My thesis or hunch or prejudice or superstition is roughly that life is an engineer, or rather that this metaphor is itself a piece of good engineering. By "generalized technology" I mean that our talk (philosophy, physics, stand-up comedy, theology, fiction, etc.) solves problems, eases pain, brings pleasure. The truth seems to have a indirect value. A "true" statement is a good rule for action or a beautiful perspective that we come to believe, rely on, prop ourselves up with. So words are tools just like shovels and hair-cutting scissors. One might also call this "radicalized instrumentalism." Desire and fear seem to drive tool-use, including language use. We double-down on the use of a tool (believe more strongly) as it gets us what we want reliably. Failure and disaster, on the other hand, are the mother and father of sincere (and not philosopher's rhetorical) doubt. Or so it seems to me.

But all of this doubles back on itself. Am I presenting a truth? Or is this tool-metaphor itself no more than tool? Do we will prove anything true? Or do we advertise a generalized technique and allow other, different human beings to try it and see if it works for them? I tempted to say that ideas are never refuted in some ideal logical space. Instead they are just put down when seemingly better ideas are picked up. This is all very foggy and "organic," but perhaps that's to be expected at such a level of generality. It's a meta-tool which can serve as a rough criterion for tools closer to the action.

Any thoughts?