Celiefs

post by TheLemmaLlama (crapshoot) · 2024-03-16T23:56:07.193Z · LW · GW · 8 comments

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We have "aliefs" and "beliefs" - let me introduce "celiefs": something that we worry *has a high chance of being true*, but aren't quite convinced of.

Often this is something that society/experts/someone you admire says is true, but you don't see the reasoning behind.

We may look for evidence that might convince us of the celief, or behave as if we already believe the celief; this is not exactly performative, but more like an act of "hedging" -- so that if the celief turns out to be true, we've avoided causing harm. We would do this regardless of whether people see it, but it can still feel "disingenuous" since we haven't quite internalized the celief that we're acting on.

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This seems like it might be the difference between OCD themes and attenuated* delusions: You alieve your attenuated delusions while you celieve your OCD theme

* attenuated delusions meaning delusions you're capable of questioning. They become full-blown delusions sometimes. But they seem categorically similar, so I feel like the correct line to draw is [alief vs celief] rather than ["truly believe it" vs "know rationally that it's false"]

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Some celiefs you might hold include:

Celiefs can be good or bad; sometimes it's good to hedge your bets on something you don't know much about and trust the people who have lived/studied the thing, but celiefs are also how people gaslight you.

I would classify anything that you maladaptively act upon but want to work through in therapy as a celief rather than a belief (if you really believe it, you wouldn't want to work on trying to not believe it, because from your perspective that would be deluding yourself)

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comment by Shankar Sivarajan (shankar-sivarajan) · 2024-03-17T04:34:21.960Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Is a "celief" in something meaningfully different from an "alief" in its opposite?

Replies from: illicitlearning, mateusz-baginski
↑ comment by illicitlearning · 2024-03-23T06:28:50.275Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

if i'm understanding right:
- alief: you intuitively feel this to be true, but are not intellectually convinced that it is true. you may behave as if it is true but don't necessarily endorse that behavior
- belief: you may or may not intuitively feel this to be true, but you are intellectually convinced that it is true. you generally behave as if it is true and endorse doing so
- celief: you do not intuitively feel this to be true, nor are you intellectually convinced that it is true, but you behave as if it is true regardless for pragmatic reasons (though you may not necessarily endorse this)

↑ comment by Mateusz Bagiński (mateusz-baginski) · 2024-03-17T07:04:02.513Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Alief - I don't really "believe X in my head" but act as if I believed X.

Anti-alief - I really "believe X in my head" but don't act as if I believed X. (That's at least one way of reversing it.) (Although this could also be seen as "alieving not-X".)

Celief (AFAIU) - I have good reasons to have high credence in X but can't see the gears/am not sufficiently capable of assessing the claims on my own, so I have a substantial model uncertainty. This may be accompanied by different degrees of "acting as if believing X/not-X (with some probability)".

Replies from: M. Y. Zuo, crapshoot
↑ comment by M. Y. Zuo · 2024-03-17T12:50:55.905Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

This definition seems so vague and broad as to be unusuable.

↑ comment by TheLemmaLlama (crapshoot) · 2024-06-29T02:46:30.093Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I guess with action, you feel obligated to act as if X is true, but you're not understanding why. It's like being blindfolded and told to walk in some direction and "trusting" that it'll all work out.

So an anti-alief (as you described) would be like you intellectually believe that junk food is bad for you, but can't really bring yourself to stop eating it or feel any fear for your healthy when you do. Whereas a celief would be if you don't even intellectually believe that junk food is bad for you, but you try to avoid it anyways because everyone says it's bad for you (esp. people whose opinions you usually respect), and so what are the chances they're all wrong vs the chances you just don't understand it yet?

comment by TAG · 2024-03-17T17:02:03.598Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

If you have a meta belief that none of your beliefs are certain, does that make all your beliefs celiefs?

Replies from: crapshoot
↑ comment by TheLemmaLlama (crapshoot) · 2024-06-29T02:50:06.524Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I think degrees of various kinds of beliefs are always a spectrum, but the spirit of celiefs is you "can't see the gears", like Mateusz mentioned. So if you actually have some idea of why and just don't put 100% certainty on it, I wouldn't say it's meaningfully a celief

comment by romeostevensit · 2024-03-17T02:51:54.752Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

A type of celief that resists updating is one that discourages you from talking about it with others.