Belief Systems

Belief systems refers to any belief or group of beliefs under one name. Eg. Christianity or Capitalism.

For anyone who has accepted a Belief System, its their Mental Model of how the world is and how it works. They have created these belief systems to better interface with the world. These beliefs can be(but not limited to)…

• Definitions. Eg. The car I bought with my money is “My Car”.
• An idea of how things work. Eg. If I push on the accelerator, the car will move faster.
• Values. Eg. “My way of driving the car is the best way to drive.”
• Predictions about the future. Eg. If everyone drove like me, we would be living in an utopia
• Assigned Meaning

Other phrases that have been used to convey the same meaning are...

• Personal Philosophy
• Stories - Yuval Noah Harari prefers this
• Social Constructs
• Religion
• Shared Intentionality - Jonathan Haidt in Righteous Mind

Rough Work

Exact boundaries are very difficult. Most people hold a slightly different version of the belief.

Can we define vague boundaries that can include most people.

The 'is Good' Framework for belief system. Think of any existing societal system. Add the phrase 'is Good' at the end of it - that is the belief system. Eg. Capitalism is good. Religion is good.

You might have exceptions to it - but do you agree with the statement at a general sense? If so, that is a Belief System that you hold.

Another framework is the 'is Reality' - X is how the world is.

What are the predictions about the future for these belief systems? Make sure the predictions have Falsifiability.

Can you run experiments to test for this falsifiability?

We can have better control over our beliefs if we collect them into belief systems.

Example: Standard Roadmap for life

There is roadmap that society has for life...

• Born
• Get into a good school
• Get into a good college
• Get into a good job
• Marriage
• Kids
• Etc

I am not sure if this belief system has a name. But I call it 'Standard Roadmap for life' belief system. It is not a bad thing - its very useful as a default template for life. But it gets harmful if you are not allowed to deviate from it. Its better to use that as a template - but design your own roadmap.