Tuesday, December 15, 2020

PWIP 40

The relationship between the object, other, and self changes when moving through philosophical domains. For ontology, all that exist is one object, there are no distinctions between the three. Some event brings us to the realization that we have been made other to the totality of existence. It is a calculation made by the brain. We discover the notion of otherness that was somewhere possible. One finds one’s self in the totality as a part. Epistemology perceives distinctions and one can only hope one’s brain is sufficient to understand epistemology.

One can perhaps conceive a self as an other to ontology when pondering on the parts of the ontology that one controls and the parts one does not control, this typically coming in the form of oppositions, e.g. pleasure/pain, gain/loss, positive/negative. Would the self perceive itself as an object apart from the world if it had no conflicts with it? The nihilism of ontology presents a major problem for an object that cares for itself. Ethics places a high value on the self and other selves. Though the hard problem of consciousness presents feelings as something redundant to machines, it appears to be a useful tool in distinguishing the difference between a self and an object. Words and intelligent acts could have the same effect, but considering the history of the collectives of decision-makers, they are likely to consider intelligent nonsentient beings to be of equal value to sophisticated rocks.

The relationship between self, other, and object generates a problem of economics. Individuals own and produce objects. These objects can be exchanged for other objects from others. Individuals desire to avoid losses, thus they will attempt to trade less for more or equal for equal. Any item with the exact same dimensions as another is considered a duplicate of it and can be considered equal. There is no reason in trading an equal with another because it doesn’t change one’s state. The option is to trade lesser for more, which can only be done through deceit from the lesser owner, or sacrifice from the greater owner. One can also trade an object of different dimensionality but equal value. One can give more of a lesser item to compensate for the lower value. If one item is a fraction off from another, pieces of the lesser item can be given if that doesn’t destroy the item's integrity.

Objects have different values depending on time, place, individual, and domain of value. These domains have a specific order of priority in ethics, so objects have a value based on a domain and the domains have particular weights depending on their place in the priority. Ethics appears to weigh the weights as ordered: Objective, functional, universal, collectivistic, individualistic, physical, personal, psychological, aesthetic, subjective.

Kantian politics and virtue psychology don’t appear to have a self as separate from the collective. In relativistic aesthetics and utilitarian mathematics, we see the self manifest itself as a shaper of the world, and a unit, scale, measure, and calculator. There is an objectively optimal state which we call Utopia. Such can only be achieved by intelligent means through physical and psychological force. The ideal or perfection isn’t always obtainable, thus one may settle with what is good enough or functional. Of course, since ethics is only generated between more than one agent, objects/products with universal use are most prized. A cohesive group of individuals, i.e. the collective, have more value than a single individual (assuming all are virtuous). This gives objects that can serve the whole more import than objects that can only serve a part. Obviously, every individual can’t use everything everywhere all the time, nor is any product always appropriate for every task. Physical products take precedent to psychological ones as unembodied objects, i.e. objects with no interaction with reality, have no use. Personal objects pertain to one’s identity and appear to be valued more than merely pleasant or beautiful items. Vice agents have their own weight, which is the subjective, as some objects have a function that lends itself more towards harm.

Monday, November 30, 2020

PWIP 39

Epistemology

The problem the epistemology has with ontology is skepticism. If something is real and exist it can be considered true. The skeptic calls into question the nature of reality. Let us see what something like an exhaustive denial of the devices used to perceive reality looks like. First, it would appear that there must be something real for the skeptic not to fall into absolute ignorance or nihilism. The goal of the skeptic ought to be the truth, not doubt for the end of deception. The awareness of one’s own limitations helps in producing a more accurate orientation in ontology.

