Reality Beyond Belief: Understanding Why You Believe What You Believe

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1    What it means to believe

1       Why this book?

2       The elephant in the room

3       What this book is not

4       Words on Words

Chapter 2    Survival Instincts

1       Survival

2       Evolution: Genes and Memes

3       Instincts—the instruments of survival

Chapter 3    The Brain

1       Who is in Charge of your Brain?

2       Our Several Brains

Chapter 4    Mind from Matter

1       Existence is self-organising

2       The Meaning of Meaning

3       What is Mind?

4       What is Thinking?

5       Theory of mind

Chapter 5    Thinking on Thinking

1       Emotional Thinking

2       Rational Thinking

3       Inherent Irrationality

4       Language and Semiotics

Chapter 6    Ego, Self, Will

1       The Ego-self

2       Falling Apart: Mad, Bad or Human?

3       Free-Will or Instinct?

Chapter 7    Belief and Knowledge

1       Are We One Being or Two?

2       The Outer Universal Reality

3       Here and Now

4       Reality of Belief

5       Reality Check

Chapter 8    Alchemy of the Mind

1       The Nature of Belief

2       The Invention of Belief

3       How Belief becomes Truth

4       Worlds of Beliefs

5       What do you Trust?

Chapter 9    Reality Beyond Belief

1       The Mind Triangle

2       Notice the power of instinct

3       Notice the burden of belief

4       Notice the ego/self

5       Being and Doing

Chapter 10    World beyond belief

1       Really intelligent design?

2       The Big Questions Answered

3       A conclusion of sorts

Appendix 1

A Summary of the Book

Mapping Cognition

A Guide to Reality

How Minds Can Change

A work to be worked on by you

Weaving a New Narrative

Memory

The Milgram and Stockholm synergy

The chemical nature of mind

Memes

Breathing Meditation

Bibliography and Further Reading

Preface

This book is about our existence. It assumes little prior knowledge of the large subject and requires only your desire to know more about the world and what things mean. My own curiosity about the ‘mysteries’ of life prompted this search for answers which I found are completely dependent on the brain and its interesting peculiarities. I have a nagging disquiet that answers to troubling questions are often circular and seem only to generate more questions. Many of the questions themselves are based on beliefs which I cannot accept, such as the assumption there must be a reason for our existence.

If we put aside such assumptions and go back to the physical basis for our existence, we may end some of the circularity.

It is a journey that is likely to transform your life as it has mine.

We can start a new, life-changing conversation to find what we really are to explore and revisit common ideas. Without intention, many of our orthodoxies are upturned in this book. Hold your fire if a statement is not supported immediately; explanations follow as the text unfolds. You may find far more in this book than is apparent at the first reading and several readings may be necessary.

Even though many aspects of life fill us with awe and mystery which inspires beliefs, there is little that is truly mysterious about our existence. The reason why we believe what we believe is plain and mechanical and the ‘mysteries’ of the mind will be shown to be mundane workings of matter. I hope to explain it well enough to you.

Instincts select the beliefs which create our realities.

This book explains how it happens. It also shows how it is possible to consciously and deliberately live beyond belief by becoming aware of these instincts. To get you there, it will describe the many automatic mental mechanisms that operate under our radar, physical components of the brain that gives us consciousness and the mind which we believe is our own.

Mind is shown made of matter.

Here belief is demystified and explained. But to achieve this, we need to agree on the meanings of words like reality, instinct, and belief. Your total agreement on what is presented is unlikely, but you may find it unnecessary as you encounter and understand the ideas despite the inadequacy of the words. You may agree that words are blunt instruments encumbered with belief, obscuring more than they reveal; that the mind is often a willing captive of belief; that truth is not as elusive and perplexing as some people tell you; and that an all-powerful belief loses its potency the moment it is not believed. Belief you might discover is a raft used to cross the rivers of life. You may ask as others have done, why you are carrying a raft on your back when there are no more rivers and you are ascending the mountain.

Our reality is created moment to moment by what we believe. But there are times when belief is absent. We can be ‘in the zone’, ‘in the moment’, or in a state of ‘no mind’. In these moments we give ourselves up to the instinct dominant at the time. When we are playing a sport, the putamen of the brain which allows us to move from memory without conscious thought is allowed to function unfettered. As we watch a dancer, listen to a musician, or as we read a book, our mirror neurons ensure that parts of us become the dancer, musician, or writer. Like some moments during meditation or prayer, ecstasy, awe and worship, these can be moments without belief.

Life is filled with contradictions and inconsistencies. This is because many of our beliefs do not fit the realty outside our comfort zone. Yet if we are able to put aside such beliefs, our reality will be instantly changed, moving us beyond the confusion.

