Ellbur's Random Thoughts

Complete Rationality

2009-08-16T23:21:00.000-07:00

"Rationality is the willingness, not necessarily actually doing it but the willingness to hold any idea open to question."

I've never actually met anyone who could do that. It's easy to think you can, because the ideas that you are least willing to question are so familiar to you that you don't notice them. Perhaps a horribly abused person who can no longer trust being near another human being could claim to have no unquestionable faith. Maybe.

But there really is more to faith than just accepting ideas without questioning them. (In my experience I haven't even seen questioning and faith to be incompatible, but that's another issue). There is also an inescapable element of humility. You cannot be proud of believing that the Earth was created in 6 days, or that Jesus could make a man see by spitting on his eyes. But you can believe it. And you don't even have to be stubborn about it. It requires humility.

Everyone could be humbled just by looking at the world around them. But it's too familiar, too expected. I used to think of the miracles in the gospels as simply a communication device used to represent Jesus's unique relationship with God. But now I think they serve another role. They ask the reader to believe or consider things that are unnatural and absurd, to brake their mind out of things too common to notice so they can actually see what's there.

Religion Without God

2009-07-02T19:05:00.000-07:00

Just from the title this sounds like a very tired idea: most religious questions have been debated hundreds of times already. In fact it probably is a very tired idea, but I would like to present it in I think a meaningful way.

I am reading Faith and Practice, and am noticing how superfluous most references to God are. Here is an example:

"The impetus for service is often a concern, which, as Friends use the word, is a quickening sense of the need to do something or to demonstrate sympathetic interest in an individual or group, as a result of what is felt to be a direct intimation of God's will. A concern as an impetus to action arises out of Friends' belief that the realm of God can be realized here and now, not just in another place or time"
-- Faith and Practice, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, revised 1997

I very much like the spirit of this passage. It claims that good things can happen, good changes can happen, humans are not powerless to improve their own condition. However the introduction of God to this idea is puzzling. The 'realm of God' is being used to stand for something good. This is a very reasonable thing for the realm of god to stand for, but isn't 'good' a broader sense? Atheists have a sense of good. You could say the good in an atheist still comes from a God in which they do not believe, but aren't we overcomplicating things?

Essentially, I think the overall intent of the passage is hardly enhanced by the reference to God, and the cost is taking a very universal idea - that the human condition can be improved - and restricting it to a religious one. The cost is losing the very real connection that an atheist, or a polytheist, should feel with this passage.

The passage could easily be rewritten:
The impetus for service is often a concern, which, as Friends use the word, is a quickening sense of the need to do something or to demonstrate sympathetic interest in an individual or group. A concern as an impetus to action arises out of Friends' belief that good things can be realized here and now, not just in another place or time.

This problem presented itself to me a few months ago as I was discussing Quakerism with a friend. He was going to attend a meeting for worship with me, and I was explaining how you know whether you should share your thoughts with the meeting during worship. I explained that you speak if you are led by the spirit, light, etc to do so. He naturally asked how he, as an atheist, could apply this. I believe that the thoughts experienced by a Christian and an atheist during silent worship are fundamentally similar - the real impetus to speak is not so narrow as coming from God. By using monotheistic language we cloud a universal understanding. There is much potential for unity and inspiration that is being ignored here.

I think that this is an opportunity for all faiths. The vast majority of religious understanding has a strong universal element. It is the universal element that makes religion appealing. Religious language no doubt has added an aesthetic quality to these ideas. However, if we are willing to give a little on aesthetics, there is great benefit to be gained in restating, reinterpreting, perhaps even rethinking religious ideas through secular language.

I have heard it argued that the beauty of religion is just what I have criticized; it is a powerful language for expressing a broad range of ideas. Indeed there is something inspiring about tying our mortal feelings to a timeless, universal entity such as God. I am not asking for God to be dissected and extracted from religion. Rather I am asking people to consider and be cautious of the extent to which God is not universal. God is not universally loved or respected by the world's population.

Every Thought begins as intimately personal, and then must be carefully collected, shaped, and made less personal as it is communicated. So must be done with God. For the most part, God stands for something personal and internal.

This is not the case with all references to God. In the following from Katrina Clap by Mos Def, I believe the use of the word God serves a fairly universal purpose:

Lord have mercy,
Lord God God save our souls,
A-God save our souls, A-God,
A-God save our souls,
Lord God God save our souls,
A-God save our soul soul soul,
Soul Survivor,

The appeal to a divine being represents desperation, lack of faith in existing leaders, and the sense that the injustice played out in New Orleans runs far deeper than appears on the surface. This passage is not really about God; the appeal to God is a way of saying that there is nothing else to appeal to.

