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Old 09-27-2005, 02:33 PM   #10 (permalink)
zen_tom
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I'd drop the three principles myself, but find the idea of a darwinistic approach to belief quite pleasing.

I think
Quote:
Good (rational) beliefs have positive outcomes for people. Bad (irrational) beliefs have negative outcomes.
is a reasonable statement, but it doesn't really say anything new. Are we talking long-term, or short-term? I suppose survival is the deciding factor (hence my use of the term Darwinistic) but I don't think you'll ever get a room full of people to come to a consensus on which beliefs are more likely to be 'adaptive' or 'mal-adaptive' since survival depends on the system in which you are living i.e you just can't do it except with hindsight, and even then it's tricky.

It's a call for adaptive relativism/pragmatism, which the Chinese came up with (among others) more than 3000 years ago.
 
 

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