This book of practical philosophy is a view of life into which all of existence fits, a way to find answers for our many troubling and seemingly insoluble problems. It may confirm what you have suspected but have been unable to explain about human nature, namely, that the brain is a corporation made of many components, each with shifting goals and loyalties, at times totally absorbed in fulfilling a narrow need, at other times wanting to be one with the universe.

This comes from the activity of instincts, at times in competition with other instincts and at other times in accord. Contrary to popular belief, instinct is not just an emergency response triggered by danger but will be shown here to be the source of thought and behavior.

Our instincts decide on the beliefs which create our realities which convince us our beliefs are true.

This is confronting stuff. It challenges you to contemplate what or who you are, and to consider if instinct can be the basis for your sensibilities, intelligence and spirituality. The ‘big questions’ of life are themselves questioned. You may even agree that the questions humans have grappled with for centuries are the wrong questions and that knowledge may come from asking the right questions.

With a better understanding not just of knowledge but of what the act of knowing itself means, we can create and navigate our own mental or cognitive maps and avoid repeatedly losing the way.

There is nothing new in this book. It may be like food that tastes wonderful not because of rare or expensive ingredients but from the way ordinary items are put together. The ingredients here are commonsensical but juxtaposed and connected in an uncommon way to constitute an uncommon sense. You may even find ‘a-ha!’ moments that transform your reality.

There are questions to answer: Are we human or spirit or both?

Why is belief the matter of life and death that it often is?

What is the meaning of meaning? What is truth?

More importantly, can minds be changed and how can we be confident the change will be for the better?

We do not have to carry the baggage of so much belief to satisfy our instincts. Here answers may be found, cognitive maps formed to accept our instincts, and our intelligence rebooted. Be patient, much will be revealed. May you in the course of this work have your eureka moment.

Kun-Gay Yap

Campbelltown, New South Wales, Australia

July 2012

Acknowledgements

This book is dedicated to my wife, Kuldip Kaur, for her love and many valuable suggestions. As always, she set my purpose higher.

I would also like to thank my sister, Kunbek and also Amanda Hong and Lillian Yang for their generous support and feedback.

Thanks to the Mavericks Dragon Boat Club at Blackwattle Bay, Sydney. For five years the great training sessions with you guys gave me much needed ‘zone-out’ time to think. Go Mavs!

Not least, thanks to all the minds I have ever met and imbibed from.

Without being aware of it, you have contributed to this book.

Errors of supposed facts and errors of thinking in this book are wholly mine as are any lapses into unnecessary belief and failure to see the reality beyond some beliefs. I am also responsible for the aphorisms.¹

Chapter 1

What it means to believe

Why we believe what we believe

Aphorism: The need for belief exceeds the need for truth

1 Why this book?

We are part of a large, diverse and often confusing world of ideas and beliefs. Our world is one of belief, with beliefs among different people often so opposed that human suffering is inevitable.

In Western liberal democracies there is the acceptance that every person is entitled to beliefs even if the beliefs are offensive or dangerous. Beliefs supported by the widespread belief in belief, lead to many consequences, but often it is only when such beliefs are expressed violently and lives are threatened or lost that there is governmental action. Some other countries allow belief in only one belief system; atheistic totalitarian regimes hold the belief that their citizens cannot be trusted to choose their own beliefs, whereas theocratic regimes appear unable to see beyond their own narrow selections of beliefs.

It is hard to find consensus among opposing camps that are entrenched in their own beliefs. We disagree in many areas such as politics, culture, and economics. Even in science the distinction between knowledge and belief can be blurred. We can voice our opinions in some of these areas but religious beliefs are generally held to be sacred and off-limits for any criticism.² Even when they are not our own, many beliefs profoundly affect our lives. The beliefs of others seem to control our lives even more than our own beliefs.

This book describes how each person’s reality arises from idiosyncratic belief.³ It explains why there cannot be complete agreement; no two human beings have exactly the same reality because reality arises from each person’s unique set of beliefs. But even though a person’s reality is unique, he or she is living according to beliefs that arise from predictable instincts and will emote, think and behave predictably. A person’s beliefs may appear appropriate to the circumstance and in keeping with a cultural narrative, but closer examination will find the beliefs to be arbitrary, linked to other beliefs in a motley collection.⁴ Making this collection of conflicting beliefs coherent and serviceable demands much time and energy. These are often beliefs that make no sense except to believers whose instinctive need to believe is fulfilled.

This book examines why we have this need and how it is fulfilled.

Many Realities

Individual beliefs are formed from individual perceptions of an outer universal reality in which we all exist but from which we each derive our own unique reality. The outer reality is the physical reality of our universe and includes the reality of our biology. It is a reality that is interpreted by our individual bodies to allow us to live our lives.

