I could believe that my ‘O’ and ‘P’ keys have been swapped, and thus anticipate that pressing my ‘O’ key will result in a ‘P’ and vice versa. This belief is clearly meaningful—it means something—but it also happens to be false. It passes the making beliefs pay rent test—but that isn’t a test for whether or not something is true.
Um, ok, one of us is using extremely nonstandard terminology without realizing it, and I don’t think it’s me. Take an example: “the earth is the closest planet to the sun”. This belief is obviously false, but seems perfectly meaningful. Would you describe it as false and meaningless?
a belief in a celestial teapot is meaningless because it doesn’t matter whether it’s false or not: you have no evidence and no reasonable way of gaining evidence. Claiming to believe in it is just a waste of cognitive resources. A belief in, for example, the door opening inward or outward is meaningful: It will directly impact the action you take when you come to the door. This is regardless of whether the belief is false, and you push a pull door or the belief is true and you correctly pull the pull door.
It’s not obvious to me (with my rationalist hat on) how a belief may be false but meaningful.
I’m sorry to have such terse replies, but it’s as simple as that.
I could believe that my ‘O’ and ‘P’ keys have been swapped, and thus anticipate that pressing my ‘O’ key will result in a ‘P’ and vice versa. This belief is clearly meaningful—it means something—but it also happens to be false. It passes the making beliefs pay rent test—but that isn’t a test for whether or not something is true.
Um, ok, one of us is using extremely nonstandard terminology without realizing it, and I don’t think it’s me. Take an example: “the earth is the closest planet to the sun”. This belief is obviously false, but seems perfectly meaningful. Would you describe it as false and meaningless?
a belief in a celestial teapot is meaningless because it doesn’t matter whether it’s false or not: you have no evidence and no reasonable way of gaining evidence. Claiming to believe in it is just a waste of cognitive resources. A belief in, for example, the door opening inward or outward is meaningful: It will directly impact the action you take when you come to the door. This is regardless of whether the belief is false, and you push a pull door or the belief is true and you correctly pull the pull door.