If I wish to find the answer to question A, I might need to look at the conditions of the atmosphere over Paris and then use knowledge of how climate evolves. I might need readings of temperature, wind speed, humidity, and pressure, and I might also need complex mathematical models of the weather.
If I wish to find the right answer to question B, I can just decide to blink now.
There is an activity that I would roughly describe as “figuring out how the world is like.” This activity is to be understood as a collective endeavour, not a personal one. Simple acts of information gathering, like opening a box to see what is inside, are examples of this activity. More impressive examples are Science and History, systematic disciplines that evolve across generations and produce large bodies of knowledge. The end goal of this activity might be a theory of everything.
I often hear people (particularly academics) speak as if figuring out how the world is like must always look like the process described above for answering Question A: science-y, focused on gathering data, distilling models or regularities, and applying them to particular cases.
However, Question B illustrates that in some cases, figuring how the world is like simply consists in deciding, or at least it includes a decision. This occurs when we pose questions about ourselves or about changes in the environment that occur as a consequence of our actions. For example: what will the temperature of this room be in the next 10 minutes? That depends on whether I will open the windows, turn on the AC, or set the furniture on fire.
Learning can be deciding
Consider the following questions:
A: “Will it rain in Paris at midnight tonight?”
B: “Will I blink in the next 5 seconds?”
If I wish to find the answer to question A, I might need to look at the conditions of the atmosphere over Paris and then use knowledge of how climate evolves. I might need readings of temperature, wind speed, humidity, and pressure, and I might also need complex mathematical models of the weather.
If I wish to find the right answer to question B, I can just decide to blink now.
There is an activity that I would roughly describe as “figuring out how the world is like.” This activity is to be understood as a collective endeavour, not a personal one. Simple acts of information gathering, like opening a box to see what is inside, are examples of this activity. More impressive examples are Science and History, systematic disciplines that evolve across generations and produce large bodies of knowledge. The end goal of this activity might be a theory of everything.
I often hear people (particularly academics) speak as if figuring out how the world is like must always look like the process described above for answering Question A: science-y, focused on gathering data, distilling models or regularities, and applying them to particular cases.
However, Question B illustrates that in some cases, figuring how the world is like simply consists in deciding, or at least it includes a decision. This occurs when we pose questions about ourselves or about changes in the environment that occur as a consequence of our actions. For example: what will the temperature of this room be in the next 10 minutes? That depends on whether I will open the windows, turn on the AC, or set the furniture on fire.