Letter to New Scientist on Unified Diversity

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In November 2006 the New Scientist had a special edition on the biggest questions of life. I sent in the following letter in response to the various articles:

Wouldn’t it be great if there was an ethical framework that was compatible with both science and religion, and so didn’t involve the divisive approach of the Beyond Belief conference (18 November, p 8)? And wouldn’t it be fantastic if that framework could also provide a species-neutral way of judging the value of non-human entities, such as animals, ecosystems and the conscious computers that many of your leading scientists predict are just around the corner? (18 November, p.31)?

Well, there is such an ethical framework. It’s called unified diversity, and was proposed by the philosopher Robert Nozick. He argued that something is of value to the extent that it displays a structure of unified diversity, in which diverse elements combine such that the whole is more than the sum of the parts. This may sound too woolly to be practical, but when applied to systems is in fact the same concept as complexity, which scientists have used to describe complex adaptive systems in the field of cybernetics.

Ranking entities according to their level of unified diversity/complexity appears to match our own moral intuitions quite closely. For instance, we feel that animals are more valuable than inanimate things, and humans more valuable than animals, in keeping with their complexity ranking.

It is compatible with science since the more highly evolved organisms display the greatest unified diversity/complexity, and the ‘awe’ that scientists feel when observing nature is surely based upon its unified diversity. And it is also compatible with religion since the essence of mystical experience is a sense of the unified nature of reality.

Sounds too good to be true? Well, scientists have found complexity to be a slippery concept to objectively measure. But every ethical framework has areas of ambiguity, and given its advantages I would suggest that it is well worth more attention.

What is the Meaning of Life?

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In order to find an answer to the Meaning of Life, you first need to know what you are looking for!

After some research into the subject, my suggested definition of the Meaning of Life is the following:

"A single, objective, cosmic, complete and consistent account of the relevant and realisable connections between human lives and what has intrinsic value"

To explain the meaning of the key terms in this definition:

• Intrinsic value: the quality that something has which means that we ought to appreciate and promote it, purely on the basis of what it is.
• Human lives: human lives in general – the features of human life.
• Relevant connections: a link to the essential features of human life.
• Realisable connections: a link that can be realised by humans.
• Account: a description of what has intrinsic value and how it is connected to human life.
• Single: one account.
• Objective: what has intrinsic value exists independent of human minds.
• Cosmic: what has intrinsic value exists beyond human lives.
• Complete: every aspect of human life is connected to.
• Consistent: the account is logically consistent.

To understand more about this definition (and for some great quotes about the Meaning of Life!), please see the document attached here.

The key point however, is that in order to give your life more meaning and purpose, you need to connect to things with intrinsic value. See the posts about Value for help on how to do this.

Philosophical projects I need your help on!

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I am currently working on three projects, on which it would be great to get your comments (both positive and negative!) and support:

1. Theory Mapping: a potentially revolutionary tool to assist in the generation, communication and selection of theories. Am currently trying to pilot test it on the debates over global warming and JFK's assassination. If you think the method has potential and are interested in helping me to pioneer and refine it, then get in touch.

2. Unified diversity: developing a framework for how this very powerful higher principle of value can be applied to guide and give purpose to one's life.

3. Free will: learning how to live everyday life in the awareness that I do not have free will, and am ultimately just a complex evolving system. It is an enlightening experience as Buddhism attests to, but takes a lot of concentration! I have so far only come across one person who claims to be able to genuinely put this into practise in everyday life, which is the scientist Susan Blackmore. If you know of others I'd be very interested to hear about them.

Please contact me at: strahanspencerATgmail.com. Thanks!
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Why we do not have free will

Introduction

Much debate about 'free will' is clouded by people using different definitions of it. I believe that the definition that best fits the reason why we are interested in the subject, is of free will as ‘moral responsibility’. Someone is 'morally responsible' when it is morally fair to hold someone to account for what they have done.

Whether you see people to be morally responsible depends upon two things: the model of the human mind and decision-making that you believe (explicitly or implicitly); and the conception of responsibility you apply to that model. In order to decide which model of the human mind is most likely to be true, we should select the one that provides the most coherent explanation of the facts about decision-making. So this post follows the following structure:

• Facts to be explained: I list some stylised facts that I have personally observed in my decision-making, and which I suggest any theory of the mind should be able to adequately explain.
• Models of the mind: I describe what I see as the three main models that we explicitly or implicitly believe: Thinker Model; Collective Self Model; and Higher Self Model.
• Evaluation of the models: how well the models can explain the stylised facts. I believe that the Collective Self model does much better than the others.
• Levels of responsibility: how much responsibility we have under the Collective Self model.
• Possible objections: I answer some of the key objections.

Facts to be explained

• Fact 1: Belief that you are in control of your decisions: we all have a strong sense of an 'I' taking decisions.
• Fact 2: Systematic Inner Conflict: Humans are capable of systematically making a conscious decision that is regretted afterwards. For instance, someone repeatedly eating chocolate when on a diet, and regretting it afterwards.
• Fact 3: Choosing differently in the same circumstances: This refers to when faced with the same choice in the same circumstances, you choose differently, such as whether to get up in the morning.
• Fact 4: The unconscious instant of choice: This refers to the phenomenon that although you can be consciously debating a decision, the actual moment of choice sometimes comes as a surprise. For instance, you may be debating whether to get out of bed, and then suddenly find yourself getting out.

Models of the mind

1. The ‘Thinker’ Model


The ‘real you’ here is the ‘Thinker’. It is indivisible - a ‘black box’ that cannot be analysed in terms of the deterministic interaction of internal parts. It does three things:

• Makes decisions, either to do a physical action or to think a thought.
• Generates Thoughts and beliefs (about the world and yourself) and Feelings, represented by the arrows.
• Processes sense data from the External World, and from its Thoughts and Feelings that it observes through its ‘Inner Eye of Consciousness’, which may be seen to be a fifth sense.

I’ve called it the ‘Thinker’, because of the argument that ‘thoughts need a thinker’ to produce them. It is the most commonsensical model, that most of us live on the basis of.

2. The ‘Collective Self’ Model


The ‘Collective Self’ is simply a mass of mentally stored data. How can such an entity make a decision? Being confronted with a particular choice stimulates all relevant data in the form of a collection of Thoughts and Feelings (TFs), which may be conscious or unconscious. These are then converted into a decision through a ‘Decision Mechanism’. This can be envisaged like a voting mechanism, in which motions for decision are continually being subconsciously proposed and voted on by the relevant TFs, with a decision made whenever a threshold of votes or mental support is reached. Whether the stimulated beliefs and feelings are in support or against the proposed action is represented in the diagram by the direction of arrows. It may be the case that the nature of the TFs may allow categorisations to be made, such as between the ‘rational’, ‘emotional’ and ‘self-reflective’ (or more narrowly, ‘moral’). Whether or not the self-reflective part supports or rejects the proposed decision (which we may call of a ‘lower order’), depends upon where the majority of TFs lies in response to the relevant self-reflective question (which we may call of a ‘higher order’, see below for an example). The TFs within each category may be in consensus, but there may be conflict between the three categories as a whole. The number of votes allocated to each TF may differ between Feelings based upon their intensity, and between Thoughts based upon their grounding in experience.

