Seven worldviews of the modern world

This article summarizes the 7 basic worldviews that are predominant in our modern world. Realistically many of them overlap and branch off into hybrid offshoots. For instance I find I am a dualist (what I would specify as a "dialectical dualist".) But I am also sort of postmodernist in that I'm a bit skeptical of any absolute truths or explanatory metanarratives. I take a zen-like phenomenologist approach to life. There is thus a definite Taoist spirituality interwoven in all this..

So what worldview(s) lies behind all your basic assumptions? Is it self-evident to you or merely the most plausible scenario that fits your present lifestyle and experience?
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7 basic worldviews in one sentence each.

Materialism (or Atheistic Naturalism)
“The universe consists of matter only, and the only way to know it is through sensory empiricism and reason, or science.”

Pantheism
“The universe is one ultimate reality, and to realize this is to awaken to reality.”
(Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism)

Dualism
“Reality is divided into two aspects: matter and spirit, or the physical and the non-physical, or ‘nature’ and the ‘super-natural,’ and there isn’t really much overlap.”

Theism
“God is the infinite and absolute creator and ground of everything and everyone: the source and destination of all life, being, knowledge, and action.”
(Judaism, Christianity, and Islam)

Existentialism
“Life doesn’t seem to be inherently coherent, meaningful, or particularly conducive to happiness, but we can work to create order, meaning, and happiness anyway.”

Postmodernism
“There are no grand metanarratives, only narratives; no facts, only interpretations; no independently existing reality, only perspectives we construct; no truth, only truths.”

Nihilism
“Nothing means anything, nobody knows anything, there is no Truth, and there is no answer to ‘why.’”

Agnosticism
“I don’t know.”

https://www.livereal.com/blog/worldview/
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Here's some more nuanced worldviews for you to ponder:

Simulationism--The view that all our physical reality is being generated as a simulation by some higher computer or artilect. There are similarities here with the Buddhist idea of Maya or illusion as well as the gnostic view that we are imprisoned in a false material reality by some evil Demiurge. See the movie The Matrix or The Truman Show.

Panpsychism--the essentially non-reductive materialist view that mind or consciousness is inherent to physical reality or matter. Just a hair away of becoming a universal pantheism..

Language mysticism--the view that reality is generated by language and semantics, which correlates with some postmodern thinkers like Derrida and philosophers like Wittgenstein and Heidegger.

Theosophy/New Ageism--reality is constructed in a hierarchy of planes or dimensions that each human must ascend in their evolving ethereal bodies according the rising frequency of their consciousness..

World Order/Deep State Conspiracy---Basically we are all victims of a global hidden conspiracy or cabal consisting of various high profile people that are trying to take over our lives and enslave us in a police state. Sometimes involves aliens/reptilian beings and the Illuminati being involved.

Technological Singularity--- "a hypothetical future point in time at which technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in unforeseeable consequences for human civilization. According to the most popular version of the singularity hypothesis, I. J. Good's intelligence explosion model of 1965, an upgradable intelligent agent could eventually enter a positive feedback loop of self-improvement cycles, each successive; and more intelligent generation appearing more and more rapidly, causing a rapid increase ("explosion") in intelligence which would ultimately result in a powerful superintelligence, qualitatively far surpassing all human intelligence."

I guess that as far as ontology goes, I adhere most closely to 'atheistic naturalism'.

I wouldn't call it 'materialism' though, since I don't think that matter (in the hard little billiard ball sense) exhausts reality. There are mathematical relationships (I'm something of a mathematical Platonist I guess), information, spatial/temporal intervals, fields, causal relationships, possibilities... I adhere to a much broader ontology than materialism I think. But I conceive of all of it as 'natural'.

Whether or not I'm an 'atheist' probably depends on how we conceive of 'God'. I'm very much an atheist when it comes to the personalized deities of revealed religions like Judaism, Christianity, Islam or theistic Hinduism. I doubt very much whether any of these deities exist. But conceived more metaphysically, in the manner of Aristotle or natural theology, with God reduced to metaphysical functions like first cause, ground of being or source of cosmic order, I'm more inclined to be a believer. Perhaps I come closest to a Neoplatonic conception in which the ultimate Explanation or Source of Reality itself lies beyond human knowing. I call myself a Deist occasionally, in some of my moods.

I'm probably an 'existentialist' as described here. I don't believe in the objective reality of ethical values. Nor do I believe that reality has a plot, as if it were a novel. We create meaning and values for ourselves.

But ultimately, the one I feel most kinship with is 'Agnosticism'. I don't know The Secret of the Universe, and I don't believe that anyone else does either.

(Dec 17, 2024 01:16 AM)Yazata Wrote: But ultimately, the one I feel most kinship with is 'Agnosticism'. I don't know The Secret of the Universe, and I don't believe that anyone else does either.

Same.

But who knows? Someday, Willow might.

(Dec 16, 2024 10:02 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: [...] Postmodernism
“There are no grand metanarratives, only narratives; no facts, only interpretations; no independently existing reality, only perspectives we construct; no truth, only truths.”

Cultural and disciplinary presuppositions can affect interpretation of _X_, but some cultural and disciplinary presuppositions are more successful than others. No radical equality is possible between thought orientations that don't reliably pan-out (i.e., crazy) and those that do.

Quote:[....] Panpsychism--the essentially non-reductive materialist view that mind or consciousness is inherent to physical reality or matter. Just a hair away of becoming a universal pantheism..

The problem with panpsychism is that the "psyche" root element implies the whole package of mind --memory, understanding, identification -- and not just the raw presentation of phenomenal events (minus cognition). Even if _X_ philosopher contends that they are restricting it solely to non-intelligent manifestations, there is still a community of both opponents and proponents that will grab that and run the other way with it.