Comments on: Mundia and Modia

By: Matthew Deany Wright

Matthew Deany Wright — Fri, 15 Feb 2019 09:30:09 +0000

Thanks for taking the time to reply. Yes! I accept that there are broadly two classes of people in this matter. I guess what I am saying is that the polarisation is presently very strong, reflected in society, and exagerated by the ‘schizophrenic’ way the West now thinks. A Modian or Mundian divide does exist, and does not necessarily require a
‘gap’. However, in my opinion, there is more to the modern divide
between ‘Arts’ and ‘Sciences’ than simple operation processes Mundian
and Modian describe. In any case, I look forward to hearing more about this in the future.

By: Brian of London

Brian of London — Fri, 15 Feb 2019 02:50:43 +0000

In reply to Matthew Deany Wright.

I’m supposed to sit down with David who wrote this and have a chat about it. One of the elements that isn’t drawn out in this are the exceptional people who are able to operate in both Mundia and Modia simultaneously or without thinking. I put Trump in that camp.

I take the view that there isn’t a gap to be bridged, making Mundians into Modians or vice versa would be almost like praying the gay away. However the bigger problem is recognising which problems need to be approached and solved with Modian or Mundian thinking. Getting groups of people to make decisions: Modian. Making choices about the future based on science: Mundian.

As David says, using the wrong heuristic is the problem, not the specifics of favouring either one of these two broad areas.

By: Matthew Deany Wright

Matthew Deany Wright — Thu, 14 Feb 2019 18:12:08 +0000

This seems to have many parallels to the observations that Western philosophy used to have a unified view of reality, but somewhere during the beginning of modern Europe (let’s say during or just after the Renaissance) the world of physical understanding became divorced from the world of thought or spirit. At around the time that Sartre and Camus were expounding Existentialism, it had become clear that that modern Western-man had no way to move from the physical, to the psychological or religious. Previously, a belief in the necessity of having an external, absolute, non-physical reference, had kept the two joined. Both the ancient Greeks and Jews both, in different ways, believed in some external to the Physical World, one referred to some form of ‘Reason’, the other ‘God’. The modern project was to take away this absolute external reference, replace it with ourselves, and then reproduce the ‘useful results’ of the past, remaking the world in our image.

This has proved to be impossible, as the emergence of Existentialism and Post Modernism have proved, which, along with most recent philosophies, have led to a collapse towards Nihilism. If you doubt this, consider the procession of new philosophies, each considered a failure and replaced, until the project seems to have been abandoned sometime in the late 20th Century.

People who are Mundians, in our modern culture, can accept absolutes, but now find it impossible to accept non-physical realities. Or at least, they are told that the orthodox view is against it.

People who are Modians, can accept the non-physical, and tend to revel in their rejection of Mundia, as they believe it produces freedom. However, the lack of any basis for absolutes or correspondence leaves them adrift in their own personal universe, with no hope of relating their experience (in any real way) to the person next to them, who effectively inhabits his or her own independent psychological reality.

Both Modians and Modians used to be able to unite in a belief in a common reality that straddled both worlds, – now they tend to ally themselves to the political tribe they find most comfortable, ‘left’ or ‘right’.

In the end, the gap needs to be bridged again.