
Alief - jkuria
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alief_(belief)
======
evmar
If you like wikipedia articles like these, you might like
[http://wikipedia.reddit.com](http://wikipedia.reddit.com) , which highlights
other obscure and interesting articles.

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ma2rten
A related concept is Belief in Belief:

 _Suppose someone claims to have a dragon in their garage, but as soon as you
go to look, they say, "It's an invisible dragon!" The remarkable thing is that
they know in advance exactly which experimental results they shall have to
excuse, indicating that some part of their mind knows what's really going on.
And yet they may honestly believe they believe there's a dragon in the garage.
They may perhaps believe it is virtuous to believe there is a dragon in the
garage, and believe themselves virtuous. Even though they anticipate as if
there is no dragon._

[http://lesswrong.com/lw/i4/belief_in_belief/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/i4/belief_in_belief/)

~~~
Udo
Alief seems to be the "gut feeling"-type of conclusion that happens before
more elaborate conscious processing takes place. Contrast that with Belief in
Belief which is characterized by the astounding process of logical thinking
required to anticipate and explain away the opportunities for the
falsification of a belief in something imaginary - suggesting that at some
level believers _do_ in fact know that they're propping up a fantasy.

It's not really conceptually related to be honest, but BiB is an excellent
article that pertains mainly to religious belief and it was a very
entertaining read. Thanks for linking to it!

~~~
ma2rten
I am not an expert on this topic. However, I don't agree based on OP that
alieves necessarily 'go away' with elaborate conscious thinking. Note, that OP
also says the concepts applies to some religious believes.

So, I would actually argue it applies here too: In OP's terminology the person
believes there is a dragon in their garage, but alives the opposite.

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runarberg
I don't get it, why is it so important to separate our cognitive system into
infinite units, one for everything we can feel?

Why can't we, as an alternative, not possess two believes at the same time?
Composed by different parts of the cognitive system. One for example might go
through the frontal lobe and be overwritten by "reason" (if there is such a
thing), and the other might go through more rostral regions, and be
overwritten by emotions (which, in fact, will manifest it self into muscle
movments)?

Another alternative might be that the same stimuli manifests it self in
different ways at the same time, after going through different coginitive
systems (no _a /believe_ construct required). So the fearfull ("irrational")
behaviour ("the alive") gets manifested in the sympathetic nervous system
(into muscle movements, hormonse, thermo-regualtion),while the vocal
("rational") behaviour ("the _be_ lieve") gets manifested in cognitive systems
responsable for speach-like cognitions, i.e. frontal regions.

~~~
FooBarWidget
> why is it so important to separate our cognitive system into infinite units

It isn't. It depends entirely on the specific school of psychology. For
example the school of Behaviorism states that only observable behavior
matters; cognitive stuff like this is unimportant.

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dfc
I took a social contract theory class from Prof. Gendler. She was phenomenal.
She enjoyed teaching the material so much that she seemed to smile for the
duration of the class. When we would get frustrated as we struggled through
some concept she was always patient and would joke that she had a bit of an
advantage because Nozick was her phd advisor and "she learned Rawls from
Rawls."

There is a video interview where she discusses aliefs here:
[http://bloggingheads.tv/videos/2115](http://bloggingheads.tv/videos/2115)

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NCE
In economics, this is the difference between stated preference and revealed
preference.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revealed_preference](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revealed_preference)

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jkuria
Btw, I found out about this from her (Tamar's) Wikipedia page, after enjoying
her Big Think lecture on the philosophy of politics and
economics([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm8asJxdcds](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm8asJxdcds))
I highly recommend the lecture.

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wavesounds
So I alieve that my data on the internet is private but I believe the NSA is
reading every word.

~~~
anigbrowl
Or vice versa.

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jervisfm
This is an interesting concept but I am wondering how alieving relates to both
believing and knowing in general. Is an alieve just a type of belief that is
unjustified but hard to ignore or get rid of ? In particular if we take some
of the given examples:

>>> For example, a person standing on a transparent balcony may believe that
they are safe, but alieve that they are in danger. A person watching a sad
movie may believe that the characters are completely fictional, but their
aliefs may lead them to cry nonetheless. A person who is hesitant to eat fudge
that has been formed into the shape of feces, or who exhibits reluctance in
drinking from a sterilized bedpan may believe that the substances are safe to
eat and drink, but may alieve that they are not.

and we remove the verb 'alieve' and only work with the verbs 'to believe' and
'to know' :

For example, a person standing on a transparent balcony may _know_ that they
are safe, but _believe_ that they are in danger. A person watching a sad movie
may _know_ that the characters are completely fictional, but their _beliefs_
may lead them to cry nonetheless. A person who is hesitant to eat fudge that
has been formed into the shape of feces, or who exhibits reluctance in
drinking from a sterilized bedpan may _know_ that the substances are safe to
eat and drink, but may _believe_ that they are not.

The meaning/sentiment appears to be largely unchanged in this case.

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ricogallo
I guess this definition is more precise and broad:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicit_attitude](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicit_attitude)

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kefka
This concept is also well known in the practice of the occult. It is known as
the Law of Contamination. The gist of this is 'once in contact, always in
contact'.

This principle is also the basis of using bits of hair in a construction of a
voodoo doll, as the hair touches the doll, so the person is the doll.

Even though this thought is prevalent in the occult, it does easily translate
out of that limited area. The paper below also explains for similar things,
like not wanting to wear shirts worn by a disliked person.

Homeopathy also has roots in this idea, where a drop of "cure" is diluted
somewhere by 10^50 times, and still is considered a cure.

