usalp

My ultra-simplified anecdotal life philosophy, and how it came to be.

The story of how I became a libertarian existentialist hedonistic humanist apathist agnostic tending towards atheism with a dab of deism.

While growing up, I often heard the term �the meaning of life�, and I assumed there was some great sentence that could sum up existence, and that this knowledge was only known by a select few. There was most likely a gathering at the top of some mountain somewhere, and the members of this elite group would look at each other, feeling rather good about themselves and sporadically call out interjections such as �yep� and �know what you mean�.

I then learned that it was my mom or dad who placed money under my pillow and not the tooth fairy. I also realized that Santa Claus didn�t care much about Jewish kids. Luckily there was Chanukah to satisfy my material desires. My dad�s rationalist influence often made me say �God doesn�t exist�, but I would still say the Shmah before I went to sleep every night. At the tender age of 8, I asked God for a Nintendo and an antfarm. That�s all I wanted, and that�s what I told God. �God, if I get a Nintendo and an antfarm, I�ll never ask you for anything again.� So for my birthday, my mom got me a Nintendo and my dad sent me a postcard-sized plastic antfarm in the mail. Thanks God!

Oh how I wish I wasn�t so stupid. I used up my divine request on a lousy Nintendo rip-off, and an antfarm that somehow killed every ant I managed to squeeze through the opening. Perhaps they died because I gave them no food or water. Perhaps because the sand I put in was virtually solidified or because I crushed some vital organ while squishing them in. Perhaps they died because they couldn�t take the Queen ant, who was a bipolar with paranoid schizophrenic tendencies.

And so my mother took her 9 psychotropic pills a day for her various disorders. Lithium, carbamazapine, and thyroxin to name a few. I developed an indifference to emotion from all sources and had a childhood that Freud would probably have said �Oy Vey� to. But I got to a point eventually when my rational mind blossomed and I decided that my childhood experiences obviously had nothing to do with the existence or nonexistence of God.

By this time, Leo and I had been best friends for a good 3 years, and I was turning 13. My experiences had drained me of any belief in a deity and I remained agnostic and apathetic for another 3 years. I only really started seriously thinking about life and philosophy when I moved to the states. I wrote a lengthy 32-page manuscript detailing the reasons why I believe what I believe, but it was not great quality and I am embarrassed to show anyone. This ultra-simplified version should sum up parts of it nicely though.

Someone told me I had to have faith in something. Well apparently not, because after a bit of thinking and looking into agnosticism, I came up with my near-famous statement �Nothing can be proven without prior assumptions except this statement.� Well it looks like I summed up the only humanly universal truth. I can now sit amongst the men on the mountain. The logic is simple enough: There is a reality, and we have perceptions of reality. Because all we have is our perception, we cannot know if our perception is of reality, and we therefore cannot prove it is reality we are sensing. I could be a brain in a jar, or a glitch in the matrix.

But of course, only the most ridiculous agnostic would stop there. Ok, so the only universal absolute is uncertainty. But look around! That�s a wall, and that�s a piece of paper. So obviously there has to be some certainty. So now we look back at my near-famous statement and see �without prior assumptions�. So there has to be some number of assumptions made to believe anything beyond our starting point of uncertainty. Occam�s Razor is that wonderfully misunderstood idea that I use to choose the initial assumptions� In its usual form, it says �do not multiply entities needlessly�, but I like thinking of it as �start with what is observable and work from there.� If you find a television at the bottom of the sea, then chances are that someone dropped it overboard. It is very unlikely that intelligent fish put it together in their spare time.

So my point was that when choosing initial assumptions, we must start with what is observable. And we should only explain things initially with what is observable. This takes the ball out of the Agnosticism courtyard and into something resembling a court. And I believe that is how we should look at the question of whether there is a God or not. The burden of proof is on anyone who makes a claim that does not have observational backing.

I figure there�s no point in talking about evolution, because it�s a given. If someone wants to argue about that, then there�s a whole other anecdotal essay to be written. Seriously� 4,500,000,000 years seems like plenty of time for 1 planet out of a couple trillion to spark up a life-form capable of understanding what you�re reading. I saw a picture in Richard Dawkin�s book (either The Selfish Gene, or River out of Eden) of a frog that was born with a mutation giving it eyes on the inside of its mouth. Now if for some reason it was beneficial to have eyes on the inside of your mouth (I know I wouldn�t mind a pair myself) and if humans didn�t interfere, I�m sure we�d see populations of these ugly critters within a few thousand years.

There�s obviously life out there. Perhaps only a handful of planets have life forms smarter than you and I of course. Natural Selection is the opposite of randomness. Its been shown that mutations occur, and its been shown that �beneficial� mutations are passed on to offspring. Add up a couple billion years of these, and you�ve got a human. It�s really quite pointless arguing against the masses of evidence. You have paleontology, biology, embryology, geology and astronomy all pointing towards the same conclusion.

