CK will start this blog item by acknowledging that he picked some of it up from an answer by David Week on Quora. Not plagiarism. Simply an acknowledgement that the approach and expression was good, and that there is no point in working hard to be different for the sake of being different. Different is not necessarily better. So let’s use an evolutionary approach and build on what’s already been found to work well. I’ve extracted bits, changed bits of it to suite the purposes here, and improved or personalised it a little, but chunks of it are unchanged and here acknowledged because it’s good and serves well as it is.

CK likes evolution as a method. As far as he can tell from observing the creation the Creator does too.

There are lots of smart contributors to Quora and CK follows several of them on topics relevant to this site. It’s the wise thing to do. And it ensures some of their wisdoms arrive at this site. You can follow them on Quora too, or you can just rely on this site to do the research for you.

Sometimes it’s useful to know the etymology of a word. Insofar as a word is a symbol for ideas and meanings, the etymology—the change in meaning of the word over time—reflects the history of the idea. Philosophers, following Nietzsche, sometimes call this the genealogy of the idea.

The value of pursuing the genealogy of an idea is that you get some distance from it. The problem with our day to day understanding of language is that it’s so fluid, so proficient, that we don’t have an intellectual grasp of what we’re doing. This is similar to my knowledge of the keyboard when I’m touch-typing (as I am now.) My fingers know the location of the keys —yet if you were to ask me to recite the order of the keys I would get as far as QWERTY, because I know that by heart, because it’s called a QWERTY keyboard. But after that I would have to think very hard and build some sort of mental image, rather than sensory map, of the keyboard in my conscious mind.

The same is true with the meaning of words. I know how to use the words, but if asked what it “means”, some additional thought is required.

So what do we mean when we use the word “believe”?

We could go to Site Terminology for clarification of a word like this, but it probably won’t give us the etymology, since that’s not it’s purpose. So let’s use something different.

The Origin and meaning of believe by Online Etymology Dictionary gives:

Old English belyfan "to have faith or confidence" (in a person), earlier geleafa (Mercian), gelefa (Northumbrian), gelyfan (West Saxon), from Proto-Germanic *ga-laubjan "to believe," perhaps literally "hold dear (or valuable, or satisfactory), to love" (source also of Old Saxon gilobian "believe," Dutch geloven, Old High German gilouben, German glauben), ultimately a compound based on PIE root *leubh- "to care, desire, love" (see belief).

So our idea of belief descended, perhaps by abstraction, from another idea of love. Whom you love, is whom you trust, and whom you trust, is someone you have faith or confidence in.

Here’s the etymology of a related word: truth.

Old English triewð (West Saxon), treowð (Mercian) "faith, faithfulness, fidelity, loyalty; veracity, quality of being true; pledge, covenant," from Germanic abstract noun *treuwitho, from Proto-Germanic treuwaz "having or characterized by good faith," from PIE *drew-o-, a suffixed form of the root *deru- "be firm, solid, steadfast." With Germanic abstract noun suffix *-itho (see -th (2)).

Even though truth and believe are very different words, you can see how they can be traced back to a metaphoric extension of Human Beings. A person is firm, sold, steadfast, and so we trust them, we believe in them. A truth is also firm, solid, steadfast, and we believe in them as well.

Here’s another, at first apparently unrelated word: betroth.

c. 1300, betrouthen, "to promise to marry (a woman)," from be-, here probably with a sense of "thoroughly," + Middle English treowðe "truth," from Old English treowðe "truth, a pledge" (see truth). From 1560s as "contract to give (a woman) in marriage to another, affiance." Related: Betrothed; betrothing.

But here again we can see a kind of reverse movement in meaning, where the human relationship of marriage, is derived from the sense of the word “truth”. And we see this relationship in the phrase “be true to someone [whom you love]”.

Clearly all three centre around the concepts of truthfulness and trustworthiness. We believe that which can be trusted. We trust that which is true and can be believed. Yet it’s also clear that it’s personalised around the concept of love. This is a wisdom very dear to CK’s heart.

Though we’ve lost the connection in the modern day, I think there’s something to be learned from this historical entwining of belief, truth, love, and marriage. To believe in something, or simply to believe it, is to enter into a very intimate relationship with it. If I believe that my watch tells the right time, I am putting my trust in my watch, that it will help me get to work on time. If I believe that hard work is the basis for promotion, I am putting my faith in that knowledge, perhaps exerting myself for years. If that idea is false: I could be shattered. I would certainly be betrayed in the same way that I would be betrayed if someone led me to believe it, by assuring me it was true.

So there’s a clear connection between the words ‘belief’ and ‘faith’. To believe something is to put your faith in it, to depend on it, to rely up on it.

Topics like belief, truth, faith, love, and trust get plenty of coverage on a site concerned with wisdom. There’s plenty in The Oracle as well as this Blog about such matters as:

• how one comes to believe things,

• and how we can ‘know’ something is true.

But for now we’ll leave it here, having established an interesting connection between love, intimacy, and belief.