The consistency of belief networks

There’s a peculiar expectation that the statements made by people ought to be consistent both in the moment and throughout all time. After all, how can you be for Y when you previously said Z? In this post, I’ll use networks to explain why consistency in belief is extraordinarily unlikely.

Suppose a set of strings that represent a belief.

For example:

“People, when free, are generally good.”

“Some people seek power over other people.”

“A productive conflict is an exchange of beliefs.”

Let’s set the internal consistency of each string aside. The string contains symbolic representation that is unto itself contestable. “This string is false.” Stare too hard at that sentence, with too much energy, and a black hole will emerge and swallows you whole. Let’s just say that the holder of the string believes it to be true.

Take those belief strings and create an adjacency matrix, let’s call it A, and fill it with linkages among those beliefs.

A perfectly consistent belief network would be one in which every element in the matrix is 1.

The likelihood of possessing a perfectly consistent belief network

The likelihood of possessing a perfectly consistent belief network approaches 0 as the number of beliefs goes to infinity.

Is it possible to hold a single belief and thereby possess a perfectly consistent belief network? Maybe? I’m skeptical that if the Universe itself is alive, and maybe it is, that it, itself, would have a completely consistent belief network. If anything, it seems as though the Universe isn’t certain about much. If I boil it down to the other extreme, I’m not even sure that if a neutrino has consciousness. If a neutrino was conscious, would it possess a single belief? What if it was a single bit of consciousness? In this edge case, there’s a chance that A could be 1, “I only have one belief and it is true” and it would be a self-referential, consistent, belief matrix. However, not all of singular belief systems may be consistent. There’s the case of “This belief is false”, which could resolve into a 0. Maybe the great mystery around neutrinos is that they usually don’t believe in anything else existing? Imagine their surprise when they collide into something?

Because an individual picks up so many beliefs over the course of their experience with themselves, physics, and others, the set of beliefs, in particular unconscious ones, is likely to be extremely high. And, given the scale of elements within A, it’s unlikely anybody would have the time to reflect on each node and the relationship with others. Perhaps the nature of self-reflection is uncountably infinite? I don’t know for sure (how could I?) but it just seems as though it could be true.

In a dialogue with another, one is comparing the strings emitted against ones own adjacency matrix. In comparing your adjacency matrix to what you imagine the others representation is, you can construct scenarios by which you become aware inconsistencies.

And as such, most belief networks, when partially integrated, are likely to generate inconsistencies. I suspect that given the geometry of language and reality, that the set of inconsistencies is much greater than the set of consistencies.

Dynamic belief networks

Sometimes dissonance causes the individual to update cells in their adjacency matrix. It’s a major engine of intellectual and possibly, emotional, growth.

Sometimes dissonance doesn’t cause any updating.

Sometimes dissonance causes new linkages that reinforces highly interconnected beliefs.

To that end, the plasticity of the belief network is likely to be a self-referential process. After all, the belief that a belief can change might be a key enabler. And perhaps, there may be a node, or a set of tightly inteconnecting nodes, that have an effect to dampen any illogical, contradictory node.

For instance:

“People are generally good.”

“Adults, if left alone to be good, will do good.”

“People, in the right environment, flourish.”

And the contradictory node:

“People put others at risk by speeding in their motor vehicle because they know if they hit a pedestrian, they themselves will not die and are faultless.”

As opposed to a reframed node:

“People put others at risk by speeding in their motor vehicle because they misestimate risk.”

I find it tough to deduce the dynamism of belief networks across the population. I’d like to believe that most people, if they have the liberty to change their mind, frequently do. But not everybody experiences, or has, liberty.

Moreover, I believe that you only know what you think after writing out what you think. The connection between self-authorship and writing is obvious. That’s why you don’t outsource authorship. You author it. You realize it. There’s a self-referential belief about beliefs that I believe is enabling.

The obligatory Family Guy meme follows: “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t: you’re right.”

