EVERYTHING Is A Belief

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I have to warn you up front.

This isn’t going to be one of those comfortable easy blog posts, where you just nod along, agree with the author on every point, then retweet it and go about your life unchanged.

This post will challenge your thinking about the world. It will probably make you uncomfortable at several points. That’s a good sign – it means you’re stepping outside your comfort zone, which leads to growth.

My goal is to make you think. I don’t want you to agree with me on every point. That would be just as useless as you deciding that I’m wrong before you even hear what I have to say – it would stop you from growing. Instead, I’d like you to keep an open mind, and think about what I say.

Buckle in and keep your eyes on the road – this will be a wild ride.

Gravity is just a belief

I’ll get right in the thick of it. Gravity is just a belief.

If you think I’m a lunatic for thinking gravity isn’t real, you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Because I’ll give you even more reason to believe I’m a complete lunatic. I believe the concept of “real” itself is meaningless.

But I’m getting ahead of myself…

Gravity is simply an explanation you believe for things you observe.

Now I’m not going to dispute that it’s a very, very good explanation. But it’s still just an explanation. And to make a point, here’s an alternative explanation for gravity. Yes, there is such a thing:

First imagine that there are only two objects in the whole universe. A penguin, and a ball:

There is no gravity. But they both keep expanding. Say, doubling every hour. So after a while the universe looks like this:

Everything in the penguin expands, including its brain cells. So as far as the penguin is concerned, it has stayed the same size and so has the ball. But the ball has come closer to the penguin.

In other words, the penguin observes the exact same thing as if gravity was present. And if it tries to kick off from the ball, sooner or later it will come crashing back down (because its speed is constant, while the expansion grows geometrically.)

Gravity is just one explanation for what you observe every day.

Have I got you thinking yet? Good…

What is a belief, exactly?

A belief is a generalization for what you observe.

Just like gravity is a belief, you hold other beliefs about the world: “the world is a friendly place”, or “all salesmen are scammers”, or “I suck at maths”…

And just like gravity, all those are just beliefs based on evidence you have observed. Pay attention, this a key point:

A belief is your best explanation of the world, based on your current evidence.

That evidence can be direct (like for gravity), or indirect (I can’t directly observe hydrogen and oxygen, but I trust the people who tell me they exist).

Here’s the thing – the world is just a meaningless jumble of atoms. There is no “dog” or “car” in reality, just a bunch of atoms flying around.

Humans create meaning. We notice patterns in the world, and assign them meaning. In other words, EVERYTHING you think of as “reality” is just a belief.

A better question to ask about beliefs – are they useful?

Instead of asking if a belief is “true”, (which is a meaningless construct), ask if it is useful to you.

The point of this post is this: Your beliefs are only beliefs. You can choose to hang on to them, or change them.

Once you let go of this concept of “real”, and treat belief as beliefs, you can let go of them.

And to finish off, let me share one last example of choosing useful beliefs:

Back when the Wright Brothers were inventing the airplane, the conventional wisdom was “Things heavier than air can’t fly.” Newspaper reporters refused to even come and look when the Wright Brothers told them they had a working airplane.

The Brothers ignored the conventional belief. Instead, they realized a more useful belief would be “Things heavier than air stay on the ground, unless you apply enough upward force to counteract gravity.”

And look where it got them!

(photo courtesy of zarajay)

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How to Eliminate Limiting Beliefs:

I was going to include a section on eliminating limiting beliefs. But it got so ridiculously long (read: thorough) that I decided to make it a separate post.

So stay tuned. How to Eliminate Limiting Beliefs – coming this Friday, to a friendly blog near you