Matt Sornson

In this book I argue that all progress, both theoretical and practical, has resulted from a single human activity: the quest for what I call good explanations. Though this quest is uniquely human, its effectiveness is also a fundamental fact about reality at the most impersonal, cosmic level – namely that it conforms to universal laws of nature tha... See more

The Enlightenment showed us progress is both achievable and desirable. It instituted a culture of Conjecture and Criticism, the two key components for any kind of rapid progress across any discipline from Science to Morality.Science is the practice of finding Good Explanations, statements about what is there, what it does, and how and why. Morality... See more

All Problems can be solved with the right explanations limited only by the laws of nature. However the search for Explanations will create new problems. Hence problems are inevitable.

We have made virtually no Progress over the vast majority of human history. Only recently (mostly since the European Enlightenment) has progress been discernible inside a human lifetime.

Whenever there has been progress, there have been influential thinkers who denied that it was genuine, that it was desirable, or even that the concept was meaningful. They should have known better. There is indeed an objective difference between a false explanation and a true one, between chronic failure to solve a problem and solving it, and also ... See more

Think of Memes as any ideas that are passed between lots of people. For example, a language, scientific theory, or religious belief are all memes. Memes have to be actively replicated to survive (i.e. spoken or written and distributed). A Rational Meme is a Good Explanation that relies on the recipient's critical faculties to cause itself to be rep... See more