The Purpose of Life

Thinkers, philosophers, theologians even scientists have struggled with this question for tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of years. 

Having been religious I thought I had it all figured out. If I may quote the intro to The Used's song, 'take it away':

"Life's greatest questions have always been: Who am I? Where did I come from? Why am I here? Where am I going? You are about to see and hear one of the most significant messages given to us from God."

Those are the questions that religions promise to answer. And I believed mine had the answers until I questioned my religion and found it lacking. It wasn't until after that experience that I found myself reborn, a wanderer in a strange land, again in my infant state, knowing nothing of my existence. It was then that I realized, "My God! I'm going to have to think for myself."

I realized after I left my religion that there was no one purpose to life. There were infinite purposes to life. "The Purpose of Life" is an incomplete sentence, it should be "The Purpose of Life for Me." This is because everyone is different, everyone has different desires.

That middle question, "Why am I here?" is the most important of the bunch. "Who am I?" and "Where did I come from?" helped to answer that question for me. But here I don't want to talk much about the journey; I just want to talk about the conclusion that I've come to so far. 

Instead of living this life for the next I ought to start living this life for this life.

I think children know this. When children are asked, "If you could give adults one piece of advice what would it be?" They respond most often with something along these lines, "have more fun." 

I remember growing up and the need to have fun everyday was very important. During our family prayer at night the kids would usually say something like this, "and help us have a good day tomorrow and to have fun."

A few weeks ago I went through a Stanford course online in philosophy. The topic was the purpose of life. In the course the professor discussed the hedonistic viewpoint in particular to his other musings: that the point of life is to just have the most pleasure possible.

I think this point of view might superficially resemble the child's point of view because at their maturity level they most often express desires to have fun and they express the most delight at pleasures such as candy. But I believe even children have other budding desires that go beyond the hedonistic point of view. 

Even as a 3rd or 4th grader I remember being disappointed in my schooling and it wasn't just because I wasn't having enough fun. I wished they taught more science, I wished I was doing useful stuff there. It felt like a waste of time. In other words I had a desire to learn and be fulfilled in my school work. 

So the hedonistic point of view is not really my point of view, but much like the child's point of view on this topic I think it has a superficial resemblance.

The most efficient way to happiness for children is having fun. And I think that is the purpose to life - to be happy. To me that means to be fulfilled, content, peaceful, at times excited, curious, and the whole range of emotions that constitute lifelong happiness. I know that's partly tautological but we'll start exploring it now. 

Nothing has meaning except the meaning you give it.

Contrary to the religious belief everything only has the meaning you give it. If life has any meaning at all for you it is you that has given life that meaning. You are the one that has assigned the value to life. Money means nothing to swine. Spectator sports mean nothing to me. Even the words on this screen are just symbols and only have meaning in your mind. Your whole world is in your mind.

So, exploring the meaning of life either consciously or subconsciously is very important. Children do this naturally (subconsciously) and often come to the conclusion that having fun everyday is the most successful way to be happy. Ultimately we all do what we want. Therefore you could define the meaning of life simply as what you want, then start defining that. 

I'm sorry if this sounds like I'm rambling, these are all the important thoughts I've had on the matter and I really just want to get them recorded. 

What are the different aspects to being happy? Or in other words, what are the different things I want in my life?  The answer to that question is the answer to the purpose of life for me.

I definitely want the aspect of fun.

I want to have fun with friends and to have play in my world. This can take the form of sports, video games, even (I am tempted to say) spirited debates for these all include cooperation and/or competition and entertainment.

Fun is an interesting thing because it has some ineffable quality about it. (Ineffable because I don't understand why its fun but I know when I'm having it). I suppose this "fun aspect of life" is a more general thing than just play. You can enjoy yourself and "have fun" in my different activities in life. I mean being cheerful, making jokes, being entertained, experiencing pleasure, being joyful, having a good time. I'm gonna lump all these into one word for now: fun. 

I think like the children do, I want to be sustained on a steady diet of fun every day. 

I also want to feel fulfilled in my work.

This has been a hard one for me to figure out. I used to believe that I couldn't be happy in my work as long as I was working for someone else, or perhaps even as long as I was indeed working at all. I equated working to drudgery and I still do to a much lesser extent. This is of course because it was all I had experienced.

However, my study of economics, management and entrepreneurship has lead me to a partial paradigm shift. Without going into details here I now can and do see value in belonging to a group and doing something with and for the larger society.

I realized that employment vs entrepreneurship is really a false dichotomy in many minds. Every employee is in business for himself and his business is to provide his labor or specialized services to his employer. Every employer is nothing more than an employee of sorts to his customers and a consumer of his employee's goods. In many ways (not all) its a distinction without a difference.

This understanding has caused me to take more pride in my work because it allows me to view myself as an acting agent, a dignified individual on par in the free will department with my bosses, managers, supervisors and employers. Danial Pink got it right in my case when he deduced that many employees want more autonomy, purpose and mastery over their work. I would also add progression.

I was going to make a different heading to talk about success in life but I think I can fit it in here. I've set for myself certain career goals that constitute what looks like long-term financial and entrepreneurial success for me. So setting myself goals that will progress my life and lead to future happiness, then achieving those goals is success to me. And as far as my work is concerned I have a few goals set:

I want to move up and out of my current position at work into a different type of labor as a programmer. I would like to make as much or more money on my own entrepreneurial projects as I do at my career.

Besides those two goals I have a more long-term goal of doing or being a part of something that makes a difference in the world. What I mean by that is breaking the status quo; doing it better or asking if it needs to be done at all. Instead of working for a company that does something the same way its always done it I want to (at some point) head into the fray and do something new, be on the cutting edge, create a new innovation that will ripple it's influence throughout time and improve the future of not only my life but many others as well.


I want to be fulfilled in my intimate relationships.

This is also something that I feel I've consciously known for a short time, but subconsciously understood forever: what an intimate relationship is. 

