Comprehensivism: Unifying the World by Comprehending Comprehensively

If comprehensivity means comprehending our worlds broadly and deeply (that is comprehensively), could a widespread tradition or practice of comprehensivity (comprehensivism) unify our worlds and its peoples? Is it possible for finite humans with their finite experiences to develop a facility of comprehensivity? Are our worlds so complex that comprehensivity isn't even possible? If comprehensivity is possible, how might we develop our comprehensivism? What role can or should the Thinking Society play in this quest for the unification of our worlds and its peoples?

In the introductory section of a new website "Collaborating for Comprehensivism" (https://www.cjfearnley.com/CfC/), I introduce the idea of comprehensivism as follows:

In “Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth”, Buckminster Fuller (“Bucky”) called for an “uncompromised, metaphysical initiative of unbiased integrity [to] unify the world”. He argued that comprehensivity, an innate-in-children but largely absent-in-schooling proclivity, is essential for the general adaptability of humanity. Could comprehensivism help unify the world?

We live in such a complex civilization that few currently believe we can or should try to understand the whole world in all its complexity. This contributes to the widespread feeling that our worlds are fragmented and incomprehensible. We aim to foster a comprehensivism where citizen-explorers strive to understand enough about enough of the vital aspects of how our worlds work and change to make sense of it all and of each other.

An inspiring model for unification and comprehensivity can be found in the scientific theory of gravity developed by Newton, Einstein, and others. Evidently, every massive particle in the entire physical Universe attracts every other according to an exact mathematical formulation. This expression of universal physical love belies the boundaries and fragmentations of our present-day tribes and silos. It could be that we can similarly develop models that accommodate every idea and every person in meticulously comprehensive ways despite how daunting it may at first appear.

In speaking about Dante's 700 year old epic poem “Commedia”, Giuseppe Mazzotta said, “the presence of viewpoints, various viewpoints, which one somehow manages to control, or know, all viewpoints. … Perspective means that … the perception of reality changes according to the position we occupy…. Dante uses this perspectivism [which] really means a way of assembling various points of view.” Likewise, comprehensivity assembles and integrates a broadly informed multi-perspectival view of our worlds. Collaborating with many people of different backgrounds, we can facilitate acquiring such a perspectivism. So our initiative engages groups of people to collaborate to gradually realize a broader and deeper and more integrated conception of our worlds.

A collaborative effort for comprehensivism inspired by the science of gravity and informed by perspectivism could unify the world. Not only would a comprehensively informed conception of the world be more unified than our fragmented ones, but a side effect of identifying and sharing comprehensivist considerations, insights, possibilities, and actions would tend to help everyone better understand each other and better coordinate their actions which would tend to unify the world. These effects might make our civilization more robustly adaptable to any and all possible futures.

Collaborating for comprehensivism is a nascent initiative to engage groups of citizens in diverse explorations to develop comprehensive comprehensions to unify our worlds conceptually and physically.

What are your first impressions of this initiative for fostering comprehensivism?

Questions about Comprehensivism:

Is comprehensivity innate-in-children? If so, why would adults like us need to work at developing our facility for comprehensivity?

Is our world too complex to understand from a macroscopic perspective? Is specialization a better way to deal with our complex worlds?

Would you want to participate in an initiative where "citizen-explorers strive to understand enough about enough of the vital aspects of how our worlds work and change to make sense of it all and of each other"? Why? Why not?

Does the scientific theory of gravity provide a model for conceptual unification and comprehensivity? Why? Why not?

Does gravity as a scientific model suggest that we can develop models that accommodate every idea and every person in meticulously comprehensive ways? Why? Why not?

Is perspectivism, as Giuseppe Mazzotta explains it with respect to Dante's “Commedia”, crucial in developing one's comprehensivity? Is comprehensivism, in part, the art of assembling various points of view? Is that the essence of organizing a Thinking Society topic?

Can we integrate a broadly informed multi-perspectival view of our worlds to provide a kind of comprehensivism? What might be the strengths of such a comprehending? What might be its weaknesses?

Is collaborating with many people of different backgrounds, like we have at the Thinking Society, a way in which we can acquire such broadly informed multi-perspectival views of our worlds?

Do you agree or disagree with the hypothesis that a collaborative effort for comprehensivism inspired by the science of gravity and informed by perspectivism could unify the world?

Would a comprehensively informed conception of the world be more unified than our fragmented ones?

Would a side effect of identifying and sharing comprehensivist considerations, insights, possibilities, and actions tend to help everyone better understand each other and better coordinate their actions? Would that tend to unify the world?

Might these effects make our civilization more robustly adaptable to any and all possible futures?

Is comprehensivism an important objective for the resilience of our civilization?

In general, how realistic and/or important is comprehensivism, its aspirations, and its objective to understand our worlds broadly and deeply? And its objective to unify the world?

Ken Iverson wrote "If it's worth doing, it's worth doing poorly." Is comprehensivism so worth developing as a practice to help unify the world that it would even be worth doing poorly? Or, is it an initiative that should be started only after the right way to do it becomes clear?

Questions about the Thinking Society and Comprehensivism:

It could be said that because the Thinking Society explores such a breadth of in depth topics that most (or all?) of our group explorations are already, in fact, a kind of ad hoc comprehensivism. Is the Thinking Society, an organization that is fostering comprehensivism, if only haphazardly?

Should comprehensivism be an objective of membership in the Thinking Society?

Are our regular members already gradually becoming comprehensivists?

Should membership in the Thinking Society be about aspiring toward comprehensivism? Or should that only be the aspiration for a select subset of our membership?

Are there any Thinking Society topics you could organize to help either yourself or our group develop their practice of comprehensivity? What are they? What help would you need to pull such a topic together?

For more ideas about comprehensivism and how it can be fostered, please review my new website "Collaborating for Comprehensivism" at https://www.cjfearnley.com/CfC/

Here is a broader characterization of comprehensivism from that site:

Comprehensivism is a facility in questioning, conceptualizing, interpreting, and acting to build a multi-perspectival yet integrated understanding of the world, how it works, and how it changes. It implies developing a large set of subjects about which one can effectively inquire, contextualize, interpret & assess, and creatively re-imagine and re-combine for meaningful insights and the forging of new possibilities. It involves recognizing its inherent pathologies including analysis paralysis (an endless accumulation of information), value paralysis (an unrestrained accommodation of everyone's values), and the paralysis of wholism (an unlimited expansion of the whole). So it requires cultivating judgment to stay incisively relevant.