Sacred Rights

There are certain rights, that from time to time become assumed. However, if I were to question some sacred right, such as the right of people to have freedom of speech, most people could quickly find justification for allowing this to be. That it may be justified shows that it is not a sacred right, is not assumed, but that it is reasonable to give.

Such reasonable rights are very common, but are they every right? Can you look to some Higher Power to give you freedom? I think not. So many times people are denied a sacred right by other people, with or without reason. It happens so often that freedom is not the absence of interference, but the presense of protection. People, therefore, grant all rights, and until so there are none.

Paradox of Truth

Philosophy has built for itself a great system of knowledge, bound by an even greater system of logic. The nature of this logic is so purely obvious: if an idea is in self contradiction, it is false; the conjunction of a statement with a false statement is false; the negation of truth is false, and conversely; many simple laws compose our thought.

But why this logic, and not another? I have heard it argued that such logic is only how we speak, and not what we mean. That seems perfectly fine, so long all agree that it is so, but when not all agree that logic is the words and truth the meaning, that they say logic, not ours but theirs, is truth, we would call their logic illogical, by the sacred grounds of our own. Where is the division? If so many people would refuse good logic, and use themselves the poorest reasoning, declaring it the more truthful, who is to say that what we call good logic is not just that?

The dilemma is much worse when it happens that two so disagreeing people must debate each other on some philosophical matter, and the truth of one is not the truth of the other. What is philosophy, if we are unable not merely to speak the same language but to think the same ideas?

Meaning of Life

There are many meanings people see in life. But there might be a meaning of all life, a great goal or test. If it is to be the meaning of all life, it could not reside in the context of the living, but must exist in the superior context to all life, that of the existence and its meaning.
But because it is in a context placed so carefully outside our reach, in a reality that is perfectly distinct from ourselves, it is not meaningful to us. It would do nothing that life itself would not, and if it were to be a test upon us, we would never know, could never know it.
So we can never find a universal meaning of life. Those other meanings are the best we have.

Opiate of Loyalty

There are few forces more powerful than loyalty. To obey, to belong, to put an abstract symbol before yourself, will drive so many people to a single cause. No nation with a flag or anthem can claim to be above loyalty. The pretense of patriotism is carried best by those who think least, and give greater mind to national dogma than rational thought.

Obedience is a great evil. Any entity which controls without meaning, with symbols and songs, cannot be trusted. I don't know that they dogma of society or the laws of a government are good; I only know that they claim to be so, a claim as much unjustified.

So why, then will people commit to such blind obedience, such irrational loyalty? I ask any such person, and they call me idealist or rebel, if they do not ignore the idea entirely. It is a delusion of emotion, a powerful intent not to think, for fear of what it might discover.

It is so hard to act without regard to the law. Obedience is so natural, it seems. How natural, I wonder? would people act so very deluded without sufficient teaching? Do not teach loyalty, and never learn it.

Interesting concept, blogger.com

I can think of little that is more disorganized than a great collection of weblogs such as this. The most random thoughts, the wildest ideas, all can find their way to such a place. They will come to the blog, they will appear before others, hoping to attract attention. Maybe they will be lucky; maybe they they will just be carried along the great river of ideas, unnoticed among all the others.

It is like a great mind, sifting through its thoughts in a disorganized manner, searching for something with meaning. It can never make the intent to find an idea, it must wait for its approach. Sometime, somehow, that idea might come, just a random comment like all the others, but then it will grow, take root, and the mind will realize it is there. It is a mind of many people, the great communal thought of all society, as only a system so large and so complex could be.