I think a lot of people including myself at times are most comfortable with a "working relationship" with most of the people in their lives. But an intimate relationship with someone requires that you understand each other from the ground up and love what you see.

Take any evil person as an example, any person without morals, a sense of right and wrong without empathy for others, take any sadist. Lets take the most iconic of all.

Hitler was an evil man, and if I knew him, or even now if I study him I could know him from the ground up. By that I mean I could understand him and his values, the reasons he behaves the way he does. But I couldn't love him. I really don't think I could because our values are so different. Christians have this idea that you should love everyone even if they're evil. but I think that's rewarding sadism.

Love is not empathy. I could have empathy for Hitler I could explore his past and feel some of his pain perhaps but that does not mean I could love him. I'm still working all this out but I think love is something more innate. The real question is could Hitler love me? I don't think that is possible. Anything he would call love is not my definition of love. I think if we used the same word to mean different things, that would be an insult to the people I claim to love.

That's why I agree with Stefan Molyneux when he said that "Love is our involuntary response to virtue." More specifically I think that definition only applies to virtuous people: love is a virtuous person's involuntary or emotional response to virtue in others. I don't think a Hitler has the capacity to love.

So to have a loving and emotionally intimate relationship I think you need two people that are both virtuous that can take delight and joy out of knowing and experiencing the other person. I'm striving for excellence in this area and I want more of these kinds of people in my life.


I've always wanted to know the truth about every goddamn thing. 

I'm very curious and I take a tremendous amount of satisfaction out of learning about the world I live in. My favorite is when I learn something that changes the way I see every other thing - a paradigm shift. Those moments are awesome. I'm not going to say anything more about this, but if you're more curious about how I feel go watch "the Joy of Discovery" on youtube by melodysheep. It is sufficient to say that the quest for truth is a massive part of my purpose of life.

I want to know myself.

The above answer to my purpose of life is not a finished product. It's a beta version, maybe an alpha version. But it rests upon a foundation of something that I don't see changing for a long time: using my emotions as a guide in this quest for happiness.

Its good to feel anger when you know why you feel anger and you're comfortable with the reason. Same goes for sadness, I think its generally unhealthy to feel happy at a funeral. And I think its generally unhealthy if you don't feel anger in an abusive environment. 

So one tool we have to understand ourselves as humans is our emotional state. I'm in the process of making a new habit: if I find myself feeling an emotion that is unpleasant or that I feel is inappropriate I try to question why I'm feeling that way. And I don't try to artificially control those feelings. My limbic system doesn't care if these emotions are inconvenient or "wrong" it only tells me the truth about how I feel. 

So far I've learned about myself using this method. I've also learned about myself by studying science. A very broad understanding of artificial intelligence, neurology, sociology, psychology, genetics, evolution, and most recently child development all help me understand who, or rather, what I am.

In my quest for happiness I think its of paramount importance to know myself.

To me the purpose of life is to be happy.

The Buddhist (and other eastern philosophies) do this by giving up their personal desires for this life in preference for an indifferent and apathetic existence. 

The Theist (Muslims, Christians, and in my previous case Mormons) do this by giving up their personal desires in this life in preference for the hope of a happy, fulfilling paradise hereafter. 

I've rejected these ideas. To me the purpose of this life is to be happy and that can't be done by denying your personal desires. Tempering them, negotiating with them surely will lead to sustained happiness but denying them, being a dictator over your own self fragments the self and isn't fun.

Having realized that there is no one purpose to life, that there is no meaning in anything except the meaning I give it, I now believe that my purpose in life is to be happy because this is the only life I get.

The Ultimate Value in Political Philosophy

Due to this post's title I expect that nobody will ever endeavor to read it. 

Regardless, I want to summarize the process by which I came to my current political philosophy. 

During recent evaluations of the "Climate Change" proposal (and I call it a proposal rather than theory because it implies action is required) I've realized what the measuring tool is that I use when confronted with new ideas.

By "measuring tool" I mean my ultimate value, the thing I care about most when trying to make sense of a new idea. 

Moral philosophy is my natural and first concern when evaluating new ideas related to how we organize ourselves as a society. This has not always been the case.

I studied economics studiously a few years ago and economic efficiency became my measuring stick. I realized that so many things the government tries to control would be better handled by the free market. Mixed with a natural inclination to be free I embraced the ideology of libertarianism.

After seeing a trend of bad economic policy in government and improved quality with lower costs in the free market I concluded that government's place was not in any affairs the free market could handle on its own.

Where did this push government? I wouldn't want my food being grown by the government, that's just a given. Neither would I want my cell phone or car created by the government, so it has to be pushed out of technology as much as possible. 

Government's place got pushed out of the post office, obviously, then out of education, and certainly out of the medical industry. They're pretty shitty when it comes to monetary policy, they shouldn't do trade wars and actually all regulations are commercial regulations so they all need to go.

Government became for me for a short while the "Government of the Gaps." Every time I would look into 'who does better at x; government or free market?' It always turned up free market and government got pushed out of everything, one industry at a time. That is, it got pushed out of nearly everything.

All it was to do in my "minarchist" view was national defense, police, and maybe handling of the law and courts because these are the things government does best: issue verdicts and kill people. 

Like I said, economics was my measuring tool and it managed to take me that far. But just as vacuum tubes were replaced by a new paradigm so was my thinking about to make a quantum leap forward. While wrestling with the question of whether or not the court system could be run with greater economic efficiency by the free market (which I now believe it could) I realized my measuring stick was inadequate. 

I had been asking the wrong question.

National defense, police, law and courts - all these things cost money. And where does government get its' money? From the people. Put more accurately government steals the people's money. This is called taxation.

Stealing is immoral and immorality trumps economic efficiency. I knew this was true by looking at my own life: it would be very economically efficient for me to steal the income I need to live if I had the opportunity, but I wouldn't do it because it would be immoral.

I realized this: morality trumps economic efficiency. Therefore if government must steal in order to pay its policemen, soldiers and judges I could not support such a minimalist government regardless of economic efficiency.

