The Soul is a chest of drawers, says Moreland

For a moment there, I swear he was describing Midi-Chlorians.

Theory

As we know, anyone can invent a theory. However, some theories fail to build knowledge. Common theories that just stop building knowledge display the traits of being subjective, e.g. horoscopes and alien abductions, or egocentric, e.g. “the Sun revolves around the Earth”.

This is one theory invented by one human, and displays both the traits of theories that stopped building knowledge. It also uses the word soul as a proposition more than it defines it. How many words make a story? And sure enough, along comes another handful of propositions in want of definition. That’s how you know your theory is on the wrong track, and that’s not how you build knowledge.

Religion.

Theories in religious stories are similarly invented by humans, and passed on even across religions by proper home schooling before the child knows enough to choose what to learn, then by doctrine in schools. When there are no schools, send missionaries and crusaders. It’s like religion is hell-bent on injecting their stories wherever they see a mind without knowledge.

Knowledge

How do you build knowledge? This was investigated much more thoroughly than by anyone else, by Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell. They even questioned the foundations of mathematics, in order to build knowledge on as few propositions that had to be held true as possible.

Science is different

Today, in Science, not only is factual knowledge built by checking proposed knowledge against objective measurement: in new realms of knowledge, new theories are continuously checked against established theories, and either can be overturned. If and when this happens, as with the (slow and gradual, due to pervasive doctrine) shift away from the egocentric Earth as the center of the Universe, an explosion of knowledge occurs!

This means that the great effort across the world to build objectively verifiable and not egocentric theories and knowledge, that which everyone (whether they know it or not) rely wholeheartedly on for the simplest everyday interactions all the way up to advanced medicine that was not possible just 10 years ago, and for investing billions in high-tech ventures for a better future, is at every point in time the best theory to teach a kid.

How about we teach Science, instead of trying to prove fairy tales?

Maximilion

No minds warped since childbirth, and all across the world, peoples would check each others’ conclusions and agree on those that check out, instead of fighting wars over whose proposition must be true or else.

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Are Gun Control Laws Pro-Life?

I analyze propositions and evaluate claims daily since well before my first Philosophy lesson as a teen. These two views are conflicting – if held by the same person and the aim is to save lives. Such a person would be called a hypocrite.

– A juxtaposite observation shared by the Association of Swedish Atheists.

The observation made here is sometimes an effective observation to drive change, sometimes not. (Only if an agency of propaganda is successful in authoring truths and falsehoods, or even blur the lines, relying on fears of their own people, is it ineffective. In this case, and perhaps for a long time standing, religion and tradition is and has been hijacked for the role of authority of truth – quite despite laws.)

If the propositions are true (law 1 won’t work but law 2 will), the conclusion is true.

– Propositional Logic in Philosophy

If enforced however, empirical evidence suggests that each law once passed will have a great impact on violations, and will remove freedoms of the individual – as laws tend.

Removal of freedoms is what makes civilization from anarchy (a state in which no laws are passed nor enforced, and the strongest brute wins).

The appearance of civilizations, where they have happened, have been the fervent wish of mourners of victims to work against this, and instead of limiting freedoms by rule-of-force, limit the freedoms of everyone, equal under these established, formalized laws.

We must therefore be careful to pass new laws. This in order to avoid a totalitarian state similar to that envisioned by George Orwell in his novel, 1984. This while continuously updating the legislation to deal with current issues, and perhaps, remove antiquated laws that no longer apply.

In this question posed to a search engine, you may explore if laws limit the freedom of killing. Regardless of freedoms and separate from statistics, the results imply strongly that in most countries gun control laws are not a new concept, but several to many decades old, and have continuously been made stricter in response to civilian outrage against deadly violence.

I cannot vote for my views when news reach me, nor will I lobby for my views, but would rather tend continuously to their validity, dreading hypocrisy. This requires taking part of all views (see my series), and staying informed.

If you resist bias, you find that the USA is behind many other developed countries (and some less developed, and some with much greater internal conflict) in passing and enforcing modern laws.

Humanity cannot move backward to a time that no longer exists. You can only move forward.

– Isaac Asimov, The Caves of Steel

Resisting reform as the next shooting is reported, and the next, appears to me as an increasingly desperate wish for barbarism, logically independent of having to pick a side or support tradition.

The Problem with Equality

Even with 100 years of hindsight in possession, it’s impressive to hear Bertrand Russell pose the right questions directly to the national leader and sovereign emperor approving of the death of tens of thousands of his people, though the Philosopher may not have known the full extent of this at the time of the interview.

Lenin being noted as the lesser inspiration for Stalin, who also ordered the death and death camps but on a scale one hundred times larger, we can understand how much restraint the understated disapproval took on the part of Russell, a champion of peace and a curious mind, and leave the subject of those persecuted, tortured and killed.

This is to say, Marx turned to Socialism mid-life, wrote it as a Philosophy, and successors turned it into Communism, with these consequences. Once removed not twice, we can despite the atrocities against their own people and despite the best Philosophical thought, discuss the idea of Equality.

How would Equality work, as a System?

The systematic problem of pursuing the abstract goal of equality (of opportunity, or any other factor you could suggest) is that in some parts of the system, there will always be individuals who become key “personnel”: the educated, the leaders, the skilled workers, or even as smallest increment in Marx’s time, a random factory worker promoted to foreman.

These key persons will be, at least until replaced by another person or machinery, in a position of power.

Through my dealings with private persons, businesses, agencies, and officials alike in this much more liberal world, I’m sad to report that not one such, not a single one, has been able to resist exerting their power when possible.

Maximilion

It seems to me that we humans as a species are afflicted by the fear of threat and cannot control any exertion of power in our possession when perceived as threatened — even when there is no threat. I see this simply as a human trait, a genetic self-defense mechanism, and this bodes ill for future humans. We ought to be aware and ward against this trait.

Furthermore, this goal of equality seems to have as its ideal state that, when everyone is equal, automatically their contributions (great or none; this matters not), turns talent, initiative, and serfdom alike into equal serfdom. This is not what a businessman would want, it’s not what an educator wants, it’s not what a parent would want, and it’s not even what governments want, if they want a people of humans left to govern.

Russell’s story of his meeting with Lenin touches on that problem in this interview, and if the suffering mentioned is supposed to be a solution, this system of equality will repeat Lenin’s experience at every instance, in my mind.

It is for this reason, not the already well documented, warped abuse of the best thoughts of Marx and Philosophical propositions (in many systems of government), that I think equality is just an idea; something that cannot be successfully systemized.

Analysis aside, I also think the goal is mistaken:

The people of a country will not feel unequal if they can get by and also set aside a buffer for hard times, and for fun. To raise the level of opportunity for the worst-off to this level of a life seems to me a goal much more noble, more likely to systemize successfully, and more likely to instantiate a happier populace.

Maximilion

I would much rather be speaking of the pursuit of happiness than the pursuit of equality. Though both are ideals and so can never be reached, they seem as two disparate things altogether, with the pursuit of happiness less dependent on fear and hate, which in my observations are the primary and recurring causes of illogic.