Tara Reade is a person who exists

[Metaphor]

Perhaps the issue here is that you are unfamiliar with human cognition.

Perhaps you cannot will yourself into a state of believe--or believe that you do not, but the fact is that people do choose to believe all sorts of things.

People believe all sorts of things, but they don't choose to believe it.

The presence of religion should be sufficient example. Or one partner chooses to believe the other when they are told that the partner was working late, was faithful, that it didn't mean a thing. Or that the check is in the mail. I'll do it next Thursday. All sorts of things. Or that this candidate is more likely to do a good job serving in their chosen office and representing viewpoints that I agree with. People choose to believe all sorts of things are true, even in the face of plain evidence to the contrary. Very obvious case in point: Trump supporters/anything at all that Trump says.

People believe strange and fantastic things, but that does not mean they did it by an act of will.

A victim is traumatized. Trauma can do all sorts of things: it can change emotional affect by increasing it--or by making it very flat. It can cause lapses in judgment, lapses in memory, altered perception, fragmented memory, heightened sense of fear or alarm and many others.

What is the relevance of the above paragraph?

A person presents themselves as a victim. No matter how skeptical one is or has reason to be, if one is actually interested in the truth, the best course of action is to believe the victim---and then investigate the facts as best as can be done. If the victim is straight up maliciously lying, you are much more likely to get pertinent information and cooperation--and to get them to let enough guard down to ferret out the truth if your initial stance is belief. If the victim is traumatized to any extent at all, belief in their statement allows them to trust themselves and investigators enough to aid investigation rather than hinder it. Even if the account is highly unlikely, it almost certainly contains some elements of truth. The only way to get at the truth is to (initially) take the account at face value. A drunk claims that Michael Jackson mugged them in an alley. Obviously that's untrue: Jackson is dead. One could either dismiss the drunk as a lying drunk--or investigate, believing that something happened involving Michael Jackson--and discover that there was a Michael Jackson impersonator performing that night and indeed, they went into the alley between sets and rolled the drunk and went back on to perform their next set after their costume change. But if you start with: lying drunk, you never find out anything.

You can take allegations seriously (that is, do your job of investigating) without believing somebody. For example, if somebody told me Michael Jackson mugged them in an alley, I would plain not believe them, because as you say, it is impossible. But that doesn't mean you couldn't investigate.

But I can't will myself to believe Michael Jackson mugged anybody last night, and neither can you.

 

[Metaphor]

The word "believe" should stop being promoted and used when that is not what is being asked for.

If you call the cops and report that you have been robbed, do you expect the police to believe you?

I expect them to take the necessary steps of investigating. Whether they believe me is beyond my control and theirs.

 

[Arctish]

believe

verb

be·​lieve | \ bə-ˈlēv How to pronounce believe (audio) \


believed; believing


Definition of believe


transitive verb

1a : to consider to be true or honest
//believe the reports

//you wouldn't believe how long it took

b : to accept the word or evidence of
//I believe you

//couldn't believe my ears


2 : to hold as an opinion : suppose
//I believe it will rain soon


intransitive verb


1a : to accept something as true, genuine, or real
//ideals we believe in

//believes in ghosts

b : to have a firm or wholehearted religious conviction or persuasion : to regard the existence of God as a fact
//Do you believe?

—usually used with in
//believe in the Scriptures


2 : to have a firm conviction as to the goodness, efficacy, or ability of something
//believe in exercise


3 : to hold an opinion : think
//I believe so

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/believe



^This is how Americans use the word. Please note the first two definitions and the accompanying examples of 'believe' as a transitive verb. It means to consider something true or honest, not to be absolutely 100% sure of it. It's a provisional acceptance. "Believe" as in wholehearted conviction is one alternate definition when the word is used as an intransitive verb.


Perhaps this word has only one connotation in Australia but here in North America you have to think a little bit to understand which meaning the word carries in a bit of text or speech. You can't just go with one definition, especially when it's a less common one.

