How do you know whether or not you believe something?

[The idea]

Are people infallibly aware of some aspects of their own mental states?

Suppose some thought occurs to you and you fleetingly experience some annoyance at the thought. You could ask yourself, "Am I sure that was a feeling of annoyance and not a feeling of joy?"

[RandFan]

Originally posted by The idea
Are people infallibly aware of some aspects of their own mental states?

Suppose some thought occurs to you and you fleetingly experience some annoyance at the thought. You could ask yourself, "Am I sure that was a feeling of annoyance and not a feeling of joy?" I'm confused. Why is the example important? How does the question of the thread, the first question of the post and the example have anything to do with one another.

[The idea]

Originally posted by RandFan
Why is the example important?
Maybe it isn't important.

Originally posted by RandFan
How does the question of the thread, the first question of the post and the example have anything to do with one another?
The general issue is infallible awareness of one's own mental state. However, that might be too general to seem interesting. So I made the title about beliefs. Also, that way it ties into religion.

Why should I wait for someone else to derail a thread when I can do that myself in the very first post? ;)

[arthwollipot]

No, it is quite possible to have a belief or an idea about something without even realising it.

Has anyone else here suddenly and unexpectedly found out that they were bisexual? I did.

[UserGoogol]

Bisexuality is more of a desire than a belief, which is as I see it a different sort of thing.

You make a valid point however.

[TragicMonkey]

Originally posted by arthwollipot
No, it is quite possible to have a belief or an idea about something without even realising it.

Has anyone else here suddenly and unexpectedly found out that they were bisexual? I did.

There's got to be a great kinky story behind that. Share! We're friendly! We're non-judgmental! We're prurient!

Wait, scratch that last one.

I bet it was pretty damn hot, though!

[arthwollipot]

Well, there I was, at a party...

When suddenly I was kissing this man. For the life of me I still can't remember exactly why. I mean I already loved him as a friend, but having a sexual relationship with him was something that honestly had never occurred to me.

There's really not a lot more to tell. It ended up not working out too well.

[Wudang]

I read the OP as saying that we can believe things with our hearts and our heads, as the saying goes. We can know that the earths rotation produces sunsets but we still think of the sun coming up.
There's then the second layer, cognitive dissonance, mixed feelings, and stray thoughts which we are not sure how we feel about.

[PixyMisa]

Originally posted by The idea
Are people infallibly aware of some aspects of their own mental states?
People aren't infallibly anything.

[Marquis de Carabas]

Originally posted by PixyMisa
People aren't infallibly anything.
People are infallibly fallible.

[c4ts]

Originally posted by The idea
Are people infallibly aware of some aspects of their own mental states?

Suppose some thought occurs to you and you fleetingly experience some annoyance at the thought. You could ask yourself, "Am I sure that was a feeling of annoyance and not a feeling of joy?"

Are you talking about thoughts or emotions?

[sorgoth]

Yes, I do think we can be unaware of believing something, or of feeling something.

I think we're only partially concious of ourselves.

Honestly, I believe the concept of a singular "I" is just wrong.
We're many parts of the mind interacting...sometimes we do things we weren't expecting ourselves to do. There are different parts of awareness.