February 3, 2005

My Way of Life

My personal philosophy has evolved very slowly throughout my life, with small changes here and there save for a couple events. It's something I think about constantly, always trying to develop abstract principles from my daily experiences and apply new philosophies to everyday tasks. Prior to this writing, I've never attempted to formally define my philosophy. Doing so now will be an interesting challenge and might provide me with valuable insight. Though my philosophy is probably not original I can state with confidence that it has not been contrived from academic learning or from what happens to be popular in our culture or for sake of being consistent with some subculture or paradigm. It is 100% gleaned from personal experience, observation, and ad hoc testing.

I think the easiest way to go about defining a philosophy is to outline a set of core tenets, followed by examples and related principles. Where possible, I will try to provide links to more formal definitions where appropriate, for further reading. Be forewarned: I suspect that this section will undergo many changes as I find better ways to more completely and accurately describe my way of life.

    Core Tenets
  • Evolution is like a force or pattern which governs (without consciousness or intelligence) all life and nature. Evolution is a consequence of natural law (whether defined and understood by science, or yet to be defined and understood).
    • Life has no meaning or purpose save to evolve: to proliferate others that are similar to ourselves but that are more likely to proliferate.
    • We exist because of natural law. Asking why we exist is therefore meaningless.
    • We are animals, driven by the same purpose that drives every animal.
  • Human thought and action can be divided into five logical modes: reason, instinct, belief, feeling, and intuition. All five are equally important to human existence when considered relatively.
    • Reason provides a common, accepted means for communicating logical thoughts and solving problems collaboratively as a society.
    • Instinct is the antithesis of thought, being driven by genetic predispostion/nature.
    • Belief implies faith. Though presumptuous and indeterminable, belief is essential.
    • Feeling implies belief driven by emotion.
    • Intuition is belief based on unconscious reason formed from previous experience.
  • Having the ability to choose when to use or allow a mode to dominate requires wisdom and discipline. This skill is extremely important to life and should be consciously sought.
  • Balance is important to life and should be sought. It too requires wisdom and discipline. Balance does not imply a symmetric division.
  • Wisdom and discipline are obtained through life experience; particularly in life experience that involves trial, overcoming, and failure.
    • Obtaining wisdom and discipline enables us to obtain greater life experience.
    • Life experience without trial, though important for balance, is shallow, and produces little wisdom or discipline.
    • Suffering is essential to life and should be embraced. Relieving the world of suffering is a shallow ambition.
  • The universe is not completely causal, and therefore nor is life.
  • Good and evil are not natural concepts and therefore do not exist within the context of nature.