In this blog, I will indicate why abstract, philosophical action is especially appropriate as it pertains to domestic situations.
If a computer is given a set of files and folders it can’t find, it let’s you know. It does this with an error, or used to just shut down. My Dad’s Apple IIc would making a grinding sound akin to pulling tantamount quantities of air into your lungs through your nose and a straw.
To a human, with relativity to a large abstract concept called: life–these files and folders are meant to be inserted as input; instructions on how to translate the incoming data into a course of action. (Rand)
What is this action? Living. What is living? Rand says it’s the process of self-sustaining and self-generated action. I say that it is the reactive system & environment between individual and often collective action that passes through moments, space and time. Something like that.
In any case, if life consists of moments, there are qualities and quantities to these moments, ups and downs, input and output. When there is an inappropriate file in another folder, we often make things up to cover it up. I did. For years. But since ethics does not exist in reality and can only exist through the thoughtful reasoned, full integration of consciousness–my fundamental principles remain absolute. Link here.
A full integration of consciousness on a literal level is not possible without technology. However, I do think that a conscious philosophy is not only necessary, but essential to resolving lived situations and ‘advancing in life.’ This is the same thing as saying “Think top-down,” since philosophy is a top-down system. It has to be, the amount of information it has to deal with is too broad to be examined in terms of anything else. Concepts as Peikoff says, are the Algebra of cognition.
Like a book entailing how to run a computer ‘program’ like Drupal or write code like PHP, style in CSS, etc–we have a choice to read bottom up or top down. (Source on top-down-bottom-up thinking in this example: Author of “SVN” by OReilly)
When you read top-down, you are trying to get an over view, and this often sounds very superfluous to us. It did to me for many years without that concept, and as a result, like the absence of any idea, it results in large errors.
The analogy of the The Maze and the Revolving Orb comes to mind. These analogies are my own.
The Maze is all the situations we live in that we must pass through since we must walk forward. If we go back, in ‘philosophical space,’ we die which in reality means stagnancy and its inevitable end result: death.
The Revolving Orb is what’s directly in front of us, obscuring (very Platonic and sort of New-Agey I know) our vision from what’s in front of us.
Can we stop? No. Can we look to the sides? Yes, you can only see in your peripheral though and its often very blurry but can also be sharp if you look closely. The Orb never stops turning, but relays on its revolving, undulating surface, that which is in front of you and also, the maze itself, invconveniently located as an overlay, a metling transparecny of the entire Maze.
So let me complete the analogy: Philosophy is the Orb. Life is what’s in the maze itself along with its walls. The more we learn about philosophy, the clearer what is front of us becomes as the Orb merely CAN relay (say in pixels) what is in front of us, but does not necessarily relay the right thing at all even.
So say you have an angry head. What’s in front of you will be distorted or made of characters that aren’t really there. If you take your anger and reason it, what’s in front of you might become clear. But there’s no indication that what is on the Orb is true other than your ability to navigate the Maze and find your way out.
Most people are using peripheral sight in place of the Orb. Literal fragmented vision in place of a birds eye: Philosophy, a conscious, maintained fully actualized way of life.
We live in a world to whom philosophy is invisible. Why has it remained invisible?
Philosophy began as a way to explain things, nothing more and it keeps its roots because of one of its branches: metaphysics. Metaphysics deals not merely with reality itself, but with absolute reality. In the universe, this is literally that which is permanent to it.
Think about that.
Stars might be one literal thing. Planets maybe. Solar systems. Okay, but what about the things we can’t see and often can’t even feel? What permanent things are there that we can’t see? Is Freedom something we can touch and see? Sure it is, we are free to go outside and smell the air and the flowers.
But this isn’t freedom, is it?
Freedom is the ability to have options. Options are granted via a law that protects us from other people infringing on us. In our society. Why is this? Because the alternative as Rand says, is a gun and everything that comes with that.
So what happens when people say “I don’t need privacy, the law takes care of that.” Yeah. Well, this is the same way I feel when talking and dealing with people who care not to have a conscious philosophy.
It’s very much like the scene in Scarface with Toni Montana talking to the Banker in his own home. In this scene, Toni has a complete misconception of banking, banking systems and is uneducated so knows very little about money or Economics. As the result of this he wishes to hold all his money in cash in his house or go with another bank. The Banker tells him not to be a Schmuck and that he’s paying the extra taxes he’s balking on, for security. Rather than actually reason or look into this, he tells the guy to leave. He merely smiles and tells him to say Hi to his wife for him. Toni has believed something abstract about his situation, it’s not that he hasn’t. He understands that Bankers are people that need to make money and that this banker could be cheating him. Cared he to articulate it, and that’s exactly my point. Toni even with his own limited information could still ask the question: “What is my knowledge based on in this instance?” Upon seeing not too much in front of him from the recall done to files and folders in his mind, he brings up that he doesn’t really have very much. As the result of this, a normal person would conclude that they need more input.
And in terms of philosophy (the conceptual bird’s eye in relation to the concept life and how we live it along with what reality as a whole is) this is virtually anybody I meet since I live in U.S. Or really anywhere, but especially in my country.
The Orb to someone who does not have a conscious philosophy, is highly distorted at best.
So what about the argument that contends that we don’t need philosophy in practical reality?
My first answer to this is: “You’re right.” My second is: “For You.”
In reality this is the same thing as saying “I don’t really need to know my wife’s motivations, I just need to love her.” Or: “I don’t need to study up to know that women are generally weaker than men.”
How about: “Black people are inferior.” Still convinced you don’t need philosophy?
But science does that, you might say. And yet Science even in method now, is the historical evolution of philosophy itself.
The Real Reason: I hear about how philosophy couldn’t mean less, often in situations where it could make a difference, the most.
Watching TV shows is oddly a good source to learn about all of philosophies in action. I recommend Six Feet Under for an honest view and Rome or the movie Gladiator for an exaggerated but keen eye into the importance of personal politics and philosophy.
There’s one thing missing though…
What in the Maze analogy is moving us again? Aside from ultimate death and ongoing prolonged torture or whatever else, why do we need to move forward? There is even a good amount of scientific evidence to suggest that without exercise, the body atrophies. So does the mind. And so does philosophy, contained, by the way, by means of the mind. So if we must move forward in life, how fast? What sets its speed?
My answer for now is this: Adjust the speed for yourself, but don’t let the speed distort what you see in front of you. What do you see in front you?
Philosophy.
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Neal Cormier 