Like the ‘Thinker’, the Collective Self:

• Makes decisions, with its thoughts feeding back to change the TFs.
• Processes sense data, including what the Inner Eye observes of its thought stream and TFs.

How this sense data is stored, and therefore how it changes the TFs depends upon how the Collective Self chooses to interpret the sense data at the time.This is the least commonsensical model, since it implies that there is no single ‘you’ - we are just bundles of stored mental data that creates thoughts and feelings when stimulated.

3. The ‘Higher Self’ Model


This is essentially a combination of the other two models, in which the Collective Self and its decisions are monitored and influenced by the Higher Self, that like the Thinker is indivisable - a black box. Monitoring occurs through the Inner Eye, while influence is in the form of an ultimate veto of decisions and an ability to change them by adjudicating between and influencing conflicting TFs.This is the model that people might come to after reflection upon the simplicity of the Thinker model, seeing the authentic them as the ‘Higher Self’.


Evaluation of Models

We can now evaluate the truth of each model according to how well it can explain the ‘stylised facts’ given earlier:

1. The belief that you are in control of your decisions

• Thinker: no problem, for the Thinker is seen as being in control.
• Higher Self: no problem if ‘you’ is equated with the Higher Self which is seen as in control in a supervisory role.
• Collective Self: no problem because if ‘you’ is equated with the TFs that are present at each instant in time, the nature of those TFs, and therefore ‘you’, do determine decisions.

2. Systematic Inner Conflict

• Thinker: cannot explain this, for either it is constantly changing its mind, which implies that it must have separate component parts, or it is divided into different factions, both of which point to the Collective Self model.
• Higher Self: cannot explain this. If the Higher Self is completely in control, then the arguments against the Thinker model apply. If it is the Collective Self that is making the decisions and the Higher Self that is doing the regretting, this implies that it is not all-powerful, which requires an explanation of how the power over decisions relative to the Collective Self is determined ie. that both are subject to the Decision Mechanism as in the Collective Self Model.
• Collective Self: can explain this in terms of there being a majority of TFs in favour of eating (perhaps from the emotions if it is ‘comfort eating’) coexistant with a minority against it that ‘in the back of your mind’ warns that it isn’t right (your self-reflective part is against it since when the question voted on is ‘Is it right to eat the chocolate bar?’ the majority of higher order TFs stimulated say ‘no’). Once you have eaten the chocolate the self-reflective part gains accendancy and you are regretful.

3. Choosing differently in the same circumstances

• Thinker: cannot explain this, for it implies that it is changing its mind, which implies that it must have separate component parts.
• Higher Self: runs into the same problem as the Thinker if the Higher Self is completely is seen as in control.
• Collective Self: no problem, since the balance of power within the TFs has changed.

4. The unconscious instant of choice

• Thinker: cannot explain this, since the Thinker should be in control all the way.
• Higher Self: undermines the argument that the Higher Self is fully monitoring what is going on.
• Collective Self: can explain this convincingly as due to subconscious operation of the Decision Mechanism: the conscious thought processes change the TF voting patterns until the required threshold of mental support to get up is reached, being then subsconsciously translated into immediate action.

The Collective Self Model is therefore the only one that can adequately explain all of the ‘stylised facts’. Furthermore, it can hold up against criticisms:

1. If we are a collective of TFs, how come we feel that we are a single Thinker?
Answer: Because we have a single Inner Eye of Consciousness, we are under the illusion that there must be one entity behind it, when in fact the data from it is being ‘beamed’ to the whole mind. The illusion of being a single Thinker is then self-reinforcing, because the belief that a subset of the mind is the ‘authentic you’ means that it can command extra votes that may turn a minority into a majority, giving the impression that that part is even more authentic. The illusion of oneness however, is broken when you come to face strong inner conflict as described in Stylised Fact 1.

2. If we are constantly changing over time as our TFs change, how come we think we are the same person with the same identity?
Answer: Because there is only one persistent data processing and storage facility throughout our lives eg. one memory recording everything, and one persistent Inner Eye of Consciousness observing our inner world.

3. Don’t thoughts logically need a single Thinker to produce them?
Answer: the link here between ‘thoughts’ and a Thinker is a semantic one based upon the commonsense belief in the Thinker model. The Collective Self model demonstrates how ‘thoughts’ may be generated by a collective, just as committees can generate discussions.


Levels of Responsibility

Each level of responsibility will be applied to the CS Model and its validity discussed in terms of the core concept of moral responsibility defined above ie. when it is morally fair to hold someone to account for what they have done.

1. Physical Responsibility
You are responsible for a decision if your body does it.
The CS model is consistent with this conception. But it may not be morally fair to hold someone to account on this basis, for instance if the action was accidental ie. not chosen by their mind.

2. Mental Responsibility
You are responsible for a decision if your mind chooses it.
The CS model is consistent with this conception. But it may not be morally fair, for instance if the person is not fully conscious of what they are doing eg. if they are drunk, mentally ill, or asleep.

3. Conscious Responsibility
You are responsible for a decision if your Inner Eye of Consciousness observes the thought processes that go into it, allowing you the opportunity to change it if you want to.
The CS model is in principle consistent with this conception, since the Inner Eye of Consciousness observes the set of thought processes going on that are based upon the BFs stimulated by the constant ‘lower level’ question ‘What do I do now?’. This data from the Inner Eye gives rise to the constant self-reflective ‘higher level’ question of ‘Is this the right way to be thinking?’ which stimulates a set of self-reflective TFs (that may be equated with the Higher Self in the Higher Self Model, except that they are a collective). If it is decided that the lower level question is being answered wrongly, this judgement may be seen to caste a number of lower order votes belonging to the self-reflective part against the current majority. If this turns a minority into a majority it could be called ‘willpower’.

However, in practise, conscious responsibility may not always occur: the mind has limited conscious data processing capacity, with much thought data available to the Inner Eye ‘filtered out’ because it is not judged to be important for conscious attention. Thoughts and decisions may therefore be made that are not conscious. In that important decisions would not be filtered out however, conscious responsibility may be said to generally occur when it matters most.

This conception is fundamentally inadequate however, for it may be the case that the person is not in control of the balance of power within the higher level, self-reflective TFs. They may be able to choose what to want, but may not be able to choose what to want to want. Their lower order decisions are determined by the balance of power within the lower order TFs, which are in turn partly determined by the higher-order TFs, the balance of power of which may not be chosen. It would therefore be just as morally unfair to hold them to account for their ‘conscious’ decisions as their unconscious ones.

4. Ultimate Responsibility
You are responsible for a decision if ‘you’ at one point in time are able to control ‘who you are’ at that same point in time.
This is inconsistent with the Collective Self Model, because in order to make a decision to change yourself, the decision has to be made by a set of TFs at a higher level from those TFs that the decision refers to. The number of levels is mentally limited however, with one reaching a level of TFs that you cannot consciously control. Where do they come from then? As a result of incoming data from the external world and the internal world through the Inner Eye, all interpreted in terms of those TFs that were existing at the time. These processes may be taken back to the womb when the first data that could produce TFs was stored mentally, whether biologically or by ‘God’. In either case, you could not control it.

