Bird's Eye View VI

If humanity has already scheduled its demise, then I think it is for the best.
Any conscious species who is unable of assuming its own problems, unwilling to accept its impact on the world and inept to walk towards a solution is then unworthy of leaving descent. To allow our descendants to carry the weight of our mistakes and live in a world of burden and suffering represents, to me, the ultimate act of irresponsibility.

Bird's Eye View V

Willful ignorance is ultimately perverse, for it sanctions a world where problems and atrocities are free to wander unnoticed, unscathed and unbroken.

The Best Boat to Cross the River

Some conversations in which I've participated and debates that I've witnessed revolved around the infinitely-fun-to-discuss imperfections of science. I'm going to present common statements and come up with a reply and my thoughts on it.

Person 1: Science is not perfect.

Reply: I agree, science is not perfect, mainly because it is done by humans. We have biases, we make mistakes, we are flawed in a myriad of ways. However, science is based on the scientific method, which has the goal of taking into account, no more no less, than the imperfections of human beings. You experiment, you observe, you gather data; you show your results to the world, so that they are able to repeat your experience. If they are unable to do it, you are wrong - too bad. If you cannot show it, it probably is not real, and will not be taken seriously unless capable of falsification. That is demonstrably the best method that we have of investigating and understanding reality. So, of course, science is not perfect, and the fact that you stated that is not only painfully obvious and redundant, but one of the cornerstones of the scientific method, which is uncertainty and the lack of absolute truth. No matter - you seem to be implying that you possess a perfect tool to investigate reality. Do you? If not, refrain yourself from criticizing imperfect methods when you do not possess a better alternative, let alone a perfect one.

Person 2: Your position on science is almost religious. You rely on science too much - that is scientism.

Reply: Calling my position "scientism" is nonsensical, and so is your position on the whole - let me explain why. If you are stating that I rely "too much" on science, I suppose you are implicitly saying "You rely to much on science for truth and knowledge about reality". We have been using science for centuries, and the assumptions and conclusions of it, although sometimes incorrect, were self-corrected by his own mechanism. Not only that, but its conclusions are not dependent on subjectivity and can be demonstrated to be true regardless of opinions. If you go to the doctor, if you take vaccine shots, if you were ill and were cured, if you possess computers at home, television, electricity, light bulbs and cars, you already know this, let alone the answers that science has provided regarding who we are, where we came from, and our place in the universe. Thus, science is demonstrably the best method we have for understanding and investigating reality, and I am almost sure that you will agree with me unless you have a better method. If you agree with me, consider this. There is a fire behind us, and we need to cross the river to escape it. There's a number of old boats we can use, but there is one boat that is newer and in a better shape than the others; it is more resistant and surely has a higher chance of not breaking while crossing the river. If you had no better way to cross the river, would you, in any situation possible, say to me something like "You are relying too much on that boat?" or "Your persistence about going on that boat is almost religious?". That is why "scientism" and your whole position is nonsensical. It is not about blind reliance on something. It is not that I am absolutely certain that the boat is not going to break and get us killed. It is about reliance on the best alternative possible to achieve a certain goal - it is about choosing the boat that is demonstrably the best we currently have to cross the river and escape the fire.

Bird's Eye View IV

An honest mind is not always ready to abandon wrong for right, comfort for truth and ego for humility - but she's always ready to walk the road that will lead her to do so.

Fundamental Questions

The world we experience is a world of purpose.

By "purpose", I mean an objective final goal to be reached (i.e. the purpose of nutrition is to ensure survival) as different from "meaning" (i.e. subjective purpose, significance or relevance attributed by an individual). In the context of purpose, it is not unreasonable to ask some questions:

"Why did this person act this way instead of another way?"
"Why do different humans feel different things in different situations?"
"Why has society evolved the way it did, and not another?"

We know that when we perform an action, it usually has an underlying reason and a final purpose. In fact, we know, from experience and investigation of our past and present, that life in general does things with a certain purpose. We know the "How", and we feel confident to ask the "Why?". HOWEVER, in this case, we can only ask "Why?" because we know the "How". The problem with the Why question shows its limitation when we are concerning ourselves with the fundamental questions and principles. Let me give an example:

PERSON 1: Why do I have these physical traits and not others?
PERSON 2: Well, reproduction works such and such, crossing-over such and such, mutations such and such, which gave rise to your particular traits, and not others; actually, it was a quite random process.
PERSON 1: Yeah, alright, that's HOW I have these physical traits... But WHY do I have them?

