False beliefs that are useful

Again, there’s that subtlety problem. I really have answered your concerns, before you raised them. As usual.

You are dismissed.

Whew!

Other useful, for the believers, but false systemic beliefs can be found in various kinds of colonialism and, say, Manifest Destiny. Here people found beliefs to assuage what might otherwise have been considered immoral behavior. I am not making choices, it is Destiny. I have the right because when I evaluate my Culture, amazingly, I find it better than the people whose land I am taking. Racism, which is often a part of these, can be seen as useful but false. If you gather the system of beliefs involved in some mix of Christianity, racism, and the beliefs involved around what is the correct and only correct way to have a society/Culture/way of Life, you get a very effective program for minimizing guilt and combining secular and religious Power and Control of Soldiers, sailors, administrators, etc, to carry out these intercultural relations that often skipped things like fair negotiation, rights to Life, etc., which would have tended to be held in relation to members of one’s own society and even to a great extent to societies one defeated in war, but who were similar types of civilization.

The trick here is that there were no doubt some truths and partial truths tossed into the system of belief.

Of course, Another issue is - what is the time frame? When do we decide enough time has gone by, we can weigh all the pluses and minuses?
And how do we compare what happened to what might have happened without the beliefs?

Generally human beings thrive on believing things that are not true, self delusion, after all if we were completely honest with ourselves it would make our lives extremely hard to cope with; you might argue depression occurs when you are facing up to the reality of your false beliefs, although it often tends to be a a spiralling down beyond anything regarding something honest. It is useful to some extent to kid ourselves in many areas of our life, to make us believe we are better than we are, in fact we do it so often it often goes unnoticed. There are so many false beliefs that are useful to us, it’s probably impossible to untangle them from every day life. You might think it’s just religion that is perhaps unreal and based on pure faith, but much of our life comes from this state of mind, I’m not saying life is total shit, but one needs at least a veneer of self delusion to function at all, the longer you live the more undercoats you probably have.

“I just gave you 3 quotes of Nietzsche saying either that we do, or should, consider ‘true’ what works.”

Nietzsche says neither that truth is what works nor that it should be considered as such. On the contrary, he says what’s not true is often most necessary. Nietzsche is explaining that what conscious life requires for its own promotion are instinct-informed fantasies just as often as anything resembling truth.

[i]1. “We simply lack any organ for knowledge, for ‘truth’: we ‘know’ (or believe or imagine) just as much as may be useful in the interests of the human herd, the species; and even what is here called ‘utility’ is ultimately also a mere belief, something imaginary, and perhaps precisely that most calamitous stupidity of which we shall perish some day”. (Gay Science, Aphorism 354)

2. “The falseness of a judgment is for us not necessarily an objection to a judgment; in this respect our new language may sound strangest. The question is to what extent it is life-promoting, life-preserving, species-preserving, perhaps even species-cultivating”. (Beyond Good and Evil, 4)

3. Over immense periods of time the intellect produced nothing but errors. A few of these proved to be useful and helped to preserve the species: those who hit upon or inherited these had better luck in their struggle for themselves and their progeny (Gay Science, 110).[/i]

In every single quote, Nietzsche is saying either that we do consider true what works, or else that we should.

No, perspectival falsifications and errors are called false because by the lights of the traditional conception of truth (the Correspondence Theory), they are false. That’s why you find ‘truth’ in scare quotes. It is absolutely clear, from the quotes, that Nietzsche is saying either that we do consider true what works, or that we should.

Here’s another:

Boom, son.

I like this and Think there is a lot of truth in it. I Think a lot of the rapid motion and distraction we find today is because there is an underlying panic closer to the Surface than in earlier periods.

This is a continuation of the passage you quoted from BGE.
“To recognize untruth as a condition of life - that certainly means resisting accustomed value feelings in a dangerous, way; and a philosophy that risks this would by that token alone place itself beyond good and evil.”
What could Nietzsche mean by untruth being necessary for life, other than just that?

Just what I said in my last post. --Untruths according to the traditional conception of truth (i.e., The Correspondence Theory of truth). Nietzsche equivocates about ‘truth’, but he usually indicates he’s speaking in this sense by using scare quotes.

But the notion that we really consider true what enhances our power, our life, etc… that’s pragma. That’s not the same as above, and n endorses that.

A) useful to whom?
B) useful toward what purpose?

Those are the two questions to have answered before attempting to answer the question that you asked.