We therefore do not have ‘moral responsibility’ for the only conception of it that makes sense is inconsistent with the best model of decision-making.



Key objections

1. The whole argument is based upon the premise of a deterministic world in the first place. For instance, the discussion of the ‘stylised facts’ assumes that the inner conflicts or changes must have been caused by something.
Answer: If something is not determined, then it is random. And if it is random, then it cannot be chosen and so you cannot be responsible for it anyway! And if something is chosen, it is in the very nature of choice that it must be internally determined, for what differentiates one option from another in terms of the desirability of choosing them, are mental phenomena (TFs) associated with each of them. It is therefore impossible to choose something non-randomly over another not on the basis of TFs.

2. If all our beliefs are determined, how can we trust them?
Answer: Because the causal processes that create them are relatively reliable ie. sense data interpreted according to our prior TFs, and our own thought processes. There is an element for error here of course, which it is important to be aware of.

3. Saying that we do not have moral responsibility has terrible implications. The Conscious Responsibility conception should therefore be used, not the Ultimate Responsibility one.
Answer: This paper is only concerned with truth, not consequences. It may be argued, briefly, that the consequences are not terrible however:

• Law and order: would just be purely based upon deterrence, thereby ruling out capital punishment.
• Religions: undermines many, since people cannot be ‘sinful’. And even if the purpose of life is seen as just ‘to learn’, what is the value of such learning if it is all determined? It is however, consistent with Buddhism, which sees the deep realisation of the Collective Self model applied to oneself and its implication that there is no substantial independent self, as the key to enlightenment.
• Living with oneself: it is in my experience impossible to perceive yourself as being determined in the moment you are in, since, as argued earlier, the TFs that comprise me at each moment, are making the decision. It is just that ‘I now’ have not completely chosen those TFs. When I look back at past decisions however, I can explain why I made them in terms of the TFs at the time. I have gained considerably from applying the Collective Self model to myself, since it enables me to accept myself as I am at any point in time, and understand what is going on within me.
• Interpersonal relations: it enables you to understand people much better. Although you accept difficult people completely as they are in the moment (since you know they ultimately couldn’t help being who they are), you know that there is potential to help them change. For instance, it might be necessary to pretend to be angry with them in order to discourage them from doing something.

Belief System Debate

Introduction

The method outlined below has the potential to revolutionise intellectual debate. It will bring new focus to current hot topics such as globalisation, and breath new life into debates that had turned stale such as over religion and philosophy. It could serve to democratise debates by giving the ordinary man on the street the tools to make a contribution. For instance, on any given topic, competitions could be run to come up with the belief system that is the most coherent explanation of the facts. Anyone armed with a brain, the Visual Concept software and internet access would be able to enter. Finally, it could provide a way for people to easily construct their entire belief system through a web-based mindmap that enables them to select consistent belief systems on different subjects. The slanging matches we see today between politicians on TV and academics in journals seem positively prehistoric in comparison and may soon die out...



Overall Objective

The Overall Objective of the Belief System Debate method is to improve the efficiency of intellectual debate, whether face-to-face or in writing. Efficiency is defined in terms of:

• Probability of believing the truth: intellectual debate should increase the probability of people believing the truth on any given topic as a result of participating in or observing the debate.

• Cost: debates cost time and money, which should be set against the benefit.

Intermediate Objectives

The Intermediate Objectives of the method for achieving the Overall Objective, are to provide three things that are generally lacking in current intellectual debates:

• Clear communication of each viewpoint: Much time is wasted in debates because neither side fully appreciates the position of the other. This is not just due to a failure to listen, but also to each side basing their arguments on assumptions that they do not communicate and may even themselves not be consciously aware of. Clear communication can therefore be ensured in two ways. Firstly, each side should be required to set out clearly their viewpoint in its entirety, including any implicit assumptions that are being made. Secondly, each side should be required to put itself in the shoes of the other, in order to ensure that it really gets to know the other’s position.

• Use of an agreed truth test: Many debates fail to make progress because there is no explicitly agreed way of assessing the strength of the viewpoints put forward. It is left to each participant and observer to make their own subjective judgements. This is like having a race in which each athlete is allowed to decide where their own finishing line is. The result is that people only race against themselves and all declare themselves the winner! Pursuing truth is the objective that all sides can agree to, and so agreeing on an objective test for the truth should be the appropriate finishing line. Reaching such agreement is easier said than done however, since different belief systems prefer different tests for the truth. Atheists for instance, prefer the scientific method, while theists see it as too limited in its scope. A solution needs to be found for this problem.

• Separation of truth from value: sometimes, the underlying difference between the two sides of a debate is one of values. For instance, differences between political ideologies can be partly explained by different views of what a good society and a good life consists of, as well as differences over the means to get there. Differences in values are much harder to resolve (see Value System Analysis for more information), and so in order to make more progress, the debate over matters of truth should be separated from debate over values. For instance, the debate between political ideologies would be improved if discussion about ends and means was separated, with debate about means only conducted amongst those who held common views of the ends.

Preconditions

There are two simple preconditions for the method to be efficient:

• Choose your debating partner carefully: you have to make sure that if the truth of the subject you want to debate depends on the subject of another debate, both you and the person you are debating with have the same viewpoint on that other debate. For instance, let's take the debate about when a foetus becomes a person, whch underlies the abortion debate. The view one takes of this depends upon your view of human nature, which depends upon your position on the debate over whether the supernatural exists e.g. theists say a person is fundamentally a spirit/soul, and that therefore a foetus becomes a person at conception because that is when God inserts the spirit/soul. The atheist will deny this. The theist and the atheist will therefore get nowhere if they try to discuss when a foetus becomes a person. It only makes sense for theists to discuss amongst themselves, and atheists to discuss amongst themselves. If theists want to persuade atheists that it is wrong to abort after conception, then they have to first win the first debate over whether the supernatural exists. Forming government policy on abortion in the presence of two such opposing groups, is therefore a matter of pure politics not intellectual debate. Finding the right partner could be facilitated by the internet (see 'Belief System Debate via the internet' below).

• Drafting of Belief Maps: both sides should draft Belief Maps of their belief systems on the relevant subject beforehand.

