Gosh, thanks.

Totally agree. I like to think about the discussion of truth as a process that we engage in together.

Forget the careful dissections of the meanings of truth, logic, axiom and foundation.

The reality is that truth is contingent and is a construct that we impose on reality that is "yet-to-be-known" and may be unknowable.

Certainly axioms and logic lead us to constructs that are useful and accurate descriptions of reality, but there is plenty of room for disagreement on even those constructs, never mind how what we "know" may change in the future.

On this PI day (3-14) I am contemplating how "pi" may be our closest daily interaction with the
infinite. The idea that "pi" has been calculated to over a trillion
digits and that there are a trillion more out there, existing but
unknown, challenges our very idea of the meaning of existence and truth.

The "yet-to-be-known" -- whether digits of pi or the next elementary
particle or the communications systems between trees or the true nature
of the multiverse -- clearly exists "out there" waiting to be
comprehended by human conceptual consciousness.

Yet "pi" reminds us that however detailed and accurate our view, there is always more to
discover. Human concepts are a construct that we impose on an
underlying reality that may not be fully reducible to definitions and
measurements -- an analog reality rendered by digital tools. Like a
digital picture, no matter how fine grained the pixels, there's still
those damned spaces.

“Butler reminds us that vulnerability is not all bad; it is what makes life possible. All bodies must be in some way open to the world and to others. They must be able to take in and give out: to eat, breathe, speak, be intimate. A body unable to do this could not be alive. Ultimately, Butler reminds us, often poetically, that to be fully ourselves, we need each other.”

This is Butler’s most important point. We are human beings dependent on each other for our very existence. Levinas and other existentialists make the same point, some maintaining that being in the sense of self-consciousness began with the encounter with the other. Given that we are an infinite mystery to each other, and to ourselves, the process of “being” never ends. All of our social constructs begin from there. Arguably even our sense of time and space is such a current social construct. One might even say that it is the ability to overcome our biology and choose new ways of being that makes us human.

My pleasure. Good article. A little too much jargon for my taste, but fundamentally in the right spirit for sure.

There is no end of history. Utopia is not a destination. The author is talking about transcending our scarcity mentality -- a state that is far closer than we realize -- and the recognition that we cannot compete and self maximize our way to peace and prosperity. We are, as David Deutsch has said, at the beginning of infinity in terms of human explanations and problem solving. A new story of collaboration and abundance that uses markets to allocate resources, builds on self-interest to sustain and continue progress, provides basic survival necessities, and frees all of humanity to follow their gifts and make their dent in the universe -- that is the infinite engine of human progress that we can and must build.

Which quote?

Daniel Dennett's "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" covers this ground pretty thoroughly, arguing that evolution, science, and many human systems (progress in general) progress as negative selection mechanisms, weeding out failure rather than marching toward any particular end.

This is avery good podcast on David McRaney's work how people hold opinions and change their mihttps://www.econtalk.org/david-mcraney-on-how-minds-change/#audio-highlights.

In short, we form strong beliefs and look for data to support them -- motivated reasoning.

New information alone rarely causes anyone to change their mind.

A different approach based on trust, respect and mutual exploration that McRaney calls "street epistemology" involves getting people to examine their own assumptions and develop hypothetical counter arguments. Because these arguments are self generated, they are the best shot at actual self-examination and real movement on strong beliefs.