Beliefs vs. ideas

I thought this was interesting idea, from a recent comment on an old post:

And finally, as for your comment about thoughts vs beliefs, I would say I personally have found it better to have ideas about as many things as possible as opposed to beliefs since ideas are more easily changed if necessary whereas beliefs can limit you as a human being. I'm not saying it's wrong to have beliefs - it's healthy. Just that the more beliefs you have about people and the world, the more limited you are in the ways you can experience the world and I think that would be a good frame of reference for anyone who identifies as a sociopath as well. 

I do think this is how sociopaths probably generally see the world. It's fine for me to have in my mind a series of what I guesstimate are the probabilities that something is true -- e.g. whether or not the moon landing was real, whether or not I am real, whether or not the whole world is a simulation, whether I love my siblings, whether my religion is true. But I don't really have beliefs about most things. I know that some people are the opposite. I have a close family member who has beliefs about all sorts of things, like if you tell him a story about an issue with a co-worker he might have a belief about what really happened and why the person got upset. That belief will seem as true to him in the moment as whether or not he is was born on a particular date -- in fact maybe more so, because he doesn't remember specifically being born and so it doesn't feel as real to him as does his belief about your co-worker. And they are deeply held and he seems to identify with them at a profound level. And it does seem like it would limit you, especially if you were the type to have a strong sense of self. Because these beliefs are you, and if someone challenges your beliefs then they are challenging you and you will be defensive. Does that sound right?

It reminds me of this recent post.