Method

The Belief System Debate method consists of the following stages:

1. 1. Establish the facts: Each side agrees on the facts that need to be explained (which define the subject of the debate), and the facts that they want to use to provide support for their viewpoint. If there is disagreement over whether something is a fact or not, it would be re-worded such that both sides can agree to it. For instance, the Christian may suggest that “People have spiritual experiences” is a fact to be explained, but the atheist would disagree with this. It could therefore be reformulated to “People claim to have spiritual experiences”. This stage can be done by each side looking at the Belief Map of the other to check that it agrees with the facts.
2. 2. Adjusting Belief Maps: Each side adjusts its Belief Map in order to provide the most coherent explanation of the facts to be explained that were agreed in Stage 1, only using the facts for support that were agreed in Stage 1. Areas of remaining incoherence identified by the authors are highlighted in red: red lines to show inconsistencies between between beliefs, and red frames to belief boxes show that are not justified through logically valid arguments.
3. 3. Coherence Analysis: Each side analyses the Belief Map of the other side in order to see whether there are more areas of incoherence than those already indicated. As each side is working through the opponent's belief system, they can identify those beliefs which they have screened for coherence and found satisfactory by adding a green frame to them. Since the rules of logic are clear, it will be possible for both sides to agree on those instances where they have been broken. A final version of the Belief Maps is then agreed, including the areas of incoherence in red.
4. 4. Coherence Measurement: The coherence of each system in explaining the facts is then measured in terms of its Coherence Quotient (CQ, for details see Truth - how to find it). The CQs are then compared. If one system has a higher CQ than the other, it is declared the winner of the first round of the debate and as having the highest probability of being true. The losing side may then request a re-match in which both start again from Stage 1 and the losing side makes changes to its Belief Map in order to increase its CQ. If both systems have the same CQ, then the debate provides a case study for further development of the truth test (for some the options to explore, see Coherent Explanation of the Facts)

One round of this process could take from between a few hours to a few months to complete, depending upon the complexity of the belief systems involved.

With two sides, A and B, if A is afraid to lose and makes unreasonable demands on the wording of the facts, B is free to pull out of the debate and can cite the reasons for the record. A neutral observer would be able to identify if the wording required by A was unreasonable, and so there would be a loss of face for A.

In theory the method could be used for debates between more than two sides, but this might bring at least two potential problems:

• More time-consuming: Stages 1 and 3 would take much longer, particularly since securing a three-way agreement is more complex than securing a two-way agreement.

• Deal-making: with three parties A, B and C, if side A is afraid of coming last in the debate it may be rational for them to join forces with side B to force side C to come last and allow B to win. This could be done by A and B insisting on certain wording for the facts to be explained and facts for support, which they know will make things difficult for C. Although C could pull out citing unreasonable behaviour and a neutral observer could corroborate this, the strength in numbers of A and B together claiming that C was unreasonable could avoid a loss of face for them and hence still make the deal-making rational. If the neutral observer was turned into a facilitator with powers to punish deal-making e.g. banning A and B from using that debating forum again, then this problem could be solved.

How it achieves the Intermediate Objectives

All of the Intermediate Objectives are fully met:

• Clear communication of each viewpoint: the use of Belief Maps ensures clear communication of each viewpoint, while the Coherence Analysis stage ensures that each side really understands the beliefs of the other side by making them analyse them in detail.

• Use of an agreed truth test: the main truth test is the coherent explanation of facts. It is expected that all sides on any debate will be able to agree to this test for three reasons. Firstly, it assesses any belief system on its own terms. Each belief system is free to adopt its own preferred truth sub-test, provided that it is justified in a way that is coherent with the facts. For instance, the atheist is free to rely on the scientific method to justify its beliefs, while the Christian is free to use the Bible to justify its beliefs, providing that both methods are themselves justified in a coherent way. There can potentially even be incoherencies in a belief system provided they are coherently explained. For instance, Daoists argue that the Dao or Way cannot be coherently described using a coherent argument that reality is too complex for words to describe. Secondly, the truth tests rely on a pragmatic operational definition of truth as the accurate prediction of sense experiences that involves no controversial assumptions about the nature of reality and is simply based upon the uncontroversial assumption that our main interest in truth is in order to help us cope with reality. Thirdly, the test may be objectively applied using the quantitative CQ measure. Therefore, the only reason why someone would not agree to the test is if they are afraid of the results. This puts them in a difficult position, since to not enter into the debate would be tantamount to declaring their lack of confidence in the coherence of their system.

• Separation of truth from value: this is acheived because the Belief Maps being debated do not include any values whatsoever. Values are analysed separately in Value Maps following the Value System Search method.

How it achieves the Overall Objective

This may be analysed in terms of the two aspects to efficiency:

• Probability of believing the truth: Psychology finds that when confronted by evidence that goes against one’s beliefs, the first response is to deny the validity of evidence, the second is to change peripheral beliefs to accommodate the evidence, and only the third is to change central beliefs. If a belief system is more likely to be true the more coherent it is at explaining the relevant facts, the probability of people believing the truth is therefore increased by the method in two ways. Firstly, the winning side will gain adherents and hence more people will believe the belief system with the highest probability of being true on the given issue. Given the above psychological findings, these new adherents are likely to largely come from the ranks of neutral observers, rather than the losing side. Because Stage 1 cannot include those beliefs which adherents consider to be ‘facts’ where the other sides disagrees, the belief systems being analysed will be weaker versions of those that each side actually holds to. For instance, Christians who believe they have had actual spiritual experiences of God may feel that a version of their faith based on the fact that “People claim to have spiritual experiences” does not carry the same force. So adherents to the losing side may feel justified in denying the validity of the evidence. Secondly, during the first and any subsequent rounds of the debate, both sides will have cause to revise their belief systems to increase their coherence and hence probability of being true. This may not just be through altering beliefs, but also through researching new ‘facts’ that can provide support. Thus, even if no one changes sides, the debate will have been beneficial. Debates as currently conducted are unlikely to be so productive: neutral observers have insufficient information to judge which side is most likely to be true and so either cannot choose or may make the wrong choice; neither side of the debate has the incentive to improve the coherence of their system because the debates do not directly touch on this; and even they did want to improve the coherence, they would not know their own belief system well enough to be able to know the key areas of incoherence!

• Costs: The initial costs of the debate may be higher than traditional methods since it is likely to be quite time intensive, but it is expected that the much higher productivity will more than compensate for this.

Belief System Debate via the Internet

Conducting Belief System Debates via the internet would allow debates to be conducted between anyone in the world with internet access. There would be a central website to facilitate the debates, which would give a mindmap showing how the different debates are connected. For instance, the first debate might be over whether the supernatural exists, from which different branches would emerge for the different options e.g. atheism and the different religions. The branch for atheism would divide into all the sciences and humanities, which have a secular basis to them e.g. within environmental science there would be a debate about climate change. The branches for the different religions would then have various intersections for the different doctrinal debates within each religion that have created different denominations. These debates might take different verses of the religion's holy book as the facts to be explained, with doctrinal positions assessed in terms of how coherently they can explain the relevant verses. There would also be debates about what each religion's perspective should be on the sciences and humanities, given that religions will have a different view of human nature than atheists. Such a structure would ensure that debate only takes place between people who share similar enough views for it not get side-tracked onto another issue (see the section on Preconditions above).

Let's say you think that your belief system on a particular subject is the best around. To enter into a debate with it you would look on the mindmap to see if there has already been a debate on that subject. If there hasn't, you would notify the facilitator who would set up a new intersection. On that intersection you would post your Belief Map and its CQ score, and anyone else would be free to challenge you on the same (or similar) facts to be explained. If someone challenges you, you would either communicate via email attaching the Belief Maps, or the Belief Maps could be run on-line to allow people to observe the debate taking place. The Belief Maps of both of you would be displayed on the website, ranked according to their CQ scores.

