The Most Destructive Worldview: AI conversation..

 Conversation with ChatGPT:

A: Given the multiplicity of the worldviews in modern times, which worldview in your assessment that is the most influential in creating modern crisis?

A: If I had to single out one worldview as the prime architect of many modern crises, I would say scientistic materialism — the worldview that reality is nothing but matter in motion, that human beings are merely biological machines, and that truth is only what can be measured, quantified, and experimentally verified.

It’s not that science itself is the villain — science as a method is powerful and invaluable — but when scientism becomes a philosophy, it tends to:

1. Reduce human meaning to utility – People are valued by productivity, efficiency, and output rather than dignity, wisdom, or moral worth.

2. Elevate the measurable over the meaningful – Metrics, KPIs, and data become the arbiters of reality, sidelining the qualitative, the spiritual, and the moral.

3. Feed unchecked technological expansion – Progress is defined by the newest invention, without equal moral advancement, leading to environmental destruction, social alienation, and ethical lag.

4. Fragment human knowledge – By rejecting integrative metaphysics, disciplines become siloed, each speaking its own jargon, losing sight of the whole.

5. Empower economic reductionism – It pairs neatly with capitalism’s tendency to commodify everything, leading to crises of inequality, overconsumption, and ecological collapse.

Historically, this worldview draws from Enlightenment-era rationalism, positivism (Auguste Comte), and mechanistic physics (Newtonian paradigm), amplified by Darwinian interpretations and industrial capitalism.

In modern form, it’s embedded in policy-making, corporate governance, education systems, and even popular culture — often invisibly shaping how we define “progress” and “success.”

If the 19th century’s dominant crisis was moral authority vs. secular reason, I’d say the 21st century’s dominant crisis is meaning and humanity vs. reductionist materialism.

If you want, I could map out how this worldview differs from rival ones (e.g., religious traditionalism, postmodernism, ecological holism) and why it has beaten them in influence despite its flaws. That would make the contrast sharper.