Intro to Extralogical Deism

 

It may seem strange that someone would create a philosophy that emphasizes avoiding wrong beliefs over finding correct ones (extralogical Reasoning, ER, calls this pragmatic unwrongness). It might seem stranger that he would then base a religion on that philosophy. Most people associate religions exclusively with ontologies (studies of being) and ethics (philosophies of action), and not at all with epistemologies (philosophies of knowing). Nearly all religions and other “universal” philosophies invalidate themselves from the first by failing to construct an epistemology that undergirds the others in respective order, as universal philosophies should (this, of course, does not mean all ELEMENTS of them are invalid). Religion’s lack of epistemology is clearly due to its absence everywhere else.

 

Extralogical reasoning reengineers your thinking for Pragmatic unwrongness. This distinguishes it from “super-logical reasoning,” reasoning that emphasizes correctness and high-power deductive reasoning skills. Pragmatic unwrongness is based on four convictions: that life and nature are Complex systems (explained shortly), limiting reality’s predictability and necessitating more rigorous context-based reasoning than commonly employed; that ascertaining correct answers is harder, less beneficial, and less necessary than most think; that wrong beliefs are more dangerous than believed; and that the by far best means of pursuing both correctness and avoiding wrongness is suspending judgment. 

 

A Complex system, such as an economy, is a system with many known, unknown, and unidentifiable variables undergoing Complex interactions, requiring holistic analysis or analysis of the WHOLE. It assumes neither parts nor whole can be accurately analyzed by simply looking at the parts; you have to see how they FIT TOGETHER. Collectively these variables give rise to Complexity: behavior characteristic of Complex systems including limited predictability (or mere “guess-ability”), power-laws, and self-organization, or the ability for things to organize themselves. Other examples include ecosystems, societies, industries as well as life and Nature. They contrast with COMPLICATED systems, like sophisticated watch or automotive systems, that can be accurately analyzed by reductive or reductionistic analysis, analysis of the PARTS. Complicated systems become chaotic if they’re nonlinear, or governed by nonlinear differential equations sensitive to initial conditions. Most people mismodel life and Nature as Complicated systems, making them appear simpler and more predictable. Blindness of Complexity obscures the need for context-based thinking. 

 

Everyone suffers from the causation bias, the natural tendency to be way too quick to assume that causality will necessarily be ascertainable and satisfying. This makes right answers seem easier to apprehend. The cognitive reflex to blur observation and conclusions, or jump to conclusions, makes them seem more necessary. That the full truth doesn’t always adequately reflect practical concerns—such as controllability of factors and the need to avoid mistakes--makes them seem more beneficial. And the cognitive and emotional reflex to reinforce one’s beliefs in mutually supporting packages makes wrongness a positive feedback loop (wrongness leads to more wrong beliefs), making wrongness more dangerous. 

 

KNOWING means knowing the answers; UNDERSTANDING means knowing how the facts that support them FIT TOGETHER. Suspending judgment, as opposed to analyses that assume answers prematurely, allows you to gather more supporting facts and have a better understanding of how they fit together due to being a purer, more prolonged, and less circular form of reasoning. This makes suspending judgment the ideal basis for reasoning.  

 

 

Extralogical Ontology 

 

Pragmatic unwrongness takes EXTRA things into account, deviating from logic and science at face value; but after making these EXTRA considerations, it’s about as logical and scientific as you can pretty much get. However, although you probably agree that science and religion can work together, because of religion’s need to meet ontological, sentimental, and ethical constraints, additional logical compromises are necessary. Thus, pragmatic unwrongness will have to become pragmatically tolerable wrongness. But while my ontology will bear many elements of questionable consistency with reality, sufficiently SELF-consistent models can be realized (don’t sneer: What you call “reality” is bottomed on the exact same modeling principle). Ultimately, Extralogical Deism aspires to create a tolerably wrong and emotionally satisfying ontology that compliments the rest of ER. Judge for yourself whether I was successful.      

 

 

Faith is useful. Seeking empowerment, everyone wants to believe in something greater than themselves. But like everything else, no matter how inherently wise, it can easily be PURSUED UNwisely, requiring intelligent management. Faith is belief DESPITE incomplete understanding. This invites wrongness, and a certain amount of readily available understanding is just as readily sacrificed. Blind faith often results from idolatry—or blind worship. This includes knowledge idolatry. Worshiping knowledge cultivates the working belief that knowledge is more important than wisdom and exacerbates people’s already-excessive attachment to preferred and preconceived notions. If someone or thing is so enlightening, then the focus should be on that: Idolatry distracts from learning; it leads to dogmatic learning, over-reliance, and blind zealotry; and, oftentimes, raving and worshiping are confused for the act of ACTING on the lessons that manage to be learned.  