 

[Trausti]

 

[Metaphor]

believe

verb

be·​lieve | \ bə-ˈlēv How to pronounce believe (audio) \


believed; believing


Definition of believe


transitive verb

1a : to consider to be true or honest
//believe the reports

//you wouldn't believe how long it took

b : to accept the word or evidence of
//I believe you

//couldn't believe my ears


2 : to hold as an opinion : suppose
//I believe it will rain soon


intransitive verb


1a : to accept something as true, genuine, or real
//ideals we believe in

//believes in ghosts

b : to have a firm or wholehearted religious conviction or persuasion : to regard the existence of God as a fact
//Do you believe?

—usually used with in
//believe in the Scriptures


2 : to have a firm conviction as to the goodness, efficacy, or ability of something
//believe in exercise


3 : to hold an opinion : think
//I believe so

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/believe

Do you believe the earth is around 6,000 years old?

If I gave your US$100m to believe it, could you will yourself to believe it?

 

[Arctish]

believe

verb

be·​lieve | \ bə-ˈlēv How to pronounce believe (audio) \


believed; believing


Definition of believe


transitive verb

1a : to consider to be true or honest
//believe the reports

//you wouldn't believe how long it took

b : to accept the word or evidence of
//I believe you

//couldn't believe my ears


2 : to hold as an opinion : suppose
//I believe it will rain soon


intransitive verb


1a : to accept something as true, genuine, or real
//ideals we believe in

//believes in ghosts

b : to have a firm or wholehearted religious conviction or persuasion : to regard the existence of God as a fact
//Do you believe?

—usually used with in
//believe in the Scriptures


2 : to have a firm conviction as to the goodness, efficacy, or ability of something
//believe in exercise


3 : to hold an opinion : think
//I believe so

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/believe

Do you believe the earth is around 6,000 years old?

If I gave your US$100m to believe it, could you will yourself to believe it?

Are you asking me if I have an unwavering conviction the Earth is around 6,000 years old? Are you asking me to provisionally accept that it is 6,000 years old while acknowledging that it might not be that age? Are you asking me to provisionally accept that you are truthfully reporting what you genuinely believe to be true, and that you believe the Earth is 6,000 years old?

Which meaning of the word "believe" are you using? There's more than one.

I added this to my previous post, apparently after you quoted it:

^This is how Americans use the word. Please note the first two definitions and the accompanying examples of 'believe' as a transitive verb. It means to consider something true or honest, not to be absolutely 100% sure of it. It's a provisional acceptance. "Believe" as in wholehearted conviction is one alternate definition when the word is used as an intransitive verb.

Perhaps this word has only one connotation in Australia but here in North America you have to think a little bit to understand which meaning the word carries in a bit of text or speech. You can't just go with one definition, especially when it's a less common one.

Koyaanisqatsi posted this in a reply to Derec. I think it's well worth repeating:

And what would be the very first step in that investigatory process?

You go to your police station and tell an officer that you were just mugged by Jerry Lewis. Now, since Jerry Lewis is dead, what must the officer do--mentally--in order to investigate your crime? He must....come on....you can type it....provisionally believe that something happened to you to make you think that you were just mugged by Jerry Lewis.

Iow, he must provisionally believe (1) that something traumatic did in fact happen to you and that, (2) at least you believe you were mugged by Jerry Lewis.

What the cop believes actually may have happened--that, more likely it was someone who looked like Jerry Lewis or that you were so traumatized by the incident that you mistakenly thought it was Jerry Lewis, etc.--is a separate issue, unless and until upon hearing you say it was "Jerry Lewis" he did not provisionally believe you for the sake of investigation. He instead dismissed you out of hand--and called you a "nutso"--and told you to get out of the station, "we have more important things to do" etc.

