What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?

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I believe that there is not such thing as altruism. What we perceieve as altruism is internal motivation. People never do anything without expecting to gain something in return/be rewarded, even if this is a counterintuitive reward (example, sabotaging oneself).

I believe in free will. I believe in behaviorism, and lean towrd cognitive-behaviorism, and there is NO WAY to prove free will. BUT, believing in free will is beneficial, because if you think you have free will, you will (more likely) act as if you have control over yourself. If you are simple a programmed machine, and you believe this, what hope can you have for your own success in life, however you define this (even if you define it in some simple way like "being happy some of the time")?

I believe my mother and I both may actually have some kind of ability to emit electrical charges beyond what most humans can. Again, there is no way to prove this, but this is a ridiculous belief. Nevertheless, I can't deny the possibility, seeing as a. she has more streetlights go out when she walks under them than mere chance could explain (as do I), b. she cannot wear a battery-powered watch for very long before it dies, c. she can actually have lightbulbs EXPLODE near her if she is upset (and a couple days ago, when I was upset, a light bulb went out), and d. I don't like to think that the fact that electronic equipment malfucntions constantly around me is due to me being utterly incompetant.

I was brought up in a very superstitious household. My mother was something of a mystic, she read cards and we often would have sessions around the ouija board with her as children (cries of OUT SATAN, probably, from some members of WP).

I have always been intensely interested in the sciences even thoough I am an artist by tempermant and choice, but it was only quite recently that I realised just how superstitious I have been because of my mother's influence. I have reacted against it and a lot of the nebulous 'new age' beliefs I once held, and feel I have a more solid view of reality now.

However, I read recently that AS people tend to confuse fantasy and reality until quite late in life so maybe that was a big factor.

There are some things that come under the heading of 'spirituality' that I still do believe almost despite myself:

I believe that the state of enlightenment as described by Buddhist meditators is real, achievable and that the insights gained into the nature of reality match some of the deepest insights of modern science. Science is not the only way of establishing truth.

Like many people I have dabbled in divination. I don't do any of it anymore, and have never had much time for astrology, but I still have a great deal of respect for the I Ching, as poetry, wisdom and guidance. How does it work? Jung says in the intrduction to the edition I have that it is almost possible to believe that a being of great age and wisdom resides within the pages of the book.

Any one else study the I Ching?

From Louis -
Interesting question.........
As a self-centered egotist, I believe that I exist. No doubt in my mind
whatsoever even I have no proof beyond observing the effect I have
on the world around me. People respond when I speak. Marks I make
on objects are still there next time I look.
Yet in some philosophies, I do not exist. In Eastern religions, there IS
no "I" - they claim that what I experience my "self" is something they
call "the false ego" - an illusion created by the electrical activity in my
brain - and it will disappear when my brain dies.
Which seems to mean, by their own definition, that maybe THEY all
don't exist. No argument from me.....
Anybody out there think you don't exist either ???

The words that Robert E. Howard gave to Conan come to mind:

"Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is an illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and I am content." -- (Howard, Queen of the Black Coast, Weird Tales, May 1934).

I believe that god wears a hawaiian T shirt. I don't know if god in his most natural form has a torso, but somehow he wears a hawaiian shirt.

As one of my favorite books ever (at least out of those I read in school) was Fahrenheit 451 I believe that Ben Franklin wasnt really a firefighter who burned books. I always loved how both that and 1984 really showed you how you cant really prove anything and that everything you believe is just a matter of faith (though I didnt really like 1984 as it was way too slow for my tastes, at least when I read it it was, maybe I should try again.

I believe in God.

"Anybody out there think you don't exist either ???"

I'm fairly sure I don't exist.

"Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is an illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and I am content." -- (Howard, Queen of the Black Coast, Weird Tales, May 1934).

It's a cool quote, and it is a good example of someone that has the capacity to understand the theory intellectually, and then return to everyday life.

I think one might say that others 'realize' this philosophy, not just understand it. For some people, after they have 'realized' it, life is never the same.

