I believe in some things some might call "pseudoscientific bullshit", yet I'd like to think I'm thoughtful about it.
@Ulfra_Wolfe same, although I feel that the word "believe" is somewhat stretched here. Merely because I find value in a concept doesn't mean I "believe" in it, in the conventionally understood way.
@kara_dreamer @Ulfra_Wolfe "All models are wrong, but some of them are useful?" Fair enough. :P
@Angle @Ulfra_Wolfe @kara_dreamer
This is something that pops up in Robert Anton Wilson's philosophies: the concept of "model agnostic".
The idea being that any model of the universe and how the universe works is both incomplete and also contains useful truths. The challenge is to not mistake any model for the universe as a whole.
I'm sorta that? Except for, like, crafting my own model out of raw aether.
@emanate @Angle @Ulfra_Wolfe right! a scientist is compelled to reject models according to how closely they conform to observable, material reality, but there _are_ other lenses for viewing reality other than strict materialism and positivism. I can assign meaning to (say) a rainbow even though the strict materialist will say, "that's just light coming from a certain direction".
@Angle @Ulfra_Wolfe @kara_dreamer I think in the context of this chat "meaning" is more something ascribed past just rainbows being pretty.
I mean...why /are/ there so many songs about rainbows?
@kara_dreamer @Ulfra_Wolfe @Angle @emanate
"Rainbows are pretty because the rain god loves us" is a more specific example.
@Angle @emanate @Ulfra_Wolfe well, for example, the image of the rainbow as a sign of hope after a catastrophe is a powerful one. One thinks of Noah, of course, and of the rainbow at the end of Wagner's _Das Rheingold_.
@kara_dreamer @Angle @Ulfra_Wolfe Yeah, exactly! I've built a Machine, and it's made out of...all this assigned meaning, and runs on attention. Which are integral parts of my imagined cosmology. So it's self-supporting, and I can look back to the historic point where electricity was /mystical/, and take that forward.
@Ulfra_Wolfe @emanate @kara_dreamer Define meaning? Even materialists are allowed to think rainbows are pretty. :P