How to Create a Philosophy

 

 

Bishko once said that “It’s often hard to show someone they’re wrong about one thing when they’re wrong about almost everything else.”

 

What’s wrong with common learning, thinking, and wisdom isn’t so much incorrectness--but their nonexistence. Whatever tangibility they possess amounts to little more than questionably consistent, questionably correct beliefs people are told to have. Perhaps worse, the absence of an established epistemology implicitly discourages it. If its advocates weren’t offended by the following, it would be evidence against extralogical reasoning’s correctness.

 

Common life-related learning doesn’t teach thinking, decision-making, and mental health managerial methods (a philosophy of judgment); it doesn’t teach what knowledge, understanding, proficiency, and wisdom are and how they fit together (a philosophy of learning); it doesn’t define what a psychology is in any meaningful and unambiguous way and how it fits in with your intellect, conscious beliefs, cognitive and emotional systems, and how you can use that to manage your mental health (a philosophy of a psychology); it doesn’t have a unifying philosophy for psychologies, societies, and the rest of the systems in Nature directly relevant to life (a philosophy of Nature); it tells you to believe in experts but doesn’t teach you about expertise itself and how to evaluate the experts (a philosophy of expertise).

 

Nor does it have curriculum and guidelines for how to create a philosophy for those who disagree. This post is ER’s philosophy of judgment, and you can use it to create your own—if you disagree. 

 

There’s a difference between having beliefs and having a philosophy—and even some difference still between a philosophy and a systematized methodology. To an epistemologist, wisdom comes from a systematic philosophy, not mere beliefs. In fact, strong beliefs without an undergirding epistemology are potentially dangerous, exacerbating people’s innate over-reliance on preferred and preconceived ideas. As you can see, when a collection of beliefs evolves into an epistemic philosophy, one can readily show the error of people’s ways.

 

Creating a philosophy, however, takes years and can’t be fully understood merely by reading it. Only in hindsight do analyses follow logical progressions; in real time, the questions often arrive before explicitly asked. Extralogical reasoning was no exception. This post provides the questions and objectives, accelerating the journey toward enlightenment. But in circumventing the chaos and confusion of the process of finding the questions and objectives, something may be lost--intellectually and emotionally and, therefore, philosophically. This is my attempt at a compromise.  

 

In my first instructional video, I introduced the binary choice or preference. Despite the delusions everyone has to the contrary, no one is fundamentally designed for truth and rationality, but simulations known as beliefs and rationalization. While truth can be sought, beliefs will always be more of a cognitive, social, and emotional phenomenon than an intellectual one. But between truth and beliefs is an achievable middle ground called epistemology—the branch of philosophy, or a philosophy, that studies how you know what you know. If you choose epistemology over beliefs, you make your most cherished and relied upon beliefs about your beliefs, your knowledge of knowledge, your understanding of understanding—your belief-forming, decision-making, and mental health managerial methods. And for those precious few with the right predilections, this allows for much greater general objectivity, mental health management, and life learning. Unfortunately, while epistemology is cognitively and intellectually superior, it could never compete with the social advantages of beliefs. Most people don’t think methodically enough for epistemology, and it’s a longer path. Thus, the overwhelming majority prefer beliefs, in accordance with their cognitive, social, and emotional programming.

 

Admittedly, I exaggerate the dichotomy. Because extralogical thinking apparatuses possess universal biases, self-delusion will always accompany self-awareness, especially in products of evolution (see ___). The calculated dichotomy redirects social and emotional needs from specific beliefs toward methodology. This reduces bias and the proliferation of wrongness catalyzed by capricious opinions. Priding oneself in the management of beliefs makes doing so easier by having less need for opinions generally. People are their psychologies, and, counting the primitive equivalents representing emotions and subconscious infrastructure, their psychologies are their beliefs. Managing one’s beliefs, psychology, and life are, therefore, one in the same.

 

Many like the idea of methods but don’t want to fully let go of the social and emotional advantages of beliefs; some are undecided. Then what can an epistemic philosophy do for you? Having a good philosophy is not about whether you agree with me—and you certainly don’t have to eschew sociopolitical opinions as I try to. It’s easy to forget that learning is about more than facts, but also about questions, explanations, and data--including the counter questions, explanations, and data. You learn when you answer questions about a topic. The more you answer, the better your understanding. Even if you disagree with mine, if you can get intelligent answers to enough the right questions and integrate them into your working beliefs, you’re well on the way to discovering some quality wisdom and solutions to the puzzle of life.