The brain in a vat problem is an observation from the skeptic concerning our relationship to the world. The skeptic comes in degrees, being completely against the world’s existence; to partially against the world; to assuming only the world exists. If the world completely doesn’t exist and only the self exists, then we fall into solipsism. If the world is one mind that appears to be many, then idealism appears to be the case. Since the brain in a vat thought experiment uses technology, it makes assumptions about an existing world. The manufactured world of the brain that is in the vat would be equivalent to art or entertainment. Even if it was being used for scientific means, a simulation is an imitation of a thing. The skeptic’s suspicion as to the nature of the world seems to be a consequence of science’s discovery of the brain organ’s limits.

Skeptics seem to think the mind and body hide the truth from the consciousness. It is comparable to those who believe the true essence of the homo sapien is an immaterial soul. Some portion of these individuals see the body as an obstacle to reality. However, the body doesn’t will itself into existence. It is manifested in the world as parts of the world combine to result in what we call ourselves. What about the body fills the skeptic with caution? Though there may be more, we can look at the limits of the senses, the emotion’s effects on rationality, and mental illness. Hearing and seeing have limits on their extent and resolution. Science tells us the eyes are deceiving because they can’t see all the spectrums of light. There’s much weight placed on the visual sense as the main arbiter of truth. This appears contrary to science which confirms its theories by being correct on a prediction. There’s nothing in science that necessitates vision. Geometric ideas can be understood as abstractions or symbols. Our sense of smell and taste can be affected by our moods, the physical relationship between our structure and objects in the world, and the context the self and object are placed in. Our sense of touch appears to tie every other sense together, in that signals need to touch our sense organs to be observed, or the brain needs to generate motions that are equivalent to sense organs being acted upon or touched.

The skeptic may say, at some point, that pleasure and pain are wholly products of the mind. Emotions can have such a large impact on one’s mind that one may be led away from actions one knows are more rational than the ones being taken. This again brings up the hard problem of consciousness, as a robot need not have feelings of this kind of conflict. One may ask if a robot without the feeling would still act as one with the feeling? It does appear that one with the feeling of being alive is of more value than a philosophical zombie, i.e. one who merely acts like they have feelings but don’t actually possess any. However, a philosophical zombie may still prove themself to possess ethical value, e.g. showing their desire to exist, their susceptibility to damage, their gains and losses, etc. The skeptic seems to show feelings both should not exist and are deceptive.

The skeptic may appeal to something like profound schizophrenia and claim no way to know if perceived events are true events. Not only are the senses limited but the biological material may also produce maladaptive brain structures. In this, the hard problem would need to go further than just asking why qualia exist and ask why is it deceptive? Either the maladaptations are accidental and randomly placed, or the biological material generates beings with an intention on the outcomes, or the brain is intentionally deceiving the consciousness, or there is a brain in a vat like situation with greater authority in control of one’s experiences. Beyond this disrupting our ability to perceive true reality, it may also cause one to act in a way that influences the acts of others.

To deny the other the skeptic must also deny history. Like our eyesight, our reasoning has a limit on its extent. Physics can only take us so far back in the past or forward in the future. If we are brains in vats, then the study of nature is the study of a piece of art or entertainment. This would make others unreal objects, but then the truth of one’s world would be solipsism with the World being beyond all of one’s devices, unless an individual in the World cares to communicate truth to the one in the artificial world. The next problem is local evolution. Homo sapiens are multicellular organisms that multiplied from a single cell made from the combination of two cells. These cells themselves are made from chemicals combined in a particular way. This fact is gotten from others, being that it can’t be observed by the self as the self goes through the process of birth. Assuming the other is real and we are in the World, we may all be suffering from the same hallucinations. Others may have different experiences from what was thought to be the same content. Combining the deception of the senses, the unreliability of rationality, and the perplexity of mental illness the skeptic claims the world hasn’t been parsed. If the skeptic falls into idealism, they may say that freeing one’s self from the body will return one to the greater mind that may know the Truth.