Reality is our interpretation of this outer universal reality.⁵

You will find that there is no contradiction in describing this physical reality common to all of us as both physical and abstract, a world from which we each abstract and construct our own constellation of beliefs and the mental universe in which we each exist. Even though we all share the same physical world, individual realities are often so different, being unique abstractions of the physical reality, that there is no agreement about this outer reality. If we are able to get closer to this outer universal reality we will find that fewer beliefs are needed.⁶ When we agree on more aspects of this universal reality we might become more aligned with each other’s realities and better able to accept and manage the many difficult problems of the world.

Terms like belief, reality, meaning, and the outer universal reality form the subjects of Part 1, Reality, with the many formidable barriers to a Reality Beyond Belief. Part 2, Beyond Belief, describes how the barriers may be overcome.

Arguments for or against any set of beliefs can range from the highly emotional to the seemingly rational.⁷ There are many battles of belief such as the clash of cultures, religious differences, the role of the media, forms of government, degrees of individual freedom, questions about climate change, and the distribution of wealth and resources. In looking for solutions, each party examines and debates various beliefs. It is not enough however, to question the validity of specific beliefs because argument over whether a particular belief is desirable, or meaningful, is from the position of a particular belief based on its own assumptions.

There is a need to go beyond the basic assumptions we all make.

Opposing views are often based on the same assumptions. These assumptions are derived from rational thinking, which like all thinking will be shown to be based on emotion created by instincts. It is argued here that thinking is an activity for which there is no consistent or universal logic apart from the ‘logic’ of survival and this logic of survival is the only logic we can know.

How valid is any belief?

The validity of any belief is examined by looking at the biological basis of belief. Humans find belief useful but truth inconvenient, and naturally the need to believe exceeds the need for truth.⁸ There is a biological imperative in humans to believe, an urge that is instinctive and exceedingly powerful, and that comes before the need for irritating and obstructing truth. People acquire belief without much thought of being deceived and tend to inhabit a world where the beliefs have been repeated and reinforced over many years and through generations. Living without belief is inconceivable to many. It is seen as either impossible or abominable, with the belief that only having the right beliefs will keep a person sane and moral, and provide the meaning to live a worthwhile life.⁹

Belief is created by the natural workings of the human brain and is designed to satisfy the brain, not serve the truth. Our assumptions about the brain are flawed. The brain does what it does but we assume it to be many things that it is not. In particular, the brain is not there to make us the intelligent beings we like to think we are. Instead, the brain sets a person’s intelligence to create its own truths and realities. These are arbitrary states of mind that can have total control over parts or the whole of the person’s life. The brain is particularly susceptible to religious beliefs that are claimed to be revealed truths.

This work shows that such truths claimed as divine revelations¹⁰ are the result of belief, not the source.

Avoid belief here as well

Fears and anxieties of which we may or may not be aware shape much of our thinking, and survival instincts of which we are mostly unaware form the basis for thinking. When we understand what gives us thought with the built-in biases in our inherently conflicted, chaotic, fearful and irrational brain, we will realise that what we assume to be intelligent thinking is actually the workings of instincts.

These strong statements may upset and offend. But if you are interested in the elusive and perplexing idea of truth you will find that this is a journey towards the meaning of meaning and the meaning of truth. As it turns out, this journey is an exploration of how the mind works. It does not require belief. The mental mechanisms are known, shown to be true, and accepted by believers and non-believers alike.

Far from barren and directionless, this work takes the view that spirituality can flourish beyond belief.¹¹ As for the small but vocal movement against religious beliefs, it should be noted that this is not a work on atheism¹² which is also a belief. We can live beyond that too.¹³

Reality Beyond Belief

Those who live without religious belief are in a world filled with other people’s beliefs. If you are at a stage of leaving your long-held beliefs this book is a forum for you. For those who have established beliefs, this book may extend your search for meaning and truth; it digs deeper than what you may expect.

What you will get will depend on your perception,¹⁴ where you are on the cognitive map¹⁵ and whether you can allow your mind to examine the workings of your brain.

This quest is for self-knowledge at its most fundamental.

Belief, unbelief, disbelief and non-belief

The prefix ‘non’ means ‘not, other than, the reverse of, the absence of’ and sometimes denotes that the entity it is applied to is unimportant or of little consequence. Disbelief is the act of rejecting something as untrue. Unbelief is incredulity or scepticism especially in matters of religious faith. Scepticism is an attitude of doubt or a disposition to incredulity in general or toward a particular object.

One person’s knowledge can be another’s belief, and someone else may regard it with scepticism or disbelief. If the position is one of non-belief, one is beyond the belief in question. Capital B Belief is used here to denote any belief system that determines the thinking of the believer in a systematic way, often affecting a significant portion of the person’s life. Such Beliefs tend to have Truths. Examples are: Political systems, theories of economics, unproven methods of healing, and religion

How we believe, why we believe, and why we believe what we believe

Of these three distinct aspects regarding belief, how we believe, is the most difficult to understand and accept. For believers of religion, belief is a supernatural phenomenon, made possible only because a spirit enters the body or mind and imparts the belief to the believer or to the one in whom the believer believes. These beliefs have the status of Truth, transmitted from God to selected humans in such a way as to keep the teachings pure and incorruptible. Somehow the Truths in a special book remain immutable through the many generations of oral tradition, written down and subsequently copied by scribes, translated from one language to another, edited by talented authors and printed by errant typesetters.

