my_current_philosophy They call me Truth What is the assumption we make? It seems that we build up ways in our mind to convince ourselves that the way we see things are the best way (pardon the overgeneralization). I spent some time doing what I would call “research.” Actually it was closer to having idle conversations with people about various topics. I learned a lot and it helped me to acquire the current philosophy I now possess, equipped with the overgeneralization above. But back to assumptions, like I’m making now. People have a tendency to esteem their choices as more logical, more rational, more honest and closer to absolute than others. I figure it is a part of our wiring, the way we function, the almost predictable pattern in which we live. This may be my imagination, a trance designed to create a similar state in myself. Honestly, I do possess a certain pride in the way I see things. Then the question is, since I suffer from the same ailment as the rest of the world, is: “is this wrong?” Is it wrong for us to take pride in our beliefs, in our perspective? Is it wrong for us to esteem it? What I have noticed is that the world generally makes one assumption, religious or not, and this assumption is core to our being. We believe that somewhere out there an absolute exists. This seems both logical and illogical, because an absolute reality, an absolute truth should exist. Yet, we have not found any absolutes. None of our institutions, science, or math, or logic, has been able to accurately reflect our world in which we live in. There are holes everywhere, holes that seem impossible to fill. It is always approaching but never actually acquiring. We cannot speak of definiteness when it comes to anything, nothing meaningful or grand on a higher scale anyways. The absolute truth of the universe still remains a mystery. Even with this said, that assumption still remains, that an absolute truth does exist, even while many things in our own planet seem to lack definiteness. So we tread on with this thought in our mind that a truth is out there, an absolute truth that answers everything, a knowledge that proves and disproves. But how do we know that this truth exists? We don’t. We believe that it does. And this is what many men share in common, the belief in absolute truth, despite the fact that there is nothing that really shows this as fact. This is our frustration and since we can’t argue that we know absolutely what is at the core of everything, the undeniable truth that holds everything together, we argue something else. Our argument becomes that of who is closer, who is on the right path. Even this argument makes a fatal assumption, that a person’s path is right even though they do not know the destination, that you can be right about something you have no clue about. The assumption is, you are on the right path to something you can’t even prove exists. Absolute truth seems to be more a concept in the mind than something we can actually grasp in reality. No one can say this is the absolute and provide truth that everyone can agree on. This is the problem. The absolute must be something that can be seen by everyone. It must be as real as gravity as the dirt on the ground. It must be logical and sound and more importantly impossible to deny even to those in denial. It must explain everything. It must fit all evidence. It must be the only likely truth that fits every situation, every experience. It must be the answer to all. It must be absolute. We have our institutions. In math we have our geometry, we have shapes that never seem to appear in reality. Who has seen a square or a triangle in our world. Nothing follows the level of perfection in which we draw on paper. We measure things in our world. We are unable to find an absolute measurement, merely close to accurate. Even with this we can get infinitely closer, without end. We thought as our instruments got better we would be better able to predict our world. Yet these little inconsistencies no matter how small they are, manage to destroy that illusion over time. Turns out we cannot predict the long term because our minor inaccuracies exponentially grow to massive distortions. Our lack of preciseness corrodes our predictions divulging into erratic chaos that is not predictable. In logic, one of our better institutions that we base our judgment of people on quite frequently also has limits. This is also true about science, for these institutions are very much based on perception and a “perfection” that reality has not been able to provide. The conclusions we make, the principles we build, the laws we construct are never absent of judgment, and judgment is a part of the human condition known as perception. To think that the institutions forged in the minds of men can escape this is the closest thing to illusion in this world. The things we have created have not escaped subjectivity no matter how much we may have wanted them to. Science is constantly evolving growing and changing and things we once thought to be infallible have been proven not so, yet with the same arrogance we believe this is not true, that this time what we have built will not be tore down by the evolution of knowledge. We tear down what we build and yet we do not realize that this is what we are doing. Indeed we roll a rock up a hill only to see it roll down the other side, all the while remaining ignorant of the process. We fight wars. We form arguments. We belittle the arguments of others. We try to prove ourselves the best at reason. We fight wars. We claim that our views are best by pointing at holes in the arguments of others all the while staying ignorant of the holes in our own. We make basic assumptions that must be true. We call them logic. We build on them as to create logical perfection that should be true. If this is not true, then it is the fault of the person, not of logic. The form in which we have created is not at fault if we create another conflicting view; it is the conflicting view that is at fault. We do not consider that they are both creations and are both capable of fault. When did our creations become God? Was it when we started thinking they were absolute? And whether it be the God of religion or the God of Institution we still war against each other in His name. Nothing thus far is infallible. And our arrogance in believing that our current knowledge works for everything is a part of our nature in oversimplification. Our knowledge of a small part of the system does not equate to knowledge of all. Our assumption has never been proven right. But it is the curse of man to repeat his mistakes. Indeed we have been doing the same thing since the beginning of our existence. With