views on views

I was talking with Charlie a few days ago and, forgetting the greater value in listening than speaking, I went off for a while about the distinction between the view we operate from and the view we advocate. When we talk with other people about our worldview or answer "what's your view on X?" we've generally moved into advocate mode before beginning to speak.

So what exactly do I mean "the view we operate from"? What I mean, I suppose, is something like the view from consciousness. I don't intend to digress here into some sort of phenomenology or a full blown description of consciousness but there are some characteristics that are important to the larger discussion (and you'll have to pardon me if your consciousness doesn't resemble my own). When we're not under duress or anything in our day to day existence our "view" is primarily characterized by the loudest subset of two groups of voices: recent events and what we repeat to ourselves. I also tend to take a behavioristic approach to what "the view we operate from" is. So where this perspective from consciousness starts to feel too subjective I switch frames to see what sort of behaviors myself and others exhibit and derive "the view we operate from" from that.

From there the question arises "where do worldviews or the views we advocate fit into the view we operate from?". Well, they're some of the voices we repeat to ourselves. I would argue our cultural/linguistic story, the historical time and place we're set in is generally the loudest voice of those we repeat to ourselves and the other views are perceived within the context of that louder voice. When we advocate Christianity or scientific materialism (to ourselves) I take it we're often trying to get an accurate view of the world to help us better predict and prepare for the future. I prefer to advocate a form of perspectivism in the service of both accuracy and sanity. I often repeat to myself these words of Jesus:

[D]o not be anxious for what you shall eat and drink, and wherewith you shall be clothed. Life is more wonderful than food and clothing, and God gave it you.

Look at God's creatures, the birds. They do not sow, reap, or harvest, but God feeds them. In God's sight, man is not worse than the bird. If God gave man life, He will be able to feed him too. But you yourselves know that, however much you strive, you can do nothing for yourselves. You cannot lengthen your life by an hour. And why should you care about clothing? The flowers of the field do not work and do not spin, but are dressed as Solomon in all his glory never was. Well, then, if God has so adorned the grass, which to-day grows and to-morrow is mown, will he not clothe you?

Do not trouble and worry yourselves; do not say that you must think of what you will eat and how you will be clothed. This every one needs, and God knows this need of yours. And so, do not care about the future. Live in the present day. Take care to be in the will of the Father. Wish for that which alone is important, and the rest will all come of itself. Strive only to be in the will of the Father. And so, do not trouble about the future. When the future comes, then it will be time to do so. There is enough evil in the present.

Tolstoy The Gospel in Brief p.83-84

I don't necessarily believe in the accuracy of the statements but I understand the sentiment and can thereby adopt the corresponding attitude if the voice of one of life's situations requires it. When I'm concerned with predictive accuracy or trying to make something work I use a scientific approach. Once again not because it's more accurate ultimately but because it lends itself to the type of need I'm trying to meet.

Of course this isn't enough for most people, they want Truth (because this is how they've been conditioned?).

One more bone to pick. C.S. Lewis states at the end of Is Theology Poetry "I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen; not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." For the reasons I've specified above I think this is utter nonsense. One's personal view of the world is never solely informed by one worldview. It's informed to various degrees by a multiplicity of views. It is incorrect to imply that a person can undergo a worldview in a totalitarian way; nor would we wish such a thing. When we come near to this we usually call it brainwashing. We don't generally undergo a worldview but we do undergo processes that have an impact on the view we operate from. Our personal view of the world is generally formed by various processes -- acculturation, socialization (upbringing/parenting), experiences of all sorts.

Unfortunately I think Lewis' sort of naïve nonsensical characterization of worldviews has found its way into the thinking of many a non-Christian as well.