And that's where I stand today. Everyone seems to have a 'measuring stick' or 'ultimate value' they use to evaluate new ideas (especially when the realization of those ideas have implications on how we organize ourselves as a society).

Some people care mostly about what is fair. Equality is the word for them. If some people are rich, and others are poor, well that just wont do. Everyone deserves to be happy and no one should have less than anyone else. I believe having this as an ultimate value presupposes that someone is dishing out the goodies, that someone is in charge of all the wealth. And if that was the case then yes, equality is only fair; all the kids should have the same number of toys.

Other people are quick to defer the question to a higher authority. I get this a lot from those that are religious in my parents' generation. Its almost as if they believe they shouldn't think about these issues because God is judge, its not their place, their just children.

If equality is your ultimate value then equality trumps morality. Jack has more than Jane so take from Jack and give to Jane. Problem solved! 

If religious doctrine is your ultimate value (which it may have been for me as a teenager, so I get it) then religious doctrine trumps morality. Oh, Jack is a homosexual so he's bad. Problem solved!

I really cannot think of any other method or measuring tool or ultimate value that is more important to me than asking, "is this moral?" Of course that statement is totally tautological because of course I feel that way - its my ultimate value. But anyway, I have to reject any other ultimate value because they all seem to have childish-like, unempowering, and illogical premises inherent in them. 

Maybe equality is morality to you - whatever make everyone equal makes everyone have the same amount of happiness so that's what is right. Or maybe whatever God says is your definition of morality; if God says this is bad, then it must be bad even if it doesn't make logical sense. 

Well neither of those are morality to me. My definition of what's wrong is very simple. Whatever is the initiation of aggression is wrong. You can kind of approximate that idea by living by the golden rule, but basically aggression isn't necessarily bad because that could be self defense, but the initiation of aggression is bad because there is no excuse, its just unprovoked attack. Stealing, rape, assault, murder, even fraud is under that umbrella of initiation of aggression so all those things are bad. 

If that's not your definition of morality then give it some thought and really pin down what you think is right and wrong. Its possible you could have a definition I've never thought of before. That would be cool to hear about.  

I think any ultimate value that can trump moral considerations (and can therefore lead to aggression) should really be given a lot of thought. Its a heavy issue and deserves a lot of seriousness. Besides that it really feels good to be consistent. 

Extra Credit for my Econ Class

My Experience at the Republican caucus at Quail Elementary School

Assignment for my Economics Class

Jordan Miller

March 20th 2014

I went to the republican caucus with my dad and my girl friend and it was pretty awful. I was in high spirits as we parked a block away (because it was so packed) and walked to the school. There was a line out the entrance because people were stationed there pointing attendees to the rooms associated with their respective precincts. Once we squeezed our way though we made our way to the cafeteria room to sit at low to the ground, hard uncomfortable tables for the next 3 hours. My spirits began to fall.

Before we sat down we stood in another line to register. When it was my turn I politely informed the nice old lady that I was already a registered republican but that I preferred not to be and asked her how to unregister as such. I could tell by the way she stared at me that she was offended and wondered if this was a joke in bad taste. It was not a joke. The lady next to her told me to call the “county office.” I thanked her and didn't hold up the line by requesting clarification.

It wasn't long before the festivities began but in the interim I overheard a conversation about the Crimean issue between Russia and Ukraine. The speaker seemed to have the opinion that the entire issue didn't concern the USA in principal or practicality and I was inclined to agree with his point of view finding it logically consistent with universal moral values. Unfortunately, that was the most bit of reason I was to hear all night.

The lady running the whole shindig was named Lori Zinoni, she was an abrasive, avid patriot with a voice that could carry throughout the entire room unassisted. She introduced herself as “the chair,” explained lied that this would be 2 hour event and called on someone to pray.

I found my mind wandering as it often does during prayer. What would have happened if the prayer was said in Arabic? Or the God addressed was Yahweh? Then the speaker said something, “...we are gathered in the spirit of patriotism...” Patriotism, what does that mean? Love for one’s country? Why should one love his country? Would the country need to be worthy of that love? How could it prove it was? Who would be doing the proving? Is a country the same as its government?

Then another word caught my attention, “...help us carry out our responsibilities…” What responsibilities? To whom am I responsible? Should my allegiance and responsibility to my country enticed by what my country does for me or is it simply my duty, no questions asked? Is he talking about government or society? The prayer was over before I knew it.

But the questions were not. The very next thing Chair-lady-Zinoni did was to inform us that we will now pledge allegiance to the flag. But with such heavy questions in my heart how could I pledge my allegiance? And why to a flag? A flag doesn't give orders, people do. The more I thought about it the more questions I had and the more every word anyone said sounded like war obsessed death-cult propaganda. Well maybe that's a little too harsh...maybe not.

Next was the reading of the Salt Lake County Republican platform. I don’t think I could find a more wishy washy, self-contradictory and terrifying document if I tried. Let me just give you a few examples of what I’m talking about.

Exhibit A. “We...declare our support for government based upon a moral and spiritual foundation.” That's in the first sentence. Alright. First of all, what is a spiritual foundation? An incorporeal foundation? An ethereal foundation? Aren't those contradictions in terms? I don’t know what to make of it so lets move on to moral.

Government by its very nature is the initiation of force against its own citizens. If there is no initiation of force (ie taxation, drafting to war, arbitrary laws etc.) there is no government. The initiation of force (ie violence, theft, etc.) is immoral. By using the logic a=b=c, a=c we can fundamentally prove that Government is itself an immoral institution. Here let me spell it out: violence=evil, government=violence, government=evil.

So it makes no sense to “declare our support for government based on a moral” anything. The differences in immorality of government from one state to another is one of degree rather than kind, they’re all intrinsically immoral because the concept of government is an immoral concept. This is the first example of self-contradiction in the document, there were many more.

