Why do people mistake their beliefs for reality?

[Mew3692002]

I have been thinking about this question and it always struck me as odd. People mistake what beliefs they hold for reality. Such as gravity as a ghost. I mean gravity as a ghost in that it only exists in the mind just like science, religion, and many other beliefs that are held as a model of reality that is just a convenient explanation of reality but isn't necessarily a reality in itself. We use ideas or philosophies dreamt up by people who are dead as our beliefs or philosophies and these are in fact ghosts of the mind as well, so why do people mistake their own personal beliefs for reality?

[Lisa McGregor]

If you believe it then it's real.
L

[cdn2wheeler]

Originally Posted by Lisa McGregor

If you believe it then it's real.
L

Hunh?

Beliefs change. It used to be believed that the sun rotated around the earth. We now know that it's the other way around. But the sun never actually rotated around the earth, no matter how many people believed it and no matter how fervently they believed.

[Mark Lapierre]

Some people don't understand how much of an influence their beliefs have over their perceptions. So they don't realise that what they think they perceive is not necessarily what happened. Thus what happened often seems to match their belief, reinforcing that belief.

Others do know this in part, but go in the opposite direction, thinking that what they believe truly affects reality, rather than just their perception of it. The match between their perception of reality, heavily influenced by what they expect to perceive, also reinforces their belief.

In those cases it's incredibly easy to ignore or dismiss or miss anything which disagrees with one's beliefs. Except in extreme situations such as believing you can fly.

[AndreaHess]

Originally Posted by Mark Lapierre

Others do know this in part, but go in the opposite direction, thinking that what they believe truly affects reality, rather than just their perception of it.

Whose reality are you talking about? Because there is definitely as many realities going on as there are people on the planet.

Our reality is as individualized as we are. There is no ONE "reality." That's why we DO shape our own reality through our belief system.

[cdn2wheeler]

Originally Posted by AndreaHess

Whose reality are you talking about? Because there is definitely as many realities going on as there are people on the planet.

There's reality and then there's reality.

I'm sitting in a black leather chair right now. To me, it's comfortable. To you, it may not be. Both our realities of the chair are true, but the chair itself hasn't changed.

There is such a thing as objective reality. That would be demonstrated by the existence of the chair. There's also such thing as subjective reality, which means we may perceive the reality of the chair in different ways.

So bandying about overarching statements like there are "as many realities going on as there are people on the planet" is a gross oversimplification. There may be many subjective realities - the chair is hard or soft, comfortable or not - but that doesn't change the chair itself.

Originally Posted by AndreaHess

Our reality is as individualized as we are.

Probably true. But my "reality" and your "reality" has little, if any influence, on the object we're perceiving, whether it's a chair or a situation or a person. The object is, regardless of our perceptions of it.

[AndreaHess]

Originally Posted by Lisa McGregor

If you believe it then it's real.
L

I'm with you! Our belief system is the frame of reference through which we create our reality.

The question is never whether a belief is right or not, or whether it matches "reality" - it always matches reality, just maybe not yours or mine. The question we can always ask ourselves is whether our belief system serves the reality that we wish to create.

[mansell]

Originally Posted by Lisa McGregor

If you believe it then it's real.
L

Lisa is right. when you define beliefe it means how some one can believe in somehting, when you believe somehting that means you dont question its meaning, therefore meaning it is true to you.