On 4/25/2011 4:38 PM, Darren New wrote:
> On 4/25/2011 16:14, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> See, this is just like the argument over theory. We are going around and
>> around here, over what is a trinary problem, because someone wants to
>> define
>> it as a binary one, by conflating 'certainty' with some sort of 'belief'.
>
> I disagree. I think this is just a discussion over the definitions of
> words. I use "belief" to indicate the mental state in which I think
> something is true. Someone else is using it to mean the mental state in
> which I think something is true but I am not certain. I think I can
> believe something to be true of which I am certain. Jim seems to think I
> cannot believe something to be true of which I am certain. I would find
> it very confusing if someone at Fred's funeral said "I can't believe
> Fred is dead" and meant it literally.
>
But, it is much the same thing. Because belief gets used interchangably 
to define both a state of certainty, as well as a state of uncertainty, 
where you are merely presuming a fact, without necessarily having 
evidence. Many of the same people at that same funeral would think you 
where nuts if everyone was talking about the freak accident that killed 
him, and you said, "I don't have a theory about how he died.", meaning 
that you could only guess at it, not a state of certainty about how it 
actually happened. Their reaction would, almost certainly be, "What, 
with all the things people have been saying here today, you have no 
'opinion' of how it happened?"

Its exactly the same situation.

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