Thanks. I read The Magus back in the 1980's and have no memory of it. I'll have another look.

I don't see how it's possible to deny that there is order in the universe, regardless of humans perceiving it. If solid H2O sometimes floated in liquid H2O, and sometimes didn't… If photons sometimes traveled at 299,792,458 mps, and sometimes didn't… If electrons sometimes repelled each other, and sometimes didn't…. if the strength of gravity sometimes followed the inverse square law, and sometimes didn't... On and on and on and on and on... It would be chaos if those things didn't always work the same way under the same conditions. The universe would be chaos. If a universe could exist at all. — Patterner

I understand why it feels compelling to say that the universe must have order, because without consistent laws, nothing could exist as we know it. Maybe you (and most scientists) are right about this. :razz: Neverthless, I am curious, does what we call ‘order’ exist independently of our own frameworks? The stability of H₂O, photons, electrons, or gravity is only meaningful within the systems of concepts, practices, and distinctions that we impose.

Does the universe possess order as an intrinsic property, or does it only become ordered through our acts of knowing, as we impose structure on an otherwise indeterminate reality? Your notion of chaos, therefore, is not an external threat; it is simply the indeterminate reality that we continually structure in order to make sense of anything at all. The predictability we observe is real, but is this because we have stabilized certain patterns within an otherwise indeterminate world? I wonder if what we call ‘laws of nature’ are our codified ways of structuring reality, not independent features of the universe. But I fear I have strayed into an unpopular and perhaps debased version of post-modernism.

But let's look at an example of the above so we can tease it out.

When we say that water freezes at 0 °C, it seems like an objective fact about the universe. But from my perspective, this predictability arises perhaps because we have structured reality with concepts like temperature, phase, and measurement. The water itself doesn’t carry the law of freezing; it only behaves in ways we can recognize once we impose these distinctions. What we call a ‘law of nature’ is therefore not an independent feature of the universe, but a pattern we have stabilized within an otherwise indeterminate reality.

I'm just trying to think through this stuff here and perhaps doing it badly.

There is meaning, and there is order. We find those things. — Patterner

Got ya. The view I have sympathy for at present is that meaning and order are products of our interactions with the world rather than features waiting to be uncovered. We create concepts, patterns, and “laws” as tools to navigate our experience. This makes me wonder, what would count as meaning that is independent or external to human thought?

But I can see how it would be argued that the daily sunrise or even the laws of logic are external to us. I’m not entirely convinced, and I wonder to what extent the universe we know is a contingent product, not of some external truths, but of our cognitive apparatus. Similar, I suppose, to Kant’s notion that space and time are necessary conditions for any experience: they structure how we, as humans, perceive the world, rather than being properties of the world independent of us. But this is just an intuition, and I don’t know enough philosophy to turn this into a more comprehensive picture. And as someone pragmatically inclined, reality as it might really be doesn't much matter.

Certainly, among my top 5 books of all time. — Manuel

What are the other 4?

Why is that? — Patterner

You agree with this? I imagine it’s for facilitating survival and attempting to manage our environment. Making the wrong choice can harm or kill us. But it’s obviously more nuanced than my couple of sentences.

The invitation in your OP was to consider how we use the word"cause", and you showed that causal chains and inferring probabilistic causes are quite different ways of speaking.
— Banno

That's what I was trying to do. I don't think I've been very successful. — T Clark

I don’t have much to add here, but I’ve enjoyed your OP and think you raise some significantly interesting ideas as Banno has summarised. The notion of cause has interested me for some time. My initial interest was in how the idea of cause applies to historical events (which is terribly fraught, slightly different and more nebulous to the matters you have raised). We know there is an impulse in human beings to make meaning and wrest order out of chaos, and central to this is being able to identify first principles.

Kinda reminds me why Buddha never answered questions on what is "reality" and such because it didn't really matter. I kinda like his stance. — Darkneos

Well, that's mostly my position too, for the most part, but more as someone who also has sympathies for pragmatism. But I remain curious and open to most arguments.

As for consciousness, strong evidence points to a neuroscientific basis. Doesn't matter if you guys talk about it often on this site, doesn't make it accurate. — Darkneos

Nothing anyone says here is necessarily accurate. I have no firm view on consciousness, as I am not an expert. This matter is far from settled, and a couple of assholes on the internet are unlikely to solve it.

