Wednesday, September 14, 2022

What Does It Mean to Believe in Elves?

Icelanders believe in elves. There are many ways you could take issue with that sentence, but let's start with that shapeshifting verb, “to believe.”

We believe in elves, we believe in gravity, we believe in science, we believe in God. Does anyone really know what it means to believe?

As I note in my book Looking for the Hidden Folk: How Iceland's Elves Can Save the Earth, anthropologists like himself, Rodney Needham wrote in 1972, “appear to take it for granted that ‘belief’ is a word of as little ambiguity as ‘spear’ or ‘cow’” when they write about the beliefs of this culture or that.


Yet “belief” is kaleidoscopic. It translates a “bewildering variety” of foreign terms. Its root means to love or desire. Translators of the Bible used it to translate trust or obey. It means to follow a religion, to accept a statement as true, or to hold an opinion. You can say, “I believe I’ll have fish for dinner” as easily as “I believe in elves” or “I believe in God.”

Philosopher David Hume in 1739 defined belief as “something felt by the mind, which distinguishes the ideas of the judgment from the fictions of the imagination.”

Stuart Hampshire in 1959 defined a man’s beliefs as “the generally unchanging background to his active thought,” those things he “never had occasion to question” or to state.

Jonathan Lanman in 2008 defined belief as “the state of a cognitive system holding information (not necessarily in the propositional or explicit form) as true in the generation of further thought and behavior.” Using this definition, Lanman asserted, we can “pursue a cross-cultural science of belief,” as everyone has such beliefs. “All have cognitive systems that represent the world in some way and act according to what they believe to be true about that world.”

Your beliefs define you. As fuzzy, illogical, or unquestioned as they may be, they control how you see the world and how you act in response.

As Needham concluded, “An assertion of belief is a report about the person who makes it, and not intrinsically or primarily about objective matters of truth or fact.” Belief, said Needham, is “ultimately a reference to an inner state.” More, that inner state seems to be emotional. Yet we cannot say, in English at least, that someone is “believing” or “belief-full,” Needham mused.

Philosopher Jesse Prinz thinks the emotion involved is wonder. It’s wonder that produces both religion and science, as well as art: The three institutions “that are most central to our humanity,” said Prinz, are “united in wonder.” They are not in conflict. They are not either/or. Each of the three feeds “the appetite that wonder excites in us,” says Prinz. Each allows us “to transcend our animality by transporting us to hidden worlds.” It’s wonder, Prinz argues, that makes us human.


Adam Smith, the inventor of capitalism, wondered about wonder in 1795, Prinz found. “He wrote that wonder arises ‘when something quite new and singular is presented … [and] memory cannot, from all its stores, cast up any image that nearly resembles this strange appearance.’”

What is it like? the brain asks. Like nothing I’ve ever seen before.

Wonder is sensory: “We stare and widen our eyes,” wrote Prinz. Wonder is cognitive: “Such things are perplexing because we cannot rely on past experience to comprehend them … : We gasp and say ‘Wow!’” And then there is “a dimension that can be described as spiritual.” Wonder, concludes Prinz, awakens us. “We don’t just take the world for granted, we’re struck by it.”


Or we are not. Emotions, brain researchers have found, depend on culture. You will not sense wonder if you’re never exposed to it.

There’s much we don’t know about the brain. But we know it categorizes. We know it uses concepts and words, finds causes and crafts stories. We know it constantly simulates the world and makes multiple predictions of what we will sense and see—and what we should do in response.

We know that it’s wired for emotion, for wonder, for ecstasy, but that Western culture disdains and derides this side of the brain. We’re taught to control our emotions, to give up wonder in childhood, to stifle our mystical experiences—or at least not to talk about them. Otherwise we’ll be thought “ignorant, eccentric, or unwell,” says Jules Evans of the Centre for the History of the Emotions in London.

We’ll be laughed at as loony elf-seers.

But without words, without the concepts to describe them, you are “experientially blind,” says psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett. Wonders—elves?—may be all around you, but you will not see them.

Which brings up the next question I grapple with in Looking for the Hidden Folk, What immaterial beings are we allowed to believe in, and who is allowed to do the believing?


You can read more about Iceland and my many adventures there in my new book, Looking for the Hidden Folk: How Iceland's Elves Can Save the Earth, which will be published on October 4 by Pegasus Books. It is now available for pre-order through Simon & Schuster distributors or through my shop on Bookshop.org. Disclosure: As an affiliate of Bookshop.org, I may earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

16 comments:

  1. A good blog always contains new and exciting information, and reading.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 🚨🚨 YOU EVER GOT SCAMMED, THEN YOU SHOULD READ THIS 🚨🚨🚨

      You could probably get your money back, and I said probably, This is because most scammers don't move the money to a bank account, most scammers move it to a crypto currency wallet or a local money saving platforms, this way they stay undetected and noticed by authorities.

      What you have to keep in mind is, this crypto wallet can be reported or hacked into, and this is what we do.