all that aside I will tell you my current philosophy. My quest is not to gain absolute truth but to gain knowledge, to understand the world in which I live better. I think this is how we should use our institutions, whether it be religion, science, logic or math; not used to create closed minds judging other peoples truths as inferior, but as important elements in understanding our world and living life better. We can always improve our institutions, and with less confusion, once we admit to ourselves that we have all been searching for the same thing without proof of its existence. Instead of worrying about the destination, let’s enjoy the journey. As for our beliefs, is it wrong for us to esteem them? I do not think so. I think power is in our personal beliefs. I think our personal truths are useful and shouldn’t be abandoned without reason because it gives insight into who we are. The ultimate power is to be aware of the process and intentionally choose our beliefs, not because it is absolute but because it is ours. Let us not delude ourselves into thinking we are so logical, that our reasoning is somehow more perfect than the world that surrounds us. We are all playing the same game, the question is, will we be aware that we are playing, or will we let the game play us. Will we stop for a moment to enjoy the experience instead of constantly trying to wrap everything up in a bow that can’t be unknot? Take joy in the process, in the fact that there may be no end to what we can know and stop looking for some elusive wrap up to everything. We have a power inside of us to create for ourselves what’s important, to determine for ourselves what matters, each individually, each for themselves. We have the power to put to bed our fear that we may be going down some wrong path, that we are fooling ourselves, when we realize that we have the power to determine our own paths, and there is no folly in trusting yourself. There’s no need to provide a definite answer or complete the puzzle. Our lives are short, but our hearts are powerful. The mind cannot make logical how the heart feels. Let us revel in the absurdness, the flexible open and endless possibility of life. 070731 ... Boogie Down KRS One Fresh for '88 You suckahs 070731 ... They call me Truth is slowly getting bigger. I wonder how big it can get. 070801 ... ? what ? your shadow ? 070801 ... kuffsleeve if you pinch yourself you might get a shock and realise that you are alive, go on, do the right thing. 070801 ... somebody "Eat on a daily basis." 070801 ... jane hiding in plain sight 070802 ... the evaporator Barry, i hope you get cancer and suffer a horrible decline. 070802 ... zeke i believe that absolutes are a human construct. faced with open-endedness everywhere we turn, we invent hypothetical absolutes in order to end infinite regresses. we predicate our logical systems on the eventual (if not impossibly remote) absolute stopping places; the end of counting, or the place where the possible collapses. these fictitious thresholds comfort us. we bask in their ostensible concreteness, finding resonance in their comparable mortality. we end, and so must all things. this is, for me, the source of my hunger for absolutes. i can honestly say that i will dissipate, end, die, subsume, stop, cease and that i have no doubt that the world will grind on without me. i will not be, and yet all this will go on, maybe forever. what i am saying is that i am only aware of 2 absolutes; that i exist and that i will be no more some day. that is enough for me. everything else is for study and enjoyment aesthetically and empirically. i love experience. 070806 ... Christ without the cross in a limitless world, we chose our limits. 070807 ... zeke you assume limitlessness. i do not. 070808 ... somebody Yes, but you are equally presumptious to assume limits. The limitations we face - any of them - may not be real, or perhaps can be otherwise circumvented... 070808 ... zeke for me, nothing exists until it is reasonably clear that evidence supports that it does or that it can be inferred from a greater theory which has components that have been reasonably well established. why believe in something in the absence of any evidence indicating that it exists? 070808 ... They call me Truth all of those things that you have stated are based on human constructions, a bunch of words strewn together to justify your current perspective/opinion. not everybody requires such a justification,which is unique to you and people that may share your perspective. proof. proof's importance is weighed by a person. you ask "why" i ask "why not" the difference is a matter of preference. we are indeed different people and thus we weigh things differently. i do not base the same weight on human constructions designed to test and acquire evidence as you do. though i find them useful in increasing understanding, i do not find them necessary as a base for belief. 070808 ... Christ without the cross "for me, nothing exists until it is reasonably clear that evidence supports that it does or that it can be inferred from a greater theory which has components that have been reasonably well established. why believe in something in the absence of any evidence indicating that it exists?" in a limitless world we choose our limits. you have chosen yours. 070808 ... somebody why not believe in things one has no specific evidence against? 070808 ... f Well, you know somehow most people do believe things without proof simply because they are told to believe such stories from a young age, at least they don't have to think too much. I mean having faith in something is kind of comforting and less frightening. Not knowing what to believe in and always asking questions takes a lot of energy. It takes years to work out a simple answer that has no boundaries yet demands the right actions. *LOVE * sitting praying for dieing children in Africa is useless, it involves no logic or emotion, praying is a waste of time, rather do something. 070808 ... zeke somebody: your question (for me) is about hope, faith, creativity, fiction of self delusion. believing in something without evidence is wishing. it is simply not rational. i was not brought up with any spirituality, religion or paranormal beliefs. consequently, what is often other people's basis for their philosophical and cosmological beliefs, their first principles, seems bizarre to me. possibility is a human construct. do you believe that i am you? you must admit that it is possible (though it feels unlikely). the absurdness of my question, i suspect, is similar to how it feels when i contemplate what i understand to be your ideas on this subject. it is not that i limit myself, rather, that i am honest with myself and others and rigorous in my self critique regarding what i can know. epistemology is the study of what can be known. look it up, it might be interesting to discuss. