Oh no not another free will thread.

[Edwardo Piet]

It seems thinking this way is generally part of being human. We all have certain guesses, hopes, intuitions, theories, etc, about reality, that aren't rooted in scientific evidence. An atheist may not believe in God, but chances are he will still believe in something that can't be proven through scientific testing.

I think many atheists don't.

I certainly think the "philosophy is all a load of bullshit" breed of atheist doesn't.

More philosophically minded atheists like me might.

A lot of lovers of science tend to think metaphysics is all bullshit. That makes zero sense to me. It's useless maybe, but that doesn't make it untrue. That's why I can't stand philosophical pragmatism. I'm philosophically anti-pragmatist. The whole notion of "the truth is what works" really frustrates the hell out of me.

Ever heard of the paradox of hedonism?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_hedonism

The basic crux of it is that directly seeking happiness or pleasure doesn't tend to lead to happiness or pleasure as much as if you just focus on something you enjoy and forget about the purpose of it being for pleasure or happiness. Like, getting lost in what you enjoy is more enjoyable than literally doing things because you want pleasure from them. Directly seeking pleasure and enjoyment tends to lead to less pleasure and enjoyment.

I think something analagous to that happens with pragmatism. Directly seeking The Useful ™ doesn't tend to be very useful. Think of anything useful... what is being sought is a specific purpose rather than usefulness itself. When a mechanic fixes a car he isn't reminding himself over and over that he's doing it to be useful. He's just trying to fix the car.

Likewise... some of the most useful inventions and technology to come out of scientific knowledge and discovery... didn't come about by scientists trying to think of truths that would be useful and ignoring all truths they didn't expect to have useful results. Many things that at first seem useless end up being useful later. So if you ignore the useless stuff you just stay in your comfort zone and not learn much of anything. Ironically, it turns out that the most useful approach tends to be to be genuinely interested in learning and seeking knowledge and truth in itself whether it's useful or not. And many of the best scientists throughout history were like this. They didn't do science because they wanted to discover useful truths, they just enjoyed exploring and understanding reality. And many of the best inventions have come out totally by accident.

So pragmatism as an ideal in itself... as a truth bearer... really vexes me because I think it's totally unhelpful. And again, even if it was the most useful view to view the truth as merely what is useful.... It doesn't change the fact that there may indeed be things out there that can't apply to us.

And look at it this way... I'm literally talking about something that isn't just useless but by definition is something that is completely unreachable and can't possibly become useful in itself. But still, it's an exercise of the mind to think about stuff... to philosophize. For me it makes a lot of sense to think that the world doesn't just make sense on the macro level, but also does on the micro level... whether we can make sense of it or not. The difference between you and I is that you think God can make sense of it even if we can't... but I think no one can make sense of it. I think there are some things no one can make sense of.

And even if there aren't things that are forever unknowable and we can never make sense of... even if ultimately given enough time and learning we can know anything and there is no reality outside of our experience.... to speak of the possibility of things being outside of that doesn't contradict it... that wouldn't make any sense. If I'm literally saying "If there are things beyond our experience, then those things are things we can't test" that is indeed an if. But it's still true as an if. Meaning, if you accept the if... it follows.

it's literally impossible to test the unexperiencable because: Testing is an experiential activity! All activity that humans experience is experiential! That's literally a tautology.

I hope you find this interesting and non-overwhelming