Forgiveness

2008-08-22T23:30:00.000-07:00

I haven't had the mind or the thought to post in so long... but I was thinking about Michael Gallaugher recently, since he introduced me to so many new ideas, and I thought I really shouldn't let what I learned from him go to waste, and so I will post. (The topic is not related to Michael Ghallaugher. He has done nothing that I need to forgive).

--------------------------------------

Of all virtues, people follow none so curiously poorly as forgiveness. We like to think ourselves strong enough to hold our head above the wrongs done to us and not to seek revenge, but again and again we are too weak. They hit me, they told me things I didn't want to hear, can't I hit them back?

I know I am too weak still to carry out revenge, but forgiveness is so much more. It is not enough to stay your hand before striking back. I know when someone is mean to me I will be at least a little unpleasant to them. And when things are very bad...

Forgiveness really means something so... unreachable? It means not judging a person by their actions. I have to look at you, and see what bad things you have done, and say honestly that it does not diminish my view of you. I must know that you have made others suffer without once thinking that you ought to suffer.

But look, it is harder still. The most forgiving of people will always find something, some perfect crime that they cannot come to terms with. You cannot win an argument for forgiveness because there is always a crime that speaks louder. Forgiveness begs that a murderer is worth as much of a person as you or I.

I want to forgive everyone everything. I want to never forget that no one deserves to suffer. I know I cannot do this because I have already failed many times. But I want to try it anyway.

Why Nothing Hapens

2005-06-15T10:28:00.000-07:00

People possess a very remarkable power: they can act, in the many numbers that there are, to solve a problem. There are many severe, immediate, and very present problems, and people do react to them. They can reacte in very strange or dangerous ways, and cause much destruction, but they can also make things far better.

The effect diminishes with the failing force of the evil. The small problems that face the world are not met with the force of the whole human race. However, the appearance and existence of evil are very different things. Some of the worst of the worlds problems are simply too distant to be seen. Then there are those that are clouded by the very experiences of those who face them.

This would not be such a damaging effect if not for the very slow moving spirit of the human race. It is one very large entity, too large to adjust quickly. An individual may change quickly, but the whole of the human race is unmoving except but slowly. And so in the absence of a direct threat, people do not respond.

One possible solution to this would be to conjure up a direct threat and motive people to action. Another would be to draw upon people's sense of loyalty and patriotism. But such insentives can be horribly misdirected. They would more appropriately remain no more than part of the human race that is, and not the part that wills or does.

There is another hope, and that is in the tendency of people to immitate eachother. If people can be accostomed to acting at the persistent instead of the threatening problems, it may be possible, if not to change human nature, to change the context in which it lies.

Ellbur Wiki

2005-06-12T17:01:00.000-07:00

A blog is limitting is some ways. To accomodate things that will not fit this environment I have made a wiki:
Ellbur Wiki. It is in a very primitive stage, but it is possible to edit and add pages.
I will still post to this blog.

A Thought

2005-06-06T16:27:00.000-07:00

I have decided something, but I am no quite sure what it is. I have made one change to represent it: I now believe I have a purpose in life, I just don't know what it is. This shaded decision still reveals something about itself:

The purpose is above myself. I know this without a doubt. Its existence does not depend on mine. It is also a change from something. Specifically, the change is still unknown to me. But it is not, as I said of the Meaning of Life, placed carefully beyond my reach.

Because it is above me, it is something that could be a purpose of all people. It does not wish to depend on perception; it is not reletive to any manifestation of the senses. There are many people in the world, most have never seen eachother, and yet somehow there is an emergent motion of human actions. There are components of the convergence that we cannot control, but there may be components that are collective and cumulative.

Mathematical Reality

2005-05-10T13:28:00.000-07:00

With the universe increasingly becoming broken down into laws of numbers, it becomes relevant to ask,
What distinguishes the real world from science's descriptions of the real world?

As I sit here thinking how to resolve the dilemma, I am part of a system that is conforming to these rules, and I seem to observe their effects.
However, the rules we know exist are so only so far as we may measure and observe them. This may hold an important key. Although it may be theoretically possible to make a still frame of the world and extract from it the future, it is not possible to take a still frame of the world. It is therefore not possible to predict the future in this way.

