to pyrrho

To wonder is, first, to ask a question. Why? How do I know?

But wonder is also what drives us forward to seek answers. Wonder is the impetus to escape the nihilistic pit, to know the unknown. It is primarily an emotion, but has a fundamental role to play in learning and the acquisition of knowledge. It is also the feeling of understanding, and as such, it is our most useful guide to our intuition.

This, too, is but a step, and requires some means of evaluating our intuitions. This is where pragmatism comes in. Use what works. Truth is prediction. Pragmatism is self-correcting and unavoidable. Everybody is a pragmatist whether they know it or not. Some just apply it more consciously and consistently than others.

Wonder is the bridge which gets us from nihilism to pragmatism, and it's what keeps us going further and further into pragmatism. This eventually leads to science, and the rest is history.

Wonder is a natural human emotion. All people experience wonder, in various degrees, every day of their lives. The religious argument from wonder fails, because religious wonder is no different from non-religious wonder. In fact, it is the scientifically-based worldview (which I here espouse with the name 'wonderism') which leads to ever-deeper experiences of wonder, beyond the stagnant 'religious' wonder that remains stuck in the ancient past and false claims to knowledge.

Response to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3NqGOojDjI

Category:

Education

Tags:

• wonder
• wonderism
• skepticism
• nihilism
• pragmatism
• intuition
• knowledge
• science
• philosophy
• epistemology
• doubt
• error
• ask
• questions
• why
• seek
• answers
• truth
• prediction
• atheism
• religion
• natural
• emotion

[CPLains]

Well. First of all. Thanks for your replies. :) And yes, that was a dry joke. Not without merit as it seems to communicate exactly what i wanted.

Let me note two points. First, it's an overly broad definition that subsumes more than it has any right to. Secondly, it is circular in the way "people want happiness, happiness is what people want" is often circular. Now these are not logical objections, but rather comments.

[wonderist]

"Secondly, it is circular"

Not my version, because I rely on prediction. Whatever makes the better predictions is supported under pragmatism. Any attempt to show that you can achieve a 'better' outcome with some other method requires an inherent prediction. If the prediction actually is better, then it is subsumed by pragmatism. If not, then it's not actually 'better'.

[wonderist]

Also, remember that prediction says nothing about desire. Physics makes good predictions whether I want to believe in it or not. If I desire a better cannon, I should use physics to achieve that goal. If I want a better wall to protect me from my enemy's new cannon, I should also use physics to achieve that goal. Regardless of the goal, the best predictions come from physics. That is what truth is. The ability to predict. It says nothing of what goals you apply the predictions towards.

[wonderist]

"I'm in desperate need for challenging thought, utterances that shake me to the core, that drives my questioning further. "

I find 'truth is prediction' to be highly fruitful in that regard. I have searched and not found any prior statement like that. In my experience, people find it extremely counter-intuitive.

Here are others I like: God is the Unknown; we are star stuff; there is no such thing as race; all people can experience wonder; we all share one reality; the Earth is our foundation.

[CPLains]

I'd like to think i've moved beyond all that; i've had all those thoughts. Perhaps i went too far somewhere. Time will tell.

"Prediction's all-too easy if you generalize your predictions all-too much."

[wonderist]

Pragmatism is not a large set of ideas. It is one or a few very simple ideas that allow you to build your own larger set of ideas. Those larger sets of ideas are supported by pragmatism, but they are not pragmatism per se. Each pragmatist develops his own set of ideas based on pragmatism. In fact, I have many deep disagreements with most of the classical pragmatists. But I agree with them on the deeper, simpler, smaller set of pragmatic principles. That small set of ideas is what I'm defending.

[wonderist]

I think most people who do not consider themselves pragmatists have not really thought through how deeply pragmatism permeates reasoning. They envision a superficial, straw man version of 'pragmatism', and then reject that. But in rejecting it, they are using pragmatic reasoning. Some other idea seems 'better' than the superficial 'pragmatism' they envision.

[wonderist]

I read through your comments but cannot seem to find the meat of the argument.

Is it that 'thinking like a pragmatist' is unsatisfying? I would challenge that with, "To find satisfaction, you must find techniques of thinking that achieve better satisfying outcomes. To find those techniques, you must compare which ones work better, i.e. predict higher satisfaction. This is an inherently pragmatic process. Therefore, try harder at pragmatism. Keep going, don't stop."

[CPLains]

By limiting myself to scientific method and conventional moral philosophy, and pragmatism in general, i feel as if the impetous to break through and see new novel phenomena is too weak to surpass the huge inertia and bias we are born with. "Happiness" and "Scientific Method" and "Pragmatism" share in common the unusual (or all-too usual) property that most people are very comfortable with them; everyone agrees with their "obvious" nature, and nuances between approaches get buried beneath them.

[CPLains]

So why is it not pragmatical to be a pragmatist? By being a pragmatist we narrow down our view much like the utilitarians do. Not because their "calculus" cannot include everything - it can be modified to whatever degree, but because our way of thinking is not inherently challenged by its decree.

In formulating my above thoughts i think i see what seperates us. I'm in desperate need for challenging thought, utterances that shake me to the core, that drives my questioning further.

[CPLains]

To explicity conquer pragmatism we can show how what is pragmatical is to not believe in pragmatism. This is implied as a possibility in the "joke", and something i think is very real. It doesn't necessarily beat pragmatism, but it beats being a pragmatist. (I know this is quite a strange way to reason; one that i learned from Parfit - but extremely interesting ain my mind!)