Evolution really just says, �You�re not as special as you think you are�. Because of this and the illusion of egocentrism (which I will later discuss), I am fond of the idea of Spinoza�s God. Baruch Spinoza (mid 1600 rationalist Jew) basically summed up his views with �God is Nature� or something like that. It�s basically pantheism, or deism. And it�s the only religion that makes any sense to me. The natural laws argument is the only God argument that has ever held any sway in my books. However it must be noted that it only really argues for this deistic detached God, or nature God, and not one of the many anthropomorphic Gods of the major religions.

It leaves room for the God from Jewish conservatism and the likes, which is a God that pointed evolution towards mankind, with us as the goal. But the inherent nature of natural selection suggests that humans are just another animal. We are just animals with a highly developed central nervous system. Humans are by no means a final product. When one looks at the vastness of the universe and all 13+ billion years of expansion, and accepts evolution as fact, it has to be obvious that we are not the only life forms. The universe couldn�t possibly have been created just for us. We were not created in God�s image. I�ll let this lead onto the subject of every high school essay I�ve ever written, and the basis of all rationalist thought: �Egocentrism is an illusion�.

I started a majority of my high school essays with �Bertrand Russell�s life was governed by three simple, yet overwhelming passions: the longing for love, the search for knowledge and an unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.� I start with this because good old Bertie, along with Huxley and Hume are the three main philosophers that I base my own philosophy around. Deism is always that beacon of optimism in the otherwise seemingly dreary existentialistic reality of life: It certainly makes for good essay topics. However when one examines the underlying theme of the rationalists, it is that egocentrism is an illusion.

�Zulu� means heaven. Zulus are the �People of Heaven�. The Jews claim God chose the Jews as his people. Members of the Shinto religion believe Japan is the divine country, created by gods Izanagi and Izanami. Christians claim Christianity is the one and only religion in the world, intended for all men, alone acceptable to God.

The Greeks proclaimed that the Barbarians were inferior, Hitler believed Germans were the �Ubermenschen� or super race of Nietzsche�s philosophy, and from that belief sprang the Holocaust. Elijah Muhammad announced that �We the Black nation of the Earth are the NUMBER ONE owners of it, the best of all human beings. You are the Most Powerful, Most Beautiful and the Wisest.� On the flip side, KKK leaders claimed that the superior white race must rid Earth of all Black people.

Basic logic: two mutually exclusive ideas cannot both be true. If two different religions claim their God is the only God, then either one of them is telling the truth, or neither of them is. But that�s a simplified example. If 100 religions claim their God is the only God, then either one of them is telling the truth, or none of them are.

I must admit one religion in particular has a pretty low score on the humanity scale� with all those crusades, witch trials, inquisitions, etc. Well, I suppose religion is usually a good thing for those who believe they need it. The many Catholic saints that brutally flogged themselves for God thought it would get them into heaven. �Whatever floats your boat�. I don�t mind if you do that in your back yard, just as long as you keep me out of it. Ah yes, it is that train of thought that leads me to libertarianism�

(Let me say that I have intentionally abruptly ended speaking of religion, because I will not persuade anyone in either direction, and religion is not the purpose of this essay.)

I�m not fully politically libertarian, because ideally I�d have a pseudo-socialistic libertarian council controlling all of earth. Capitalism and Socialism both only work if there is a degree of humanism included. But realistically, I believe that every individual has the absolute right of self-ownership over his or her life, body, speech, action and honestly acquired property. Everyone should oblige to respect everyone else�s self-ownership. And as long as one�s actions are peaceful, voluntary and honest, government should stay out of it. Government�s only role should be to enforce these rights. Laws should only penalize acts such as murder, rape, kidnapping, theft, trespassing, pollution and fraud. Thomas Jefferson was a Deist Libertarian. Why can�t we have presidents like him around today? Seriously� who voted for Bush? Who are you people?

I like libertarianism because it makes sense. If economics played no role in politics, I�d be hideously liberal. I�ve found that the more rational you are, the more libertarian you become. Besides, libertarianism is actually an existentialist sub-philosophy in a way. Both stress individual freedom and the respect of others� liberty.

Before I go on, let me loosely define three things:
Nihilism � life is meaningless.
Existentialism � life is meaningless, so make the most of your situation.
Humanism � life is meaningless, so contribute to humanity.
Existential Hedonism � life is meaningless, so lets have sex, drugs, orgies and party until we spontaneously combust at 35. (Robbie and Renee have chosen 37 as their age to spontaneously combust, to allow flexibility.)

I�ve found that one can be all these philosophies simultaneously. Existentialists are nihilists, just as humanists are existentialists. Hedonists by definition actually believe that pleasure is intrinsically good, so I added �Existential� to express what I meant.