There is a limit on knowledge that results from our physical limitations. Complex ideas don’t appear innate to the mind but must be learned. Language appears to go beyond physical limits. Though concepts like a square circle or the wave/particle duality are difficult to recreate as a visual imitation, they can still be instantiated as linguistic objects which correlate with real or impossible existence. Falsehood much like nonexistence has a paradoxical relationship with existence. Again, the skeptic ought to assume some truth is possible, or they would fall into total ignorance. This truth ought to be communicable, since symbols appear to be able to hold abstractions, and the world (assuming it is real) should be less abstract than the totality of what abstraction can contain. Scientists rely on technical tools and language made specifically for understanding particular parts of reality. Thus senses are replaced with technology and intuition replaced with formulas. From these, we attempt to see the world in a form untainted by the mind. Technology with its ability to process and analyze data with more precision than a brain makes it a good candidate for understanding the World. An automaton could make an actual representation of the World, rather than a deceptive semblance of it. Of course, how could one build a robot that can perceive the World if one can’t perceive the World oneself? Beyond this problem, science must still admit limitations because there are predictions that are difficult to make. One may not know what truth the skeptic will allow, but they must allow something given the data.

Saturday, November 21, 2020

PWIP 38

Ethics Dynamics

Utopia is a state by which all individuals are happiest and living the easiest. Such a social state appears to have some issues. First, Utopia appears mundane. Entertainment and the arts can’t maintain an audience’s focus on utopia, save perhaps in pictures. People are turned off by the unreality of the state and may become resentful of the lives of the utopians. Secondly, Utopia takes a great deal of effort because of its numerous requirements. The happiness of the populous would have to be the main priority of society. Those who reach the peak of social life would need to come back down for others. A threshold for knowledge concerning the self, other, and world must be passed before such a process could even begin. Lastly, though utopia would appear to be mundane, the difficulty of generating the state requires work, which is not mundane. The state implies a transcendent peace, but happiness for all is a mess of parts. Is the thing an exciting mess of motion or a mundane stable state?

Dystopia is on the other end of the spectrum, but it is not a lack of civilization. Rather dystopia is a society that maintains vices. Some virtue is necessary for cooperation. For no society can exist without a kind of honesty, peace, or respect for ownership. Regardless the main characteristic of dystopias is that they are maintained by particular vices. The vices of dystopia are subjugation of groups within the society or aggression towards those outside the society. In this light we can see that no utopia has existed hitherto, every society has been a dystopia. The homo sapiens can’t claim utopia if any contemporary civilization isn’t utopian, and civilizations can’t claim utopia without virtuous societies, societies can’t be virtuous without virtuous individuals.

Each ethical concept has a particular interaction with the utopia idea. Kantian ethics would likely get the most out of a robot’s utopia. Because of the artificial nature of robots, they can be made physically equal. They can be given the same knowledge, thus holding to equality in thought. But, of course, if all agents are of the same mind and, essentially, body, then in a sense there is only one being and no need for ethics.

A utopia for relativistic aesthetics is pure freedom. One can imagine it as a paradise without consequences. Only in a state of complete anarchy can there be no restrictions on the expression of the self. Though a world without consequence can be considered a utopia, it may be perceived as less meaningful or valuable than a world with suffering and loss. What does one become in a world one can have no impact on? This utopia is closest to the paradise many claim exists for those who acquire god’s favor.

Virtuous psychologies may find utopia onto themselves, being always at ease with the self and world. Virtuous psychologies need not be perfect replicas of each other as they can work within reason by either conceding to others or working out a solution. The ultimate nature of ontology is nihilism, thus the virtuous agent doesn't find the need to cling to any thing. Without knowledge, one can achieve a passive virtue where one avoids doing harm and helps whenever necessary. A more active virtue requires knowledge of the world. So one can also choose to explore the non-nothingness within the bounds of ethics.

Because utilitarian mathematics requires a more practical approach it is the hardest to parse out. One must mix the large and small, the qualitative and the quantitative, the concrete and the abstract.

