This past weekend, I continued with my lecture-attendance trend and made my way to Hyde Park for a major Darwin conference at the University of Chicago. As you may know, 2009 is the 150th anniversary of The Origin of Species original publication, and the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin. For this reason, this year has been filled with Darwin celebrations of various sorts. 50 years ago, at the University of Chicago, another Darwin conference was held which went down in history as an important one for the Darwin community. This was also quite exciting, although I doubt that it will be as historic as the previous one. Anyway, I have not been thinking a great deal about Darwin lately, so listening to these lectures brought to life ideas that had fallen dormant. I continue to find a lot of value from attending lectures, and I will certainly continue to do this. This weekend, however, I am taking a break. Three consecutive weekends of lectures and conferences have been fascinating, but a bit exhausting too.
In short: Lecture attendance is good.
Anyway, I have about forty minutes before I need to start my commute, and I wanted to re-visit my philosophical principles. I don’t think I have anything new, but it has been so long since I’ve given it serious consideration that I feel inclined to review. Instead of starting from scratch, I’m going to go back to a previous post, include those principles here, and see if I can add any worthwhile commentary.
This is from February 8, 2009:
(Feb 8 text follow the numbers. Today’s commentary follow the bold note that follow each number’s proposition.)
1. The world, properly understood, is one in absolute flux– there are no discrete ‘things’ because they are constantly changing, affecting and being affected by the world around it. (For any given object, there is no discrete line between where the object ends and the rest of the world begins) Note: I include ideas, but not minds, as things of the world too. This includes two implications. FIRST, ideas are also in constant flux. Each time I recall an idea, whether it is a memory, a desire, or process of reasoning, the idea is slightly different than in previous instances (and in cases where it is identical, it is by accident). This is because every idea that arises to our mind is a cocktail of memories, sensations, emotions, strength of drives, and opinions of who the self is within the ever-changing context of one’s life. The self is never the same, because it is constantly acquiring new memories and finding itself in a different place of ones life. SECOND, the existence of minds are largely illusory. By “mind,” I understand that singular, indivisible thing that a person refers to when she says “I.” Concepts such as individual responsibility (although understood differently by different people), free will, and sometimes “knowing one’s self” are dependent on this notion of the mind, and are therefore flawed and in need of revision. Rather than residing in the indivisible mind (or soul), a more accurate picture of the self is of many strands of “idea-streams,” each of which is striving for different ways of being. These “idea-streams” have personality tendencies, modes of self-identification, are inspired by different conditions, and constantly affect one another. As with all psychological phenomena, different people are affected by the force of this more so than others. A person who has exceptionally disconnected idea-streams is thought of as having multiple personality disorders, for example, while someone who has fewer or exceptionally connect idea-streams is thought to be a very steady and consistent person who rarely behaves very differently than normal. Most of us are somewhere in the middle. This post goes into some more details of this notion, and this Atlantic article from last year references both philosophical and psychological precedents. As a side note, David Brooks of the New York Times recently wrote an article that tied in the Atlantic article with the movie “Where the Wild Things Are.” On a further note, it is on this point of idea-streams where I see the opportunity to tie in Spinoza’s concept of the Conatus, Things, and Adequate Knowledge, Nietzsche’s Overcoming, Forgetting, Guilt, Bad Conscience and “Philosopher as Attempter,” Darwin’s Natural Selection, and Dewey’s Democratic spirit. But I write this not for the reader, who can only guess what I mean by this, and more for myself, so that I can remind myself where to pick this up next time I revisit it.
2. The flow is determined by laws that are not subject to the will of the mind, but can be understood to some degree….
3. The essential part of all things is the striving for their own preservation and increased power. Note: However, as expanded on below, the thing can only be aware of its existence if it has a mind, it must understand the links between cause and effect in order to have power, and the principal effect, which determines whether or not any knowledge is trivial or worthy by whether or not a cause directly links to it, is the preservation and increased power of the thing itself.
4. There is no ‘I’ in the soul/cogito sense– the mind should be understood as a stream of ideas, brought about by previous causes and bringing forth new conditions.
5. Obviously, the ‘I’ has no freedom– from 2 and 3.
6. Knowledge of the laws of process, and the streams that largely flow through the self, allow one to better steer one’s self in accordance
7. The mind is our fundamental place of existence– we do not ‘live’ in the material world– we live in the phenomenal world.
8. In order to have freedom, the mind must grow in its understanding of the world.
9. Our ideas of the world are formed by looking at clashes, conflicts and resolutions.
10. Education depends on exposing the mind to contrary ideas that we believe are relevant to the expansion, preservation, and empowerment of the self.
11. Incorrect ideas, especially in regards to Good and Evil and the nature of truth, destroy our freedom.
12. One’s character is moldable over time, by first understanding how to mold it and then having the strength of will to bring into affect the necessary conditions to motivate the change.
13. The pursuit to preserve one’s self and to increase the breath of the self (which, recall, is not the body, but the body of knowledge of one’s self) is the greatest human virtue: happiness.
NOTE: After finishing the notes on #1, I ran out of time. I will revisit this soon and record the updates, both content and time. Last update: Notes on #1, 5:04am, November 3.
Natural Causes 