I am relatively new to less wrong, but also have been influenced by Buddhism, and am glad to see it come up here.
The confusion you point at between faith and belief is appreciated and was an important distinction I did not make for roughly the first 20 years or so of my life. The foundational axiom I use so as to not fall into the infinite skepticism you mention is the idea that it’s okay to try and build, help, learn, and contribute even if you don’t understand things completely. I also hold out hope for the universe and life to ultimately make sense, and I try to understand it, but I suspect it will all amount to an absurd Sisyphean act.
What is referred to as faith or trust in the post I refer to as open mindedness. I think it maps without issue to the same concept you are referring to, but I am open to distinctions being drawn.
The other thing I wanted to mention, if anyone found the distinction between belief and faith especially interesting, and would be interested to understand how even within religious communities belief can be detrimental, I recommend the book The Religious Case Against Belief by James P. Carse. It explores this subject in depth and is quite enjoyable.
I think “open mindedness” is a decent way to talk about what I’m calling trust or faith here, although I think there’s a bit of difference simply because of different things people mean by open mindedness, trust, and faith. For example, all these words sometimes point to a kind of anti-rational stance, other times they are used to give up on doing epistemological work, and then there’s the way we’re using them here. This is unfortunately one of the things that makes it so hard to talk about trust-faith: the concept is adjacent to others and can easily be misunderstood when “flattened” down to fit within a person’s existing understanding of the world, and that’s where the trouble begins.
I enjoyed your post.
I am relatively new to less wrong, but also have been influenced by Buddhism, and am glad to see it come up here.
The confusion you point at between faith and belief is appreciated and was an important distinction I did not make for roughly the first 20 years or so of my life. The foundational axiom I use so as to not fall into the infinite skepticism you mention is the idea that it’s okay to try and build, help, learn, and contribute even if you don’t understand things completely. I also hold out hope for the universe and life to ultimately make sense, and I try to understand it, but I suspect it will all amount to an absurd Sisyphean act.
What is referred to as faith or trust in the post I refer to as open mindedness. I think it maps without issue to the same concept you are referring to, but I am open to distinctions being drawn.
The other thing I wanted to mention, if anyone found the distinction between belief and faith especially interesting, and would be interested to understand how even within religious communities belief can be detrimental, I recommend the book The Religious Case Against Belief by James P. Carse. It explores this subject in depth and is quite enjoyable.
I think “open mindedness” is a decent way to talk about what I’m calling trust or faith here, although I think there’s a bit of difference simply because of different things people mean by open mindedness, trust, and faith. For example, all these words sometimes point to a kind of anti-rational stance, other times they are used to give up on doing epistemological work, and then there’s the way we’re using them here. This is unfortunately one of the things that makes it so hard to talk about trust-faith: the concept is adjacent to others and can easily be misunderstood when “flattened” down to fit within a person’s existing understanding of the world, and that’s where the trouble begins.