THAT is the issue the "believe women" movement is trying to address; the fact that all too often women (and men) who were raped can't even get beyond the very first step in the investigative process, because the cops dismiss their accusations a priori. Iow, they do not believe the story being told to them and do not move forward with an investigation to actually find out the truth one way or the other.

^This gets to the heart of the matter and why we're discussing it in this thread.

Tara Reade didn't go to the police, but if she had, do you think the officer taking her statement should have believed (transitive verb definition 1a.) her report? If he didn't, there wouldn't have been any investigation at all. Would that have been appropriate?

 

[Metaphor]

Are you asking me if I have an unwavering conviction the Earth is around 6,000 years old? Are you asking me to provisionally accept that it is 6,000 years old while acknowledging that it might not be that age? Are you asking me to provisionally accept that you are truthfully reporting what you genuinely believe to be true, and that you believe the Earth is 6,000 years old?

Which meaning of the word "believe" are you using? There's more than one.

I'm asking you to believe the earth is 6,000 years old by sheer force of will. You can't do it.

I added this to my previous post, apparently after you quoted it:

^This is how Americans use the word. Please note the first two definitions and the accompanying examples of 'believe' as a transitive verb. It means to consider something true or honest, not to be absolutely 100% sure of it. It's a provisional acceptance. "Believe" as in wholehearted conviction is one alternate definition when the word is used as an intransitive verb.

Perhaps this word has only one connotation in Australia but here in North America you have to think a little bit to understand which meaning the word carries in a bit of text or speech. You can't just go with one definition, especially when it's a less common one.

I'm not asking you to be sure of anything. I'm asking you to believe the earth is 6,000 years old.

Why can't you do that?

Koyaanisqatsi posted this in a reply to Derec. I think it's well worth repeating:

Iow, he must provisionally believe (1) that something traumatic did in fact happen to you and that, (2) at least you believe you were mugged by Jerry Lewis.

No. The cop doesn't have to believe anything. I don't care what he believes; I care that he took allegations seriously and acted in a standard way.

What the cop believes actually may have happened--that, more likely it was someone who looked like Jerry Lewis or that you were so traumatized by the incident that you mistakenly thought it was Jerry Lewis, etc.--is a separate issue, unless and until upon hearing you say it was "Jerry Lewis" he did not provisionally believe you for the sake of investigation. He instead dismissed you out of hand--and called you a "nutso"--and told you to get out of the station, "we have more important things to do" etc.

Belief has fuck nothing to do with it. Imagine if he did believe the person was robbed but turfed him out anyway because he didn't want to do the paperwork. It isn't the belief that's the problem, it's the failure to act properly.

Tara Reade didn't go to the police, but if she had, do you think the officer taking her statement should have believed (transitive verb definition 1a.) her report? If he didn't, there wouldn't have been any investigation at all. Would that have been appropriate?

Belief has nothing to do with it. You can't control whether you consider something to be true or honest. That judgment comes unbidden.

What would have been appropriate, whether the police believed her or not, was to take the allegation seriously and operate accordingly.

 

[laughing dog]

believe

verb

be·​lieve | \ bə-ˈlēv How to pronounce believe (audio) \


believed; believing


Definition of believe


transitive verb

1a : to consider to be true or honest
//believe the reports

//you wouldn't believe how long it took

b : to accept the word or evidence of
//I believe you

//couldn't believe my ears


2 : to hold as an opinion : suppose
//I believe it will rain soon


intransitive verb


1a : to accept something as true, genuine, or real
//ideals we believe in

//believes in ghosts

b : to have a firm or wholehearted religious conviction or persuasion : to regard the existence of God as a fact
//Do you believe?

—usually used with in
//believe in the Scriptures


2 : to have a firm conviction as to the goodness, efficacy, or ability of something
//believe in exercise


3 : to hold an opinion : think
//I believe so

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/believe

Do you believe the earth is around 6,000 years old?

If I gave your US$100m to believe it, could you will yourself to believe it?

I'll wager there are a surprising number of people who could will themselves to hold it as an opinion (i.e. believe) it for $100 million (US or Canadian).

