Philosophy

Leo Tolstoy suffered over the same question: "I am a man, how should I live? What do I do?" His non-fiction on the very topic contains the very simple answer, thats been right there under our noses all along: love (selflessness), but it's become easy to miss due to its disguise of spiritual/supernatural this or that and incessant answers to the ideas of a God and an Afterlife—opposed to the value and capacity of our inherency to selflessness—being held as unquestionably true via these influences, only blinding the masses of the truth that's hidden underneath all the dogma.

https://www.themarginalian.org/2014/06/03/tolstoy-confession/

His non-fiction he wrote on his long quest for truth: Confession, What I Believe, The Gospel in Brief, and The Kingdom of God is Within You.

Some translations can be a bit of a chore to read, therefore I humbly suggest the ones linked below:

Confession: https://www.amazon.com/Death-Ivan-Ilyich-Confession/dp/0871402998

What I Believe: https://www.amazon.com/My-Religion-What-I-believe/dp/B0863TFZRN

The Gospel In Brief: https://www.amazon.com/Gospel-Brief-Harper-Perennial-Thought/dp/006199345X

The Kingdom Of God Is Within You: https://www.walmart.com/ip/The-Kingdom-of-God-Is-Within-You-Warbler-Classics-Annotated-Edition-Paperback-9781962572439/5323130468?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=0&wmlspartner=wlpa&cn=FY25-ENTP-PMAX_cnv_dps_dsn_dis_ad_entp_e_n&gclsrc=aw.ds&adid=222222222985323130468_0000000000_21835691471&wl0=&wl1=x&wl2=m&wl3=&wl4=&wl5=9019109&wl6=&wl7=&wl8=&wl9=pla&wl10=8175035&wl11=online&wl12=5323130468&veh=sem&gad_source=1

The Basis of Things

"Vanity of vanities; all is vanity." – Solomon (Vanity: excessive pride in or admiration of one's own appearance or achievements)

"Morality is the basis of things, and truth is the substance of all morality." – Gandhi (Selflessness and selfishness are at the basis of things, and our present reality is the consequence of all mankinds acting upon this great potential for selflessness and selfishness all throughout the millenniums; the extent we've organized ourselves and manipulated our environment thats led to our present as we know it)

If vanity, bred from morality (selflessness and selfishness), is the foundation of human behavior, then what underpins morality itself? Here's a proposed chain of things:

Vanity\Morality\Desire\Influence\Knowledge\Reason\Imagination\Conciousness\Sense Organs+Present Environment

• Morality is rooted in desire,
• Desire stems from influence,
• Influence arises from knowledge,
• Knowledge is bred from reason,
• Reason is made possible by our imagination,
• And our imagination depends on the extent of how conscious we are of ourselves and everything else via our sense organs reacting to our present environment. (There's a place for Spirit here but haven't decided where exactly; defined objectively however: "the nonphysical part of a person which is the seat of emotions and character; the soul.")

"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.” - Albert Einstein

The more open ones mind is to foreign influences, the more bigger and detailed its imagination can potentially become. It's loves influence on our ability to reason that governs the extent of our compassion and empathy, because it's love that leads a conscious mind most willing to consider anything new (your parents divorcing and upon dating someone new your dad goes from cowboy boots only to flip flops for example). Thus, the extent of its ability—even willingness to imagine the most amount of potential variables when imagining themselves as someone else, and of how detailed it is. This is what not only makes knowledge in general so important, but especially the knowledge of selflessness and virtue—of morality. Because like a muscle, our imagination needs to be exercised by practicing using it.

"So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets." - Matt 7:12

When someone strikes us, retaliating appeals to their primal instincts—the "barbaric mammal" within us. But choosing not to strike back—offering the other cheek instead—engages their higher reasoning and self-control. This choice reflects the logical, compassionate side of humanity.

Observing Humanity's Unique Potential

What would be the "skin" we use to hold the wine of the knowledge of everything we've ever presently known as a species? Observation. If we look at our world around us, we can plainly see a collection of capable, concious beings on a planet, presently holding the most potential to not only imagine selflessness to the extent we can, but act upon this imagining, and the extent we can apply it to our environment, in contrast to anything—as far as we know—that's ever existed; God or not.

