Belief

In everyday language, belief is often treated as a weaker form of knowledge—something we hold until we can be more certain. ISITism turns this assumption inside out. Belief is not a lesser version of knowledge; it is a fundamentally different mode of engagement with reality. Belief belongs to the domain of IS: it is lived, provisional, experiential, and oriented toward becoming rather than closure. We believe precisely where certainty is absent. In that sense, belief is not a failure to know; it is the natural state of awareness operating in an open and unfolding reality.

This becomes clear when belief is contrasted with knowledge, which occupies a far more ITistic role. Knowledge is stabilized belief. It is belief that has been named, fixed, externalized, and treated as an object. Knowledge can be written down, stored, tested, taught, and defended. Belief cannot. Belief exists before such stabilization and often dissolves once stabilization occurs. This is why belief feels alive and intimate, while knowledge feels solid and impersonal. Belief moves; knowledge rests. Belief asks; knowledge answers. The distinction is not about truth or falsity, but about state—becoming versus having.

Belief is therefore ISish by nature because it lives in uncertainty. It requires trust, intuition, and participation rather than verification. A belief does not claim final authority; it expresses a current alignment between awareness and experience. The moment absolute certainty enters, belief collapses into something else—usually knowledge or assumption. This fragility is not a weakness. It is the signature of IS at work. ISish phenomena are always somewhat indeterminate at their edges, because they are still forming. Belief belongs to that formative space.

From an ISITist perspective, many human conflicts arise from confusing belief and knowledge—treating beliefs as if they were ITistic facts, or dismissing beliefs because they are not yet facts. When beliefs are unconsciously hardened into knowledge, they become rigid, defensive, and resistant to new information. When beliefs are consciously recognized as beliefs, they remain flexible tools for sensemaking. ISITism does not ask us to abandon belief; it asks us to hold belief with awareness, allowing it to inform experience without masquerading as certainty.

Seen this way, belief is not something to outgrow on the way to knowledge. It is an enduring and necessary function of awareness in a living, dynamic reality. Knowledge has its place—it gives structure, continuity, and reliability—but belief is what allows awareness to move forward when structure is incomplete. By understanding belief as ISish and knowledge as ITistic, ISITism uses a familiar human experience to quietly illuminate the deeper distinction between IS and IT themselves. Belief teaches us what IS feels like from the inside.