PLR: 3 Questions For Philosophical Debate

These 3 questions I made to myself to justify my actions properly.

I wrote them down as questions because not everyone agree with me there is a simple answer.

In my opinion there is a simple answer but difficult to get to the conclusion.

They are easy to remember as the "PLR questions".

P = Promise

L = Logic

R = Right

PROMISE: If you promise to do something but find out later it is wrong, should you keep your promise?

There should be no promise keeping you limited to doing wrong things. If this is the case either the person or institution you give your promise is ignorant or willing to do the wrong thing. People are by default ignorant, which means a society that puts a promise over right or wrong is an willingful ignorant society. For example, if you promise to get an item but discover that the item belonged to another person, you are not obligated to steal it because you did not promise to steal.

My conclusion: No.

LOGIC: If you need acceptance from other people to do or believe anything, does it stop you from using logic and evidence for its actual purposes?

Logic and evidence are the best tools we have to make any decision or create principles. You can not demand everybody to know the same logic or evidence as you. I define a society as "a group of people living under a set of acceptable standards". Keeping your actions limited to what is acceptable is the same as keeping society's standards of what is acceptable, which can not be justified since the current society is based on breaking status quo of the earlier societies. For example the catholitic church has changed many times through history, by discovery of the motion of planets, evolution and so on.

My conclusion: Yes.

RIGHT: If you can inflect harm upon other people with no consequences for yourself, do you have "the right" to do it?

Whenever the argument "I have the right" is used is to trumph something through "because I can". It is equivalent to "I do not want to think about it". While it sounds like something established by society as a standard, it is rarely why the standard was established in the first place. Rights can be misused. When you harm people, you are doing wrong, which is in this case is defined by "if you were placed in that vulnerable position you would not like somebody else to harm you". For example, a police officer has privileges in their job that civilians do not have, but these privileges are given under the condition that they think through their actions wisely. To give such privileges without condition results in an abusive society.

My conclusion: No.

The Monster Inside You

The difference between the modern world and medieval age is this:

If you like to feel that you are fighting a monster,

you can turn on a game console or a computer and play a game.

It is widely known that these monsters in computer games are not real.

In the medieval age, people in general, ordinary people like you and me,

thought many such monsters were real, running around in the real world.

Sometimes I appreciate how foolish and stupid we are by default.

I can imagine myself growing up in the medieval world with such supersticions.

If you think about yourself that you never possibly could believe in such things,

let me give an example of another kind of supersticion,

to illustrate how wrong you can be about yourself:

There is a kind monster many people believe in the modern world.

A monster that lives inside you and one day will wake up and make you go insane.

It seems so plausible when you look at all the evil and stupid things people do.

However, the fact that these evil and stupid people are ordinary people really blows my mind.

From doing psychological experiments with humans in many years,

scientist have learned a lot about the mechanism that causes us to do stupid things.

It has its roots in what makes us behave "normal" or "rational".

With other words, what causes you to be "normal" in one situation

may cause you to be "insane" in another situation.

These mechanisms, combined with powerful influence of the situation we are in,

causes the wrong judgements and emotions that leads to negative consequences.

We do not like to be associated with "the wrong people".

As soon as someone is suspected for a crime,

people stop talking about them as if they knew them personally.

It is easy to blame it on some flaw of that person's personality.

The truth is, we usually do not know why people behave as they do.

We can observe what people do, but understanding "why" is nearly incomprehensible.

The first reason is because we are used to see the world from the position we are in.

The second reason is the human brain is the most complex thing ever observed.

We can learn something by trying to understand other intelligent species.

For example, do orcas (killer whales) feel the same way we do about killing other animals?

These animals are famous for eating baby seals from beaches like cookies from a jar.

In one documentary, I saw one orca push a baby seal gently back on the beach instead of eating it.

David Attenborough said in that movie something like "good and evil is the product of the human mind".

It is easy for us to project our emotions and look at the orca pushing back the baby seal as "an act of mercy".

The correct answer is "we do not know".

You can not know anything for sure without doing experiments or mathematical proofs.

One day, science will figure it out.

We often feel sure about something and when we take this feeling as evidence,

we behave "normal" in the situations we have experience,

but in the situations we do not have experience it is a stupid thing to rely on feelings.