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Wow, that was convoluted. It is however the type of crap that I think about when you say "I'm a scientific materialist" or "I'm a Christian". No, you're not. If you're like me then you're a ball of snakes who advocates.

i should also include this blast from the past

from 6/25/2007

It seems like a lot of people think the world is a place where you’ve got a ton of different packaged worldviews and your mission is to choose between them and pick one, put it on like a helmet with goggles and your world will forever be transformed by it. You “understand” the people with different worldviews because you understand their helmet.

Truly understanding people is quite different because each person’s view of the world is really their own. A person’s view of the world is mostly guided by things that are outside of his/her control (environment, culture, indoctrination, etc.). So understanding myself and my view of the world is a discovery process not a construction process. It’s similar when I change my view of the world. I read something or understand some new concept and can’t help but be changed by the concept.

I think some story like this is the human process and I think arguments about this camp vs that camp don’t really get anything done. So… I wouldn’t pair Spinoza and Einstein in that way and I view all people as having distinct worldviews. If I were to pair people by worldviews I’d probably be more likely to use culture as a metric. Culture seems to have a large impact on human behavior and therefore seems like something we could (should?) work on directly to make a better world. Looking around… “American” is what defines the people I see in regard to behavior much more than Christian or Athiest or Buddhist.

choosing camps… choosing faiths… maybe those aren’t really choices we have? OR how is it that we gain that level of control over “reality”?

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This is part of the background from which that previous post may make more sense.

In a lot of ways all this is just an argument to get me out of what I consider to be nearly worthless arguments. You'd think that would mean I would think this kind of meta-argument was even more worthless but I'm a strange duck.

full context

91. If Moore says he knows the earth existed etc., most of us will grant him that it has existed all the time, and also believe him when he says he is convinced of it. But has he also got the right ground for his conviction? For if not, then after all he doesn't know (Russell).

92. However, we can ask: May someone have telling grounds for believing that the earth has existed for a short time, say since his own birth?--Suppose he had always been told that,--would he have any good reason to doubt it? Men have believed that they could make rain; why should not a king be brought up in the belief that the world began with him? And if Moore and this king were to meet and discuss, could Moore really prove his belief to be the right one? I do not say that Moore could not convert the king to his view, but it would be a conversion of a special kind; the king would be brought to look at the world in a different way.

Remember that one is sometimes convinced of the correctness of a view by its simplicity or symmetry, i.e., these are what induce one to go over to this point of view. One then simply says something like: "That's how it must be."

93. The propositions presenting what Moore 'knows' are all of such a kind that it is difficult to imagine why anyone should believe the contrary. E.g. the proposition that Moore has spent his whole life in close proximity to the earth.--Once more I can speak of myself here instead of speaking of Moore. What could induce me to believe the opposite? Either a memory, or having been told.--Everything that I have seen or heard give me the conviction that no man has ever been far from the earth. Nothing in my picture of the world speaks in favor of the opposite.

94. But I did not get my picture of the world by satisfying myself of its correctness; nor do I have it because I am satisfied of its correctness. No: it is the inherited background against which I distinguish between true and false.

95. The propositions describing this world-picture might be part of a kind of mythology. And their role is like that of rules of a game; and the game can be learned purely practically, without learning any explicit rules.

96. It might be imagined that some propositions, of the form of empirical propositions, were hardened and functioned as channels for such empirical propositions as were not hardened but fluid; and that this relation altered with time, in that fluid propositions hardened, and hard ones became fluid.

97. The mythology may change back to a state of flux, the river-bed of thoughts may shift. But I distinguish between the movement of the waters on the river-bed and the shift of the bed itself; though there is not a sharp division of the one from the other.

98. But if someone were to say "So logic too is an empirical science" he would be wrong. Yet this is right: the same proposition may get treated at one time as something to test by experience, at another as a rule of testing.

99. And the bank of that river consists partly of hard rock, subject to no alteration or only to an imperceptible one, partly of sand, which now in one place now in another gets washed away, or deposited.

100. The truths which Moore says he knows, are such as, roughly speaking, all of us know, if he knows them.

Ludwig Wittgenstein On Certainty