I wasn't 100 percent sober when I started this thread last night. I use "wizard" as a symbol for the intellectual hero. Einstein as Merlin. Reconceptualization as the turning of water to wine. I'm using magic as a metaphor for invention. The wizard is an illusionist.
An anti-wizard is the wizard whose illusion is known as non-fiction.

Um, are you 100 percent sober yet? heh

Yessir, but I am aware that "wizard" is an unlikely metaphor. But here's the thing: is the pursuit of truth, by you-me-whoever, only a practical matter? Or is there something "sacred" about the truth?

I'm an agnostic myself. Keep that in mind. I'm coming from a depth-psychology angle. I feel that man has a built-in tendency to posit numens. In my opinions, skeptics and mystics alike are pursuing a numinous concept. The concept itself varies, but I suggest that there is always some kind of numinous concept driving philosophy.

We trade the idea of the Holy Ghost for another different but also numinous idea -- universal reason. If reason is in no way universal, then there can be no truth, but only opinion. Nietzsche brilliantly questions the will-to-truth in Beyond Good and Evil. If there is God, as many now believe, what is so special about the Truth? If the truth is only good because it is also useful, then we are all just pragmatists.

I use the term Anti-Wizard because the attack on religion is motivated by the love of truth as truth, and not just truth as prudence. The Anti-Wizard is "religious," but his religion is not God but Truth.

I'm not to worried about knowing everything or even understanding everything. I just don't want to be misled by untruths. I would rather not know or understand something then to follow something that was a lie. I would rather live in a harsh, uncaring universe then to play make believe to make myself feel better about it.

I don't want to be a guinea pig for some elitist who just uses my life to make his better. That he can tell me that he has my best interest in mind but really doesn't give even an ounce of concern for it. I see myself in others, I don't wish to be above them or better than them, I just want the same chances as them. I don't want them to be test subjects for making the rich richer either, so I protest, speak out and generally have inexhaustible patience to educate those who have already been hypnotized by the illusionist. (there stole your wizard idea)

To me, this transcends truth-as-prudence. Why suffer the truth if it isn't "sacred" or "numinous"? Why endure a godless universe if accurate perception isn't a numen? I frankly confess that Reason is a numen for me. In fact, it was this pseudo-sacred desire for truth that led me to question the will-to-truth in the first place. Nietzsche clicked for me because he was asking a valid question. Why truth? Why not rather untruth? If it lies makes us happy, why suffer for the truth? Sophia is a Goddess. Beatrice led Dante to heaven. "Beauty is the splendor of truth."

So I don't want to be led by the illusions even if they make me feel wonderful to do it. The truth is not always as appealing, but that is exaclty how an addict sees life when not high. I want to learn to cope with the truth rather than chase after butterflies and fairies.

I feel you. I want even the ugly truth. But it occurs to me lately that there is a kind of truth that is beautiful in itself. Pythagoras and Parmenides were high on it. Plato snorted it. It's the structure of the mind itself that is beautiful. Life is messy. Life is temporal flux that craves perhaps the eternal. It's only math and transcendental philosophy that can offer this as truth. It's a beautiful kind of truth. It serves the religious and epistemological need simultaneously. Of course life demands much more than this, but I see this as one of the pure things that does not cost much.

Anytime you put one foot in front of the other... you've embraced blind faith.

If gravity all of a sudden stopped we would try to cope with it as best we could. Sure people would be wondering what the hell is going on, but they surely wouldn't be completely puzzled why their faith in gravity just failed.

For the most part, we experience reality as casual observers. We really don't expect or hope for any experience to be any certain way.

But when it comes to math and beauty... I have strong feelings about sine waves. Seriously.

Me too. I used to make some of most "experimental" computer music imaginable, and I built it out of sine waves, square waves, and sawtooth waves. I used the old just scale, and scales unknown to man. It was a nice way to play with number and music simultaneously.

Bizarre! I want to hear it. What's the experience like?