@TheAndSys, @tb148, and I had a conversation in the Toaq Discord server about the difference between opinion and belief. Some points from the conversation:
- The line between opinion and belief may vary between languages. In English, one can use "I think" for both "...that the movie is good" and "...that you told me that". In Spanish, one can only say "I think that the movie is good" and "I believe that you told me that" (and still sound correct).
- In Toaq, both & and I use chı 'believe' to refer to either statements we believe to be fact or statements grounded in reality, and mıu 'opine' to refer to subjective statements not grounded in reality.
- By "grounded in reality", I gave the example of using chı to assert that I hold the viewpoint that it is going to rain overnight, because it's been sprinkling all day and the sky is still overcast. The point is that this conclusion was reached using observable evidence.
- However, things start getting weird once things like ethical principles or religious belief enter the mix. Those are not easily tied to observable reality, yet form the very foundations for peoples' understanding of the world, even more so than what our senses tell us.
- I think that such "opinions" are actually a secret third thing (let's call them "axioms") that was conflated with opinion, and a separate word is warranted.
- However, tb148 does not draw a distinction between opinions and axioms, seeing axioms as overwhelmingly strong opinions.
- & pointed out that axioms, separate from opinions or not, are checked first during decision-making. If something conflicts with our moral/ethical/religious/philosophical axioms, it is rejected outright, or at least massively dispreferred to other options. The axioms, in this way, have much more of an impact than preferences.
I thought this was an interesting conversation, so I thought I'd post it here. What do you think?