What would happen if the wine of our knowledge of morality was no longer kept separate from the skin we use to hold our knowledge of everything else: observation, and poured purely from the perspective of this skin? Opposed to poured into the one that it's always been poured into, and that kept it separate at all in the first place: a religion. There's so much logic within religion that's not being seen as such because of the appearance it's given when it's taught and advocated, being an entire concept on what exactly life is, and what the influences of a God or afterlife consist of exactly, our failure to make them credible enough only potentially drawing people away from the value of the extremes of our sense of selflessness—even the relevance of the idea of a God(s) or creator(s) of some kind; only stigmatizing it in some way or another in the process.

There's a long-standing potential within any consciously capable being—on any planet, a potential for the most possible good, considering its unique ability of perceiving anything good or evil in the first place. It may take centuries upon centuries of even the most wretched of evils and collective selfishness, but the potential for the greatest good and of collective selflessness will always have been there. Like how men of previous centuries would only dream of humans flying in the air, or the idea of democracy.

As Martin Luther King Jr. said: "We can't beat out all the hate in the world with more hate; only love has that ability." Love—and by extension selflessness—is humanity's greatest strength.

"They may torture my body, break my bones, even kill me. Then, they will have my dead body; not my obedience!" - Gandhi

"Respect was invented, to cover the empty place, where love should be." - Leo Tolstoy

"You are the light of the world." "You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." - Jesus, Matt 5:14, 48

"The hardest to love, are the ones that need it the most." - Socrates

In summary, humanity's potential for selflessness is unparalleled. By combining observation with moral reasoning—and grounding it in love—we can unlock our greatest capacity for good.

I’ve been talking to people about the ship of Theseus and the transporter problem and the subject of what makes something distinct. Are there any good sources accessible to a non-philosophy person that talk about this issue? Preferably not from a religious lens but I’m open to whatever fits best.

Throughout my life I've struggled to find meaning. I've wondered, am I alone in this? I'd like to hear what others have to say. Particularly others that are more knowledgeable in philosophy.

A lot of this I learned and thought out through reading Tolstoy's hard work in his non-fictions: Confession, What I Believe, The Gospel In Brief, and The Kingdom of God is Within You

"Socrates believed that his mission from a God (the one that supposedly spoke through The Oracle Of Delphi) was to examine his fellow citizens and persuade (teach) them that the most important good for a human being was the health of the soul. Wealth, he insisted, does not bring about human excellence or virtue, but virtue makes wealth and everything else good for human beings (Apology 30b)." https://iep.utm.edu/socrates/#%3A%7E%3Atext=He+believed+that+his+mission%2Chuman+beings+%28Apology+30b%29.

The story of Jonah in the bible (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Jonah+1&version=NIV) teaches that the knowledge of the value of virtue, selflessness and goodness needs to be taught; it's a knowledge that needs to gained. Because like it teaches at the very end of the story: some people don't even have the ability to "tell their right hand from their left" (Autism Spectrum Disorder for example or a complete lack of education). Or in other words: ignorance (lack of knowledge) is an inevitability; nobody can know until they know. The now pejorative term is neither an insult, nor is it insulting; it's nothing more than an adjective to explain my, yours, or anythings lack of knowledge to anything in particular, or as a whole. All hate and evil can be catorgorized as this inevitable lack of knowledge—thus, warranting any degree of it infinite forgiveness, because again: you don't know until you know, this would of course include the lack of knowledge to the value of virtue that leads to hate, evil, and iniquity to any degree. Socrates on ignorance and evil: https://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/apology/idea-nature-of-evil/

Jesus references the story of Jonah in The Gospels when being challenged to show a sign of his divinity: "An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.” - Matt 16:4 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+16&version=ESV