In order to launch the site, some debates could be sponsored by companies, with high cash prizes for the winner. Once it becomes well-known, simply having your Belief Map posted as the best on a particular subject is likely to be sufficient reward in itself. Winners may well gain media coverage, such as if there is an underdog story of someone self-taught with little formal education, beating university professors. Winning at Belief System Debate would then become cool, and children would have an incentive to study hard at school in the hope that one day, they too could be a champion... And all the while, the CQs of the belief systems are rising, as the mental capacity of humanity is finally being fully harnessed to bring us closer to the truth and so help us all to cope better with reality.

Once a good number of debates have been posted, if you visit the site with an open mind you could use it to develop your belief system. You would start at the debate about the supernatural at look at the winning Belief Map, let's say it is atheism. If you thought you could do better you would debate with the person or group who had posted it. If not, you would accept it as most probably true, and work your way through the debates in science and the humanities in the same way, gradually building up your worldview. You could then sign up to an email service that alerts you if one of the Belief Maps you had chosen has been beaten. In this way, you can ensure that your beliefs evolve over time and you can keep your surfboard on the edge of the wave of human progress with very little effort. After a number of years with the atheist Belief Map remaining undefeated, imagine that a new discovery is made that tips the debate about the supernatural decisively against atheism and in favour of a particular religion. The email announcing the change covers the globe in a few seconds like a tsunami. Will you try to ride the tsunami and nimbly change your whole worldview, or will you be flattened?

What is Value?

Defining Value

Value or goodness may be defined as the quality or property that something has which means that we ought to appreciate and promote it. It may be applied both to morality (moral or ethical value) and to the appearances of things (aesthetic value). For instance, if we say that an action is morally right, we mean that it has moral value attached to it and therefore ought to be done. Equally, if we say that a painting is beautiful, we mean that it has aesthetic value and therefore ought to be appreciated. Our values are our beliefs in what has value.

Some philosophers disagree with this definition, arguing that talk about value is meaningless in that it doesn’t assert the existence of any property, whether subjectively or objectively. They believe instead what talk about values does is to either express an emotion or taste about something, or to command that something be done. So if I say that something has value, what I really mean is either that I like it, or I am commanding that the person I am talking to act to promote it. But this does not seem to fit how we actually think about values and so I think it can be ruled out.

If we ought to promote and appreciate something purely for its own sake, then it has intrinsic value. For instance, many would say that human life has intrinsic value. If it is of value only because it useful in promoting something else, then it has instrumental value. For instance, food is of instrumental value in promoting human life. It would appear that if anything has instrumental value, it must be derived from something with intrinsic value, since how can something be of value if what it promotes is worthless? Intrinsic value is therefore the main thing that we will talk about.


How values difer from other beliefs

Statements about value seem to be on a different dimension from statements about other things. This is because you cannot construct an argument about what has value purely from factual statements. The most famous example of this is the statement that ‘you should do what God wants’, which is asserting that ‘obeying God’s commands has value’. You might think that this can be derived simply from factual statements about the nature of God (e.g. all loving, creator of the world), and the statement that God exists. But some philosophers have cheekily asked ‘why should I act on what God commands?’ To this, you might reply ‘whatever is created has a moral obligation to obey it’s creator’s commands’, but this is simply another value statement to which the philosopher can again ask ‘why?’ There simply is no way to justify why we should act on God’s commands relying purely on factual statements. This law that you cannot go from a factual statement to a value statement, or from an ‘is’ to an ‘ought’, is called Hume’s Law after the philosopher who came up with it. And to try to derive a value statement from a factual statement is called the ‘naturalistic fallacy’. This means that it is wrong to say that theism provides a basis for values whereas atheism doesn't, since at the end of the day even the value of God must be founded on an assumption (albeit one that many can intuitively accept).


Where Value exists

If statements about value are on a different dimension from statements about other things, this raises the question of where this quality of value exists. There are three possibilities:

a) Outside human minds (objective)
Value exists independently of humans. It is therefore out there to be discovered by us. If I say that something has value, I am asserting that it would still have value even if I didn’t exist.

b) Inside human minds (subjective)
Value only exists inside our minds. When we say that something is valuable, we ourselves are investing it with the property of value. It is therefore created by us – we can decide what things are valuable or important to us. When we say that something has value, there are two possibilities here. On one view, I am really asserting that it just has value to me. On another view, I am asserting that it objectively has value.

c) Beyond the objective-subjective distinction
There are two possibilities here. Value can be an emergent property that arises from the interaction between human minds and an external reality. Or it can be seen as something that belongs to a mystical reality in which the distinction between human minds and an external reality is not valid.

So how can we choose between these different accounts? It seems to me that each account depends upon a wider belief system for its justification, and so we cannot judge between them without first assessing these wider belief systems. For instance, an argument used by some philosophers against the first view that values objectively exist, is that if you cannot go from an ‘is’ to an ‘ought’, then it is impossible to ever discover what has value in the world through our physical senses. They argue that values must therefore be within our own minds where we can easily access them. But to this the advocate of values being objective can reply that in addition to our physical senses we have a ‘moral sense’ that connects us to what has value. A secular philosopher may dismiss this, but a theist may have a coherent belief system that justifies the existence of this moral sense e.g. that it was created by God. The only way to resolve this issue is therefore to assess the truth of the different belief systems, which may done using the Belief System Debate method.

To see how to find Value, go to Value - how to find it?.

Value System Search

Introduction

Value System Search provides off-the-shelf value principles that are designed to be bolted onto your existing belief system and value intuitions. We also offer a bespoke service which provides a personal fitting for you. All you have to do is to complete your Value Map, then leave the rest to us. Whichever service you opt for, we guarantee that these will turbo-charge your life with a boost of purpose and direction, or your money back!

Academic moral philosophers analyse different value principles according to whether they fit in with their value intuitions, and so there is already a large literature about this. Each of these philosophers seem to assume that everyone shares the same value intuitions and background beliefs as them, which is why they think that it is possible to have a debate about them. However, people certainly differ in their background beliefs, and may also differ in their value intuitions, which may be why moral philosophy does not get very far. It would therefore seem to make sense to instead proceed in a more flexible way. Also, they do not conduct this analysis in as systematic manner as Value System Analysis which lays out all of the values, beliefs and the arguments that connect them in a clear way.


Objectives

The basic objectives of Value System Search are to:

• Help people identify suitable value principles to adopt: you need to find value principles that best suit your beliefs about the world and your existing value intuitions.

• Help people to assess the suitability of their existing value principles: even if you already have value principles, if there are areas of incoherence in your Value Map it may be that other value principles would be more useful for you. You therefore need to be able to easily find value principles that suit your own personal circumstances which you can compare.