Epistemology

The hard problem of consciousness seems to be that this biological machine built with molecules has feelings when machines can operate without feelings. Evolutionary biology appears to say any function that manages to survive does so because it is well fitted to the environment. Anything without pain is likely to be careless towards its own body. Sophisticated thoughts or an understanding of the world can help in alleviating pain. However, all these tools are developed by the DNA molecule, i.e. they are given or gifted, not created or innate. The consciousness appears to be the result of background processes. The background seems prebuilt by evolution and updated by experience. The consciousness itself isn’t privy to the workings of the background beyond their effects.

How is the hard problem of consciousness, i.e. why do we have qualia, and the brain in a vat problem, i.e. the uncertainty concerning the realness of experience connected? Consciousness appears important in the former, but incompetent, if not guileful, in the later. The problem appears to be between experience and consciousness. The consciousness is uncertain whether the experience correlates with what is actually going on in the real world. This is perhaps due to a perplexity with the variation in states of consciousness or differences in reports of experiences by others. There are also observations that appear to us from science which are judged to be our structural limitations. Regardless is the attempt to deceive the consciousness through experience an explanation for qualia (though the obvious next question is why deceive at all)?

If qualia is meant to deceive the consciousness via the brain in a vat then we may ask if qualia is innate or additional? Consciousness could be a calculating machine not requiring qualia. Experience would then be a means of control by a higher authority. If one perceives experience as something disconnected from consciousness, what keeps consciousness itself from becoming untrustworthy? Being a brain in a vat would allow one to have all the tools necessary to make a calculation, but no problem or content to work on if no communication is coming from the world. Both problems seem to assume the essential nature of consciousness is the ability to calculate, and not the content being manipulated. In the brain in a vat problem there is no possibility for exploration of the world. The brain can calculate but the signal is feigned. The hard problem allows for calculation and signals from the world. Yet it claims the resolution of the world’s signals ought to be purely mechanical.

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

A Philosophical Work in Progress X

Once one places value on one's self, one takes on the responsibility of constantly generating one's self. What results is perhaps an interpretation and an agent. One could start by framing the notion to something analogous to the id, an evolving entity. At the bottom the id is a mere chemical process. That the universe could produce such matter doesn't appear unusual, considering the trillions of planets in our galaxy alone, and the incredible power of mathematics. One's biology is one's whole self. We are nothing without our organs.

Once constituted, the id as a practical and actual entity takes on various forms in its biosphere. As an id, i am most aware of and connected to my own id, and i assume other ids are mostly aware of their own ids. The entity one calls "me" or "I," i would consider to be the ego. The ego maybe a more difficult entity to define because it consist of indirect physical objects, nonphysical objects, or mental objects; for one's experiences of one's self is not on display in the same way as one's physical structure, i.e. the id, is. The form of the ego is perceived through time as what the ego thinks, believes, and does in the present and the past. However, there are mental objects that one may not consider as one's own, and mental objects which maybe hidden from the ego.

Social, or harmonious id, behavior i'll call the overego. The overego is controlled by dominate ideas called the superego. The superego is instinct for most animals. For humans, the overego is whatever motion the masses are making. Confusion or disagreement on the superego in groups of individuals produce groups of overegos. Though one may admire the swarm creatures' unity, one may despise its mindless assimilation, i.e. complete control or negation of the ego. The superego, which is one's fundamental knowledge, is different for many egos; and made so simply by a change in where the id was initially generated, what cared for the id till maturity, how the ego developed, and other factors based in time.

A human's own subsistence depends on other humans for a time after birth, this forces human relation and interaction. And since we must imitate others before we gain the ability to invent our own objects/ideas, we also acquire a frame of reference in which we aren't the source. One persisting mental problem is the collective vs. the individual needs. If the ego perceives the collective as the most valuable, it will internalize the culture it is engrossed in. If it values the individual more, it will internalize the ethics implied in its self made philosophy.