Such a belief of how we believe requires many other beliefs.

One belief is there is a soul with an existence separate from the body and brain, acting as the recipient of belief. This belief of how we believe, is widespread and is the default mental position to explain many of the ‘mysteries’ of life; a belief that apart from matter and energy, humans are infused with an essence without which they are not human. This belief in the duality of humans is described in Chapter 7.

But outside the comfort of an individual’s world of belief, the universe of belief is large, encompassing as many systems and variations as there appear to be believers. Beliefs of every sort including beliefs about the absolute, the permanent or the perfect will be shown to evolve along Darwinian principles, impermanent and illusory like the rest of reality, and are our abstractions from the outer reality. Beliefs go extinct and new beliefs form, ecosystems of belief that evolve and change unceasingly.

Belief is whatever the brain needs it to be with the brain able to create the awe, reverence and majesty that so mightily impresses believers.¹⁶

This happens with little consciousness, and with much of it happening even as we sleep.¹⁷ Moreover, the mechanism by which we believe the most inspiring and uplifting spiritual belief is also the same mechanism by which we acquire the most detestable and shocking of beliefs, or indeed, beliefs of little consequence.

All belief comes from the same ‘factory’ of the human brain.

Put another way, this is a factory that can switch from manufacturing toys and farm machinery to making weapons of war, or for making junk, in each instance using much the same raw materials. This description of how the mind works in regard to belief is not easy to accept; that how we believe is no more than the workings of biology.¹⁸ This is unacceptable to many whose instincts prefer mysterious belief derived from a perfect supernatural source.¹⁹

There is no need to invent spirits and souls to explain belief any more than believing that a spirit guides and controls your computer.²⁰ It is time to emerge from the stone-age mind-set where the default position is to defer to a creator/god as the explanation for all that we might find difficult to understand.²¹ Imagine a television set making an appearance at the time of the Spanish Inquisition: The frenzy of the clergy and masses that are divided into those who want to worship the box as god and those who must destroy the box as the devil; all based on inventions of beliefs to explain the unexplainable. Yet to us it is no more than electronics and the complex culture of television.²²

Why do we need to believe? Belief fulfills many of our needs which cannot be satisfied as well or as easily by knowledge. These needs are ultimately driven by an external reality common to all of us such as the need for food, shelter, protection, and the needs of the brain to be able to perform its many tasks. Belief has been crucial to survival and is often more useful than knowledge. This has resulted in survival-mechanisms largely pre-set in each of us which create the strong need to believe. The needs of the brain, and how each person’s brain has special needs, feature prominently in this work. We may think it is all about us but in reality it is all about the brain.

What our brain wants is often mistaken by us as what we want.

Why do we believe what we believe? We believe in what works or at least in what appears or is promised to work. But it is the beliefs that most satisfy the various needs of the brain that are retained, developed and elevated into positions of power, with no power greater than the Truth.²³ How this occurs in the brain, including the invention of meaning and truth will be described.

Much of what we believe is determined by geography and the era, where and when we were born, with human mobility and access to technology playing an increasing role. We know of people who have a narrow selection of the outer universal reality; they reject a large part of this reality and invent their own. As this work progresses one thing will become clear:

We all do this, creating our own universes of invented reality.

We believe to satisfy the demands of the brain

How is belief able to satisfy the brain and why is the brain so needy?

Note that this need is for the brain, not necessarily the person who owns the brain. This is explained later in Chapter 3 in the section: Who is in charge of your brain? Strength of belief is proportional to the degree to which the belief satisfies the brain, with the many demands of the brain driven by its many modules of instinct each adding to the complexity of the demands. More importantly what need there is for truth is conferred by the mind on the belief.

Where it is important enough for the brain, beliefs are transformed into truths by the mind.²⁴

When you understand this, you may see belief in a different light, both your own beliefs and those of others. Many beliefs may then be seen as unnecessary selections and unhelpful distortions of the outer reality to satisfy instinct. An acceptance of a larger part of existence may lead to a deeper spirituality. This will be based on intelligence that arises from the whole of your being. The goal is to depend less on rules and what other people say (including what is written here and elsewhere), whether you have religious belief or not. Debates between religion and godless ideologies are misdirected. Each is entrenched in their belief that something is either true or not true.

When the process of belief is examined and understood, both theism and atheism will be seen to be two sides of the same coin.

