Thought Shrapnel

There are some people who I follow who have done such interesting stuff in their lives, and whose new work continues to help me think in new ways. Buster Benson is one of these, and his latest post (unfortunately on Substack) is the beginnings of a choose-your-own-adventure style quiz about cosmology, a.k.a. “the nature of reality.”

So… I’ve been thinking a lot about cosmologies, and how in these times of chaos there seems to be a proliferation of new ways of thinking about the nature of reality springing up. If you have a few moments, can you take this short quiz and let me know which result you got, and how you feel about it?

Below you’ll find a some questions designed to help you identify and share your fundamental beliefs about the nature of reality (aka your cosmology). It’s not meant to be a comprehensive survey of all possible cosmologies, but rather a tool to help you identify your own cosmology and perhaps to spark a fun conversation with others. It’s also not meant to critique or judge any of the cosmologies for being more or less true, more or less useful, or more or less good — but rather meant to be window of observation into what beliefs exist out there amongst you all right now.

FWIW, I came out as the following, which (as I commented on Buster’s post) is entirely unsurprising to me:

Pragmatic Instrumentalism — You see scientific theories as powerful tools for prediction and control rather than literal descriptions of an ultimate reality. The value of materialism lies in its extraordinary practical utility and predictive success, not in metaphysical claims about what “really” exists. This pragmatic approach sidesteps unresolvable metaphysical debates while maintaining the full practical power of scientific methodology.

Source: Buster’s Rickshaw

Image: Good Free Photos