One may need to supplement the personality given by the culture with a philosophical/scientific personality, though such may contradict at times. The ultimate rational being would perhaps be computer-like, it would analyze every notion based on mathematics or some other objective and detached standards. A scientific/philosophical mindset should, it seems to me, pursue knowledge for the sake of knowing in and of itself. Since intelligibility, or the intellect, is the main ability that separates humans, or rational animals in general, from other "lower" creatures, efficient thinking should be the main focus of development. Science, i.e. what is most likely the state of affairs, may provide knowledge of the activities that help to improve thinking. Philosophy, i.e. the attempt to know everything, pushes the limits of knowledge by showing its limits. But for most individuals knowledge is a means for obtaining some item for the id, ego, overego, or superego. Whereas I would accept such limits for my own self, it seems immoral to attempt to force others to maintain my mindset, because: 1. others may not be able to run on the exact same logic as me, and 2. forcing a mind into a certain form is psychologically painful. The transformation from a benign personality of a mere observer to the philosophical/scientific personality of an active knower is perhaps painful in of itself.

Tuesday, October 27, 2020

PWIP 37

Epistemology

Existence and non-existence can both be said to exist in some sense. Non-existent things are said to be unable to show themselves in reality. These objects appear to have linguistic form but not physical form. Perhaps these are existentially broken objects; they have aspects of existence, but not those that can push them pass the existence threshold. Language is flexible enough to bring the idea of non-existent objects to the mind based on properties with no solid connections. If the ontology allows absurdities, the epistemology doesn’t appear to participate in it, save perhaps the ontology itself as presented as an epistemology.

How do we balance the thing, its opposite, and its negation? Nonexistence appears to be the opposite of existence itself, and not of the thing. It appears that it must exist that the thing must exist or not exist. Existence being a necessary property of a thing and its negation says nothing about the thing’s opposite. The opposite of a thing appears to be those in its family that generate significantly different results. The properties of the elements in a family present themselves in the relationship between mind and world as the mind attempts to correlate epistemology to ontology.

The unequal relationship between epistemology and ontology generates uncertainty. From the epistemology’s point-of-view, there is a conflict between existence and reality. When a thing is real and exist, it is considered true or actual. What are things which don’t exist but are real? Can they be said to exist in the future or past, thus being real but not existing currently? Perhaps these things exist in nonexistence, thus they are real there and not here? And what of those things which are not real but do exist? Can they be said to be fiction, since people will say they exist in some sense but not in the one which makes them real? Non-reality and nonexistence appear to lead to non-being. Non-being, from the epistemology’s point-of-view, is beyond all hints of awareness. These are being which appear forever unknown to those who can know anything.

The letter appears to exist in ontology in the same sense as number, in that anything that is one in number is also a word in letter. All phenomena appear to be in some sense nameable. Such makes an epistemology equal to the ontology theoretically possible, though impossible without omniscience. Since to explain the ontology is to equate words to what is, one can give the whole a name and be done with it. However, one can only confirm the parts by observations of them, and they appear to have some type of infinity. Without the complete truth, one doesn’t have the Truth. Though unobtainable it is still a goal to pursue.

The models and theories of the mind must mimic the world for there to be truth. The law must mimic ethics for there to be justice. This is typically dependent on Kantian Politics and whether virtue has any power. The mind judges its grasp of the world on its frequency of correct predictions. Likewise, the mind judges its grasp of ethics based on its frequency of producing good outcomes. Knowledge is used both in epistemology and ethics. Whereas the value of knowledge in epistemology is truth and falsehood, the value of knowledge in ethics is good or bad. Ethics may further its distance from epistemology by being more concerned with action than knowledge. Although, knowledge as a prerequisite for action is necessary for one to be an ethical agent. It would appear that Ontology is indifferent to truth, Epistemology is indifferent to virtue, and Ethics is indifferent to beauty.