Jesus would always refer to God as "Father" because that's how he was taught about what this God consists of, as having a parents kind of love for you—rememeber the very beginning of The Gospels, where he becomes lost and is found at a temple as a child? And is taught of God as being his "Father;" if you had a child and they committed suicide, would you want them to burn eternally in a lake of fire for it? Of course not. And Jesus didn't know who his real father was, correct? Interesting, right? Ultimately what I'm trying to say is that everything we know of God now has came from a collection of blind men, telling other blind men that what they have to say should be held as unquestionably true via the influences of the idea of a God and an Afterlife (of a "heaven"). Everything after Jesus—Paul's letters, The Gospels, The Nicene Creed, The Book of Revelation, the idea that a God of love unconditionally would bother with conditions like having to believe Jesus was divine or any of the seemingly infinite amount of external conditions that need to be met to call yourself a "true Christian." Despite Jesus calling the Pharisees hypocrites every chance he could get and when his disciples told him of some external thing that they needed (bread in the circumstance linked) he would dismiss it as completely unnecessary: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+16%3A5-20&version=NIV

Jesus calling out Pharisees: 8"But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers (to "our father"). 9 And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven." - Matt 23:8 25 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean." - Matt 23:25 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew+23&version=NIV

The Woes of Taking Oaths

"Socrates believed that the most important pursuit in life was to constantly examine one's beliefs and actions through critical thinking," (lest you find yourself throwing the supposed messiah up on a cross—like the Pharisees, or persecuting early followers of Jesus' teaching convinced it's right, true, and just—like Paul, or in a war between nations, or collectively hating someone or something, etc.) "and he would not back down from this practice even when it made others uncomfortable." https://philolibrary.crc.nd.edu/article/no-apologies/#%3A%7E%3Atext=The+Examined+Life%2Cstill+less+likely+to+believe.

Oaths

33 “Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ 34 But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. 36 And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. 37 Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.[g] - Matt 5:33 (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+5&version=ESV)

Anything more then yes or no regarding the influences that come from the idea of a heaven (God and an afterlife), or Earth (people and what they're presently sharing in), only comes from a worry, a need, a fear for oneself: a selfishness. Questions like that only come from our sense of selfishness, and only lead to division, i.e., religion or even more theoretical sciences and philosophy; this is why it's so important to always consider anything man made as questionably true, opposed to unquestionably true, and that it's no longer up for question, or whats called: infallible (no longer capable of error). Questions like what does a God or Afterlife consist of or how exactly did the universe begin, pale in comparison to the truth that is our capacity for selflessness not only individually, but especially, collectively; God or not.

It's only what a person thinks that can truly defile them: "What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them." - Matt 15:11 "Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18 But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.” - Matt 15:17 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+15&version=NIV

It's "oath-taking," so to speak, that leads to slander and the collective hate that's bred from it—racism, hate between cities or their high school sports teams, hate in general if you think about it enough, quarrel at all between nations and any potential war between them, and the list goes on. We're all humans; one race, brothers, and sisters. The worst thing to come from "oath-taking" in my opinion is the hinderance of foreign influences or new knowledge and an open mind along with it. Because it's this that determines the capacity and how detailed ones imagination is, and it's imagination that serves as the basis of our ability to empathize, thus, love.

The third maxim inscribed at the Temple of Apollo, where the Oracle of Delphi resided in Ancient Greece: "Give a pledge and trouble is at hand." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphic_maxims

Interesting how neither Jesus or Socrates wrote anything down, and both even went as far as giving their lives dying a martyr trying to teach what they had to say.

"The hardest to love, are the ones that need it the most." - Socrates

Supposition is defined as an uncertain belief. Therefore, there not being a reason for things or a why would be just as much of a supposition as if I were to say that there is.

There being no why or reason for things is worthy of the same amount of burden of evidence/explanation for if I were to say the opposite. And to say there isn't a reason or a why for things wouldn't/shouldn't make anything being a supposition not worthy of ones consideration just because anything born from an is or an isn't can be considered as supposition based off metaphysical assumptions.

So you're saying scientific theory is not worth the time and energy to even consider? Scientific theory being based off metaphysical assumptions. If so, you're saying The Big Bang wasn't worth not only the time and effort to think up in the first place, but not even worthy of anyone's consideration?

