Belief System Literature Review
After taking a long break from working on belief systems(and writing a book in the meantime), I think it’s time to get back to belief system. The problem that got me stuck was how to define the term ‘Belief Systems’.
The concept is not new(the oldest usage I could find goes all the way back to Plato and his allegory of the cave). It’s used by many authors - but each author has a different term they use to refer to this concept. I thought I’ll start by doing a literature review of this concept by collecting all references to this concept I could find.
Table of Contents
- Anthropology / Sociology
- Rationality
- Science
- Psychology
- Philosophy
Stories
- Source: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Book
- Author: Yuval Noah Harari
Yuval Noah Harari uses the term ‘Stories’ to refer to shared myths, beliefs and narratives that we create and collectively believe in. This enables large groups of people to cooperate and function together.
These ‘stories’ include things like religions, nations, laws, ideologies, etc. These shared beliefs are not objective truths, but rather social constructs. They are ‘imagined realities’ that only exist in the collective imagination of human society. But even though they are not objectively real, they have a very real impact on human society. The main reason humanity has managed the scale at which it operates is because of such ‘stories’. It might be one of humanity’s biggest super powers.
Myths
- Source: Mythologies, Book
- Author: Roland Barthes
This is an idea from Semiotics. Semiotics is the science of signs - or how words/ images get their meaning. Not the actual meaning(in semiotics, it’s called Denotation) - but the assigned meaning(connotation). Let’s take the example of the color red. The literal meaning is the color - but there is a lot of assigned meaning to it as well - it could mean danger, stop, etc.
If enough people use the same sign(eg. red) for the same meaning(eg. stop), it becomes a ‘Myth’. A belief system in cultural memory.
Shared Intentionality
- Source: Why We Cooperate, Book
- Author: Michael Tomasello
One of our main evolutionary advantages is that we can share goals, intentions, and actions with others, enabling coordinated and collaborative activities. This involves understanding others as intentional agents like oneself and engaging in joint attention, communication, and problem-solving.
If you are interested in learning more about it, there is a lecture series by the author ‘Origins of Human Cooperation’ that I can recommend.
Construct
- Source: The Social Construction of Reality (1966)
- Author: Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann
The Social construction of reality is the process by which people create a shared reality that is seen by all as objectively factual and meaningful. There are three parts in creating this…
- Externalization: We project our ideas and meaning onto the world. Eg. Five people decide to live together to share resources. They find meaning in the close connections they have with others.
- Objectivation: The given meaning becomes the objective reality. It can happen in one of these ways…
- Institutionalization: When meaningful behaviors become habitual/routine. Eg. Everyone starts living together in groups of 5.
- Historicity: More time we have with a meaning, the more it ‘hardens’. Eg. “We have always been living like this.”
- Legitimization: Given a cognitive and moral basis that will explain/justify it. Eg. Scientific papers are written to explain why 5 person households are the most optimum one. Religion has laws prohibiting other numbers in households.
- Language: Meaning becomes embedded in language. Eg. The word household can also mean 5. Or 5 symbolizes happy or efficient.
- Internalization: The process by which an individual absorbs the social construct. Eg. By the time most people reach adulthood, they already believe that 5 is the best household number.
Maps
- Source: Science and Sensibility
- Author: Alfred Korzybski
In rationality space, there is a phrase ‘Map is not territory’. It means that reality(the territory) might not be the same as our internal belief(map) about what it is.
These “maps” help us understand and interact with the world, but they are not complete representations of all aspects of reality.
Mental Models
- Source: Mental Models: Toward a Cognitive Science of Language, Inference, and Consciousness (1983)
- Author: Philip Johnson-Laird
Mental Model is a simplified mental representation of a complex real world system. When we try to make sense of something, we simplify parts of it, prioritize some parts - so as to reduce its complexity. We only have to store this simplified version in our mind.
These models help in understanding and predicting events but are simplifications and do not encompass the full complexity of reality.
Paradigm
- Source: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
- Author: Thomas Kuhn
Paradigm, according to Thomas Kuhn, is a model of a field of science that is accepted by most scientists at a given time period. This is what everyone will be taught, this is how things will be measured and tested.
But at some point, there will be new discoveries that cannot be explained by this model. To find a better model that fits the new results, it requires a revolution to change the current model. This revolution is called the ‘Paradigm Shift’. One of the classic examples for this is the shift from Newtonian gravity to general relativity.
These paradigms are very stubborn - and cannot easily be changed. Its so bad that there is a famous quote…
Science progresses one funeral at a time Planck’s Principle
Schema/Schemata
- Author: Jean Piaget
Schema is the mental structure of ideas. We use this framework to represent an understanding of the world - and to organize and assimilate new information we get. We have to update our schemas when we encounter new information. But, when encoding new experiences to long term memory, anything that does not fit our existing schema will be thought of as irrelevant, and more likely to be omitted or forgotten. Each time the you recall a memory, the memory might change a bit to better fit your existing schema.
Worldview / Weltanschauung
- Source: Phenomenology of Spirit
- Author: Hegel
Each generation has their own ‘worldview’. Its based on the combination of prevalent social, political structures and the newly emerging ideas and forces of that time. There is generally a conflict of the two and a resolution(synthesis) is achieved which becomes a more refined version of the worldview.
He maintains that this will continue until humanity reach a point he calls ‘Absolute Idealism’ - complete self awareness and freedom. So the worldview of any point is just the part of the process of reaching this absolute.
PS: Immanuel Kant, another contemporary philosopher to Hegel, also had used ‘Worldview’ in his work - but with very different meaning. He defines it as a structure of the mind by which it organizes and stores information. As far as I could understand it does not fit my idea of Belief System, so we’ll ignore it for now.
Conclusion
As you can see, the idea of Belief Systems are wide and varied. I want to narrow it down.
In the coming months, I want to go into a bit more depth into each of these topics and their source literature. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to create a synthesis of most of the concepts here to come to a better understanding of Belief Systems.
