Curiosity, Freedom, Progress, and Fallibilism
A philosophy for our civilization's third millennium.
As any 20-something year old I have a lot of opinions on how society “should” be organized. But instead of sharing my poorly researched views for here and now, I wanted to give a try at proposing something more timeless: a philosophy for our civilization’s third millennium.
A usual Wednesday evening chore :)
While I’m committed to truth, I do not claim this is the objectively correct way society (or civilization) should behave. Rather, I wanted to think from the perspective of humanity and make a proposal for how we could behave to benefit “everyone”, and no one in particular. Establish some shared values on a free for all playground that might be good for the system.
Curiosity
First part is curiosity. Curiosity to understand the essence of universe, reality or nature (however you want to call it). Questions like: What started the Big Bang? Is there a goal for the universe? Is there a goal for us? One way Elon likes to put this question is: What is the question the answer to which is the universe?
We all have asked these questions, and yet (as for as I know) none have received truly satisfying answers. So the first part of this philosophy is a simple acknowledgement that most of us would like to know answers to these fundamental questions, and that none of us have received satisfying answers: they remain a mystery yet to be solved.
Freedom
Second part is freedom. Freedom becomes important given that we don’t know why are we here and what for. It means that no one way of living is better than the other: there are no rules. And, if there are no rules on the playground, then people should be free to do whatever they want to. Ideally, people should be able to craft the life they want the most.
Freedom is a good value for the FFA playground when you define it as: doing whatever you want as long as it doesn’t intervene with freedoms of others. Now what are exactly the freedoms of others could be an endless debate, and this is the drawback of social sciences: I cannot give you mathematical proofs. And yet, if someone wants to cooperate with my proposal we all have some shared idea of what is coercion and not: punching or entrapping others is coercion, coughing next to them is not. Exactly these types of bickering brings us to my next part.
Progress
Third part is progress. Progress is the growth of wealth. Wealth is the set of all possible physical transformations available to a group or person. (This is a remarkably elegant and holistic way to define both progress and wealth, for both I’m thankful to David Deutsch.) So, as long as we continue to progress as humanity, both individuals and the group will continue to have bigger and bigger wealth. This will allow each to do more with their given freedom. Freedom is meaningless when all you have is sticks and rocks, but it isn’t when you can command galaxies. Freedom and abundant wealth is the recipe needed for any person to create the life they want the most. Moreover, progress and wealth is about continuously improving our understanding of nature, not only to command it, but also to fulfil our curiosity about its origins.
Fallibility
Forth part is fallibility. Say we are curious, and we are free, and we want to progress: Is there anything missing? I think all three parts are missing fallibility. It helps to recognize that despite our burning curiosity, we lack good answers. It helps to recognize that if we could be wrong, forcing ways of being on others is awfully dangerous. And it helps to pursue the only reliable means for progress we found: scientific thinking.
Well, this is my proposal. Let’s acknowledge we are curious but lack good answers. And thus: Let’s value the freedom of others to live as they want. Let’s value the progress as it gives freedom value, and it’s the only path to fulfil our curiosity. And let’s value fallibility as it fuels all the rest.
ps:
I share this proposal for two reasons: First, I’m interested in this hairy problem and this seems like a pretty elegant solution. Second, I’m genuinely curious about better proposals or good criticisms to this one. If you have any of the please share!! (Comments, email, rap diss track, WHATEVER, I genuinely just want to know one.)