 

So that’s what this post is—questions, curriculum, and guidelines for creating your own philosophy. The only requirements are belief in logic and evidence and that thinking and decision-making is context-dependent; that life’s not so simple that everyone can go around putting labels like good, bad, right, and wrong on things and base all their thinking around it. The questions and guidelines below will be a good test for whether you’re a candidate for ER.  

 

The default should be to answer the queries in order, but it’s not required. Learning should be driven by passion and appreciation, not idols and authority. ER asserts that you should be particular about what you think about and the opinions you have. You make the most of a teacher through exploitation, not respect. The paradox of wisdom is that although there are infinite hypothetical paths and sources of help, wisdom can’t truly be taught and is never guaranteed. I can accelerate and enhance the journey, but only you can truly bring yourself to the destination. Conscious beliefs insufficiently supported by unconscious beliefs and emotions have little effect on people’s decisions and general perspectives, requiring that wisdom possess a degree of subjectivity. Wisdom is a systemic property of belief network or psychology, not a local one. 

 

Write the answers down, and if you have the motivation, write essays. Learning comes from doing. There are links to my own works here, as well; and I will expand it as needed for further help.

 

 

Commentary accompanies the questions, offering context to the queries and advice on how to cultivate your philosophy. Read the commentary first; then try to give your first answers on your own. Independent/autodidactic learning is the purest, least circular, and, therefore, highest quality learning. This, however, does not mean that you shouldn’t eventually seek other ideas. While the highest quality, tending to be less corrective, autodidactic learning is also the slowest and least reliable. A balance must always be sought. If you know where to begin, write the first draft on your own. Wait until later drafts to hear other ideas. 

 

Best of luck on your efforts to exploit the author.

 

 

Distinctions/ Definitions

 

There’s nothing more important than knowing what’s important—including the relationships and differences between important things. Comprehending the nuances between related things turns knowledge into understanding and avoids pernicious confusion. Confusing contact and net force in physics and observer and frame of reference in relativity are the kiss of death. In judgment, big ones are thinking for decisions (which are mandatory) and thinking for opinions (which are almost always optional); correctness and avoiding being wrong; logic and truth; potential results vs realistic results; compensation vs. elimination/replacement: dogmas, rules-of-thumb, and preconceived beliefs and measures, etc. to compensate for lack of ability to engage in context-based thinking and decision-making (usually due to lack of information or experience) and using them to replace context-based thinking; misunderstood relevance and irrelevance; knowledge vs. understanding; the indications of a property with the property itself (e.g., symptoms and disease)  judgment vs competence; wisdom vs raw intellect; and judgment and wisdom—among others.

 

Labels are frequently misused and over-relied upon and get a bad rap. But like everything else, they’re only useful for what they are--not more, not less, and not something else. Strongly entangled with beliefs by the cognitive system, language shapes how people think—and wrong language mis-shapes it. Definitions make important distinctions and inform your objectives. If you seek wisdom, doesn’t it help to know what it is? Common wisdom doesn’t define or distinguish between anything.

 

After living in one of the most educated places in the World for almost half a century and worked at two of the World’s most prestigious universities, I’ve never heard or read anyone define wisdom, judgment, or a psychology in any informative way (no doubt, some books contain them); only a few times have I heard or read a comparison between knowledge and understanding; and I’ve rarely heard or read the distinctions I made in the first paragraph. It’s actually worse than that. Since knowledge in excess and wisdom and understanding leads to pernicious confusion and false assumptions, the unqualified statement “knowledge is power” helps make common wisdom outright unwisdom.              

 

Before proceeding to the questions, there’s a recommended assignment: Write a history of things you and others have been wrong about, what you learned from them, and what it taught you about the trustworthiness of human judgment and human opinions. They can be mistakes or just misconceptions. The history should include cases where learning new facts prompted false assumptions. In other words, the mistakes are about the importance of the lessons, not the real-world consequences (however much they may make the lessons easier to learn). Make sure to have examples from real life, but you can also include lessons learned from history, science, or scientific research about human error and fallibility. Books on cognitive psychology and any research about wrong scientific theories are useful. The assignment is designed to assess how much you can trust human judgment and opinion.      

