“God exists”—“I’ve had conversations with God; he’s a good fellow.”
“I believe that God exists”—“A lot of people say that God exists and I agree with them.”
“I believe that I believe that God exists”—“I do see some inconsistencies about God but I go to church and I pray. Plus all my friends are Christian, that means I’m a believer, right?”
“I believe that I believe that I believe that God exists”—“I think that what it means to believe in something is an aggregate of the actions you take and the anticipations you feel. So I can have doubt at the object level but still count as believing if I respond similarly to other believers...”
“I believe that I believe that I believe that I believe that God exists”—“Okay, I need to talk to fewer rationalists.”
Doesn’t seem to me like the first “believe” you append implies a different meta level, just a different reason for believing. After all, the one who asserts “God exists” also believes God exists.
Or, maybe the way you’ve set it out, “I believe that God exists” is belief in belief, in which case in the next one, the extra “I believe” just indicates uncertainty.
I think that the general trend that you observed, that you tend to get more meta as you add more “I believes”, may be making you miss when the words “I believe” add nothing, or just mean “probably”.
I agree with Xachariah’s view of semantics. I think that the first ‘I believe’ does imply a different meta level of belief (often associated with a different reason for believing). His example does a good job of showing how someone can drill down many levels, but the distinction in the first level might be made more clear by considering a more concretely defined belief:
“We’re lost”—“I’m you’re jungle leader, and I don’t have a clue where we are any more.”
“I believe we’re lost”—“I’m not leading this expedition. I didn’t expect to have a clue where we were going, but it doesn’t seem to me like anyone else knows where we are going either.”
--
“Sarah won state science fair her senior year of high school”—“I attended the fair and witnessed her win it.”
“I believe that Sarah won state science fair her senior year of high school”—“She says she did, and she’s the best experimentalist I’ve ever met.”
“I believe that I believe that Sarah won state science fair her senior year of high school”—“She says she did, and I don’t believe for one second that she’d make that sort of thing up. That said, she’s not, so far as I can tell, particularly good at science, and it shocks me that she might somehow have been able to win.”
--
“Parachuting isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.” -- “I’ve gone parachuting, and frankly, I’ve gotten bigger adrenaline rushes playing poker.”
“I don’t believe parachuting’s all it’s cracked up to be.” -- “I haven’t gone parachuting. There’s no way I would spend $600 for a 4 minute experience when I can’t imagine that it’s enough fun to justify that.”
Without the ‘I believe,’ what I tend to be saying is, I trust the map because I drew it and I drew it carefully. With the ‘I believe,’ I tend to be saying I trust this map because I trust it’s source even though I didn’t actually create it myself. In the case of the parachuting, I don’t know where the map comes from, it’s just the one I have.
Placing additional “I believe”s in front of a statement changes what part of the statement you have confidence in.
The statement ‘I believe God exists’ usually does mean that someone places confidence in eir community’s ability to determine if God exists or not rather than placing confidence in the statement itself. Most of the religious people I know would say ‘God exists’ rather than ‘I believe God exists’ and most of them believe that they have directly experienced God in some way. However, most of them would say ‘I believe the Bible is true’ rather than ‘the Bible is true’—and when pressed for why they believe that, they tend to say something along the lines of “I cannot believe that God would allow his people to be generally wrong about something that important” or something else that asserts that their confidence is in their community’s ability to determine that ‘the Bible is true’ rather than their confidence being in the Bible itself. I don’t know if this is a very localized phenomenon or not since all of the people I’ve had this conversation with belong to the same community. It’s how I would tend to use the word ‘believe’ too, but I grew up in this community, so I probably tend to use a lot of words the same way as the people in this community do.
In Xachariah’s example the certainty/uncertainty is being placed on the definition of ‘believe’ at each step past the first one, so the way that the the statement is changing is significantly different in the second and third application of ‘I believe’ than it is in the first. The science fair example applies the ‘I believe’ pretty much the same way twice.
When I say “Sarah won science fair,” I’m claiming that all of the uncertainty lies in my ability to measure and accurately record the event. Her older sister is really good at science too; it’s possible that I’m getting the two confused but I very strongly remember it being Sarah who won. On the other hand, I’m extremely confident that I wouldn’t give myself the wrong map intentionally—I have no reason to want to convince myself that Sarah is better at science than she actually is.
That source of uncertainty essentially vanishes when the source of my information becomes Sarah herself. I now have a new source of uncertainty though because she does have a reason to convince me that she is better at science than she actually is. However, I trust the map because it agrees with what I’d expect it to be. I’d still think she was telling the truth about this if she lied to me about other things.
In the third case, I’m once again extremely confident that Sarah won science fair. She told me she did, and she tells the truth. What she’s told me does not at all agree with my expectations; I don’t really place confidence in the map, I place confidence a great deal of confidence in Sarah’s ability to create an accurate map, and I place a great deal of confidence in her having given me an accurate map. The map seems preposterous to me, but I still think it’s accurate, so when someone asks me if I believe that Sarah won science fair, I wince and I say “I believe that I believe that Sarah won science fair” and everyone knows what I mean. My statement isn’t really “Sarah won science fair.” It’s “Sarah doesn’t lie. Sarah says she won science fair. Therefore, Sarah won science fair.” If I later find out that Sarah isn’t quite as honest as I think she is, this is the first thing she’s told me that I’ll stop believing. Unless that happens, I’ll continue to believe that she won.
“God exists”—“I’ve had conversations with God; he’s a good fellow.”
