About Belief

In a world in which a Donald Trump — huckster, con man, self-aggrandizing misrepresenter of facts extraordinaire — can win the presidency of the United States, we have to ask ourselves how important is truth to the way people make their decisions? What does it mean to believe something is true, that it states a fact, when we can so easily shunt aside the plain evidence available in order to choose a different account than the one the facts support? How can some people, a very large number, in fact, ignore reality and accept tales that have no serious connection with the truth? Millions of Americans today profess to believe that the American presidential election of 2020 was not on the up-and-up, that Trump’s loss to his opponent, Joe Biden, was the result of widespread voter fraud. Nor does the consistent failure of roughly sixty litigation attempts to undo the result in various jurisdictions across the country, nor the failure of innumerable recounts demanded by the Trump side, or audits, some performed by clear Trump sympathizers, move the needle of a large number of folks in the Trump base.

Nor does the testimony of Trump administration stalwarts, up to and including Trump’s own Attorney General for most of his presidency, penetrate this miasma of belief or claimed belief among the Trump faithful.

How do we explain this in light of the fact that “belief” is usually taken to be a response to the evidence and evidence is, if nothing else, a class of facts? Well, what is it to believe something? What is belief and how much of it is a matter of individual choice and how much is pressed upon us by the pressures of the world, the evidence?

We can profess to believe we can fly like a bird if we flap our arms but will we follow that up by leaping off a nearby cliff and making bird-like strokes in the air with our limbs? Can we just believe anything at all if we want to?

But if there are constraints, what are they and how can most of us know to stay away from that cliff, without a parachute at least, while so many of us are prepared to believe so many outlandish things? Most folk in Europe in the 15th century believed the world was flat until Columbus came back without falling off its edge into the abyss. Most believed the world was at the center of a universe that revolved around it, the sun tracing its path through the heavens each day until Galileo and Copernicus showed otherwise. And belief here certainly did not switch overnight.

Well, these are different kinds of belief than the sort that have to do with flying off cliffs or stepping in front of a speeding train believing we are invincible or the train is an illusion. Beliefs like these are rooted in how we understand the world and our place in it and this is driven by the effects of the world around us on ourselves. Of course, we can be fooled by illusions (optical and otherwise) or by strong drink or just by a bad dream. Reality sometimes throws us for a loop, failing to match our expectations and these can be way off. We can believe false claims or disbelieve the testimony of our own eyes and sometimes we do (and must). Part of the human condition is our fallibility, our lack of complete and unquestionable certainty about things.

The 17th century French philosopher Rene Descartes famously posited that we could only be certain of one thing, that we are able to doubt at all, to think things might be untrue. If we could think he suggested, then we at least could be sure of our own existence as the thinker. In thinking we can doubt everything but not that someone is doubting something. From this foundation, Descartes sought to build an edifice of more certain knowledge though his enterprise led to various problems in the philosophical thought that followed his, including concerning the nature of certainty itself and the epistemological question of which beliefs, if any, are or must be basic or if any can be?

How are we to sort through the various possibilities? If we believe the world is round or flat, we do so rarely from first hand experience. We might, of course, do some measurements and calculations, showing that, if you look straight out across an apparently flat surface, you can only see so far, and that your range of sight increases the higher up you go from the earth’s surface. Or we might observe that a ship looming into view is first visible from its highest point and then comes more fully into our vision field in toto, suggesting a rising of the ship as it nears us, a rise that implies movement on a sloped surface, suggesting a roundness of a sort from which we can, if we are knowledgeable enough about mathematics (and have the data), do a calculation which can show the essential roundness of the world. Or we might get sent up in a rocket ship and look down on the earth and see an orb, or see pictures taken from a point that is as high (perhaps another ship or a satellite) and see the orb below. But we still have to take on faith certain facts, e.g., that no one is trying to fool us by telling us a story about the provenance of those photographs, a story which actually isn’t true. Or that the astronaut returning to earth with his or her report isn’t in on the hoax. We have to have confidence in the honesty and accuracy of the reporting source.

To believe anything we have to believe lots of other things and much of these we must take on a kind of faith. We must believe the astronaut or the astronomer or the books in which their reports are found. Or the teachers who guide us to learn about things as we are maturing. We must believe reporters telling us the news. We must believe others around us who tell or show us their own beliefs about how things are. Belief is a web-like phenomenon of commitments we make in concert with others around us and at a distance that precludes direct observability on our part. Belief is an expression of what we accept as true and “true” is a term we use to qualify statements that carry information which we suppose we have reason to accept.

To accept a statement is not to challenge it and also to act on it when acting on it is relevant. If someone says ‘don’t leap off that cliff, you aren’t a bird, you have no wings,’ most of us will believe that person. Indeed, few of us would even have to be warned. We instinctively shy from the edge of great heights even though we can steel ourselves to overcome such concerns at times and in many cases—and some of us can do that more easily than others. But when it comes to believing that the earth is round or that an American astronaut once walked on the moon, it’s a little harder to point to something that assures us, with indubitable certainty, that these things are the case.