 

Define the words and analyze the distinction and questions below:

 

Compensation vs elimination, the need for go-to explanations and solutions to compensate for insufficient information to engage in context-based thinking vs trying to eliminate the need for context-based thinking.

 

Thinking of decisions vs opinions 

 

Intellectual authorities as a means to an end—learning—and an end itself

 

Judgment vs competence

 

Trigger vs. catalyst vs. immediate cause vs. ultimate cause—and why are these distinctions important?

 

Knowledge vs understanding vs proficiency vs wisdom

 

False skepticism vs. Actual 

 

False open-mindedness vs Actual

 

What is open-mindedness and what is skepticism, actually?

 

Indications of a property vs property itself

 

Misunderstood relevance/importance vs irrelevance/unimportance     

 

If you asked most people what it meant to believe in science, most would say believing in the importance of logic and evidence to ascertain truths about Nature. This, of course, is not wrong—but it’s not entirely correct, either. There’s more to it than that. First, what is Nature? Does science have to pertain to physical things?

 

(The recommended preliminary assignment is very helpful here) Why might evidence generated by experimentation be necessary in life-related matters? Why is evidence needed? Why can’t you just rely on intuition? And for that matter, why can’t you just rely on experimentation and evidence?

 

What does it mean to believe in science, even if its explanatory powers are limited? What might belief in science say about your views of human strengths and weaknesses?     

 

 

How is analysis in the physical sciences different than analysis in life-related matters? 

 

Beliefs, Bias, and Unwrongness

Pure (deductive) logic is not the study of truth, but of the thought process. It only directly deals in thought sequences; for the most part, it takes the truth of the premises for granted. Godel showed that the rules of mathematics can’t be both complete and consistent; since they’re consistent, they are incomplete. A thinking apparatus cannot fully comprehend truth and mathematics without the capacity to think outside the bounds of deductive logic—It must be able to think extralogically.

 

What seemingly prosaic thing must a thinking apparatus possess to contemplate truth? Even if every unit of knowledge/ belief in its possession is correct by themselves, does this ensure a fully correct understanding? Does this ensure self-consistency? If no, what must it do to compensate? (If you’re having trouble, consider answering questions below first)

 

Other than correctness, what are some attractive properties of beliefs generally and in particular areas (think both about properties in the modern World and evolutionary environments)?

 

What things might beliefs affect, and what might affect your beliefs subconsciously? Even if people aren’t as intellectually invested in their beliefs as they’d like to think, do you think heartfelt beliefs stand alone without support of other beliefs? Why might using the wrong language in your observations and models of reality bias you?  

 

Why might setting goals prematurely be dangerous?

 

Why is it dangerous to believe in cures and guarantees?

 

Why might someone want to proactively and actively manage their beliefs by avoiding capacious opinions? Hint: Ever been delusional about something or witnessed someone else who was delusional about something? Was that the only thing you or they were delusional about?

 

Aside from conscious and unconscious beliefs, name things that could be classified as beliefs or primitive precursors/equivalents to beliefs.

 

What is a psychology? Different models can and should be named.

 

Considering the last question, why might beliefs in some fields be more reliable than others? Self-correction is a field’s ability to correct itself over time. What factors might self-correction be measured by?

 

Why is both competition and cooperation helpful for a field’s development? 

 

If you don’t entirely agree with mine, try to list your own reasons for the need for wisdom. What individual philosophies/sub-philosophies might be needed?

 

Think of reasons why wrong beliefs are more dangerous than people realize (other than the obvious)

 

Why might suspending judgment yield better understandings than hasty ones even if the overall conclusions are the same? 

 

Why might avoiding being wrong and suspending judgment be especially important/beneficial for the mentally ill?

 

 

Judgment and Learning

 

In matters of judgment especially, what’s more dangerous: the minimal know-how or overestimation of know-how?

 

Pick a couple of people you know well. Estimate what percentage of their life do you think you’ve personally witnessed? Based on that, do you necessarily think you have enough information to know the things you think you know about them? Even if yes, should you be as certain as you are or were?

 

Why are all people the best and worst sources of information of themselves?

