Theory of Belief

     I’ve written about my Infinite Hypothesis before. What I should make clear is that there’s a very good reason no one talks about it; we aren’t supposed to know it’s there. The Infinite is inherently meaningless, so reality is an attempt by those who live in the Infinite to give themselves and their choices meaning. You know how if you play a game with a bunch of cheats it stops being fun after a while because nothing is challenging? That’s what living in the Infinite is like, nothing is challenging, nothing has consequences so nothing is meaningful. 

     One consequence of the Infinite, therefore, is that we’re all built to believe in things. Be it Aliens, God, or Santa Claus, all of us believe in something, often to the point where we ignore all evidence to the contrary. Belief looks different from person to person, but it generally comes in two contradictory flavors. 

   The first kind is what most people associate with religious worship. It’s the kind where what you believe in is completely fake, and deep down every believer knows that, but you keep it real because you want it to be real. Most modern religions cultivate this kind of belief, because it’s the kind of belief you don’t need to justify. The second kind is the version of belief society is, at large, much more tolerant of. It’s the kind where you question your world. Why is the sky blue? Why do Hydrogen and Oxygen make water? Why is our society set up the way that it is? This is the kind of belief where you seek to learn about your world and try to make it make sense to you. 

     These two belief systems are always at odds with one another. The first kind views the second as immoral, because how will the world stay real if you question it all the time. The second kind views the first as poisonous, because what happens to those who are suffering unjustly in a poorly built system that can’t be changed? 

     Personally, I think our world needs both forms of belief to survive. 

     To believe that our world isn’t objectively real is to believe that even the laws of physics are only held together by the belief of what, to us, is an Infinite Universe. The reason we, as humans, can’t push past physics (in my eyes, at least) is that we have an enormous system of belief holding everything together. But our world can’t survive just because we believe that it’s there. In order to have meaning, things have to change, or at least they need to be able to change. In order for that to happen, you need people who know that the system is false and arbitrary, and to push for something that they think would work better. 

     I don’t know for certain whether or not we as a whole value one belief system over the other, but I do know that in our current world they are very much at odds, and I really wish that they weren’t. I don’t like living in a world where the choice is either “Don’t ask questions” or “never take anything at face value”. It means that one group builds Dreamworlds that are real but very temporary (what you might call fascists or religious nuts), while the other group builds worlds that are built on values but are so close to reality that no one really believes in them. They don’t have to, because everyone knows these values exists and they don’t question them.

     That’s what most people get wrong about belief, they think of it as something you take to be wholly true no matter what, when in fact it’s something you know can’t possibly be true, but you believe in it anyway because it makes sense to you. It’s one of the ways you build the world you live in, and a way you find where you belong. Some beliefs are so common that we treat them like reality, but when you look at how our worlds are actually built it becomes clear that it’s nothing more than an elaborate lie. Most of us don’t want to be “Successful”, we just want enough to be happy. Most billionaires aren’t smart, they’re just propped up by a system that claims they are. Religion isn’t just about worshiping god, but about building the world that God lives in. We take our world for granted, because we have no choice. Until the day we realize that our world must be believed in, even if we don’t want to.