Philosophy of Life / Life as Philosophy Ernie : Here goes : " More specifically, a prefuturist believes we are continually creating a future with a deeper understanding of truth and reality, but we aren't there yet -- and never will be. Everything we make is flawed and imperfect, and usually in some ways worse than what went before, but overall we can move things incrementally forward."
Nice concept --"prefuture." May borrow the neologism or come up with a variant. Need to think this through. When I "do philosophy" it also is doing marketing and doing theology and doing psychology and still other things. This is part of a systems approach. I am just about completely unable to think outside of some kind of systems context or construct. It is reflexive now, looking for interconnections, seeing parts as interdependent with the whole Probably this overstates it all, but as a rough idea. Philosophy , to me, in the sense of philosophy of life or theory of knowledge, is necessarily an approximation. This is in contrast to an historical problem where I try to nail down everything possible. Philosophy, then, is "organic" and more or an art than a science. History is the science, not philosophy. For me. Obviously you may have a different take. What this means is close attention paid to words, hence philosophy includes elements of literature --as well as marketing. The marketing part has to do with how words are perceived, which is part art and part research results computed in with everything else. Think of an ad campaign. Who is the intended market ? Can be general, anyone who has an interest, or can make assumptions such as all readers will be educated at the college level ( or some equivalent ). Mostly, though, the assumption is that stuffed shirts and certain types of professionals who have zero non-corporate experience and cannot conceive reality in any other terms, are not considered in my "outreach" thinking. That is, what is written is material intended to resonate with people who have blood in their veins rather than numbers suspended in fluid. Philosophy for cowboys, cowgirls, explorers, architects, TV producers, radio announcers, Japanese who admire the Samurai, and so forth. Think of Nietzsche, but as if he had remained a Lutheran. Or had become a movie producer with responsibilities to others. "Pre-future" reminds me of a genre of futuristics I worked with for a while, mostly the 1980s, the "Pre-21st Century Future." This was derived from a contrarian streak since, until then the overwhelming focus in the field was either the immediate future ( 1985 as seen from 1980 ) or the 21st century ( 2005 as seen from 1985 ). But how do you get from 1980 to 1985 to 2005 without going through the 1990s ? Matters just as much as other years. In other words, where are the opportunities ? What is being overlooked ? Where are problems lurking because some factors are overlooked ? This sounds much more coherent than it actually was, but at least this is the theory. pragmatism is traditionally analytic Peirce was, that's for sure. As in REALLY, REALLY analytic. But as much as I respect him and would like to "get into" his philosophy far more than I have, what pragmatism means to me the most is its operational dimension. Not to endorse X number of his conclusions, but think John Dewey, also a pragmatist. For him the whole point was to create practical programs for problems such as education or governance. Very much what I "use" philosophy for. Similarly for JS Mill and his Utilitarianism, basically the British variant. the goal is to actually *build* systems that work, not just think. Exactly, although I'd prefer to use a set of metaphors rather than only the "build" example. Marketing reasons, for one thing. With a background in the construction trades "to build" resonates with me, but for other people it is better to use terminology like create, program ( as a verb ), design, grow, and etc. Also it seems to me that a menu of metaphors helps stretch my mind so that --again , to think in a systems manner-- I always am on the lookout for connections and how the interaction of the whole schmeer works out. the ultimate test of truth is whether it actually works. I agree in principle, but not exclusively. That is, consider : The ultimate test of truth is whether it leads to other truths. The ultimate test of truth is that it helps you identify your mistakes for what they are The ultimate test of truth is that it opens your mind to new possibilities that offer you opportunities for your life in the here-and-now and the future. With some time and effort it should be conceivable to come up with a laundry list. But, yeah, all such propositions should include, somewhere, " whether it actually works." zoasophers believe in the improvability but not perfectibility of human constructs -- including perhaps our selves. Zoroastrianism by another name. Or, obviously, at least a few other philosophies. Confucianism, for example, Epicurianism in some respects ( the ancient philosophy, rather than becoming a sophisticated gourmet ), and Enlightenment views. I will