thinking about myself

I feel the need for a grounding experience. Through the chaos and stress of the semester, with the infectious ideas of a hundred philosophers taking successive residence in my mind, my idea of myself is blurred and forgotten.  To teach well, these philosophers must live in my blood. But each one that takes up residence is someone with whom I will empathize for a few days or weeks. And when they leave, my mind is somewhat altered. My notion of myself is modified by the philosophy I was teaching. “I” am still here; I am operating, in some capacity, in the way I always operate. But the finer details of my own perspective are blurred and forgotten.

My mind, my mental machine, is now in need of maintenance.

A person who is free has an understanding of their own ideas and goals. She operates strictly according to the mental machine. She keeps a solid focus on her life’s goal, and although she cannot  perfectly understand how to achieve it, her mind has a system that is exploring, hypothesizing, testing, taking notes, and vigorously moving forward. A person who is free has an understanding of her beliefs, the power of her beliefs over her decisions, her passions, and her past.

A person who is not free acts reactively in relation to her thoughts and feelings. In her attempt to feel free, she is a slave to her passions and first impulses.

The irony, of course, is that the person who recognizes the rules by which she is bound is the person capable of attaining freedom. The person who denies that there are rules is the person least capable of attaining freedom. If this sounds strange, consider the engineer and scientific laws. The engineer has a goal: a physical problem that must be solved. The engineer is wants to manipulate the physical world in such a way that solves the problem. But that manipulation is impossible without knowing the rules by which the physical laws operate. The manipulation becomes more possible the more the physical laws are understood.  The engineer who believes that a goal can be accomplished by mere willing is prevented from accomplishing the goal.  The engineer that knows the laws possesses more freedom in the manipulation. But this is not a special feature of an engineer. This is a general feature for any mind that intends to accomplish a purposeful goal. Ie., it is also a feature for any human being in relation to their own mind.

Who am I?

First-Order Ruling Ideas: I am my ideas. My ruling ideas are, first, that I aim to understand as much as possible, and second, that understanding consists not in the holding of individual facts, but the greatest degree of accuracy possible in the relationships between propositions. I also believe that these are the most meaningful ideas I can hold for myself, that they define my essence, and that my lifelong happiness requires that I pursue that aim expressed in the first idea, while dedicated to the notion that all legitimate understanding is described in the second idea.  (For an explanation of what I mean by these terms, see below.)

These ruling ideas are my only recognized convictions. By “conviction,” I mean that kind of belief that is held to be true without doubt. If reasons, evidence, or the pull of emotions are presented to me in such a way that might compel me to abandon these ruling ideas, I will dismiss the reason, evidence and emotional tug, and stick to my conviction.

I am fairly certain that I hold other convictions as well. However, I wish I did not. Convictions are often formed whenever a mind has an emotional connection for an idea, and that idea is not exercised, challenged, or remembered for a long period of time. Convictions are often unearthed when a mind finds itself getting exceptionally irritated by the comments of others, although many irritating situations also .

Convictions often lie in the crevices of larger and more obvious ideas, where they do not go noticed. In other words, sometimes it seems very plain why something is irritating to a mind. When a person is insulted, they are often offended and irritated by the offender. When presented with a person with differing political, ethical, or religious views, a person can become irritated. We think, “I am irritated because this person doesn’t understand the difference between right and wrong,” or, “this person is aggravating for believing x.” But this cannot be true. When a patient but masterful teacher encounters the obviously incorrect views of a student, the teacher responds not with frustration, but by identifying the source of the student’s error and correcting it. This is a joyful experience for both sides. But when the teacher cannot identify the source of the error, but is convinced she is correct, she gets irritated because she does not possess the knowledge of why she is correct. If her view was not a conviction, she would respond with curiosity, “Ah! I guess I don’t know!” And assuming she is not tied to the further conviction that she must appear to be wise, she will joyfully recognize a component of her thoughts that can be improved.

Assuming that all minds are idea-machines, then any actually erroneous view can be repaired with the presentation of the correct idea-set. Idea-sets include more than mere “matter of fact” propositions. Emotions, paradigm affects, precise definitions of words, biases (and the negation of biases), are all components of an idea-set.

Second-Order Ruling Ideas:

My second order ruling ideas include:

1. That in the absorption of new ideas, we often do so reactively; those ideas which are accepted as accurate are often accepted as accurate by referencing them to the other ideas in one’s mind. However, insofar as the other ideas in one’s mind are inevitably somewhat inaccurate, the determinant of what is counted as an accurate idea is a broken and unreliable determinant.

2. From 1, we can be certain that everyone of our beliefs is a suspect for falsehood. Any belief that appears as a conviction is almost certainly in error.