[http://www1.appstate.edu/~kms/classes/psy5150/Documents/Rozi...](http://www1.appstate.edu/~kms/classes/psy5150/Documents/RozinMagic86.pdf)

~~~
saraid216
That doesn't seem quite right to me. If there's any occult notion that fits,
I'd imagine it's more things like "true name" or "astral body" or a "weird"
that reflect a more honest representation of the self than is consciously
noted.

~~~
kefka
I think there could possibly be a problem with the definition of alief. I
think it's being used too broadly.

As the wikipedia article says, it includes 5 sections of disjoint ideas. And
law of contagion is directly reffered to with the feces shaped brownies or
clean bedpan drinking.

It seems I could attach any reflexive-emotional response and call it alief.
That doesn't seem correct in the language of psychology. Their terms are
usually much more delineated.

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ChrisNorstrom
So basically belief is conscious while alief is subconscious?

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ZoF
In many cases this does seem to be true.

Although....In some instances, when your conscious mind is in conflict with
itself, it seems an "alief" could be based in consciousness.

Using Wikipedia's given example; I would argue that when you're trying to
decide whether standing on a balcony is safe the decision is very much based
on conscious thought.(e.g. what height am I at, is there a railing, do I have
enemies here(lol(lolnestedparenthesis)), am I inebriated)

I think this term is particularly interesting when applied to issues based on
morality.

When you're deciding whether a woman has the right to abort her child, is the
small nagging doubt considered alief? I don't mean to bring politics into
this; in fact I chose this point because I thought it wouldn't be a major
point of contention(compared to some others).

I am just trying to say that almost every decision that we make in our lives
has an alternate possibility, the merit(or perceived merit) for which is
oftentimes enough for a seed of doubt to take root in our own decision on the
matter.

I find it curious that so many people have such strict convictions on
controversial issues, whereas I personally change my position on them
reasonably frequently. Perhaps this lack of a constant viewpoint on
controversial issues is because I haven't fully defined myself, in which case
I hope to do so soon.

~~~
eru
> Perhaps this lack of a constant viewpoint on controversial issues is because
> I haven't fully defined myself, in which case I hope to do so soon.

Don't hurry. Keeping an open mind is nothing to be ashamed of. You don't have
to have an answer to everything, lest of all a fixed one.

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amartya916
Link to the paper from the Journal of Philosophy

[http://pantheon.yale.edu/~tgendler/documents/aliefbeliefjphi...](http://pantheon.yale.edu/~tgendler/documents/aliefbeliefjphilfinal.pdf)

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interstitial
I prefer the much easier System 1 and System 2 of Kahneman and Tversky.

~~~
dfc
She briefly discusses this on pg 7 of her paper:
[http://www.pgrim.org/philosophersannual/pa28articles/gendler...](http://www.pgrim.org/philosophersannual/pa28articles/gendleraliefbelief.pdf)

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gcb0
i.e. someone is trying to force a new term for "gut feeling" with hopes that
he/she will be academic relevant.

;)

~~~
dfc
_On July 1, 2010, she became Chair of the Yale University Department of
Philosophy, becoming the first woman to hold that position in the department’s
history and the first female graduate of Yale College to chair a Yale
Department._ [1]

Do you think she needs to worry about her academic relevance?

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamar_Gendler](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamar_Gendler)

Full Disclosure: As mentioned elsewhere I took a class from her at Syracuse
University at the beginning of her career. That being said I am not an
academic and do not gain anything from her professional reputation.

~~~
gcb0
if my merits laid on highlighting my gender, i'd be worried as well :)

I'm pretty sure i'm the first native american to do something of relevance,
but I will be dammed if I write/let this be the opening paragraph of my Bio.

~~~
dfc
Its too bad that you focused on her gender and not the fact that she was now
the chair of her department.

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antitrust
Also an outer suburb of Houston, TX:

[http://www.city-data.com/neighborhood/Alief-Houston-TX.html](http://www.city-
data.com/neighborhood/Alief-Houston-TX.html)

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zem
related is pratchett's concept of "substition" (quote from 'jingo'):

71-hour Ahmed was not superstitious. He was substitious, which put him in a
minority among humans. He didn’t believe in the things everyone believed in
but which nevertheless weren’t true. He believed instead in the things that
were true in which no one else believed. There are many such substitions,
ranging from ‘It’ll get better if you don’t pick at it’ all the way up to
‘Sometimes things just happen.’

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michaelhoffman
Alief: it's not just a neighborhood in Houston anymore.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alief,_Houston](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alief,_Houston)

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alexatkeplar
urlief would be a much punchier name with a valid etymology.

~~~
goodmachine
Excellent, true.

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johns
When your heart betrays your mind.

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tome
Does anyone know the etymology of the word "Alief"?

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JonnieCache
Is it not simply just belief with an A in place of the B? It sounds to me like
a self-consciously coined neologism, perhaps related to A's position before B
in the alphabet, suggesting that aliefs come before beliefs in some sense.

EDIT: a brief look at the original paper[0] doesn't give any immediate
answers, but it seems to confirm my guess:

 _" Alief is a more primitive state than either belief or imagination: it
directly activates behavioral response patterns"_

[0]
[http://www.pgrim.org/philosophersannual/pa28articles/gendler...](http://www.pgrim.org/philosophersannual/pa28articles/gendleraliefbelief.pdf)

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szabba
How does this relate to the suspension of disbelief?

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glibgil
Thanks, but I'll keep using the word "doubt".

~~~
qzxt
I think the point of the concept is actually an antithesis to doubt. It
basically says you can believe x is x, yet continue to treat x like y. You
could say this is "doubt", but then you contradict your belief that x is x.
Just like the sterilized bedpan example. If you truly believe that it is
indeed sterilized, why are you hesitant to drink from it?