Can I just say, apart from being terrified about the logical inconsistency and replete statements of contradictory principles in this document, it also housed many specific beliefs I found to be disturbing. For instance, it referenced securing our borders at least twice, vast military might at least twice and reference God several times. I found these assertions particularly disturbing because none of them are born from reason and they’re all born from prejudice. And with repetition red flags were waving.

It was also uncanny that the writers of the document obviously understood that the “power to tax is the power to control” If I remember correctly. I say this is uncanny because they’re not able to comprehend that controlling others is wrong (otherwise they would be for the elimination of all taxes). Understanding the power of taxation so completely but not comprehending the immorality of using that power utterly proves the writers (and adopters) of this document are in every practical respect amoral.

That is a terrifying thing to realize when you find yourself surrounded by neighbors, nodding their heads to such dogmatic propaganda. Oh, its freakishly chilling to realize these people you interact with everyday, people you grew up with don’t have any fundamental moral principles and will do whatever suits their needs.

After the document was read in its infinite entirety we had a blessing or a curse depending on your point of view. Apparently in my dad’s district there lives a senator, Wayne Niederhauser, or something. Great, an actual professional politician. This night just keeps getting better and better. Well he stood up and said a few words which felt like a few hundred thousand.

He would not shut up! He talked about his career, about how great the caucus system is because he gets more face time with voters, oh and hes up for re-election next year by the way. He talked about how he has to be in session for a full 45 days out of the year! Wow, that's rough. I almost walked out.

You know these politicians do nothing for society, he even admitted it, he said, “you don’t want us to be in session longer because then we’d pass more bills which is not a good thing, you don’t want us passing more bills.” And he said it with a smile on his face as if the fact that he is aware of how he makes life harder on people and leeches off the public was a joke. I didn't laugh. What a douche.

When asked about the common core he gave a few basics but then said, “I’m not qualified to assess that” when it came to the details. Well if he’s not qualified to assess that then who is? Is it not his job to be qualified to assess that? He is the one voting after all. Besides how hard can it be? What, he can’t assess elementary math?

But when it came time to explain voting rights and procedures he knew all about that. He was able to tell us in precise detail what counties were able to vote on what, did you know counties that are on city lines can do this or that blah blah blah I stopped listening. Enough about Senator good-for-nothing.

On to elections! Elections are a silly thing. An interesting thing too. My father will send back a meal if it isn't what he wanted. He doesn't buy one-size-fits all shoes he buys his exact size. But when it comes to voting if he doesn't get exactly what he wants, meh, no biggy.

And why does he let it slide? Why does he settle for one-size-fits-all when it comes to government? Because he knows they are capable of nothing greater. He knows they are not as robust as the free market, he knows they don’t have to entice him or persuade him, they are the ones with all the guns after all. No, voting for a one size-fits-all (something he wouldn't stand for in freedom) seems like a privilege in captivity.

The fact that nobody can see this, or the fact that everybody will ignore this kinda freaks me out a bit. Honestly it does. And that is why after the votes were cast (which I did not take part in) and the chairs and delegates chosen I got the hell out of there, never to return again.

I’ll give you a bottom line of my experience - it was a total and complete waste of time.

The Beginning of Wisdom

The Artist in Me

I think my mother is an artist but she has reservations about that label. She says an artist is more creative, that they can draw things out of their head. What she does is more exacting. She takes a photograph and replicates it perfectly in pencil or some other medium on a larger canvas. She usually employs this talent to create portraits of loved ones. She draws things she can see.

In high school I took a few art classes but did not display such potential. I asked her how she did it and she explained her method to me. "Nothing has lines in the real world," she said, "draw the object not the lines." Her advice was simple to understand but hard to implement; she told me to draw what I see, not what I think I see.

Though taking her advice was difficult in drawing 101 I think its really good advice and I've tried to apply it in other ways. 

One way I've tried to apply it is my worldview. I try to see the world as it really is, not as I think it is and not as I'd like it to be. I will admit that I've been absolutely terrible at doing this at times but I feel like I'm improving. Just like realistic drawing it is a skill you have to hone. 

I've turned my attention to the fundamentals. If you're going to try to understand things you might want to start by asking what it means 'to understand' in the first place.


How Does the Brain Understand?

Our brains are the computers that house everything we know. Actually a computer isn't the best analogy to describe the brain. It would be more accurate to describe the brain (or at least the neocortex part of the brain) as a memory system. It remembers stuff and connects that stuff to other stuff to recognize patterns both spatially and temporally. In short the brain creates models and nothing more. 

When you think of what's in your fridge your brain doesn't actually transport through time and space to reference what is actually in your fridge, it simply remembers what you saw in the fridge last time you looked. It has created a model and then refers to that model when you remember stuff. This is knowledge: creating models of the data our brains perceive.

The actual mechanism by which this is done is entirely fascinating but its not important to our topic. What's really important is to keep in mind that the brain doesn't have direct access to the real world, it simply gets electrical impulses, detects patterns in those impulses and builds models, that's it. Those models are always approximations, they've got assumptions, they've got flaws, they're nice but they're never perfect. 

Now, there's kind of a scary implication of this idea: what if someone could get control of your brain and feed it data that wasn't true? You'd never know. This means we could all be in the matrix or just be brains in jars interfacing with some super computer and guess what - we'd never know it; that reality would be beyond your sensing capabilities. We'll come back to that implication later, for now lets get back to the basics of epistemology. 

That answer (that the brain creates models) comes from a neurological point of view but there are other options we should explore. Remember that all models have assumptions? Neurology makes a certain philosophical (and practical) assumption at the outset; that the brain is the mind, that there is no soul. Thinking about this question in a neurological light means believing that the mind or cognition or consciousness is nothing more than an emergent property that grows out of neuron to neuron interactions.

Neurologist make the assumption that there is no soul then do experiments that imply the same. That doesn't seem fair and we want to scrutinize and tease out the assumptions in our thinking. So lets look at this question of epistemology again taking the belief in a soul into consideration.