When you say something is a standard view you're implying a degree of popularity, even the context of your post showed as such. — Darkneos

No, I’m saying that a particular view is simply on the menu. If you can’t tell the difference between a statement that contextualizes an idea within philosophical discourse and an ad populum argument, then we’ve got bigger problems than the nature of reality.. :wink:

There is a difference between "we don't directly engage with reality" and "reality cannot be known". Again science it a strong argument that we don't have to directly engage with it to know it (which would explain why it's findings frequently go against our intuitions). — Darkneos

This I do largely agree with.

It never claims to have perfect knowledge of the world and acknowledges it could all be wrong, but we currently don't have a better method for understanding reality, and this one is working really well. Shockingly IMO. — Darkneos

I don't disagree with this either and have made the same point elsewhere on the forum. Which is why I have tended to describe myself as a methodological naturalist and not a metaphysical naturalist.

sounds like a looney thing to think, especially since embodied cognition has fallen out of favor due to it's flaws (and evidence against it). — Darkneos

It’s very much part of the current thinking of writers like Francisco Varela, Evan Thompson, Eleanor Rosch, and Shaun Gallagher. What evidence do you have that it has fallen out of favour? I don’t think it was ever “in favour” as such, just part of the philosophical menu. The Blind Spot: Why Science Cannot Ignore Human Experience by Adam Frank, Marcelo Gleiser, and Evan Thompson has been a significant topic of discussion on this site for a few years.

There is a difference between "we don't directly engage with reality" and "reality cannot be known". — Darkneos

Indeed and I am unsure what reality is meant to be and whether it can be known. Which is not the same thing as saying it cannot be known.

What is reality?

RadicalJoe I’m guessing the above isn’t quite what you were trying to inspire? :joke: — Fire Ologist

Ha! Was I too rude?

I did say this also

I don't radically disagree with much — Tom Storm

Sorry if I came across as rude. I guess I took the invitation for honest feedback somewhat robustly.

:up: I don’t have a shortage of answers to this myself - I’m asking what the OP had in mind.

It's not ad populum fallacy, also you're the one who claimed it first by saying it's a standard view yet when I say it's not suddenly it's a fallacy. Though I would argue philosophy is a popularity constest. — Darkneos

I said it's an orthodox philosophical view that reality can't be fully known. I'm not saying this to imply it's popular, but rather to point out that it's an established position for us to contend with. It's on the philosophical "menu" and not, as you seem to think, something that is automatically ridiculous just because science seems to work.

Anyway, we seem to be talking past each other. Take care.

These ideas are not much different from the inclusive homilies that make up the value statements of so many not-for-profit organizations. I don't radically disagree with much however they seem to be a standard issue progressive position.

If I were being critical I'd question following:

This is the heart beat Mother Earth needs to hear and feel. — RadicalJoe

What the hell is 'Mother Earth'? Why use this anthropomorphism? It's not something I would personally relate to. I find this cloying and sentimental.

By being better human beings today we choose to invest in a better world for tomorrow. — RadicalJoe

What is your idea of a better human being? The Nazis and the Communists all had their notions of this, so it's almost without shape until it's carefully articulated.

Empathy? What about those without it? You can't tell someone without something to have it. I guess the assumption here would be that we all have universal empathy and that in some way this is essential to the human. I'm not convinced.

Helping each other, our shared humanity, is what truly defines who we are. — RadicalJoe

Well mass murder and war are also venerable and central to the human. Your view is a communitarian position, have you read any Michael Sandel? He takes this sentiment, refines it, and puts a bow on top.

Many people who take a secular position put the flourishing of conscious creatures as central and argue that as a social species humans have an incentive to respect each other. Reciprocal altruism.

Celebrate diversity as a strength that enriches our deeper collective consciousness. By accepting and embracing our differences, we fuel our collective strengths and struggles. — RadicalJoe

Can you say how?

But that is what is meant especially since it started with "The external world that cannot be know" by their own words. Your assessment is still incorrect. — Darkneos

It's interesting how you consistently interpret this wrongly. To say that the external world cannot be known is by no means the same as saying there is no external world. And I am not committed to either. I am stating that I have sympathy for a constructivist view, which resonates with other philosophical schools.

It's actually a minority position among philosophers. — Darkneos

That's an ad populum fallacy. Philosophy is not a popularity contest.

