Skepticism as a way of life

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

we have science and we have philosophy and we
have ethics/morality…and what does each one
of the disciplines do?

Science: is a method of gathering information about
matter and its movement…as we know, matter/mass
is the same thing as energy…so, the technical
pursuit of science is gathering information about
matter/mass/energy and their movements…

that pursuit of matter/mass/energy however excellent
that is, still doesn’t offer us any sort of ethical or moral
answers… I can’t see how the theory of relativity, the question
of movement between two objects…all one can measure
is the velocity of one object relative to another…
and seeing as how philosophy is the study of values
and what values are the values worth pursuing,
I am unable to connect the two pursuits… the measuring
of matter… and what we call ethics/morals…

which is to say, philosophy is not and cannot be
a mini-me of science… they have two different agendas…
with different methods and goals…

with that said, the underlying principle of each, of science
and philosophy, begin in the same place… with a rational
working out of the subject matter…

science had an ‘‘Aristotle’’ problem… that what science
a western society had, it was based on
the false, superstitions of Aristotle… The entire basis
of western science was to remove, piece by piece,
the superstitions of Aristotle… the removal of the
superstitions of Aristotle with the modern science,
that is basically the story of science over the last
500 years… Science as able to achieve its greatness by
replacing myths and superstitions with facts and evidence…

The entire Enlightenment period/era, was about this very
thing, to remove myths and superstitions with facts
and evidence…but we are in a very real sense, dogged
by a problem… in that we get, in all sorts of forms, bad
data… and example of this is someone told her, that
the Covid Shot caused her mother dementia and thus Covid
shots are evil, bad…and there is so much wrong here I am
at a loss where to begin…that we can condemn the
entire vaccination program based on one person, one very
unlikely event? That is the bad data problem we face…
Dementia is not caused by having one Covid shot…
I know because my mother has dementia… and the
bad data floating around is quite scary…

so, we in our modern age, is faced with ever more
data and ever more bad data… how do we learn to
deal with it? The proper place to start is with being skeptical…
Now skepticism is the start of both science and philosophy…
So, we are in good company if we hold to being skeptical
about information we are getting from outside sources…
but that skepticism is also part of the Enlightenment
project… to learn to be skeptical about the values
and beliefs we are indoctrinated with as children…

among those values and beliefs that we should be skeptical
about is god, heaven, hell, angels, the idea of American
exceptionalism, to name just a few of those values
and beliefs we should be skeptical about… part of the
path to overcoming bad data is being skeptical about
the data that we get, from friends, family, the media, religion,
the state and the society…and that skepticism should include
those isms like communism, capitalism, Catholicism (a stand in
for all religions) democracy and our upcoming dictatorship in
America…

and should our use of skepticism also be brought to
bear on our ethics and morality? I think so…the fact that
we just elected the most corrupt politician in American history,
suggest to me that we no longer have any idea what is
moral or ethical?

Ethics/morals are not just what we expect of ourselves, but
of others…and is it being moral/ethical about the denigration of
others based on skin color, race, religion, or sexual orientation…
I cannot see how the negation of others based on these
traits can be considered moral or ethical…and those who
complain the loudest of others, are often the ones who
lack morality or ethics…you cannot expect others to be
moral and ethical if you are not moral or ethical…

now one might say, but blacks are inferior to whites…
and we should act upon that ‘‘Truth’’… and herein lies
the idea of bad data… there is no evidence or facts
supporting the notion that blacks are inferior to anyone…
but we act as if the data, blacks are inferior, is correct data…
but we should, as always, be skeptical about any data we
get… and any reflection of the matter at hand, will
dismiss the idea of anyone being inferior…
we cannot prejudge anyone based on race, skin color,
religion, sexual orientation or any other trait…
for that is what a healthy idea of skepticism does…
we do not and cannot prejudge anyone based on
a commonality of traits with others…

the act of skepticism must give us pause as to our
act of judgements and prejudgments…

Kropotkin

2

We can think of life/existence in terms of
rules… we are determined by the many rules of
science… the laws of thermodynamics… the laws/rules
of evolution… the laws of gravity…because we are life,
we must follow the rules of life… for example, all life
must follow the rule of homeostasis… the state of
steady internal physical and chemical conditions maintained
by living systems… where many variables are controlled
by the living system… such variables as body temperature,
fluid balance, sodium, potassium, and calcium’s ions
as well as blood sugar levels… other rules of life
are procreation, to grow, to move and to be responsive to
life… each of these plus a couple of more, are part of the
rules to life, that all life must follow…

so, we have many rules of living and rules of nature to
follow…so, where is the ‘‘freedom’’ of human beings
that people talk about?