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology in the meantime, i leave you with a quote from something which i blathed recently. "conceivable is not equivalent to possible. possible is not equivalent to probable. probable is not equivalent to provable. provable is not proven." from: can_contradictions_exist_in_reality 070724 respectfully, z 070809 ... They call me Truth honest: as we all should be. about rationality however, it is a construct, an everchanging one at that. honesty would make that apparent. your reliance on rationality is similar to another's reliance on faith. they are both constructs, and even more specifically they are both abstracts. when it comes down to it there is only what we think we know. "reality" always seems to shatter our sense of knowledge, our constructs, our self proclaimed honesty. yet we are forgetful of this, and it may be that we have to be, or we would fall to pieces under the absurdities that we build our identity on. every construct is fleeting whether it be on faith or rationale, these things are not even close to as sturdy as we pretend they are for our own purposes. what make shift house will we build next? we build foundations in our mind, things that we can stand on, things we can proclaim when our opinion differs from another, proclamations we can use to prove ourselves as honest or faithful or rational or the most mysterious of them all: right. are we right really? there is only what we think we know or what we believe. and it is this reliance on belief that humans have in common, whether they be different or not, we build them to rest ourselves against, to make sense of everything around us. we are humans. we build. we build houses to live in. we build moving apparatuses so that we can travel distances. we build up governments so that we may have order, how successful this has been is up for interpretation. and just like building things with our hands we build with our minds as well. are we delusional? do we know that this is what we are doing? we talk of reality yet we build and we create. we form our realities. whether a reality exists outside of us is besides the point, because every time we decide to remove something from our belief structure or add something to it, every time we decide that something is ridiculous or wrong or untrue, every time we make a judgment we are deciding what is "real", for us. when we look out at the world around us we notice some things and ignore the rest, maybe not intentionally, but we do. we do not consciously accept everything the brain processes, we do not see everything that goes before our eyes. we filter. we are filters. we create. we are creators. whether we are aware of this is irrelevant, this is what we're doing. so in essence what we call rational or irrational is that of preference. we will always weigh things differently. and some things will end up being more important. honest: as we all should be, to recognize or own biases. 070810 ... f-light beautiful writting, so, if we are creative, we must be a part of God and not separtate from him/her/it. Everything is created from something, the only question we have unanswered is where and how did it start? in my opinion it never had a starting point, things just develop and grow, we create an idea of beginning and end because we one day will die therefore it is difficult to imagine still being a part of the cosmos in a different dimention. It can only be positive if we view it in that way, the miracle of colour is an illusion according to science, to me it is not, it is two elements put together to create something i can not put into words. Do we have to dissect everything, can we not just enjoy it? Children should be more creative at school, a chemistry lesson should provide a mixing deck and sound recording device to create a sound mix about chemical componants, it is more engaging and useful for sharing and remembering the knowledge. No child looks forward to going to school because the lessons are too structured, children should play a part in what they want to learn (after learning to read and write and do simple sums). This way children will find out earlier what they want to do in life and find their given talent in a natural process. 070810 ... Philucifer "Dominate." 071116 ... Brenda K. "Kiss things." 071116 ... stand up for myself 071117 ... minnesota_chris Do as much good as you can for as long as you can for as many as you can. 071118 ... . share fun and smile more. 071118 ... the awful truth http://www.youtube.com/zzz33333 071118 ... They call me Truth Examine youself and the world around you, the things that you choose for yourself. For what purpose do these things exist? 080211 ... They call me Truth Be open. The world does not reveal itself to a closed mind. 080414 ... unhinged the_four_seals 2) love_is_pain tonglen 080414 ... minnesota_chris if the circuit has current, it is bad for licking 080414 ... . "Run!" 080415 ... unhinged ...how we squander our hours of pain. how we gaze beyond them into the bitter duration to see if they have an end. though the are really our winter-enduring foliage, our dark evergreen, ONE season in our inner year - not only a season in time - , but are place and settlement, foundation and soil and home. --- rainer maria rilke 080422 ... daxle -stay present -abandon hope/expectations -be kind and considerate -be willing to feel unpleasant emotions in order to let them pass -take care of the body -rest the mind 080423 ... Lemon_Soda HRm...I lke that list, daxle. 080424 ... unhinged yes, that is a good list. some of them were on mine, some of them should be on mine. 080424 ... Hoped and Lived I like Daxle's list except that, while I appreciate the idea of abandoning of expectations, I reject the idea of abandoning hope. I would not be where I am today if I had abandoned hope... I'd be dead. 080425 ... LEMON SODA RESPONDING CHECK 081110 ... They call me Truth This moment... 081110 ... Travlller I am more than heartened to have words that guess and quiver into the road I have travelled from the past into this black future. I would say welcome, and grasp your hand, in this travller who live, within and without the life, From my yesterdays I would say welcome, and hold your heart, in this face who lives, because of you my friends, The pen in yesterday, I would stay your welcome, and hold your voice, in this sad contenance, because of you, we live. 081110 ... minnesota_chris be helpful 081111 what's it to you? who go blather from