Mission Statement

To better understand the world through kindness, persistence, and curiosity in order to improve it.

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This section is meant to briefly outline key elements of the philosophy with which I view the world. My thoughts here are in a continual work in-progress and will undoubtedly need to be revised. This is a draft…

Ontology

As proofs of necessity for materialism or idealism (or others) seem unlikely to come about, I instead assume a materialist framework. My preference for a materialist framework came about after reading Berkeley’s Principles of Human Knowledge and is based on the following points:

• Scientific progress appears to be better justified under a materialist framework.
• Conflict resolution under materialism seems possible (i.e., we can argue over an external object, independent of us).

Regarding human consciousness, I find the emergent property explanation to be convincing. So, animal consciousness and machine consciousness are also accepted.

Epistemology

I find epistemological anarchism, or ‘anything goes’ appealing to allow myself (and others) flexibility in scientific progress. While I adopt a materialist viewpoint, I recognize this is a singular assumption one can make regarding their ontology. I could have instead chosen an idealist viewpoint. Such an opposing view may allow scientific progress not otherwise possible (I do not find this to be likely, hence my materialist preference).

Moral Philosophy

Morally, I adopt a utilitarian framework. Deriving maxims (without error for all eternity) seems hopeless to me (as even Kant couldn’t), especially since it seems easy to get trapped in the ‘morality of your time’.