What Can I Know for Sure?

René Descartes, a philosopher living in the 1600's believed man had a soul (or a spirit). He did a thought experiment about a demon that had full control over him and his thoughts. Descartes concluded that if that were the case he couldn't trust his knowledge about anything... except one thing. Even in that case the demon would be manipulating someone, some mind. And what if the thought experiment was real? Could he ever know that it wasn't? Certainly not.

Descartes concluded that he couldn't unequivocally trust any knowledge he had except the knowledge that he was experience something, thinking something, being there. You know it the whole, "I think therefore I am" theme. As a matter of fact, he's the one that said it in the first place, "cogito ergo sum."


In Conclusion 

So it seems that science and philosophy come the same ending on this topic: nothing can be known for absolutely certain save the conclusion that I am experiencing something.

Well, that's all folks! The End. El Fin.

Or is it? That is where a lot of intellectuals end, actually. And I just think that's appalling.

To end there is to say we can't know for sure therefore we shouldn't try and that's just wrong. One side of the epistemology coin is to recognize our limitations. The other side of the coin is to create models.

First you ask, "What can I know for sure?" Then you ask, "What do I do with everything else?"

The answer? Model it.

Why Model the World?

What else is there to do but try to make sense of the world? Lets look back at science for an answer to this question, lets look at evolution.  

Why do our brains model the world around them? So that we can avoid death. A big brain gave our species evolutionary advantage. We're able to make informed decisions. We're able to act on large amounts of data. We're able to build bigger models and understand cause and effect in our world better. That is the benefit of modeling the world around you: so that you can get along well in it. 

And guess what, you have an upper hand. Having the correct understanding about what you can and can't know for certain actually makes you better at understanding the world. 

This is because you can keep an open mind, knowing that everything you think you know might be wrong. You're quicker to challenge your own assumptions precisely because you recognize them as assumptions. You're more patient when others prove you wrong. You're not married to ideas, you recognize that you're just an observer and if something you think is true is actually false you'd like to know it. 

No scientist wants to waste time working on an incorrect theory, the faster they can disprove their own theories the faster they can learn new things. 


How to Understand the World.

There has been a lot of theory about how to best understand the world. Firstly, you've got The Scientific Method. Its got a pretty good track record. This is the idea that you have a question about the world. You then construct an experiment and hypothesis, view the results and build a theory (a model) to answer your question.

Another notable method for coming to 'truth' is to get in the habit of using Socratic Reasoning. That's where you try to find exceptions to your assumptions. That seems to be a good way of getting to principle, you break everything down until you get to a situation without exceptions.

Those methods are great fun and help a lot in modeling the world around us. And already we understand them better: Socratic Reasoning and The Scientific Method give us truth* (with an asterix). 

*There's always a caveat like, Socratic Reasoning is true so long as logic is true. This or that scientific theory is true if the results of our experiments are indicative of reality. Of course nobody actually speaks this way, it would be terribly redundant, its just implied.  

In other words, truth is relative to the sphere in which it is placed. Is there such thing as objective truth then? Is there even such thing as objectivity? Yes there is to a point. Yes there is with assumptions.

If you assume that the world we see really is the world in reality then yes, there is objective truth because we can all see stuff and agree the sky is blue, the birds are chirping, the ice cream is cold. But if you dig deeper to the point of questioning what you experience as reality (if you think you're hallucinating for example) then objectivity breaks down and like René realized, subjectivity is the only fundamental truth.  

But that shouldn't get you down. Every scientific advancement is built on other scientific models which are built fundamentally on assumption (verified assumption but assumption still). That doesn't mean the lights have stopped working, that doesn't mean the insulin doesn't help, we're fine. 

In fact we're better than fine, scientific advancement, technological innovation has given us every material thing we love from toenail clippers to iPads! Seriously, a very good track record.

We're not building models on a sandy foundation, we're just recognizing that the bedrock of how we understand our perception is fundamentally made of sand. 

The Downside of a Big Brain: You Realize Your Models are Inadequate.

This might all sound very confusing and I think that has more to do with my inability to communicate than the complexity of the subject matter. Either way you may be ready to throw in the towel and say that line of intellectual despair, "Who's to say, really?" 

Don't do it. Look, the scientific method and Socratic Reasoning are helpful ways of creating models out of data. They don't validate the data as actual reality in any fundamental way. 

But we humans yearn for that validation. We wanna know things are real, we wanna know if there's an afterlife before we find out. We wanna know what came before the big bang and what will transpire after the end of time. I get it. I wanna know those things and so many other things too. 

But I can't. We can't, well we probably can't. 

There are some who profess to have those answers and many others. Human history is full of superstition, irrationality, myths, legends, self deception, foolishness, and dare I say it, insanity. 


How to NOT Understand the World.

Here's how to make sure you don't build rational models of the world; have prejudice. 

Prejudice is bad, isn't it? Prejudging, making a judgment call before you have reason to make a judgment call. In short believing something without reason or even despite evidence to the contrary. That's bad.

We recognize this as rude, unintelligent and immoral when it comes to people but when it comes to belief, we don't make the connection. Maybe that's because we don't want to offend people's feelings. Well that's nice and we should respect other's feelings.

But believing things without or in spite of reason and evidence can be very dangerous. Just having the tendency potentially gives others control over you because if they can make you believe something without evidence to the point that you'll act on that belief then they can control your actions. Um... its usually called lying. And not only can you be harmed but others as well. 

A person or population that believes things without reason or in spite of evidence to the contrary can do terribly destructive things. What if you believed that a certain type of people (that you didn't know well) were evil and that by killing them you were doing them a favor, preserving for them a spot in a heaven that you've never seen? That's a pretty obvious example of prejudice and it strikes me how similar faith is to prejudice.

