Sometimes I write, sometimes I share. This is both.
I wish to present a discourse on my beliefs. I've been trying and failing for several days here to set out a proper preface to this. I simply have too much to say, and there is no beginning or at least no beginning I am able to recognize. So I will launch straight into it.
I believe in very little that cannot be proven empirically through data. Or at least I attempt to do so. I inevitably slip and allow my beliefs to contain things that are far from logical or provable, and I do my best to remove such things, but I do fail at that occasionally. This is very important to understand where I'm coming from.
I'm an evolutionist, I believe in evolution, that's how we came to be. Through a series of seemingly random changes, that are weeded out through natural selection. I won't go into full discourse on that, but it's important to have at least some understanding of evolution before reading what I have to say. So if you know very little or nothing about evolution, do yourself a favor and read up on it. It's pretty popular these days.
If one believes in no god, and nothing spiritual, one is left with little or no guidance. Religion or spirituality is something that gives the great majority of people reason, or a goal in life. It tells them when its ohkay to be happy, what is moral and what is not. I happen to be one that believes in no god and has no spirituality, so I'm left without a guiding force. Where should I turn? That's a question that has plagued me for most of my intellectual life and probably will continue to.
Instead of telling you where I should turn, since I don't know, and that would be quite a long debate one I'll be happy to enter into with you, but not in my original post. I"ll simply tell you where I'm turning and how I've arrived at my decision to turn to where I do. I'm going to focus much more on the journey than the destination though, as its something that needs resolving for a great many people with out a faith.
Everyone acts, and we all have our reasons behind our actions. But what are the reasons behind those and the one behind that set and etc... With my understanding of the world it always works its way down to evolution. Everything can be explained through genetic imperative. Traits or impulses that survived due to aiding the survival of one's genetics. Many things do not appear to do so at first look; if you have any specific ones you want to discuss bring them up and I'll happily explain my understanding of the trait or impulse.
While all that may seem fine and dandy, it had a profound effect on me. In coming to that conclusion I had essentially reasoned my way out of free will, although not in its entirety. It sets up a limited framework of actions, it limits infinite free will to a smaller and less, or more complex (depending on how you look at it) version of free will. The fact that it doesn't eliminate free will entirely is not a fact, so I will not act as if it is so, but it is a conclusion I have arrived at, at no small length.
The apparent or actual non-existence of free will has some moral implications. As does having our impulses dictated by our evolutionary past. Given that our impulses and instincts are simply for the propagation of our genetics, then one may not be able to rely on them for a basis for morality. If something is unsure as that one should not base their morality on it. So where can we find something more sure, more accurate, more likely to be true? The answer: Our intellectuality.
You might say that religion is another answer. But as I understand it, religion is a human construction and is based a great deal on various humans' fantasies and ideals. These various ideals and fantasies cannot reliably be said to have been thought all the way through, to have been properly intellectually considered. If you disagree, tell me why. This is an area where I wouldn't mind being proven wrong, but I don't expect to be.
So our morality is to come from our intellectuality, which means it's going to be different for many and completely insubstantial or non-existent for many more. Most people do not have the time or intellectual motivation to work through their own code of morality. This is truly unfortunate as it is something that should be done by everyone capable. Many people get their morality from somewhere else, and I plead those people to take the time to think through the morality presented by their sources. Which unfortunately may take more time than thinking through your own beliefs, but either way I implore you to spend time discussing or simply thinking about the reasons for your own morality.
I have spent the time to work through a code of morality for myself. Its a fairly simple one, it is also fairly incomplete as it shall probably remain so for the rest of my natural life. I will constantly be revising and expanding my concepts of morality as it's a very, very large subject. I tend to start my beliefs from a sort of hedonistic calculus reminiscent of Bentham's. Look him up; I don't remember the full name or the time period. Take whatever actions that will produce the greatest amount of pleasure for the greatest amount of people in the long run. This is not to say you should neglect yourself, as one must keep oneself happy to be truly effective in almost everything. In a perfect world, yes, neglect yourself because everybody else would be doing the same in favor of watching out for you. But this isn't a perfect world, so, don't.
So hedonistic calculus, great. You make everybody happy, but there are some issues. If there is a criminal on the loose doing something horrible (doesn't matter what) repeatedly, and the criminal is never caught, would it be better to let the public live in fear, or use a scapegoat and calm their fears? While yes, you would be reducing the pleasure of the scapegoat a great deal, would not the pleasure from the populace as a whole outweigh that? If hedonistic calculus is all one has, then I'd say yes. But I have one more principle. Possibly two, depending on how you divide it.
Truth! Truth is paramount, along with accuracy. One should never be punished for something one is at no fault for. One should always be held accountable for one's actions. The accurate truth must always, eventually come to bear. I do not have any situations that fall outside my two or three principles at the moment. If you can think of some, please do share them.
I am unable to resolve that everything to at least some degree is controlled by my evolutionary history. Everything thing I do can be reduced to a product of genetic imperative. There's nothing I can do about that except willful ignorance, and I cannot abide willful ignorance - despite willful ignorance being quite an impressive bit of acrobatics for an intellectual. I think I would stumble and fall if I tried, but fortunately, I won't. So what it comes down to for me is: Too bad. Everything is 'controlled' by genetic imperative, so let's enjoy it, or at least find our happiness in it.
On one last note before I stop. Having everyone define their own moral code presents an issue of standardization. Having a standard of morality becomes an issue when one wants to organize a group of people, on almost any level, much less organize them on a national level and impose laws. As of yet, this is an issue I have no resolution for. As I see organized society as something that's very important for most art, improvements in quality of life, and leisure. Thoughts on that or anything I've written about will be quite welcome!
