The beginning of chapter 1 introduces a definition for the word “belief” which is very specific and not close to the common everyday meaning. The concept you’re talking about has no specific intuitive word that would be better to use, so “belief” is as good as any (IMHO) but I think you need to spend the first page or two examining what you mean by “belief” and relating your concept to existing concepts in neuroscience and psychology.
In the real world, understanding of the universe changes incrementally. So starting out by telling the reader that everyone else is wrong and you have the “true” answers is bound to make people stop reading. In order to sell a book to a publisher you have to make some kind of wild claims about the significance of your ideas, but I would write the book first, and leave the wild claims as a last-minute addition to the book cover. (grin)
The concept you’re talking about seems to include the entirety of our apprehension of ourselves and the world. The most common words that I could think of that come close to this idea were:
- feelings
—beliefs
—understanding
—knowledge
In other words:
Not memories, but the sense we make of our memories
Not sensory input, but the sense we make of the input
For example, the following ideas would be considered to be part of this concept:
- I am bad at math
—My math teacher is mean
—There is no milk in the fridge
—The sun will rise tomorrow
—People have the right to privacy
− 2+2=4
If you gave these examples to a group of people and asked them to pick one of the four terms I gave, you would probably not get consistent answers about which ones are beliefs, feelings, understanding or knowledge.
Much of our the beliefs that we express are retroactively justified. You may want to read this fascinating book on the nature of consciousness: The Mind is Flat by Nick Chater
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/mar/22/mind-is-flat-nick-chater-review-hidden-depths
Thanks for your essay, it was encouraging and inspiring!
What you have observed seems to accurately reflect the world and the way people function (not just on the internet). When I did a google search for “the need to believe” I found links that seemed interesting and relevant. I have a working theory about the human brain which seems to fit the evidence that I see in my life, and what I have read.
The human brain is a giant pattern-matching machine. It operates most of the time on incomplete data. But the brain doesn’t express patterns as abstract theories, it expresses those observed patterns as “belief”. We observe evidence, and we form a belief about the world in a very unscientific way.
There is no genetic, neurological process for “possible pattern, but not enough data”
Science itself (and by extension rationality itself) seems to be something humans invented to overcome the normal operating mode of the human brain which naturally operates more as a social instrument governed by sophistry and cognitive bias.
Another thing that ties in more specifically to the internet is the need to grab people’s interest. Claiming that an accepted pattern is not true or not useful is unlikely to attract attention or support. Claiming that a different pattern (moral, ethical, social, etc) fits reality better will be more engaging to readers because of the nature of human brains that I described above.