Disappointing. If this is your reaction, my analogy failed. What I tried to create was a situation in which all you have is your conviction. I took away all your props, all the empirical evidence. All you have is your memory, which I argued here reduces to conviction, and I even threw in a battalion of experts telling you that your memories are false. My point is that with all this, with all the evidence pointing against his belief and with nothing left to him but his own conviction itself, a normal, healthy human being may very well maintain his conviction—in the face of everything.
Sorry! I think the analogy is great, though now I’m interested in asking a friend of mine to provide ones from his own (theistic) perspective. It might be stronger if there is no proposed mechanism for denial / false memories, and you’re just being accused of lying, perhaps?
It might be stronger if there is no proposed mechanism for denial / false memories, and you’re just being accused of lying, perhaps?
Maybe, though my purpose was to minimize your own reasons for being convinced of your own innocence. If other people are accusing you of lying, well, you know you’re not lying, so their accusations do not act to reduce your own basis for your convictions.
If we want to draw an analogy here between the innocent framed person and the religious person, we might compare the proposed mechanism for false memories with the mechanisms that the non-religious propose to explain why the religious believe what they do. For example, an atheist might say, “you only believe that because you were taught it when you were too young to resist indoctrination”. A psychologist might come up with an equally plausible explanation as to how you came to have a false memory of your innocence. In both cases, you (the religious person or the accused person) have these explanations purporting to explain and debunk your beliefs that you need to deal with one way or another.
Disappointing. If this is your reaction, my analogy failed. What I tried to create was a situation in which all you have is your conviction. I took away all your props, all the empirical evidence. All you have is your memory, which I argued here reduces to conviction, and I even threw in a battalion of experts telling you that your memories are false. My point is that with all this, with all the evidence pointing against his belief and with nothing left to him but his own conviction itself, a normal, healthy human being may very well maintain his conviction—in the face of everything.
Sorry! I think the analogy is great, though now I’m interested in asking a friend of mine to provide ones from his own (theistic) perspective. It might be stronger if there is no proposed mechanism for denial / false memories, and you’re just being accused of lying, perhaps?
Maybe, though my purpose was to minimize your own reasons for being convinced of your own innocence. If other people are accusing you of lying, well, you know you’re not lying, so their accusations do not act to reduce your own basis for your convictions.
If we want to draw an analogy here between the innocent framed person and the religious person, we might compare the proposed mechanism for false memories with the mechanisms that the non-religious propose to explain why the religious believe what they do. For example, an atheist might say, “you only believe that because you were taught it when you were too young to resist indoctrination”. A psychologist might come up with an equally plausible explanation as to how you came to have a false memory of your innocence. In both cases, you (the religious person or the accused person) have these explanations purporting to explain and debunk your beliefs that you need to deal with one way or another.