Part of the rules of evolution is that human beings are, given
their differences with other animals, lions, dogs, cats, cows,
tigers, that huma beings are woefully lacking in having a
very good defensive system… we lack sharp claws, or
are not very fast, we are not big or even particularly strong,
we are, at best, on the lower end of animal traits…
but we have a trait that has brought us to the pinnacle
of earth life… that we are social creatures…
that we cannot exists alone on earth because of
our many weaknesses… both in senses and in body…
the great strength of human beings is our social structure…

The myth of the ‘‘Great Man’’ theory is a myth because
there is no way any one person can create change without
a great deal of help from other humans…
We emphasis the great individual because that is not
who we are…if we were all living in caves within a
‘‘state of nature’’… we would be praising the social man,
the one who lives within the tribes and aspire the more
and stronger social structure… Human beings tend to
pine for that which we do not have… for the grass is
always greener on the other side…always…

so, anyway, what is philosophy?
Philosophy is simply the attempt to work
out the rules to being social creatures…
Science is the attempt to work out the rules
of nature… and we tend to think that the two
are going to cover the same ground… but we
ourselves have gone and separated out
the body from nature… we tend to remove
human beings from any consideration of nature…
nature is this and human beings are that… and may
the two never meet…

but the fact is that we are as much of nature as
the tree’s, sky, cows and grass is… for we, like
nature, must follow the rules of existence that all life
has… nature is just a set of rules that must be obeyed…
and as living beings, we too must follow those same rules…
there is no nature out there and human beings in here…
no, we are one and the same…the rules of existence
are pretty strong and clear here in earth?

but can we imagine a world, a place where the rules
of existence, of gravity, of evolution, of thermodynamics,
do not exist? Of course we can… that light cannot escape
a black hole is one such breaker of the rules… and I am sure
given the scope of the universe, that laws of nature that are
absolute in one part of the universe, are not absolute in
another part of the universe…

In other words, our so called ‘’‘universal’’ rules of
existence, may be just local and not universal…
I cannot assume that the laws of reality that
bound us, also binds the entire universe…
my reach into the universe is slightly past the solar
system… a grain of sand in the midst of trillions of
grains of sands… and I cannot know or even guess
as to what is happening on the other side of that
immense beach…

the more one realizes just how big the universe is, the more
one realizes just how small the earth is and how much
smaller we human beings are…and how little room
we have to grow because of the many diverse rules/
laws of the universe we must follow… but grow we do…
and because of the small amount of room we have
because of the laws/rules of the universe, we grow
ever so slowly, inperceptibly… and being human does
mean we can go backwards at times… like today…
but we can have faith that the clock does continue to move
no matter what happens… that is where we can take our
hope from… that we can move/change our course,
our progress… have faith in a secular way, not in a
religious way…

Kropotkin

3

so, we are nature… our bodies must conform
to the rules of nature/existence… within our very
bodies, lie the need for obeying the rules/laws of
existence… gravity, evolution, thermodynamics…
we must obey those rules…but we have work
around for many of those rules/laws… like gravity
for example, we ourselves cannot avoid the laws of
gravity, but we can build objects that, by the use of
force, ‘‘disobey’’ the laws of gravity… this application
of force, a force greater than the laws/rules themselves,
we can overcome… but does this mean we can
‘‘overcome’’ every rule/law of nature/existence?
by the use of energy, we can overcome the laws
of gravity… not defeat them, but to overcome them…
and we can overcome some of the laws/rules of
being human… one of the rules of live is that
life will always attempt to extend itself… the will
to survive is very, very strong in human beings, but
it can be overcome… many can and have overcome their
survival instinct and commit suicide… that is a fact…
and if we can overcome this powerful instinct to survive,
then we can overcome other powerful instincts…
the instinct towards violence is one such instinct that
we can overcome…it is too bad that we don’t
work anywhere near as hard for peace as we do for
violence…which instinct is the more ‘‘natural’’ one?
The instinct for violence or the instinct for peace?
I hold that the path to peace is the harder one because
it takes far more skills to achieve… the skill to listen,
the skill of thinking of people as a diverse group, not
a monolithic group… the skill to tolerate and accept
others… that is the path toward peace…

if one wants war or violence, that path is easy enough…
think of oneself before others, be intolerant, think
of people having the exact same needs, wants
and desires, thinking there is but one goal for everyone…
one goal fits all…if you want violence, that is the path…
we call it conservatisim…

the quest to be human must follow the rules of existence
that nature has bestowed on us… we can, with much
work overcome the rules/laws of nature, of gravity,
of thermodynamics, and of course, evolution…
I suspect that part of the problems we have today, is
because we have lost sight of the essential part of us
is nature… we are nature and nature is us…right down
to our bones and blood and operating systems such
as the cardiovascular system…it is nature and nature is us…

we cannot and indeed must not, stray too far from
our following the rules/laws of nature… and that in part,
is part of the way we escape this national, if not international,
malaise of existence that is present in the world today…

Kropotkin

4

a conservative will say, yes, human beings, (other humans)
are animals and must be treated as such… they follow
their animal programming enough to be animals…
but that is of course, leaving out the commentators
status… saying they are, but leaving out the question of
''What am I?" it is easy, so very easy to accuse others
of being animal/human… of pretending that one isn’t
animal… to be human is to be life, whereas we must
engage in those basic rules/laws of existence for life…
but it doesn’t exclude anyone… we are all, ALL of us,
somewhere on the path from being total animal to being
totally human…where are you on this path?

the question isn’t about where others might be on
the path from animal to becoming human, the
question is where are you?

you must follow the rules/laws of existence… everyone must
follow those rules… but we don’t need to, because we clearly
have choice as to how closely we are going to follow the rules
of existence… the conservative says, we are, well they are
animals, the liberal says, we do need to follow the rules of
existence, but we have the choice to move from animal to human…
the further away from instinct we get, the closer we are to
being human…how do we overcome our programming, which is
just another word for instincts…

Kropotkin

5

“how do we overcome our programming, which is
just another word for instincts…”

In a word—meditation. A more encompassing word is renunciation which includes one’s entire way of life.