Saturday, October 17, 2020

PWIP 36

Epistemology

One may observe how anything that can possess an epistemology understands itself. We can’t hide from our own knowledge, only hope to forget it or bury it deep in our subconscious. Knowledge in the form of rules and patterns are easier to follow. Every things’ place possesses meaning. Existence itself appears to have an omnipotent spontaneity with every place being filled with (something, anything, everything(?)). Though having an epistemology that can replicate the ontology in its totality is impossible, the goal is still necessary to pursue.

We may discover the values in existence by separating ourselves from it. We see ourselves as no longer belonging to the world but to ourselves. The falsehood generates distinctions that further separate the epistemology from the ontology from the epistemology’s point of view, all remains one to the ontology. We can’t claim we are the Ontology, so it appears true that we are separate from it in some sense. Order manifests itself out of the relationships made in the separation of the ontology from a whole into parts. The ontology molds the epistemology, it is an epistemology, and it transcends epistemology.

The most basic form of information is motion. The falsehoods in motion relate to differences between the world as it is and the world as it is given or understood by the senses. Distance presents itself as a problem throughout epistemology. The distance between the mind and the world confuses what is in the world and what is in the mind. There’s temporal distance between observations and the explanations for them. Mental distance between concepts can make it difficult to make the connections needed for understanding to function.

Ethics Build

The aspects of a being that appears to give them ethical value are suffering and belonging. Suffering can be a negative state of being meant to promote survival in biological machines. Belonging refers to a relationship between the owner and owned. Animals have a sense of belonging to themselves that other beings (e.g. rocks) don’t appear to possess. Such may be a result of the DNA’s inclination towards survival, equilibrium, a particular pattern in the world, or something of the like. The individual extends their sense of the self by belonging to his/her self. An uninformed state of nature may find it difficult to identify objects of ethical value. Our problem isn’t an inability to identify belonging, but rather a lack of utilitarian math. Suffering is not mere pain, it appears to be the intent to harm for the sake of harm and destruction. In this light, there’s a distinction between unethical acts, actors, and environments. Each form of the unethical state is bad, only the actors can take blame for actions or environments.

The difference between Kantian Politics and Relativism Aesthetics is the difference between individualism and collectivism. This is the problem that presents itself in ethical dynamics. We must contend with the question of how much of ourselves are we willing to give to the group? And how much of the group belongs to an individual? Groups are similar in functionality to individuals but with more power. Groups with virtuous psychologies are more predictable because their rules for behavior use less probability. Groups can appear ethical because their numbers follow a strict program for action. Actions based on tastes can contradict ethical principles. Unethics spreads rapidly when Kantian Politics is based on a group’s taste, who themselves would say they belong to a particular individual. The tension between individualism and collectivism comes from the authority of belonging. An unethical kantian politics is unstable due to the malicious belligerence of vice. Wisdom being a virtue grants the virtue psychology the ability to communicate the reasons for his/her right to act. Those who actively pursue vice are typically easier to identify than those who fall into vice through neutrality.

Eclecticism Ethics

Kantian Politics

The aesthetics of the world allows for no strict duplicates. All beings appear to have their own experiences. Despite that, equality, fairness, symmetry are still ideals to look towards when stabilizing a system. Maths can make everything one. The representative of the group, the government, is judged on its math rather than its aesthetics. Do the leaders of the group provide for the group? If all members were of perfect virtue makeup, the group is stable regardless of conditions. Equals need no functional leaders.

Utilitarian Mathematics

The brain measures the value of beings. The mental weighing is scaled up in economic systems, but essentially one can make an ordering of preferences that can be transformed into arithmetic. Utilitarianism is concerned with a preference ordering that prefers the good. We see that math deals with many aesthetic conflicts. Agents can vote, compete, or gamble to settle disputes. Aesthetics is important because everything with function needs a form or appearance. Ethics may require justified ownership.

