Both are illusory.
M-kay…
Given that the definition of “illusory” is:
”
- based on illusion; not real.”
How, exactly, is Knowledge, that being
”
1.facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject.”
or
” 2.awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation.”
… “illusory”?
Believing is much better than Knowing. Knowledge is gained how? From learning? Learning comes from knowledge of others along with your own experiments or experiences? How many times throughout history have there been, when knowledge ended up being incorrect. Something "known to be true" ends up being wrong. It happens a lot..., like every day!
Believing takes no knowledge at all. It does not take reason or even the ability to think rationally. In fact beliefs work better if one is not rational at all, so believing is much easier to accept. One does not have to prove anything, one can simply believe.
Of course, I have no first hand knowledge of any of the statements above, nor do I believe in them...
I know in my heart which one is better.
Obviously I don’t believe in knowledge 
“All I know is that I know nothing” ~ Socrates
Based on what evidence?
And, what do you mean by “people”? Homo Sapiens is but one specie of “people”, and the evidence is mounting that “we” have been here a lot longer than Judeo-Christian beliefs will tolerate.
As SWMBO has been preaching for decades, there is much more evidence that (e.g.) Neanderthal DNA was incorporated into Cro Magnon, et seq. than the popular Xenophobic “extirpation” fantasy. (Q “What happened to the Neanderthals?” A “We’re still here!” Q “What about the Cro-Magnons?” A “Us too!” “Friggin’ illiterate Cro-Magnons!”)
Sorry, but it is not difficult to discriminate. This is what it looks like to “examine your beliefs” and maintain a sense of humor. Trust me, it isn’t fun! It won’t win you any friends or influence many people (of any species)! But it’s like the old cliche, “Once you see it, you’ll never be able to ‘un-see’ it!”
(Hint: the same rocks were there, then…)
What difference does it make whether you die or not some day? What matters is what you do with THIS day. If I can prove that, is it still a belief?
Sometimes you gotta have faith!
“Beauty is its own Truth, defying Logic.”
That is fine.
But why?
I don’t like either option. What about the middle options, such as Bayesian probability?
I guess that’s probably closer to believing, since it’s basically an explicit way to not know something, and more specifically, have a reasonable estimate of just how much one doesn’t know it. But… OTOH, it could also be considered closer to knowing, since it allows one to be pretty darn sure of things when all the evidence points in the same direction, even if the conclusion is explicitly not proven to be absolutely true.
Existing knowledge (expertise) can act as a barrier to new knowledge. I think in Zen it is called the “beginner’s mind.” Your existing knowledge, biases, notions and beliefs can sometimes prevent you from seeing the painfully obvious. Knowledge itself can be dogma.
Years ago I used to give a lot of presentations and occasionally do public speaking. People were telling me I was over-prepared even though it felt like I was unprepared. A co-worker whose brother was a Buddhist monk told me about this. It’s also proven to be invaluable by trying to approach every problem as a blank slate; an empty vessel.
There are many kinds of knowledge. Most people in this discussion are referring to intellectual knowledge. That can usually be the most trustworthy, however there is a trap in that. It was discussed somewhat in another thread referring to “Confident Ignorance”
There are other forms of knoweledge, for instance, Carnal knowlege.
Then there is spiritual knowledge, as it relates to the major religions.
There is also “knowledge of the heart”, as I believe, Chloe referred to. (notice I used the phrase “I believe”, because I could be wrong.)
Then there is experiential knowledge, knowledge of self, etc.
The subject of knowledge and belief is the center of the major religions. Faith too. It is a kin to knowledge. In our daily lives, we trust on our knowlege, beliefs and feelings to do even the most simple of tasks. This is all really heavy stuff.
I suppose what I’m really saying is…
I’m certain of my uncertainty.
… and Gödel’s incompleteness theorem.
I wish I could be that certain
I believe you should know what you don’t know.
I can’t answer the original question because I don’t know which is better.
The more you know, the more you know you don’t know. The more you believe, the more you believe you “know” what you believe is true.
Ah, the Eternal Golden Braid
The more I study, the more I know
The more I know, the more I can forget
The more I can forget, the more I do forget!
The more I forget, the less I know
So why study?
A few thoughts
Knowledge is gained from reverse engineering the universe, information passed to us from others and instinct which has a genetic component and a learned component. We can test the reverse engineered knowledge, but many will obfuscate that ability by claiming their opinions can’t be tested and inventing logic to support that position, leading to the human penchant for closed mindedness
Reverse engineering is not a direct way of learning, it can be misinterpreted and depends on the universal laws not changing which there is no way to determine where they came from, never mind if they can or will change. There is no actual direct way of observing the universe we can calculate, derive and observe but its indirect.
Genetics have been honed based on the past or based on the creator (whichever you want to go with) but doesn’t cover every known situation, nor ones that will be invented in the future but have never existed before in history, but it has vast control over our behaviour
Many of us learn incorrect or limited lessons, knowledge was often passed from person to person which causes changes in information and outdated information assuming the original information was accurate, our experiences with others leaves impressions and viewpoints in us, and how we grew up affects our behaviours and decisions (and how many have grown up in abusive or abandonment situations?)
Culture also influences how we regard things
And closed mindedness says we are right and not willing to consider other viewpoints or to be open minded to new ways of doing things. Denial of facts causes many problems because doing the same wrong thing over and over again doesn’t fix problems (which of course is also denied or explained away by made up information or theories)
All of this leads to great trouble in achieving accuracy of information, one could argue that the progress in accuracy of information has been one of the great accomplishments of the last 100 years but denial can grow in greater proportion to demonstratable fact
I don’t know, as such, in an absolute manner… I just have approximate P-values for my beliefs, and I try to keep those P-values up to date with my observations.
Of course, any P-value with more than a handful of leading nines or zeroes is virtually indistinguishable from knowledge… and I’d be quite surprised to observe anything contrary to what I believe in those cases.
It’s almost certain that some of my beliefs are false but, hopefully, tomorrow I can be less wrong than I am today. Show me something surprising!