1. Comment #98366 by rnewson on December 13, 2007 at 2:22 pm

Postmodernist nonsense, indeed.

There are views and there are views supported by evidence. The ones with evidence are inherently more valuable than those without.

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2. Comment #98396 by Robert Maynard on December 13, 2007 at 2:46 pm

PO-MO9000: All worldviews are merely paradigms, narratives having no more inherent value than any other narrative.

Robert: Isn't that proposition in itself a worldview? I'll wait while your head explodes, Mr. 9000.

*BOOOM*

Professor, running from offstage: My automated paradigm-subverter! No!

Announcer: Ladies and Gentlemen, the first human-robot debate has ended in forfeit-by-brain-explosion.

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3. Comment #98397 by ronnieharper on December 13, 2007 at 2:46 pm

This observation is useful and in no way supports a religious worldview, or a paradigm of the universe that is supernatural in nature, over any other. It's a difficult concept to integrate into a wholly natural worldview, but certainly a valid concept nevertheless. For instance, civilizations living in remote areas of the Earth could be said to have formed independent worldviews that are valid, contextually. However, as rnewson pointed out, if a worldview lacks empirical evidence, it probably doesn't have a lot of value for the average, everyday person. And we can all see that sometimes these types of worldviews can be dangerous for humanity. There's a difference between knowing about existence and interpreting it (say, via narrative).

'In so far as the word "knowledge" has any meaning, the world is knowable; but it is interpretable otherwise, it has no meaning behind it, but countless meanings.—"Perspectivism." It is our needs that interpret the world; our drives and their For and Against. Every drive is a kind of lust to rule; each one has its perspective that it would like to compel all the other drives to accept as a norm.'

– Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power §481

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4. Comment #98499 by automath on December 13, 2007 at 7:09 pm

Once the narratives are removed you'll still be left with the material world and that which emerges from it.!

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5. Comment #98691 by f0xfree on December 14, 2007 at 4:09 am

A worldview can reflect the actual world, so it is not 'merely' a product of the mind, which itself is an emergent property caused by actual conditions of this world.

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6. Comment #101815 by Jake Atkisson on December 21, 2007 at 2:15 am

Erisian logic FTW!

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7. Comment #117170 by middle miriam on January 28, 2008 at 11:15 am

Hello everybody, nice to meet you/see your mouth words. As this is my first post it verily be long and professional, later posts may be more sloppy if I keep this hobby up.

Firstly I will prove that there is an objective as opposed to a subjective reality. I can get lost. That may not seem important; but if reality were merely due to our interpretation of events then where I thought my destination was would genuinely be where my destination was. This does not happen, which suggests to me that reality is something not dependent on my personal opinions, emotions, grievances, convictions etc. The metaphysical absurdities increase logarithmically the more you think about it e.g. if I hypnotized you to believe that France was two seconds walk away then if everything was a matter of subjectivist conviction you would surely arrive there in two seconds, do stupid people live in a more simple world? Do vain people have bigger penises? The list goes on and on.

I will now employ Occams Razor; it goes roughly like this 'if an explanation is sufficient then it is uneconomical to make any unnecessary additions'

e.g. If I said 'life came from evolution and natural selection' you could not say 'but what if god started evolution' because evolution stands alone without any tinkering.

This said let us compare cultural relativism in its most extreme form (as in the topic debate heading) with the view that reality is objective but some people are more in possession of the facts than others; if it were true that reality was a matter of opinion and not a matter of fact then how could two people who disagreed communicate with one another? If man A thought that Henry VIII had four wives and man B thought that he had six wives, these opinions would influence their respective realities and they would clearly be living in alternate historical time lines. Thus a third medium would have to be postulated for them to communicate through; even given the existence of such a medium we are still riddled with difficulties, for example; given the wide diversity of presumptions, misconceptions and misunderstandings prevailing in a difficult science such as physics it is reasonable to assume that if man A said so much as 'hello' to man B anything could happen. Man A's words could transform into an elephant when they reached man B's reality, thus killing him! Well, maybe not precisely that, but you take my meaning I'm sure. Thus a mechanism would have to be thought of that could reconcile these difficulties satisfactorily and interact successfully with the aforementioned third medium. Technically this is all based on the concept of an outside objectivity but the first part of my argument proves that such an objectivity does indeed exist.

If, on the other hand, reality was objective and truth gathering depended on accurate, empirical fact all that would be needed to be postulated would be A the existence of a reality and B the existence of sentient beings living in that reality who were sufficiently able to gather fact.

Therefore an objective reality is far more economically sound as an explanation than a purely subjectivist one.

Given the existence of an objective reality it is obvious that some people must be closer to perceiving or understanding it than others. Therefore all is not narrative and there is such a thing as right and such a thing as wrong.

I think that will do for now.

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8. Comment #117173 by middle miriam on January 28, 2008 at 11:24 am

I don't quite understand this timing lark since it seems to have posted my comment earlier on this morning, when I was in bed?

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9. Comment #130217 by martino on February 20, 2008 at 7:18 am

Atheism is not a worldview so this does not apply.

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10. Comment #132526 by Prom_STar on February 24, 2008 at 11:18 pm

Atheism isn't a belief in anything. It's the absence of a whole range beliefs, mainly theisms. And why are postmodernists bringing up this totality-of-skepticism argument? Haven't they read Hegel? Long before any of us were born he showed just how much of a waste of time that path is.

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