Skimming Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist today, I found some information on R Scott Bakker’s next book, The White-Luck Warrior, which I eagerly await. Said information was in a post on the author’s own WordPress blog, Three Pound Brain (beloved of zombies everywhere). His post concludes with a list of principles he regards as self-evident, and which resonate strongly with my own opinions. Bakker’s ‘No-Dogma Dogma‘ is:
1) Not all claims are equal.
2) The world is ambiguous because it is supercomplex.
3) Humans are cognitive egoists. We are hardwired to unconsciously game ambiguities to our own advantage – to make scripture out of habit and self-interest.
4) Humans are theoretical morons. We are hardwired for groundless belief in invisible things.
5) The feeling of certainty is a bloody pathological liar.
6) Science is a social cognitive prosthetic, an institution that, when functioning properly, lets us see past our manifold cognitive shortcomings, and produce theoretical knowledge.
7) Contemporary culture, by and large, is bent on concealing the fact of 2, 3, 4, and 5.
Captain Maybe 