Method

The method is to provide a website containing various kinds of value system. For a given combination of value intuitions and beliefs, each value system would provide the value principle that is best able to provide a reflective equilibrium for you i.e that can justify and explain the value intuitions and is consistent with one's wider belief system. If you believe in a monotheistic God, the value principle is to do His will, since He is the source of intrinsic value in the universe. However, which version of monotheism (e.g. Christianity, Islam) is most appropriate for you may well depend upon your value intuitions. If you are an atheist and have a value intuition that nature is intrinsically valuable in itself, it may be that the value principle of unified diversity is the most suitable for you. Whereas if you are an atheist who does not see nature as intrinsically valuable, then the value principle of happiness of the greatest number may be most suitable for you, since this only sees nature as having instrumental value in making sentient beings happy.

It would make sense for the Value System Search website to be closely linked to the Theory Mapping website so that someone who has worked out their belief system through the latter website, can then conduct the Value System Search to find an appropriate value system.

Value System Analysis

Why there is a need for it

In Value - how to find it?, we have already identified the need for principles of value that can provide a higher sense of purpose to our lives, as well as to help guide our actions where our existing values are silent or in conflict. However, athough technology is developing rapidly, I am not aware of any tools to assist us in finding these principles of value. I think that this lack of tools is for three main reasons:

• Value principles come in systems: the reason that you believe a particular value principle (if you do) is because it forms part of a relatively coherent value system in which the value principle justifies and explains your basic values, and is itself probably justified by basic value assumptions and an associated belief system (for an explanation of this, see Value - how to find it?). Value systems are therefore often too complex to summarise, and their association with particular belief systems means that those belief systems need themselves to be clearly understood.

• Value principles are personal: since one's basic values and belief systems may differ between people, a value principle that ensures a reflective equilibrium for me may not ensure it for you. This makes it harder to discuss value principles since people are working from different and potentially irreconcilable starting points.

• Values are often unconscious: we are probably not aware of most of the basic values we hold, even though every decision has some value judgement behind it. For instance, many actions are motivated by the need to promote or maintain our self esteem. Our self esteem is based on the extent to which our self image fits our ideal image of how we think we should be. This ideal image is based on values, many of which we will have picked up from our parents and peers e.g. to be beautiful, intelligent, successful etc. If we ignore these unconscious values and only look at the obvious moral values that we hold, we may end up with higher value principles that we cannot fully act upon because they are not coherent with large parts of our personality. What is unconscious is by definition hard to find.

• Values are fixed: it may be argued that our values are fixed and so there is no point having a tool to change them. I do not think this is strictly true. Principles of value are certainly not fixed, otherwise people would not be able to join or leave religions. Our value intuitions are hard to change, but change is probably still possible. The reflective equilibrium method (that we saw in Value - how to find it), is based on the assumption that if you have found principles of value that are extremely coherent with all of your value intuitions except for one or two, then you will find those value intuitions changing to ensure full coherence. Experience gained from applying the Value System Search method will be able to test if this assumption is correct.

How it works

The method of Value System Analysis provides a solution to the first two problems. The first problem is resolved by showing value systems graphically, just as Belief System Analysis shows belief systems graphically. Values are put in boxes and the logical arguments connecting them are represented by arrows, so the apparent complexity is made simple. The linkages between one's value system and one's wider belief system are easy by using Value System Analysis and Belief System Anlaysis together. The second problem is resolved by the fact that the method allows you to create a value system that is most rational for you personally by allowing you to easily assess value systems against the three criteria for rationality given in Value - how to find it.


Tools

Value System Analysis consists of the following two tools:

• Value Maps: how to map out a value system in a way that can be clearly understood, and that allows analysis of how rational it is for you to adopt it.

• Value System Search: how Value Maps can be used to help people find a suitable value system.

The best software for Value System Analysis this is called Visual Concept. Microsoft Excel can also be used, but Visual Concept allows you to link boxes much faster and to create clusters of boxes which can be easily moved around.

Value Maps

Objectives

The objective of Value Maps is to present a value system in a way that facilitates:

• Clear understanding: Value Maps can help you to understand both the nature and role of your own value system. They can help you to understand its nature by forcing you to uncover all of the values and beliefs that consitute it and the arguments that link them. You may find that you have grand principles of value underpinning the value system, or you may find that it consists largely of isolated value intuitions without any value principles. Value Maps can help you to understand the role of your value system by uncovering the value questions that it helps you to answer and act on.

• Finding value principles: if your value system lacks principles of value, creating a Value Map is the first step towards finding a value principle that is rational for you.

• Testing existing value principles: if your value system already has principles of value (which is likely if you belong to an organised religion), Value Maps can help you to analyse how useful they are in providing purpose to your life and guidance. You can then use Value System Search to compare their performance with other value principles, and if it compares badly either try to increase its usefulness or change to another value principle.

• Clear communication: Value Maps enable you to clearly communicate the nature, role and usefulness of your value system to others. Value Maps are therefore the first step to help others to find a suitable value system for them. See Value System Search for more information.

Elements of a Value Map

A Value Map consists of different coloured boxes that represent different types of values and beliefs, and different kinds of lines that represent different kinds of connection between them. These different elements are shown in the diagram below, with the meaning of each explained within the box.


To highlight some points from this:

• Logical argument: this is represented by the black block arrows. See Coherent Explanation of Facts for what is meant by a logical argument, and Belief System Analysis for an explanation of how this is represented graphically. For value statements to be logically justified, at least one premise must itself by a value statement (see Value - what is it? for an explanation of this).

• Value question: these are purple boxes (purple for mystery). These are the issues where you either already have value intuitions that guide you, or where you do not and would like guidance e.g. in Nietzsche's belief system, a value question is 'How much should you focus on helping yourself and how much on helping others?'. These are a bit like the facts to be explained in Belief System Analysis, in that a value system is designed to answer the value questions just as a belief system is designed to explain the facts. See Value - how to find it? for more information.

• Value statements: these are generally orange boxes (orange for mystical). Value statements are beliefs which state what has value or what ought or should be done. Value principles are those value statements which provide logical justification for answers to the value questions e.g. in Nietzsche's belief system, the central value principle is 'To have intrinsic value humans must actualise their potential for self-perfection'. This helps to justify two other value principles that 'The meaning of each person's life is to perfect themselves if they are strong, or if not to help the strong perfect themselves', and 'Society should be organised in order to enable the strong to perfect themselves'.

• Value intuitions: these are yellow boxes (yellow for light that guides the way). They are value statements that you believe intuitively. They are the equivalent to the facts for support in grey boxes in Belief Maps, in that they can provide justification but do not themselves need to be justified. Those value intuitions that correspond to the value questions are placed above the questions. If they are logically consistent with the value statements that answer the value questions, there is a black line joining them to the question. I would suggest that in Nietzsche's belief system, a value intuition is that 'For humans to have intrinsic value they must be unique in the universe'.

• Beliefs from Belief Map: these are beliefs not values, which are nonetheless necessary for the logical justification of the values. For instance, Nietzsche's value principle that 'To have intrinsic value humans must actualise their potential for self-perfection' is justified by the belief that 'Humans are unique in their potential degree of power as self-perfection' together with the value intuition given above. The beliefs would normally be contained within a Belief Map positioned below the Value Map.

