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stevo: maybe.
but if understandings about the world are simply beliefs, then there is no hope of discussion.
there is data out there--there are arguments to be had about how that data is organized and interpreted, but there is data.
you can research topics that interest you--i can research them.
and if we are talking about information, then it should follow that that information can be interpreted and that those interpretations can be debated--because an interpretation is an argument about the data and almost never exhausts the data.
but it is, i hope at least, clear that there are better and worse, more and less compelling interpretations, and that if you are going to enter a debate about data--about descriptions of the world--then argument can and should be about which information, which argument about that information, which interpretation better enables you to make sense of the description--or reject it as the case may be.
i do not see how questions concerning whether a description of the world, or a situation, can be compared to a matter of belief--the question of what information you think relevant to explain this "war on terror" is not the same type of question as do you believe in god--a god that you cannot see, cannot analyze, cannot really argue about on the basis of information on the same order.
maybe if i understood your claim that interpretations of the world, and information about that world, is a function of straight belief i would understand more about how this whole thing works---but frankly, it seems to completely counterintuitive that i really dont know how that position is even possible, much less how one would come to subscribe to it.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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