Turns out faith is prejudice. Faith is judging without reason or in spite of evidence. Don't fight me on this; faith in order to be faith must be a the deliberate choice to believe despite contrary evidence or as the Hebrews 11:1 says, without evidence. If what you believe is obvious, if you have evidence you could no longer have faith. Faith's defining feature is the very definition of prejudice.

But if you think I'm picking on religion think again. What if you believed that your government (which you know little about) was supremely benevolent and that by waging war in another country you were actually bringing them democracy (a the supposed ideal which you've never experienced and which literally means mob rule)? Well then you'd be just as dangerous, except probably a little more because you have an army. Looks like patriotism is prejudice too.

Look, I've given you two examples of how to understand the world accurately and what comes of it and I've given you two examples how to avoid understanding the world accurately and what comes of it.

I began employing the former methods and I stopped employing the latter. You may love the implications I've come to or you may hate them. Either way I promise not to go and make any more religious or political statements moving forward. Because this post is focused on the beginning, not the end of wisdom.


The Super Reality

At the beginning of this post I outlined a benefit of recognizing the fundamental limits of knowledge. Now I've got a another benefit to add: The lines between fantasy and reality don't get blurred so easily.

There's probably some nut out there who literally believes that he's in the matrix. You know with the Neo and the bullet-time and the slimy pink fluid? He probably thinks its all real. He believes in a super reality. A reality that is by definition imperceptible, beyond reason and evidence. 

The matrix super reality is fundamentally no different than the brains in jars super reality or René Descartes' evil demon super reality. You can't detect anything of that reality, you can't weigh reason and evidence concerning it and you can't change it. It is for all intents and purposes not real, but it could be.

And so what if it is so what if we are in the matrix? You might say I'm like the evil guy in that show, give me my stake and make it taste good! Except the matrix wasn't a super reality for him, it was reality, he could see it, he knew what was going on. 

The matrix super reality is like any other - totally irrelevant. Sure, we could all be biological slaves to power hungry machines but that doesn't mean we can't have a good time. I personally don't subscribe to any super realities if I can help it because if I have no reason to choose one superstition over the others... well that's not fair to all the rest. Does Zeus or the sun God Ra deserve such discrimination? 

The problem with super realities (and fantasies of any kind, really) is that when they are taken seriously problems big and small usually occur. If our hero who thinks he's in the matrix starts killing white men in black suits and sunglasses then we've got problems. 

When fantastic beliefs cause people to act in our shared reality here on earth the consequence happen in our actual shared earthy reality and the fantastic repercussions (of getting rid of agent smith) remain fantasy.

Most people have some kind of super reality they somewhat or totally believe is that actual reality of the universe beyond what they can see, sense or logically derive. This could be a stubborn mystic belief such as, "everything happens for a reason." This could also be something more detailed and formal such as a religion. The trick is to recognize the limitations of knowledge; if its beyond your senses or logic its a super reality.  

Super Realities are fantasies or even theories about an actual reality that can't be validated by reason or evidence. The Super Reality requires faith to believe it to be true. Super Realities are dangerous because they are inherently prejudice.

I think believing in a super reality is a symptom of a larger problem - not being able to recognize the limits of our knowledge. People want to know what is true because they believe they can actually determine what is fundamentally true. When the limits of what we can actually know are acknowledged, however, the question changes from "what is true?" to "what makes the most sense given what I can see?" The question is one of modeling the world around us not finding absolute truth we can latch on to.


The Beginning of Wisdom

You may have noticed that I've been trying to define things as we go as often as it is practical. I defined knowledge as modeling the world, reality as perception and truth as the theoretical reality that those models indicate. I defined prejudice in detail and with examples, I defined faith and super realities. 

This is because I want to communicate well and we should be on the same page as much as possible. Confucius said that "The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name." If you share a definition of 'red' with someone you can start to communicate about red. But if you don't share the definition communication is hard. 

I think the same principle can be applied to one's own mind. If you have a clear and unchanging definition of faith you can compare that definition to science or prejudice and see things more clearly than if your definition of faith was ambiguous or ever changing. 

This way of thinking improves the quality of your communication with yourself which means you can create better models of the world faster. Whenever I'm confused I start defining stuff.


The Artist

Alright, we've come along way in this one blog post. We've discussed what we can and can't know fundamentally. We've realized that all truth is only true provided it's underlying, implied assumptions are true. We've explored how to build good models of the world around us. Then we compared that to a method that isn't particularly helpful in building an accurate model of the world around us and why. Lastly we've discussed how using solid definitions in our language can help us understand concepts and communicate clearly.

The mind looks for patterns in everything. It models whatever it can and language can be an awesome aid to that process. It can help make accurate models by providing more data and it can help make inaccurate models by providing manipulated data. Be very careful and scrutinize data you only get through language. 

The mind not only makes complex models it also makes simple ones. The drawings of a child are often simple, squiggly representations of reality. The stick figure is classic example of the brain's ability to model, simplify and approximate data.

"Nothing has meaning except the meaning you give it." Have you heard that before? I forgot who said it, but I think its right. 

The mind wants to find meaning in everything. Its constantly looking for patterns; that's all it does. Lock yourself in a pitch black room and don't move for hours and hours you might start hallucinating because the mind wants data! 

It can even be difficult for you to keep your mind from doing that. Ever seen a cloud and said, "Doesn't that cloud look just like my little pony?" The brain is always modeling things and part of that is making connections to other things. Its always meshing and molding and creating new things.  

As Kathryn Schulz has said, "The miracle of your mind isn't that you can see the world as it is. It's that you can see the world as it isn't."

I think creativity and trying new things in new mediums, new fantasies are a lot of fun. Its pretty cool that people can create things that they've never seen before. And I think it is a awesome that the mind does this in so many unpredictable ways. 

But to tell you the truth I've got a lot of respect for the artist talented enough to draw what they really see. 

The Latest in Anti-Mormon Technology

I never thought I'd lose my faith in the LDS religion, let alone my faith in God.