3. When ideas are not exercised, they never interact with world in any capacity. Although ideas can never interact with pure truth directly, the world does provide an objective standard. Therefore, those ideas that are not exercised are the most likely ideas to be in error.

4. From 3, it follows that if I desire to acquire and expand my understanding, I would strive to test my ideas against both the world and the ideas of other people (which may be in error, but provides a possible test of accuracy).

5. The better one understands and defines one’s own ideas, the more accurately and productively can they be tested.

6. That I ought to arrange my life in such a way that enables those goals derived from my first order ideas. This means that if there are actions that enable me to experiment with my ideas in a certain way, that I ought to strive never to make a commitment that prohibits me from those actions. If there are thoughts that enable me to experiment with my ideas in a certain way, that I ought to strive never to make a commitment that would cause those thoughts to be a violation. At the same time, commitments are necessary in all productive modes of life, and some actions will be prohibited. Therefore, I must endeavor to calculate with caution which commitments I take up, and which to avoid.

7.That I take great pleasure and satisfaction in teaching. Teaching philosophy in the community college is perhaps the most perfect profession for studying working and malfunctioning ideas, and for testing ideas. My ideas of my ideas of understanding are put to the test: insofar as my students improve in the structure of their own thoughts, my ideas of my ideas of understanding are shown to be somewhat accurate.

8. That I take great pleasure in expressing and sharing my ideas, that I engage in careful critiques of others’ ideas, and that I am open to being intelligently criticized myself, as these are all modes of thought that allow me to identify error, repair, and finally absorb or forge new ideas.

9.In regards to having an intimate partner, it is most ideal to have a partner that agrees with me in these things, but  who is also sufficiently intelligent and interested to critique my ideas productively, and where I am sufficiently intelligent and interested to critique her ideas productively, so that we serve not only as a source of enjoyment and support for one another, but also a catalyst for the most vital form of growth.

10. That if that sort of intimate partner cannot be found (or persuaded) that it is second best to stay unattached and to focus my strongest personal relationships on a circle of excellent and diverse friends (although this is still important with a partner, obviously).

11. That I always ought to be open to new experiences, particularly new fine arts, new cultures, new economic conditions, new political, and new ethical beliefs, for these are most likely to challenge my current beliefs and stimulate reflection, speculation, and testing.

12. That I ought to take care of my body by eating well and exercising, for my brain is the necessary physical condition for thought, and the brain is intrinsically tied to my body. Furthermore, judging from my life experiences in relation to the various states that my body has been in so far, I recognize that a healthy body does remove significant resistances, internal and external, that may prevent new experiences. That is, independent of its direct affect on the brain, a healthy body reduces pains and increases a great number of pleasures. A healthy body allows me more access to exploration, notably geographic and sexual.

Some general notes that apply to my descriptions and all minds:

1. By “fact,” I understand a proposition that describes a state of affairs, but that exists without connections in the mind. By knowledge through causes, I understand a collection of propositions, each of which describes a state of affairs, but that exist in causal relationships with other propositions.

2. A proposition does not necessarily describe a state of affairs accurately. In fact, as I will note below, I believe that with most states of affairs, truly accurate propositions are impossible. This is only true with very simple relationships, such as those in well-defined, artificed games. The rules of chess, for example, can be understood perfectly accurately. But in the vast majority of states of affairs, perfect understanding of both the state of affairs and relationships are impossible. However, degrees of accuracy exist, and high degrees of accuracy are worth striving toward. The psychology and play-style of your chess opponent cannot with perfect accuracy, but high degrees of understanding are possible; and the psychology of your chess opponent is a real component of the complete picture of a chess game.

3. Our minds are never presented with the world itself. Rather, we are presented with representations. These representations only inaccurately represent the world itself. The ways in which a representation can err are perhaps infinite, and perhaps limited. These sources of error include, at the most basic level, the notion that our visual representation of physical objects is dependent most directly on those light waves that are rejected by the object. But the full affect of these errors can be much more powerful and unknown to the mind. These sources of error also include things like Francis Bacon’s four “Idols of Thought,” and Nietzsche’s “Four Great Errors.” (from Novum Organum andTwilight of the Idols, respectively).  They include the effects of William Whewell’s notion of a “consilience of inductions” and Freud’s unconscious drives. They include more ordinary things as well, such as a person’s present mood. Some beliefs are affected to greater or lesser degrees by different perversions: my belief that Barack Obama is the current president of the united states, or even that he is a better president than George W. Bush, do not alter with my mood. My beliefs about the hope for our nation’s future, on the other hand, are greatly affected.

4. That by “ideas,” I do NOT mean only those of academic relevance, but even moreso those ideas that have to do with a the most excellent conduct and satisfaction of life (and this includes those ideas related to my emotional responses and actions in respect to the pressures of life).