Seriously, you are arguing that there is one and only meaning for "believe" even though there is sufficient evidence that there are more than one accepted interpretation. Wow.

 

[Arctish]

I'm asking you to believe the earth is 6,000 years old by sheer force of will. You can't do it.

You are asking me to accept one single definition of the word "believe" and to apply it in a particularly obtuse manner.

I don't know why you refuse to acknowledge any other definitions but I assure you they do exist and I have been using at least one of them.

 

[Toni]

I'm asking you to believe the earth is 6,000 years old by sheer force of will. You can't do it.

You are asking me to accept one single definition of the word "believe" and to apply it in a particularly obtuse manner.

I don't know why you refuse to acknowledge any other definitions but I assure you they do exist and I have been using at least one of them.

No, he's insisting that if you refuse to will yourself to believe something that you likely already believe is untrue--that choice is not a factor in belief at all.

But of course it is:

We all have preconceptions of what is and is not factual.

We all have preconceptions and prejudices about what is factual and what is sufficiently factual, about what 'good' data is and about what 'enough' data is. We have beliefs about who is believable, about what is believable.

When they were small, my son and his friend once swore that they saw a tiger behind our apartment building--on the outskirts of a major metropolitan area in the US. They believed it with their entire being. We parents believed that their imaginations had run away with them--and we still went to look to see what they saw.

 

[Toni]

People believe all sorts of things, but they don't choose to believe it.



People believe strange and fantastic things, but that does not mean they did it by an act of will.

A victim is traumatized. Trauma can do all sorts of things: it can change emotional affect by increasing it--or by making it very flat. It can cause lapses in judgment, lapses in memory, altered perception, fragmented memory, heightened sense of fear or alarm and many others.

What is the relevance of the above paragraph?

A person presents themselves as a victim. No matter how skeptical one is or has reason to be, if one is actually interested in the truth, the best course of action is to believe the victim---and then investigate the facts as best as can be done. If the victim is straight up maliciously lying, you are much more likely to get pertinent information and cooperation--and to get them to let enough guard down to ferret out the truth if your initial stance is belief. If the victim is traumatized to any extent at all, belief in their statement allows them to trust themselves and investigators enough to aid investigation rather than hinder it. Even if the account is highly unlikely, it almost certainly contains some elements of truth. The only way to get at the truth is to (initially) take the account at face value. A drunk claims that Michael Jackson mugged them in an alley. Obviously that's untrue: Jackson is dead. One could either dismiss the drunk as a lying drunk--or investigate, believing that something happened involving Michael Jackson--and discover that there was a Michael Jackson impersonator performing that night and indeed, they went into the alley between sets and rolled the drunk and went back on to perform their next set after their costume change. But if you start with: lying drunk, you never find out anything.

You can take allegations seriously (that is, do your job of investigating) without believing somebody. For example, if somebody told me Michael Jackson mugged them in an alley, I would plain not believe them, because as you say, it is impossible. But that doesn't mean you couldn't investigate.

But I can't will myself to believe Michael Jackson mugged anybody last night, and neither can you.

Once can believe that the person was mugged and that they believe that it was Michael Jackson.

However you are correct that some people cannot possibly entertain the notion that a woman was raped. And have an even harder time believing that a man was raped. Their own prejudices get in the way of their ability to reason.

 

[Arctish]

I'm asking you to believe the earth is 6,000 years old by sheer force of will. You can't do it.

You are asking me to accept one single definition of the word "believe" and to apply it in a particularly obtuse manner.

I don't know why you refuse to acknowledge any other definitions but I assure you they do exist and I have been using at least one of them.

No, he's insisting that if you refuse to will yourself to believe something that you likely already believe is untrue--that choice is not a factor in belief at all.

But of course it is:

We all have preconceptions of what is and is not factual.

