First Principles

Quote: FrGamble

I was thinking about how with lots of these religious debates we are really like ships passing each other in the night. We might be speaking the same language but at the same time mean very different things.

I think it might be fruitful to share our first principles with each other. Not to debate or condemn, but to better understand where we are coming from and why we think the way we do. These priciples are the foundations of all our thoughts and the things we take as self-evident. I think we can get at them by simply asking ourselves two basic questions:
1) what is a human being?
Who are we and where did we come from? Where are we going if anywhere? Do we have a purpose or meaning, and if so what?
2) what went wrong?
Assuming that we can all agree that our world is beset with injustices, violence, unhappiness, and evil this fundamental question asks what went wrong and how do we attempt to fix it if we can?

Again this is not a thread to debate or tell people they are wrong. It is a place to be heard and understood.

So let us circle back to the original questions, and try to find out about each other.

1) A human being is an animal.
2) This depends on your perspective: from the point of view of an Ebola virus particle, bring on the humans, please! From the point of view of Dennis Rader, happy hunting! From the point of view of fundamentalists, we aren’t praying hard enough. From the point of view of Kim Jong Il, he isn’t getting enough respect. From the point of view of your dog, not enough frisbee time. From the point of view of Flannery O’Conner, we are ignorant of divine grace.

From my point of view, we are torn between our selfishness and our generosity. These compete as they scale up in numbers. Generosity wins as long as people are accounted for individually, allowing smaller groups to thrive. But when people stop being accounted for individually, or believe that they are not being cared about as selves, then selfishness takes over. And on the scale of humanity today, selfishness is winning. It is winning among the rich, it is winning among the poor, and it is winning among those of modest means.

Now, I make these points based solely on my own perspective, and they reflect entirely my own feelings about existence and selfness. I make them intentionally from within the world I use to navigate my own existence. And I intentionally place myself within the world the way FrG sees it, because I share much of his perspective.

What I will NOT do is say that it is good, or bad. It just is. From one point of view, I’m a cog in a society that produces benefits for many others. From a different point of view, I’m an over fed and over privileged resource hog stealing from the disadvantaged. From my point of view, I toss my hands in the air and say, I dunno, I gotta get up and get this day moving.

Quote: Mosca

While I do not think FrGamble is right, I do think he has a point. When like minded people agree, they work together to create a community. That is what makes us human. But at the same time, communities (and civilizations) have been built on radically different principles. That, too, is part of being human. Even within the same community we can work together on some things, and be completely at odds with each other on other things.

First principles have eluded the greatest thinkers, other than as differing points of view: “I think, therefore I am.” “Dasein exists. Furthermore, Dasein is an entity which in each case I myself am. Mineness belongs to any existent Dasein, and belongs to it as the condition which makes authenticity and inauthenticity possible.” (Dasein translates sort of as “being there”, being along with presence.) Descartes says that his existence is primal, while Heidegger says that existing is not possible without the world to exist within. Both work as ways to understand the world. Sometimes.

I think it is important to see the big picture, and I don’t mean that as some wishy-washy compromise. The big picture is that we make up the rules. Sorry FrG, but that’s how I see it. WITHIN the rules we make up, we try to do what we think is the right thing: “Thou shalt not kill, that should be pretty easy to get everyone to agree with.” But then someone says that we should be able to kill someone who killed someone else, and of course it’s okay for a bunch of us to get together and put on all the same uniforms and kill a bunch of guys who put on different uniforms.,. It gets messy fast.

But we try. As a species, in general, we are wired to organize. Even junkies hang together to share the buzz. So, I would feel pretty safe in calling that the first First Principle. People organize.

FrG, what you are talking about are what I would call Second Principles: people agree on their common denominator, and organize to best preserve it. So, it’s not that I think you are wrong. I only think you didn’t step back far enough.

Well, I think that reality doesn't come with any rules, either. Then we, and the remainder of the universe are "forced" to create them. However, from a game theory perspective - by which optimal strategies are freely available to everyone - the best "rules" or rules-of-thumb come from a mathematical balance or "saddle point", solution of a game, by which a player ensures its own maximum guaranteed return. The latter means the most that can be guaranteed to a given player under the circumstances he finds himself in. (I often confuse maximum guaranteed, with guaranteed maximum, so, I hope that I got it in the right order at least from trying to figure it out from the words.) Not all games are symmetrical, or even fair.

