It's been 6 years since I originally wrote out my fundamental beliefs, and in that time, they've evolved a decent bit. As I've aged, I've grown to be far more oved away from a number of beliefs that I had previously held strongly, and I would like to go over this change through describing my presently held foundational principles and beliefs. Ultimately, I hope that this post will make clear why some of my more recent writing is in contradiction with my original beliefs post such that I can be accurately assessed for consistency.
As with my original beliefs post, I am still a strict materialist, and I agree with my past opinions to the point that I will reiterate them nearly exactly now. The most fundamental belief that I hold is that of materialism, or that everything that exists are found in the material world and are "real", as in I am a material realist, and that all of these traits of the universe are ultimately observable or can be determined to exist through indirect observation through the effects that these traits have on those which are observable. Thus, I do not believe in the supernatural, the spiritual, or the religious in a metaphysical sense, nor do I believe that the areas of the universe that exist at the edge of our understanding are likely to be non-physical (i.e. quantum weirdness, dark energy , etc). I would use a similiar argument to the "God of the gaps" to suggest that the present limitations of scientific knowledge does not preclude a scientific, rationally consistent and material explanation for that which is currently poorly understood, and if you place the immaterial as whatever exists beyond scientific knowledge, then immaterialism is an "ever receding pocket of scientific ignorance" (Tyson, 2011, 26:58-27:55).
This poses the obvious question: why believe in the material as opposed to the immaterial beyond an aesthetic enjoyment of science? I follow this thought experiment which develops a continuation of causal efficacy or causal realism which I have called "predictive outcomes":
If you were to launch a ball in a chamber with no outside forces acting upon it beyond a consistent flow of air coming from a consistent direction, as well as the forces of gravity, one can reliably predict the eact location the ball will land using mathetmatics. This consistency in measurement, prediction, and outcome suggests that, at minimum, some traits or categories exist which contain the mathematical expression of the elements of the interaction. Although I cannot say definitively what these traits of categories are, i.e. they could still theoretically be simulated by a sufficiently complex computer, it does suggest in a similar sense of "Cogito, ergo sum" (Descartes, 1637), that something exists to allow the predictions to be so accurate. This something, we can infer through inductive reasoning to likely be consistent with our external observations of a material world through Occam's razor, as it is far simpler to imagine that the world operates as it appears to through observation and measurement then to imagine an entirely unseen and assumed existence of an unprecedentedly complex computer which simulates all of reality, including, at minimum, the subjective thoughts and feelings of me the present thinker. Thus, it is more likely that these observations and measurements are so consistent because all materially observed components of the measurement (gravity, wind, the ball, etc.) are real, and interacting with each other to produce those effects.
I am a fallibalist, which is to say that I believe that nothing can be truly known to exist with 100% certainty up to a point due to my own imperfections as a thinking organism. What this means in practice is that I am constantly open to changes in my foundational ontological positions from the perspective that "I [know] practically nothing" (Plato, 399 BCE/1967), which is to say that I have an exceptionally narrow view of reality by virtue of limited experience as a single person living in a single time, in a single place, parented by individual people, and raised in an individual culture and society. Thus, a certain degree of epistemic humility is required, and I categorize that as falibalism, or more broadly, skepticism, both of claims of others, but also my own claims. To give further illustration as to why I am, in particular, unreliable, consider the following refutation of my materialism proof:
Suppose that there exists a computer that simulates the ball and the environment the ball is within. The outcomes of this computer simulation would be just as predictable as if the ball and its environment actually existed, so I can't state with absolute certainty that anything that impacts my measurement of the ball and its position are "real" things. I can even extend this to myself, as I presume that I must exist because I am thinking, thus I must exist to do the thinking, but this thinking does not preclude that I am, for instance, a Boltzmann's brain that is existing for only the exact moment that I am producing any given thought, and generating memories which conform to the notion that I existed prior to this very point in time, and all observed elements of my active experience would be the same. Occam's razor says that this is far more complex than things simply existing as they seem to exist, but Occam's razor is not a foundational rule of reality, complex systems very often exist above simple systems, look only at the fact that classical mechanics, which are far more intuitive than general relativity, let alone quantum mechanics, and in many ways "simpler" in their intuitive structures, are not the sole means under which we can account for the physical observations of the universe. Classical mechanics cannot fully account for gravity under the conditions described under general relativity, and thus a more complex system is required to do so, and the simpler model is incomplete. Thus, Occam's razor, although a decent heuristic, is not a "rule", and even if I can say that it is probably true that the simpler solution that the world exists as it seems to exist is, in fact, accurate, I cannot state with perfect certainty that this is the case. Therefore, I am a fallibalist.
Consequentlialism or Utlitarianism is the concept that some action is morally good insofar as its consequences produce the best outcomes for the most people. This ethical framework consists of two parts: act and rule. Rule consequentialism is the belief that actions ought to conform to a set of rules that consistently produce the best net outcomes for the most people given they were applied as universal societal rules. Functionally similar to deontology in its application of principles and rules rather than analyzing each ethical exchange as unqiue (i.e. act utilitarianism), rule utilitarianism seeks to produce a society that maximizes wellbeing and minimizes its counters. I follow rule utilitarianism for the following reason:
1:
Cogito, Ergo Sum, and a slight modification, Sentio, Ergo Sum (I think, therefore I am; I feel, therefore I am)
I observe that I have desires and preferences
I would like to actualize those desires and preferences
2:
I observe other humans in my environment who are observationally similar to me
I may reliably interact with these humans under the above predictive model
Therefore, other humans are more likely to exist than not exist
3:
I observe a set of reliable psychological interactions and functions within these other humans
Within myself, these psychological interactions conform to an internal subjective experience
It requires additional arugments about the nature of these observationally similar actors to suggest they are something other than myself with respect to internal experience (i.e. philosophical zombies etc.)
