Non Serviam

Slave morality is a perversion of master morality in which those who are weaker force the stronger to accept their logogram (cultural rule sets for an individual) of “Good”and “Evil.”

Master morality is a perversion of slave morality in which the strong are ruled by their biogram (biological/instinctual rule set for an individual) of “Pleasure” and “Pain.”

And egalitarian morality is a perversion of slave morality in which the strong and the weak alike are forced to accept the logogram of “The Greater Good” over any individuality.

So, how does one rule themselves?

Due to the nature of humanity, you necessarily fall into one of the above three types, but the key to “Non Serviam” is to be the active chooser of which one. Or perhaps that’s just a matter of following the biogram to which method causes your preconditioned brain the most pleasure; but then, one can never tell.

**Note: Biogram and Logogram are used here in the context used by Hagbard Celine in Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea’s The Illuminatus! Trilogy.

Existential Placebo

Sartre claims that one of the scariest things in life is our freedom. We are condemned to choose how to live our lives while not being able to see which choice will work out better for the future. Not only that, but we don’t even have an objective way of knowing what constitutes a “good choice.” This leads to a sort of “Unbearable Lightness of Being” where all our choices don’t matter because there is no way of differentiating between good and bad ones.

You might argue that, in fact, there are ways of knowing what constitutes a good or bad choice. For instance, you could talk to older people and mimic the actions of those whose lives you admire and who ended up satisfied. Or, you could subscribe to some sort of an idea of universal morality.

Another perhaps more comprehensive method is religion; it combines the idea of universal morality with an extra sense of meaningfulness, giving you not only advice for the now but also an end goal (telos) to strive towards.

You probably employ one or more of these methods (or something similar) for making decisions. You may think that because you use a method you aren’t subject to this sort of flailing-in-the-dark decision making. In reality, though, you are because you still have to choose which method will guide your decisions.

You may have grown up with one method and stayed with it even after finding others, but once you learned about the others you then made a passive choice not to follow them. And you still have no way to determine which method is best, or even what you mean by “the best.”

Some methods ultimately aim for happiness in this life; but is happiness really the ultimate goal of humanity? Others promise salvation for your eternal soul, but multiple methods offer paths for a soul’s salvation that are often mutually exclusive.

You can never know which method is ultimately the best choice since judging that would have required a prior method of decision making.

The Personhood of States

Anyone who doesn’t desire a global government is whether they know it or not an advocate of anarchy.

Anyone who doesn’t desire a global government is, whether he knows it or not, an advocate of anarchy. Now that bold opening statements are out of the way, allow me to explain. What I mean by the above statement is that, in my mind, all positions between the extremes of anarchy and global government are incoherent whether those who hold these positions realize it or not.

As the founding fathers said,”We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”[Full Text] These governments, once established, take on a sort of personhood derived from the citizens they represent. They assume duties and responsibilities as agents, and can be held responsible for their actions. As things are now is, we are near to a Hobbsian state of nature in our international relations and have no means of appealing to a higher authority; or at least not one that can do anything.

International relations is analogous to the interactions of humans and only differs in scale; there are friends (allies), enemies, trade, and conflict. International crime is the same way; you have international equivalents to theft, coercion, physical aggression, and even murder (the forced and unwarranted dissolution of states). However, international crime currently differs from crime between humans in one major way: there is no higher authority you can seek to exact justice. While yes there is a impotent substitute available in the United Nations; it lacks both completely universal membership and, more importantly, the ability to fully enforce its laws.

If governments are necessary to secure the rights of human beings, then it seems logically to follow that a solitary government would be necessary to secure the rights of states, enabling them to pursue the ends for which humans created them. Otherwise, nations find themselves having to spend as much time building up defense as actually attending to their citizens.

The Four Ages of Man

1) Religion:

This, the first thesis of man is characterized by an intuitive understanding of the world, and an world views based on myth.

2) Scholasticism:

The next age is a synthesis of the first and a new idea, Science. Science and logic step in to elaborate on Religion, but start with the basic metaphysical world view that the person already possesses.