So, that we organize, or agree on things, or, not, doesn't necessarily mean that we have the right, or, the wrong "rules". There can be good as well as bad choices for rules, as well. Are the optimal choices good, or bad? I would say, neither. What I like to suppose Einstein meant when he called overall things or the universe as "just is". The optimal solution "just is". Perhaps, it's not quite so simple as the first principle is this or that. Eg, then what is the zeroth principle? What is number base-0 all about, if not a bunch of nonsense? As much as we want to think that we finally understand the "number" zero, we still have a ways to go. So far, nothing consistent. Furthermore, what hides behind zero? It's been stated that "nothing is behind matter", but, there could be another form of matter, which includes mass, such as something that includes energy.

As for reality being both outside, and inside, that's fine. How about an atheistic "reality" on the inside, with a theistic "reality" on the outside? Surely, if a point has some grand design, then the point is atheistic in nature, and, its design, theistic. As much as things are organic, and inorganic, they still need paths to follow to become something "more" of them. More than, say, the whole. A way for life to seem to spring from nothing. A "theater of the mind" existence. Designed paths written into the atoms.

The problem with this discussion, as far as I can tell, is that is has become a matter of extremes or per-se's. How to progress to the intermediate form while transfixed on such? When we are left to work ourselves to "real" and/or "fantasy" solutions. (Are all extraneous solutions without any purpose?) It does no good to try to drag the extremes to us. You can't. The best that I think you can do is to some intermediate form, however you want to go about it. In this sense, all roads become the one, and the same.


Edit: Okay, just read your second post. I prefer to think that "just is" isn't something left to the individual, let alone to the group.

Edit 2: To best illustrate the nature of paradox or "just is", consider the digits of 126 = 6*21. Paradox is about the simplest of orders or directions in opposition amounting to the same thing. Here, we have the same digits spelled out in the opposite order under different mathematical operations. I think that this is the purest sort of paradox available to us. Pure in the sense there isn't any major conflict(s) going on with other things cropping up that leave us to try to resolve the paradox in favor of other things. It "just is". Mathematicians have found nothing of mathematical value beyond "recreational mathematics" with such numbers. However, what if there were a "field" of such numbers with logical and consistent constraints on them? Such a "field" of numbers would describe how "just is" operates. On an individual level, one may optimize its life with strategies about who to marry, where to work, etc, but, no one in particular is the optimization, or paradoxical balance of things. The latter goes on on a level that we can't access directly. That it's possible for optimal solutions to exist.

Quote: Mosca

From my point of view, we are torn between our selfishness and our generosity. These compete as they scale up in numbers. Generosity wins as long as people are accounted for individually, allowing smaller groups to thrive. But when people stop being accounted for individually, or believe that they are not being cared about as selves, then selfishness takes over. And on the scale of humanity today, selfishness is winning. It is winning among the rich, it is winning among the poor, and it is winning among those of modest means.

At the expense of our species, and the planet, itself. If we take the group to extend beyond ourselves, and, any conflict as detrimental or wasteful.

Quote: Mosca

So let us circle back to the original questions, and try to find out about each other.

1) A human being is an animal.
2) This depends on your perspective: from the point of view of an Ebola virus particle, bring on the humans, please! From the point of view of Dennis Rader, happy hunting! From the point of view of fundamentalists, we aren’t praying hard enough. From the point of view of Kim Jong Il, he isn’t getting enough respect. From the point of view of your dog, not enough frisbee time. From the point of view of Flannery O’Conner, we are ignorant of divine grace.

From my point of view, we are torn between our selfishness and our generosity. These compete as they scale up in numbers. Generosity wins as long as people are accounted for individually, allowing smaller groups to thrive. But when people stop being accounted for individually, or believe that they are not being cared about as selves, then selfishness takes over. And on the scale of humanity today, selfishness is winning. It is winning among the rich, it is winning among the poor, and it is winning among those of modest means.