We all have preconceptions and prejudices about what is factual and what is sufficiently factual, about what 'good' data is and about what 'enough' data is. We have beliefs about who is believable, about what is believable.

When they were small, my son and his friend once swore that they saw a tiger behind our apartment building--on the outskirts of a major metropolitan area in the US. They believed it with their entire being. We parents believed that their imaginations had run away with them--and we still went to look to see what they saw.

My niece once told my sister that there was a squirrel the size of a dog in the backyard and that it was looking at her. My sister knew squirrels didn't grow that big. She didn't doubt her daughter had seen something but couldn't imagine what.

Then one day my sister went into the backyard and saw a squirrel the size of a dog looking at her:

Show

Most people call them groundhogs or woodchucks. They're members of the Squirrel family, Sciuridae. So yeah, it was a squirrel the size of a dog.

 

[Metaphor]

I'm asking you to believe the earth is 6,000 years old by sheer force of will. You can't do it.

You are asking me to accept one single definition of the word "believe" and to apply it in a particularly obtuse manner.

I don't know why you refuse to acknowledge any other definitions but I assure you they do exist and I have been using at least one of them.

I'm not relying on any one definition and I've already said you can't will yourself into any of the definitions.

If I were a cop, and somebody walked into the cop shop and told me they'd been mugged, which of these is the more important?

That I believe them, or

That I take the allegation seriously and act according to standard operating procedure?

The second one is the only one that matters, particularly because it's the only one I can control.

 

[Metaphor]

Once can believe that the person was mugged and that they believe that it was Michael Jackson.

Of course you can. That isn't the same thing as believing the events happened. I once had a friend who hired a truck, and believed someone had broken into it during the night and damaged parts of it. His version of events did not make sense. The truck was locked when we got into it. The minor scuff marks he was talking about had already been circled on line drawings of the truck that I found in the glove box, by previous people who had hired it. He was absolutely paranoid and I did not believe anyone had broken into the truck and damaged parts of it.

But I could see he believed it. There was no question he believed it. The evidence of my own senses told me he believed it.

But telling him I believed he believed it would not be satisfactory, would it? Imagine I were a cop and I told an alleged rape victim:

"I believe you", or,

"I believe you believe it".

Feminists would scream blue murder at the second utterance.

However you are correct that some people cannot possibly entertain the notion that a woman was raped. And have an even harder time believing that a man was raped. Their own prejudices get in the way of their ability to reason.

If somebody can't even conceive of rape as a concept I'd say they don't belong on a police force.

 

[Metaphor]

When they were small, my son and his friend once swore that they saw a tiger behind our apartment building--on the outskirts of a major metropolitan area in the US. They believed it with their entire being. We parents believed that their imaginations had run away with them--and we still went to look to see what they saw.

Why are you arguing with me when you seem to be in 100% agreement?

You did not believe your son. You did not believe there was a tiger there.

That's fine. It would be strange to believe him, since it would be vanishingly unlikely for a tiger to be there. In any case, you couldn't make yourself believe it, could you? Your sons word wasn't enough for you to believe it, but even if it had been, it cannot be said that you chose to believe him.

But, you did what a good parent would do: you took the claim seriously and acted on it.

I once had a nightmare that a demonic-looking man was crawling on the ceiling in our garage. I awoke from this scared beyond comprehension. My dad and my older sister knew it was a nightmare only, but they went downstairs with me to look inside the garage.

They did not believe the events (that a demonic looking man was crawling on the ceiling). They acted in a proper way.

 

[Arctish]

I'm asking you to believe the earth is 6,000 years old by sheer force of will. You can't do it.

You are asking me to accept one single definition of the word "believe" and to apply it in a particularly obtuse manner.

I don't know why you refuse to acknowledge any other definitions but I assure you they do exist and I have been using at least one of them.

I'm not relying on any one definition and I've already said you can't will yourself into any of the definitions.

