Snippitts of Illusions

In my perspective there are several tiers of belief. The first tier, or primary beliefs are those that aren't usually questioned. You don't think about them. These aren't religious beliefs but the acceptances, typically by inductive reasoning, of constants in your life. Your parents are your parents, the sun will rise in the morning, you are who you are. There are a multitude of primary beliefs many are common to each other simply because it's stuff we don't question typically. Now some of you may be saying "a lot of these things are factual" well, perhaps, but there is a distinct difference between how we treat them: when examining things that are "factual" (the sun rises in the east for example) we don't question the why or how, it's just accepted as being a fact. There isn't a great reason why the sun does this, we just accept it as part of our world. Now some individuals do dig into the reason why, they want to know the reason why things are and usually fall into one of two camps: scientists or philosophers. 

It's rare that primary beliefs are shaken. It usually happens in one of two ways, either some major discovery that changes the perspective humanity itself occurs, or something deeply personal happens to shake your perspective. The humanity changing even would be akin to the revelation that the Earth was not in fact the center of the solar system. This belief is considered foolish today but 500 years ago was widely accepted as being a fact. A personal revelation is more akin to discovering you are adopted, or even more extreme losing a loved one suddenly. 

Above primary beliefs are secondary beliefs, the best example I can give are these are religious beliefs. They explain in some ways the primary beliefs that a person has, while giving reasons for the level above them, tertiary beliefs. Tertiary beliefs are things that can change, and will change several times through out an individuals life. These are things that we may adhere too for several years at a time, have a large bearing on who we are during that time, but fluid and able to change, typically in a gradual fashion (e.g. favorite bands, sports team, books). 

Tertiary beliefs can become secondary beliefs, and through a tremendous amount of effort secondary beliefs can become primary beliefs. Religious beliefs I would categorize typically as secondary beliefs. This isn't to say that they aren't important, secondary beliefs have the potential to completely shake somebody to their core, and can effect both primary and tertiary beliefs, but because they can change, especially in one's youth so easily they do not start out as primary beliefs. Only through years of acceptances do they ever truly reach this level. 

Now for the train wreck I mentioned above, with teenagers and young adults their beliefs being shaken are usually tertiary. They have a crisis, which is generally short lived, and then move on. That isn't always the case. Having your secondary and primary beliefs challenged at this age is amazingly traumatic, but is something people can recover from. Older adults though, have primary beliefs rejected, or secondary beliefs wholly challenged can leave them a wreck for years. 

I don't enjoy watching the train wreck. Having your beliefs shaken to the core can lead one down some bizarre roads that they would never walk down otherwise. It can lead to the joining of mass movements, it can lead to self isolation, it can lead to radicalism. I watch friends going through life changes and I wonder what beliefs they have had to change in order to cope with their new situation. If I could be an uncaring outside observer it would make it easier. I'm not. So I really don't like seeing friends or family go through this, typically their changes cause changes in my tertiary beliefs. 

This is a topic, like bias (in fact I feel it ties very closely to bias) that I have given a considerably amount of thought about. I've been exploring these ideas now for a decade (while bias is a new line of thought I'm chasing) and will probably continue to do so for years to come. This is not adequate to explain everything I've thought about the subject or how I came to the conclusions I've reached, but I guess it's a start and like bias it's something that I'll likely revisit many times in the future.