 

What are common mistakes in judgment?

 

What mistakes might people make when they think they’re looking at a situation from your point of view? Why might a person’s point of view matter even if the accompanying beliefs and attitudes might be misguided?

 

Why might an answer to a question be informative even if the answer is wrong?

 

Suppose you give someone the benefit of the doubt that they’re capable of thinking for themselves, that they’re reasonably objective, and aren’t ill-motivated, why might suspending judgment be useful even if they turn out to be full of shit? (aside from the fact that analyses that suspend judgment yield better understandings than hasty ones, even if the overall conclusions are the same) 

 

Why might highly intelligent people be worse than expected at matters of judgment?

 

Are people an inherent part of learning? How might the role of people and facts be misunderstood in learning?

 

Complexity

 

Even if it’s potentially beneficial itself, how might gaining information backfire?

 

Considering extrinsic factors, why might the advantages of intelligence be negated or even backfire in matters of judgment?

 

Do you interact the same way with your best friend if there’s another third, a fourth, fifth, a party? Why might the interactions between two animals in an ecosystem change based on the addition of species? Why might businesses and industries behave differently depending on the addition of other businesses and industries?

 

What influences might your choice of movies to watch influence other parts of your life?

 

Why might making minimum wage unduly high backfire for the poor, long-term?

 

Why might excessive rent control backfire for the poor, long-term? (or at least those not on rent control)

 

Why might the elimination of a predator harm their primary prey?

 

Nature is empowered by preferential attachment, where change begets change at an increasing rate. This ultimately leads to the prevalence of nonlinear change and power laws, scaling relationships between the frequency and magnitude of events and distributions like Pareto’s 80-20 law. Both are confirmed by computational experiments, including within human systems where experiments assume random decision-making. Below are a few examples of preferential attachment.

 

Why would a slightly better Hollywood actor end up making way more money?

 

Why would a slightly more socially skilled person end up with way more friends?

 

Why would a business with a slightly better product make far greater profits?

 

Why would a slightly better fit predator/predator species have far more descendants? Why might a pollinating plant?

 

Suppose zero degrees of separation means a direct connection between two things: A friend, a prey of predator species, an animal that eats a plant. Why might disparity in success lead to disproportional connections?

 

Take a system of variables. Suppose they’re completely dependent on each other; what does the system become? Suppose they become completely independent; what does the system become? Where do you think maximum Complexity would occur?

 

Why would too much redundancy in businesses and industries be problematic? Why would too much diversity become problematic?

 

Why would hierarchy, or disparity in success, in industries give an economy and the industries stability? Why would too much hierarchy become problematic?

 

Why would the prevalence of nonlinear change make Complex networks like societies, ecosystems, economies, etc. difficult to control and predict? Think about evolution; look at the novelty it’s created.

 

Thinking along the same lines, what do you think is more effective: Human agency or self-organization? (This does not necessarily mean self-organization ought to be completely mutually exclusive with human agency)

 

 

If you’ve made it this far, you’re likely a candidate for ER. If you aren’t but still want to create a systematic philosophy, you have work to do—and essays to write. In its puberty, ER was just a mass of beliefs, with dozens of mutually supporting maxims but little systemization. When one creates a philosophy, it becomes both a lot more, and a lot less. The beliefs are consolidated into easily conveyed theses.

 

In ER, there are three. Unwrongness: Treat wrong beliefs as more dangerous than correct ones beneficial, and when you do need or want to be correct, prolong analyses to maximize understanding (analysis that suspend judgment allow you to gather more facts and, because prolonged analyses are purer and less circular than hasty ones, you can better understand how they fit together). Its underlying explanation is the sentient duality: Self-awareness and delusion are a consubstantial duality, two of the essence; maximizing self-understanding comes not from exploiting readily available awareness, but when one gains the meta-awareness to understand their delusional nature and re-engineers their thinking accordingly. Lastly, extralogical Complexity, based on Complex systems theory, and the four laws that govern all the systems in Nature directly relevant to life.         

 

Consolidation—and, therefore, satisfaction—is not complete without the right balance of sophistication and simplicity (which ER still strives to improve). Well-consolidated theses and definitions give force, direction, and meaning to its many applications. Make sure your theses give your philosophy the same.