A Procedure for Evaluating Individual Beliefs

A PROCEDURE FOR EVALUATING INDIVIDUAL BELIEFS

Evaluating a belief requires answering the question, “How closely does the guidance the belief provides resemble the guidance I assume it provides?”

An approach to identifying which belief (of two or more rivals) best meets your needs will be described in a separate document.

PREPARING TO EVALUATE HOW WELL A BELIEF SERVES YOU

1) If you haven’t read The Trouble with Truth and Articles 1-20 and completed the exercises at the end of each numbered article, do so. Unless you’re adequately prepared, the results of this procedure are likely to be worthless or misleading.

2) Obtain a copy of The Periodic Table of the Beliefs with Evaluation Tools by sending a request to  barnet.feingold@hotmail.com. 

3) Print a copy of that document.

4) Record the to-be-evaluated belief in the space provided at the top of that document’s second page.

5) In the space provided on that document, record four or five situations in which you suspect that the belief in question helped shape your thoughts, feelings, or actions.

6) Note that accurate belief assessment requires determining what you assume about the guidance a belief provides before determining the guidance it actually provides.

DETERMINING THE NATURE OF THE GUIDANCE YOU ASSUME THE BELIEF PROVIDES

STEP 1: DETERMINING WHETHER YOU ASSUME THE BELIEF TO BE INFORMATIVE OR REASSURING

1) In each of the four or five situations in which the belief exerted its influence, ascertain the nature of the guidance you expected the belief to provide.

a) Determine the number of situations in which you looked to the belief to

i) provide information to help you understand the situation, decide what to expect, figure out how to get things done, evaluate the vices and virtues of the situation, or establish goals.

ii) enhance your commitment to openness and objectivity, your ability to deal effectively with reality (including the situation in question), or your devotion to promulgating an ethos that supports and values openness and objectivity.

iii) help you feel more comfortable or confident (e.g., help you feel more informed, competent, powerful, righteous, safe, secure, connected, or valued).

iv) help you contribute to creating, enlarging, or sustaining an ethos, social group, religious group, or political group that supports and values beliefs you find comforting or reassuring . . . or help you feel that you’re doing so.

b) Tally the number of times you looked to the belief for (1) or (2) (i.e., the number of times you treated the belief as informative), the number of times you looked to the belief for (3) or(4) (i.e., the number of times you treated the belief as reassuring), and the number of times you looked to the belief for both information and reassurance.

c) Using that tally, determine whether you assume the belief offers information or reassurance. Check the appropriate box on the evaluation tool.

d) If your behavior suggests that you assume your belief is informative, go to STEP 2 (INF); If your behavior suggests that you assume your belief is reassuring, go to STEP 2 (REAS).

STEP 2 (INF): DETERMINING THE VIEWPOINT YOU ASSUME THE BELIEF ADDRESSES . . . IF YOU ASSUME IT TO BE INFORMATIVE

1) If your behavior suggests that you assume that your belief is informative, reflect on whether you’ve accepted its guidance with respect to:

a) the value of committing yourself to being objective (that is, whether you wish to be genuine, to create and sustain noetic relationships, and/or to facilitate open communication). If so, your behavior suggests that you assume the belief to be proper to the Existential Viewpoint.

b) the nature of reality. If so, your behavior suggests that you assume the belief to be proper to the Realist Viewpoint.

c) the goodness of the current state of affairs. If so, your behavior suggests that you assume the belief to be proper to the Ethical Viewpoint.

d) what improvement or perfection might look like. If so, your behavior suggests that you assume the belief to be proper to the Visionary Viewpoint.

e) what your visions of improvement or perfection demand of you and/or the mundane constraints you can justifiably ignore when pursuing your envisioned improvement or perfection. If so, your behavior suggests that you assume the belief to be proper to the Quest and Commitment Viewpoint.

2) Check the box on the evaluation tool corresponding to the viewpoint you assume to be proper to the belief in question.

3) Go to STEP 3

STEP 2 (REAS): DETERMINING THE VIEWPOINT YOU ASSUME THE BELIEF ADDRESSES . . . IF YOU ASSUME IT TO BE REASSURING

1) If your behavior suggests that you assume your belief is reassuring, determine which of the five issues below it addresses:

a) your commitment to being someone who can effectively reassure him/herself (i.e., someone who can confidently cherry-pick facts, distort data and evidence, view fallacy as reason, and forge relationships and enforce rules of discourse that support your  illusions). If the belief in question focuses on these issues, you probably assume the belief to be proper to the Existential Viewpoint.

b) the nature of reality (i.e., alleged “facts” that,  despite their dubious accuracy, would make you feel good about yourself) — “facts” that  support moral judgments and other beliefs you find comforting. If so, you assume the belief to be proper to the Realist Viewpoint.

c) moral judgments would you find heartening, i.e., moral judgments that make you feel good about yourself, say, by supporting visions of perfection you find reassuring, or moral judgments that powerfully endorse your desire to see, do, and be whatever you wish. If so, you assume the belief to be proper to the Ethical Viewpoint.

d) visions of perfection, however fanciful and improbable, that make you feel good about yourself, e.g.,  visions of perfection that justify complete commitment and complete freedom to act any way you might wish. If so, you assume the belief to be proper to the Visionary Viewpoint.

e) goals that make you feel good about yourself, e.g., goals that justify anything you might wish to do or be. If so, you assume the belief to be proper to the Quest and Commitment Viewpoint.

2) Check the box on the evaluation tool corresponding to the viewpoint you assume to be proper to the belief in question.