“I believe that God exists”—“A lot of people say that God exists and I agree with them.”
“I believe that I believe that God exists”—“I do see some inconsistencies about God but I go to church and I pray. Plus all my friends are Christian, that means I’m a believer, right?”
“I believe that I believe that I believe that God exists”—“I think that what it means to believe in something is an aggregate of the actions you take and the anticipations you feel. So I can have doubt at the object level but still count as believing if I respond similarly to other believers...”
“I believe that I believe that I believe that I believe that God exists”—“Okay, I need to talk to fewer rationalists.”
Each ‘I believe’ implies a different meta level that you’re analyzing things. Kind of like confidence levels inside and outside an argument.
Doesn’t seem to me like the first “believe” you append implies a different meta level, just a different reason for believing. After all, the one who asserts “God exists” also believes God exists.
Or, maybe the way you’ve set it out, “I believe that God exists” is belief in belief, in which case in the next one, the extra “I believe” just indicates uncertainty.
I think that the general trend that you observed, that you tend to get more meta as you add more “I believes”, may be making you miss when the words “I believe” add nothing, or just mean “probably”.
I agree with Xachariah’s view of semantics. I think that the first ‘I believe’ does imply a different meta level of belief (often associated with a different reason for believing). His example does a good job of showing how someone can drill down many levels, but the distinction in the first level might be made more clear by considering a more concretely defined belief:
“We’re lost”—“I’m you’re jungle leader, and I don’t have a clue where we are any more.”
“I believe we’re lost”—“I’m not leading this expedition. I didn’t expect to have a clue where we were going, but it doesn’t seem to me like anyone else knows where we are going either.”
--
“Sarah won state science fair her senior year of high school”—“I attended the fair and witnessed her win it.”
“I believe that Sarah won state science fair her senior year of high school”—“She says she did, and she’s the best experimentalist I’ve ever met.”
“I believe that I believe that Sarah won state science fair her senior year of high school”—“She says she did, and I don’t believe for one second that she’d make that sort of thing up. That said, she’s not, so far as I can tell, particularly good at science, and it shocks me that she might somehow have been able to win.”
--
“Parachuting isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.” -- “I’ve gone parachuting, and frankly, I’ve gotten bigger adrenaline rushes playing poker.”
“I don’t believe parachuting’s all it’s cracked up to be.” -- “I haven’t gone parachuting. There’s no way I would spend $600 for a 4 minute experience when I can’t imagine that it’s enough fun to justify that.”
Without the ‘I believe,’ what I tend to be saying is, I trust the map because I drew it and I drew it carefully. With the ‘I believe,’ I tend to be saying I trust this map because I trust it’s source even though I didn’t actually create it myself. In the case of the parachuting, I don’t know where the map comes from, it’s just the one I have.
Placing additional “I believe”s in front of a statement changes what part of the statement you have confidence in.
The statement ‘I believe God exists’ usually does mean that someone places confidence in eir community’s ability to determine if God exists or not rather than placing confidence in the statement itself. Most of the religious people I know would say ‘God exists’ rather than ‘I believe God exists’ and most of them believe that they have directly experienced God in some way. However, most of them would say ‘I believe the Bible is true’ rather than ‘the Bible is true’—and when pressed for why they believe that, they tend to say something along the lines of “I cannot believe that God would allow his people to be generally wrong about something that important” or something else that asserts that their confidence is in their community’s ability to determine that ‘the Bible is true’ rather than their confidence being in the Bible itself. I don’t know if this is a very localized phenomenon or not since all of the people I’ve had this conversation with belong to the same community. It’s how I would tend to use the word ‘believe’ too, but I grew up in this community, so I probably tend to use a lot of words the same way as the people in this community do.
In Xachariah’s example the certainty/uncertainty is being placed on the definition of ‘believe’ at each step past the first one, so the way that the the statement is changing is significantly different in the second and third application of ‘I believe’ than it is in the first. The science fair example applies the ‘I believe’ pretty much the same way twice.
When I say “Sarah won science fair,” I’m claiming that all of the uncertainty lies in my ability to measure and accurately record the event. Her older sister is really good at science too; it’s possible that I’m getting the two confused but I very strongly remember it being Sarah who won. On the other hand, I’m extremely confident that I wouldn’t give myself the wrong map intentionally—I have no reason to want to convince myself that Sarah is better at science than she actually is.
That source of uncertainty essentially vanishes when the source of my information becomes Sarah herself. I now have a new source of uncertainty though because she does have a reason to convince me that she is better at science than she actually is. However, I trust the map because it agrees with what I’d expect it to be. I’d still think she was telling the truth about this if she lied to me about other things.
In the third case, I’m once again extremely confident that Sarah won science fair. She told me she did, and she tells the truth. What she’s told me does not at all agree with my expectations; I don’t really place confidence in the map, I place confidence a great deal of confidence in Sarah’s ability to create an accurate map, and I place a great deal of confidence in her having given me an accurate map. The map seems preposterous to me, but I still think it’s accurate, so when someone asks me if I believe that Sarah won science fair, I wince and I say “I believe that I believe that Sarah won science fair” and everyone knows what I mean. My statement isn’t really “Sarah won science fair.” It’s “Sarah doesn’t lie. Sarah says she won science fair. Therefore, Sarah won science fair.” If I later find out that Sarah isn’t quite as honest as I think she is, this is the first thing she’s told me that I’ll stop believing. Unless that happens, I’ll continue to believe that she won.