"The whole historic existence of mankind is nothing else than the gradual transition from the personal, animal conception of life (the savage recognizes life only in himself alone; the highest happiness for him is the fullest satisfaction of his desires), to the social conception of life (recognizing life not in himself alone, but in societies of men—in the tribe, the clan, the family, the kingdom, the government—and sacrifices his personal good for these societies), and from the social conception of life to the divine conception of life (recognizing life not in his own individuality, and not in societies of individualities, but in the eternal undying source of life—in God; and to fulfill the will of God he is ready to sacrifice his own individuality and family and social welfare).

The whole history of the ancient peoples [even 75k+ years ago], lasting through thousands of years and ending with the history of Rome, is the history of the transition from the animal, personal view of life to the social view of life. The whole history from the time of the Roman Empire and the appearance of Christianity is the history of the transition, through which we are still passing now, from the social view to life to the divine view of life." - Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God Is Within You

"Blessed (happy) are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth." - Matt 5:5

"Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." - The Lord's Prayer, Matt 6:10

“The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels." - Luke 20:34, Matt 22:29, Mark 12:24

Not the traditional Christianity: Revelation this or supernatural that; one that consists of a more philosophical—objective interpretation of the Gospels that's been buried underneath all the dogma. One that emphasizes the precepts of the Sermon On the Mount - Matt 5-7 (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+5&version=ESV), debately, the most publicized point of Jesus' time spent suffering to teach the value of selflessness and virtue, thus, the most accurate in my opinion—mimicking Moses, bringing down new commandments; none of which even hint or imply anything regarding the Nicene Creed interpretation. Tolstoy learned ancient Greek and translated the Gospels himself as: The Gospel In Brief, if you're interested. This translation I've found to be the easiest to read:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10382518-the-gospel-in-brief

This is a joke about Quine https://www.uvm.edu/~lderosse/courses/lang/Quine(1956).pdf

The vast majority of people reading this right now subscribe to Presentism. Presentism is the view that only the present time exists and so only present objects exist. Every moment, as time passes, objects that come to be in the present come to exist and objects that fall out of the present cease to exist. The past and future, as well as past and future entities, exist no more than fictional characters or the objects in dreams.

One problem with presentism is it becomes difficult to make sense of assertions about other times. How can I make sense of the claim that, "Socrates was taller than Descartes" if neither person exists? How can I make sense of the claim that, "The sun will come out tomorrow" when there is no tomorrow? We might be tempted to say that claims about non-existent entities are meaningless in that they do not have a truth-value. But to say these claims are meaningless seems to go against our intuitions about our own speech acts.

Another objection comes from physics. According to special relativity, simultaneity between objects or events depends on the frame of reference that you use to view them. Events happening at the same time from one perspective will be happening at a different time from a different perspective. The popular example is that the people riding in the ambulance hear the sirens earlier than the people standing on the sidewalk. Special relativity tells us no frame of reference is privileged. Therefore, there is no fact of the matter as to whether two events are happening at the same time. This seems to imply that there is no fact of the matter about what counts as the present.

In response, we could adopt a different ontology of time. The Growing Block Theory argues that the past and present exist. More precisely, it argues that, as the present moves forward, the past and past objects continue to exist (and the future does not exist). So every past instance of you exists just as much as you do in the present. You are "spread out" in time, so to speak.

Another popular theory in the metaphysics of time is Eternalism. This theory says the past, present, and future all co-exist equally. Hence, past, present, and future objects, events, and relations all exist. On this view time never passes; we live in a frozen universe. Differences in time are only perspectival (like how people seem smaller when you look at them from far away). Eternalists do, however, admit that events are structured by temporal relations such as "before" and "after".

There are other theories (such as rejecting the existence of time entirely) but this is enough for our purposes. Given these considerations, what is your metaphysics of time?

Suffering\Hate\Anger\Fear\Selfishness\Conciousness

What would be the remedy of fear, and the selfishness that creates it? Knowledge. "When you can understand things, you can forgive things." - Leo Tolstoy

The first of only three maxims inscribed at the Temple of Apollo, where the Oracle of Delphi resided in Ancient Greece: "Know Thyself."