Kant merely said that we don't directly perceive it. Heidegger was kinda nutty on that end. — Darkneos

I am also saying that I have sympathy for the view that reality is a human construct an act of embodied cognition and that we don't experience it directly.

More or less it's a position you have to accept to get anywhere in philosophy otherwise you're dead in the water. — Darkneos

You're dead in the water until you learn to read others with more care.

But given the success of science it could be reasonable to say we do directly make contact with it. — Darkneos

That's just amusing. A kind of naïve scientistic or materialistic position worthy of a Dawkins. There are many arguments against this notion. Let's just take one of them: the very success of science itself depends on models, abstractions, and instruments that mediate our experience. What we have are theoretical constructs and measurements, not unfiltered access to reality.

Postmodernists would go further and argue that 'success' is a socially constructed standard: science’s predictive power doesn’t show us reality as it is, but only that our current frameworks work within the language games and practices we’ve built. In other words, science is one way of making sense of the world, not a privileged window into some mind-independent truth.

Of course, you might ask, who cares what the postmodernists say? And anyone can use that approach to dismiss any school of thought that doesn’t please us.

t is, especially since it doesn't seem like they understand what they are saying with "External world" in air quotes. Suggesting it cannot be known means there is nothing to be a part of since it's all in your mind.

External world and reality means there is a world to be a part of that does not depend on you for its existence. I feel that much should be obvious to gather from what I'm saying. — Darkneos

See the comment, perhaps, more in the tradition of phenomenology or a more constructivist orientation, for which I have sympathy. It does not match your interpretation that there is "nothing and it's all in the mind".

I do not think it is clear that humans make direct contact with a world external or transcendent to our interactions and cognition, which is a perfectly standard philosophical position, whether you are talking about Kant, Heidegger, or the more prosaic Hilary Lawson. To quote the lesser known philosopher, Norman Bates, "We're all in our private traps."

It's self refuting if you think about it. Like if there is no "External world" that kinda renders philosophy moot. — Darkneos

I don't think that's the right reading of his post. See last post.

But right there you point to the core dynamic that organises society - a balance between competition and cooperation - and then shrug your shoulders and say there seems to be no natural order in the way humans collectively organise. — apokrisis

I'm not saying this is the natural order. I'd say it applies to the West (and certainly in my patch) and it's the contingent product of capitalism and culture. My Aboriginal friends here tell me that this process isn’t a part of First Nations culture. I suspect that the Western hegemonic tradition may have inflicted this on most of the planet today, but I wouldn’t call this a natural order any more than I would say that about the dominance of neoliberalism.

What I do think most humans do is look for regularities and patterns. But to what extent these are features of reality or products of our cognition is, for me, still an open question.

And yet maths tells us that even chaos is a structured pattern. — apokrisis

I’m not sure we can treat apparent structure as anything other than contingent, it may simply reflect the methods we use to measure and make sense of the world. Since I’m not a mathematical Platonist, I’m open to the idea that mathematics is created rather than discovered, and so the structures and patterns we observe may tell us more about how we construct our experience than about any inherent order in what we assume to be reality. But this is still an unsettled matter, and I’m about as close to being an expert as Donald Trump is to being a statesman.

But I mean, in our models of the world, we only have to be right for all practical purposes. We don't need to know everything to know enough. — apokrisis

Yep. And we don’t even need to know "true" things to make successful interventions in the world. for instance, the Aristotelian–Ptolemaic model imagined an Earth-centred universe with planets and stars fixed on rotating celestial spheres. Although utterly wrong today, it successfully predicted celestial motions, eclipses, and calendars for centuries. It also provided a successful aid to navigation by allowing predictions of star positions

But what happens when the greenie and the developer meet to discuss their mutual prejudices? Doesn't the frustration soon rise to the point where each must assert their dominance in terms of some moral absolutism?

Or don't you talk to developers much. What do you make of a spectacle like Trump telling the UN that climate change is the world's biggest hoax? — apokrisis

As it happens, I work in an organization that collaborates with government and corporations, and I’ve been involved in development in modest ways. I also know developers and how they operate. Often cunts by my standards.

As for your example, every position can be framed with a set of narratives designed to persuade others in one direction or another. Usually, money ends up being the deciding factor, but not always. Community organizing, lobbying, advocacy, and education can achieve remarkable results. Still, I’m always aware that my cause is just one of many competing values in a world where most things are ultimately for sale. And in the end, what we are really talking about is human behaviour, a product of culture and language and not some “true” order of nature. Or something like this.

