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 | Fobo's "Philosophy..." (part 1 rough draft) | |
| Posted By: Forrest of B.org | Date: 4/10/04 12:09 p.m. |
| In Response To: Re: help me out...to read this (Steve Levinson) A PHILOSOPHY OF REALITY, KNOWLEDGE, AND MORALITY
PREFACE This essay is written to explain to myself the fundamental essence of reality, the limits of knowledge, and principles by which to live, as best as I can determine them for myself. It is therefore written entirely in the first person - "I" rather than "we", "people", "humans", etc. I do not wholly expect that my perception and reasoning on such things will neccesarily match yours, if anyone is reading this, for reasons that I will soon explain. Nevertheless if you find this helpful in any way, you are welcome. Any feedback in any form from any one is welcomed as well. I am aware that many philosophers past have thought of and written about many of the concepts that follow, but I did not reach these conclusions by knowingly building upon their works. In most cases I have not even read their works, and I could not, by memory, attribute any given concept to any given philosopher. All that follows is based on things that I have seen, heard, or felt, and my own internal reasoning. Therefore I offer no bibliography or accrediting to others. THE BASIS OF REALITY The reality that I know is, in essence, a set of ideas, beliefs, or information in my mind. That is the only sort of reality which it is possible for me to know, and therefore from my sensitive experience I might say it is the only reality that can be, though I know from cognitive reason that other realities must exist. I have at my disposal two tools with which to build this reality: perception and logic. With my perception, I see, hear, taste, smell, feel, and emote. If I had no logic to connect these perceptions, there could be no causation or explanation for it and no desire for causation or explanation, and all that I sensed would be taken on faith and exist simply as what I sensed. This would be a purely sensitive reality. With my logic, I build rules internally consistant with all that I know. If I had no perception to sense with, there could be nothing against which to test the rules and no need to test them, and all that I thought would be based on reason and exists simply as what I thought. This would be a purely cognitive reality. THE CONTINUUM OF REALITIES The reality that I know is built with a combination of these two tools. "Actual Reality" is whatever is most logically consistent with all that is sensed. I do not always find myself knowing Actual Reality. The reality that I know is a continually changing thing which finds itself on a continuum between Cognitive Reality and Sensitive Reality. I find myself closer to Cognitive Reality when I am contemplating theoretical physics, doing math, or engaged in other purely rational activities. I find myself closer to Sensitive Reality when I am dreaming, listening to music, or engaged in other purely experiential activities. I am closest to Actual Reality when I am rationally evaluating and connecting my experiences, such as when I am practicing martial arts, navigating a strange city, or designing an arts or crafts project. Yet at none of these times am I actually knowing a purely Cognitive or Sensitive reality - even when contemplating theoretical physics, I still sense things around me, and even when dreaming, I make an attempt to construct a reasonable narrative from my experiences. I am not assigning absolute moral values to Cognitive, Sensitive, or Actual Reality. I will say that it is generally good to mostly know a reality closer to Actual Reality, but that knowing a full range of realities across the continuum is important as well. The reasons for this, and the definitions behind my use of the terms "moral" and "good", will be explained by the end of this essay. THE LIMITS OF KNOWLEDGE VIA EXPERIENCE AND REASON Both methods of gaining ideas, beliefs, or information, which I refer to collectively as knowledge, face immediate and hard limits. The limit on reason is that, lacking knowledge from experience, logic must be based on assumption, and the default value of any assumed assertation must be false. This is because one cannot simultaneously hold all assertations to be true, as many assertations will directly contradict one another. Therefore, without experience from which to base reason, all premises used must be assumed false, and any conclusions reached by any such unfounded reason cannot be proven true. In short, I must assume the negative until proven positive. The limit on experience is that no being can experience everything, and thus without logical inferrence one cannot hope to build an accurate reality. The reason why no being can experience everything could be put simply: the information of an experience must be able to fit within the mind of the being experiencing it, therefore any being capable of experiencing 'everything' must be informationally larger (or put another way, more complex) than 'everything', which defies the very concept of 'everything', which must by definition encompass (and therefore be at least as informationally large, or complex as) every being as well. The result of this limit is that, while I need only search a certain subset of 'everything' before I eventually find evidence of a true positive assertion, I cannot ever finish searching for evidence of a true negative assertion. (Of course if an assertion is false I can never find evidence of it). In short, I cannot prove a negative, only a positive. The net effect of these two limits on knowledge-gathering is that I cannot reasonably back an assertion of faith (though I may be able to infer the probable truth through experience), but that I cannot experientially disprove any such