Coming out of the closet

[putnam6]

He held strong to his faith in the vision the model he presented tried to incorporate. He actually would have been better off being a little less attached to the rational explanations he gave, for example, of how the tides worked, as they turned out to be quite contradictory. Nothing wrong with that, in fact laudable. As is the irrational vision of a larger world that drove those monkeys you mention in the mythology you presented.

I suppose I should clarify, that in my previous post when I mentioned "belief-systems", I was referring specifically to rational, formal belief-systems. Those which may be delineated by a set of facts, observations, assertions, hypotheses, etc., and not to the irrational or transcendent "belief" which drives vision, gives us the impetus to develop and strive, and as you rightly point out, is irrepressible and rooted beyond the personal.

Glad you clarified because 'entertained" beliefs and conspiratorial models are not a belief system at all.

Hell for most the  "belief" conspiratorial models have grown because, in the last 3 1/2, some of them have seemed to come true. Still, my belief is all the models listed and reading or watching is pure entertainment and a way to pass the time and ponder the unknown, you know those few chromosomes that set us apart from the "monkey mythology"

Are you so contrarian that you don't hold the "belief" that some monkeys evolved from mostly living in trees to eventually living on the ground and walking upright? Is that not the widely accepted theory of our basic evolution?

As for thier motivations and timeline it is all theoretical and speculative 

 

Eventually, it comes down to practical utility. So what about any wild conspiracy theories: how do they affect "real life"? How are they useful? What do they show us, and are they persistently worthwhile? And those are "open-ended" questions.

This is why I feel it is better to "entertain" beliefs and conspiratorial models, rather than "holding" them.