Is evolution true? Well, is it a reliable theory, an account of how humans came to be on this planet? Does it make more sense than the biblical creation myth? How do we know? Well one thing we can do is ask which belief accords with others we hold. But what if we happen to be so steeped in biblical narratives that the theory of evolution does not compute? Here we can look to a broader array of beliefs we hold, which constitute knowledge for us and these include the track record of the related beliefs. Has the biblical account a better record of success for its believers than the one that includes evolution? Did the Bible enable humans to progress from primitive living conditions in the past to today’s modern circumstances with all the amenities living creatures like ourselves could ask for? Did the Bible enable humans to build great cities, develop powerful technologies like telephones and computers, the Internet, jet planes, rockets, satellites, methods for preventing, diagnosing and treating diseases which formerly ravaged our species? Did the Bible enable us to generate enough food to feed billions on the planet? Or build telescopes to scour the heavens? Sure, some can argue that the Bible or other types of religious writings and teachings offer us something we cannot get from science but if knowledge is the question, i.e., belief in the true and disbelief in the false, then there is simply no comparison between the stories (and beliefs proffered) in the Bible and those on offer from modern science, not in terms of results, in any case.

Yet we still find ourselves struggling to determine how we can sort truth from falsehood. Back to the world of Donald Trump and the presidency he won in 2016 and lost in 2020 (though not lost if he is to be believed). We can tell truth from falsehood when the facts hit us in the face, so to speak, when we face that precipitous drop at the edge of the cliff or get smacked by the reality of a speeding car as we try to cross the street against the traffic signals and without attending to what’s in the road with us. We can also make rational decisions about whether the Bible or our science texts (the claims of the scientific community as reported to us) are true (or truer than competitor claims). Even climate change, an unending argument these days, though the naysayers seem to be dwindling, leaves room for lots of argument, for debate. How much more so when the truth of an election outcome is at stake, where people vote via anonymous ballots (so you can’t go back to the source of every vote) and we must trust the system in place for collecting and counting the ballots and reliably informing us of the result?

Here we find a surprisingly significant amount of room for dispute. Surprising, because in the past in America people were accustomed to accept the outcomes of elections unless there was convincing evidence of fraud (and for that, the winning margin must be shown to have been smaller than the amount of established fraud in the relevant precincts). But what if the loser refuses to give up, as Donald Trump has refused? And what if he has enough people who want his claim that he was defrauded of his rightful election win by nefarious individuals interfering in illegal ways, to be the case? Even if the alleged interference cannot be documented or shown to have occurred?

How is it that in today’s world, where so much is known about the world itself and how to make things work, that we can still be stuck in this kind of belief cloud, where some will argue for beliefs without any evidence, and argue, further, that they don’t need evidence, that it’s enough to show there were some irregularities in the system. You can’t prove us wrong that there wasn’t election fraud, right? And there were changes in the voting system that could have increased the possibility of voter fraud. So, if there were such changes how can we be expected to believe that there wasn’t fraud or enough to have changed the election outcome? If we can’t be sure, then aren’t we entitled to doubt and isn’t doubting enough?

Add to that the claim, so often made, that the statistical anomalies are too great to allow for the legitimacy of an outcome in which Biden beat Trump without the intervention of fraud. How could such a thing have happened given the “anomalies”? Well, what anomalies? Trump had bigger rallies while his opponent kept a low profile and remained away from crowds so clearly there was more enthusiasm for Trump than his opponent so how could his opponent have racked up more votes? But rally size isn’t voter turnout, is it? After all, while voting is set up to ensure that no one gets to vote more than once, rallies include lots of repeat attendees. Rallies are indicators of enthusiasm but enthusiasm isn’t vote count. Yet so many in America today are prepared to accept, repeat and, indeed, argue for the claim that Trump lost because of fraud given such claims. Prove them wrong, they insist!

Well do we have to? If belief is about what we want to believe, what we choose to endorse and what reject, if belief is not a thing in itself, a thing in our brains, but, rather a nexus of points on a map of thought which each of us holds in his or her head, however roughly drawn and patchworked together (allowing for often conflicting claims to co-exist side by side within the larger system of claims we accept), then belief is as much a function of what we want to endorse as of what we cannot help but endorse.

We may all of us avoid jumping off that cliff (at least if we’re sane, have no reason to believe there is anything beyond it to catch us or just don’t want to end up splattered in a mish-mosh on the rocky ground below—though this is not always a given for everyone), still when there are no cliffs and no rocks below to worry about, we may certainly have a freer hand concerning what claims we will give our allegiance to. And if something we want to be the case cannot be definitively shown not to be, and there are no recognizable adverse consequences for supposing it is the case, then what is to stop us from holding that belief? If we want to believe Trump won his election in spite of the evidence that no widespread fraud sufficient to have cost him the election has been uncovered, despite extensive tests and despite the fact that all the lawful channels for contesting the election had been exhausted by Trump and his supporters to no avail, what is to stop us from believing it anyway?