 

Presumably, the source of faith must be accessible and much MORE powerful than oneself. To accommodate the former, It and Its own purpose must be relatable and easily understood. In other words: It must be anthropomorphic enough to have a vested interest in human virtues; have a personal pronoun (Him by tradition and author’s convivence); and accommodate the causation bias. Gods are the ultimate causational default, convenient sources of causation for the otherwise unexplained. Other examples include government executives, parents, traumatic events, and conspiracy theories. A god’s power as a causational default can neatly (and, of course, conveniently) explain the existence of the Universe despite its total violation of everything known to humankind. 

 

Yet ER embraces Complexity and holistic thinking and, therefore, the Universe’s LACK of agency. 

 

Moreover, He must be measurably manifest and support epistemic and psychological constraints without magnifying what CAN’T be explained. Some inconsistencies with reality are inevitable, but that doesn’t necessarily eliminate the utility of your models so long as they remain sufficiently SELF-consistent. Embracing an absence of understanding is not the same thing as having the lack of it thrown in your face. Part of avoiding wrongness is making sure any inevitable paucity of knowledge won’t lead to confusion, wrongness, and disempowerment. In sum, unnecessary complication can be as dangerous as oversimplification, and, therefore, loose ends must be wisely culled. After all, Heinsberg’s dismissal of a hidden determinism in quantum mechanics didn’t stop it from revolutionizing the modern World.  

 

Superstition, as well as dependence on luck, disempowers self-agency, or the force that drives one’s ability to “make things happen” (and avoid the dangers of thinking “it will happen TO THEM”). Given how incomprehensible a divine “plan” would be, an actively-interfering god that expects belief in miracles and “revelations” passed down by countless generations of hearsay creates intolerable wrongness, confusion, and disempowerment. This disqualifies the traditional Christian God.

 

But perhaps there’s a silver-lining here. Maybe the Universe’s lack of agency could explain its very purpose? Could some of the wonders of self-organization be a major part of what an omnipotent being is interested in? Most of Nature, including whatever agency that exists in humans (even if only in the subconscious), ultimately falls back to Complexity. Nature and sentient psychologies are Complex systems, making their achievements those of Complexity. This includes the rise of human agency and ITS achievements. Everything that remains is still the product of self-organization. Planets, solar systems, and galaxies may not be Complex systems, but they remain wonderous self-organized phenomena. People’s moral and intellectual contributions showcase the powers of the Universe’s self-organization and create a better Universe, gratifying God and themselves. Maybe the Universe is all a divine experiment?

 

Thus, calling the Universe “a/The Self-organizational Experiment” that encourages sentients to maximize their self-agency seems tolerably wrong.

 

This religion should also connect adherents to other sentients for mutual empowerment. Who does extralogical reasoning and its creator have kinship with? Other scientifically-oriented philosophers, especially believers in democratic republicanism from the Enlightenment. While Franklin, Jefferson, and Adams were Christian or Christian-like, they--and other Men-of-Letters such as Thomas Paine--had another religion in common: Deism. 

 

 

Deism

 

Traditional Deism is founded on two ontological axioms, two ethics, and two sentiments. The two ontological axioms are, one, a Creator called God exists due to Existence itself and, two, that he hasn’t actively interfered in the Universe since bringing it and the laws of physics into Existence.

 

First Ethic: Liberties called “natural rights” are granted EQUALLY to all sentients by God and Nature—and only by them—and the only qualification for sentience is the ability to comprehend these rights.

 

These include the liberties protected by the Constitution and Bill of Rights such as freedom of opinion, privacy, religion, etc. They are PROTECTED because mortals can ONLY protect them; they can’t grant them. They come from God and Nature, who don’t share their monopoly on truth with any arbitrarily large body of mortals (the second ethic). In fact, the definition of tyranny is that mortals CAN grant these rights and/or decide truth. Any time someone invokes their legal and social rights as if society’s sanction validates them is a promulgation of tyranny. 

 

In the ER Intro and Extralogical Reasoning: Sapience, Sentience, and their Hypothetical Civilizations, I talked about sapience, a greater level of awareness. I explain that an evolutionary process, you can’t have any appreciable degree of self-awareness without self-delusion and that you become what humans pretend to be when you become AWARE of it enough to (in one way or another) create a working reasoning system that reengineers your thinking accordingly. This is called an epistemic Puzzle of life (POL, from Bishko’s life engineering). This would, hypothetically, allow people to make the contributions to the Self-organizational Experiment and live in relative harmony with their environment for an extended period of geologic time.  In Extralogical Reasoning: Sapience, Sentience, and their Hypothetical Civilizations, I started really questioning whether I was sapient, but I remain confident that humans by and large are not. However, my feeling, both intellectually and emotionally, has always been centered on the tragedy of people’s failure to be become aware, never that I’m something more, merely NOT LESS.    