Now, I make these points based solely on my own perspective, and they reflect entirely my own feelings about existence and selfness. I make them intentionally from within the world I use to navigate my own existence. And I intentionally place myself within the world the way FrG sees it, because I share much of his perspective.

What I will NOT do is say that it is good, or bad. It just is. From one point of view, I’m a cog in a society that produces benefits for many others. From a different point of view, I’m an over fed and over privileged resource hog stealing from the disadvantaged. From my point of view, I toss my hands in the air and say, I dunno, I gotta get up and get this day moving.

Thanks Mosca. As I mentioned this is not really meant to be a debate so if you don't mind I will just share my own personal thoughts.

I like your positive perspective about how generosity wins the day as long as people feel respected, cared for, and accounted for. However, I have experienced that even in small groups where everyone is loved and cared for there is still a puzzling selfishness that is present. It seems like selfishness is always just under the surface in us and it takes constant effort to keep it under control in small groups and larger ones.

Quote: Mosca

While I do not think FrGamble is right, I do think he has a point. When like minded people agree, they work together to create a community. That is what makes us human. But at the same time, communities (and civilizations) have been built on radically different principles. That, too, is part of being human. Even within the same community we can work together on some things, and be completely at odds with each other on other things.

First principles have eluded the greatest thinkers, other than as differing points of view: “I think, therefore I am.” “Dasein exists. Furthermore, Dasein is an entity which in each case I myself am. Mineness belongs to any existent Dasein, and belongs to it as the condition which makes authenticity and inauthenticity possible.” (Dasein translates sort of as “being there”, being along with presence.) Descartes says that his existence is primal, while Heidegger says that existing is not possible without the world to exist within. Both work as ways to understand the world. Sometimes.

I think it is important to see the big picture, and I don’t mean that as some wishy-washy compromise. The big picture is that we make up the rules. Sorry FrG, but that’s how I see it. WITHIN the rules we make up, we try to do what we think is the right thing: “Thou shalt not kill, that should be pretty easy to get everyone to agree with.” But then someone says that we should be able to kill someone who killed someone else, and of course it’s okay for a bunch of us to get together and put on all the same uniforms and kill a bunch of guys who put on different uniforms.,. It gets messy fast.

But we try. As a species, in general, we are wired to organize. Even junkies hang together to share the buzz. So, I would feel pretty safe in calling that the first First Principle. People organize.

FrG, what you are talking about are what I would call Second Principles: people agree on their common denominator, and organize to best preserve it. So, it’s not that I think you are wrong. I only think you didn’t step back far enough.

Thanks again Mosca for a good post. I would argue that a tendency to organize is a second principle. What is it in us that moves us to do things like organize? For me the first principle is that we are created to love and be good even though we are wounded in our nature and have to fight all the time against selfishness.

Quote: FrGamble

Thanks again Mosca for a good post. I would argue that a tendency to organize is a second principle. What is it in us that moves us to do things like organize? For me the first principle is that we are created to love and be good even though we are wounded in our nature and have to fight all the time against selfishness.

Nope; don’t argue. Share. Thanks for letting us see it your way. I would have said that your thoughts are Aquinian, but that is to be expected. He was a great thinker.

Quote: FrGamble

Thanks again Mosca for a good post. I would argue that a tendency to organize is a second principle. What is it in us that moves us to do things like organize? For me the first principle is that we are created to love and be good even though we are wounded in our nature and have to fight all the time against selfishness.

Safety in numbers.

Quote: petroglyph

Safety in numbers.

For the weak.

Quote: FrGamble

even though we are wounded in our nature and have to fight all the time against selfishness.

There's your negativity again. We're
broken, we're wounded. Get a more
positive outlook and you'll be a
happier person and you won't need
the crutch of religion to constantly
feel sorry for yourself.

Quote: Evenbob

There's your negativity again. We're
broken, we're wounded. Get a more
positive outlook and you'll be a
happier person and you won't need
the crutch of religion to constantly
feel sorry for yourself.

Deal with reality and you'll be a happier person and won't need to constantly lie to yourself and hide from the truth.