What I know so far
These are, in no particular order, some important
things I have learned.
The meaning of life
and the purpose of life are two distinct things.
The purpose of life
is to live, grow, reproduce ourselves and, with luck, be happy.
The question of the
meaning of life is itself not a meaningful question. To assume that life has
meaning is to assume that life itself has something to communicate. There is no evidence that this is the case.
Life offers neither
punishments nor rewards, only consequences.
Finding the good in
people isn't a matter of faith but the result of observation.
Although humans have
evolved a certain degree of intelligence, we are still more stupid than smart.
We are likely to stay that way as long as civilization exists. The process of natural selection is thwarted
in the context of civilization. Great pains are taken to see that all people,
regardless of ability have a chance to succeed. Its
hard to imagine a society which would be thought of as morally responsible
which would do otherwise, yet this behavior effectively halts the process of
evolution.
Being right for the
wrong reason is the same as being wrong.
There is evil in
the world. It is the willful prevention or attempt at the prevention of others,
through action or inaction, from the pursuit of life and happiness. This can
take a number of forms, including many which appear benign on the surface. Evil must be kept separate from morals in
order to adequately understand it. What a society considers moral,
or at least socially normal may still be evil. Our societies have set different
standards for this over the years.
Religion, with rare
exceptions, uses different metaphors, depending on the particular creed, to
describe the same things which are mostly anthropocentric falsehoods based in nothing more than
wishful thinking.
There is a basic
difference between positions of accepting the world on faith and studying the
world via the methods of science.
If one takes faith
as a premise then one abandons prediction based upon observation. the two world views are mutually exclusive. Faith and
science are opposites.
In spite of the
fact that it is wasteful and often leads to great evil, war can be an effective
method for the resolution of disagreements between groups. I would not expect its eradication until such
a time as it becomes ineffective or wasteful to the point of uselessness. Over time we have found better ways to
achieve some of the goals which in the past might have been sought in
wars.
Some goals may only
be achieved through war. For example, the total elimination of an entire people
or nation has been the stated goal of several wars. As long as such desires
exist empowered by military
might, wars will continue to exist.
The negative effects
of racial, religious and national bigotry are not so much that they are a
basically evil (although I believe this to be the case) as they are a horrendous
waste of time, particularly when assessed in terms of the rewards of such
behavior over time regarding their impact on the lives of individuals, both
victims and oppressors, and on civilization in general.
victimization
does not ennoble the victim. anyone, even the most
morally depraved can become a victim.
There is an
appearance that in Western civilization there might be more profit, at least in
the short term, in obscuring the truth rather than promoting it. Incidentally,
facts and truth are two distinct concepts.
Facts are a presentation of conditions or events to the extent that they
have been observed. Truth is the underlying
condition or event as it exists
including that which goes unobserved.
Truth is most cases remains unknown. There will be a great
number of people who will find this state of affairs desirable.
The true result of
ethical behavior is the removal of distracting contradiction from the lives of
people who practice it. Those who behave ethically tend to think more clearly
because they are mostly free of internal rationalizations which unethical
behavior creates the need for.
Falsehoods, that is
assertions which are known not to be representative of the truth as understood
by those who promote them either by omission or fabrication, are the basis of
most common knowledge. Poor scholarship accounts for some of this, however,
simple self serving lies account for the majority. The resulting shoddy world view possessed by
most humans is not the consequence of a great conspiracy but puffery of little
men. Those who see a great conspiracy in the world vastly overrate human
abilities at cooperation.
The natural tendency in
human relations is for one to attempt to redirect the other toward an
intellectual path more closely resembling their own. Humans are reflexively
xenophobic. The tendency is to seek what one has in common with another because
the differences are automatically threatening. All human relationships are
power struggles, the goal being to inject the maximum amount of one's own
personality into the relationship. The
most peaceful romantic relationships are the ones in which the partners become
the most effective mirrors for one another. The most peaceful political
relationships are the ones in which a single person or party controls the
direction. True autocracy should yield true peace. True autocracy, like true
anarchy, does not exist in the real world.
ALL world views
which depend on outside sources for the correction of human behavior or the
"salvation" of the human soul are false. The belief that the destiny
of mankind is dependent on a messianic force, be it
Jesus or "Space Brothers" or anything else of that nature, marks the
believer as a fool. Such persons should not be trusted with fire or sharp
objects. It represents a staggering degree of intellectual sloppiness. The
effect of these beliefs in the human mind can only result in a kind of chain
reaction which leads to a general failure of logic. The reason for this is that it inserts a basic
interruption into the path of causality.
My mistrust of people who hold such beliefs cannot be overstated.
Debate is an art
form, not a method of unbiased inquiry. arguments are
won by those who are better arguers. The level of objective truth in the
argument plays no role whatsoever.
Human history is
mostly the story of ambitious men seeking short term results. There have only
been a very few people in history who have thought really big. Of those few only a tiny percentage have had realistic agendas. No person
with a secular long
term vision for humanity has ever achieved a great amount of power. The reason
for this is that the explanation of plans for major change without invoking the authority of some
deity are a hard sell. God is useful
shorthand authority for a public which would rather not think for itself.
The majority of humans rarely extrapolate the consequences
of a decision beyond the first iteration.
The reaction of
society to an increasingly educated public is to make a virtue of stupidity. It
is a common belief that society runs better when not examined too closely. Most
people react to close scrutiny of social mechanisms with hostility. Although we
are a highly dynamic as a species, that dynamism seems to rest with a
comparatively small number of individuals at any given time. The vast majority
crave some sort of status quo. Resistance to change is one of the most persistent of human
qualities.
What most people
hold up as essential human qualities are qualities which few humans have or , at least, cultivate within themselves.
Humans have
traditionally perceived history as a succession of struggles against various things. Few humans have a proactive view of
progress. Societies do not tend to be
goal oriented. Many individuals try to be goal oriented, but the majority have
difficulty defining personal goals or find the process of doing so too boring
to pursue. For most people, the quest for food, friendship and family is
enough.
What I don't know yet
I am
aware that this is a shorter list. I
site the difficulty in cataloging one's own ignorance as an explanation.
If individuals can
learn from experience, why can't societies? Is it possible that for societies
the whole is lesser than the sum of
its parts?
I have been unable to
resolve the apparent conflict between the idea that the world is basically knowable
through observation and the apparent fact that the observation of a system
alters that system thus making its unobserved state unknowable. This is my
basic intellectual "loop".
There are things
which I "know" must be utter hogwash and yet are observed and
experienced by to large a segment of the population to just discount out of
hand. Claims of "mass hallucination" do not seem to provide adequate
explanation. I haven't even a clue as to
what might cause these "miracles".