It is simpler to conclude things are as they seem than to add additional assumptions onto a model to alter its apparent function
Simpler explanatory models are more commonly accurate than complex explanatory models
Therefore, it is more likely that these other humans share the same internal subjective experience as I do than that they do not
4:
If I assume that these other humans are as I am cognitively and psychologically, they likely also have preferences and desires
This statement of likely possessing preferences is consistent with these other humans statements as to their own experiences
If the other humans I observe contain the same nature of subjectivity that I do, there's nothing that makes me of superior value to them as we are all individual subjective actors
Actions that actualize my own preferences make me happy
Given that humans state their preferences, and are observationally similar to me, the actualization of their preferences likely makes them happy
I prefer that people be happy to not happy
Therefore, I should perform actions that allows not only for the actualization of my preferences but the actualization of other humans preferences with the end of allowing for maximized actualized utlity.
The reason why I allign more closle to rule rather than act utilitarianism can be justified through the following thought experiment:
Imagine that there is a hospital that has 5 patients all dying of different types of organ failure. Without organ donors, these people will die. In the waiting room is a man who broke his hand, and is a universal donor. As he broke his hand, he is not sick, and his organs could be used for all 5 people who are dying. In an Act Utlitarian framework, the hospital is obligated to kill this man and take his organs to save the 5 people, as 5 people's utility is greater than 1 person's utility, regardless of what the 1 man desires or prefers. If we were to apply this ethical framework underwhich a person could be harvested for organs so long as greater than 1 person is saved by the act of harvesting them, society could not function, as no one would have the capacity to fully self actualize if they are concerned about their survival in the face of a state which could kill them at any moment without recourse, thus the overall utility is actually lower than if the autonomy of the individual in the waiting room is respected, and he is not killed.
This feeds into another modification upon traditional utilitarianism that I take, likely due to me being within the field of Psychology professionally, that being the application of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (Maslow, 1943), and the maximized preference fundamentally being self-actualization rather than pure happiness. The reason why I prefer self actualization to absolute happiness is due to the following:
Suppose that we were to organize society around the maximization of pleasure and the minimization of pain. To do this, we create a massive super-complex in which every individual lives in just enough space for them to sit and stand, and they have with them a button which injects them with a chemical which makes them experience happiness and pleasure, regardless of the conditions of their environment, all while we have all labor to allow this society to be maintained performed by slaves, but are also injected with these chemicals that make them feel pleasure and happiness. In this society, everyone is maximizing utility in that everyone is happy and experiencing pleasure, but they are not given the capacity to maximize their potential or what would make them feel fulfillment. Thus, instead of maximizing the active state of happiness, I would want to maximize the capacity to generate independent satisfaction through self-actualization, which creates a "higher quality" happiness, rather than pure base pleasure. This "higher quality" happiness is justified to exist through my own subjective experience, as I enjoy the way I feel after completing a difficult task or achieving a goal more than I enjoy the experience of momentary pleasure such as sex or eating delicious food. Thus, a hierarchy of happiness exists where self-actualized satisfaction is at the top, and momentary pleasure is on the bottom, and thus, I do not seek simply to maximize happiness inandof itself, but in particular the highest form of happiness, that which is achieved through self-actualization.
In this section, I will be outlining various lower level beliefs that I hold to act as a barometer for the consistency of the above higher level beliefs.
Social democrat: Rule utilitarianism
Intersectionality: Rule utlitarianism
Civil Rights, Equal rights, etc.: Rule utilitarianism
Libertarianism and liberalism: Rule utilitarianism
Existential Compatibalism, i.e. free will is assumed to exist for the sake of maximizing self-actualized happiness through autonomy, but understood to likely not truly exist because of causality: Rule Utilitarianism and Materialism
Secular Judaism (i.e. ethnically and culturally Jewish but without belief in any of the underlying spiritual and religious aspects of Jewish faith, such as belief in God): Materialism
I am not the ultimate arbiter of truth and reality. I am just an individual, flawed human, attempting to make sense of a world without any given answers. I want to understand as close to the truth of the universe as I can, but I ultimately understand that I must be content with the journey towards truth rather than require the truth itself to be acquired to be content. Thus, one must imagine a truth seeker as happy. Feel free to reject anything I've written here, and I welcome critique and disagreement, as I feel the more criticism I receive on my models of the universe and ethics, the better they will be as I stress test them around these criticisms. So, be well, and have fun debunking me!
Descartes, R. (1637). Discourse on the method of rightly conducting one's reason and of seeking truth in the sciences.
Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4), 370–396. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0054346
Fowler, H. N., Lamb, W. R. M., Bury, Robert Gregg, Shorey, Paul, & Plato. (1967). Plato, in twelve volumes. Cambridge, Mass. : London: Harvard University Press ; W. Heinemann.
Tyson, N. deGrasse. (2011, January 20). The Moon, the tides and why Neil deGrasse Tyson is Colbert's God [Video]. The Science Network.
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