Belief System

The basic components of a belief system are; one, our perceptions, two, our cognitions, three, our emotions and four, our social interactions. This starts at birth or shortly thereafter in the family environment then continues through out our entire lives - constant fluctuations, constant changes. The idea is to develop a belief system(s) that are constructive both to ourselves and to the society in which we live.

The greatest question I have tried to find an answer for, especially regarding the different beliefs regarding Isshinryu Karate, is why do people hold on to some beliefs even if there is evidence to the contrary?

Perceptions: Our perceptions are those abilities we build that allow us to see, hear, touch, taste, smell or become aware of - that have some affect on how we behave in life. Our perceptive filters change as our perceptions build, grow and change. The intuitive understanding and insight so unique to the human brain are like this,  do they come from perceptions or do perceptions come from intuitive understanding - the chicken or the egg model.

We regard, understand and interpret the things we see, hear and touch and that creates a mental impression. The impression in accordance with our perceptions changes the perceptive filter changing the new perceptions and governing our impressions of our world. It is a process in which we gain knowledge and it is subjective to perceptions as well as the other basic components.

Cognition: We all have a unique mental process that best asissts us in acquiring knowledge and achieving understanding related to that knowledge by our thoughts, experiences, and by the senses. Those senses are the gates to which knowledge enters our minds and then associates with perceptive filtering to provide new knowledge. It is a process by which we come to "know" the process which is what this exercise demonstrates. The value and degree of encoding of knowledge is influenced by the mode of presentation regarding an individual's sense mode most conducive to that encoding. Sight sense mode, hearing sense mode and touch (tactile/kinesthetic) sense mode.

This is the part that relates the information with our logic and then emotions as we will discuss in the next section. This allows us to also judge as to the validity and importance of the incoming knowledge resulting it either a change or no change to our perceptions and perceptive filters. This promotes remembering or encoding, reasoning out things such as an appropriate action to some stimuli, i.e. block a strike coming to your face, understanding how the knowledge and its results affect us in part and on the whole and using the judgement that builds from emotions, perceptions and our interactions with other humans. Results of cognition are; a perception, a sensation, a notion, or an intuition.

Emotions: The state of mind as set by a circumstance and the effect it has on mood or a relationship with another person. It is a particular feeling, i.e. anger vs. joy, etc., that characterizes a state of mind, such as joy, anger, love, hate, horror, and so on. It allows an instinctive or intuitive feeling as distinguished from reasoning and knowledge. All are affected by a person sense mode.

Social Interactions: A relationship between two, three or more individuals. That relationship is governed by all the above components and as the chicken or egg metaphor governs social interactions. The process of our actions, interactions and the way we and people act and react to one another be it one-to-one or one-to-many changes our makeup and our perceptive filtering mechanisms, i.e. that which is comprised of the basic components discussed in this post.

When we consider all the possibilities by the basic components discussed here we can begin to see the complexities and obstacles we deal with in changing a belief even in the light of demonstrating evidence that refutes the original belief. It may be proven in current studies that this is hardwired in our brains as a part of the survival instincts.

Interesting don't you think?