. I thought it was possible, but I didn’t think it would have been done in my life time. Thanks for the link, taht was interesting, as always.
i would say that my oddest belief is that there is no meaning to life. sure, there is meaning that we each assign to our own life, but i believe that there is no intrinsic value like many people, mostly religious, do.
Also not weird! ;)
not weird to you, but to me it feels weird that there is no reasoning to life. i’m a pretty rational guy and it bugs me when the most rational answer i can find is irrationality.
I think that feeling is responsible for why a lot of people are religious and believe what others tell them so readily. They are not comfortable as rational beings with a purposeless life, they want meaning so badly that they accept what someone else has told them because it provides that meaning.
As an agnostic, the only rational way I can explain this existance, with meaning and God, is that we are in an advanced training program. This entire reality is like first grade under this theory. We are protazoa learning to swim and wishing we were smarter.
However this could never be proven, and flies in the face of all religion. So even if there was a God and we were his children, we would by nature be infants in comparrisson. Which means the christian God burns disobediant babies for crapping in thier pants.
If you remove God and Meaning from this life, (which I am entirely comfortable with), I still see life as a lesson. We are always learnig as long as our minds are open. We still have no proof of anything beyond this life, so you better smell those roses while you can!
There isn’t a ton of evidence for this but I’d like to believe that bees can interact with quantum fields, which would just make them more awesome then they already are.
http://science.box.sk/newsread.php?newsid=6321
My strangest beliefs… hmm, I have a few.
I really like what Nessie posted about, let’s call it “molecular reincarnation.” Combine this with Yair’s “panpsychism” and you get a hypothesis resembling something I came up with independently.
I also share Yair’s belief in the Multiple Worlds theory of quantum physics.
I believe we can all pick up on each other’s brain waves, resulting in a sense that could be considered light telepathy but I think is more appropriately called empathy.
I believe in the Oscillating Universe theory, i.e. the universe expands to a certain point, then contracts back down to a singularity, which results in another Big Bang occuring once every couple of trillion years.
I believe that life has probably evolved multiple times in this universe, especially vis-a-vis the oscillating universe idea. The philosophical implications of our universe being similar to the way it is now an infinite number of times prior to the most recent Big Bang are startling.
I’m also kind of partial to certain popular conspiracy theories. For example, I believe that Jim Morrison is still alive, that the Waco incident was the fault of the ATF and not the Branch Davidians, and that there were as many as six or seven attackers in the Columbine incident, instead of just Harris and Klebold.
Another note on the whole quasi-telepathic empathy idea: certain animals seem to have an extraordinary talent for it, as any pet owner can attest.
Personally I think that’s done through body language.
Oh that’s certainly the case to a large extent… I’m just not so sure that it stops there.
I believe strongly in the power of government to have a positive influence in people’s lives.
I certainly don’t think this is a strange belief, but I constantly run in to people who do. I’m starting to think I’m in a small minority on this one. At least in the US.
Well…..I believe in Ents.
I thought of another one besides von Neumann comet viruses: when I was about 20 I adopted a panpsychist outlook on the question of consciousness, which is to say I believe that consciousness is a basic property of the universe, like mass, time and charge – consequently, *everything* has some consciousness, even if it’s not worth writing home about. (Yes, including rocks.) I freely concede how odd that seems, but the arguments in favor of it force me to take this position. The philosopher of consciousness David Chalmers espouses a form of this. I’m often accused of mysticism when I wax on about this, but unlike mystics a) I recognize the problems with the theory, b) I’ll gladly adopt a better theory based on clearer arguments and evidence if it comes along, and c) it’s not a canonical or revealed truth; i.e., I welcome the arguments and contributions of others to improve my very imperfect understanding.
Are the arguments in favor still strong if you don’t presuppose consciousness exists? (That is, that “me”-ness is an illusion created by the physical brain.)
Yes. That the personal-self is illusory only makes sense if there is something feeling the illusion, which requires something to FEEL. You can be wrong about what it is you are sensing, or who “you” are, but not about the fact that some feeling exists. That’s the Cogito Ergo Sum argument. And that’s all that is required for the arguments for panpsychism to work with.
I think, therefore — for all intents and purposes — I am.
Last one – I believe that Flight 93 (the 9/11 plane that crashed in Pennsylvania) was most likely shot down by the US Air Force. If I’m right, then I think the USAF did the right thing, and I wonder if it’s been kept under wraps because of the reaction of the American public.
I believe in things along the lines of what Daniel said. I think specifically my weirdest belief is that I (and lots of other people) will live for a very long time, perhaps hundreds of years. Assuming we don’t wipe ourselves out I think science and technology are going to one day allow us to simply regrow the parts in our bodies that start to break down, including our brains. Of course I don’t know how long this will take but that’s why I have thought of being frozen when I die.
I have tons of irrational beliefs about myself. That I am totally socially inept. That my friends are all secretly annoyed with me but too polite to say it to my face. That, when people make jokes around me, it means I’m making a faux pas. That, if I do too well at work, it will make my coworkers resent me for making them look bad.
Objectively, I know that I am overreacting, but I don’t know what’s real and what’s a product of my messed-up mind.
I liked the comment by Yair about Panschism- the belief that all matter might have some form of cociousness or thinking ability.
This seems to jive with reports of people who recieve organ transplants and then start mysteriously displaying personality traits of the the organ donor.(high sex drive where none was present before,passive personality becomes aggressive etc.).
They also sometimes have dreams about people from the donors life.
This suggests that we think and store memories with more than just our brains.- that the whole body may do some thinking, memory storage.
Other strange things I believe? Well…
Shakespeare’s work is both brilliant and very tedious. The man was a genius, but he tended to ramble too much. (I suspect that this may be considered weird, since Shakespeare tends to be a highly polarizing topic.)
But that’s not really weird, so…
I believe that people have different luck wavelengths. That is, some people are natural luck magnets, and things will just fall into their laps for virtually no reason at all, while other people have terrible luck and things never seem to go right. Or maybe there are “luck zones”, where the people living therein just tend to have better luck. The first seems more probable, though.
My weirdest belief is that three of the last five mass extinctions were caused by intelligent life arising on Earth. In particular, I believe that a species of intelligent dinosaur engineered the mass-extinction by use of a Dr. Strangelove style doomsday device located over the geological formation most likely to result in maximum death.