Knowing this world:

Worldview is a complex translation from the German idea that expresses a dialectically compound concept that helps to understand perception, beliefs derived from experiences, and persistent ideas.

A conjunctive word made up of two simpler components.

literal meaning | figurative meaning | three lessons | authors | artists | earth science | example

etymology

weltanschauung

The world was not fully known.

detailed look at seven levels of world views

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implicit meaning

Figuratively, any worldview --is a combined personal feeling or sensitivity for and a social understanding of reality-- as such a view of the world is always based on a pattern language, or paradigm that provides a context and a meaning for a society's, or a person's worldview.

This figurative meaning is often implicit, hidden in the context in which a concept is presented.

For example the way people perceive space, in the industrial western world or Japan, is based on a pattern language of two and three dimensions.

1. Proceeding from perception to images is ONE DIMENSION -is- X
2. Emotional underpinnings of beliefs expressed by images is A SECOND DIMENSION -is- Y
3. From revealing & reinforcing symbolism to an abstract attachment is A THIRD DIMENSION -is- Z

This pattern language involves three lessons on how to interpret the world and our ideas about that reality we call the world, because we are biased, prejudiced and prone to errors.

Octavio Paz about how we interpret the world.

Lesson One | lesson Two | lesson Three

Lesson One : from perception to images requires a way of seeing the world and a form of visual thinking!

A Triptych
	of three competing views of the world.
Image
Captions	"Fiat lux"	Shiva's dance	black hole !
Meaning	Christianity	Hindu creation & destruction	Contemporary astronomy

Meaning	"Fiat Lux"	Shiva's dance	Black hole!
example	let there be light	rebirth & renewal	infinite mass
underpinning	time as an arrow	circularity of time	one direction
Sect	Christianity	Hinduism	Quantum relativity
residual faith	eternal life	reincarnation	nihilist

lesson two | lesson three

Lesson Two: Worldviews are complex emotional underpinnings of rational beliefs about the world, its inhabitants and the way the world works.

Security, emotional reassurance is what people find appealing about their particular worldviews.

Different rational elements blend to reinforce bias or even prejudice in what people believe.

Artist Winslow Homer's "Blue Boat" representing two intrepid people exploring the world of the Adirondack Mountains.

Juno Diaz | Annie Dillard | John Dewey | Murray Gell Mann | Ian Tattersall | Terry Tempest Williams | Donald Worster

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Lesson One | Lesson Three

Lesson Three: interpreting these pictures that behave as informative symbols.

Consider the murals of Diego Rivera as a new way of seeing the world.

Artists Diego Rivera and Freda Kahlo, in a May Day parade, 1929.

A pattern language in two and three dimensions.

1. Proceeding from perception to images is ONE DIMENSION
2. Emotional underpinnings of beliefs expressed by images is A SECOND DIMENSION
3. From revealing & reinforcing symbolism to an abstract attachment is A THIRD DIMENSION

weltanschauung

detailed look at seven levels of world views

next

Writers who are or have been writing about ways to address the varied human perspectives from which we view and how we think about the world:

Lynn Margulis | Ernst Mayr | T. E. Hulme | Octavio Paz | Michio Kaku | E. O. Wilson

Lessons One | Two | Three