This same should apply whever the knowledge that would be needed is so conveniently restricted. With this prohibition, or perhaps freedom from the knowledge, we are liberated from the prison of a pure mathematical reality.

More Meaning of Life

2005-03-04T14:21:00.000-08:00

I once said that it was without point to find a meaning to life, or, at least, impossible (post)

I now want to expand on that, and alter it somewhat.
If, for somereason, in wanderings of thought, a person were to stumble upon the meaning of life, how would it affect them? First, how would they know, more than if they were mistaken, that they had truly found the meaning of life? It would be, like any other thought, subject to the weakness of the mind. In this way it would be no more compelling than if it were another delusion.

But this might provide a greater path to enlightenment than the one lost. If the meaning of life itelf is not specifically important, then it is possible to decide, with sufficient confidence, that one has reached an understanding no greater than a creation of the mind. This could be used for better purposes: the virtues of this conjuration might bo crafted to exceed the truth. This is both a greater enlightenment and a greater freedom.

The Force in Almost Everything

2005-01-08T16:27:00.000-08:00

It is money. This sounds pessimistic, but it does not amount to much more than an accumulation of all influences in the world.

Consider one simple instance of economics: one purchase of one item by one person. The effect, of course, of that one purchase is not significant. The only thing that makes this significant is the accumulation of all consumer purchases, and, overall, where they come from and what they want. This is then a force, and the overall market adjusts.
Each case might as well be random, it would not change the method on which it operates.

Then there is politics, and, in a democracy, placed in the hands of the people. But that is individual people who may choose rationally how to cast their vote. The collection of people will ultimately decide, and the collection does not reason, and is influenced only by forces that may extend to the collection.

Thus politics becomes merely another element of the economy. While a specific act of government may be tuned one way or th other, overall, it must reflect the greatest force acting upon it. This is not even the minds of the politicians that affects it.

The reason for this is that money is the basis for the operation of the world, and the only basis which can extend to everything at once. It is a force which may act on every individual; it is the economy which controls the people who operate it, not the people who control the economy.

The Role of Thought

2005-01-04T13:49:00.000-08:00

It has long been realized by people that there is a long gap between seeing what ought to be done, and doing what ought to be done. And yet, this knowledge, as is so typical, has not altered this fault.

People commit time to thinking. Out of this have come many ideas. They tell us how to teach, learn, live, and think. One would assume that the wisdom of so much thought would be heeded.

But somehow, it is not. A person can commit to an idea, but there is another force,

They came to the idea. It already had social pressure.
If it is new they will not succeed in it.
If it is old it is already absorbed.
There are too many people. No idea is unique. The collective mind has control over all of itself, even if not over any individual.
An individual does not have a great effect on the collective mind. There are too many components. They may only serve as a symbol for the communities ideas.

This is not bad. For sure, the collection of many people will be better able to live the life of everyone than could one person direct it.

But it is unfourtunate for change. There are so many strong motives that people have,

For a motive to have force, it must be compelling to many people. It must relly on emotions and thoughts common to many people. Thought is not beyond the reach of these forces.

So think, if it is not wasted.

Doubt and Answers

2004-12-14T17:56:00.000-08:00

The Human sat quietly and thought. For a long time, they had never seen an answer to God's existence. Questions, with no answers, doubt, unfulfilled, permeated their mind.

It was not a pleasant condition, and the Human wanted an answer. They decided that if they could not find one, they would produce one. It would be like this:

Doubt was a very unpleasant condition. Through kindness or mercy, a God as the Human wanted one would not allow, a person to hold doubt when there could be an answer. Therefor, if the Human were to seek an answer, one would be found, or the very lack of an answer a confirmed negative.

Satisfied by this, the Human proceeded. They obtained five dice, and told the potential God what they were about to do, "If you exist, and will do what you may ought, you would answer my question with these dice. I will throw them: if them all land six, I will know you exist - it would end my painful doubt."

The Human threw the dice; they landed randomly. Dissapointed, but content with the answer, the human resumed thinking, now with the question resolved.

Resolved - no more doubt.

So, had God answered the Human in this way, that doubt could be relieved by a confident disbelief, the wish had been answered!
Sunk back in doubt, the Human resumed thinking.

Language (Again)

2004-12-07T16:17:00.000-08:00

"We shall never understand one another until we reduce the language to seven words" (1). "Through sense and nonsense, never out nor in" (2), "the beautiful thing is that words aren't necessary" (3). "No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous" (4).
"Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language" (5).

