G'day, my name is Bruce Robertson and this is Pirate Philosophy. In this series of video I will be discussing and describing an original philosophy; one that you won't find anywhere else, but it is one that is logical rigorous and dynamic. Welcome to Pirate Philosophy.
In today's video, I will be discussing some of the preparations for the journey. First off: what not to take. This is a new and original philosophy that works from the ground up, using explicit assumptions and processes of inference. So one does not want to take excess baggage. As mentioned in a previous video entitled 'PP3 Standard western philosophy is naive' I stated that Standard Western Philosophy has found itself up a blind canyon from which there is no way forward except to retrace one's steps and start again. And by 'starting again', I mean leaving all the Standard Western Philosophy baggage behind; we don't need it, we don't want it. It will only get in the way.
Ok what next? What do we need to take? Philosophy is a paradigm and it needs to be explicit upon what its assumptions are; so I will be making explicit assumptions about what we need to take. And perhaps the most natural place to start for what we need to take is evolution or the concept of evolution; and so we will be making the assumption that life, including human life, evolved on Earth through the process of evolution. And since this is philosophy where only the broadest of brush strokes over many domains of knowledge are required, there is no need for us to go into the details of DNA or genotypes or phenotypes or exactly how it all works. It is sufficient for us to know that the details of the process are available should we want or need to go into them. The main point for taking evolution with us as an assumption is that it explains life. It explains it as a physical and natural process; one that does not require magic or some sort of spontaneous creation. And by 'magic', I mean a process that is intrinsically hidden from us. By excluding magic, we acknowledge that our world is knowable and understandable.
The second thing we shall take is a logical processor. All animals and humans have some sort of brain or logical processor that makes decisions regarding how the animal reacts to particular situations. And so in order to understand human life, we need to assume the existence of a logical processor as one of the original essential organs of the animal body. We can further assume, given that we have already made the assumption of evolution, that this logical processor or brain evolved in much the same way as the other organs of the animal body evolved, such as the eye heart and liver. And in the same way that we don't need to know the details of how evolution works, we don't need to know the details of how the brain evolved. And being philosophy, we don't need to know the physical or hardware characteristics of the brain or logical processor. All we need to know is that it is a logical processor and that it exists as a core organ of the animal. and especially the human body.
What do I mean by a logical processor? Perhaps the best analogy is that of a small computer, but one without any software installed; all it can do is follow rules to create inferences. And it has some form of data input and data output and also can store and retrieve data; but that is all. And 'what rules does it follow?', one might ask. Well, so far there are no rules. What rules our logical processor follows will have to be created through a process of evolution.
The third thing we need to take with us is what is best described as a 'compass'; it points in the direction in which we want to go, which is the direction of normative (ie normal) human experience. Without such a compass and a direction to go in, we would have to explore every logical possibility and might end up going round in circles. With a compass, we can proceed in one direction towards our goal: a description of the world as we experience it.
These three things are pretty much all we need to take at this stage. We might need to make further assumptions further down the line, but if we do so I will try to make those explicit.
The aim of the journey is to construct an overall view of the world from just a few basic assumptions and an explicit logical process. If this can be achieved, we will have arrived at a philosophy that is comprehensive, simple self-consistent and an accurate view of the world. The benefit of this is that one will have a better understanding of the world and a better model of the world, which should enables one to make better decisions regarding one's life.
What is different about this paradigm, among other things, is that it is explicitly a paradigm. Its assumptions are clearly stated and in due course I will be describing its processes of inference in detail. And by doing this having a logical system based on simple assumptions, it leaves the domain of mere opinion; something that is a major stumbling block for standard western philosophy. And by 'opinion', as mentioned in a previous video, I mean an inference that is reached by processes that are entirely hidden to anyone else. Within this philosophical paradigm the processes by which we reach inferences will be entirely explicit. This new paradigm is a system that one can play around with, and one can apply the processes of inference to different data to see where it might lead. It is this facet of the paradigm that I was referring to in the intro, when I claimed that the new paradigm was 'dynamic'. And the Pattern Paradigm (which is the name of the paradigm) is a work in progress. There is plenty of opportunity for others to extrapolate the ideas and also to interpolate between the inferences and to fill in the details.
Which particular philosophical paradigm a person might choose to adopt, if any, is a matter of choice for each individual person. And the choice that they make will depend to some degree on their particular experience and knowledge and what they expect from a philosophical paradigm. The philosophical paradigm needs to fit the facts of the world (i.e be accurate), but there is no need for it to fit the inferences or opinions of a different paradigm. And for some, the adoption of a new paradigm may require something of a paradigm shift; i.e a re-evaluation of assumptions or beliefs that have previously been held, especially if those assumptions are held because others have claimed that they are true, rather than as beliefs that one has generated for one's self. That said, a paradigm shift does not change the world; it can only change one's perception of the world. But if this change in perception is an improvement, then it should allow one to make better decisions in one's interactions with the world.
Well that is all I have for you today. In the next video we will dive into the depths of philosophy to a place where the immaterial separates from the material. If you have any interesting comments or questions about today's video please leave them in the comments section below and if you would like to continue this journey with me then please subscribe to my channel, give it a thumbs up and ring the bell. Thank you.
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