Questions a Worldview Needs to Answer

Negligence in meticulous self-evaluation of one’s worldview is the valium of the mind. Many individuals rely on quick, cheap logics and rationalizations to base their worldview on: “God can’t exist since there’s suffering in the world”, “this makes me feel good so it’s good”, and more. This is understandable because no one likes shaking their foundation when they can focus on simple superficial aesthetics of daily life. Enlightment’s characteristic of a growth-mindset begets the tool of reevaluation. While reevaluation is usually ascribed to transitioning between worldviews, it also applies to within a worldview, for one of two reasons. One, a pubescent Christian isn’t born an enlightened Christian. Two, humans face the unachievable goal of their worldview’s “asymptote of perfection”, of which they ceaselessly strive towards. However, stagnation is the equivalent of regression, and thus, standards must be maintained through reevaluation and growth.

Questions to test a personal worldview:

Personal

• What is the purpose of your life? Why are these purposes important?
• Why do you pursue the career you pursue?
• What is your attitude towards pleasure? Why don’t you indulge yourself all the time if you don’t?
• Are there objective truths in the world?
• How do you know you know what you know?
• What is love? Why do you love others?
• How do you address the suffering in your daily life?
• Do you have a separate mind? Or is your brain/mind one?
• How do you view material comforts?
• How do you balance self-interest with the needs and well-being of others?

World

• Do you have free-will? Or, are your actions predetermined?
• Do you believe in a predestined path for your life?
• How did the world begin?
• Are other animals sentient?
• If you eat meat, how do you justify killing other beings?
• What role should humans play in the environment?
• Why does suffering exist? How do you reconcile evil in the world?
• Do you think the strong should dominate? Why or why not?
• How do you help others in your community? Far away in other countries?
• Which socioeconomic system do you subscribe to? Capitalism, communism, anarchism, etc.?
• How do you reconcile the negatives of the system you subscribe to? (e.g. dehumanization of humans in capitalism, unproductivity in communism)?
• Do you think people should live in poverty? If not, does your socioeconomic system align with your answer and how are you addressing it?
• With the notion of all humans being equal, do you support the idea of celebrities?
• Is beauty real? If so, what is beauty?

Religious

• Is God real? Why or why not?
• Why does God allow suffering in the world?
• How do you understand the presence of other religions?
• Why are you tolerant of other religions if you are?
• What are your views on the afterlife, if any?
• Do you follow the way of life that your religion/belief system tells you to?
• How do you reconcile scientific discoveries and religious beliefs?

Death

• If you died right now, would it matter?
• What happens when someone dies

Through my experience developing my own worldview and analyzing others, I have developed the following paradigm for different positions people occupy with respect to their worldview.

Those who never consider another worldview

• E.g. people born within a system with limited to no exposure to outside worldviews, ability/tools to comprehend other worldviews

Those who briefly look around

• E.g. people heavily entrenched in their worldview who have exposure to other worldviews but only explore with the objective of rejecting the other worldviews to solidify their own

Those who go through an intense spiritual journey but plateau

• E.g. people whom have some period of their life of intense worldview transformation, maybe due to a significant life event, and settle into that worldview with little renanalysis of their position

Those who achieve a working knowledge of most worldviews. Those that figure out things are value judgements based on individuals. Most eventually choose a worldview out of necessity or advanced logics and rationalizations

• E.g. people who are academically exposed to philosophy in some shape or form

Those who work to break our current human condition problems and worldview constraints through technology

• E.g. visionaries

At first, I thought the following proposed paradigm was a hierarchy, where one moves through the stages in enlightenment transitions (from top to bottom). The reason is that secularism and the Age of Enlightenment have created a modern value framework for evaluating individuals’ worldview development. Values of logic, rationality, generalizability, tolerance, and more all reign supreme in the current modem of thought. For example, being able to have explored multiple religions and choose Christianity over other religions is looked more favorably upon than a devout Christian who never explored in the first place. This way of thinking is pervasive and often unnoticed by the modern individual.

However, religion doesn’t work on these modern scales. Faith, piety, and devoutness exist as a separate and equally-valid way of human existence. Thus, the proposed paradigm as a hierarchy breaks down. For example, on the scales of Hinduism, my grandparents, who have never known anything except for Hinduism, may occupy an unreachable and superior position as Hindus, as compared to Hindus who have been exposed to other religions. The part about the scales is ultimately what makes the difference in this topic. To explain this a little more, in a modern secular world, one may point that my grandparents have blinded/blind themselves to equally-valid other options. How can they know Hinduism is the ultimate truth without having explored other religions/options? This argument is the source of grievance of modern, liberal individuals against groups like the Amish, Hasidic Jews, Hutterites, etc.

But, let’s say in a thought experiment we somehow know that Hinduism is true. In this world, every person, Hindu or non-Hindu, is judged on their piety towards Hinduism. Thus, the farther away an individual is from Hinduism, the worse off they are. Since no one knows what the ultimate truth is yet, the willfully other worldview-blind Hindu, who holds the undisprovable belief in Hinduism, will face less doubt and disbelief, increase their integration in the Hindu way of thought and action, and thus be a better Hindu on the scales of Hinduism. In other words, one must accept there is a chance that Hinduism can be correct (because one can’t prove otherwise), and in that scenario, the blind Hindu may be better off than the modern Hindu.

Therefore, I can not assert the value judgment that intense religious devotion to a single worldview is somehow lesser than rational, logically exploration of multiple worldviews. Instead of a hierarchy, the list is a spectrum of equally-valid positions, which reflects the range from religious conservatism to liberal secularism.

Now, one may be wondering why the lower-oriented positions on the list seem to be prevalent with doubt and weaker in domains of religiosity. The difference is an acknowledgement that the human experience is subjective and under the domain of relativism. And, relativism is undeniably present in modern life, because without relativism, we couldn’t have tolerance. The lived experience of relativism begets an index of doubt among worldviews. Thus, incompatibility with religion arises since religions assert absolute truth onto a society, in which to be a society, is based on the no absolute truth-defined relativism. This conflict within believers is why faith is required to be religious. While I digress, I think this is a relevant nuance to understand in the consideration of people and their worldviews.

For a full in-depth explanation of this last category, please see my relevant article on the topic (whenever I end up writing it). In short, facing perennial questions of humanity, our debates ping-pong side to side, emanating the perception of insurmountability. However, hope exists. As technology improves, so does our hope to move forward and resolve these questions. For example, disenfranchised and abused workers toil long and arduous hours in fields, factories, etc, which is obviously not a good way to live. But, society needs these workers, because without them, society wouldn’t have the raw materials or products it needs to function. Thus, we find ourselves in a catch-22, between benefits and drawbacks of capitalism. However, we can escape this paradigm through technology, specifically robotization. Robots don’t complain or care if they are working 24/7 and doing difficult tasks. Once the technology is developed and infrastructure implemented, humans will be freed up to pursue more meaningful callings and better lifestyles while the raw materials/products are still provided to society.

I have somewhat arbitrarily put the last category in the position it is. But, I chose this position, because this worldview tends to require acceptance of certain principles from secularism and Enlightenment, which is closer to rational exploration of worldviews than single-driven religious devotion. However, this isn’t to say that a Buddhist fundamentalist can not use technology in some way or another to prove their fundamental belief. But, in common practice, the discoveries made with science and the technology that pushes science forward tend to contradict more conservative worldview/belief systems. Instead of a linear position, the category may be more superimposed, where the advancement of human knowledge through science can break free of the paradigm I propose. This would allow us to choose a category with certainty rather than with faith and belief.