An age old question in philosophy is 'What should we believe in?' or 'How do we determine the grounds for believing in something?What can we use as a criteria for justifying or rejecting beliefs?' This question has been debated for centuries and continues to be debated. Apart from some general idea about the important schools of thought I know very little about the nuances in this debate, so what I am about to say has probably been said a thousand times before (and refuted and defended and so on). But since I'm not aware of that I'll go right ahead.
I think the question is wrong. The mistaken assumption behind the question-in fact in the language we use in framing the question- is that we have free will. We don't. What this means is that all ' how should we' questions should actually be translated to 'how do we?' Instead of asking what we *should* do, we should (hehe) instead be trying to model how belief formation works. The better we understand belief formation the closer we would be to clearing the confusion that question causes in us. It would take us closer to the 'answer' to that question.
So, belief formation. Contrary to what many of us who subscribe to rationalism would claim we do not actually believe in those things whose truth has somehow or the other been proved to us. I for instance, don't believe in God but believe that the Andes Mountain exists though I haven't seen either of them. Presumably if I did go to South America I would find out that they did exist, but I haven't and still believe in it. So how does my mind actually acquire beliefs?
So, belief formation. Contrary to what many of us who subscribe to rationalism would claim we do not actually believe in those things whose truth has somehow or the other been proved to us. I for instance, don't believe in God but believe that the Andes Mountain exists though I haven't seen either of them. Presumably if I did go to South America I would find out that they did exist, but I haven't and still believe in it. So how does my mind actually acquire beliefs?
A realistic model will of course be complicated but here's a simplistic I go about gathering experiences and in my head I try to make a pattern out of them a them - a sort of a model of the world. This happens unconsciously. If I get new information that fits with what I already know, then that information goes right in. If it doesn't, I'm doubtful. It could be that the pattern needs to be changed, or that the new information is 'bad'. How does my mind decide? It would depend on how much of the model in my head I have to discard or modify to fit either way. If somebody told me, say, that there are bunnies in the moon, then I would be unlikely to believe him. 'Cause believing in that means letting go a lot of the picture I've built up - what supports life, how the environment on the moon is and so on. While not believing in it I only give up my assumption that my friend has not been smoking up. One could probably represent this model in terms of networks.
This process goes on in our heads mostly without us noticing. The model here is an ideal one in the sense that the mind described looks at all new information and judges how well they fit into its existing world-picture and decides to accept or reject the information based on that basis. We can call this the 'rational model'. Many minds do not try to do this and can have inconsistent beliefs. Also minds will differ with respect to the complexity of the judgement they are capable of performing in a given time. This will generally result in different levels of 'irrational beliefs'.
This process goes on in our heads mostly without us noticing. The model here is an ideal one in the sense that the mind described looks at all new information and judges how well they fit into its existing world-picture and decides to accept or reject the information based on that basis. We can call this the 'rational model'. Many minds do not try to do this and can have inconsistent beliefs. Also minds will differ with respect to the complexity of the judgement they are capable of performing in a given time. This will generally result in different levels of 'irrational beliefs'.
The origin of this way of belief formation is I think evolutionary. The person who has made a consistent model of the world from information received would obviously be more likely to survive than a person who is unable to do so.
The way Science evolves is I think pretty much the same as the process described above, except that now we are talking about beliefs held by a community instead of a single individual, and the community tries to 'rational' ise the process in the above sense. That is to say, new ideas coming in can be said to be given an 'acceptance-value' based on how well it connects with or differs from other ideas. Of course different scientists will reject or embrace it with different degrees so one is speaking here of an average 'acceptance value'. For competing scientific theories, those that will connect most dots will tend to be favoured. The point here is that belief formation is science is not essentially distinct from personal belief formation, it is the distillation of the same process.
The way Science evolves is I think pretty much the same as the process described above, except that now we are talking about beliefs held by a community instead of a single individual, and the community tries to 'rational' ise the process in the above sense. That is to say, new ideas coming in can be said to be given an 'acceptance-value' based on how well it connects with or differs from other ideas. Of course different scientists will reject or embrace it with different degrees so one is speaking here of an average 'acceptance value'. For competing scientific theories, those that will connect most dots will tend to be favoured. The point here is that belief formation is science is not essentially distinct from personal belief formation, it is the distillation of the same process.
