so, if you guys like, don't mind, i'll just post it here.... lol:
A Personal Philosophy
July 2010
Introduction
As I begin this, my personal philosophy, I feel compelled to justify its existence. In 2010, it is difficult to justify a great many new works or bits of information, since there is so much of it already. Indeed, it is likely that this philosophy will be of no use to anyone but me in the future. Of course I can harbor grandiose notions about how future generations may one day dig this up and revere it, but to do so seriously would be foolishness. So with that in mind, dear reader, I hope you at least find some insight into life from this philosophy.
So why should I, a young man, be qualified to teach anyone what I presume to know about life? Indeed, what would a nineteen year old know of life compared to a centenarian? Perhaps not much, but of late I have felt the need to get down exactly what I believe in writing, for myself if no one else. With these caveats aside, I will now endeavor to lay out a comprehensive philosophy for life in as organized a fashion as I can. I will cover all the issues that are important to people of my day, or at least the issues that important to me.
I have noticed that one problem with most philosophy is its inaccessibility. The issues that it raises affect everyone equally. Indeed every man, woman and child has an interest in philosophy, whether they know it or not. However when thinkers on the subject attempt to write down their ideas, they go on and on… and on. Most laypeople are put off, and rarely begin to scratch the surface of the great ideas. To me, this is a shame. Philosophy is not just for the intelligentsia. So though I will make no attempt to dumb down my language or shorten the length of the text, I will not spend what I deem unnecessary time enumerating countless scenarios and indulging in innumerable tangents of dubious value. If, in the course of this, I fail to adhere to these guidelines, you should be the first to know that I regret it is as much as you will. I intend to write about only what I feel is important.
Knowledge
I will start with the basics: what can I know? In short, my response is, nothing at all. So the skeptic’s mantra is “nothing is known,” though a lesser used but equally potent slogan could be “nothing is certain.” At this point the reader may wish to stop me, objecting that I amount to nothing more than a skeptic. Skeptics have gone before, why not merely recommend Sextus Empiricus’ Outlines of Pyrrhonism instead? Because though I may technically be a skeptic, I have a more nuanced view of life than merely stopping at “nothing is known.” But I will get to that in a moment. First I must address a few caveats that come up immediately every time I present these ideas to anyone. Then I will point out why I believe nothing is known, then only later will get into why this is not an inconsequential point.
It should be duly noted that I do not claim to know that nothing is known, since, again, nothing is known. Any statement, including strange ones, I do not know. Perhaps I can know them, but I do not. That I may at times slip up with my words and fail to cover all my tracks is a certainty. This is related more to a linguistic problem than to an actual inconsistency in my philosophy. Merely because I say words such as “certainty” (as, indeed, I have just said) does not mean I now believe that some things are certain. Similarly if I say something “is” a certain way, it is not because I make a categorical claim about the world. I am merely using the English language, and, since skeptics did not construct the language, I find it hard (without falling all over myself, that is) to avoid phrases like “I am sure.” or even “I have good reason to believe.” Despite the fact that my official line repudiates such statements, I cannot undo my upbringing and stop saying them without an aside every time. As you read, remember this caveat. You can think of these phrases I use as figures of speech rather than literal claims about knowledge. Now, onto my justification for my observation “nothing is known.”
Nothing is known because nothing is known. This sounds ridiculous, I know firsthand. But try this before you scoff: present me with a statement of fact, which is a presumption of knowledge. I will give you one: Abraham Lincoln was president of the United States. How do most of us “know” this fact? People we trust, like teachers, tell us in school. The idea is then confirmed by other sources. Everywhere you look there is confirmation of the idea. But we all know this does not serve as real proof. There are such things as conspiracies. It does not allow you to know that Lincoln was president, it only allows you to reasonably suspect it. So, what about primary sources? Say, for instance, a carbon-dated document from the period that says “President Lincoln did such and such?” Any historian or archaeologist worth his salt will eventually admit that even this is not truly indisputable proof. Anyone can write “President Lincoln” and have their words dug up later as “proof.”
So what would constitute proof then? Perhaps going back in time to see Lincoln with your own eyes, to watch him take the oath of office? Hardly. How do you know the time machine you used brings you back to the true realities of the past, and not something different? How do you know that the man you see is truly Abraham Lincoln? The list goes on, but it ends with this: How do you know your sensory perceptions are accurate? Indeed, how can we trust our memory? Could not that also be a total fabrication?