The audience in the eye of the panderer

Most people do not enjoy the brain bending experience of dissonance. Confusion can be unpleasant. Mass audiences don’t pay money for unpleasant experiences. Mass audiences tend to like the same stories, with the same values, retold to them with just enough of a divergence to feel mildly surprised, but not so much to be uncomfortable. And there’s some general intuition about how some stories define a peoples’ identity, create cohesion, and produce warriors who will go to extreme lengths to defend those stories against threats. Knowledge defines many communities and dogma is a vital tool at maintaining that cohesion.

Because you see around here, we believe in something. Values. Timeless values. Values like valuing values [1].

One can earn the privilege of an income by telling the same stories to an audience that wants to hear the same stories. (There are 7 NCIS series spanning over 1000 episodes. There are 8 Law and Order series.) And people pay for glazing. Algorithmic filtering is a fantastic tool for sorting such audiences and matching them with what they need to have reinforced. And this is what has happened. If you can say it, there may be an audience for it. The size and convertibility of that audience is all that stands between a story monger and a comfortable income.

The most sustainable content strategy starts with a core vision of the belief matrix of sufficiently large, commercial, audience. The trivial way to do this is identify a birth year – gender – years of education – location quartet to anchor, find a handful of them, and watch them. What do you imagine are differences between somebody (1950, F, 12 years, US-NE) to (2000, M, 14 years, US-SE)? Where would their belief networks overlap? Where would they internally self-contradict?

Sometimes I can tell who a personality thinks they’re talking to just by listening to the inconsistencies they’re pumping. I suspect you can too. Joy Behar is for an audience. Joe Rogan is for another. You can imagine where they overlap. You can imagine where they conflict. And you can likely tell along which lines each would accuse the other of inconsistency in their belief networks. You can spot the lines of conflict. And indeed, the spiciest conflict, the meatiest beefs, the hottest rivalries, the very engine of drama and trivial bs that fuels the celebrity driven attention market is rooted in the conflict of over beliefs. The more core to the core morality, the more hard core the heat.

I’m not Joy and I’m not Joe, so I don’t know to the extent that they believe in what they signal. There are some media personalities who appear to be capable of saying anything about anything so long as it meets with the approval of their core audience in the moment. Consistency isn’t a value that their audience values, so what’s the point?

I enjoy having my biases reinforced. I’ll listen to a two hour Sarah Pain lecture because her perspective on grand strategy align with my own, but I don’t ever feel as though Sarah is doing it for the clicks, likes and subs. She has an audience.

Wendy Williams had an audience. Clap if you like Wendy.

To the extent that the panderer believes in what they’re saying, and the audience believes they believe in what they’re saying, I cannot tell. Sometimes I wonder.

After all, how can you be for Y when you previously said Z?

The answer, to the extent that the engagement is real and the question comes from a place of curiosity, might be:

“Because when I said Z, I believed Z. I changed my mind and now believe Y.”

“Because at the time I said Z, my audience wanted to hear Z, so I said Z. Now my audience wants to hear Y. So I’m saying Y. I will literally say anything I need to say in the moment to get a positive reaction from my audience. I need to be popular. I spend literally every waking hour worried that I will not be loved by my audience.”

“Because I do not perceive an inconsistency between Y and Z, this is a cat pushing a watermelon out of a lake, your argument is invalid.”

“Because the inconsistency between Y and Z is related to a hidden belief, X, which I will conceal from you, and instead, declare that you do not get it.”

“Because I knew you would experience dissonance between Y and Z, does this not enrage you?”

“NO U!”

“I’m curious about the idea that Y is not compatible with Z. What do you mean?”

Post-Truth Wisdom

This blog, itself, is riddled with contradictions and evolutions. Last month I changed my mind about competition. Next month maybe I’ll change my mind about comedy. Maybe I’ll change my mind about the consistency of beliefs.

And you can too.

Priors were made to be updated.

Esoterotic References

[1] It’s a W1A reference. Congrats! You got it!