assertion either (though I may be able to deduce a contradictory assertion from experience). Therefore in Actual Reality, with logic and experience given equal merit, agnosticism (admitting the lack of knowledge) is the only answer to questions of pure faith or reason (such as, for example, the existance of God), until such questions have experiential evidence fit into valid logic to answer them. THE AGNOSTIC BASIS OF MORALITY IN ACTUAL REALITY For the remainder of this essay I am going to assume the premise, based on my experiences and the logical conclusions thereby derived, that there exist other beings similar to myself, possessing the above outlined tools and limits with regard to reality and knowledge. I will refer to them as people. I make the additional assumption that like me they possess what is commonly called "will", which is namely a desire for a particular reality to be known. I will also be limiting all further discussion to terms of Actual Reality, because as stated above and explained below, it is generally more good. The basis of most moral codes is founded either in pure faith ("I was told this, therefore it is") or in pure reason ("I think this, therefore it is"). These moral codes function well in the minds people who know mostly Sensitive or Cognitive realities, but not well for those people who know Actual Reality, because their basis' ignore half of the tools used to form a knowledge of Actual Reality. Therefore I will now discuss an agnostic basis for morality based not on any unfounded faith or reason, but on the very definition of the word itself. "Moral" can generally be taken as synonymous for "good", in the sense of the word "good" that is used to describe an action as right or desirable. Therefore a moral code is a set of guidelines to limit actions to those which are good. I have just given a qualitive definition for "good" already - that which is desirable - but a functional definition must be quantative as well. A functional quantative definition is "an action which makes more people more happy for more time is more good," where "happiness" is "knowing the satisfaction of desire." (The term 'knowing' is important here because if a person has desires satisfied but is not made aware of those desires and thus their satisfaction, that person will not be happy). Good has already been defined as that which is desirable, therefore happiness (the satisfaction of desires) is good, and more happiness, in more people, more often, is more good. The three individual quantities of the above definition are individual happiness, the duration of that happiness, and number of individuals. Obviously the quantity of happiness is directly proportional to the amount of good, and the other two are also clearly direcly proportional via the application of simple arithmatic. The consequences of the second two quantities, however, are important: the 'number of people' quantity dictates that one person's actions to further their own happiness at the greater expense of others cannot be considered "good"; and the 'duration of happiness' quantity dictates that the end reality of an action does not justify the means of an action, as all moments, including the means, are considered end realities of equal value. QUANTITATIVE QUALITIES OF GOAL REALITIES TO ORIENT GOOD ACTIONS TOWARD Actions are taken to execute the will of a person, where will was previously defined as the desire to know a particular reality. Therefore actions aim to create a particular reality for a person to know. It should then be possible to list qualities of such realities that will be created by actions which are good, by the above definition. I will list three such important qualities. The first quality is 'knowledge'. A reality in which people know more is a reality in which more means to make people happy will be known, more people will be known as people (as opposed to considering some beings which are actually people as non-persons), and more ways to make happiness endure. To use analogy, knowledge is being able to see more targets, aim better, and hit them longer. The second quality is 'variety'. A reality with more variety is more likely to have something to make someone happy sometime. To use the above analogy, variety is like firing more shots at more targets at once. The third quality is 'balance'. A reality in which things are more balanced is statistically more likely to please more people, as most parts of any random set are commonly near the middle of that set. To use the above analogy, balance is like firing through the middle of a cloud of targets, where most of them are. CONCLUSION As promised, here is now my rationalization for why mostly knowing Actual Reality is generally good, but knowing realities closer to Cognitive Reality and Sensitive Reality is also very important. This conclusion serves not only to bring this essay around full circle but also to illustrate an example of the principles laid out above in determining an action - namely, the knowing of a particular reality. The reason for the first premise, that mostly knowing Actual Reality is generally good, is that balance, as stated above, is good, and Actual Reality is a balance between Cognitive Reality and Sensitive Reality. The reasons for the second premise, that knowing realities closer to Cognitive Reality and Sensitive Reality are also very important, are that other realities add variety, which is also good, and that knowing other realities obviously increases a person's knowledge, which is also good. Not all people should always know exactly Actual Reality. Some people may always lean toward more Sensitive or Cognitive realities, or swing between them for different periods of time. However, most people should usually know a reality close to Actual Reality. | |
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