But now, how are you going to answer those two unless you first answer your question with “I need to know the truth and not be deceived”?

If you accept misbelief, then you can’t rely on your answers to those two questions and thus can never know if your misbelief was justified.

True/False are value judgements of beliefs. Something 100% true, a certain, undeniable belief, would be a fact, but you’re not asking about facts, you’re asking about beliefs.
So, isn’t there something odd about asking if a false belief is useful? Isn’t it a contradiction in terms? How can something of a negative valuation be useful? It’s like being attracted to someone ugly. By definition, you can’t be. You’re just not being honest about what is or isn’t ugly.

No, he’s not. He’s just saying that truth is not necessarily of any value to us.

What the intellect produced was what was considered true. By the traditional conception of truth, those truths were errors. But by what is life enhancing, valuable for life, and power enhancing (read: what fucking worked) clearly those aren’t. It’s not an error that they worked. It’s only an error that they correspond to the ultimate nature of reality.

That’s why N says explicitly: Truth is the error that works to keep you alive. THATS PRAGMA.

I’m done educating you. No disrespect.

Faust sticks to what N says, Mo draws consequences from that. Both have solid points, they do not contradict.
Where it goes wrong is in talking about truth in truth statements without a sense of irony and absurdity.
Why do you think N compared truth to a woman? Not because he wanted to be directly truthful. The point is to let the concept Truth recede to the background and discipline yourself to interpret all situations in terms of a truth that is not yet established - an increased power.

The concept truth as a guide for action obstructs the will to power. At least this is Nietzsche’s point - his only truth-value is the goal at the end of the straight line, along with the force that produces and aims to reach that goal.

Nietzsche makes truth disappear. Under his hands it recedes further and deeper into the background. The concept is unnecessary. All that matter is what is agreed upon by certain parties. In this hierarchy of values, Truth is synonymous to History. And this is how it should be, this is what makes a human happy - to live among the actions of great men, rather than in conscientious obedience to truthfulness.

The problem is that there probably is a definitive truth about things. “The world is will to power” is obviously Nietzsche’s attempt at a truth-statement, and belief in the ER is it’s verification, which to N can only be attained by a certain type of man, to bring it back to the relative value of truth. What is true is that truths are relative to the value the produce, which means that this statement has to be disregarded in any attempt to value. Truth requires either blind obedience or blind courage.

“Truth is relative” is true only in a certain context. “Truth is absolute” creates a context wherein the most ambitious and relentless minds dictate the rules. Science is the tyranny of such minds over those ‘species of the plant Man’ that would be better suited to a world wherein truth is relative. Nietzsche’s work can be seen as an attempt to give such plants the benefit of the doubt, at least in their own mind.

Fuck truth and it will reproduce in your image.

Progressively less wrong, yes. Faust is rightest.
The end of this process is not the absolute truth but the absence of truth.
How can you be wrong when you can’t be right?

Might is Right – so who’s right is usually also powerfully in the wrong.

Science is probably extremely wrong about a number of subjects. From a good deal of perspectives that I can imagine or even embody, the scientific method is a big mistake, an error which will kill us if it remains uncorrected.

It’s not the scientific method that is the problem in science, it is after all in essence completely objective, it denies truths and proclaims that no theory is inviolate, it claims that all of current knowledge is getting there but is not quite right, that truth does not exist only an asymptotic approach to it. It is in essence as a progression one death after another; unfortunately even those who are meant to be completely objective do not follow such an ideal, having natural a bias, as all people do in any subject, which means the weakest link is not the method it’s those who use it. I can say though it at least tries to self regulate, it is perhaps one field of practical endeavour where finding error gains you more renown than finding conformity. In that sense it is as healthy as it can be given human nature. The philosophy of science is hence still very important in pointing out the fallacies of humans, and hence modifying science and its method so that the humans personal bias are more likely to be removed from the equation. It’s not perfect but then it is perhaps honest enough to say that, few methodologies are.

A false belief that is useful;

Given the right team, all of my teammates are being faithful.

At any one time the belief might be false, but given the right team, you are better off believing that it is true.

