"Believing in something is a different thing than wishing for something."
Just as several worldviews can be combined and categorized as 'the default answer', there is another category of worldviews that I consider The Fantastic. Some of them are scary, some pointless and some pretty neat. Here are two perfect examples of what I'm talking about:
First, there's The Matrix. It made for a great series of movies, and Keanu Reeves is ... well, nevermind. Hopefully you know the movies and the plot.
Second, there is Richard Bach's Illusions. This book promotes (among other things) a worldview whereby we are just experiencing a form of life that's different than any we've lived before. It paints a human as universal, immortal creature that could have taken on any life in one of an infinite number of dimensions, and does so just for the experience of it. Maybe when I'm finished with this life, I'll choose to be a star for a life, or a pretty rich girl, or a cockroach or something in a world that is not space-time related at all. It's all just fun.
These are both good stories, and I have enjoyed them. But they're just fantasies, just expressions of someone's imagination. There is not enough substance behind them to actually believe in it at all.
Most science qualifies as fantastic. When science tries to answer worldview questions, i.e. the nature of everything, the best it can come up with is a plausible theory with a little evidence. Of course scientists give more credence to science than to the mystics like Nostradamus. I tend to be a little skeptical of both. The only clear truth in science is that its understanding of the nature of things changes over time. Obviously the science of 1492 changed when Columbus sailed the waters blue. But science has changed dramatically since the 1970's when hair spray and aerosol deodorant was going to destroy the ozone layer and kill the planet, and carbon dioxide wasn't even on the map.
I don't intend to criticize science, but I don't think I can build my life around its theories either. In my search for a worldview, one thing became pretty clear: If we're going to be able to interact with the nature of everything, or find anything close to the truth, the truth itself is going to have to help. Again, by definition, a worldview cannot have a point of reference outside of itself. The only place that point of reference could come from is the Abyss. The only other choice I can think of is that the worldview itself must reveal itself to us in a way we can comprehend, relate to and trust. If this isn't true, I'm afraid we're stuck with the default answer.
I want a worldview with a more meaningful outcome than the Divide By Zero answer, that is more tangible than the Abyss and more reliable (credible) than science. Am I asking for too much here?