This is an age-old skeptic’s gripe, and any philosopher reading this will be familiar with it. But indeed, how do we know they are accurate? The rebuttal one sometimes hears is that they do not fail us all the time. If they deceived us consistently, we would be aware of it when it gets us into trouble. Again, hardly. For what if everything around us was made to look as if it was consistent and real and trustworthy, when it is not? Suppose there is an evil, omnipotent deceiver, as Descartes said, which can deceive us of everything, including what exists, how logic works, and so on. Such a circumstance could exist could it not? If you admit that it could, you admit that you know nothing.
Descartes did not go that far. He claimed he knew that he himself existed because he thought. This is the origin of the phrase “I think, therefore I am.” I, however, do not see that. There is ample reason to believe I do not exist. Remember that the evil deceiver could even warp the laws of logic. If this is the case, the statement “I think, therefore I am,” is called into question. Although this logically follows, one cannot be certain of it, because we cannot be certain of logic. By extension we cannot be certain of the rules of cause and effect or of any other “fundamentals” that many philosophers have clung to.
Skepticism as an Empowering Philosophy
What is left then? As someone who believes that I do not actually know anything, what should I do? Some say the truly practicing skeptic would merely sit in silence until something killed him. Others object that under such a system, there is no right and wrong and no reason for action or for existence. Nothing is gained from skepticism, they argue. This is perhaps the most commonly used argument against skeptics. Faced with logic that I truly believe is very hard to deny, people then cling to their knowledge by attempting to dismiss the skeptic’s ideas as irrelevant. I believe that this is not the case, and I will demonstrate why later.
Before that, however, is perhaps the most controversial segment of my philosophy. This is where I admit, that, as a true skeptic, I cannot pretend to know what actions are ultimately best for a person. Thus, perhaps serial killers are rewarded in heaven while all others are punished in hell. One cannot know if this is true or not. Perhaps the best thing for a person to do is to kill himself immediately. Although I cannot deny that this may indeed be the case, and will not pretend to, I would like to point out an important nuance to my position as a skeptic.
Though I know nothing, I am presented all the time with a series of appearances. At present I am presented with the appearance of a laptop screen and some text. I am presented with the appearance that I am getting hungry, and so on. Though it may not really be the true reality, and though I cannot know the reality of it (indeed I cannot know if there even is a reality of it), the one thing I can be said to “know” is how things appear to me now.
I know that it appears that I am hungry. This is very important. I also know that it seems to me that eating food will allay what appears to be hunger. I cannot even make a statement about how likely or unlikely this may be, but I do know that it appears to me that this is the case. As such, my response is to eat, and not, as some suggest, to sit in skeptical denial until I die of starvation.
Some may cry out that this amounts to a cop-out. Others will ask: Why go to the trouble of defending skepticism if you were going to essentially discard it by saying that the appearance of a thing is as good a thing as any to act on? Because skepticism has something important to teach us.
Sextus Empiricus pointed out that skepticism seemed to lead to quietude. Of course, as a skeptic, he cheekily pointed out that he certainly did not know this was the case, it just seemed always to happen. Though this may seem silly, it is important. I too point out that in the world of appearances, what some call the “real world,” people who adhere to skeptical beliefs gain quietude, or peace of mind. I am not troubled by the woes of the unknown. The philosophical worries that plagued me when I was younger have ended. To attribute this with certainty to my adoption of skepticism would be to fly in the face of all that I have learned, but I do suspect strongly that the two are related events.
So that’s one benefit of skepticism: quietude. Are there others? Certainly. They are manifold. The skeptic’s position, by default, becomes one of moderation, which many would agree is a positive thing. When you cannot claim that any one statement is known to be true, any statement then has equal claim to truth. I will demonstrate throughout this philosophy what is healthy and beneficial about skepticism.
Building on the Foundations of Appearances
If I accept that what appears to me now is as good a thing as any to act on, I essentially agree to live in the “real world” as it appears to me. This defines reality as the way things appear. Again, I recognize that there are countless hypothetical situations where this could be false. Being insane, for instance is one of them. If I am deluding myself and hallucinating everything that appears to me to be “real,” then it is certain that reality and my appearances are quite different. But I cannot begin to know that sort of thing.
Thus, working from appearances, I can begin to construct what will look like a mainstream worldview. In my opinion, the only things that I will admit as reliable “appearances” are things in the physical. This leads me directly to materialism, which, like skepticism, plays an important role in my philosophy but is not the main thrust of my philosophy.
Materialism, which is the idea that the only reality is the physical reality, follows from the world of appearances directly. This is precisely because it is the world of appearances only. So things that do not appear, like God, karma, or Plato’s forms, are considered not to exist. Again, not that I know for sure they truly do not exist, just that I do not admit them to the world of appearances, which is the world with which I align my life.
