Friday, July 05, 2002

I had a little revelation at Sitwell's coffee shop (in Cincinnati) the other night, and I think I may have passed up nihilism a little too quickly. Actually it's a good place to start with ethics too.

I think it's preposterous to say science is completely false, at least so far as it's applications work. However, I am wondering if this isn't true : with reason alone no value judgment can be made that is true.

Take for example my love of Busta Rhymes songs. Some people hate his music,some people love it and some are indifferent. But whether they like it or not makes no difference with reason alone. We could make value judgments about his sexualization of women or the violence in his music. Rationally though, these are just furthur value judgments. I could also argue about rap, how it has conventions, uses poetic license and metaphor, how it requires a great deal of skill. But if I don't value skill and the techniques of poetry (rap is poetry) then I have no reason to prefer it.

So the nihilism that keeps me awake at night is the nihilism of value. Think about it too long and you're in for a shock. What guides me through this stuff is that I still value happiness and want to obtain it. That allows me to take on other beliefs, for the sake of happiness alone, which please me. My belief system is fairly fluid, as you'll see if you start reading any quantity of this page, but happiness and my desire for it keep me going when nothing else will.

Lastly, I read Rudolf Steiner's Theosophy this week and loved it. It has helped me form some more of my own beliefs, which if they hold up to scrutiny I will talk about later. His other books seem kind of silly ( moon beings and such) and I've never been that into Rosicrucianism, but Theosophy itself really meant alot to me. Take your time with all this.

.: posted by Timothy 6:35 PM

home | archives The Way it Should Have Been Published poet, mystic, dreamer, lunatic. Read it because it's there. Wednesday, June 26, 2002 Frances Fukyama said that history is over, because the most advanced form of government (democracy) has no serious contenders. This is probably true. However, I also think it is true that as a collective, humanity's life has passed by, in the sense that the real accomplishments we could have made never will be accomplished. Thus the title of the website. I thought of it based on popular music. There's a lot of wisdom in popular music. Like relax, it's all been done before. A paraphrase. So here's to Incubus and all the others that have been idolized by the generation which follows me. I'm really not the focus of popular music anymore, as I'm twenty-four. Well I better get going. Take care. .: posted by Timothy 6:39 PM < home | archives The Way it Should Have Been Published poet, mystic, dreamer, lunatic. Read it because it's there. Monday, June 24, 2002 Let's see. Just had a forty minute conversation with some guy I don't know. He was pretty cool, a frustrated writer, very well read. Well, that's really all. I'm not feeling like philosophizing today. Will be around later in the week, and will find something to talk about. Hang in there. I am. .: posted by Timothy 8:22 PM < home | archives The Way it Should Have Been Published poet, mystic, dreamer, lunatic. Read it because it's there. Wednesday, June 19, 2002 Okay. Finished Nietzsche and finally understood what the book is about. Which is master and slave and the need to combat nihilism. It was okay. Reading The New Organon by Francis Bacon. It's all about how to help science progress through the use of induction. It's fairly farsighted really. Other than some of the Elizabethan science that he did believe. I forgot to tell you what empiricism is: it's the belief that all knowledge comes from the senses. Considering that sense experience is useless without some basic principles to guide it, I really feel like empiricism holds little water. (Once again my lack of time and education leads me to attack a straw man.) Most empircists are skeptics, except the Randites. However most Randites hold empiricism as a point of faith rather than a philosophical position. As for the rest of epistemology, let me say that the presence offirst principles, along with good deduction and induction, does not lead to Truth with a capitol T. You may find that a first principle needs to be amended or thrown out entirely. New axioms may need to be added. You're knowledge is necessarily incomplete, and therefore fallible. That doesn't mean you won't discover theories and applications, just that Absolute Knowledge is better left for God, not you. If you believe in God. That's the end of that discussion. Next up applied and metaethics. This is really the place where I have the most difficulty in philosophy. It also is the most important in life. Talk at you later. .: posted by Timothy 6:43 PM Dreaded Purple Master Blog majordork@msn.com