Belief is transformed

Belief in a leader means that the leader’s belief will be magnified and altered by followers who will have beliefs that often have little to do with the leader. Each follower’s brain reinvents belief to please his or her own mind.²⁵ This is because beliefs are not acquired like taking possession of a bicycle or a book. The bicycle or book still resembles the original object even after much use, but belief is transformed as soon as it is acquired, changing within the person’s mind. It may then be transmitted to others as a meme.²⁶

All of belief

Reality Beyond Belief applies to all of belief with the focus on those beliefs that affect the way we live and how we regard ourselves and our fellow humans. These are beliefs in the areas of economics, education, politics, the arts, science, health, and the environment. Increasingly many of these activities are encroaching upon and replacing the power of religion, with similar promises of salvation, albeit an earthly rather than a heavenly one. More covertly there is much human activity that appears to be based on knowledge, promoted and promised as trustworthy truth, but is yet more mind-made belief.

Much of culture is based on belief

We hold strong beliefs regarding race, ethnicity, gender, appearance, age, sexuality, cultural practices, and social class. Other areas of belief include art, beauty, and ideas of how we should think and act and how we should work, play, and regard each other. In these areas where beliefs determine how humans treat themselves and others, much that is wrong can arise out of beliefs that classify people into groups to be treated in a particular way.

Beliefs control thinking

To serve a belief is to be primarily in the service of belief; not oneself nor one’s fellow humans. Sometimes serving a belief causes desirable and laudable benefits but the benefits are a by-product, not the core business of the belief.²⁷ This is detailed later.

The phenomenon of belief has power, no matter what is believed, to recruit the believer’s mental resources into its service and create its own reality. This causes some people to have realities remote from the outer reality and to live in these realities to the detriment of themselves and others. The state of having a belief creates perception that is highly selected and favorable towards the belief and what would otherwise make no sense or logic or be completely unrealistic is made rational by thinking based on the belief.²⁸ When extreme, such believers may show features of mental illness which they do not realise.

The belief in belief is so basic to humans that beliefs are given a lot of leeway. Each person lives in a glasshouse of beliefs, instinctively refraining from throwing stones at other people’s beliefs, exercising tolerance for most beliefs as long as they are not too great a threat. The exception is seen in fundamental belief where certainty of belief excludes tolerance.²⁹

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The Tyranny of Belief

Fortified, transfigured, mandated and empowered by belief, all manner of injustices and cruelties are perpetrated by ordinary people on their fellow humans in the course of performing their normal daily duties.³⁰

Part of the power of belief lies in the way beliefs determine how we think. If still reading up to this point, a true believer would have had the impulse to cast this work aside. When belief is challenged, it responds predictably to reject all that is outside the belief because the believer is one with the belief and has difficulty thinking outside the belief. Belief takes charge of the brain.

A heretic is a professed believer who maintains religious opinions contrary to those accepted by his or her church, or rejects doctrines prescribed by his or her church, originating from the Greek able to choose. One view is that the heretic is able to choose what to believe whereas the believer of the orthodoxy cannot. In any case, a heretic is also a believer albeit with different beliefs, and both the believer of the prevailing orthodoxy and the heretic are excluded from thinking that is not sanctioned by whichever belief applies.

In the fickle and tidal nature of belief, heresy and orthodoxy can be alternating labels for the same belief over a period of time.

Common to all cultures is the belief in belief

This is not mischievous word play. Belief would not have the power it does if the believer does not think, feel, and have the conviction that belief is important, desirable, essential, true, and even impossible to live without. Belief in belief is so strong that people will believe anything, because believing is an instinct and preferred over not having belief. ³¹

Instincts of survival give rise to belief. We survive because information gathered by our senses is formed into beliefs about our means and prospects for survival; such beliefs impel us to act. Belief is instinctive and essential for our survival. Problems arise when this function is developed to the nth degree. Yet to have no limit to belief, and to develop belief from anything and everything from the imagination, is also instinctive and plays a vital role in evolution. This will be explained later.

Bets in the form of beliefs of every sort, are placed in every possible way by the survival mechanism.

Can we live beyond belief?

In spite of the belief held by believers that life is incomprehensible without belief, many people live without Belief or at least the sorts of beliefs so necessary to believers. For instance a person who believes in astrology or feng shui will not make a major life decision such as building a house without consulting an astrologer or feng shui master.³² Yet millions of people make the very same decisions without such belief and many of us go through life without a talisman, consulting an oracle, or being reliant on some special text, or an intermediary who represents an all-powerful spirit.

The belief that life must be guided by beliefs is perhaps the biggest barrier to understanding this book.

This book will show that the opposite is true. That it is the belief in belief which is a problem because it has illusory foundations; that various degrees of goodness and evil are natural; that we are not born evil but are born to survive with the help of certain of our fellows who are good to us and to whom we are good, and indifferent or antagonistic to others who are perceived as having indifferent or antagonistic roles in our survival. When this antagonism is extreme, we call it evil.

