I've introduced this site and gone through some of its basics, but now it's time to start really having some fun. It's time to start laying out the actual philosophy of Evolutionary Philosophy. One way to attack that task would be to take the 6 branches of philosophy, pick and choose which main definitions apply to each branch, state the ones I believe in, and then clarify and defend my definitions for those terms. But that's boring! It's boring because it's too far removed from actual life. As I said in my Philosophy 101 blog post, the purpose of philosophy isn't to define philosophy - it's to define the wise and good life. We'll get to that soon when I tackle my Know Thyself section, but first we need some common understanding about this universe that we find ourselves in. We need some basic Tenets that ground our discussions in reality as we know it. Let's get started with that.

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

A lot of scientists and atheists that visit this site will surely look at this and say...of course! And that's why it's tenet number one. It's the first building block of a philosophy because it concerns what it is we can actually know. In this case, it says we can know our universe. That sounds like a lot, but this statement rules out plenty of things that too many people still wish existed. Ghosts, interventionist gods, communicative souls, paranormal activity, miracles, the power of prayer, ESP, fortune telling, spirit mediums, past lives, guardian angels, tempting devils, mischievous trolls, vengeful ancestors, horoscopes, mysterious life forces or energy flows such as qi, prana, or the Force, superstitions, lucky idols, breatherism, voodoo. The list goes on and on. And the amount of time, energy, money, and disagreement that goes into them are a terrible waste.

In billions of years of existence, none of the 100 billion people who have ever lived on this planet have ever captured proof of any of these supernatural items. And that's a good thing! Imagine a universe where seas did magically part, people did randomly come back to life, fishes and loaves did miraculously multiply. Imagine just as many evil magical acts occurring on a regular basis. In a world like this, no science would ever be possible. Repeatability of experiments would be for nought. We could never know anything for certain and so would therefore never learn what we need to know to survive. We would be helpless in such a world!

But we do not find ourselves in this kind of world. We find ourselves in a rational, knowable, physical universe. We can determine the causes of effects we see. And for this we should be glad. For this, we should happily put away the supernatural explanations our less-informed ancestors have passed on to us. We should evolve our philosophy to reflect the actual world we live in, which we continue to discover all the time through scientific explorations. When we evolve our philosophy as a result of what we learn, we become happier as we become better suited for survival. Magical thinking may have comforting benefits in the short term, but it cannot match the long term potential of rational thought, simply because it does not reflect the rational world we live in.  All evidence points us this way, so it's the best place to start our journey.

I know that reading about philosophy is usually a daunting task for most people. It's a subject that just sounds boring. You can hear the stuffy British pronunciation of a college professor in your head every time you read it. (fi-LAW-so-fee) It also seems to be overly concerned with people who we don't have a lot in common with anymore - ancient greeks. At least that's as far as most people get with the subject. And even if those initial hurdles don't trip you up, the rest of the reading is filled with such impenetrable jargon and dense logic that getting through 5 pages of the stuff before bedtime feels like an impressive achievement (which it often is).

Evolution is one of the most important ideas in the history of humanity. Before Charles Darwin examined the disparate evidence at hand and ushered this connecting thought into the world, descriptions of the history and origins of life all relied on mystical and supernatural stories with no basis in fact. We were a species groping in the dark for answers to our deepest questions. In the 150+ years since the publication of On The Origin of the Species, however, thousands of scientists have spent their lives researching the details behind the original theory and gaining an understanding of the implications it has had on the survival and adaptation of all life on Earth.

With this blog, I do not wish to battle those who still ignore the mountain of evidence behind this now indisputable idea, nor do I find it necessary to go into great detail laying out the proofs and processes that have gotten us to where we are today. That task has been well taken care of by many scientists in as simple or as detailed of terms as anyone would wish to find. What I want to do with my Evolution 101, is to just take a moment to summarize some of the main ideas that have been found to date and are relevant to the questions that a philosophical belief system will ask. That's my goal.

In Evolution 101, I've laid out simple definitions for 17 things I think are essential to keep in mind about the history and findings of evolution. What do you think? Are these items really important? Are any of them new to you? Do any of the definitions need to be clarified? Supported? What else would you include? Let me know in the comments below what you would do if you were laying the groundwork for an Evolutionary Philosophy - which I'll get to soon enough.

Here goes...

I know this blogging thing will start slowly, but it still feels a little like that small man in white in the picture - riding a zipline high over a freezing river while thousands of onlookers wait to see if he succeeds or fails. Well hopefully this won't disappoint.

I've posted an entire book's worth of philosophy on this website, but I want to take the time now to go over each section of it. If I'm really going to create an Evolutionary Philosophy, I want it to be as peer reviewed by the public as I can make it - that's the way evolution works isn't it? Cooperation, competition, mutation, selection, adaptation, survival of the fittest... - but I'm getting ahead of myself.

The first section I want to post and talk about is Purpose - the purpose of Evolutionary Philosophy. It's a short section laying out some of the challenges we face, the choices we have, and the change that I would like to see made. It's the rallying cry for why I've been thinking about these issues for as long as I can remember. Have a look and let me know if this speaks to you, too. Do you think we need another belief system? Does humanity need to learn how to unite and work together? Can that unification come from the shared fact that we are all life and we are all products of evolution? Post your comments below and tell me what you think.