I thought that I was invincible, impervious to Satan's attacks. I saw a lot of people lose their faith. Some faded over time, others flipped like a switch. A lot of people seemed to be in the church when they felt like it but not when they didn't. That wasn't faith to me either and I was certain I would avoid those paths!

I saw and heard of people losing their faith due to something someone said at church. They were easily offended and for that they left the church. I wasn't worried about that because it takes a lot to offend me.

I saw people while I was growing up who decided partying and having a good time was more important than the church and being true to what they professed to believe. There were things I wanted to do that were incompatible with the church's teachings but I did whatever it took to avoid those temptations. I wasn't too worried about falling away due to fiery darts of temptations either.

If I thought I had a weakness it was Anti-Mormon material. I was told this was malicious material that only people who hate the church for no good reason put out to tear people away from their faith. I was a curious kid, I wanted to ask questions that others would avoid and I knew this about myself. So I always had my guard up when evaluating new ideas and new material. I wasn't going to fall into any traps.

But I did.

It wasn't a deliberate trap set by some scheming atheist or anti-mormon. It was more like a sink hole, just something that occurs naturally, something that comes at you out of nowhere.

You know what it was? Just an idea, nothing more. A small, innocent, innocuous, almost irrelevant concept. It was the theory, the proposal that perhaps with logic we could understand something that has previously been sacred knowledge, reserved for the Gods: Morals; what is right and what is wrong.

You know I watched Bill Nye as a kid, I've always loved the sciences. And ever since I can remember I've received my scientific knowledge, my knowledge about the physical world, from the scientists. They are the voices I listened too.

This might sound like it would create a problem; being religious and respecting the sciences, for they seem to teach contradictory things. But you know what, there is a very simple way to make this problem go away: Scientists don't know everything and God hasn't revealed everything to His church.

This leaves just enough grey area in the equation to allow people to come to issues of evolution and the like, shrug their shoulders and say, "Well, who's to say, really? It doesn't matter to my salvation, we'll find out when we go to heaven." And there are solutions besides that strategy of apathy. Its really easy to come up with an answer if you really want to. Here's how it's done: simply make religion a super-reality where the theories of science can be a subset of the doctrines of scripture: "Yes evolution is true and that's how God put us here." Cognitive dissonance dissolved!

But coming back to the moral thing, if there is a logical way to evaluate moral theories, we've got a problem. Since its deduced purely by logic if it contradicts the morals that religion teaches one of the two prescriptions is wrong. There can be no contradictions, a moral theory cannot be a subset of a super-reality. If it was then deceitfulness or violence as a rule could be a desirable thing for God but an undesirable thing for humans. It doesn't work like that.

I don't know if I'm being very clear but I hope that makes sense to you. What I'm talking about is applying reason and the Socratic method to moral proposals in order to determine universal moral principals. A moral principal must be universal to be a valid moral principal. Could it be called moral to say I have the right to steal your wallet but you can't steal mine? Is that fair? Certainly not.

Physics can be different from time to time and place to place. The speed of light might have been faster or slower at the time of the big bang, there is dark matter and dark energy, extra dimensions theorized by string theory, in physics there is enough wiggle room to believe in a super reality, but not so with morals. Morals based on logic is like math and therefore must be universalized. If 2+2 = 4 one place, it must be true fundamentally. And if we can't trust that 2+2 = 4 then why bother believing anything?

See why it seems so innocent? Its just an idea, right? But no, once I started learning about how to evaluate moral theories logically I realized, "um...this doesn't fit with what I was told...we have a problem; I know this is logical therefore my religion's morals must be illogical (for they contradict)."

Its like a virus that gets into your mind then blows up. Everything you believe needs to rearrange itself and that process can be pretty difficult. But I don't want to dwell on that process here, I just wanted to talk about what 'got me' and pulled me away from my religion and the God of my youth. (Or rather, what pulled Him away from me).


What I Was Taught

I never noticed before that I was told inconsistent things about morals. I was baptized at age 8 and told that now I was accountable for my sins. This concerned me a great deal. I wanted to know how to 'repent' and what constituted a 'sin.'

I was told that if I didn't know whether or not something was morally wrong (a sin), the light of Christ or the Holy Ghost would tell me. Adam and Eve didn't know right from wrong until they ate the fruit of knowledge of good and evil and now everyone knows good from evil, everyone has a conscious.

I was also told that we go to church so we can know right from wrong and stay on the straight and narrow. So, we go to church to learn something we already inherently know.

Evidently there can be only one moral code - the one Jesus lived by, He being the perfect man. And yet when I talk to people in the church moral theories are all over the place; everything is arbitrary, everything is a matter of circumstance, preference and even outcome. There can be no methodology whereby mortal man can evaluate moral behavior. That is the divine prerogative of God, for He is judge. And yet we all have the light of Christ in us, so shouldn't we just naturally agree on all moral questions?

When I ask someone's opinion about an act or behavior and if its right or wrong I get responses like this, "What does the church say? What do the scriptures say? What do the brethren say? Have you prayed about it?" This methodology for coming to a moral decision is an admission that any fundamental moral understanding eludes the speaker.

Isn't it interesting that I'm accountable for my sins as a child but God is the only one that truly knows right from wrong?

And besides there's no real answer to those questions. No one in the church leadership has anything to say about wars, violence, coercion, theft on the largest of scales except things like, "we ought to pray for our political leaders." And yet there is moral outrage and hysteria over the most insignificant personal choices of other people. Mountains are molehills and molehills are mountains. The moral teachings of the church are too lukewarm and avoidant of real issues to be considered God's word. The strategy seems simple demonize the other, avoid the controversial, present sanctimonious platitudes, reaffirm eternal rewards and punishment.

This is not to say the Church doesn't have any good teachings, they do. But good morals, good teachings can come from man; whats more, irrational morals can only come from man. The church is a mixture of both.


Definitions Misunderstood

Here's another interesting conundrum. I was told that the entire point of this life is to learn how to live well so that we can rejoin our heavenly parents. This is to be done by valuing faith in and obedience to a fundamentally unknowable God and His commandments above adhering to logic and what we are actually capable of understanding for ourselves.