Morality is also an instinct, another of our brain modules regulating our thoughts and actions, ‘hard-wired’ in the brain. It will be shown that there is no need for a mystical element to determine a person’s ability to exercise this basic function. A person can be good, bad or indifferent, with or without religious belief.³³ In the same way that good is instinctive, so is evil which is not some external nefarious entity that has gained entry into us. There are many versions of the devil made me do it but they all amount to disowning human DNA. Our sensitive ego disavows responsibility, externalizing and rejecting what is within us. This big topic, sometimes called the problem of evil, is the stuff of centuries of philosophy and theology and excites many people. Here the problem of evil is re-stated as the problem of ego, because ego as the personification of our instincts is the entity responsible for what we are.

Is it a belief that life can be lived beyond belief?

It is not only a belief if it is being lived by people and has a demonstrable existence in the external reality and even the most ardent believer in belief can experience such a reality.

Believers ask: What can I follow, what will guide me?

They are deeply concerned that without their belief they would be lost and their lives would be without meaning, purpose and success. For most people, life is centered on building the ‘right’ versus the ‘wrong’ sets of beliefs, issues which are addressed in Chapters 8 and 9. But there are many definitions for the word belief and it is essential to be clear on the meaning here.

Belief is taken to mean:

That which is held to be true but which has no basis in reality.

A similar definition is: Confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof.

The reason to use this definition of belief is because the other meanings overlap with other words. The word believe is sometimes taken to mean think, suppose feel, assume, imagine, fancy, hope, agree with, and accept. It is better to use these other words if that is what is meant. To believe is sometimes used interchangeably with having a belief as in having an opinion. Belief can be an opinion but one in which the believer has faith and conviction that it is true, often believing that this truth is unalterable and for eternity despite lacking proof of its validity.

Anyone can say anything even if it cannot be understood

The medium is the message and who, when, how and where someone said something is more important than what that person actually said.³⁴

Our perception of the person or put another way, where in our cognitive map we have been placed by this person, determines how the words are interpreted and the likely action that may or may not follow. Humans interpret everything depending on the circumstance. But whatever the norm, it is not in our nature to be clear.³⁵

Language in everyday life is necessarily fluid and often-times vague. We are inexact in our expressions because it reflects our uncertainty and lack of clarity. There is an ambiguity or ambivalence in the way we talk or write. Sometimes this is deliberate. We tend to keep our options open. The result is that given the inventiveness of humans, anything can be interpreted any way.

One can say I believe it is raining but this is not really a belief if one can look out of the window and see that it is raining. One knows that it is raining. Here the word, believe is used to convey one or more of several messages. Perhaps there has been a long drought and the speaker is overjoyed by the sight of rain yet not quite daring to completely trust the senses because it has been so long since it last rained. However if a person is in a situation where it is not possible to know that it is raining but still has this conviction and cannot be persuaded that it may not be true, then the statement is a belief.

Reality and what is true

Defining belief as that which is held to be true, but has no basis in reality demands explanation as to what is true and what is reality. Most people agree on what belief means, but with truth and reality there are many opinions.³⁶ A detailed account of reality is in Chapter 7 and what is true and the truth in Chapter 8. For now, consider this:

What is true and real may be what is left when the belief has gone.

Many believers will not get past this point because they have the conviction that what they hold as the truth, and in turn their reality, is as tangible as any object that is seen, felt, and has 3 dimensions. The purpose of this book is to show the mechanisms by which the beliefs have come to be so strongly held, and ultimately how illusory a person’s reality can be. There may then be an epiphany for the believer whose reality is transformed.³⁷ These mechanisms built into the brain and hidden from the individual are described in Chapters 2 to 4.

Every person can rightly claim to be living in reality

Beliefs create the reality for the person. This reality is unique and changes from moment to moment. Chapter 7, Belief and Knowledge, explores the nexus between individual and universal realities. The reality of a belief changes when the outer universal reality intrudes. (Day-dreams are fine as long as they do not cause a nasty accident).

Not bogged down in philosophical argument

The path of biology is taken here. Many philosophic ideas that have come to us over the past two and a half thousand years did not have the knowledge of biology especially the workings of the human brain. As a result, a number of key philosophical ideas will be shown to be beliefs that have little basis in the reality of today.

Philosophy

Philosophy is the use of reason and argument in seeking truth and reality, especially of the causes and nature of things and of the principles governing existence, the material universe, perception of physical phenomena, and human behavior.³⁸

This definition tells us that philosophy should not be entirely subjective. We often find other people’s beliefs (and hence their reality) at odds with our own. We cannot rely completely on anyone else’s view.

How do we arrive at our own view?

Reality has changed!