      WHO ARE WE⁉️ YOU MIGHT ASK❗❕❗❕

      We are ⭐PYTHONAX⭐ a group of skilled and experienced internet and computer experts. We have refocused our work force into tracking down scammers and helping victims of scam recover their money, or what's left of it. Using our experience in transactions tracking and jail breaking, we can now guarantee scam victims an opportunity to recover their money.

      There are so many ways to get scammed in the world we live in today, majority of this scams are internet based scam, one of the major disadvantages of the internet. Here are examples of scams we have dealt with and can help such victims to this scams as well-:

      ❌Cryptocurrency investments scammed victims.
      ❌Forex/Binary Option investments scam victims.
      ❌Buying and Selling scam victims.
      ❌Dating & Romance scam victims.
      ❌Loans scams victims.
      ❌Housing & Estate Investments Scam victims. E.t.c.

      How services are simple and and a breakdown of each steps of the process we will take to help you get your money back would be explained and told to you, what we do isn't illegal, we try and follow the rules and make sure you aren't involved in any crime. You can choose to remain anonymous, your personal info wouldn't be required of you, all we need are infos regarding the scam, infos like-:
      1️⃣ Total Amount of what you were scammed.
      2️⃣ The type of scam you were involved in.
      3️⃣ The means of Communication you used in communicating with the scammers. Eg, emails, numbers or social media handles......
      4️⃣ Details of which you used to make payments and transactions ID.

      Do not feel shy or ashamed or stupid, this scammers are really good at what they do, they make everything look so real and convince and very very real like the actual real stuff.

      Use this emails below to contact us-:
      PYTHONAXHELP@PROTONMAIL.COM
      PYTHONAXSERVICES@PROTONMAIL.COM




      We assure you of no form of judgmets or guilt, we are professionals and only want to help

      Delete
  2. Thank you for providing a good quality article.

    ReplyDelete
  3. It’s very straightforward to find out any topic on net as compared to textbooks, as I found this post at this site.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Looking for some more information from your blog.

    ReplyDelete
  5. You really amazed me with your writing talent.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thank you for all of your time & work.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Everyone loves it Great website, continue the good work! Thanks

    ReplyDelete
  8. I'll bookmark it and come back to read more of your useful info. Thanks for the post.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I am not sure where you are getting your info, but good topic. Just continue updating

    ReplyDelete
  10. I’m glad to read this article. The website style is perfect, I'll support your articles

    ReplyDelete
  11. Great initiative taken as it makes researchers explore new ideas, thanks this blog.!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Thank you for the helpful tips! I would never have gotten this on my own! Great job!

    ReplyDelete
  13. I enjoy every little bit of it. I bookmarked to check out new stuff of this blog. Thanks

    ReplyDelete
  14. Awesome article dude! This was an extremely nice post. A top notch article

    ReplyDelete
  15. 🚨🚨 YOU EVER GOT SCAMMED, THEN YOU SHOULD READ THIS 🚨🚨🚨

    You could probably get your money back, and I said probably, This is because most scammers don't move the money to a bank account, most scammers move it to a crypto currency wallet or a local money saving platforms, this way they stay undetected and noticed by authorities.

    What you have to keep in mind is, this crypto wallet can be reported or hacked into, and this is what we do.

    WHO ARE WE⁉️ YOU MIGHT ASK❗❕❗❕

    We are ⭐PYTHONAX⭐ a group of skilled and experienced internet and computer experts. We have refocused our work force into tracking down scammers and helping victims of scam recover their money, or what's left of it. Using our experience in transactions tracking and jail breaking, we can now guarantee scam victims an opportunity to recover their money.

    There are so many ways to get scammed in the world we live in today, majority of this scams are internet based scam, one of the major disadvantages of the internet. Here are examples of scams we have dealt with and can help such victims to this scams as well-:

    ❌Cryptocurrency investments scammed victims.
    ❌Forex/Binary Option investments scam victims.
    ❌Buying and Selling scam victims.
    ❌Dating & Romance scam victims.
    ❌Loans scams victims.
    ❌Housing & Estate Investments Scam victims. E.t.c.

    How services are simple and and a breakdown of each steps of the process we will take to help you get your money back would be explained and told to you, what we do isn't illegal, we try and follow the rules and make sure you aren't involved in any crime. You can choose to remain anonymous, your personal info wouldn't be required of you, all we need are infos regarding the scam, infos like-:
    1️⃣ Total Amount of what you were scammed.
    2️⃣ The type of scam you were involved in.
    3️⃣ The means of Communication you used in communicating with the scammers. Eg, emails, numbers or social media handles......
    4️⃣ Details of which you used to make payments and transactions ID.

    Do not feel shy or ashamed or stupid, this scammers are really good at what they do, they make everything look so real and convince and very very real like the actual real stuff.

    Use this emails below to contact us-:
    PYTHONAXHELP@PROTONMAIL.COM
    PYTHONAXSERVICES@PROTONMAIL.COM




    We assure you of no form of judgmets or guilt, we are professionals and only want to help

    ReplyDelete