3) Go to STEP 3

STEP 3: DETERMINING THE PRECISION OF THE GUIDANCE YOU ASSUME THE BELIEF TO OFFER (WHETHER YOU ASSUME IT TO BE INFORMATIVE OR REASSURING)

1) Reflect on whether you rely on the belief . . .

a) for guidance that you expect, if followed, will make it likely you’ll achieve your aims. If so, you assume the belief to be precise.

b) for guidance that you expect, if followed, will increase your chances of achieving your goals without necessarily making it likely you’ll succeed. If so, you assume that the belief to be imprecise.

c) for encouragement to attend to issues that are probably worth your while . . .albeit without providing information about what’s likely to happen or how to achieve your goals. If so, you assume the belief to be a rule of thumb.

d) to shape your values and/or views of reality in ways that make the belief appear true without providing guidance that helps achieve your goals. If so, you assume the belief to be a catalytic narrative.

2) Check the box on the evaluation tool corresponding to the degree of precision you assume the belief to possess.

3) Go to STEP 4

DETERMINING THE NATURE OF THE GUIDANCE YOUR BELIEF ACTUALLY PROVIDES

STEP 4: DETERMINING THE NEED(S) THAT YOU LOOK TO YOUR BELIEF TO SATISFY 

1) Use A TOOL TO HELP YOU IDENTIFY THE DESIRE(S) THAT MOTIVATE YOUR BELIEFS, which you can find at the end of Article 7, to determine the need(s) that you look to the belief in question to satisfy.

2) Check the box or boxes on the evaluation tool that correspond to your findings.

3) Go to STEP 5.

STEP 5: DETERMINING THE VIEWPOINT THAT IS ACTUALLY PROPER TO THE ISSUE THE BELIEF ADDRESSES

1) If you view the belief as informative, go to STEP 5 (INF); if you view the belief as reassuring, go to STEP 5 (REAS).

STEP 5 (INF): DETERMINING THE VIEWPOINT OF AN INFORMATIVE BELIEF

1) Take a moment to reflect on whether the viewpoint to which you assumed the belief was proper, appears, superficially, to address an issue proper to that viewpoint.  If it does not, identify the viewpoint to which the belief appears, superficially, to be proper. In either case, proceed to 2).

2) Identify and document the lower-viewpoint beliefs that support the belief in question.

a) Determine whether the belief in question biases those lower-viewpoint beliefs — ideally, with the aid of someone who doubts or disagrees with the belief in question.

i) If the belief in question does not appear to bias the lower-viewpoint beliefs that support it, check the box on the evaluation tool corresponding to the viewpoint to which the belief superficially appears to belong. Proceed to STEP 6.

ii) If the belief in question appears to bias the lower-viewpoint beliefs that support it, check the box on the evaluation tool corresponding to the Existential Viewpoint. Proceed to STEP 6.

STEP 5 (REAS): DETERMINING THE VIEWPOINT OF A REASSURING BELIEF

1) All reassuring beliefs bias the lower-viewpoint beliefs that support them. They are thus proper to the Existential Viewpoint. Check the box on the evaluation tool corresponding to the Existential Viewpoint.

2) Proceed to STEP 6.

STEP 6: DETERMINING THE PRECISION THAT, IN REALITY, CHARACTERIZES A BELIEF

1) If you view the belief as informative, go to STEP 6 (INF); if you view the belief as reassuring, go to STEP 6 (REAS).

STEP 6 (INF): DETERMINING THE PRECISION OF INFORMATIVE BELIEFS

1) Reflect on the guidance the belief in question provides.

a) If it

i) provides you with guidance that, if followed, demonstrably makes it likely you’d achieve your aims, it is a precise belief. However, as you’ll see below, that status is conditional.

ii) provides you with guidance that, if followed, demonstrably increases the chance that you’ll achieve your goals – but doesn’t necessarily make it likely that you’d do so, it is an imprecise belief. However, as you’ll see below, that status is conditional.

iii) encourages you to attend to issues that are likely worthwhile to think about – but doesn’t provide guidance about what’s likely to happen or how to achieve your goals, it is a rule of thumb. However, as you’ll see below, that status is conditional.

iv) shapes your values and/or views of reality without providing guidance that helps you achieve your goals, it is a catalytic narrative.

b) Record the conditional precision of the belief by checking (ideally, in pencil) the appropriate box on the evaluation tool.

c) If the belief is catalytic and not already classified as proper to the Existential Viewpoint, reclassify it as Existential.

i) If necessary, change the box checked on the evaluation tool.

d) Use The Periodic Table of the Beliefs to determine whether the viewpoint to which the belief is  conditionally proper can, in fact, be as precise as tentatively claimed. If not, reassess the precision of the belief.

i) If necessary, change the box checked on the evaluation tool.

e) Attend to the ambiguity of the lower-viewpoint beliefs that provide critical logical grounding for the belief in question. If one of those beliefs is categorized as more ambiguous than the belief in question, change (i.e. appropriately reduce) the conditional precision of the belief in question.

i) If necessary, change the box checked on the evaluation tool.

f) Go to STEP 7

STEP 6 (REAS): DETERMINING THE PRECISION OF REASSURING BELIEFS

1) All reassuring beliefs are difficult-to-impossible to falsify. They are thus appropriately classified as catalytic. Document the precision of the belief by checking the appropriate box on the evaluation tool.

2) Go to STEP 7

STEP 7: DETERMINING HOW WELL YOUR BELIEFS SERVE YOU

1) Complete PART 2: CONTEMPLATING ASSUMPTION-REALITY DISPARITIES AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS on the evaluation tool.