My preferred interpretation of W's statement is that the fly bottle is something the fly has contrived and by which it mistakenly thinks of itself as apart from the rest of the world instead of a part of the world. So, showing it the way out would include correcting misconceptions, e.g. the belief in an "external world" which can't truly be known, mind/body and other dualisms. The fly bottle is self-imposed. — Ciceronianus

I like this.

I’ve been swayed by advertisements many times, most people I know have. Bought plenty of things I didn’t need. I’ve also been convinced to do things by compelling rhetoric - it’s not magic, just how people behave. But I lack the disposition for debate and so I will leave you unmoved. :wink:

Thank you for this thoughtful response. Lots to think about.

Reality is dichotomies all the way down. Not turtles. — apokrisis

I always thought it was contingencies all the way down. :razz: But then, I’m not a philosopher, so I can afford to think what I do (for now), which is that so called reality is inaccessible, and all we can know are constructs, some of which work for our purposes, some do not. And perhaps that’s enough: to navigate life by the models that seem to work (at least for a time), without pretending we’ve ever touched some "essence" beyond us. Is this what you are hinting at below?

So causality is foundational. It is always just our idea of reality. And yet also, one has a reality to check things with. Once you understand this is the game, the rest is just working out the details to the point you find a good reason to care. — apokrisis

This is enticing. Can you expand on the latter part of this para?

Do humans need to do this for everyday living? Almost universally they prove that they can get by without any measurable degree of logical or mathematical or experimental rigour.

They can just see trees and mountains and imagine instead how much better things would look with as a flattened plaza with some public artwork and this year's version of fashionably blocky buildings. Even beauty can have its necessary other. Be determined by the eye of a beholder. Be considered as a celebration of all things civilised and well-machined. — apokrisis

I wonder if this is unfair. Certainly there are examples of this. But there are also plenty of folk who don’t care about philosophy and just see mountains and trees and want to preserve and nurture such things.
The impulse to destroy or "redevelop" is not a necessary byproduct of our ontology.

Yes. But so often the fly is comfortable where it is. — Banno

You joke, but I think this is fair. I like my bottle, it's home. In a similar way, why leave Plato’s cave when there’s a permanent puppet show and everything is warm and predictable? And we know the sun causes cancer...

Yeah, I guess it comes down to a difference in worldview or disposition. There’s not much point in debating it and I’m a poor debater.

It's also worth noting that the argument is not that all hate speech causes violence - another rhetorical ploy being used here. It's more about the othering that is central to hate speech, together with the issue of the culpability of the speaker in subsequent violence. — Banno

That seems important here. The way people are spoken to and described by others shapes how they see themselves, how valued they feel and how they are seen and understood within a culture, and can even legitimize certain kinds of treatment by others. Consider those who are homeless, so often described in public discourse as “deros,” “junkies,” or subhuman monsters. Much easier to have them killed or carted away somewhere if they don't qualify as citizens. It seems strange to think that language has no power or effect on behavior. Why would we have advertising, prayer, speeches or Fox News if language was powerless?

But not everything is living and embodied in Nature. You need a model of causality that is large enough to even hopefully account for the reason why a Cosmos would exist. And one that goes beyond flowery words to have mathematical and quantifiable consequences.

Co-emergence is a better way to think about this rather than via a constraint/freedom dichotomy.
— Joshs

But the argument is that freedoms and constraints co-emerge. In logic, that is what being a dichotomy means. That which is formed by being mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive. — apokrisis

Interesting. This isn’t my area, so all I can do is ask naive questions. Are you saying Josh’s view is mistaken, or just a partial account? I’m also curious, in light of the first quote above, are you any kind of theist or idealist, or is your position purely rooted in a scientific model of reality? Do you see causality as foundational for how we understand the universe? I can never tell with questions like this; is it something baked into reality, or, like Kant’s time and space, is it something built into human cognition?

Being a "Philosopher" is usually someone who does it for a living such as educators, scholars, and thinkers who publish books critiqued by peers. Time and effort spent, not money, defines them.

