Pick two of the following beliefs you have
that are very important to you and your conception of the world.
1) There is a God.
2) There is life after death.
3)
The scientific account of the world is essentially correct.
4) The universe conforms to the laws of
logic.
5) I am a reasonably smart person.
6)
There is some ultimate meaning or purpose to human life.
7) The significant other in my life is
faithful to me.
-Now, suppose you begin to worry about the
possibility that one or more of your beliefs are false. Yet you also realize that it is possible you
might continue on in blissful ignorance all your life without ever finding out
the truth. To solve this problem,
scientists have developed a “reality meter” for testing beliefs. By pushing its button, you will be told which
of your beliefs conform to reality and which are nothing but illusions. Think of your list again. Let’s assume you are comfortable believing
these things to be true, and if you found out otherwise, you would be deeply
troubled. Would you decide to continue
holding these beliefs because they give you a sense of peace, or would you
activate the reality meter in spite of the chance that you’re new and more
accurate knowledge of reality would be disillusioning? What would you do and why?
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