The more we understand ourselves the better we can understand everyone else; an example of how to go about this would be by asking yourself the question: "what is it exactly that leads me into behaving the way I do in any way?" And following it up with being brutally honest with yourself, then begin seeking the origins of why you become sad or angry, or desire xyz, or behave and think in any way, etc.

This is where the knowledge of what's captioned as The Golden Rule and considered the Law and the Prophets that were meant to be fulfilled comes in: “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets." - Matt 7:12. This knowledge instills into a conscious mind an ability unique to humans: empathy, by asking the simple question: if i were them, would I want it done to me? And all its variations of asking the question, regarding any situation whatsoever. It's by imagining yourself in someones shoes specifically, and going about this in one's mind but not only for a moment, but by giving it an extended analysis, trying to gather by considering the most amount of variables while doing so; this helps an individual to best understand the behaviors of all the other individuals surrounding them, especially when contrasting it with the knowledge we've found in a deeper understanding of ourselves. And when we can understand things, we can forgive and shed the hate or fear of things.

This precept also instills a standard into a conscious mind as to how to decide what exactly is good or evil, love or hate, right or wrong, regarding any situation, any circumstance, whatsoever.

Sin (selfishness) is bred from a lack of knowledge

All hate, evil, iniquity, and selfishness to any degree can be categorized as a lack of the knowledge—an ignorance, to the true value and potential of selflessness and virtue. This is what inspired people like Jesus (in my opinion, considering the "sign" (story) of Jonah) and Socrates (debatably, the founding father of philosophy) to begin teaching strangers around their communities, because they knew that it's a knowledge that needs to be gained, thus, taught, to the point where they even gave their lives dying martyrs to their deeds and what they had to say; and the knowledge that the fear that would've otherwise have stopped them from even teaching anything at all, would be a selfishness, i.e., an evil.

This is what warrants hate, evil, and selfishness to any degree infinite forgiveness, and why it's so important to teach it the error of its ways, through love. Whether through meeting what you would consider as hate when you're met with it, with love, or exemplifying it via selfless actions. Because some people don't even have the ability to "tell their left hand from their right" (Jonah 4:11), but we can use the influence of an Earth (the influence of our peers and what a collection of people are presently sharing in—society, driving cars, holding the door open for strangers, etc.) to teach the more difficult to do so; if everyone were sharing in selflessness and virtue, wouldn't it be seen as typical as driving a car is today? Therefore, nowhere near the chore it would be seen as otherwise, considering everyone would be participating in it. And what does a cat begin to do—despite its, what we call "instinct"—when raised amongst dogs? Pant. We are what we've been surrounded with, like racists, they just don't know any better, being absent the other side of it especially. And love (selflessness) is the greatest teacher, it renders the ears and the mind of a conscious, capable being—on any planet, to be the most open-minded, thus, the most willing to truly consider foreign influences. It's this that governs the extent of one's imagination, and it's imagination that governs the extent of one's ability to imagine themselves in someone else's shoes—to empathize, thus, to love.

"We can't beat out all the hate in the world, with more hate; only love has that ability." - Martin Luther King Jr.

What if the most logical explanation as to why a conscious mind exists—on any planet, is to suffer? Suffer, however, based on our more fortunate standards specifically: to suffer the—what we would consider—"pains" of things like inconvenience, discomfort, misfortune, and displeasure.

It's the incessant indulgence in these things that lead a conscious mind to be completely blind to the woes of such, thus, the compassion and ability to empathize that comes with the experience (or knowledge) of suffering. It's hardly just an "eye for an eye"—the inherent need for ourselves to retaliate due to being so conscious of ourselves—that leads the world to be blind, it's our sense organs reacting to our environment and any desire for ourselves conjured from this reaction that is the most blinding; it's this that leads to the vanities we imagine in our heads, that we end up revolving our lives around, and make most important, that leads away from the "true life" a life of selflessness has to offer: a life most lived in the present, opposed to stuck in our heads, the images of what we consider the pain of our "past" and the thirst or fear for the "future" (our sense of time being yet another consequence of consciousness—like selfishness) governing so much over how we think, feel, or behave today.

