Philosophy (as I regard it) is a sort of history of very clever but confused thinking, thinking which didn't lead anywhere. Thinking which did lead somewhere got relabelled science or something-else-not-philosophy.
Thus what little philosophy I have read (mainly Popper) has helped me to tolerate confusion.
Paradoxically my ability to think has been improved by this ability to be confused, I think.
For instance, I've noticed that most people refuse to see problems. They either want the answer straight away, or they want to pretend that the question or task is invalid or not needed. It takes a real thinker to put a confusing thought on one side and then pick it up later.
Yes. Dopamine is the mediator of the brain's seeking system, SEEKING being one of the seven emotional drives, according to Jaak Panksepp and Mark Solms. The full list of instinctual emotion systems comprises SEEKING, LUST, PANIC, GRIEF, RAGE, CARING and PLAY.
Seeking makes a cat play with its prey before eating it. Presumably the exercise of skill and the risk of losing lunch make the overall process more satisfying.
What might be the reading equivalent? Something like having to track down one's target book in an elaborate and interesting library, complete with secret rooms and hidden shelves (this being an analogue of the internet). In the process one risks being tempted and distracted by other volumes and other authors...
I've heard that submarines can now extract information from ambient ocean noise. Car honkings and traffic noise have got to be at least as useful, for the roads. Would require a microphone array to be added to the car.
And while we're in the Sahara Desert with abundant sunshine, sand and carbon dioxide, let's build a silicon carbide brick factory. Sunlight to provide electrical power and, via focussed mirrors, heat. Sand to supply the silicon. Carbon from carbon dioxide to be extracted from the air at $100 per tonne (well, eventually).
Silicon carbide bricks, emerging gloriously from their tungsten moulds, would possess supreme corrosion resistance and almost double the crushing strength of engineering bricks. High thermal conductivity should reduce cracking and spalling, further increasing lifetime. A short railway journey to the nearest port and water desalination plant whence they can be distributed throughout the world.
We'll beat the Romans! Our public buildings will last for millennia!
(1) and (2) might empirically-speaking look similar over long enough timescales.
Also if (2) is correct then fundamental progress, arising from periodic breakthroughs, depends more upon who we are than what we do. Doing stuff would then lead to incremental improvements which are still important but which depend themselves on previous breakthroughs.
I get that bad news sells. It grabs attention I think partly because it's useful. It's a sort of 'prediction error' which helps us to learn from the misfortunes and mistakes of others.
However this doesn't explain the preponderance of pessimism in sci-fi. People generally turn to fiction for inspiration or at least comfort. Responsible parents would consider it wrong to read stories with bad endings to their children. Yet we have been pumping demoralising and potentially self-fulfilling nonsense to wider society for a while now.
(1) Optimism. The world has been getting better and all present evils can eventually be cured by developing the specific know-how (think Apollo programme)
(2) Eucatastrophe. The world has been getting steadily worse yet looming evil may be defeated by an unexpected turn of events among a few good people (think small fellowship of hobbits)
The first says that if we apply creativity and work energetically at solving problems in a scientific manner then we can solve them. No guarantees but also nothing in the laws of physics to prevent it. It sounds reasonable but in practice the argument seems to persuade very few, least of all in Hollywood where science fiction has all but given up on spaceships and the future. As Douglas Adams pointed out the stories are mostly set in LA about 5 years from now and it's raining.
The second is almost the opposite. It says that if a few unimportant but good people get involved, things may unpredictably and dramatically improve, perhaps by the intervention of grace or Providence. It sounds supernatural. Hope was indeed one of St Paul's big three ('Faith, Hope, and Love'). Yet consider how many scientific discoveries and inventions occurred purely by accident. How evolution succeeded in making ears out of jaw bones. Etc.
Historically I've sided with (1) and I've always wanted it to be true however however many times it is pointed out by the likes of Steven Pinker with graphs and statistics that conditions have improved through most of history, the pessimists still prevail in public news and debates. They get more headlines and seem more serious than their naive opponents.
Why do pessimists carry the day and with such preternatural authority? The very fact that they do hints that they're unwittingly cashing in on the fact that (2) may be correct or at least the predominating factor.
That is, most good things happen by accident, but they do require a few good people to show up.
Another explanation for depression I've heard from Mark Solms. Or partial explanation. He thinks it may be a dysfunctional or pathologised form of mourning. There are two relevant emotional needs which all mammals possess:
1. Seeking. This is ongoing energetic and curious engagement with the world.
2. Attachment. The need for connection with others, especially to parents.
These two rarely come into conflict but when they do system 1 may be switched off.
e.g. A rat pup is separated from its mother and becomes anxious. It commences to squeak for a brief period in order to attract her attention. It then goes quiet; its brain switches off seeking. It experiences mourning and despair.
The evolutionary rationale for this built-in mechanism is to prevent vulnerable infants from attracting predators.
Obviously humans are more complicated. Perhaps the same shutdown process is triggered in response to the breaking of other kinds of attachment, e.g. attachment to ideas about what to do.
The hilarity illustrates an important point. We never just make a thing. A recipe or blueprint is a convenient fiction. Rather we participate in a dynamic evolving process which itself evolved through many cycles of copying, repetition and debugging. Even the first version wasn't strictly original because the idea was borrowed from elsewhere. 'Oh you work at the olive press. How would you like a job with this new-fangled printing machine?' And so on back to the initial and highly controversial creation of the Universe.
The format of Foundation is rather terse and spare encyclopaedic entries alternating with stories of the characters meeting each other, conversing and so on.
One of the reason it fires the imagination I think is that the encyclopaedia portions leave plenty of gaps for one's imagination to fill. Paradoxically this makes it seem all the more real.
The characters (with one exception) are of course ephemeral, changing from one story to the next.
Thus what little philosophy I have read (mainly Popper) has helped me to tolerate confusion.
Paradoxically my ability to think has been improved by this ability to be confused, I think.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uxa1gLt5YKI
For instance, I've noticed that most people refuse to see problems. They either want the answer straight away, or they want to pretend that the question or task is invalid or not needed. It takes a real thinker to put a confusing thought on one side and then pick it up later.