"One does not simply define Philosophy" ~ Me
Philosophy is this. It is the study of the Cosmos, from the anthropocentric perspective, of our Knowledge of the Cosmos. This is, in a fundamental sense, all we have, since the physical, objective perspective, of the Cosmos ultimately derives from our Knowledge of it.
From this perspective, Cosmos gets equalled to our Knowledge of it. Philosophy concerns itself with the study of the Cosmos from this perspective, which basically by definition, encompasses everything else here, everything one ever thinks, and is conscious of.
I call this the observer perspective, and I think it's the most fundamental.
This is in contrast to the god perspective often taken in Science, where we imagine an objective reality separate from our minds (described in Cosmography and Cosmology). This perspective has been so useful and fruitful, I consider this physical objective world to be true also, even if our only access to it is by our limited senses and mental models of it (as asserted by the observer perspective).
Most often I work with the god perspective, as in Science. However, when dealing with complex philosophical questions, I have to switch to the more fundamental observer perspective.
See also Metaphysics for another description of the above, as a view of the nature of Existence.
Portal:Contents/Philosophy and thinking
Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy
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My Metaphysics: Observer/god perspective, or better name may be Mind/Physical reality.
My Epistemology: Principle of Inclusiveness
My Ethics: Utilitarianism up to the point you can. Then virtue/Emotion/Aesthetics. In particular, see discussion in Emotion.
My Logic. Don't know enough, but I think Mathematical logic may be the best description.
Meaning of life/Existentialism questions, etc.
Most important principles
- Always learn more.
- Follow your bliss.
My Politics (ideas only): A weak dynamic social democracy, combined with a robust weighted direct democracy and a cyber-government.
Lots of nice videos on philosophers here
See Philosophers
Philosophy of mathematics, Philosophy of mind, Philosophy of science
Oriental philosophy, Spirituality, Transhumanism
One of the central ideas of this philosophy that combines observer perspective with the existence of a physical world, is the division of everything into whether information flows from observer to physical world, or vice versa. The former, I call Art; the latter, I call Science. All other sections are effectively described by these two aspects of the observer condition, which I holistically call the Conversation with Nature.
Here is a very interesting alternative to my conceptual framework: Krebs cycle of creativity
https://www.youtube.com/user/LulieTanett
I think that Carl Sagan was wrong when saying that what we need is a balance between skepticism and open mindedness. Open mindedness follows from skepticism, by being skeptic about one's own beliefs. Instead what's called for is a balance between skepticism and intuition, where the latter refers to the ability to act based on uncertain and potentially incorrect beliefs. This balance is the only way to live successfully in our world. I suppose Sagan was focusing on the science, while the question of "how to live" is one of philosophy. But I made the mistake of taking his thoughts as general philosophy of life. Perhaps some other people have made the same mistake
Inclusiveness Principle to arrive at Truth.
Also, the loop structure of your diagram confused me at first, but now I think I quite like it. It encapsulates my concerns about what should we base reality on. If you look at your diagram, one can't really say which of the boxes is the base, as it's just a cycle. <>This really makes me think of the strange loop ideas in Godel Escher Bach (GEB)! The truth is that because we fundamentally only have access to our thoughts, we can never know for sure what the "essence of reality" really is.. While I think that the loop topology is nice, I wouldn't put the same boxes as you do. I actually think that the "classic" disciplines of science are not that far off, though I think your Figure 2 is. I personally like to organize science in a kind of complexity hierarchy. Physics describes the fundamental workings of matter. Chemistry describes properties of matter at the next scale of emergence/complexity. Biology at the next scale. And finally, what I call the system sciences, which are new scientific fields that deal with the most complex systems: computer science, cognitive science, social sciences, etc. One can regard this complexity ladder, as a ladder of increasing information processing. And indeed one could close the loop, by asserting that these complex information processing systems, like the brain, computers, society, etc. are actually where the *information* about the world really resides. But that last step of the loop is a bit more philosophical/scientifically controversial. I guess people like hierarchies.. But, if we take the brave GEBian step of closing the loop, we have to face the foundamental subjectivity of reality, and all the problems that come with, specially in an increasingly transhumanist future: memory and perception alteration, virtual worlds, programmable matter. The truth is that I believe in an external physical world (the nature of which could be a simulation, or who knows), and it's good to remember that. The problems I mention are still important/hard though, specially because we are engineering subjectivness more and more into this world.
~ my comment to blog post by Maxandre
What are your most fundamental principles?
March2017
To be honest, more and more, I've come to dislike "fundamentalisms" in general. More precisely, I just consider myself and what I know as too fallible to have certainty.. That being said one of the biggest principles on my world view. The only one that has really survived all scrutiny is what I call the Principle of Inclusiveness (don't know if it's the best name), but it just says that a world view is always better, the more of the totality of experience that is is able to include in it/account for. In a sense it's a very obvious thing, but I like the grounding it gives me in comparing world views. Plus following drives one to explore, because exploration is the way to gain as many different experiences as possible. I think scientists in particular, but explorers/curious people in general, are just people who stretch the limits of Nature to see that which nobody has ever seen. As Alexander von Humboldt said "The most dangerous worldview is the worldview of those who have not viewed the world". This is both a life principle, and a foundation for epistemology. Another principle is Joseph Campbell's idea of "following your bliss", which I think means something like you should do what you really think/want to do. But tbh, the most important principle and the hardest to actually carry out is the first one. The follow your bliss principle is pretty easy to accept, but it doesn't say much. The first principle means that you should always learn more about the world, and about yourself (which affects how the second principle manifests itself).
What I also like about that first principle, is that it doesn't impose any limits on where your quest of learning may take me. My world views may change a lot, and may evolve and adapt the more I experience. And as long as I don't do any "willful disregard of the evidence, and a flight from self-knowledge" (quoting Carl Sagan), or I don't "fool myself" (Feynman), then I should be improving my world view. And indeed my WV has changed a lot over the years, and that's good
The second principle came after this quest took me on a sort of existentialist crisis recently, where I found myself on a bottomless free fall of self-introspection, showing a lack of foundation. That 2nd principle laid a foundation at those very bottoms of the psyche. From which I could sustain the big castle of Knowledge that the 1st principle had building over the years..
all experience is real. science gives a framework to understand reality (the things we experience). Art and technology gives us ways to experience new or better things. Subjectivity is important for it affects all experience.