 

Science and common experience make clear that no race is significantly smarter than another and that other human universals are at best LESS applicable to the hyperintelligent. But questions that are too infrequently asked are, should it matter? should a hypothetical race ten percent less intelligent on average be denied equal opportunity? and even if some races, demographics, individuals etc. were as superior as some think/thought, would thinking in these terms be USEFUL? Although the research supporting these hypotheticals might have important secondary consequences, the answer to both questions is an emphatic “no.” 

 

In Jeffersonian rhetoric, belief in inequality suffocates the germ of ethical and intellectual enlightenment, both individually and especially collectively. Or as Bish would say, “It REALLY isn’t good for your attitudes.” Belief in the superiority of an “elite” discourages debate among competing viewpoints, repressing debate’s ability to catalyze learning and make a pool of beliefs more self-correcting; hinders the self-agency of both “inferiors” and “superiors” by disparagement and cultivating entitlement respectively; suppresses potential contributions of the exceptional among the “inferior”; obscures God Nature’s monopoly on truth; and fosters poorer morals and attitudes generally.   

 

And the very fact the so-called superiors couldn’t/can’t see this shows just how non-superior they really are.   

 

Second Ethic: God and Nature do not share their monopoly on truth with any arbitrarily large body of mortals.

 

A consensus in opinion and practice can’t determine right and wrong, and any suggestion to the contrary denies God and Nature’s monopoly on truth and is, therefore, an affront to God and Nature themselves. Violations of the second sentiment are one of the hallmarks of tyranny, as mentioned. Most of all, at least from a practical standpoint, infractions are a gross obstruction to learning, both directly and indirectly—which brings me to the sentiments.    

 

 

First Sentiment: Learning is about much more than truth: but ideas, thought processes, explanations, understanding, proficiency, and wisdom--which are only achieved through INTELLIGENT SKEPTICISM. 

 

Truth and learning have nothing intrinsically to do with sentients, who are merely a means to an end. Consensus and expert opinions can’t determine fact (second sentiment); are very often wrong and inconsistent; and true learning wouldn’t come from unquestioned belief in authorities even if they were all they claimed. What makes someone a teacher is the very fact they never have to say, “Take my word for it”—and why I’ve always been constitutionally opposed to uttering it. If anything, the very notion of authority is an enemy of learning—and, therefore, an enemy of agency and freedom--and person/authority-centric learning is a sin in Deism.    

 

Don’t confuse a MEANS to an end with an END ITSELF. Some people and things are better means to an end (e.g., a better teacher, a better choice of lecture to attend), but IN the end, that’s all they are—a means of enhancing YOUR learning. A good teacher doesn’t want to be idolized—but EXPLOITED.

 

Don’t be blinded by the obvious advantages of right answers, either. When people realize something is important, they’re quick to get confused and act like it’s the ONLY thing that’s important. Learning and the quality of intellectual research aren’t just about the answers—but the questions, explanations/presentations, and data. Simply knowing a possible truth doesn’t necessarily mean you know how to act upon it, especially if it runs counter to your own instincts.  

 

Intelligent skepticism is the only path to wisdom, and the only path to intelligent skepticism is open-mindedness: MUTUAL skepticism, of both oneself and others, combined with a desire to learn. Mere “acceptance” of ideas isn’t skepticism, but meekness; skepticism without SELF-skepticism isn’t skepticism, either--but arrogance. Disagreement can be healthy, but telling a person what to believe isn’t educational or ethical, and is destructive to a relationship. Discouraging intelligent skepticism is discouraging learning and intellectual achievement; discouraging learning is discouraging agency and freedom; discouraging agency and freedom is a blight on the Self-organizational experiment and a crime against Nature.   

 

Second Sentiment: Being opinionated is healthy (even if one is selective about their chosen beliefs), but in the end, FREEDOM of opinion and choice are more important than the QUALITY of sentients’ opinions and choices. 

 

A quote from Voltaire best characterizes this sentiment: “I disagree with everything you say, but I would give my life to defend your [legal] right to have it.” Harboring a philosophy that tends to alienate them from society, this sentiment allows extralogical reasoners to accept individuals and forms friendships, despite inevitable differences.

 

 

As I hope I’ve shown, ER’s Deism is not just a set of non-unreasonable ontological beliefs of sentimental value; it’s useful, a creed to foster better people and a better Universe. It’s designed to enhance learning, and learning is the force that drives progress in the journey known as life. Insanity is an incapacity to engage in intuitive life learning to correct one’s flaws, rooted in an inability to connect symptoms to “disease.” Life is about being a work in progress. That’s the journey. The destination is reaching your potential. ER Deism is a means to that end--for oneself, God, and the Self-organizational Experiment.