Ownership can’t merely be who found what first or keeping what one has always had. Utilitarianism plays a major role in belonging as ethics requires everything to be in service to the greater good. Capitalism attempts to mix kantian politics, relativism aesthetics, and math to create a system that doesn’t require virtue. Without virtue, all acts end in self-destruction.

Relativism Aesthetics

Ethics also desires freedom (in as far as it is obtainable in the ontology). There is a preference ordering for one’s own taste. Conflicts tend to erupt between one’s own taste and the good. No form is bad in of itself. It’s a form's relation to another agent that makes it so. Given what appears in reality, it is very difficult to operate without doing vice. This is because knowledge can be difficult to hide from. Once one is no longer innocent of the vice in one’s taste, one is aware of the bad one has done, is doing, and may do. Yet we all are artists. And to only be allowed to make copies of the world is an injustice.

Ethics seems to contain the mundane. We find it in many places of safety and protection. A type of nihilism seems to be contained in the mundane. Ethics becomes void when there are no negative states. One is thus able to pursue one’s taste uninhibited, which is not mundane. But one does this without risk, which is mundane. Such protection or lack of pain is a type of negated freedom, and positive nihilism. Pain seems to want to take meaning with it when it is removed.

Virtue Psychology

There is perhaps less of a need for virtuous agents to use science to discover which rational beings have ethical value from which don’t. A virtuous agent is passive and would only move to help another. The ultimate objective is to help whatever needs help. Individuals with the ability to communicate are quite easy to help. We must balance it with other systems. These other systems can be found in epistemology. The passivity, as opposed to neutrality, allows the virtue agent to avoid doing harm, rather than simply ignore it whenever it occurs. An active virtue agent may scour space for vice or harm. Though the ideal of the perfect virtue agent is impossible, the ideal of vice is self-destructive.

Ethics Dynamics

The outcomes of ethical dynamics are along a spectrum of peace, mercy, conflict, and suffering. The complexity of the system increases with the number of agents, who themselves vary the power of virtue and vice with their choices of either one. The simplest case of the system is peace, in which all agents choose virtue. The more difficult cases of the system involve mixed strategies, unequal power, and the outcomes of mercy or conflict. And, of course, when vice wholly overcomes virtue there is suffering.

A third individual in the equal power game can create an imbalance of power. In a three-person game where there is unequal power either two agents have more power than one or one agent has more power than two. The agents with the most power dictate the outcome of the game. The imbalance of power generates suffering or mercy. Though virtue agents want to make equals out of other agents, there are more opportunities for virtue to prevail when it has more power than vice.

Virtuous agents are trustworthy, and therefore deterministic. Malicious agents are probabilistic, as they can choose to add to the power of either agent. The case is complex, with allegiances to either type being unstable. Agents who play vice are more stochastic in their behavior since they need not obey ethical rules. They can use the tools of virtue as means to ends in vice. Intentions are bad when the goal is malicious. Some can have good intentions but bad knowledge or skill and thus windup with an action that is a vice. The distinction in the origin of vice may change the means but not the end of preventing or stopping suffering.

Monday, October 12, 2020

A Philosophical Work in Progress IX

Individuals accept or attempt to reject characteristics given to them by nature. All objects possess some property which makes them known, I believe. If x were an object with no properties, one could just claim it is contained in the empty set, for even the term “object” wouldn’t apply to it. Language itself doesn’t seem to allow one to express a non-property. Words are either understood or not; and when they are understood, they are typically understood as the role they play in what is being communicated. Thus it would appear that an object must possess a property of some sort to exist. People possess many properties, e.g. potentiality, age, race, thought patterns, culture, income, language, employment, beliefs, physiology, philosophy etc.. Some properties are perceived as companions, while others are seen as enemies.