Both statements capture two questions having philosophical interest, yet I think that establishing a relationship between them is confusing.
I do not think that the the question about the usefulness of beliefs (which strikes me as distinguishably pragmatistic) is relevant for the theme of the value of truth for Nietzsche. My position is that the truth at any price («”At any price”: how well we understand these words once we have offered and slaughtered one faith after another on this altar!», «Nothing is needed more than truth, and in relation to it everything else has only second-rate value» - GS, 344) questioned by Nietzsche is the truth of knowledge, not of something that is qualified as belief. Beliefs, qua beliefs, are not the primary object of Nietzsche’s reflection about truth.
The well known position that there are no facts but only interpretations is a statement targeting knowledge. It may be referred to beliefs too, but then it would sound quite nugatory. Of course one can argue that, if knowledge is only interpretation, then all knowledge is just belief, but I don’t think that Nietzsche maintains exactly that.
The broad category “system of beliefs” is too coarse to approach Nietzsche’s analysis, and there is not a unique kind of beliefs.
The belief in free-will is not exactly the belief in guardian angels. (Or is it? Because, ultimately, they are roughly equally implausible and whimsical).
The myth of Atlantis is not the same of Dumezil’s Trifunctional Theory.
I picked these examples because they are heterogeneous - and may be controversial as well. I would understand if people disagree and that would serve my point: “system of beliefs” is too coarse a class for analysis and the equation knowledge = belief is not really helpful either.
Even if we are to endorse the most skeptical point of view, and assume that all beliefs are epistemologically equal, and maintain that a distinction between knowledge and belief is pointless, there would still be relevant psychological differences. The supposed truth of beliefs such as religion – which is the reasons for believing them without paramount evidence – is not the same truth of knowledge, which is presumed to be a necessary representation of reality, a so-called “fact”.
As I see it, the quotes proposed by Von Rivers are compatible with my way of framing the question.
But unlike him, without delving into the definition of pragmatism, I don’t think that Nietzsche would say anything like that “we” should believe true what works - which I interpret as what is useful. First of all because there’s no undifferentiated “we”, a belief can’t be of concern to all, because mankind is not composed by equals. Some thoughts (and hence beliefs) correspond to some natures while are repelled by others. This position can be found in many works, as throughout the book II of BGE, but as for beliefs (and notably a collection of beliefs such as «god, satan, evil, will, spirit, justice, rights, free will, heaven, hell») I guess that Antichrist 37 is enlightening:

And as for the concept of usefulness: Nietzsche clearly states (BGE 354) that «even what is here called ‘utility’ is ultimately also a mere belief, something imaginary, and perhaps precisely that most calamitous stupidity of which we shall perish some day». It doesn’t take much to reckon that free will is convenient for egalitarians – or Christians – so that everybody can be deemed equally responsible for his/her acts. And being egalitarian is a belief – and, from Nietzsche’s point of view, a toxic and corrupting one.
Indeed, while it is debatable that a system of beliefs as a whole can be maintained when it turns out that it is patently false, some tenets can be strenuously maintained against all evidence. Again responsibility is a pretty helpful example. Even a philosopher like Dennett, who claims that «holding people responsible is the best game in town» (if nothing else, American philosophers are worth reading for statements like this one), or that «At our best, we behave “responsibly” - that is to say, morally», finds himself with no philosophical elements to prop his notion of responsibility, else than it’s “useful”… It’s worth playing the comedy because else the society would tear apart – maybe that can be better rendered as: society would become something he’s afraid of.
I don’t think that this attitude can possibly match Nietzsche’s. Conversely philosophers, future philosophers at least, are distinguished by being good-humoured and devilish (or godly) and cruel “seekers of truths”, of the most inconvenient truths (BGE 29, 34, 227, 230…).
So, about

I don’t really think so. Such a ‘grand experimentation’ is indeed possible and has taken place – at the cost of life and death – throughout history.
But philosophers, qua philosophers, craft no beliefs – truths possibly (BGE 207).
Now, it is apparent that the Nietzschean doctrine of truth is the theatre of the most disparate interpretations. Personally I think that truth, although truth is human and nothing but human, is not a matter of convention (because of any supposed utility). But analysing this would take us quite far, factoring in also BGE 34, or GS – Preface 4, and probably others. Moreover it is also arguable that Nietzsche changed something between GS – V/BGE and TI on this subject, or that, however, these books do not attack the subject from the same point of view (TI being a more “esoteric” work, while BGE, as an attempt at “fishing” free spirits, being more “exoteric” - note that I don’t really subscribe to the view of Nietzsche as an esoteric author).
By the way, it is sufficiently clear that truth is only for philosophers, the ones fit for and capable of daring it. The rest need to be “disciplined”, by all means (TI, «The “Improvers” of mankind») - and maybe that is what Mr.Dennett is trying to do.

Well said.