Bernie Dehler is working on a new belief system called SciLigion, an attempt to resolve differences between scientific reason, faith in a higher being, and other systems of thought. He also coins the term Loonyligion, or the holding onto one's religious beliefs in the face of very strong scientific evidence to the contrary.
Many "belief systems" suffer from self-reinforcing and hightly contagious memes that keep the members from thinking about too much else. Perhaps Dehler's effort will enable people suffering from the limiting effects of memeplexes to open up to other ways of thinking.
One system I enjoy learning about is multi-paradigmatic thinking (also known as latticework) in which a subject is understood through different mental models:
What is elementary, worldly wisdom? Well, the first rule is that you can't really know anything if you just remember isolated facts and try and bang 'em back. If the facts don't hang together on a latticework of theory, you don't have them in a usable form.You've got to have models in your head. And you've got to array your experience both vicarious and direct o n this latticework of models. You may have noticed students who just try to remember and pound back what is remembered. Well, they fail in school and in life. You've got to hang experience on a latticework of models in your head.
What are the models? Well, the first rule is that you've got to have multiple models because if you just have one or two that you're using, the nature of human psychology is such that you'll torture reality so that it fits your models, or at least you'll think it does. You become the equivalent of a chiropractor who, of course, is the great boob in medicine.
Source: Charles T. Munger
