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Friday, June 10, 2005 10:50 AM | rahel luethy | 6 comment(s)
yet another blog meme quiz (via ben):
You scored as Materialist. Materialism stresses the essence of fundamental particles. Everything that exists is purely physical matter and there is no special force that holds life together. You believe that anything can be explained by breaking it up into its pieces. i.e. the big picture can be understood by its smaller elements.
Materialist | | 88% | Cultural Creative | | 63% | Existentialist | | 63% | Modernist | | 56% | Postmodernist | | 50% | Fundamentalist | | 25% | Romanticist | | 25% | Idealist | | 19% |
What is Your World View? (updated)
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the questions in the quiz are definitely a lot better than the resulting text. although I can live with the first part of it ( everything that exists is purely physical matter and there is no special force that holds life together), the rest sounds rather simplistic and I think I explicitly disagreed about the corresponding questions?!
I don't think that the big picture can be understood via its smaller elements. on the other hand, this is our current approach in science and I think that it is an adequate approach because I just don't see any alternatives. maybe the problem is rooted in the claim to eventually understand the big picture? I'm pretty pragmatic about this (thinking that it will never be possible). it should not be a goal but a driving force to answer smaller (and sometimes more interesting) questions...
somehow this problem of observing how things work ( science is answering small questions to contribute to the big picture) and trying to figure out whether this is how they must work ( can the big picture be understood via its smaller elements?) reminds me of a similar fallacy which is popular among a lot of evolutionary biologists: they think that because evolution will favor certain traits, these traits are inherently "good" and individuals should try to actively promote them. one example is that you should have kids because your genes will otherwise be less frequent in the future.
but: you don't jump off your balcony just because the laws of gravity predict that you will fall. maybe I'm going a bit too far here...
6:17 PM | said...
No, I think you're right on.
11:23 PM | said...
You scored as Existentialist.
Existentialism emphasizes human capability. There is no greater power interfering with life and thus it is up to us to make things happen. Sometimes considered a negative and depressing world view, your optimism towards human accomplishment is immense. Mankind is condemned to be free and must accept the responsibility.
Existentialist 94%
Postmodernist 88%
Cultural Creative 69%
Romanticist 63%
Fundamentalist 44%
Modernist 38%
Materialist 25%
Idealist 13%
wykipedia: Eine der bekanntesten und einflussreichsten existentialistischen Äußerungen, die jedoch sinngemäß schon bei Schelling nachgewiesen werden kann, ist das Wort Sartres, "Die Existenz geht der Essenz (dem Wesen) voraus", das normalerweise zum Beleg herangezogen wird, dass es keine äußere moralische oder geistige Bestimmung zur Humanität gibt, außer der, die wir uns selbst schaffen. Die Menschen werden nicht von außen bestimmt, aber sind frei zu tun, während sie wählen – sie sind durch ihre Taten statt durch ihr Sein zu beurteilen, sie sind eins mit dem, was sie tun.
Diese Version des Existenzialismus scheidet die Existenz eines Gottes oder einer anderen äußeren Instanz aus. Sartre warnte auch vor allen 'zähen' Elementen der Existenz, die die menschliche Freiheit beeinträchtigen könnten. Solange die Falle der Zähigkeit vermieden wird, wird das Hauptproblem für den Menschen in der Auswahl und Entscheidung für seine Taten bestehen.
Der Existenzialismus besteht darin, dass nichts einen ewigen Wert hat, jegliche Ideologie oder materielles Objekt nur subjektiv einen Wert verkörpert. Die Freiheit des Subjekts, sich zu entscheiden, steht im Mittelpunkt. Jegliche Art von versuchtem "Objektivismus" gilt als hochgespielter Subjektivismus.
11:34 PM | said...
weitere gesinnungsfreunde von mir; # Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa, Richard Linklater, Simone deBeauvoire, Sartre, Camus, Hemingway...
und zu dir: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialisten wichtig ist bei der kritik am materialsmus, dass der faktor "zufall" nicht weggelassen werden darf....-)
11:35 PM | rahel luethy said...
Eventually some of this might be understood rationally, but since I believe that the system of rationality itself is founded on assumtions which one must have faith in (much like any religion), I think some things will always be outside the bounds of the rational
I totally agree.
however, in contrast to religion, which builds up faith by making up new constructs which are based on yet more assumptions, I think that most assumptions of the system of rationality are based on maximal simplicity and likeliness.
a simple example to illustrate this: if you press a button on your remote control, you assume -- driven by your cultural and scientific background -- that you activate an infrared signal which makes your tv switch the channel. another explanation would be that there is a pink monkey sitting on a yellow cloud, reading your thoughts, and telepathing with your tv set. this scenario is a little less likely but it will never be possible to rule out this option.
like it will never be possible to rule out that god is so powerful that he can make us believe that there is evolution...
1:47 AM | said...
I have an entirely different understanding of faith. In the way that I think about it, faith doesn't grow through accumulation of assumptions, it grows simply through the accumulation of observations. When you say you have faith in a friend, you're talking about the character of the friend, not the existence of the friend. You mean that you believe that they are of good character even if circumstances suggest otherwise. This is the most important kind of faith when it comes to God, believing that God is good from what you have experienced of God despite the many things in the universe that seem to suggest otherwise. When it comes to existence, you should of course apply whatever your normal criteria for belief would be, but of course bearing in mind that the actions of a person (of any nature, let alone a creator, outside of time, person) may not be as reproducible as other natural phenomenon. I don't believe that the assumptions I've listed as commonly accepted requirements for truth deserve any special status beyond what they are - assumptions, axioms. Perhaps, the greater the genius, the more amazing these trivial elements of rationality seem.
"The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible" - Albert Einstein
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said...
rahel luethy said...
