> more exactly on what "premise" (so to speak) we assign "goals" to the "reality" surrounding us, why do we assume there is an "utility", why do we assume there

> more exactly on what "premise" (so to speak) we assign "goals" to the "reality" surrounding us, why do we assume there is an "utility", why do we assume there should be "goals"? Why should we instrumentalize said "reality" by seeing it through the prism of "utility" and "goals"? We don't assume. It's just an empirical fact of our life that we have desires and goals. Don't you have desires and goals? I do. > Basically I think a guy like Heraclitus was closer to grasping the "reality" around us than Aristotle ever was, but had we gone the way of Heraclitus we wouldn't have had computers and rockets and all, computers and rockets This is an interesting idea. It reminds me of the Two-Truths Doctrine of Buddhism as interpreted by the Madhyamaka school. They believed that there was a provisional truth useful for doing doing daily stuff (like how you see Aristotle) and then an ultimate truth (like how you see the pre-Socatics.) I think there are monists in Western traditions who have similar views but I couldn't name any.