User:Gkochanowsky/explanatism

This is a work in progress and most likely will never be posted
Explanatism is a way of looking at knowledge as collections of known phenomenon and explanations of that known phenomena.

Phenomenon are anything that people can agree happened or exists in a consistent way. [This needs work. Must make a distinction between a thought and the thing. Investigate philosophies that make a distinction between thought and reality.]

One must take care not to confuse the explanations of a phenomena with the phenomena itself even though the explanation can affect how one views the phenomena.

For example, a person sees a burning bush that talks. That is the phenomenon. Saying that it was a manifestation of god is an explanation. The same phenomenon could be explaned as a prank, or a hallucination. There are many other possible explanations some of which may differ from one another by only insignificant details.

All phenomena can be lumped together into something called a universe. It can also be called reality, existence, the cosmos, the whole shebang and so on. Explanations of the universe are called cosmologies.

Over the history of mankind there have been many proposed cosmologies.

The Genesis account in the bible is one such example.

Other explanations such as "The Big Bang", the story of "P'an Ku" are more examples.

In the case of explanations of the universe such explanations are called cosmologies.

So this is the situation we find ourselves in.


 * 1) We agree there is a universe.
 * 2) We want to explain it.
 * 3) There are many competing and conflicting explanations.

Now certainly not all humans are concerned with these observations, and certainly there are many human traditions that may be concerned with these observations in some peripheral way but they are not of central concern. But there are certainly several human traditions that have tried to explain the universe and thus have contributed many varied and conflicting cosmologies to 3. Examples would be science, religion and philosophy.

Over the course of time some or most of these traditions have become aware of explanations and cosmologies from other traditions. And yet at first blush it appears that for the most part the conflicting traditions have resisted abandoning their cosmologies and explanations and accepting those of other traditions. For all the brouhaha over the Galileo affair, neither science nor Catholicism are all that much affected. A sort of unsettled truce exists with the Catholics making special pleadings to science in a regular basis.

What I find most interesting about this situation is not necessarily the cosmologies and explanations on either side but why neither side finds the other's cosmologies and explanation compelling enough to reject their own and accept the other.

I advance the hypothesis that whatever proclamations of "seeking truth and wisdom" made by all such traditions may be they differ because of the criteria of preference they apply when preferring one explanation over the many other competing explanations. And they also differ on how willing and under what circumstances they reapply those criteria when new competing explanations come along. And it is these differences that not only explain the existence of so many different cosmologies but the stability of those cosmologies within the traditions that proffer them.

To explore this idea further it occurs to me that in science the criteria of preference for explanations is to prefer those explanations that excel in fidelity and predictability of observations of reality. Philosophy seems to prefer some kind of consistency and in many cases it may be just a matter of personal preference with a patina of logic. And religion prefers explanations that extend hope, comfort or special status. In as much as a tradition has criteria of preference over time the explanations may change but they do so in that explanations that better satisfy the criteria of the group being pandered to become most preferred.

So in religion the cosmologies would change over time to prefer those that work best in pandering to the hopes, fears, greed, and power and sex lust of the group targeted by the religion, and it would appeal to both those running the religion and those adhering to the religion. With such variants that explain that "Jesus wants you to be rich and prosperous" which target those that prefer to be rich and prosperous.

In Science the cosmologies would change to those that make more accurate predictions of what can be observed in the universe.

In philosophy the smorgasbord of allowed explanations would grow with the variation of people's preference.

[to be continued]