This goes to the question of what belief itself is. If it is some fact about the mind or the brain, a state of mind, say, then there is something to look at and compare to the world. If a belief is true, then it must match the world and if it is false it won’t. But if belief is a function of how we approach our world, an aspect of a broader system of thoughts about the world we happen to hold and can conjure up in response to queries and other environmental inputs, then perhaps the problem is not going to be settled by saying to those who seem to hold beliefs we take to be false, well just look!

In fact, there may be nothing they can look at that would be sufficient to deconstruct the elaborate picture they have built for themselves, a picture which allows them to hold that Trump really won, despite the complete lack of evidence for the fraud that would have been needed to enable him to have done so. We can hold conflicting thoughts in the same mind, after all, can’t we? Who says we must always be consistent? And sometimes the conflicting thoughts are so far apart on the map of the mind that they will rarely if ever be seen to clash by their bearers. And sometimes the issues are so abstract or foggy that the apparent clash is hard to notice. Sometimes, too, we may stubbornly work to keep them that way to avoid having to acknowledge error. We may say things like, ‘it’s not that I can prove fraud occurred but that supposing it did is the most sensible way I can see to explain how such a popular fellow like my guy lost to such an unpopular fellow like that other.’

Belief, at the end of the day, is a holistic phenomenon, each individual claim of belief residing in a larger framework of other beliefs, some closely related, some far apart on the mind’s map. What we believe is not some specific thought we hold in our head but an arrangement of thoughts, that is to say, of many other beliefs, and the new claim of belief must dovetail with enough of the beliefs we hold elsewhere on the map to prompt our assent to the expressed claim. Belief here is no tangible thing subject to a one-to-one check against something in the world. Each belief is part of a broader network of ideas, thoughts, recollections we carry about with us in our minds and can express, in their turn, as particular beliefs (claims) should we find that necessary. Consistency with other beliefs is the measure here, but the whole network of thoughts within which it stands and to which each belief relates in some particular way, must, as William James pointed out at the beginning of the twentieth century, fit the arrangements we find in the world.

If I believe I’m a bird or wearing a jetpack capable of carrying me out over the void, then I might just take that leap off the cliff after all, either because I am deluded about the kind of creature I am (and so plummet to my death) or because I have seen the work of science and have faith in its products, including the jetpack I have strapped myself into. Particular beliefs are how we see the world in this or that aspect and how we see it occurs within a framework of many other beliefs we have taken in and carry with us. And if there are no obvious cliffs to prevent us from holding some belief others might assert to be wrong or offer us a good reason to think so?

Why must we accept the claim of others that there was no election fraud, or not enough to have changed the election outcome, if they cannot show me evidence there wasn’t? Why must the onus be on me to show evidence there was? What restrains me or anyone from believing just whatever we want to believe, absent recognizably adverse consequences in doing so? And what if there are consequences but I refuse to believe they are real, to recognize them?

We can argue that refusing to accept the outcome of an election, after all that has happened which denies the claims of fraud (shows them to have been unproved, false) presents a danger to elections generally, to the very system of governance we have come to accept and rely on because it diminishes faith in the institutions that embody it and thus the willingness to play the game of electoral transfer of power. But this outcome-based argument seems divorced from the argument about whether or not fraud existed in sufficient amounts to support the election fraud argument. Why should the outcome matter if the facts are against it? But then are we accepting facts at all when we pick and choose those we will attend to? And, more, what if those we want to argue with aren’t listening? Or don’t see the connection or have become so jaded and disaffected with the system that they simply don’t care if the system itself is jeopardized? And what if, at some level, they secretly want to disrupt it? What if they want to break the system itself?

If belief were just about matching our words to the world and so endorsing the words spoken which match it best, this would be an easy lift. But it’s not because it is not the words or even the statements that contain them which we must match to the world but whole systems of words and statements, qua beliefs, against an ongoing barrage of inputs from the world all around us. Again, as James said, here and there the system of beliefs we hold must “touch ground,” but they need not in every case for us to continue to endorse (believe in) particular assertions. Some must stand up to the feedback we get from the world but not all and certainly not every statement all the time.

Belief is about how this or that claim fits into the broader framework of our thoughts. Much of it is there, moreover, as a kind of detritus gathered from our past experiences, some of it less reliable than other elements in the system. When we hit some assertion that doesn’t stand up, we can either adjust the framework that forms the background in which it is understood, or we can find a place in the framework where the fit is better—or we can jettison the failing assertion entirely and seek another one in the hopes it will prove to work better. But in matters like who won an election, where there is simply no way to ever definitively assure ourselves that everything was done with absolute propriety — and no way to be sure that every vote was cast properly — there is always room for doubt. As with the man who walked on the moon, if we weren’t there to see him do it, how do we know he did?

We must rely on trust in our sources, of course, a trust that speaks to the way our belief in our sources fits into our broader framework. If we have a framework set to “conspiracy” on the modality dial, then it is our choice, as it always is, whether to re-set it or continue. And if we continue, then anything is possible in the way of belief.

In a world of conspiracies anything literally goes, and those who can play the conspiracy chords best make the music.