Okay, since I'm at home with flu today, let me have a go.
"Mystery" isn't a term I use much, so please don't assume I attach any great significance to the views I'm about to set out; I've largely worked them out specifically for the purposes of this discussion, so they aren't particularly settled opinions and may well change.
I think I do agree with Yudkowsky that mystery is a property of questions. I probably wouldn't have phrased it that way myself unprompted; I'd probably go for a Wittgensteinian approach and say that mystery is an artefact of our attempts to construct a coherent worldview, and specifically of the role of language in those attempts. From a Wittgensteinian point of view, some of these "questions" are never going to have answers because it's only the way we have constructed language that makes us think there's a question to ask at all. All language is ultimately analogy and metaphor; we'd be better off looking for better metaphors than for "answers".
I'm not going to address your edit, though I do appreciate the invitation, because I think it's just too big a subject for an LJ discussion. It's more like a PhD thesis, and I know I don't have time or spoons for one of those.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2009-09-28 08:31 am (UTC)"Mystery" isn't a term I use much, so please don't assume I attach any great significance to the views I'm about to set out; I've largely worked them out specifically for the purposes of this discussion, so they aren't particularly settled opinions and may well change.
I think I do agree with Yudkowsky that mystery is a property of questions. I probably wouldn't have phrased it that way myself unprompted; I'd probably go for a Wittgensteinian approach and say that mystery is an artefact of our attempts to construct a coherent worldview, and specifically of the role of language in those attempts. From a Wittgensteinian point of view, some of these "questions" are never going to have answers because it's only the way we have constructed language that makes us think there's a question to ask at all. All language is ultimately analogy and metaphor; we'd be better off looking for better metaphors than for "answers".
I'm not going to address your edit, though I do appreciate the invitation, because I think it's just too big a subject for an LJ discussion. It's more like a PhD thesis, and I know I don't have time or spoons for one of those.