So where might this leave me? My critic may again point out the problem of morals, which is just as much a problem in skepticism as it is in materialism, but I will get to that later.
God and the World of Appearances
First though, let me remind you of one the benefits of an underlying skepticism: humility. I have, in my “world of appearances,” shut out the supernatural because they do not “appear.” However I would chafe at the title of an “atheist,” because I am nothing of the kind. An atheist claims to know that there is no God, which is anathema to a skeptic. The only worldview I can adopt in the theological realm is that of “strong agnosticism” which states that not only do I not know whether God exists, I do not think I can know, and I do not think anyone else can know either. This is of course a leap from hardcore skepticism, because there are obviously some overt claims in that statement, but remember that I am not, strictly speaking, a skeptic.
I make this claim chiefly because I have never had an appearance that God existed, no more than any other fiction anyway. But, since absence of proof is not proof of absence, I do not go all the way to the atheist’s camp. I see that sort of “leap of faith” as arrogant and even quasi-religious, claiming to know anything about God (or lack thereof) claims more than I think I know.
This leaves ample room for tolerance. Any faith, any ideology, has claim. Though Scientology is often laughed at, so too was Christianity when it was young. Who am I to say that any one of them is right or wrong? Many believers, who face real-world evidence against their beliefs, retreat entirely from the traditional battleground of apologetics (that is, empirical proof) and instead either make lofty claims about how the beliefs cannot be abandoned because they are so traditional or cultural, or speak of how faith is defined precisely by lack of proof. It is that last that I hold special respect for. Not only are they level-headed enough to acknowledge that there is no physical proof for their beliefs, they are also, if tacitly, acknowledging that nothing can actually be known about the nature of God. But, in that vacuum, anything goes. So I cannot fault them for holding their beliefs as they are.
Many theists, however, attack atheists and agnostics as a unit (unfairly, in my view) mainly on the grounds of ethics. They wonder what morals there can be for one who believes in no God.
Morality of an Agnostic
Though this may seem to some an oxymoron, it is nothing of the kind. I have a deep and entrenched morality, which I cherish. So how can an agnostic, atheist, materialist, or skeptic for that matter have any kind of morals? Why be moral at all, if, as I have myself said, serial killers could go to heaven and all others face damnation? Or more commonly cited: if there is no afterlife, and this is all there is, what makes us beholden to our morals? Why not live a life of personal pleasure at the expense of others for all the good it will do?
There are a number of refutations to these common attacks, many of which you will have heard. For starters, doing good things is mutually beneficial for everyone. Scientific data increasingly indicate that our moral compass is inborn, genetic. If this is the case, it is likely the best explanation for it is in evolutionary terms. In fact, every generally agreed upon moral principle has an immediately apparent benefit to society. “Do not kill” is a good idea for everyone to follow so that you do not have to be afraid of being killed, for instance. However, even if the evidence is wrong and it is not genetic, but taught to us at an early age is inconsequential. It serves as a positive force for society that gives us an evolutionary advantage.
Additionally, doing bad things creates a sense of guilt. Of course, for some, it is not, or at least it does not seem to be a problem. So what about those people? How those flukes occur is up for debate, but it is true that they exist. This brings me to more strictly formal ethical theories that need not relate to a God in order to function or be justifiable. The first is utilitarianism.
My ethical sympathies lie with utilitarianism, but that is more because I am an egalitarian at heart than for any other reason. Utilitarianism is the idea that the most righteous acts are those that increase happiness (or utility) by the greatest amount for the greatest number of people. Of course this theory is open to several lines of attack, but I do not adhere to it perfectly strictly. It is merely a good guideline. For instance, I also strongly believe in the idea of human rights. Though they are, of course, totally arbitrary, they are important in that they do not leave things at “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” but go further and list the things that no one wants done to them. If you do those things anyway, you become a human rights abuser. This makes good sense to me, and it provides a useful stopgap for the times when utilitarianism can start to get out of control (as it did in the eugenics movement and later in the Holocaust). The reason I support utilitarianism in this form is chiefly because it conforms most closely with “common sense” ethics, or rather, doing what is generally thought of as “just right.” That is to say, it lines up as a formal theory much more closely than any other with our “inner chimp” morality, as it were.
