Philosophical ideas and acting "as though"

[henryp]

Many people have ideas in which they are sure represent reality, but these ideas don't necessarily seem to be mirrored in their actual behaviors.  Examples:

-Free will is an illusion, since there's no evidence that anything is outside deterministic causality (or since God knows the future already).
-Mind is the subjective experience of a purely mechanical/physical process.
-God is real.
-The universe is made of mathematical relationships, including particle wave functions-- and nothing more.


This is one thing I've found with both the religious and the science-minded: that ideas are ideas, and personality and behaviors seem to hold little relation to the ideas.  Very few scientists, for example, make it a regular mental practice to ponder the vast emptiness of even solid objects and to let that awareness inform their behavior-- doing this is simply not considered an important part of science.  Very few people who believe the brain is deterministic and free will is therefore an illusion actually change their world views in a way in which this truth would matter: they still get mad when someone cuts them off in traffic, they still blame a killer or a pedophile for his actions, and so on.

It seems to me that the scientfic method, in particular, needs formally to add one more step to its method: the application of scientific truths to the world view, and the expression of those truths in our behavior and in our laws.  We should act as though scientific truths matter as more than a catalogue of details about the world.

This would mean materialists adopting practices they currently abhor, in particular that of meditation.  By this, I don't mean seeking Nirvana or trying to achieve OBE.  I mean the habitual reflection on ideas, so frequently and with such focus that they become entrenched in the world view, and manifest in one's behaviors.  Without this, philosophical or scientific ideas are just bullet points, rather than a key toward improving our lives individually and culturally.

The part of our mind that we call conscious doesn't run the show.  It's one little voice in our head that sometimes is working against millions of years of evolution and/or a lifetime of social indoctrination.  The little voice having knowledge of something doesn't undo everything else.  

I know there's no reason to be afraid of heights if I'm not at risk of falling.  But my knowing that doesn't turn off all the physical and psychological impulses that goes along with being up very high.  At the same time, the knowledge I'm not truly at risk may help me reduce some of the symptoms that go along with the natural fear of heights.

You have to overrule your subconscious in every instance, which itself may not even be possible.  And maybe someday down the road, if you do it enough, you'll have reprogrammed yourself enough that your behavior lines up better with the ideas the voice in your head is coming up with.

But the big point, I think, is that the voice in our head is in the passenger seat.  And the best it can do is try to convince the driver where to go.  But sometimes the driver is just going to do whatever they want.

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The other trick with some of the scientific discoveries, is behaving accordingly isn't necessarily in our best interests.  It's probably better we all just pretend to have free will for example.