A world view (or worldview) is a term calqued from the German word Weltanschauung. Welt is the German word for "world", and Anschauung is the German word for "view" or "outlook." It...refers to a wide world perception. Additionally, it refers to the framework of ideas and beliefs through which an individual interprets the world and interacts in it. (Read more here)Wednesday, April 23, 2008
World View
A world view (or worldview) is a term calqued from the German word Weltanschauung. Welt is the German word for "world", and Anschauung is the German word for "view" or "outlook." It...refers to a wide world perception. Additionally, it refers to the framework of ideas and beliefs through which an individual interprets the world and interacts in it. (Read more here)
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Ok this has nothing (as far as i can see to do with this discussion) but it is a quote that i thought was interesting enough to share and because i have no idea how to add another discussion here it is:
"Us people, we are human, and as humans we dream, and when wedream we dream of money." Spanish Prisoner
Seeing as this was one of the "key questions encountered in the construction of your 'world view'", I suppose I'll post this here. I found our discussion on progress really fascinating today, and I've been thinking about it since club ended, so I guess I'll post my conclusions here.
With progress, basically what I said was that everything balances out.
For example's sake, I give you Ms. X. Ms. X is in her 40s, has two children and a well-paying job. These can all be seen as measures of Ms. X's progress; that she's growing old and wise, is raising a family, has a good career. But let us measure this objectively. Ms. X has advanced into age, yet had she stayed a year old, she wouldn't know about the world's sorrows and would be content. Had she not had children, she would have had much more money, and her life wouldn't be so stressful. Had she not worked hard at her job, her life also wouldn't be so stressful, and she could have spent the time exercising and keeping a hot bod instead of looking her age.
See how it all evens out?
Mr. B's question to me in class was that if it all balances out in th end, then what's the point of doing it in the first place? (sorry if that's a misquote, Mr. B). After thinking about it, I would say that your eyes are the only ones that you see through; why worry about if it matters in the end, or you've really made any progress at all.
Ms. X feels that she's made progress. It's all based on what she sees as progress, not how progress is measured objectively. And besides, no one has an objective stick to measure progress with anyway.
I guess this relate's to my view on the purpose of life, or my explanation of it: You don't have the universe and you don't have god and you don't have property that you know you'll always have but you do have yourself. You're here; doesn't that have some value, regardless of the why or how? And you're thinking - that gives you the ability to decide your purpose yourself. You shouldn't be so concerned with getting it right, making sure you're in line with the "meaning of life".
And in response to the quote Crystial posted: When we dream we don't always dream of money, but we do dream of wealth.
I'm a bit surprised that no one has challenged the assumptions upon which the mesmerizing Myth of Sisyphus rests… I worry: have members been hypnotized by Camus’ skill with the pen, or become drunk with his powerful imagery, or have they really examined the tenants of his implied beliefs… or does his myth simply align with their own casually assumed/accepted worldview, and hence it is an easy, meaningless-yet-meaningful-yet-meaningless literary pill to swallow?
Nonetheless, you raise some discussion-worthy points… you wrote, “why worry about if it matters in the end, or you've really made any progress at all…You're here; doesn't that have some value, regardless of the why or how?”
Context is where we find meaning and value. When I was a kid playing in the woods, we’d use leaves as dollars… and we were all millionaires, as you can imagine. But when we considered the wider context surrounding our little wooded world, we realized that we were just playing make-believe… that within our own little world we were rich, but viewed within the wider economic we just had handfuls of leaves.
Focusing on the ‘here’, the ‘now’, the ‘moment’… …is admirable in many respects, but it also seems to ignore the wider spatial and temporal contexts in which we—especially our perspectives and choices—move and live. The smaller our context, the easier it is to make-up any old system of value or meaning that justifies any old action or perspective… from prejudice to racial discrimination. You rightly say that, “your eyes are the only ones that you see through,” but doesn’t our creativity, imagination and commutative nature—our humanity—allow for more? Allow us to—in a way—escape our self-centered, narrow understanding of ourselves, our universe, and ourselves in that universe? To find a wider context, a wider reality, a wider scope within which to view ourselves, our perspectives, our choices, our actions… and ultimately our meaning and value?
Or is it just a game of make-believe… a game played in an infinite universe in which scale is arbitrary… there is no small or big… a game of insignificant size in which I pretend… that I am progressing, that I am happy, that I am valuable, that I am meaningful… that my choices matter and so do I… that I must be responsible with what I have… because what I have is “I” and I MATTER!
Or not. Can you make a case for why you or I matter?
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