Page - 92 - in Limina - Grazer theologische Perspektiven, Volume 3:2

Sara Lumbreras and Lluis Oviedo There has been extensive work on understanding belief, from a psycho- logical, philosophical and neurobiological perspective. Meanwhile, arti- ficial intelligence has produced compelling developments that can enrich and update the brain-as-a-computer metaphor and has tried to better represent beliefs as cognitive probabilistic processes. In parallel, there has been a surge of research in Complexity Sciences, with applications rang- ing from Medicine to Finance. Some authors have already linked the con- nected nature of belief to the behaviour of complex networks. We would like to expand this approach to understand belief as a complex system with the main functions of providing a model of the world – including the individual and her surroundings – and producing guidelines for action. The complex- system perspective allows us to understand some of the properties of belief systems in a comprehensive manner, which many authors have begun to study in isolation. Notably, this provides a framework to study the impor- tant phenomena of belief formation and change as processes of emergence and adaptation. In this exploratory paper, we propose an outline for this framework for this study. Belief networks as complex systems LIMINA Grazer theologische Perspektiven | 3:2, 2020, 92–108 | www.limina-graz.eu | DOI: 10.25364/17.3:2020.2.5 ABSTRACT Glaube wurde bereits vielfach aus psychologischer, philosophischer und neuro- biologischer Perspektive untersucht. Inzwischen gab es im Bereich der künst- lichen Intelligenz beeindruckende Fortschritte, die die metaphorische Bezeich- nung des Gehirns als Computer aktuell und relevant erscheinen lassen und Ver- suche nahelegen, Glaube als kognitiven probabilistischen Prozess darzustellen. Gleichzeitig wurde die Komplexitätsforschung intensiviert, deren Anwendun- gen von der Medizin bis zum Finanzbereich reichen. Einige AutorInnen stell- ten bereits Zusammenhänge zwischen der Natur des Glaubens und dem Ver-