PHILOSOPHY

"...philosophy itself, which had once summoned all sciences to its aid in making a coherent image of the world and an alluring picture of the good, found its task of coordination too stupendous for its courage, ran away from all these battlefronts of truth, and hid itself in recondite and narrow lanes, timidly secure from the issues and responsibilities of life. Human knowledge had become too great for the human mind." --Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy

Yet, we still find ourselves needful of a guiding philosophy, no matter how out-of-favor it has become as an embracing intellectual discipline. Because of its elder meaning and what it gave to us for centuries, I choose that term as title in its best light, that it provide, if nothing else, an embracing term for the subject matter which has become so splintered and unmanageable. To begin, I mustneeds at least start with my own philosophy (try as I might to delude myself that this essay contains objective truth concerning the best way to live), so people may better understand what I build upon it, and, perhaps some few will glean a useful idea, making it a part of their own philosophy. This entire website is rather like an experimental philosophy development platform, a convenience for me to develop and share a part of my knowledge.

"The author believes that epistemology has kidnapped modern philosophy, and well nigh ruined it; he hopes for the time when the study of the knowledge-process will be recognized as the business of the science of psychology, and when philosophy will again be understood as the synthetic interpretation of all experience rather than the analytic description of the mode and process of experience itself. Analysis belongs to science, and gives us knowledge; philosophy must provide a synthesis for wisdom." --Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy

I've created a couple other philosophy pages to limit page size:

• Aesthetics--the study of beauty.
• Business--that branch of politics and ethics concerned with commerce.
• Ethics--the philosophy of person-to-person behavior.
• Logic--the study of ideal method in thought and research. Science is here.
• Metaphysics--what it is when it isn't what it is.
• Politics--the branch of ethics dealing with groups of people.

Why am I dealing with the difficult subject of philosophy at all? Because other's philosophies are impacting my life and those I care about, and affecting the only world I know of. Here, then, on these pages, find a useful organization of my thoughts. I, myself, (feeling moved to organize my thoughts before setting them down) find them useful as reference as I grow as an individual, trying out ideas to see how they fit into this vast jigsaw puzzle, play my part as a conscientious person in our struggle to survive. For the few readers who share these pages with me, may they prove helpful as each of you molds yourself toward the person you want to be. Your personality will drift and change over time (even without traumas), and it is on you to maintain your own course. Few people read. A survey several years ago discovered that only 2% of the population of the USA reads at least a book or two a year, and that was mostly accounted for by buying the New York Times bestseller. So, consider the fact that you are likely in a very select group of probably less than one percent of the population who would read this, let alone actually think critically about it. Are you reading this critically or merely reacting? If you fall prey to your most primitive instincts, try to become aware of the impact you are having on those around you. One could split the dangers to us into three categories: natural, reactionary, and greed. The latter two are sociopathic and do not support life. Our intelligence has become an important part of our survival, primitive as it is.

There are some fundamental questions that have evolved as core issues in philosophy: good, truth, beauty, etc. I have endeavored to construct a philosophy on a solid foundation that I can build on. The first question is critical: who am I? To answer this, you have to track it back to the beginnings of the cosmos (see metaphysics), then track it forward again, correcting your earlier thoughts to agree with your (hopefully) internally consistent personal philosophy. By the time you've answered it, you've probably gone a long way to answering most of your other philosophical questions along the way. For my part, given the many modes of thought to choose from, I eventually recognized the one constant we have is our environment. We create logical systems to help us efficiently sort our massively complex array of sensory input, which is aided by our relatively organized and stable biosphere, but our forward progress is directed by intuition (see logic). For example, we spend a lot of time grokking "tree" for instance, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, and experiencing its aura and energies. That we don't conciously acknowledge most of it is immaterial--it all dribbles into our subconcious. One measure of our intelligence could be said to be the awareness of patterns. We are pattern processors.