I haven�t really read much Nietzsche but he�s usually associated with nihilism and he wrote about the death of the Europe-uniting God and how he has become a doddering Deus Emeritus (which is amusing to us intellectual types), so I just assume he�s thought about the topic more than I have. He is also very anti-anthropomorphic-gods, so he must have some faculty in his cranium. Because he�s so famous, I�m also assuming he�s not one of those scary nihilists who thinks nothing exists. I wish someone would pick a definition for nihilism. There�s those who believe nothing exists, there�s those who believe they themselves do not exist, there�s those who believe the current government should be overthrown, and there�s those who believe the world is inherently meaningless. When it comes to government, I�m with most left libertarians. When it comes to doubting one�s own existence, you can always reply �and who shall I say is asking?� When it comes to doubting all existence, it seems obvious that in order to have a perception of reality not existing, your perception must exist. The point I do agree with, however, is that the world is inherently meaningless. Outside of society, things have causes but no reasons. Morals do not exist and neither does good or evil.

Its annoying thinking that everything I can conceive of has previously been conceived. Nothing I say is really new, and it is a fruitless goal to think up a new �correct� philosophy. And so I mumble thoughts for no reason except a humanistic striving to better myself, and because I had a human urge to preach. It�s all just selfish altruism, really. Everyone just wants to be happy. What is happiness and why do we not all just kill ourselves in the face of abysmal meaninglessness? This final topic I like to think is my own: it is incredibly similar to The Myth of Sisyphus, and is really just another way of explaining Existentialism, and its all very common sense, but I prefer to call it my paradox� of Oscillating Over-analysis:

Is anything absolute? Well, apart from my one near-famous statement, everything is absolutely relative. One man�s trash is another�s fortune. One man�s paradise is another man�s oil drilling hotspot (Who voted for Bush? Who are you people?) Some things are obvious for all primates: its preferable to be fed than not, and preferable to be safe from pain/death than not. These two things are inevitably preferable because natural selection has made us avoid things that will stop our genes from propagating. When looking at it from a society�s perspective, it is also better to be loved than not. But that is only because we have been taught to think it is. And that is because we have learned emotions from our parents who expressed love for us, and because we have all experienced or seen what it is like to not be loved. If there is no �hell�, then paradise has nothing to be compared to. So why would I prefer to be hiking in the Sierra�s right now instead of typing this? Because I made a cognitive decision to prefer hiking over typing. There is no happiness except in those things you can convince yourself are preferable to their alternatives. Therefore, those who are happy about things within society are unconsciously being blissfully ignorant. This is the first level of analysis.

But knowing that we�re being unconsciously blissfully ignorant changes everything. After the first level of analysis, we are consciously blissfully ignorant. What stops happiness from stagnating if we know we are just convincing ourselves that it is not an illusion? Ah yes, �Consciously blissfully ignorant� would surely be a paradox if it did not contain the middle word�

So to return to happiness, the only options are to suppress one�s wisdom and return to the former ignorant state, or to analyze further and convince one�s self that it is preferable to be consciously blissfully ignorant.

One can zoom out infinitely more levels, but I will stop with a generic statement or two: Ignorance is bliss, and knowing that ignorance is bliss makes life a bit depressing. But knowing that knowing that ignorance is bliss makes life worth living once again. At least that is what I have convinced myself of.

One last pearl or two of wisdom that I must depart with: People should believe the most comforting peaceful philosophy they can convince themselves of. And in life, while stuck in an even-numbered level of analysis in my paradox, (or just as equally walking down Sisyphus�s hill), remind yourself that there is always another level of analysis. And acknowledgement to Camus for having said this all before: while walking down the hill, at least we can convince ourselves that the sunset is pretty.

So I suppose I have to be an Agnostic, because it�s a philosophy of uncertainty that cannot be denied. I�m also an Atheist, as I don�t believe in a sentient higher power that created the universe for mankind. I suppose I am also a Deist at times, especially when I walk through the uncaring majesty of nature: a transcendental feeling is inevitable. But the understanding that it is only through the eyes of the convinced that nature is beautiful, reminds me that such a glorious truth cannot be reality. At heart, I�m an Apathist. I don�t really care about religion. I�m too busy trying to fulfil my self-given meaning in life and over-analyze one step further so that nothing I find contenting ever stagnates. I do however plan on spontaneously combusting at 35 in a state of euphoria.

Revisions:
I must point out that there is a massive difference between cognitive and biological happiness. It is possible to change preferences to allow one's self to enjoy what one is doing, but when you don't get enough sleep, or when you tap into childhood repressions, or are just in a biologically shitty mood, cognitive happiness is often impossible.

I have spent so much time thinking about life that it has become a part of who I am. I don't regret it, as regret is a logically useless waste of brainpower, but know now that the key to life is to not think about life enough to not be distracted by it. Robert Frost told us he took the road less traveled and it has made all the difference - had he taken the other road, he would not have written that poem.