There is an evident miscommunication. Person 1 is failing to see that the "Why?", in this case, merges into a "How". This situation happens when we are dealing with the fundamental principles of something, getting closer and closer to the building blocks of life - there exists "randomness" in the fundaments, which, by definition, do not have a purpose or orientation - there is not a "survival purpose" for you to have those traits, but rather you having those traits or another set of traits might influence your "survival". What triggers such a solid process as evolution by natural selection is the random mutation and genetic variation along generations; in fact, the origin of life from non-life (abiogenesis), if it occured, was a matter of (very low) probability. Thus, what we perceive in our macroscopic world behaves by totally different rules than those applied when we investigate the fundamental principles of something, where non-deterministic rules seem to apply. In likeness to the birth and existence of human beings, nothing points towards the existence of a mind, or purpose, behind atoms and molecules moving around in space, which make up all matter. While investigating themes such as this, I came about a number of questions which I consider to be poor questions:

Why does the Universe exist?*
Who is the Creator of the Universe?
What is the Purpose of Life?

Where will I go after I die?

*Some people pose this question in the form "Why is there something instead of nothing?", which is equivalent in this case. I am not critisizing the curiosity for "how" the Universe came to exist, but rather the fact that many times this question pressuposes a purpose for the Universe to have originated.

These questions already pressupose something a priori: a deity, an ultimate purpose for life to exist, something which continues after death, etc. One of the great pleasures that I take in life is to know and understand the universe that I live in as it is - therefore, I will take all necessary steps not to fool myself. If by pressuposing a certain set of answers, we fail to come up with a TRUE answer, we will certainly make up a FALSE one. I suggest different questions:

What gave rise to the Universe/How did the Universe came to be?
How did life form? Was there any purpose in the formation of life?
Is there anything that survives after death? Is there any good, demonstrable reason for me to believe such a thing?

By asking the broadest question possible, we decrease the probability of fooling ourselves into believing something with no good reason or into making up answers that are either false or have no solid support to stand on their own.

If we are willing to discover and understand the Universe, we should ask the broadest question possible - one that pressuposes nothing and simultaneously doesn't rule out anything.

It may seem that, within my philosophy, I am almost anti-philosophical, in the sense that I don't appear interested in the deep questions about being. In fact, I am - however, I am more concerned with the practical questions of the world, the ones who can be objectively investigated by logic, reason and science. Science, throughout history, has exposed the faults and limitations of the human mind in understanding the Universe. That is why, in my limited opinion, one of the main roles that philosophy plays in modern times is not that of a compass pointing towards the final destination, but that of a counselor, helping humanity sail through the sea of uncertainties and conflicts.

To Know Something

The mental process of "knowing" is intriguing.

I claim no absolute knowledge of anything, on any matter. Thus, I can BELIEVE things to different degrees of certainty, being that, when I am most certain, the sentence "I believe" is generally substituted by "I know", without the two being mutually exclusive - rather, knowledge is a subset of belief, not a different mental process. For me, it would make no sense to say "I don't believe that this apple is green, I KNOW it is green." Perhaps this sentence would be acceptable for someone who claims that absolute truth and knowledge are attainable, and, as such, different from believing something without actually knowing it. I claim no such thing.

Therefore, knowledge is a subset of belief, i.e. belief in something with maximal certainty, but not absolute certainty.

Having said this, it can understood that knowledge does not necessarily imply truth. If I said "I know an ostrich is not a bird", and some other person said, equally with maximal certainty "I, for instance, know that an ostrich is a bird", both people happen to have the highest possible certainty about the veracity of something. They both KNOW something to be true, and are utterly convinced by it. In what we consider to be reality, an ostrich is either a bird or it is not, and only one of the assertions is according to reality - therefore:

Knowledge does not imply truth, but rather self-conviction of truth with maximal certainty.

If knowledge does not imply truth, does any truth exist for those who do not claim to know anything in absolute? Does this concept escapes us, once again, between the philosophical divagations, to be lost among the metaphysical waste of human consciousness? For now, I am not worried about absolute truth, but rather "practical" truth, which is the one who has any effect on the world that I experience. Although young and foolish regarding philosophical issues, I believe that focusing on practicality, or practical knowledge, rather than spending a lifetime dwelling in the deep caves of absolutes, is more healthy, productive and makes better justice to the role of a modern philosopher.