We, like all sentient animals, make observations continually throughout life. We notice the warmth of the sun, thunder and lightning, sudden movement in tall grass, and the darkness of night to name a few. How do such raw observations differ from belief? While a horse would notice most of the phenomenon listed above, it does not believe, for example, that the 'sun warms'. We do.

Language allows us to categorize what we observe, store it in memory, and recall it when needed. Need serves a pivotal role in belief. The process of belief begins with the acquisition of language. The social need to communicate is a primary, if not the leading, motivation behind a baby's desire to learn language. Through language a baby also fulfills various physical needs relating to food, fear, fun and such. Thus a baby acquires an emotional stake in the constancy of word meaning. Each word a baby learns becomes a 'solid brick' for building all its subsequent beliefs. To serves this purpose, word meaning must be rather immutable. For example, when we know "water" is that liquid thing we notice via the senses, it become rooted in our sub-conscious experience. We believe "water" is water. But is it really?

Our world view is established gradually during childhood as we adopt our culture's paradigm, with language as its base. The particulars of belief or perspective may change, e.g., we can hold liberal views in our youth and replace them with more conservative ones as we age. However, we always know and believe that "water" is water.

Let's consider higher level beliefs – those which are subject to outside influences, time and change. We might believe in God as a child, but drop the belief as an adult, or visa versa. Either way, need/pleasure is the motivating force. If believing in God makes you feel better you will continue to believe in God. If a liberal point of view stops making you feel good, you will be open to other points of view, and will likely adopt one that makes you feel better. The need to feel good or better arises out of innate biology. It is what causes us, and horses, to seek shade when it is hot. For humans, need also drives how firmly we hold on to a belief. If a belief fulfills a need we will hold on to that belief.

Finally, belief has nothing to do with whether it's true or not. Indeed, what is truth? Do your beliefs not determine what you hold to be true? Belief equals truth. If you believe that 'clear liquid' is water, then it is true for you that 'water' is 'water'. Your belief in the truth of words forms the foundation for all subsequent higher level belief systems. Not so for the horse – true and false mean nothing to him or to the rest of nature. There is no 'water', just a sensory observation/experience of what we call 'water'.

Why belief may become irresistible

All animals have a innate sense of cause and effect in that when they observe/experience pain, danger or difficulty, for example, they react by either eliminating the cause or fleeing. We react similarly to such tangible stimuli. However, we part company with the other animals in our beliefs in gods, spirits and other intangible 'causative' forces outside the perceptual range.

Our large brain and its conceptual framework naturally elaborates on the innate sense of cause and effect which we share with other species. Not only do we observe and react to stimuli, we think about it. When causes are not obvious we speculate and eventually imagine a plausible scenario that resolves the issue. For example, once we knew that Apollo carted the sun across the sky. Now, we know that the cause is earth's rotation. The facts - Apollo or earth's rotation - are less significant than the secure sense of knowing which we experience when we think we have the answer.

Our visceral feelings and needs evoke thoughts which give our emotional life an intellectual shape. These thoughts are the corollary – the reflection – of those feelings and need. Then the feedback process between the mind and emotions begins. The ensuing beliefs about what is and is not paints us into a perceptual corner. The more narrow the focus the less perceptual room we have to maneuver. This gives us a sense of emotional and mental stability and security. Of course, on the other hand it can become a dead end preventing us from considering another way out of the predicament, whatever it might be at the time.

Now back to your personal belief

Try to consider the personal belief you selected above vis-a-vis the need it satisfies in you. How would you feel if it was disproved? A sense of loss perhaps. Try to entertain an idea which contradicts that belief. It is nearly impossible to do because belief, especially deeply held ones, satisfies a need. If nothing else, a belief puts closure on all that lies beyond what we know – the timeless void of the unknown and perhaps unknowable. Belief is a final resting place for thought.

The psychological and emotional dependance you have on what you believe to be true, biases you to that perspective. The greater the dependence, the less you will be able to conceive of alternate models. Indeed, your mind tends to filter out what goes against your bias and only lets through what supports it. Belief conveys a strong sense of emotional security by giving you a stable world-view. Belief and the visceral need for emotional security form a closed loop, each supports the other.

The unintended consequences of belief

As we saw above, the first step in the belief process is categorizing experiences. Words are the foundation of this categorizing process. Placing things experienced into words makes language possible and allows us to think it over . . . and over and over. By pigeon holing experience, language permits us to manage it. A definite survival advantage we have over non-thinking (language-using) species. But this comes at a price.

Belief works like the blinders they put on a horse to keep it from spooking. Belief makes reality less spooky for us, which affords us a degree of emotional and psychological comfort. However, believing that things are a certain way has the unintended consequence of preventing us from seeing them as they might really be. Also gone is the adventure of experiencing the mystery of reality, or as the Tao Te Ching puts it, "mysterious sameness".

Of course, our brain, language and thought is what makes us human. While not a problem, per se, too much of a good thing can become problematic: beliefs hamper us from seeing any more of the whole which lies outside our particular belief. For example, either believing that God exists, or does not exist, will hinder considering the opposite fairly or any other alternative possibility. If this seems plausible, we might wonder how to liberate ourselves from some of the shackles of thought and belief.

The more emotionally addicted to a particular belief, the less able we are to consider anything else. Of course, we easily recognize such obsessive blind-spots in those whose beliefs are false. Remarkably, we are unable to see how this parallels our own true beliefs. Why? Emotional dependance is profoundly blind. Dependance has this same effect, whether it is an addiction to alcohol, love, food, drugs or beliefs. Indeed, beliefs may be the strongest of all addictions.

So, the shackles we are dealing with are the shackles of addiction. How can we let go of that emotional dependance which seems to pervade our thought processes and the conclusions we make? If we had 'free will', I suppose we could wave our wand of 'free choice' and make it so. Without 'free will', though, we are pretty much stuck where we are. We can only live out our lives, hitting bottom over and over until we realize we are addicts and feel the motivation to take it one day at a time, one thought/belief at a time and let go as much as we are able. If you would like to chip away at belief, at its root, check out the correlations tool.

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