Indeed, one of the reasons I am confident utilitarianism (or even my modified “human rights utilitarianism”) is not certainly right, goes back, again, to my skeptical underpinnings. One thing about it though that I find very attractive as a skeptic is its commitment to covering its bases. An old criticism of utilitarianism is that it relies on knowing the consequences of an action in advance, that is, knowing how much happiness it will bring. This is a valid criticism, but it is refuted once probability is introduced. They do not claim you can know the consequences of your actions, but they do claim you can produce reasonable odds and act on those. This leads me to an important component of my everyday philosophy, chance.
Probability
I believe probability deserves a healthy respect. We should always think in terms of percent chances instead of in yes and no. This creates moderation and a common sense that reflects the real world, not our idealized notions of it. For instance, it is foolish for me to believe that I am either guaranteed a job or that I have no chance of it. Instead it is more practical to try to assess my chances with sobriety. An example of a real life instance of this idea is in applying for programs, grants, scholarships, internships, jobs, or anything else. Even if the thing you apply for is extremely prestigious or exclusive, it is almost never worth it not to apply because you have such a low chance.
For one thing, you do not truly know how low your chance is. All you know is that you actually do have some chance. You can presume that it is low but you may actually be wrong. So from this view the best thing to do is assess what kind of sacrifice you must make to fill out this application. What are the negative consequences? Usually you lose a few hours of your time, sometimes a small fee. Very infrequently will it cost you anything more than this. You must then judge whether this certain cost is or is not worth the possibility (which you have personally assessed at, say, 2%) of great gain. In my experience when this equation is complete, the conclusion is usually that you should apply.
Doctors employ probability as well. Those of us who are not physicians often think of diagnoses as a certainty. If the doctor says you have strep throat, then you must. In fact, it is not so cut and dry. The doctor merely examines your symptoms and probabilistically assesses them. The chances are high that you have strep because your white blood cell count is up, you have a sore throat, and so on. However, all too often, the illness turns out to be something else entirely. It is not always the case that the doctor did not have any idea this outcome was possible; it was only that its probability was quite low.
Similarly, applied to my broader philosophy, probability has much to teach us. I readily admit that I am certain of nothing. This neatly translates into probabilistic terms – that I am not 100% certain of anything. In some cases of I am more certain than others, but never I am totally certain.
You may wonder how this is possible. If I know nothing, how can I know anything about how certain I am? Well, I cannot. You have not thought wrong in your analysis. But in the world of appearances, everything changes. There are some appearances you can be more certain of than others. That statement in itself, however, is an appearance that I am highly certain of, though not totally certain.
So, if I am 99% certain that my visual appearances are truly accurate, and 98% certain that my memory is accurate, I have a good framework for moving forward. Of course, I can not have any level of certainty whether these “percent certainties” have any accuracy. But it does appear to me that they do, and remember, that is the framework for the world of appearances, which is what I deal in.
Thus I can begin to assign percent chances to all outcomes. At the moment I am 99% certain I am typing. All other outcomes represent the remaining 1%. But let us imagine a person on psychoactive drugs. Their perceptions are considerably altered, and in many cases, they are aware that it is. This means that they, in some cases, can assess their own reliability of perception. Were I on drugs at the moment I might say I am 60% certain I am typing. Other outcomes make up the remainder.
Responding to Criticism
This is the core of my philosophy. However, there are a number of rebuttals to my ideas that I have already encountered or imagine I will encounter. I will attempt to respond to them all in the remaining pages of my philosophy.
The Meaning of Life
Many, including but not limited to theists, would allege that my views leave no room for the meaning of life. Indeed, as I spoke about ethics, many critics may have wondered from what source they were derived. Though I mentioned that our morals exist because they benefit us all mutually, that does not dig into the deeper realm of what constitutes a benefit, or what purpose mutual benefit ultimately serves.
These criticisms lead me to the common question about the meaning of life. Theists maintain that the meaning of life is to serve God, the creator, and many materialists openly admit that they do not believe there is a meaning to life.
However I am now going to appeal to a decidedly non-materialist idea: the argument from purpose. This is usually used by other ideologues to support very different ideas, but in this case I am using it to support my own position.
The argument from purpose maintains that everything observable has a justification for why it is that way and not another. A simple example is why a refrigerator should exist. It exists to refrigerate food, pure and simple. This is its purpose, and thereby its reason for existing rather than not.
I do not maintain as a theist might that this applies everywhere. Why does the sun exist? One answer might be to sustain life on earth, but this is easily contestable. Why should this be the case? The refrigerator is uncontroversial because we built it, and know its purpose. However we did not build the sun to sustain life on earth. A theist might here make a leap of logic and claim that this means someone did create it. This does not follow though. It could have been created for no purpose whatever.
