Let that be a lesson. Truth comes from authority, not the evidence of your senses.

Then allow me to enlighten you.

A system of laws is not human. Tho built by humans. Much like a car or a toaster. And as such lacks the intelligence, depth and flexibility of a human. And is subject to gaming, breaking, and all the other problems of machines that interface with reality and humans.

That is my point.

Morpheus : The Matrix has you.

Neo : I’m sorry but I have all of these investment forms to fill out, can we talk about it later?

Not smart, just an absence of dumb. Is this an important distinction?

You should write children’s books.

What’s mindfulness?

(No links or quotes please.)

Is that a big difference?

Like, distinctive vibration patterns.

Hmm, surely it’s been done. It seems like straightforward good thing.

Totally not the point but from that picture of cubicles. What a great idea. If we entered the cubicle from the top we could fit way more cubicles in.

Well there’s a progressive attitude. I imagine a rainbow swastika.

I believe that you are avoiding my question.

It was just an example.

My point is the specific utility of beliefs. You seemed to be offering an interesting one.

Imagine a landscape made of beliefs. In it you are always standing on some bunch of beliefs. So choosing and navigating is going to be important. To get to the good beliefs and avoid the bad ones.

I think that nazi is an expression of trauma, given form by propaganda.

Take away the trauma and nazi disappears.

Take away the propaganda and you get, I dunno, less organized bad behavior.

You people, always so concerned with being right. It gets in the way of conversation.

Is the phrase diminished if you leave out the author’s name?

Are you saying that beliefs are useful (necessary even) for navigating other beliefs?

For example, I believe that my neighbors wont kill me. I do that to stave off the belief that my neighbors will kill me.

Which is more important to you, the phrase or the credit?

Yes, I am lumping them together. I see no need to distinguish them into internal and external for these purposes.

(But if I was going to distinguish them, I might at manipulability, portability, communicability. )

And yes, one may be guided and impressed by a sight as surely as an idea. None of these takes precedence over any other, naturally, as far as I can tell.

And yet getting advice from an expert can be very helpful.

Easily said. But the psychological power of authority is so big. Authorities in the role of leader, expert, and the authority of the consensus. It may very well be programmed into our biology to automatically obey and believe. We may find ourselves falling into rigid belief without even trying.