To identify with particular aspects of one’s self is reasonable. But perhaps one shouldn’t be too intimate with accidental, unintentional qualities, which any quality not obtained by the will appears to be; albeit even extreme possession of one’s own will is a limit to one’s self by applying value inaccurately. An obvious example of accidental qualities is gene inheritance, no one decides beforehand what genes they get, we all simply make use of what we are given. No one can choose their fundamental physical structure, for one would first need to know about the world and one’s self in order to know what qualities are desirable. Such would require that one exist before coming into existence, or that one should possess knowledge of existence before having come into existence. All beings seem to rely on beings in existence to generate their existence or bring them into existence. This condition, which is perhaps cause and effect or something similar, has many forms. This constant generation appears to constantly change while still maintaining somethings constant/unchanging. Thus we come into existence in this biological condition which has evolved/changed over time, where one’s beginnings depends on others. And as one can not split off one’s self into multiple beings of a single consciousness, one can only choose one path, though one may perceive many. “What is the rational course of action?”, seems to be a reasonable question; and though the imposition of rationality appears to limit freedom, any forced denial of its use seem just as oppressive.

Perhaps this is all an attempt to escape bias, obtain a broader worldview, and a more efficient way of thinking. For the most reasonable way of thinking would be to think like God, or any being with efficient thinking. Science can help to fill in more than half of one’s epistemology; though most of science is the work of history and random curiosities. The simplest expression of epistemology is perhaps logic, which establishes the notion of having a notion and deciding to accept of reject notions or ideas. Ethics requires a solemn look into situations. Yet the real ethical dilemmas and examples one perceives (pass rape and murder) are almost comical, if there effects didn’t cause such distress. Biologically, all we do is perhaps for sex, psychologically it is all to escape pain, but these are “simple” pursuits. Philosophy seems to encompass everything. Adherence to any particular notion/idea is a denial of many others, one should perhaps show caution for what one excludes.

So what is really being done in the action of communication? The mere appearance of one’s self to another gives away information of the self, actions and words seem to add information one could not have known with just the mere appearance of the self. Such information usually consist of the self’s physical, psychological, and chronological condition/ing.

Understanding and responding to the actions of others is always possible, in that our domain of physics will always produce an outcome, i.e. reality has a limit to its possibilities. This existence, however, must be an error if no God or perfection exist, but I can’t say for certain that such things don’t exist, or rather I can’t supply sufficient proof that they don’t exist. Philosophy, which is everything, should allow one to contain all possibilities, both the existence and nonexistence of perfection or God and their implications on the world and self.

One can not merely reflect on one’s self to know one’s self, but one must also observe and reflect on the world. One may continue such a process until one is satisfied with the results, such is typical for those biological beings whom know their next move. To reflect constantly on everything is perhaps the curse of a philosopher. Maybe one can choose when to be satisfied and when not to be, or whether such a notion even matters, for such is somewhat derived from the biological entity. To identify one’s self with any particular being is limiting, even if one list every particular factor of one’s self, for perhaps it is the unlisted, unable to be listed, or resilient to being listed items which truly define the self

Passive morals seem quite clear to most individuals, e.g. don’t murder, don’t steal, don’t rape are simple propositions to understand, in that when one knows the action, one knows what to negate or simply not do. If one wishes to know why such rules are in place, one must question the source of the rule. Active morality are actions one should perform or ought to perform. These appear to cause more harm in the world because it appears to force the self to act in an indignant way. These and other sorts of ideas which come from various minds are intimately connected with the psychology of the mind it is contained in to the point that neglecting the ideas are mentally painful.

The mind maybe able to accept any notion in theory, but the contrary maybe the case when it comes to application, as one must go beyond imagination and vague thinking. Any moment of one’s self is the best simplification of all the current knowledge available to consciousness. Though we are all prone to error, there’s an idea which we hold as fundamental and it differs from being to being. Ethics seems to require that all individuals follow the same law, but such limits freedom. How much control does one have in choosing one’s limits? Should one give one’s self to a notion of what the self thinks is good?