Copyright (C) 2018 Dennis Joe Darland
NOTE: 1/15/2019 I have finished revising previous sections with this reasoning!!!
There was an error in my previous writings on belief.
I analyzed belief as a complex logical product between an “internal belief” relation between a persons ideas and relations between those ideas and objects in the world. I now believe that the “internal belief” relation itself is all there is to belief. Belief is psychological. The belief can exist whether or not the objects corresponding to the ideas even exist. They may exist even though the belief is false – if they do not have the relation held in the belief. If the belief is true then they must exist, and be in the correct relation to each other. Also we only have internal ideas of words. Our ideas of words usually do correspond to words. Usually for an word, say “Cicero” there is an idea i_”Cicero” which we connect to our idea of Cicero, i_Cicero, which in turn has a relation to Cicero. We will describe this as
(P is a relation of words to ideas of words; R is a relation of ideas of words to ideas of objects; S is a relation of ideas of objects to objects.)
(Words and ideas are sorts of objects.)
“Cicero” P i_”Cicero”
i_”Cicero” R i_Cicero
i_Cicero S Cicero
Now let
“Tully” P i_”Tully”
i_”Tully” R i_Tully
i_Tully S Tully
i_Tully S Cicero (Since Cicero = Tully)
“Catiline” P i_”Catiline”
i_”Catiline” R i_Catiline
i_Catiline S Catiline
also
“denounced” P i_”denounced”
i_”denounced” R i_denounced
i_denounced S denounced
Now, Tom will be in the psychological relation we are talking about in case the correct relation holds between i_Cicero i_denounced and i_Catiline
If it is true, then in addition it needs to be true:
i_Cicero S Cicero
i_Catiline S Catiline
i_denounced S denounced
and
Cicero denounced Catiline
If Tom expresses this, then in addition:
“Cicero” P i_”Cicero”
i_”Cicero” R i_Cicero
“Catiline” P i_”Catiline”
i_”Catiline” R i_Catiline
“denounced” P i_”denounced”
i_”denounced” R i_denounced
and Tom expresses
“Cicero” “denounced” “Catiline”
Tom can express this even if any of Cicero, Catiline or denounced do not exist.
If he is truthful, then the ideas must exist, however.
Also, it is possible that Cicero = Tully, but that iCicero != Tully and
(letting i”equals”, -_”equals”, i_equals and equals have corresponding relations
Tom does not have the relevant (belief) relation between i_equals i_Cicero and i_Tully.
We only learn the ideas, however, from (fallible) experience of the objects, and other people using words for the objects. From this experience we form our ideas of objects (words are a sort of object).
The relation of ideas to objects is not one-one.
E.g. the relation of i_Cicero, and i_Tully to Cicero is (or at least can be) many-one.
We can only posit there are objects corresponding to our ideas (and words). We do not know what the objects really are. The best we know is that they are a sort of complex relativistic quantum mechanical wave function. But we also know that that is not quite correct.
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