Philosophy is my more or less intuitive sense of what life really means to me. Intuition comes before analysis anyway. It's the first step toward thinking about the meaning of life.
That's why we have to learn definitions, for example. They're not already there for all we encounter.
What is true about this universe I'm in? What should I do? What do I want? What do I expect? What is my final destiny? Is immortality possible? Would this life affect any possible future one I might have? Why is everything a struggle, including the struggle to think through these questions? What am I, anyway? What does all this mean?
It's easier to come up with superficially plausible answers to these kinds of questions than it is to discover answers based on convincing reasons from organized analysis. But only post-experience reflection uses evidence and possible answers to fill in an already-existing system.
No limited mind has the complete structure. For that reason, my thought is episodic, uneven, and disconnected. So to develop my thought, I must attack it comprehensively so that it will include a more complete integral system of compared possibilities.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Fun With Devolution
"Humanity would rather do for itself what is right in the moment than consider the wider consequences of its behavior.
I feel like the cow who runs into the field screaming, 'Hey, you know that truck that takes some of our friends away every month? Well, they don't take them to another field like we thought. They shoot them in the head, bleed them dry, cut them up, and put the pieces into packets. Then those humans buy them and eat them!' Imagine what the reaction of the rest of the herd would be: 'You're crazy, man. They'd never do that. Anyway, I've got shares in that trucking company and I get a good return.'"
--David Icke
I feel like the cow who runs into the field screaming, 'Hey, you know that truck that takes some of our friends away every month? Well, they don't take them to another field like we thought. They shoot them in the head, bleed them dry, cut them up, and put the pieces into packets. Then those humans buy them and eat them!' Imagine what the reaction of the rest of the herd would be: 'You're crazy, man. They'd never do that. Anyway, I've got shares in that trucking company and I get a good return.'"
--David Icke
Sunday, November 02, 2008
The Unsung God of Supervisory Assumptions
What could possibly obligate me when the discussion of obligation itself is ruled by already-assumed statements which have no obligation issue because they are necessarily used to talk about the idea of obligation?
Is there anything that really obligates belief in something? Is it merely a prior committment to act according to a set of rules? Do we have a built-in prior commitment or bias to think and act in a certain way while rejecting all other ways, however provisional that bias might be in principle? Belief in obligating factors of mind, for example.
Why is any question an appropriate object of thought? And what are the irreducible statements assumed in order to know what a question is?
Is there a set of statements that rule all thought without exception? How do we live in relation to them? And would that imply anything about their role in how we are defined as an object that questions? What exactly am I, in asking or thinking about a question, other than being merely a question-asking object?
And are all my actions carried out based on an already believed-in hierarchy of universalized values?
Is there anything that really obligates belief in something? Is it merely a prior committment to act according to a set of rules? Do we have a built-in prior commitment or bias to think and act in a certain way while rejecting all other ways, however provisional that bias might be in principle? Belief in obligating factors of mind, for example.
Why is any question an appropriate object of thought? And what are the irreducible statements assumed in order to know what a question is?
Is there a set of statements that rule all thought without exception? How do we live in relation to them? And would that imply anything about their role in how we are defined as an object that questions? What exactly am I, in asking or thinking about a question, other than being merely a question-asking object?
And are all my actions carried out based on an already believed-in hierarchy of universalized values?
Monday, August 04, 2008
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Quantum Mind Factor
Let x be whatever you want.
I want to know whether or not x is the solution.
If x has been discovered to rectify the past, reverse entropy, and eliminate death, then my knowledge of x and how to act in relation to knowing that x is the solution, may imply that x could extend my existence indefinitely in a universe where only the good would thereafter be renderable in a progressive, even exponential, synthesis of the feeling of well-being.
To claim that there is no solution assumes a single solution---mere denial, because it resolutely pertains to the problem, a substitute solution, however heuristically it functions.
Usually with the insinuation that it should not be discussed any more. But that's another story.
The discussion of this possibility is based on a set of assumptions that are necessary to think thoughts and make statements---even statements about those statements themselves.
To talk about whether universally and exceptionlessly true statements are possible already assumes a set of ultimate thoughts to be universally and exceptionlessly true rules about how we must or ought to think about universals, obligations that the mind 'must' or 'ought' or 'should' refer to and depend on as one shows or even states the denial of universals.
Sorry, no free ride for the casually dismissive. The tell-tale heart arbitrarily balks here, and will not go another logical step beyond this point.
Unfortunately, it has all those mere claims just bandied about as somehow saving one from something. They either stand by themselves in some kind of anti-intellectual posturing, or else retreat into the same kinds of justifications it rejected in all arguments to the contrary.
Now that you're rid of God, welcome to the mind god that just won't go away.
I want to know whether or not x is the solution.
If x has been discovered to rectify the past, reverse entropy, and eliminate death, then my knowledge of x and how to act in relation to knowing that x is the solution, may imply that x could extend my existence indefinitely in a universe where only the good would thereafter be renderable in a progressive, even exponential, synthesis of the feeling of well-being.
To claim that there is no solution assumes a single solution---mere denial, because it resolutely pertains to the problem, a substitute solution, however heuristically it functions.
Usually with the insinuation that it should not be discussed any more. But that's another story.
The discussion of this possibility is based on a set of assumptions that are necessary to think thoughts and make statements---even statements about those statements themselves.
To talk about whether universally and exceptionlessly true statements are possible already assumes a set of ultimate thoughts to be universally and exceptionlessly true rules about how we must or ought to think about universals, obligations that the mind 'must' or 'ought' or 'should' refer to and depend on as one shows or even states the denial of universals.
Sorry, no free ride for the casually dismissive. The tell-tale heart arbitrarily balks here, and will not go another logical step beyond this point.
Unfortunately, it has all those mere claims just bandied about as somehow saving one from something. They either stand by themselves in some kind of anti-intellectual posturing, or else retreat into the same kinds of justifications it rejected in all arguments to the contrary.
Now that you're rid of God, welcome to the mind god that just won't go away.
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
No Rest for the Idle
Only an idle person does not know what it means to enjoy rest.
--Paladin
"Have Gun Will Travel"
--Paladin
"Have Gun Will Travel"
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Jilted Explanatory Lover
But he still thinks people ultimately make their own choices. In terms of neurological changes, Dalrymple defended his argument by citing the example of millions of Chinese addicts who almost immediately stopped taking drugs after Mao Tse Tung issued an order to shoot all addicts unless they quit.
Danya Chaikel
Review, Crossroads magazine
November 21, 2006
Review, Crossroads magazine
November 21, 2006