I believe in very little that cannot be proven empirically through data. Or at least I attempt to do so. I inevitably slip and allow my beliefs to contain things that are far from logical or provable, and I do my best to remove such things, but I do fail at that occasionally. This is very important to understand where I'm coming from.
I'm an evolutionist, I believe in evolution, that's how we came to be. Through a series of seemingly random changes, that are weeded out through natural selection. I won't go into full discourse on that, but it's important to have at least some understanding of evolution before reading what I have to say. So if you know very little or nothing about evolution, do yourself a favor and read up on it. It's pretty popular these days.
If one believes in no god, and nothing spiritual, one is left with little or no guidance. Religion or spirituality is something that gives the great majority of people reason, or a goal in life. It tells them when its ohkay to be happy, what is moral and what is not. I happen to be one that believes in no god and has no spirituality, so I'm left without a guiding force. Where should I turn? That's a question that has plagued me for most of my intellectual life and probably will continue to.
Instead of telling you where I should turn, since I don't know, and that would be quite a long debate one I'll be happy to enter into with you, but not in my original post. I"ll simply tell you where I'm turning and how I've arrived at my decision to turn to where I do. I'm going to focus much more on the journey than the destination though, as its something that needs resolving for a great many people with out a faith.
Everyone acts, and we all have our reasons behind our actions. But what are the reasons behind those and the one behind that set and etc... With my understanding of the world it always works its way down to evolution. Everything can be explained through genetic imperative. Traits or impulses that survived due to aiding the survival of one's genetics. Many things do not appear to do so at first look; if you have any specific ones you want to discuss bring them up and I'll happily explain my understanding of the trait or impulse.
While all that may seem fine and dandy, it had a profound effect on me. In coming to that conclusion I had essentially reasoned my way out of free will, although not in its entirety. It sets up a limited framework of actions, it limits infinite free will to a smaller and less, or more complex (depending on how you look at it) version of free will. The fact that it doesn't eliminate free will entirely is not a fact, so I will not act as if it is so, but it is a conclusion I have arrived at, at no small length.
The apparent or actual non-existence of free will has some moral implications. As does having our impulses dictated by our evolutionary past. Given that our impulses and instincts are simply for the propagation of our genetics, then one may not be able to rely on them for a basis for morality. If something is unsure as that one should not base their morality on it. So where can we find something more sure, more accurate, more likely to be true? The answer: Our intellectuality.
You might say that religion is another answer. But as I understand it, religion is a human construction and is based a great deal on various humans' fantasies and ideals. These various ideals and fantasies cannot reliably be said to have been thought all the way through, to have been properly intellectually considered. If you disagree, tell me why. This is an area where I wouldn't mind being proven wrong, but I don't expect to be.
So our morality is to come from our intellectuality, which means it's going to be different for many and completely insubstantial or non-existent for many more. Most people do not have the time or intellectual motivation to work through their own code of morality. This is truly unfortunate as it is something that should be done by everyone capable. Many people get their morality from somewhere else, and I plead those people to take the time to think through the morality presented by their sources. Which unfortunately may take more time than thinking through your own beliefs, but either way I implore you to spend time discussing or simply thinking about the reasons for your own morality.
I have spent the time to work through a code of morality for myself. Its a fairly simple one, it is also fairly incomplete as it shall probably remain so for the rest of my natural life. I will constantly be revising and expanding my concepts of morality as it's a very, very large subject. I tend to start my beliefs from a sort of hedonistic calculus reminiscent of Bentham's. Look him up; I don't remember the full name or the time period. Take whatever actions that will produce the greatest amount of pleasure for the greatest amount of people in the long run. This is not to say you should neglect yourself, as one must keep oneself happy to be truly effective in almost everything. In a perfect world, yes, neglect yourself because everybody else would be doing the same in favor of watching out for you. But this isn't a perfect world, so, don't.
So hedonistic calculus, great. You make everybody happy, but there are some issues. If there is a criminal on the loose doing something horrible (doesn't matter what) repeatedly, and the criminal is never caught, would it be better to let the public live in fear, or use a scapegoat and calm their fears? While yes, you would be reducing the pleasure of the scapegoat a great deal, would not the pleasure from the populace as a whole outweigh that? If hedonistic calculus is all one has, then I'd say yes. But I have one more principle. Possibly two, depending on how you divide it.
Truth! Truth is paramount, along with accuracy. One should never be punished for something one is at no fault for. One should always be held accountable for one's actions. The accurate truth must always, eventually come to bear. I do not have any situations that fall outside my two or three principles at the moment. If you can think of some, please do share them.
I am unable to resolve that everything to at least some degree is controlled by my evolutionary history. Everything thing I do can be reduced to a product of genetic imperative. There's nothing I can do about that except willful ignorance, and I cannot abide willful ignorance - despite willful ignorance being quite an impressive bit of acrobatics for an intellectual. I think I would stumble and fall if I tried, but fortunately, I won't. So what it comes down to for me is: Too bad. Everything is 'controlled' by genetic imperative, so let's enjoy it, or at least find our happiness in it.
On one last note before I stop. Having everyone define their own moral code presents an issue of standardization. Having a standard of morality becomes an issue when one wants to organize a group of people, on almost any level, much less organize them on a national level and impose laws. As of yet, this is an issue I have no resolution for. As I see organized society as something that's very important for most art, improvements in quality of life, and leisure. Thoughts on that or anything I've written about will be quite welcome!