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by s1artibartfast 927 days ago
I think it is a fairly universal human desire to seek understanding of the world and make sense of it. Accurate modeling of the world and how it works confers safety and power and comparative advantage. This is why philiosophers and religionists have ask the question "why?" Even (especially) children like predictable rules.
1 comments
avgcorrection 927 days ago
> I think it is a fairly universal human desire to seek understanding of the world and make sense of it.

Not remotely universal, and not even related to the desire to seek an understanding of the world. Everyone has an intuition about “free will”; for most people it’s whatever, a given. But then a small minority has a totalizing idea because X means that Free Will is impossible. Then they start this campaign to “disabuse” everyone of that intuition.

There’s very little desire to learn there—people who have the “free will” intuition already “understand”; likewise with the Determinism people. Everyone is certain about the way things are.

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s1artibartfast 927 days ago
I think we might just disagree. As far as we can determine, humans have tried to understand and predict how things work. How and when game migrates. What causes plants to grow, and how we can induce it. What makes a good growing season. We are naturally causal detectives, connecting the idea that eating prevents hunger, or that clothes provide comfort.

Sure, not everyone may care about esoteric questions like the origin of the cosmos, but nobody is free from seeking to understand causality. The former is an offshoot of the later.

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avgcorrection 927 days ago
> Sure, not everyone may care about esoteric questions like the origin of the cosmos, but nobody is free from seeking to understand causality. The former is an offshoot of the later.

An idea/debate that immediately and violently runs into contradictions when you query for its practical applications is not at all an offshoot of the latter.

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s1artibartfast 927 days ago
They share the same engine of curiosity and desire to understand the world.

I dont think humans could have to cognitive drive to discover practical applications of truth or causality without sometimes running into tough questions.

I think it is evolutionarily and culturally impossible for people to only make practical discoveries when the utility is not apparent until the discovery is made.

Knowledge is power, both socially and evolutionarily.

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