% Philosophical Survey Just a few thoughts on my answers to PhilPapers excellent [survey] for philosophers. I'll explain my positions somewhat and almost certainly go into more details in future articles [citation needed]. 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 and currently understanding consciousness and fate[^why_fate]. [^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 philosophers are the Buddha (who I believe to be fiction and do not identify with Siddharta Gautama), for the three principles of [anatta](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatta), [anicca](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anicca) and [dukkha](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dukkha), and [Wang Yangming](http://www.iep.utm.edu/wangyang/) 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 some point in the future 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 ====== A priori knowledge? ------------------- No. There is no such thing as knowledge without experience. Abstract objects: Platonism or nominalism? ------------------------------------------ Neither. Abstract objects do not exist, but neither do particular ones. Aesthetic value: objective or subjective? ----------------------------------------- Subjective. 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? --------------------------------------------------------------- Skepticism, very similar to the most common Gnostic position. Free will: compatibilism, libertarianism, or no free will? ---------------------------------------------------------- There is no free will. Determinism is also provably false. Make of that what you will. 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? ------------------------------------------------------------- Relativism. There's no such thing as separate knowledge and certainly no objective knowledge, at least not in any meaningful way. 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 absolutely bankrupt and should be abandoned asap. I am strongly leaning towards [dialetheism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialetheism) and even [trivialism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trivialism). (A challenge: if you believe trivialism is false, find an argument a trivialist can't see as support for trivialism.) However, more fundamentally, the basic *assumptions* of logic, especially definite, discrete truth values, seem very questionable to me. I suspect that most problems in logic today, like the Liar's paradox, Curry's paradox, the debate around contradictions and so on, really derive from an oversimplification or basic misconception about what is exactly *meant* by truth and a discrepancy with what we actually *want* it to be. Mental content: internalism or externalism? ------------------------------------------- Externalism. Again, there is no distinction between mind and world. Meta-ethics: moral realism or moral anti-realism? ------------------------------------------------- Moral nihilism. There is no such thing as morality and you should abandon the very concept. 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 this view actually 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? -------------------------------------- No form of pluralism holds up even under mild scrutiny, so they can be safely rejected. But I simply don't see how physicalism ever *could* explain the subjective experiences of the mind, so I'm fairly skeptical of this view, too. This is, of course, a statement about my understanding and not about the world, so physicalism may very well be right. It is, after all, currently the best model in existence. I strongly suspect, though, that a major revolution will be necessary and that certain universal assumptions, like the idea of a "particle" in physics a century ago, are fundamentally broken. I have no idea *which* assumptions these may be, however. 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? ----------------------------------------------- Non-cognitivism. 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: deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics? ----------------------------------------------------------------- Neither. Again, moral nihilsm. Though I have a lot of sympathy for virtue ethics. Perceptual experience: disjunctivism, qualia theory, representationalism, or sense-datum theory? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Of those, mostly qualia theory. Otherwise nondualism. The question is far from being answered, but anything that rejects the subjective reality of experience is simply wrong. Personal identity: biological view, psychological view, or further-fact view? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 it works. Politics: communitarianism, egalitarianism, or libertarianism? -------------------------------------------------------------- Neither. All fail. Solving problems through ideology never works. Solve them through experiments. Proper names: Fregean or Millian? --------------------------------- Unsure, though Frege seems to be sensible. I haven't thought much about this problem. Science: scientific realism or scientific anti-realism? ------------------------------------------------------- Anti-realism. There is no objective law to be discovered, only new ones to be invented. Teletransporter (new matter): survival or death? ------------------------------------------------ Rebirth. Literally. (Similarly to sleep.) Time: A-theory or B-theory? --------------------------- A-theory. B-theory can be useful, but is fundamentally false. 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, like pretty much everybody would. Truth: correspondence, deflationary, or epistemic? -------------------------------------------------- Neither, really. I have a lot of sympathy for social constructivism, but would probably just reject the concept of truth altogether. Everything is true. Zombies: inconceivable, conceivable but not metaphysically possible, or metaphysically possible? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 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. [survey]: http://philpapers.org/surveys/