3) Science:

In the third age, the antithesis of man’s first thesis, man attempts to give up world views based on or reliant upon unsupported intuitive ideas; and instead trade them for sheer Science and logic, becoming neigh dogmatic in his adherence. In doing so man splits his psyche into two opposing social cabals, academic and theological, both of which hold the other in deep contempt. Members of these cabals are characterized by attacking (often verbally in the case of the academics and physically in the case of theologians though there are instances of role reversal) anyone who disagrees with their Truth, because disagreement to them is not the root of growth but the seed of the destruction of what they know as true.

4) Bilateralism:

In the fourth age of man we return to synthesis, man embraces his dual nature as a rational and intuitive creature; recognizing the place of both functions. However instead of being founded on intuition and elaborated by reason, it is the reverse.

The roles become clear with the application of an example. Long before we understood even the basic rules of physics our unconscious mind, the super processor that it is, was capable of calculating the trajectories of fast moving projectiles, like rocks, and was even capable of intercepting them midair. And while modern physics has allowed us to gain rational knowledge of the movements of projectiles, calculating trajectories using formulas and conscious measurements during a baseball game would be laughable, not to mention counterproductive.

So what purpose does Science have if our intuition is so powerful? Science is in the business of figuring out how things work by repeated observation and logical generalization; which then serves the basis for logical extrapolation. Science allows us to do what intuition can’t, to see from a perspective outside our own, that of generalizations. However intuition is still better suited for every day life.

So it is with Truth, Science makes excellent predictive models about the way the the universe works, but in day to day situations intuition is better equipped to supply us with information that is relevant to our unique perspectives.

So the fourth age of man is characterized by intuition informed by rationality, working in harmony.

::Note::

As the rational mind and the intuitive mind are present in all human beings throughout all of the ages of man there have allways been those who did not conform to their age.

One Bad Atheist Argument

One argument that I’m really tired of hearing from atheists is the “come on, you’re an atheist to Zeus and Thor; I’m just an atheist to one more” argument. I understand it’s an attempt to put the theist in their shoes; but it’s a fallacious argument. Even if you reject every currently conceptualized idea of god you can still believe in god.

And there are current ideas of god that I’ve not seen adequately disproven, like the deist’s view that god created the world and then stepped back. After all, if god merely was the impetus for the Big Bang, then science wouldn’t be at odds with this worldview. In fact, it would only serve to show the incredible forethought that went into the world. Granted, there are excellent probabilistic arguments saying god’s existence is less likely than his nonexistence. But, when backed into a corner, any sophisticated atheist will agree that you can’t prove whether god does or does not exist; you can just make probability claims.

The More You Have…

    The more you have, the more you have to lose. As obvious as this statement sounds it has a great impact on virtually every area of our thinking. The nicer your car is, the more you will mind if someone steals it which means you are more paranoid about people stealing your car which adds to extra worry when your parking in a “bad” section of town.

    It also applies albeit indirectly to worldviews; the closer an idea is to the core of your worldview and identity the more devastating it would be to have it suddenly proven false. Which is why us humans have a tendency to defend those core worldviews no matter whether they are right, wrong, or just plain ridiculous.

    How does one get around this human trait to the more noble and surely more valuable trait of being able to dispassionately examine all the ideals you hold and rationally assign them to either the true, false, or unable to determine as true or false bin as necessary. Well the best way that I’ve found to do this is to make my core identity around being a “seeker of truth” and taking pride in questioning my currently held assumptions. It may seem a bit excessive to some, but to me it seems to be the only way I can make sure I am not holding lies close and rejecting any contradictions.

Satirical Comic

A collection of satirical comics if you like this one click on it to see the rest.

Webdesign

So I think I’ve got the site looking basically how it’s going to look, for now, I’m pretty proud of it, I think i did a pretty decent job even though it was mostly just point and click simplicity (I did do some html work on the sidebars). My only complaint is that I perhaps went a little overboard on the chicklets (the “Feeds” box) but I want people to be able to easily keep track of this site, for entirely selfish reasons. As I settle into a routine these fluff blogs will die down and the Real content will start to take over, or at least that’s the plan. Till then I’ll keep my overactive mind in gear.

Housekeeping stuff

Well, This blog is going to be mainly for Philosophy, Religion, and Politics, but I may throw in the occasional random one, so stay posted (ie subscribe to my rss feed using one of the links over in the side panel