It's our sense organs reacting to the extent we've presently organized ourselves and manipulated our environment that leads to an addiction to it, even happiness, to the point where we become convinced that it's even lifes meaning: to become as happy as possible, but when we make our "highest happiness the satisfaction of our greatest desires" - Tolstoy, we're only led to an inevitable, massive disappointment; due to all exploitation of desire only being temporary. This begs the question: out of all the desire and vanity that's bred from it, would there be any that don't end in inevitable disappointment due to being so temporary? Love—but not Disney World kind of love, no, the Gandhi, MLK, Leo Tolstoy, Socrates, Jesus kind: selflessness. It's the only desire that not only holds the ability to potentially last as long as man does, but also doesn't lead to inevitable disappointment. Dare I say: it's what the idea of an unimaginable God(s) or creator(s) of some kind (not any man made God, but the substance of them)—its will: selflessness, to even it's extremes like self-sacrifice, that is the only desire and vanity worth seeking; the "vanity of vanities" - Solomon. But if you're someone against the idea of an unimaginable God(s) or creator(s) of some kind (good luck finding the will to be selfless to the extremes) then let the fact that we're the only living things that have ever existed (on this planet, as far we know) that can even begin to consider abstaining from itself for any reason at all, be enough.

It's this that would end all suffering, but not by ending it, but by normalizing it, I suppose you could say; to suffer for the sake of selflessness. To take the empty, ultimately only disappointing desire of stimulating our sense organs and fulfilling our desires and vanities—for the sake of ourselves, and replace it, with the logic and alternative perspectives and behaviors that our knowledge of selflessness breeds, that comes from our inherent ability to logic and reason via our unique ability to imagine to the extent we can in contrast.

What if we're not designed to be comforted or pleasured incessantly? Just look at the rich, most upper to lower middle class, even the poorest in a nation crippled by convenience; people of fortune (in life or in wealth) in general (like me): obese or crooked in some way or another, the idea of their temporary lifestyle they've become so attached to no longer being an avenue to being comforted and pleasured, saps or corrupts their conscious mind, to the point where their willing to even kill to keep it—in some cases. Could a life of abstaining from your sense organs, and teaching yourself to thirst, desire, and fantasize for the least, be what ultimately leads to a life of the most?

"Comfort is the worst addiction." - Marcus Aurelius

To those people saying "normalcy bias could lead to our doom".

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/18148967

A review of this amazing philosophy of science book on the omnipresence of intelligence and life.

what the title says

Thesis My personal moral philosophy is a garbled mess.

Premise 1 I am, as any college student who has taken one or two philosophy classes is, a dyed-in-the-wool utilitarian.

Premise 2 When my wife is annoyed by something I did, or forgot to do, I invariably argue that my motives were pure and, thus, should be free of blame.

Conclusion Premise 1 posits that I adhere to a utilitarian ethical framework. Premise 2 posits that I argue against being blamed for my actions from a deontological perspective. Thus, I am a wishy-washy yahoo who uses whichever moral philosophy is convenient at the moment; QED.

I have contemplated the essence of intelligent life, particularly the nature of humanity. We are, by design or fate, a paradox—perhaps even a cosmic anomaly. Our consciousness, our emotions, every aspect of our being is riddled with contradictions, yet within these contradictions lies unparalleled potential. Most of humanity has allowed itself to drift from the natural order, severing the vital connection with the world’s inherent balance. Yet, there are a select few who have the strength to master their own consciousness and restore a deeper harmony with nature.

In more precise terms, we have been granted, as a species, the key to ascend to what might be called a creator race. We possess the unique capacity to observe, understand, and influence the intricate exchanges that govern all living things. With this knowledge, we can elevate our existence, crafting a future that benefits all. The power we hold is not unlike that of the gods—a power of creation and transformation. And yet, this is where humanity falters: too often, we are blinded by our own naivety, ensnared by the comforts of routine, unable to fully comprehend or wield the immense power we have been entrusted with.

Many of us spend our lives thinking of science and philosophy. Looking for answers to the meaning of life the universe and our place in it. And then eventually we die. Have we not accomplished anything? Does our knowledge somehow live on beyond death? What is the point of seeking knowledge?