"What one has not experienced, one will never understand in print" (6). "For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin -- real life," (7) "so," (8) "drawing on my fine command of the English language, I said nothing." (9)

"Last words are for people who haven't said anything in life." (10)

(1) Kahlil Gibran
(2) John Dryden
(3) Brock Tully
(4) Henry Adams
(5) Lugwig Wittgenstein
(6) Isadora Duncan
(7) Fr. Alfred D'Souza
(8) Robert E. Lee
(9) Robert Benchley
(10) Karl Marx

The Power to Decide

2004-11-10T17:37:00.000-08:00

The bold text of the form was something similar to,

'I understand that I am giving up substantial rights'

This opens very obvious question: at what point can a person know that they understand? In this case I need merely sign the form, carrying the assumption that the signiture was proof enough of my comprehension.
But surely their must be times when something other than a person's clear thought can guide their hand. There are desperate people in desperate situations, and it becomes a difficult task to determine when desperation is ruling them.

There exists an idea, found in some political, social, or economic debate, of a pure contract. Although a highly intuitive idea: that a person may make a promise of a certain sanctity that may be used as a judge of them in the future. This begins to break down, however, when other forces are added. There will be a point at which the pure contract dissolves into nothing.
Thus the use of the pure contract is dangerous in forming any universal ideology. It will at some point cause the simplicity of the system to skip neatly over some chasm of the world.

Language...

2004-11-05T11:12:00.000-08:00

... slept a dog was sleeping

This phrase, unnoticed, I did not notice, and became apparent on the blog where it was clearly seen. The unusual language of it is quite unusual, and wondering I wondered what compulsion would compell me to its writing written as it is.

As only an amusement it but amuses me, a redundency, it repeats redundantly the word repeated. Confusing language could confuse and so amuse.

Election Day

2004-11-02T14:26:00.000-08:00

This is not a political blog, and will not become one.
But this is, in my opinion, important enough to warrant a post regarding it.

Today, November 2, is Election Day in the US.
There is only one thing I have to say,

VOTE

The Quick Brown Fox...

2004-10-23T11:46:00.000-07:00

The hot sun beat down against the earth, a slight breaze serving only to make the day bearable. In the shade of a large tree stump slept a dog was sleeping, lazily enjoying this escape from the heat.
As the wind subsided once more, the dog became aware of a rustling of leaves. Nearby, a small brown fox was walking quickly with its nose to the ground. Suddenly it stopped and pricked up its ears. Its head turned to the side then back, searching for some sound known only to it.
In an instant, the fox, sensing some danger in the air, quickly darted off. The dog watched as it sped quickly along the ground. Coming to the dog, the fox jumped over and continued running out of sight.

Random Thoughts Concentrate

2004-10-18T13:53:00.000-07:00

Like a fruit juice concentrate, these are ideas that need something more before they are complete. No coherency between them, no full understanding reached, they are, for now, fragments of the mind.

The mind holds ideas in many ways. It cannot reflect on itself and find just how, or why it acts as it does. It cares not to know its purpose, it seems. And yet now, I would like, and I think that this liking comes from the mind, to know the purpose of the same. Yet there is a barrier: the second mind; with no interest in providing that information it deems unecessary, it will confine my own thought to an indirect look inward, staring in a mirror, back through myself.

In this other mind, there exists, as well, the foundation of thought. Every sense, every emotion, must be percieved, and yet cannot be controlled. I believe I am thinking. If this is true, and I have no convincing evidence to doubt it, then there must exist a division between what a conciously and unconciously think.

Could, perhaps, a thought be reached, without the unconcious mind? Even if it could, it would be a thought without substance, and its origion untraceable. I can speak my knowledge of my own conciousness, conciously perceive it, so it is almost certain that the concious and unconcious minds are tied very closely.

Emotions are confusing. They often defy the careful contructions of thought, and yet very often thought may construct an emotion, or emotion a thought. If emotion, to act, be heeded without thinking, the power to reflect on one's own function would be lost. If emotion were eliminated, thought would be empty. Can the balance be found through careful thought, or the intuition of emotion?

Somewhat Closer to a Perfection

2004-10-07T13:51:00.000-07:00

It hardly needs to be debated that very little in this world is perfect. But, in some world that could be invented, there might be perfection to some (if not the only) degree. Perfection in this sense is not something that is achieved, but something that is. In our own world, perfection never is, but, perhaps could be approached, even if not achieved.

