In search of what to do (including, what to think) next, the mind is confined to:
- Imagining; and,
- Reasoning.
Both involve memories, which may consist of primary-sensed experiences and processed (i.e. imagination and reason manipulated) experiences.
Imagining consists of ‘cutting and pasting’ memories and/or current experiences – for example, cutting and pasting a human with a bird can produce the vision of a flying person.
Thus, imaginings are hypotheses.
Reasoning consists of scouring for supporting evidence and/or rebuffing contradictions.
A hypotheses can only be rebuffed, it can never be 100% proved and, therefore, we can never be 100% sure something is a fact.
Typically, significant evidence with no rebuff is regarded as a fact.
In reality, every belief requires faith, which exists on a spectrum between a lot and a little.
One may have faith in one’s ability to pass an exam or faith in the supernatural.
Faith is normal, natural and, indeed, a requirement to fill in the gap when action or thought decision-making is required.
However, it is only rationally applicable when there is no contradiction.
In the case, where a hypothesis is contradicted and yet a person/s accept it as truth then that is an example of what may be termed a super-faith belief.
In the case of belief in religion, it is also a hypothesis.
mimicking nature
The mind works by:
- Accepting primary sensed experiences; and,
- Via its memories, interpreting and manipulating primary information and other non-primary previously manipulated information.
This manipulation includes:
- Scanning for commonalities;
- ‘Cutting and pasting’ to form hypotheses, which we may also recognize as scenarios, which, in some cases, can become plans.
For example, cutting and pasting a human with a bird can produce the vision of a flying person.
On this bases, courses of action (which includes no action) may be determined.
Reason is the process wherein hypotheses are culled or, in the case of logic, follow rules, which have been observed such that if the assumptions are true then the result will also be true.
For example, assuming:
- All A are B; and,
- All B are C.
Then, all A are C.