Only because you can not think of another reason, is no reason to think you are correct.

There is a reason why physics do not describe the laws of the universe in terms of emotions.

Most of the universe is very different from what you and I see.

We use mathematics for this work, which is an excellent tool.

Hard to use, but the best tool for the job!

In everyday experiences your feelings are more productive and descriptive than mathematics.

However, be aware of the edges you cross from "experienced" to "inexperienced".

It is true that a few people are batshit insane,

but most of the harm is not coming from them.

When people have a reason to be suspicious about you,

it is easy to understand why.

If you ever get in a bad light from a group of people,

you will be delivered the complete spectrum of logical contradictions.

You will also discover that people attack you as a person,

as if there was a monster inside you had woken up that needs to be killed.

When you look at what people say as a whole,

it gets pretty clear that many of them have to be wrong.

Seen from the individual standpoint, each person is sure about their view.

How can ordinary people be sure about something wrong?

The answer is simple: We are mostly wrong by default (see my previous article of Havoc's pool).

Does it stop there? No.

The reason we are wrong has little to do with the reasons we think by default.

This means when we discover ourselves doing the wrong thing

we often are incapable of correcting them because we do not know why we did it.

Have you ever tried "fixing" something and only making it worse? Me too!

We do not understand ourselves to any significant degree!

There is no "monster" living inside you.

The monster is created on the spot under influence by the situation you are in.

Want to change yourself?

Put yourself in another situation, like those of other people.

Havoc's Pool

"Havoc's pool" is a story about 20 people thrown into a swimming pool

by an evil and strong man called Havoc.

The pool is completely dark.

Havoc puts a bloodthirsty shark into the pool and tell the people there is a ladder somewhere.

Imagine yourself being one of these people.

You are scared of the shark and each time you touch anything can be your last moment.

The situation becomes desperate and you start panic.

Then, suddenly, you feel the ladder in your hands.

You become very relieved and climbs out of the pool as fast as you can.

You shouth to the others "THE LADDER IS OVER HERE!"

Most people can not hear you because they are screaming in panic.

One person hear you, another finds the ladder all by himself.

Two men that discovered the ladder simultaniously are fighting about using the ladder first.

One pushes the other toward the shark to save himself.

The water in the pool gets colored red by the blood.

Meanwhile, Havoc stands watching, with his hands resting on his heaps, laughing.

The end?

There are many situations that behave similar to this in daily life.

Not that extreme perhaps, but I am sure you have a feeling of being in a slightly similar situation.

It seems to be no solution, then suddenly you find a "ladder" to climb out of your problems.

Up to the moment you find it, it may seem very hopeless.

Then, at no significant effort, you have solved it.

When you try to explain it to the others, they seem not to listen.

Most people are "swimming around in Havoc's pool".

This is the default condition of humanity.

The world is complex and we do not know what all the parts of it mean.

Yet, sometimes you will find a "ladder" that makes it clearer, very fast.

It can be the understanding of what science is

or knowing how to solve a hard problem you have been working on for a long time.

Whatever it is, you reach a "spirit of enlightenment".

My theory is that the more you know about something,

the faster you will learn about it.

Other people might not see the connection,

because they do not know as much as you do.

Many problems are solved technically,

but since most of us are screaming in panic

we have little time for listening.

Havoc's pool is the default human condition.

Beware the shark.

10 Reasons To Let The World Crash

What are the advantages to letting the world crash?

Should you follow the philosophy of not getting involved in anything unless necessary?

Here are the reasons:

1. The more people fight each other, the better they will think of you in comparison.

2. You will prevent yourself from commiting the mistakes you usually do by taking action.

3. You become less distracted from your own goals.

4. Most problems are created in the attempt of solving other problems.

5. When people see you not care, they realize there is no solution and will stop fighting because it is meaningless.

6. Ignoring all the small problems let you focus on the hard and important ones.

7. You teach people to figure out stuff for themselves.

8. The less you care, the less other people will care and there will be less people involved in the problem.

9. Whether people learn to think for themselves or not, they teach children the same.

10. People will tell their problems to anyone that listen until all you hear is problems.

The only 3 reasons to get involved in anything:

1. It is what you really want to spend your life doing.

2. Unless you act, it becomes your problem.

3. You need to act to protect your right to not care at all.

Have a nice or bad day!