Cosmologic philosophy: more comment on current dead end (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, June 30, 2018, 10:38 (2126 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

TONY: Maybe they should stop seeking new horizons a while and just play with what they know. Through play, they may discover hitherto unknown properties that will be the answer they need.

dhw: I think they ARE playing!

TONY: I mean play as children ply, with few assumptions, just seeing what happens and observing. Kids don't generally analyze ahead of time when they play, and imagination becomes the possibility space and the playground the test lab.

DAVID: They are wildly playing now with multiverses, string theories and other non-proven wild hairs.

dhw: Some folk come with assumptions and try to impose them on what happens and what they observe (e.g. theists and atheists). Some folk (e.g. agnostics) try to extrapolate theories from what happens and what they observe. But we’re all only playing, because we all know deep down that no folk can ever come up with answers that will satisfy all folk.

TONY: I think we are using the word "play" differently.

Yes, it depends what kind of play you mean, and maybe I've misunderstood your reference to children's games. As I see it, when children play, they use their imaginations and often pretend that something is real, though it isn’t. We take what we think we know, and pretend that the "unknown properties" we extrapolate are real: hence the many theories believed in by theists and atheists alike. That is why I think they – whoever they are – (and we) are “playing”.