What does follow about the argument from purpose is this, however. Why should anything exist at all? Why not have nothing rather than something?
This may seem silly. However, it is not, it is fundamental. Something must exist for a reason. The question boils down to what is the cause of existence in general? It would seem likely that the meaning of life, if there is one, lies in the answer to this question. I acknowledge at this point from my skeptical basis that it could merely be the cause and effect is not universal and breaks down at this point.
So it may seem all I have established is that there is indeed a meaning in life. Even in a world without God, I maintain, there is a reason or purpose that the universe and whatever else exists, exists. One could even apply this principle to God, if he exists. There is a reason or a purpose for him too.
So though none of us can at the moment discover and publicize the true “meaning of life,” we can rest assured that there is a meaning in life. There is a purpose. Just as God, pondering his own existence, may at times ask, “Why do I exist?” So too, do we. It is a valid question for anything that exists.
But (assuming God is not fully omniscient), God would not actually know why he exists. He could however, deduce from the fact of his existence that he has a reason to exist.
I will admit that it is not certain that this follows. You are now fully aware (perhaps tiresomely so!) that I readily admit to my own uncertainty. But consider this: whether there is a God or not, if there is no meaning to life, then there is no meaning to life.
That sounds like tautology, but bear with me. If God exists and knows that there is no reason he exists, there is no meaning, then it is equally true of us. There is ultimately no meaning out there for us, waiting to be discovered, because it will only lead there. However, if there is no God and the answer is the same, then nothing of note changes. It becomes inconsequential whether God exists, as to the meaning of life (or lack thereof) anyway.
My point is that the “you lack God so you must not have meaning in life” argument is weak. There could be a meaning to life, or there could not. God has nothing to do with it. Because one can easily poke a hole in the theist’s answer to the meaning of life by asking: “But what is the meaning of that?”
So in the meantime, one can only say this: you cannot worry about whether there is or is not a meaning of life, because you cannot know (the skeptic’s refrain, coincidentally). How should we then live (the title of a theist’s book, coincidentally)? Simple: live as if this was the meaning of life: the meaning of life is to find meaning in life.
This works whether there is a meaning in life or not.
Perception and Its Implications
Another point that is often raised against me relates to perception. There are people who maintain that their senses never fail them. There are still others, mostly relativists, who maintain that whatever it is they experience is indeed reality itself. Both attack me on the same grounds: you assume that the real world is something that actually exists and it is something that your senses do not represent completely accurately.
Not so. I do not assume there is a real world. It could be that our senses are totally accurate in every way. It could also be that the only reality is exactly what I experience. As a skeptic I admit all viewpoints. Though you have already heard this mantra, it is worth reiterating, and this is why:
The world is filled with what appear to be paradoxes. Things that cannot possibly coexist. This has led me to a pet belief that no current belief system is totally accurate in representing reality. Each, like a computer program, is prone to periodic “bugs” or inconsistencies. None is immune.
Science struggles with “the meaning of life” and “something from nothing.” The usual scientific response to these dilemmas, though, is not to question the roots of the scientific system but to hold that they are only apparent inconsistencies that will be cleared up after further study. This has proved true in the past but can certainly only lead science so far. Few scientists actually believe that human potential is limitless.
Religions struggle with a great, great many inconsistencies. The Christian Trinity is in itself a logical paradox. Another glaring one is why there is a doubt that God exists when God is omnipotent. The list is very long. My purpose here is not to recite them. Theists often retreat to their personal redoubt: “God works in mysterious ways.”
This is similar to the scientific retreat in that both tacitly admit that it really is an inconsistency, but both also maintain that someone somewhere sometime will clear it up.
But as I have said this cannot go on forever. Imagine someone who believes their senses are totally accurate. Suppose an apparition appears and tells them “your senses are deceiving you!” What does the person then do with their beliefs? They have been informed by their senses that their senses are not accurate!
The point is that there is nothing without a paradox. Every argument can have holes poked in it. So you may consider this my redoubt, though, as a skeptic I have built up multitudinous lines of defense: if you find an inconsistency in my arguments, I can only say that I am not the only one. Few would agree with the statement that this observation means that there is no such thing as truth, however. Perhaps some would, who assert that the truth is that there is not truth, but this position is ironically self-defeating. But the crux of my point is that all positions can be made to appear to be self-defeating. I do not pretend to be immune, since I appear to be susceptible to the same flaws as anyone else.
I will leave you with this encouraging thought, straight from a skeptic’s phrasebook, you who have deigned to glean all my wisdom from me: I have no idea what I’m talking about.
Can someone explain what just happened?
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