You will find that there are methods common among them:

1. Studied extensively the writings of those who came before them.
2. Formed analyses and critiques towards other philosophical works.
3. Formed their own theses to debunk or agree with other philosophical works.
4. Tried not to re-invent the wheels, but built up on previous works by others.
5. Got their works analyzed and critiqued by their peers before and/or after publication. — L'éléphant

Nice. That would have been my guess too. I think 4 is particularly relevant. Most of us are in the wheel reinvention business.

There is no single answer to what philosophy is; it depends on the philosophy from which you position yourself. I — JuanZu

I think this is a good point. For some people philosophy is about fixing the plumbing (Midgely) and for others it's about existence disclosed (Heidegger).

You can always start a thread dealing with a subject that interests you. — Janus

I think the above advice sounds best. The issue may be that some people will slag off the popular thinkers as lightweights, shills and media whores. And maybe you'll even generate the kind of bitterly polarized debate that has come to characterize political discussions today.

Thanks

They don't have to be good. — Janus

Yes, I've often thought this is a key point. People often want to say someone isn’t an artist because they’re bad. But to me, being good is not inherent in the term artist.

Of course some might buy into the idea that the best way to live is not to give a fuck — Janus

Yes, I've often aspired to this, philosophically speaking, anyway. But there are too many cute and counterintuitive ideas out there not to be at least half-interested in the subject.

I dislike the idea of 'philosophy as profession' in any case. I see philosophy as being one of the most basic characteristics of humanity. — Janus

My prejudice is that unless someone has genius of some kind and can generate innovative theories without any special training (e.g., Wittgenstein), or unless they have some expertise that allows them to see the world differently, who cares what they think? The banal pap that might occur to anyone (like me) doesn't sound all that interesting.

I think everyone is a philosopher in some sense insofar as they have accepted or rejected some set of values or other. — Janus

Is this philosophy the way putting a band-aid on a shaving cut counts as medicine? :wink: Would your example not be unavoidable unless you were dead? If you had to drill down further is there anything more specific you might say?

And it shows how the world we live in has changed. Up until recently, most notable philosophers wrote outside of academic environments and lived off of other jobs or inheritances. These include — Joshs

'I’m not sure if our comments reflect the times, or just our own thinking. Maybe no one agrees with us.

But if times have changed, do you think that’s because the circumstances were different, the role of philosophy changed, or something else entirely?

Don’t all of the people you mention share competence, and perhaps even innovation, in common?

How many people known as philosophers today would actually produce original work, do you think?

How would you go about defining what it means to be a philosopher?

interesting. Seems reasonable. If we say someone is an engineer or doctor or lawyer, sociologist or stamp collector it seems fairly easy to define. Is philosophy different?

Minimum standard, by my lights in the world we live in, is being paid to do it. — Moliere

Well there's probably an intersubjective component to any disciple setting standards for credentialling. Some, of these are more reasonable than others.

I'm not sure getting paid is enough. Not everyone accepts such a neoliberal frame even within our ethically bereft capitalist cultures. But I see what you are getting at.

Some might argue that the production of original philsophy of a sufficiently high standard might be a hallmark. Hard thing to establish. Soem level of competence or expertise seems to be needed. But ultimately I suspect it has to be based upon some intersubjective definitional criteria. What do you think, setting aside capitalism...

I don't think everyone is a philosopher like he says, most people don't really seem to question the way things are in life and just go along with it with what they were taught. From my understanding our brains are sorta resistant to what philosophy requires of us. — Darkneos

I agree with this below:

I'd put it that everyone has the potential to think philosophically.

I don't agree that everyone is a philosopher, though. Everyone has the potential to think scientifically, artistically, and so forth -- insofar that a person connects to that group of thinkers then they can think like such and such.

So it goes with philosophy. — Moliere

I can think scientifically but I am not a scientist. Ditto many subjects, including philsophy. Expertise and having done some required reading, ought to be factored into this for my money.

I wonder what the minimum standard would be for someone to be called a philosopher?

But seriously, I think you're using the term "beautiful" here in a pretty broad way, so maybe a legal argument could be beautiful, but not like a sunset. This issue isn't a small one because the definition of "beauty" is obviously central to aesthetics and this whole conversation.

So, define "beauty" so that the term makes sense in claiming a legal brief is beautiful in some way as is a sunset beautiful so that the term can be applied to both.
— Hanover

It’s a feeling I get when I read poetry or fiction. My primary aesthetic medium is the written word. I like music and visual arts, but my relationship to them is not as close. The feeling I’m talking about is the same one I get when I read anything well written—poetry, fiction, technical documents, legal documents, construction documents, philosophy, history, letters, emails, posts here on the forum. It’s the same feeling. Competence is beautiful.