Philosophy may begin with "I think, therefore I am," but beyond this there is only perception. Complicating our mind's logical morass on a fundamental level is the particular personal patterning we each achieve which decides what parts of the reality before us we are actually perceiving, and in what form. Visual acuity is the sense we accept most among ourselves, that we've learned to classify danger, food, etc., quickly and effectively. Sound likewise is common enough. From there it already begins to get dodgy and uncertain. We are taught we have but three more: taste, smell, touch. Taste and smell are connected in that taste is wrongly perceived without smell. Both are chemical messengers, smell being airborn and taste a liquid medium. Touch is clearly at least two senses: pressure and heat flow. Yet, there is more. The region around the upper lip is known to be particularly sensitive to infrared, though one might ask if this, too, is heat flow sense. Recent research has suggested the body can be described as a symbiotic interaction among small organisms in a common structure. Microscopic organisms, too, have similar means of sensory perception through chemical messengers and energy fields. Those sensory interactions still exist. We exist from moment to moment in a vast, changing sea of sensory data, only a tiny portion of which we gather and assemble into coherent existence in this world.

In traditional western thought, dreams are mostly dismissed because of their lack of utility, and are consequently assumed to be worthless for all applications. But consider shamanism, which treats the waking, rational state on equal footing with many other states of consciousness. A psychologist might objectively agree with that dry observation. The other side of the coin is treating dreams as reality filtered through our minds in altered states of consciousness. "Fair enough, but who cares?" one might say. Their key proposition is that useful information exists which is accessible to the mind through dream states which attune to different channels of information available to the body. "Prove it!" comes the demand. Well, it's not a question of proof as this speaker intends it. A logical proof is an intellectual rational exercise which works from within a given logical system to show how other not-so-obvious things actually do fit within the framework of that system. If it fits our skeptic's worldview, they may survive the inclusion of this new element without too much psychological bruising. The other form of proof is direct experience through one's own senses. One begins to see that all knowledge is based on what one's senses tell them in whatever dodgy dream state they happen to be in at the time, filtered through their personal id's survival mechanism and biases. One wonders how we ever even achieved interpersonal communication, looking at it that way. "That color's red." "Looks kind of orange to me." "What are you two looking at?" Oh, well.

I see much of what can be found in human life in much more primitive life forms. Among single-celled organisms in aqueous environments, there are electrochemical messengers and electric and magnetic field interactions which trigger reaction responses. All these responses tend to support life (as in any natural system, that which is, is.) Variations will occur and organisms die, but if there is survival, then there is survival. The fundamental wheelworks of nature, for practical purposes, is remarkably impersonal. So, we exist, today.

The basic communications modes which existed in our early evolution are very simple compared to, say, our eyes, and it is highly likely that these communications paths still exist. The olfactory awareness and reaction to airborn human hormones, for example. Beyond this, I would argue these primitive mechanisms provide the basis of the so-called "extra" senses. The processing of the broad information channels provided by our "normal" as well as our "extra" senses determines our perceptions and how much they agree with those of others. While the primitive senses may be simple, our processing of the information they give is not. Spiritulism attempts to deal with these issues when science cannot, but they are both based on an intuition of order and seek to create an intellectual structure to simplify things--data abstraction, the computer programmers call it. Any five-year-old can deal with "computers" or "trees" or anything else within the bounds of their interactive experiences. Some people claim to see ghosts. I don't see ghosts, but I accept that others might. I claim that it is important for our own personal growth to be able to honestly accept things beyond our experience under conditions we should learn to become aware of. If my acceptance is never tested, it's very easy. If it is tested, I must weigh the consequences to myself and others of my decision one way or the other. This is called "ethics".

So, observe the world around you and practice some intellectual honesty. It will allow you to go far. Bill Beatty, on his amasci.com website, treats the site as his scratchpad and intellectual filing cabinet. This exposure to the public eye helps him stay honest. For someone who is attempting to be a critical thinker, I can think of no better place to start reading.