Tenets

10 Tenets

These are the tenets I developed from my original efforts to know thyself. At the time, I didn't organize these according to the traditional jargon-filled branches of philosophy, but they do represent early statements about my cosmological view of the universe, my epistemological understanding of knowledge, the natural basis for my ethics, my Ideas on free will and the power of reason, and a view of what this all might mean for the future. As a joke, because I ended up with 10 tenets, I inscribed them in stone on the map below, but all knowledge can of course evolve and change. (In fact, some of these have changed a bit! Especially numbers 1 and 7.) These first tenets were simply hypotheses, and discussions about each of them can be found by clicking on each word on the tablets, or by following the links for "further reading" at the bottom of the page. You can leave your comments on the appropriate blog, or just contact me to share your thoughts.

1. We live in a rational, knowable, physical universe. Effects have natural causes. No supernatural events have ever been unquestionably documented.

2. Knowledge comes from using reason to understand our sense experiences. The iterative nature of the scientific method is what hones this process towards truth. In a large and changing universe, eternal absolutes are impossible to prove. We must act based on the best available knowledge. This leaves us entirely with probabilistic knowledge, which means we must act with confidence and caution appropriate to the probability, being especially careful in realms where knowledge is uncertain and consequences of error are large.

3. The universe is composed of trillions and trillions of stars and is currently expanding after a Big Bang and 13-14 billion years of evolutionary processes.* We are just another species of animal life on a single planet orbiting one of the stars in the universe. (* The best current estimate of the age of the universe is 13.75 ± 0.11 billion years. The best current estimate of the number of stars in the universe is from 3 to 100 × 10^22 or between 30 sextillion and 30 septillion.)

4. Once matter exists and moves, forces of the universe dictate that it must either come together or come apart. As it comes together, it creates order, complexity, and life. As it comes apart, life, complexity, and order are lost; death, disorder, and chaos reign. We have arisen from life and have evolved an intense need to avoid death. All life competes against death. It is by no means a futile fight.

5. A universal definition of good arises from nature. Good is that which enables the long-term survival of life.

6. Emotions are chemical reactions that arise in nature to guide and aid actions—this is the survival instinct. Reason arises in nature to help life choose between actions that satisfy short-term desires or long-term needs. We are not bound by any laws of nature to act on every emotional state we feel. The joy of the survival of life is our deepest feeling so reason can be said to serve that emotion, but reason rules over other emotions as it instructs us about which actions we should take and which emotions we should feel.

7. Extreme versions of free will and determinism are just that—extreme. The truth lies in the middle and is easier to understand when timescales are introduced. In the short-term, on biological timescales such as those concerning biochemistry, molecular biology, and cellular biology, events are determined by their current states. In the medium-term, on biological timescales such as those concerning organismic biology, and sociobiology, freedom is not only possible, it determines the states that arise in the short-term and the long-term. In the long-term, on biological timescales such as those concerning ecology and evolutionary biology, the characteristics of competitiveness, cooperativeness, and adaptability are required for survival. In that sense, the long-term is determined. The free will worth wanting that occurs in the medium-term, and the randomness of destructive cosmological events, means that who survives is unknown. Evolution is blind. We are not.

8. The process of evolution has no externally set goal, but entities in evolutionary systems will survive or perish. The existence of humans has no known purpose. If we want to survive, we must know the rules of the system we have evolved in and play by them.

9. Survival requires progress and stability. Stability and progress require society. Society requires cooperation. Cooperation requires balancing long-term benefits against short-term costs in order to control our emotions and guide our actions. Balancing long-term benefits against short-term costs requires wisdom. We must study philosophy—the love of wisdom—to know how to live and survive.

10. Evolution describes the rules that govern the way that life survives. The end product of evolution therefore would be immortal life. Humans may have the intellectual capacity to achieve this end.

10 Tenets

Further Reading

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