What saith Collingswood on it?
— Hanover

I’m not sure what Collingwood would say about beauty and I’m too lazy to go check. What he says about art is that it is a way for the artist to express their experience and share it with an audience. — T Clark

This raises an interesting question: what the hell is beauty supposed to be anyway? I see it in women, but not much else. I occasionally see landscapes in nature that strike me as "visually arresting," but I wouldn’t personally call them beautiful. I am mostly indifferent to scenery. Most of the pictures on this thread, to me, are just images of striking things, some of which I find unappealing. Maybe it’s my problem, I’m not quick to find things beautiful. Perhaps music is the only exception. But I am quick to notice when something looks interesting or arresting in some way. Maybe beauty is just whatever draws your attention and gives you pleasure, which makes it a rather somewhat ambiguous, emotional category.

Now, if it was true that smoking still caused lung disease back when no one thought it did (back when no human practice affirmed this truth) it can hardly be the case that things are true only in virtue of what human practice affirms. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Drilling down into this: Yes, smoking caused lung disease even before we knew it did. But as far as I know, from a pragmatist point of view, it wasn’t true for us in any practical sense until people investigated it and evidence demonstrated it. Pragmatism sees “truth” as something that helps us act successfully in the world, not as a fixed fact that exists completely independently of human understanding.

Now, if it was true that smoking still caused lung disease back when no one thought it did (back when no human practice affirmed this truth) it can hardly be the case that things are true only in virtue of what human practice affirms. — Count Timothy von Icarus

As I said -

Pragmatism doesn’t say that usefulness is whatever people happen to believe at a given moment. Usefulness is tested by consequences, by how well beliefs help us manage experience, predict outcomes, and solve problems over time. A belief that lead in drinking water is “useful” will eventually clash with the consequences of lead poisoning. It will fail to guide successful action, and that failure is precisely what drives the community to revise its judgment. — Tom Storm

This is leaving out the metaphysical part of the thesis, the idea that there is no such thing as truth outside of practice. I don't agree that "it was not true that smoking causes lung diseases back when no one agreed that it did" and that it then became true once current practice began to affirm that it is so — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well, this will depend on the pragmatist, I would imagine. But the idea that we don't have access to a truth outside ourselves is certainly something Rorty would say; at least if you include his particular brand of neo-pragmatism.

But what are we talking about here? We seem to be going around in circles, which may well be my fault, since I don’t recall exactly what we were discussing. I’m not a pragmatist; I just see the merit in some of their arguments.

Sure, so how can your community ever be wrong about what is useful? It seems to me it can only be wrong just in case it happens to decide it has been wrong later. You're collapsing any distinction between appearances and reality here. That's the very thing I've been trying to point out. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well I’d assume this is mostly about the framing. Wouldn’t we say instead that, rather than being about right or wrong, communities develop methods, approaches, and beliefs that work for a time and then no longer work, or no longer meet needs? And society is never in complete agreement, just as many Americans who embrace Trumpism are off set by others who see a fascist dictatorship emerging. The developing conversation and the consequences will settle on a position.

"Not anything goes because only the useful goes," but also "what is useful is what the community judges to be useful." It would follow that "putting lead in drinking water is useful just so long as the community thinks it is useful." When it decides this wasn't useful, it ceases to be. We can hardly appeal to any other standard or facts about human biology and lead that hold outside of what is currently deemed "useful." But this seems absurd. More to the point, "pragmatism" that isn't ordered to an end isn't even "pragmatism." It's an abuse of the term. "Sheer voluntarism" would be the appropriate label when what is sought is wholly indeterminate outside the act of seeking (willing) itself. — Count Timothy von Icarus

No. Pragmatism doesn’t say that usefulness is whatever people happen to believe at a given moment. Usefulness is tested by consequences, by how well beliefs help us manage experience, predict outcomes, and solve problems over time. A belief that lead in drinking water is “useful” will eventually clash with the consequences of lead poisoning. It will fail to guide successful action, and that failure is precisely what drives the community to revise its judgment. Wouldn't you say that the collapse of superstitions, smoking, and other harmful practices has followed such a process?

:up:

Very interesting analysis. How do you see this playing out over the next 4-8 years?