Reality today is quite different from the reality perceived by the people of years ago, not just in the physical environment created by humans but in ideas of right and wrong, good and bad, truth and falsehood and most importantly on the question of the nature of man.³⁹ You may disagree but be patient; this book may persuade you otherwise.

Reality is the brain’s interpretation of the outer reality. Most people agree our perception of the physical world has changed. We no longer see the stars as lanterns or gods in the sky. What this book will do is demonstrate that the same is true for the intangibles we hold so dear, that our interpretation of values, meaning and truth have also changed.

These interpretations are totally dependent on the biology of the brain.

Many people today are trapped in beliefs from hundreds or thousands of years ago and as a result live in a past reality, a state emblematic of belief.⁴⁰ Believers will respond that Truth is absolute, immutable and for all time. If you believe that go to the question on whether a human is a single or a dual entity in Chapter 7, Is a Human One or Two Beings?

As living organisms we have changed probably far more than we are ever likely to realise. Genetic changes are now known to occur much more rapidly than was thought possible, and we can expect that changes have occurred in the human genome resulting in significant differences in our brain over the past few thousand years. Humans have changed physically in terms of genes. But we have changed even more functionally in memes, those cultural units of transmission that have a strong hold on how and what we think.⁴¹

Why do believers believe what they believe?

The answer to this question lets us peer into the nature of belief. With today’s knowledge we would expect that the sphere of belief should be diminishing. Instead belief of all sorts is actually thriving. We have split the atom, cloned and created new forms of life, but present a person with a mystery and in most instances the person does not inquire for new knowledge but seeks the immediate comforts and convenience of belief. This is the natural biological response, the default position taken by the mind which wants an easy and quick answer. To start we speculate, surmise, assume, invent, wonder, guess, or accept whatever is given. Later we may actually search and even then are likely to take on someone else’s assumptions, inventions, guesses and speculations.

No one has enough time, energy, and brain power to truly know.

• About 75% of the world’s people have no access to the World Wide Web. There is limited access to education and knowledge, with poor levels of literacy, poverty and cultural isolation. Belief-states⁴²exclude girls from school and confine learning to a single system of belief. This is true not just for poor countries.⁴³ In every country, children grow up in families where a certain belief system is inculcated; the children are sent to a school where the belief system is reinforced and they live in a community with more of the same.⁴⁴ Even where education is more accessible, it is uncommon for knowledge to be acquired beyond the person’s own perceived needs.⁴⁵ In every country advanced or undeveloped, wealthy or poor, highly educated or barely literate, there are communities that are culturally isolated and there are individuals, families, communities, governments and regimes that isolate themselves from the outer reality.

• Just as ‘nature abhors a vacuum’, the mind dislikes lack of a conclusion or answer. This instinct for closure is paramount. We, or more precisely our minds, want answers that satisfy the mind and allow us to move on.⁴⁶ Truth is often an early casualty as the mind works to satisfy the instinct to connect the dots and to fill in the blanks.

• The need for answers can be so great that in the absence of a suitable ‘off-the-shelf’ belief system (which is already made and ready for use), the mind will fabricate beliefs to satisfy itself.⁴⁷ The mind creates beliefs that create the reality it sees itself in, a reality that reinforces the beliefs. The beliefs and the reality are a perfect match, a closed and self-reinforcing loop which happens unconsciously.⁴⁸

• Truth is thus invented. Not just a truth but the Truth. It is an industry every person without exception is engaged in.⁴⁹There is conflict between different individuals and groups over their many Truths but this does not faze believers. The self-reinforcing loop (the satisfying match between the joint creations of belief and truth) ensures ever stronger belief.

• For believers, the answer to any question regarding their beliefs is said to be in a different dimension of existence and the normal rules of existence do not apply. They or at least their beliefs are above and beyond the laws of nature. The lure of this magical thinking is irresistible.⁵⁰ For the economic believers leading up to the global financial crisis that erupted in 2008, the world they hailed was in a new paradigm of unprecedented endless growth and prosperity. Many of us took on this belief. This has proved to be a false belief that is resulting in years of hardship for much of the world. For metaphysical believers, matters of the spirit, the soul and the divine are in a totally different realm of human experience and existence; mere human knowledge is finite whereas the source of their belief is absolute and perfect.

These are some of the conscious and ‘rational’ explanations why we believe what we believe. More important are the deeper reasons which lie hidden in the unconscious, as instincts, (Chapter 2).

Believers cannot believe that living beyond belief is possible or desirable. They can be impatient with their non-believing fellow humans who are regarded as without the right guidance, without strength of purpose and certainly without the source of the infinitely superior knowledge and wisdom that can be conferred on the believer by the Belief. This is true for jingoistic citizens of a country as well as for those gamblers with belief of a system of gambling that is guaranteed to beat the odds.⁵¹ But with many tragic events caused by various Beliefs dominating the daily news, some beliefs systems are being questioned. This scrutiny is making some believers defensive.