I believe in murphy's law of lesser hypocrasy. That whenever you make a petty belittling comment about someone elses competance you will make an ironic mistake that makes you look like a hypocrit.
Seriously. This happens so often on the internet in games, in presentations, in general discourse, it either isnt a coincidence or we have entered one of those weird periods in time when a penny does land heads up 50 times in a row.

I believe that both the ability to make electronic equimpent wokrs is negaitvely correlated with anxiesy level and complexity of the equipment.

((Might I add, a law of psychical ability in relation to emotions and environemtn in all of my stories is that people are unable to open bags of chips when agitated, though I would not argue this in real life.))

Off subject, but

Serissa wrote:

By the way, can't follow your link, it just takes me to the original post on WP where you put it.

I agree with everything you say here about a cure, but not a cure for being who you are. It is completely useless to play the 'what if' game, but I could wish that there had been a diagnosis available when I was a child, this aleviating a lot of the crap I have been through. Up to now I have thought that the 'proud to be an aspie, and wouldn't change it if I could' school here were mainly younger people who, because of early diagnosis and intervention have not had as many problems as some of us older people who just did not know (and whose parents/teachers etc. did not know) what the hell was going on. I may be wrong.

I wouldn't give up my gifts (artistic ability, rich internal world/imagination, intellect) but there is so much I wish I could have been helped with. However, I do have a lot of knowledge and experience which will help my AS son.

Back to the subject: I believe that if there is a god (no, I don't know one way or the other), it is an emergent property of some kind of unified consciousness in the universe, an 'overmind' which may be independant of time and space, forever transcendant. Therefore this 'overmind' is not independant of us, but dependant on life throughout the universe as a whole. It is not omnipotent or omnisentient at any particular point in time, but forever becoming, in an evolutionary sense.

Some people may be able to catch glimpses of the workings of this 'cosmic consciousness,' and tend to do and say strange and extraodinary things because of these insights. Unfortunately they get written down in books, usually years after their deaths, that become deadly, dogmatic traps to bind us with. Shame that.

The link goes to the post. It is working correctly.

I like that quote. It kind of sums up my outlook on the world. There is so much debate to what is "true" and "real" and "factual" in the world, but no one ever really knows what is true. Its all a matter of perception. Its ever changing. In many ways, whatever we believe is true, because it is what defines us. So much of history is marked by mass belief in some "fact" that humans later disproved.

I wonder how much of my AS is in my head and how much is science. But it doesn't really matter. It affects me the same either way. The same is true of anything. If we believe there is a monster in our closet, does it matter if its there or not?

I remember, growing up, always being fascinated by the idea that I might not really exist. In Junior High, I told my English teacher that the only logical explanation for existence is that we (and the world) didn't actually exist. (I won't bore you with the details of that theory, but it made complete sense at the time.)

Hell, I'm still fascinated by it. There is so much to the human mind that we don't see or comprehend. Our brains do not know the difference between what we see in our dreams and what we see in our waking life. So who is to say what is real and who exists?

I suppose I'm just fairly glad that we are "not existing" together, in some aspect.

I believe we have a fully functioning mid to upper to outer atmospheric space fleet in addition to any thing you read about on nasa. I believe most UFO's are our own craft. I believe at least I am partially right. But I don't think about it much-so what, if it were true we don't know and I wouldn't want to go messing...around with subjects such as that. But, yeah, I think we are more advanced than we lead on.

There used to be somebody at the office where I work who would short out every keyboard they used for some reason. They ended up having some kind of wire wrist strap attached to the desk keyboard-holder that would ground them so they didn't ruin the computer equipment.

After quite a few hard knocks in life here are some things I've
learned to be true that I cannot prove:


If you bring forth that which is within you,
what you bring forth will save you.

If you do not bring forth that which is
within you, what you do not bring forth
will destroy you.

Gospel of Saint Thomas


And:


What lies before us and what lies behind us are small matters
compared to what lies within us. And when we bring what is
within us out into the world, miracles happen.

Henry David Thoreau