Perfection is not something easy to define, but it is possible to speculate on the existence of it without knowing quite what it is. As a person viewing the world from within their mind, they could see imperfection, and certainly people do, and, where imperfection lacks, they might see the presence of the perfect. But this is merely a view of the world, and has no effect on it, and this observer would never bring the world to any better form. There must be some way that they may act in the world, the effects of which will result in a better or worse state of the world.

In our world we are lucky: there is not only action but thought. It is almost possible to set oneself aside from existence, and decide how one would prefer things. It can be very simple, almost unconcious. My fingers hit the keys of the keyboard, and it seems to be from my desire to have that letter typed. It could be more significant. People acting in a position of leadership attempt to convert their preference for the future into something that may be done. However it is, it does happen.

But none of the effects of deliberate action are perfect. In way, judging the world by comparing it to perfection is to compare it to what is not known. Thus pure reasoning would not succeed to truly decide on some path to perfection. It my reason perfectly, but have nothing to start from, and no known goal to achieve. There must then be a basis for thought that allows people to act with regard to the future. It must be an absolutely necessary faculty of judgement that does not apply reasoning, but is able to form something to reason with. Without it, any decision made would be empty.

Thus in any decision, some accout must be made for the impurity of the process, and the goal, if any, never could be perfect. It is rather to make an improvement, that may be judged an improvement.

A Few Problems with Rights, Responsibilities, and the Protection of a Political Minority

2004-09-07T18:05:00.000-07:00

There is no doubt that a certain degree of effort must be made under any system of government to ensure that no person is neglected, and none is abused. To this great end has been formed the concept of a citizen's specific rights. So different they may be in people's minds and politics, they nonetheless are there, in some form. But this does not ensure that such systems are perfect.

For every representitive to a government's legislature, a political party carries with it a quantity of political force. There are many factors to affect it, but it still remains true that any two persons have more power than one, and so forth. Given the unobstructed power of the majority, there will certainly occur abuses. However, if steps are taken to even the political force between the majority and a minority, similar problems occur.

Most significantly, it will lead to the representation of the particular minority to not balance with its population. Thus each citizen represented by the minority will enjoy the political benefits of several similar citizens in the majority. The natural effect is that politics will become balanced so as to favor those otherwise of lesser importance.

To avoid this, it might be possible for the government to determine, in advance of any legislation, certain individual rights which may not be infringed. If used correctly, and sparingly, this will not cause significant harm to the political process. In excess, however, undeniable rights are an obstruction to reasoning. Any number of strategies, sought with good reason to benefit the people, might stop short at a single element of the process. It turns the ordinary world of what ought and ought not to be done, into the abstract world of what can and cannot be done, under the confines of the system. Again this will do great harm.

The last effort in correcting the faults of democracy, is to establish certain responsibilities to exist for each person. This is one of the most flawed strategies, and yet this is not obvious when seen against the background of politics. It simply amounts to the free spirit of nature, that no responsibility, however well mandated, will be retained. It suffers more severely to the failures of the undeniable rights, as it creates the new abstractions of Right and Wrong, adding to the confused spirit of absolute justice that must be applied under such a system.

There is no perfect government, and never will be. The best that can be done is to cite each problem as it occurs, and one by one correct them.

A Few Problems with Democracy

2004-09-06T10:36:00.000-07:00

It may be that there will never be found a government better than democracy. It may be that there will never be the concept in the mind of the population of a better government. But there is so much that could be better.

First of all, the logic of the democratic process is significantly lacking. Consider the following situation: party A and party B compete for a political office; the winner is decided by vote. Suppose also that party A has a very slight majority, and thus, by the logic of democracy, is more apt for governance. Now suppose, by some mischivous act of nature, a large subpopulation consiting mostly of party A is killed by a flood, hurricane, or whatever. All of a sudden, the representitive of party B is more fit to govern.

Now, for the sake of arguement, party B is in control of the government. Using their legislative powers, party B votes to suspend the voting rights of subpopulations dominantly favoring party A. Thus party B, originally a minority, has taken control of the government. If the logic of democracy is used, the preceding events have made it the will of the people for this to happen.

If the majority party of any government is allowed, by virtue of having a population greater than the minority party, to control the legislature, and thus to direct the action of government, it is in no way impossible for them to further only their own intrests. If the leaders of the majority party profitted from a specific industry, there is little doubt that it would receive favorable attention from the government. If the leaders of the majority party belonged to any specific economic class, the economic force of the government would be directed in the intrests of that class. Any number of abuses can be found, and most would be exploited.

