[feoren]

> interpret all past human beliefs through his own worldview rather than seriously considering that his worldview may be the one that is flawed rather than the most intelligent humans of the past

You're saying it's irrational to assume that smart people with the accumulated knowledge of nearly all of humanity at their fingertips, backed by hundreds of years of the most effective method for knowledge collection humanity has ever known, analyzed by incredibly sophisticated statistics, pondered by a network of millions of specialists, distributed and digested and re-interpreted and challenged by literally billions of literate humans; versus smart people with much less efficient means of knowledge collection, an extremely low literacy rate, no effective methods of statistical analysis, poor data collection measures, no scientific method, and only a handful of knowledge specialists ... it's irrational to assume the former group has a better understanding of the world than the latter?

[simple-thoughts]

Our current collective knowledge strongly indicates that pre industrial societies really, sincerely believed many things we consider ridiculous today. Those beliefs were the product of an ecosystem that was just as detailed and complex to them as our society is to us - a realization the author of this blog post had after viewing a Viking ship that you apparently haven’t had yet.

Of course our beliefs make sense to us in our post industrial society, and even if those beliefs aren’t some kind of ultimate truth they are incredibly useful for navigating our world. For instance, even though the function of corporate logos may be closer to magic sigils than rational objects, thinking of them as rational objects allows branding agencies to design more effective logos. But in a past world where marketing agencies didn’t exist, treating symbols as having inherent magical power more closely reflected the realities of certain times.

There’s a further step since our world isn’t static, and many of us carry beliefs that just don’t work well anymore. An example some might agree with is the rejection of any kind of religiosity. Humans need social community to live a healthy and happy life. While I’m not saying that we should return to a religious era, someone who found themselves in a lonely situation might want to reconsider what beliefs led to that situation and update them to be more effective.