​REPOSTED BLOG: Bread, Milk, and Eggs

Maybe you believe the most important things are those that fulfill daily needs, you know, like bread, milk, and eggs. “Hey, can you stop at the market and pick up some bread, milk, and eggs?”  Maybe you believe the most important things are those that fulfill some intellectual need. “Hey, can you stop by the library and pick up works by Bacon, Mill, and Eckhart?”
 
Francis Bacon believed that the universe is a problem to be solved. Given the right methods, some experimentation, and inductive thinking, humans could arrive at an “understanding” of the way physical things worked. John Stuart Mill took the logical, scientific method of Bacon to another level, seeking “understanding” of the way societies worked. Meister Eckhart tried to achieve an “understanding” of God.
 
Are those the three intellectual needs? We want to know how the universe works, don’t we? We also want to know how people work. Then, we have the question of God. Even atheists are concerned with the question—at least, they seem to go to great lengths to deal with the question of God.
 
Three intellectual needs—picking up at the store of understanding something about the physical world, the social world, and the spiritual world—appear to dominate all thoughts not centered on the need for bread, milk, and eggs.