buy the concept, no way not to, but something is missing since we can, and it does happen again and again in life, retrogress or simply make bad mistakes that cause serious problems. What is missing is a sort of Sysiphian factor to account for. Improvement, like "progress," isn't one way. We get there only after making many mistakes, falling on your face now and then, and taking wrong roads only to try again. Ultimately, the real test of a zoasopher is not what they say, but how they live. Or rather, their ability to actually live as they say they will, and achieve the results they claim for the reasons they provide. Nice formulation and nice sentiments ; cannot disagree. But what about the element of surprise ? What about opposition ? This is why I like Hegel so much. There is always opposition, or , anyway, there always are obstacles : Stupid people who screw things up for you. Events out of your control that really mess with your life or plans or even your head. So, there is no nice neat package that is possible for any length of time except as much time as you are fortunate enough to actually be granted by "fate." Metaphors that are helpful : Life as a ship at sea. Life as an experiment in science. Life as a branching program. Life as a series of games to learn and play to best effect. Life as a circus where your place in your "ring" requires relationships to all the other rings. Life as a garden and you are the gardener. Life as a war and you are the general in charge of your own one-man army. Life as psychological evolution. Life as a drama and you write your own script. Life as perpetual grad school. Life as exploration on any number of frontiers, followed by settlement. Life as too damned short. Billy ================================================== 10/20/2011 3:31:44 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, [email protected] writes: [Since Billy called me out for using this term without explanation...] Dr. Ernie steps to the Centroids podium... As I think I mentioned before, I'm "done" with philosophy -- I've moved on to zoasophy. Zoasophy is related to Philosophy the way Engineering is related to Science -- the goal is to actually *build* systems that work, not just think. The word "zoasophy" means "liver of wisdom", in contrast to philosophy which means "lover of wisdom." It comes from the greek word "Zoa" meaning life, as in zoology and Zoe Girl. Not "liver" as in the bodily organ -- that would be hepatosophy. :-) And Billy, there's no "R" in zoasophy: deal with it. The foundational principle of Zoasophy is: The Truth is What Works What Works is not the Truth That is, the ultimate test of truth is whether it actually works. At the same time, just because something works does not mean it is true. The ultimate test of truth, as encapsulated in my Radical Centrist Manifesto: _Manifesto « Radical Centrism_ (http://radicalcentrism.org/manifesto/) As such, zoasophy shares much in common with pragmatism, in that we care about the "cash value" of ideas. But where pragmatism is traditionally analytic -- trying to uncover truth -- zoasophy is primarily synthetic, trying to construct useful (if imperfect) truths. It is similar to what little I understand of Frank Ramsay's approach to truth: _Hugh Mellor on Frank Ramsey on Truth_ (http://philosophybites.libsyn.com/hugh-mellor-on-frank-ramsey-on-truth) _Redundancy theory of truth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redundancy_theory_of_truth) Zoasophy is closed related to "prefuturism", another neologism I toss around. The pre-future is -- obviously! -- what comes after the post-modern. :-) More specifically, a prefuturist believes we are continually creating a future with a deeper understanding of truth and reality, but we aren't there yet -- and never will be. Everything we make is flawed and imperfect, and usually in some ways worse than what went before, but overall we can move things incrementally forward. Thus, zoasophers believe in the improvability but not perfectibility of human constructs -- including perhaps our selves. In particular, we believe that rational arguments can approximate but not quite capture the real world. That is, our mathematical and conceptual models can become extremely good at capturing many aspects of the real world, but our only partial approximations, and must continually be tested against reality -- especially in new contexts. Ultimately, the real test of a zoasopher is not what they say, but how they live. Or rather, their ability to actually live as they say they will, and achieve the results they claim for the reasons they provide. Which is why, as a good zoasopher, I should probably stop talking about it and go back to practicing it... Now you know. -- Ernie P. Dr. Ernie leaves the stage -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: _http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism_ (http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism) Radical Centrism website and blog: _http://RadicalCentrism.org_ (http://radicalcentrism.org/) -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