• Definitions: technical terms used in the value system are defined in pink boxes, with the term itself given in capital letters. When these terms are used in values they are also put in capital letters so that you know there is a special definition for them and can then look it up. It made sense to do this rather than to use arrows between the definitions and the values that use them, since many values may use the same concept and it would be visually too complicated. If a definition cascades, with the definition using concepts that themselves have a special meaning, the definitions of sub-concepts are linked by black line arrows.

• Incoherence: areas of incoherence are shown in red (red for error or warning). Logical inconsistency between values is generally shown by a red line between the values in question. However, for inconsistency between value intuitions that correspond to value questions and the value statements that answer the value questions, inconsistency is shown by a red line between the value intuition and the value question. If the value statement does not provide an adequate answer to the value question, there is red line between the two of them. The lack of a value to be logically justified (providing it is not a vale intuition) is shown by the value being outlined in red. This may be either because there is no argument for it or the logic of the argument is not valid. For instance, if you don't find 'For humans to have intrinsic value they must be unique in the universe' in Nietzsche's belief system to be intuitively true, you would colour it orange and put a red frame around it. It then becomes a basic value assumption that the value system requires but which you are not intuitively drawn to.

Layout of a Value Map

Value Maps consist of a cluster of values structured as shown above with the value questions at the top, and answers to them with their justifications underneath. If there are value intutions concerning the value questions, these are placed above the value questions. Definitions are put into a separate cluster above the Value Map.

When a Value Map is combined with a Belief Map, the overall layout is as follows:


This imagines that Epistemology contains the most foundational beliefs that inform the Explanations and Theory, while Explanations and Theory form much of the basis for the Value System. Of course, one could look at it in a different way and see the Value System as foundational, including the value of truth. But it has to arranged in one way and this arrangement seemed to work best for the example of Nietzsche's belief system. The Defintions cluster can be placed anywhere, but the top made sense since it is probably the first place one looks.


Process for creating a Value Map

In creating a Value Map of your value system, in theory you could start at any part of the Value Map first, and work out from it to the others. But in practise, it is probably best to follow the following order:

1. 1. Find your value questions: it is the answering of these questions which defines the purpose of the value system, and so working from them ensures that you keep focused. Ask yourself what are the value questions that you need answers to in order to guide your decisions and put them in a row in the Value Map.
2. 2. Find your value intuitions: for each value question, ask yourself whether you already have a intuitive answer to it. This value intuition may be unconscious and so can best be revealed by thinking of decisions you have already made when faced with the value question. If you have a value intuition, put it above the value answer, if not leave the space above the value question empty.
3. 3. Find your value principles: for each value intuition that you have, ask yourself 'why is this valuable?' Write down the answer and for this value statement again ask yourself 'why is this valuable?'. Key asking why until you get to a value statement that is so basic that it cannot be justified by anything else. If you repeat this process for each value intuition and end up with the same value statement, then this is likely to be a value principle for you. You are then ready to move onto stage 4. If there are no common value statements that are behind your value intuitions, then you will need to find a value principle by using the Value System Search tool.
4. 4. Test your value principles: test how useful your value principles are in providing purpose to your life and guidance. You can do this by highlighting the incoherencies in red on the Value Map: are there logically consistencies between the Value Map and the relevant Belief Map? (mark with red lines); are there basic value assumptions that you do not intuitively agree with? (mark with red frames); are the value principles able to explain and justify your existing value intuitions by providing answers to the value questions that are consistent with the value intuitions? (mark with red lines). Finally, are there value questions which are not answered by the value principles? Once you have done this, you are ready to communicate your Value Map to others, and to compare the performance of your value principles with others in the Value System Search tool.

Coherent explanation of the facts

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In what follows, I explain why the test for the truth of explanation of existing sense experiences should be operationalised as coherent explanation of the facts.

To operationalise the test we need to outline what is meant by existing sense experiences, and what would constitute an acceptable explanation.


‘Existing sense experiences'

I would like to define ‘existing sense experiences’ as meaning publicly verifiable experiences which are reproducible for anyone, and can be stated in the form of ‘facts’. For instance, the statement “Britain is an island” may be verified by anyone who wanted to fly around its coast and have the sense experience of seeing sea all the way around.

If it is not possible for anyone to gain a direct experience of the fact, perhaps because it is about an event in history, then it should be formulated to include sense experience of the means of verification. For instance, “All history books state that X” states that anyone looking in a history book will experience sentences stating that X.

If there is an issue over which there is disagreement, the fact should be stated in a way that all sides can agree to. For instance, on the question of whether UFOs exist or not, the relevant fact is that “Many people think they have seen UFOs with the circumstances documented in books X, Y and Z”.

On any subject, there will be a particular set of facts that the competing theories need to explain. In addition, particular theories may have facts that they see as constituting evidence for their point of view. Alternative theories will also need to explain these facts. For instance, the main fact to be explained on UFOs is the reported sightings. UFO sceptics might want to point to the fact of differences in the descriptions of aliens and their craft. While UFO believers might want to point to facts concerning government secrecy over UFOs. An adequate theory must therefore be able to satisfactorily explain all of these facts.


'Explanation'

The explanation of a fact must meet three conditions:

1. Outline the first-level cause

This is the immediate cause of the fact. For instance, an explanation of “Many people think they have seen UFOs with the circumstances documented in books X, Y and Z” is "Many people have actually seen UFOs".

This first-level cause enables the sense experiences to be predicted in the future in a very rudimentary way, and so ensures that the explanation provides a minimum level of useful information. For instance, explanation A predicts that when a UFO is present, then people will think they see it.

But this is clearly not enough as a test for the truth, since many other explanations could be provided for the same fact. For instance, in the case of UFOs, and an alternative explanation could be "Many people have seen certain things under certain conditions and mistaken them for UFOs". There has to be some justification for why the explanation is true. This leads us to the second condition.


2. Provide a valid deductive argument

There must be a valid argument for the first-level cause using deductive logic. A ‘deductive argument’ is one in which it is impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion false. For instance, a possible deductive argument (loosely written) for explanation A is:

1. 1. People who are well-respected members of the community are more trustworthy than government scientists (premise)
2. 2. Many well-respected members of communities think they have seen real UFOs, while government scientists argue that they were mistaken (premise)
3. 3. Many people have actually seen UFOs (conclusion).

While an argument for explanation B could be:

1. 1. If there are different explanations for something, the explanation that is most coherent with current scientific understanding should be preferred (premise)
2. 2. If people think they have seen UFOs, either they actually saw UFOs or they saw certain things under certain conditions and mistook them for UFOs (premise)
3. 3. That sightings of UFOs are caused by visual mistakes is more coherent with current scientific understanding than that real UFOs were seen, since science cannot explain how UFOs can move so quickly (premise)
4. 4. Many people think they have seen UFOs (premise)
5. 5. If people think they have seen UFOs, the preferred explanation is that they saw certain things under certain conditions and mistook them for UFOs (conclusion from 1, 2 and 3)
6. 6. Many people have seen certain things under certain conditions and mistaken them for UFOs (conclusion from 4 and 5)

The deductive type of argument must be used because other types contain fallacies which if corrected turn them into deductive arguments. So for instance, an ‘inductive argument’ that ‘A causes B’ based on a statistical correlation between A and B, requires additional premises about there being no third factors and about the direction of causality. While an argument of ‘inference to the best explanation’ that ‘A exists’ because O exists and E is the best explanation of O, requires a deductive argument for why E is the best explanation of O.

