muflax65ngodyewp.onion/content/tl;dr.mkd

---
title: "tl;dr: muflax"
alt_titles: [muflax]
date: 2011-09-04
techne: :wip
episteme: :believed
---

[muflax][] likes filling out profiles about itself. Maybe it's a signaling
thing. Who knows.

# Philosophical Background

Philosophically, my strongest early influence comes from Satanism and
Discordianism. I tried to, but never really got Nietzsche and felt very much at
home when reading Robert Anton Wilson. Later on, I picked up many Buddhist
influences (Zen at first, later mostly [Theravada][]) and some Taoism. I belong to
no school of thought and my belief system is very idiosyncratic, with most
pieces coming from Theravada Buddhism, Discordianism and different schools of
Rationality (mostly Bayesian, though).

I was motivated at first by fascinating problems, then making sense of madness,
understanding consciousness and fate[^why_fate], and right now, purpose.

[^why_fate]:
    To clarify, I'm not interested in "What is fate?", but "Why do I perceive
    the world ordered in a way that is consistent with fate?". 

For me, the most important non-obvious philosophers are the Buddha (who I
believe to be fiction and do not identify with Siddharta Gautama), for the three
principles of [Anatta][], [Anicca][] and [Dukkha][], and [Wang Yangming][] for
the [Unity of Knowledge and Action][]. Without those, no understanding of the world
is ever possible.[^understanding]

[^understanding]: Interestingly, I don't believe anymore that these 4 are
    necessarily all correct, but only that they forced me to think about my mind
    and behaviour in a way to break through very serious misconceptions. I hope
    to clarify eventually what I think about each of them, once I worked them
    out in more detail and cleared up several problems I'm having right now.

Survey
======

Based on the [PhilPapers Survey][], a bunch of common questions and my position
on them.

A priori knowledge?
-------------------

No. There is no such thing as knowledge without experience. Truth is not an
independent property of statements, but the ability to use them to anticipate
future experiences. In other words, a map is true if I can use it to navigate.
It is meaningless to speak about the truth of a map that doesn't have a
territory.

Abstract objects: Platonism or nominalism?
------------------------------------------

Neither. Abstract objects don't exist, period. Or rather, what do you anticipate
either way? Can you even point at an abstract object? There isn't even a
phenomenon in need of explanation.

Aesthetic value: objective or subjective?
-----------------------------------------

Subjective. See my view on morality.

Analytic-synthetic distinction: yes or no?
------------------------------------------

No, as a priori knowledge does not exist.

Epistemic justification: internalism or externalism?
----------------------------------------------------

Neither. There is no such thing as a distinction between mind and environment.

External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism?
---------------------------------------------------------------

Meaningless distinction.

Free will: compatibilism, libertarianism, or no free will?
----------------------------------------------------------

There is no free will. It isn't even a useful illusion. It just isn't there.

God: theism or atheism?
-----------------------

For a time, I thought that certain concepts could be justifiably believed that
might be called "god", so that, under certain perspectives, you could call me a
theist. I now realized that I was never justified in *even asking the question*.
There is simply no evidence in need of an explanation to bring in the god
hypothesis, so having any believes in that regard is mistaken, including a
rejection of god.

Knowledge: empiricism or rationalism?
-------------------------------------

Strongly lean towards empiricism. I consider it very important, but it seems to
be not exhaustive. I'm still open to alternatives.

Knowledge claims: contextualism, relativism, or invariantism?
-------------------------------------------------------------

Meaningless. The concept of "truth" is nonsense. See "a priori knowledge". 

Laws of nature: Humean or non-Humean?
-------------------------------------

Humean, in the sense that there are no objective laws of nature. All order is
fictitious.

Logic: classical or non-classical?
----------------------------------

Very strongly non-classical. Classical logic is horribly broken. I'm undecided
about alternatives. Maybe even just a finitist version of classical knowledge
might do. Replacing "truth" with "provability" is a good first step. (A
challenge: if you believe [Trivialism][] is false, find an argument a trivialist
can't see as support for trivialism.)

Mental content: internalism or externalism?
-------------------------------------------

Meaningless distinction.

Meta-ethics: moral realism or moral anti-realism?
-------------------------------------------------

Moral nihilism. There is no such thing as morality and you should abandon the
very concept. In other words, there are agents, they may or may not have
preferences, and there are rational ways of negotiating these preferences (via
decision theory, economics, etc.). That is all there is.

Metaphilosophy: naturalism or non-naturalism?
---------------------------------------------

Naturalism, in the sense that there is no "magic" or fundamental "mystery" that
is unresolvable. I strongly doubt that proponents of non-naturalism believe it
or understand what they are saying. As such, the distinction seems to be
"understands what an explanation is" and "doesn't", so having a position on this
is probably silly.

Mind: Anti-physicalism or physicalism?
--------------------------------------

Physicalism, but not necessarily computationalism.

To further clarify, I fully support that "the mind is what the brain does" and
there is no such thing as a separate mind floating around somewhere, but I feel
that a pure algorithmic description of the brain can't explain *all* aspects of
the mind, regardless of computability.

Moral judgment: cognitivism or non-cognitivism?
-----------------------------------------------

Varies, but moral statements are generally non-cognitive. But as mentioned, I'm
a moral nihilist.

Moral motivation: internalism or externalism?
---------------------------------------------

Neither. Again, moral nihilism.

Newcomb's problem: one box or two boxes?
----------------------------------------

The only two reasons to ever pick two boxes, as I see it, are that you either
don't trust the oracle, in which case you don't understand the question, or that
you think you can break causality, in which case, good luck with that and let me
know if you succeed.

Normative ethics?
-----------------

None. Again, moral nihilsm. Though I have a lot of sympathy for virtue
ethics.

Personal identity?
------------------

Depends on what you mean by "self". One "self" has a name, a job, status,
friends, memories and so on. This one is linguistically constructed. Another has
experiences. I have no idea how that one works in detail. If I didn't live in a
social context that demanded that I maintain a "self" persona, then I wouldn't
even bother at all. I do not have any experience of a "self" in any meaningful
way.

Politics?
---------

None. All political systems fail. Solving problems through ideology never works.
Solve them through experiments.

Teletransporter (new matter): survival or death?
------------------------------------------------

Rebirth. Literally.

Time: A-theory or B-theory?
---------------------------

Tend towards [A-theory][]. [B-theory][] is very elegant, but it's main problem
is that it suggests a general graph of events. Therefore, if you only knew that
the universe was B-theoretic, you would expect to find time-loops, but not a
solid arrow of time. You can introduce a bridging law, but that makes B-theory
much less elegant.

Trolley problem: switch or don't switch?
----------------------------------------

Neither, in the sense that there is no such thing as something one "ought" to
do. Realistically, I would freeze up and let the default happen, just like
pretty much everyone.

P-Zombies?
----------

The Zombie position can be separated into two distinct ideas, a strong and a
weak one.

The strong (and original) position is that of zombies being externally
absolutely identical. You couldn't, through no experiment whatsoever, figure out
if you are dealing with a zombie or not. Neither could the zombie themselves.
This is Chalmers' position and complete bonkers.

A weaker position, however, is far more interesting. Exactly how necessary is
consciousness, really? Could you build something that does more or less the same
things as a human, e.g. can reason, use memory, simulate outcomes, talk and so
on, but is completely unconscious? Maybe. I strongly suspect that most aspects
of the human mind can be implemented in an unconscious way (or already are). As
such, assuming all people at all times to be conscious is almost certainly
false.  Exactly what role consciousness plays, however, I don't know.