Does any natural process or material event record or memorialize my belief? Can my behavior - the outward and visible signs of my response policy towards my environment - come from some other place than my ensemble of beliefs. Or, can I simply tie my behavior to intelligent attempts to improve my homeostasis over time by cognitive machinery of the mind housed in my body which includes my brain. In short, what does belief really mean and how can opinions count without action? Can't we suppose that action happens and belief is a post hoc rationalization that stuffs the record of my just completed action into a shoebox labeled belief? My claim here is that my autobiography - the story I tell myself about my self (my objective and subjective self) bootstraps emergent cognitive sets - I end up feeling a different way and I then attribute my actions to something I delude myself into labeling a collection of beliefs. Beliefs no more drive my actions than the passengers on a bus drive the bus. The bus driver is my response policy of my interior milieu toward my cosmic environment. I (a subjective self) am modulated by my corpus (objective self or meat suit) which is modulated by a heterophenominological confluence of processes underpinning consciousness. This consciousness first emerged to make better and better guesses about what happens next.
Does my belief in physical activity and exercise preceed my efforts at the gym -or- do these behaviors come from my will to health. Is my will tied to my belief or does my will spring from belief? What is a neural correlate of belief? Do beliefs exist?
I am asking specifically if brain states can be distinguished by some means or other and then correlated to outward manifestations of action, speech and the continuity of these processes over time. This is actually possible with MRI scans of people and monkeys fooling around while thinking thoughts. Across species of primates many, many activities produce many modes of cognition that are very similar. Moving a chess piece on a chess board (something only one type of primate can accomplish with mastery) looks very much the same in most primates who move chess pieces. Chess Masters and Chess Grandmasters have brain states that are different but most people with only a rudimentary conception of the game of chess look remarkably similar under an MRI. But do these people have 'beliefs' about chess that are visible as brain states? Not really. Chess is not ruled by beliefs - chess is described by strict rules that remain impervious to beliefs. I cannot say that I believe that a game ends when all my pawns are captured. This statement has no real meaning. I just don't understand the rules of chess. Chess wants me to invent strategies and tactics for better and better chess matches over time. Chess want to fill the design space of chess with novel content. But chess has no belief systems or distinct beliefs.
If I watch the big cats at the zoo I will avoid any temptation to get into the enclosure with them. Not because of my belief that lions and tigers are predators but because --- lions and tigers ARE predators and I can see this by the predatory looks on their faces and in their predator skeletal-muscle means. The testimony of my senses leads me to avoid direct contact with big, scary lions. The lion does not care what I believe. The lion can only respond to my behavior. I will taste the same with any belief I contain at supper time.
It is a fact that I maintain homeostasis - I maintain a healthy internal milieu - by behavior and not belief. The universe does not really care what I believe.
See the post on a Response Policy. I am programmed to respond with the interposition of cognition. Homeostasis does not care what I believe. The belief in belief - belief^2 - rests upon biases and heuristics. These support a response policy against the cosmic environment.
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