However, a deductive argument will only come up with a true conclusion if the premises are true. This leads us to the third condition.


3. Belong to a coherent belief system

As we have seen, some premises may be justified from the fact itself (as for 2 for A, and 4 for B). However, it will always be necessary to bring in some premises that are not contained in the fact itself otherwise it would not be in need of explanation! If each premise needs to be justified by other deductive arguments with their own premises, then there is a danger of an ‘infinite regress’ of premises. Two approaches to this exist in philosophy:

Foundationalism argues that belief systems are like a building in which basic beliefs provide justification for all other beliefs, like the foundation of the building. These basic beliefs do not themselves need justification from other beliefs, either because they are self-evidently true, like the truths of logic and mathematics, or because they are justified directly from sense experiences. However, this view has now been largely discredited within philosophy. Truths which were previously thought self-evident in logic and mathematics have been called into question e.g. by quantum physics. And sense experiences can only yield justified beliefs about the world when combined with background beliefs about how to interpret those experiences e.g. what they mean and how reliable they are, and so the infinite regress is not stopped.

Coherentism argues that there are no basic beliefs, with beliefs being justified by belonging to a coherent belief system. On this view, belief systems are like a spider's web where the strength of the web is provided by its coherent structure, in which each belief or line of web is supported by the others but also plays a role in itself providing support. Beliefs differ in how many other beliefs they support, and hence in their structural importance to the overall system. This is just as sections in a spider’s web nearer the centre are more important structurally than sections nearer the periphery.

There are different views as to how to define 'coherence', but the main view is that it consists of two aspects. Firstly, that the beliefs are logically consistent i.e. they do not contradict themselves. And secondly, that the truth of each belief is justified by others in the system. Since we are insisting on deductive logic to provide justification, then we may say for every belief must be the conclusion of a deductive argument in which the premises are other beliefs in the system.

Not only does coherentism solve the infinite regress problem, but it also seems to be a good description of how our belief systems actually work. For instance, the strength of our belief in logic and mathematics could be said to come from the fact that they are in the centre of all our belief systems, with all the other beliefs depending upon them. Although they are not themselves justified logically, they provide logical justification to all of our other beliefs. Their presence in the system therefore increases its overall coherence and hence is beneficial.

The main criticism is that coherentism is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for truth. It is not necessary because there is no reason why the truth should appear coherent to our limited human minds, and it is not sufficient because you could have more than one equally coherent belief system. To answer this criticism we have to go back to our definition of truth as the accurate prediction of sense experiences. In order to be able to make predictions about the way that reality interacts with us, we have to have coherent theories that we can practically use. Some level of coherence therefore is necessary for the truth.

In terms of whether one can have more than one equally coherent system, I think there are two concerns here. One is that purely focusing upon the coherence of a belief system within itself allows it to float free from any connection to the sense experiences we want to explain and predict. However, this is not an issue for us because we are insisting that the belief system explain certain facts. Continuing the spider web analogy, these facts can be thought of as fixed points in the environment that the web attaches itself to and gains structural support from - a spider's web without such points to hang from simply collapses. So not only is the belief system explaining the facts, but the fact that it is able to explain them gives it justification.

The second concern is that you could have two equally coherent explanations of the facts. In fact, you could make up an entirely fictitious account and it could be just as coherent as a serious explanation, much like a mentally ill person can create a coherent belief system for why people are trying to kill them. I am not convinced that this problem would ever occur in pratice and believe that experience of such cases is needed in order to formulate an appropriate response. For instance, one possible response is to require that in such a situation the simplist explanation (i.e. with the least number of beliefs) be preferred. This is a popular criterion known as 'Ockham's Razor' after William of Ockham who said "Plurality should not be posited without necessity". I have not yet come across an adequate argument for it, but if experience was to show that deliberately fictional explanations are more complex than serious ones perhaps a case could be made for it. A more promising possibility would be to judge the explanations on their usefulness for making predictions. We said earlier that explanations of facts only need to address the first-level cause. But if they can go beyond this to deeper level causes then the belief system which be much more useful in predicting future sense experiences and guiding action. For instance, for explanation A in the UFO example, a second level of explanation could be about the reasons behind UFOs visiting earth. This would be extremely useful in predicting future sightings and guiding governments in how to respond to them if the sightings were real. How this judgement of predictive usefulness or explanatory depth could be done in an objective manner would need to be worked out through specific cases.

I therefore believe that the coherentist approach is the most defensible, and that the third condition should be that the premises of the explanation belong to a coherent belief system. In the case of most intractable debates (e.g. over religion and the supernatural) these belief systems will each have their own beliefs about truth and how to find it. So the belief system of a believer in UFOs may well include conspiracy theories which are used to support premise 1 for explanation A. Equally, the system of the UFO sceptic may have theories of the scientific method that are used to support premise 1 for explanation B.


Putting it all together

Since the immediate arguments justifying the explanations and the overall coherence of the belief system should all be in terms of valid arguments using deductive logic, we can join the second and third conditions for an explanation together to state that all beliefs within the system including the explanations should be coherent i.e. logically consistent and logically justified. The test of truth may therefore called coherent explanation of the facts.

Nietzsche's belief system

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In order to give you an example of the Belief System Analysis method in action, I have done a Belief Map and Value Map of Nietzsche's system of thought. To download the map click here. Because it was done using the Visual Concept software, to view it you should download and install the Visual Concept viewer. To give you an idea of its structure and complexity, see the thumbprint below:



The contents of the Belief and Value Map are based on the most authoritative introduction to Nietzsche's thought - Walter Kaufmann's (1974) Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist - and my reading of his book Beyond Good and Evil. Although Nietzsche has had a bad press and made some bad judgements (such as being against democracy and equal rights!), his philosophy is generally very insightful and inspiring. His main message is to realise your true self, which is to become the kind of person that you most admire. You will know that you have succeeded when you are happy for your entire life to be infinitely repeated.

I think that the Map provides a very clear and concise summary of Nietzsche's main ideas and arguments, which validates the value of Belief and Value Maps. I should add though, that some of the beliefs and values in the map are not directly from his writings. These have been added by me in order to provide some logical justification for his beliefs so that you have a better idea of how a belief system can be constructed. It may be that an expert on Nietzsche would be able to provide justifications that are closer to how he really thought, and I will pass it on to experts for their advice and improve it.

Of course, as well as describing what a thinker's actual belief system was like, we can try to come up with an improved version that retains the key ideas but ensures a higher degree of coherent explanation of the facts. I think that Nietzsche's belief system would be very amenable to this.

Using the Notes function in Visual Concept I have also added some quotes from Nietzsche and Kaufmann that are relevant to particular beliefs, and which can give you a flavour of his style of writing, which is very entertaining. These can be accessed by passing the mouse point over the book symbols in the boxes.