A positive outcome would be for many beliefs to be replaced by thinking that is aware of instinct; thinking that can include the acceptance of knowledge and reality as it is, including human biology. When enough people substantively agree with these ideas, we may arrive at a tipping point for human development. This may be many years in the future. The prognosis is somewhat better for those of us not caught up in war, natural disaster or homogenous belief. We often hear the lament, If only I knew… Instead I believed… For many of us it is possible to know, not just believe.

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Life’s Mysteries

There is so much we could or should know but each of us has only the slightest sliver of what there is to know. This individual ignorance ensures that most of existence is a mystery for each of us, creating much awe and wonder even though it is everyday knowledge for others. The compulsion to solve such ‘mysteries’ ensures the invention of belief even though there exists quite ordinary explanations. Such ‘mysteries’ excite the mind, and the ‘solutions’ which we so ably discover or invent, please the brain.⁵² Many fanciful and thrilling explanations are invented and held as glorious truths even though the facts are plain and mundane.

A negative outcome could be if the instinctive defense of Belief causes believers to retreat into further belief.⁵³ This is likely given the nature of Belief. The forces driving belief (Chapter 8) can be overwhelming.

Power and Status of Belief

Many beliefs can easily be established, dominate any sphere of human activity, and gain acceptance and be given special status. Like rumors and urban myths, beliefs spread like a viral infection. The need to favour certain beliefs by politicians ensures generous concessions to recognised and approved religious and other organisations.⁵⁴ Beliefs deemed undesirable face the brutality of government, but superior force has not always meant dominance especially with asymmetrical opposition such as terrorism and popular uprising. Besides, opposing belief usually strengthens it.

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Intelligence, the servant of belief

Belief has at its core an emotional need arising directly from the survival instincts. Intelligence is the servant of this emotional need, enabling it to be fulfilled and forming the intellectual veneer and mechanism of the evolutionary imperative to survive.⁵⁵

Sow beliefs and harvest cash

Being cultural transmissions, beliefs are supercharged memes on steroids. Whole industries, professions and much of commercial life create and use beliefs to prosper, sowing beliefs to harvest cash. In many instances, Belief is big business. Not just the obvious belief industries like advertising or the beauty industry, but the finance industry, the armaments industry, education, health and government. Credit, on which the banks and their customers rely, comes from the Latin believed. Without belief taking the form of trust and faith many human activities would grind to a halt. This is exploited by business.

Dependence on Belief

We are dependent and unable to function without belief. The thinking process itself is based on belief as it must in order to serve the belief. Language and logic based on belief become inextricably part of the brain’s workings.

This process can be reversed but the task to ‘rewire’ the brain is difficult and unlikely to happen without recognising and redirecting those instincts that created the beliefs. Beliefs are mental constructions that determine how the brain works, making it difficult if not impossible to think outside the universe created by belief. These mental constructions can be more difficult to remove than the pyramids.

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Intelligence can ensure we are wrong

If we start with a mistaken idea or wrong belief, it is the application of the best reasoning and intelligence that ensures that we stay on the wrong course.⁵⁶ An idea, statement or answer is often based on a series of assumptions, each assuming the earlier assumption is correct.

The question how correct or true a statement is depends on how far back we look at the assumptions on which the statement was based.⁵⁷ Examples of starting assumptions are, There must be a God, There must be a reason, There has to be a purpose. A popular belief is Of course it has to be true.

History is filled with thinkers who have taken their beliefs based on assumptions to great heights with the result that monuments based on belief are constructed from their ideas and billions park their minds in them.⁵⁸ Yet with the wrong assumption, an impeccable and formidable intellect can only come to the wrong conclusion.

Two vastly different mental stances

Most of the time we act largely on instinct and emotion; seldom are we likely to examine our thoughts. Can we examine our minds and in so doing, move from the first toward the second mental stance? Realising and accepting the reality of our nature will enable us to recognise our flaws away from the distortions and distractions of belief; this may allow us to know that our instincts are what dominate the meaning and determine the direction of our lives. We can live the examined life by developing an awareness of emotion which forms the basis for thinking.

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The big mind shift

Can we change from instinctual and emotional beings using reason to justify our emotional and instinctive goals, to rational beings aware of the power of our instincts and emotions in our thoughts and actions?

In the following four chapters, it will be explained how instinct is expressed as emotion which gives rise to thinking. This is a connection that may provoke scepticism but get to Chapter 5 and you may see that instinct, emotion and thinking are different expressions of the same entity, namely, the survival instinct.

One obstacle towards this goal is the instinct to maintain the status quo against something unfamiliar. Fear of change is from the belief that to tinker with the nature of humans is to risk a brave new world in which our collective humanity will be lost. This fear is real but the danger is not. This is not a call to change human nature but to see it in a perspective beyond the comfort zones of highly selective and