You are when you're going on and on about the extreme, absolute, unwavering conviction version of "believe" and demanding people attempt to make themselves "believe" something, when everyone else is using the less extreme, more moderate, provisionally-accept-something-as-a -basis-for-further-action kind of "believe" and has told you so.

If I were a cop, and somebody walked into the cop shop and told me they'd been mugged, which of these is the more important?

That I believe them, or

That I take the allegation seriously and act according to standard operating procedure?

The second one is the only one that matters, particularly because it's the only one I can control.

The second is the result of the first.

If you don't believe them, at least provisionally, you can't take their allegation seriously.

If you don't believe them, at least provisionally, you have no reason to act on their report.

You have to at least provisionally accept that they are truthfully reporting something they genuinely believe happened before making a genuine, conscientious effort to investigate their report. It just doesn't work any other way. You have to believe (Merrian-Webster definition 1a) the report is in some way describing an actual event, even if you are unconvinced it happened exactly as described.

And let's keep in mind why "believe the victim" and "believe women" is a topic of conversation these days. It's the result of police departments routinely ignoring/discounting reports of sexual assault and people having enough of that shit.

 

[Metaphor]

2. is the result of 1.

If you don't believe them, at least provisionally, you can't take their allegation seriously.

No. If I don't believe them, I don't believe them. There's nothing I can do about that. My internal cognitions aren't the important thing though.

If you don't believe them, at least provisionally, you have no reason to act on their report.

I sure do have a reason: my job.

You have to at least provisionally accept that they are truthfully reporting something they genuinely believe happened before making a genuine, conscientious effort to investigate their report. It just doesn't work any other way. You have to believe (Merrian-Webster definition 1a) the report is in some way describing an actual event, even if you are unconvinced it happened exactly as described.

No, you don't.

Belief is neither sufficient nor necessary for acting in a way that takes allegations seriously and according to standard operating procedure. That's good, because people can't believe what they want.

 

[Arctish]

No. If I don't believe them, I don't believe them. There's nothing I can do about that. My internal cognitions aren't the important thing though.



I sure do have a reason: my job.

You have to at least provisionally accept that they are truthfully reporting something they genuinely believe happened before making a genuine, conscientious effort to investigate their report. It just doesn't work any other way. You have to believe (Merrian-Webster definition 1a) the report is in some way describing an actual event, even if you are unconvinced it happened exactly as described.

No, you don't.

Belief is neither sufficient nor necessary for acting in a way that takes allegations seriously and according to standard operating procedure. That's good, because people can't believe what they want.

Define "believe".

 

[Emily Lake]

Do you believe the earth is around 6,000 years old?

If I gave your US$100m to believe it, could you will yourself to believe it?

I believe that you are firm in your bias.

 

[Emily Lake]

Of course you can. That isn't the same thing as believing the events happened. I once had a friend who hired a truck, and believed someone had broken into it during the night and damaged parts of it. His version of events did not make sense. The truck was locked when we got into it. The minor scuff marks he was talking about had already been circled on line drawings of the truck that I found in the glove box, by previous people who had hired it. He was absolutely paranoid and I did not believe anyone had broken into the truck and damaged parts of it.

But I could see he believed it. There was no question he believed it. The evidence of my own senses told me he believed it.

But telling him I believed he believed it would not be satisfactory, would it? Imagine I were a cop and I told an alleged rape victim:

"I believe you", or,

"I believe you believe it".

Feminists would scream blue murder at the second utterance.

You don't seem to understand why that second sentence makes women angry - not just feminists (who you seem to think are evil), but women in general, as well as a lot of men. Your own anecdote provides the reason for their anger: It's equivalent to saying "Clearly you believe it but you're wrong". It is implicitly suggesting that the woman reporting the rape was not raped. That's the initial stance - that they were not raped and no crime has been committed.

Come on now, it can't possibly hurt you to concede this small point. If you were to go to the cops and report that you had been robbed, and they responded with "I believe you believe you were robbed"... wouldn't you be a bit angry at that response?