Perhaps there is no hope of solving all the problems. Even more likely, people will simply resist any attempts. Democracy is so honored in the modern world that to compromise its force in any way could not be premitted.

An Elusive Completeness

2004-08-22T13:15:00.000-07:00

I sat in silence, alone in the Meeting House, for a long time. I let my mind wander over whatever it chose. Mostly I thought about why I like to sit quietly and let my mind wander. I realized then that there is an inner art of the mind. It cannot be controlled, it cannot be directly spoken, but it is there. Through silence it is drawn from its slumber and given to thought. Think directly of it and you will loose it. Let it act freely, and it remains. It fulfilled whatever it crossed, and in its tracks left everything complete. The peacefulness, and the feeling of pure purposelessness, to a degree that the lack of intention became my very intent, was a great, relaxing feeling. I felt I had found something that I had lost by thinking too hard.

Composition of the World

2004-08-01T17:41:00.000-07:00

Every description that can be made about the world relies on one important aspect of the world of our observation: patterns that hold in a fraction usually extend to the whole. For example, if I am to say that each person has two eyes, it is because I have seen several people each with two eyes, and none without. I have not seen every person, or even close to it. When I make the statement, it is thus the statement of a generalized rule about the world.

When the senses are given information from the world, it occurs as arbitrary, isolated details that compose observation. For information to be obtained about the world, other than the sensory details themselves, it is necessary to find a consistant pattern in the sensory input, and then form some idea of how it would generalize to the abstract concept of the world. Thus every truth that may be stated is a well generalized pattern, and these patterns not only form the basis of knowledge, they are all knowledge.

Even the most elementary ideas that may be understood and communicated will be in the form of these patterns. It is true that there must be initial truth that relates the senses to the entity of their interpretation, but the nature of that intitial truth could only be realized through a pattern of the world. The pure transcendental world, despite its necessary existence, is beyond our reach.

Practice and Principle

2004-07-09T12:02:00.000-07:00

It is very easy to form simple principles about the state of the world. It is even easier to form simple principles about morality, and so define a method of action. Principles often seem very good. For instance, it appears that a person ought to speak the truth, and that to lie would be against principle. Many of these ideas may be collected, and a procedure for acting will follow.

However, it sometimes occurs that there is a case where following a principle seems harmful. The practical proceeding of nature might not lend itself to confinement by a simple maxim. When this happens, there occurs the conflict between practical action, and principled action. Eventually, one must be superior.

If it were that sometimes principled action were a superior judge to practical action, and other times reversed, it would mean that each case would be determining the method of action, and so if the chosen course heeded any reasoning, it would in every case heed the practical reasoning.

Thus, if principle is a superior judge to practice in every case, it is so in all cases, for if not it would be superior in no case. Likewise, if practice is superior in any one case, it is superior in all cases.

Principles must have a basis on which they are formed. If it occurs that there is a conflict between the principled action and practical reasoning, it must be that the principle in question is not based in the world in which it now applies, for, if not, such a world would contradict itself.

Such a principle not applied in its own world is not a principle at all, for it does not relate to the choice of action in question, and but rather to something analogous in its own world. In such cases, it is the practical reason that defines action in this world. Practical reasoning is therefore superior to any principle in all cases in which the two would come in conflict.

Useless Blame

2004-06-13T10:10:00.000-07:00

If some concept of ethics can be realized, it will often follow that there are people who divert from its laws. It may also be that without the need for ethics it is clear that there is malice of some form, or else negligence, or perhaps simple misfourtane. The natural reaction is to have these people take responsibility and assume penitence.

Responsibility, so long as it may be reasoned with the world without creating it, is harmless. It is in those cases when responsibility becomes the defining property of action that there is a problem. If this were not so, it must be that blame itself is important, that those who have come to wrong are deserved blame as an essential ideal, when suffering is mandated for its own sake.

Evil can exist itself, as a diversion from ethics, without the essential quality of suffering, and penitence is useless if it has no goal of correction. Responsibility is good as a quality of a person, not a a forced action.

Sacred Rights

2004-05-25T14:05:00.000-07:00

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

2004-05-23T14:54:00.000-07:00

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

2004-05-18T12:48:00.000-07:00

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

2004-05-17T13:55:00.000-07:00

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

2004-05-16T16:21:00.000-07:00

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.