Also gets into something I’ve wondered for a while (just an intuitive thing)… so I firmly believe that everything is more or less belief. Giving something power, creates something, in which case that thing can now recruit its own power, etc. BUUUT believing something that works against shared reality or our understanding of it requires a knowing of insane density, because you’re going up against millions+ (technically billions, I clarify below) who believe differently.
Why is this related? I wonder if there’s a weighting system. E.g. if you’re a scientist at a time 20 years ago when scientists were far more revered, I wonder if my individual faith in you weights your belief in the thing I trust you in. So the pyramid of faith would be “Above average scientist” is boosted by their collective of colleagues, is boosted by the faith people have in their occupation, their learning institutions, their individual levels from the people they’re intimate with, etc.
So, the insect concept. Do insects pull from a smaller and smaller pool of consciousness because we’re the ones classifying them? And there are nearly 7 billion people with more gravity to their consciousness putting their faith into a system that says not only can the grasshopper and cricket not be the same, but there are uncountable differences even in those categories?
Not to mention, of those 7 billion, a generous chunk of them believe in man’s dominion over nature, either by food chain, by “human savior”, or by mandate of their god.