I remember when I stopped going to church - I wasn't so sure if I believed in what was being taught but at first I felt guilty for skipping. "What if it's correct," I thought, "then if I don't go to church I'm making a big mistake." But the more I thought about it the more I realized that if I didn't believe it the only way to keep my integrity is to be true to what I believed to be true. There is no real honor in following the commandments out of fear. Is that what God wants of His children? Mindless, well behaved robots?

Expressing this line of logic to people didn't help my case in their eyes. "We're here to learn how to walk by faith," they would say, but all I would hear is, "yeah, I don't get it either but having faith in an unknowable God is more important than that 'integrity' stuff."

Experiencing that only furthered my belief that the true definitions of morality, integrity and honor elude most of the religious simply because in their minds it is more honorable to have faith in something they can't see than to acknowledge the truth of something they could see if they wanted to.


The Virtue of Faithlessness

In fact I began to question the virtue of faith itself. Faith isn't really like belief. If you believe something then you do not know it, but you usually have a reason to believe it. Not so with faith. The whole point of faith is that you must choose to believe without being persuaded by reason and evidence. Not only that but faith, in order to be faith must have the power to move you to act on your faith.

Think about that for a second. If I came to you as a friend and said, "I've made a life decision! I'm going to find something that I can't know is true or not, then I'm going to choose to believe it to the point that it'll make my decisions for me." How would you respond to that idea? I hope you'd explain how irrational, reckless and unnecessary that course of action would be. I began to see faith as it really is: not as a virtue, but a role of the dice. A role I had bet my life on.


Where Might This Attitude Come From?

You know who else has to adapt his or her behavior to a unknown and sometimes unknowable set of seemingly arbitrary commandments, a set of laws that seem more like a moving target than a standard? You know who else has to internalize a chaotic behavioral system and then make justifications after the fact when there are unexpected negative consequence to their behavior?

Children. Children have to deal with this and in cases of abuse or neglect its totally obvious that the psychological effects of this kind of conditioning are debilitating.

Could it be that this absolute infatuation with faith in the unknown and obedience without explanation is a result in part to the way children were and are treated? Maybe. I'm sure its something worth considering.


The True Nature of God

I did a thought experiment. I asked myself, "if I'm wrong and God does exist what will He say to me on the day of Judgement?"

I knew my heart was honest and my motives born from logic. I knew that any God worth worshiping would be a God full of empathy; He would understand me and He would even understand how well I understood myself. He would feel my pain as I lost faith and felt scared, confused and alone. He would care more about me being a person of integrity than He would care about blind obedience. And He would respect my decisions.

I cannot imagine He would turn me away on the basis of a lack of unsubstantiated belief in Him. And if He did I would gladly turn away because that means He does not possess the attributes worthy of being worshiped. (and neither would the company He keeps).

You see, as long as I'm true to what I believe to be true I'm golden, good God, bad God or no God, it doesn't matter.


Scriptural Proof

One last thing. I read the scriptures as I was growing up and especially in the Book of Mormon God is always warning the people of imminent destruction unless they shape up. This bothered me as a young teen. Doesn't God have better things to do? Nothing the people on earth could do really affects Him that much (He is God after all) so what's His deal? Maybe He's just a control freak. I couldn't figure it out until one day I had an epiphany, "God doesn't dish out punishment! He just warns people (mercifully) of the natural consequences of their actions!" All of the sudden God wasn't a childlike tyrant, He was a merciful, concerned and loving parent once again.

Then I got to the old testament.

God seems pretty brutal in the old testament He literally commands people to go abuse and kill other people. Almost everything in The Book of Mormon is defensive, not offensive. This seemed different; here He is actually dishing out the punishment Himself. Actually its worse than that. He forces His children whom he professes to love and watch over to risk their lives and commit these psychologically damaging atrocities without regard to their health and happiness. If that's love and concern...

When I discuss these seemingly immoral, (and if nothing else) hypocritical crimes that God committed, I get such responses as, "We don't know why God did that but it must have been the right thing to do." This is not an explanation but an admission that the speaker has no explanation. The other response I get is, "God asks us to do things we don't understand to teach us faith in Him." And what is the point of faith in a hypocritical and terrifyingly unpredictable violent God?

Then they say, "What? Are you judging God or something? Do you think you know better than Him?"

Well, perhaps, check this out:

Mormon 9:19
And if there were miracles wrought then, why has God ceased to be a God of miracles and yet be an unchangeable Being? And behold, I say unto you he changeth not; if so he would cease to be God; and he ceaseth not to be God, and is a God of miracles.

Even LDS scripture disallows for this kind of inconsistency and deviation from principal. There is a deeper doctrine in the church taught by John a Widthsoe and popularized by Cleon Skousen that the entire universe only obeys God (making him omnipotent) because God is perfectly consistent and always behaves according to perfect principals. Therefore if He deviated at all God would lose His honor and cease to have His power.

Well, If the inanimate matter of the universe can bother to check up on God's behavior and keep Him accountable, and only lend Him it's allegiance based on His honor and constancy I think we could do a little fact checking ourselves. If nothing else God should at least be consistent and unchangeable because if He is not consistent He's not a logical being in any respect and indeed He should cease to be my God.


In Conclusion

All moral theories, assertions or proscriptions are universal by their very nature. If its wrong for me to murder its wrong for anyone to murder, including criminals, cops, politicians or God.

I've always been interested in theology because I thought it was possible that our little world might be super imposed on some larger super reality. But when I learned about philosophy and how to evaluate moral assertions objectively and universally I realized something: the only logical theology is no theology.

Now, I could be wrong about every single thing I believe, related to this topic or any other. This is always the case. But if I'm wrong, and I go to heaven and get the opportunity to hang with God in His kingdom I'll probably decline the invitation because living in a world without any logically discernible, consistent moral values seems like Hell to me.