a new understanding of today, time and space.

That you entirely misinterpreted what Nietzsche actually said and meant:

That every Philosopher has basically only ‘confessed’; in terms of speaking what they have born witness to; in their own perception, thus the ‘confession of its originator’ and ‘involuntary and unconscious autobiography.’ Nietzsche never said that the confession was voluntary or something the people have been aware of while developing their philosophies and what he goes on to say by the end of his statement is that every philosophers philosophies have been based out of their own inner turmoils, their own moralities or immoralities and has only shown more truly where the philosophers have come from in their lives, what they were born into by what must have shaped their philosophies; what they were surrounded by for their philosophies to be formed into what they were. Nietzsche seemed to have hit the detective mode of understanding other philosophers lives based on their philosophies, since none of them outright state their own standing in the world around them in their philosophies, at least not without heavy personal bias, even in the intent to not heavily bias the report.

Confession used to have a different use when Nietzsche used it as he did, still had the use you just tried to use it for, but that’s not how he used it.

I don’t even read the works of other philosophers in-depth. I often find that when I look at their works, their works and my own are in tandem, that we’re never too very far from one another in thought. I understand almost instantly their works and their minds, understand almost instantly context and content. Maybe it’s an innate ability that I have that others only pretend to have, I don’t know.

so, what are you confessing?

Kropotkin

I try to picture myself, in the here and now… trying to analyze,
who and what I am… what is this thing called a human being…
if I try to picture myself in the here and now… I miss so much of what
makes me human… the human that writes before you, is one that is
part of the past, present and future…I don’t exist as an isolated
atom in the midst of billions of other atomic human beings…I am a part
of a chain that leads back into the past… billions of years into the past…
and I also exist into the future… for my words and actions, help create
and define the future… we do not exist in the present as isolated
beings… just as you destroy a plant by picking it up and analyzing it…
you cannot analyze human beings in isolation of their surroundings…
you cannot act as if I am a plant and analyze me that way… it doesn’t
tell you about me as a human being by doing so… you can only understand
and analyze me in context to my past, present and future and by
my relationship to my society and my culture and to my institutions around me…
if you want to make sense of any human being, you must do so in context of
their surroundings and their history…that is why history and economics
politics and sociology and science and archaeology and math are so important
because they help create the context into which we can properly understand
human beings… you cannot understand human beings without reference to the
past and that is history and you cannot understand human beings without reference
to their biology and that is biology and science… you cannot understand
human beings without understanding the way they have created a society in which
the main focal point is the act of making money… economics…
this act of possession is a primary one in human being and why we need to possess
things is psychology… each and every discipline leads us back to, how do we
understand the human being…study history and you learns some things
about who we are and study biology and you learn other things about this human creature
and learn economics you another thing or two and study math and you learn another
thing about this human creature…each discipline leads us to another facet of being
human… the structure of our lives that we have created tells us about who we are…
the very need to create structures like institutions and universities and bureaucracies
tell us something about who we are… the very way structures are set up tell us something…
you can understand a civilization by the things that they build and create like institutions
and bridges and buildings… the very way a structure is build says something about us…
look at a car and you can tell so much from the very way and style the car was built…
a civilization from outer space can come down to planet earth after we destroy ourselves
and by studying the lowly car… can be able to tell who, what, when, where, how and why
about the human condition…the way we react to things and build things and how we
even understand things tells us about us… not the world and not the universe and not
our society but about us… as human beings… look at a book… I am looking at one right now…
“Nietzsche” by Kaufmann… the way the book looks tells us about who we are and how
we function in the universe…because it tells how we communicate and the very language
we use tells the story about the nature of human beings… we can use language
in a direct means… fuck you… we can use language as humor… well fuck you too…
we can use language as a warning… go fuck yourself… and as wonder… well fuck me…
the same exact words can mean many different things depending on the context…
and we can easily interpret the context which says something very interesting
about human beings… language is a very useful tool in being a human being
and can tell us about being a human being… but it (language) cannot give us
meaning or purpose but it can tell us about ourselves to those who can
place in it in time and space correctly…every single object that
we human act with and react with tell us something about ourselves…
and who we are and what is our exact role in the universe…
I am looking at a common light switch… every single person in
America has a light switch in their house and most have multiple
light switches in their house… but this very fact tells us something about
who we are… we are lazy mothers and can’t be bothered to walk an extra
few feet to turn on or off a light. the very location of a light switch says something
about us… we are all roughly the same height because most light switches are
roughly the same height… that says something about us…but one isolated
fact is not much good but, but with a lot of other single facts… we can paint a
picture of the human being… that explain who we are and where we have been…

so what is the next step?

to spend as much time as we have spent on understand our past and who we are,
to spending time on where we are going and why? we can put ourselves into context
and be able to now begin the process of understanding what is next… let us study
the future as hard as we study the past… courses in the future… beginning with
future history 101…and what would that class look like?

Kropotkin

when we think of ourselves… we see ourselves taking actions of some sort…
for example… I take a piece of paper, a hamburger wrapper, for example and
toss it on the ground because I was too lazy to walk the 15 feet to the garbage can…
that is an action I have taken in the past… no problem if I toss one wrapper on the
ground… but as one person… what if 1 million people decide to toss their wrappers
on the ground? it changes everything… or even if just 1% of the American people
decided to toss their hamburger wrappers on the ground… that is over 30
million people tossing their wrappers on the ground… we would have a mess…
with wrappers everywhere getting into everything…the problem with our
thinking about ourselves is we think in terms us acting only by ourselves,
in isolation, and yet the fact is we act with millions of our fellow people…
one action by itself is not enough to do anything but that same action
done by millions is enough to wreck everything…
take the biblical saying… be fruitful and multiply…
taken when there are only 100 million on all of planet earth…
it is one thing… but taken when there are over 7 billion people on earth?
we have to adjust our way of thinking to think in terms of not just our individual
actions but in terms of everyone one else… but there are those… including many
here who say, fuck everyone else… what do I need them for?
the past and present hasn’t done jack for me… so why should I
give a fuck about them and their precious future? the fact is
as long as humans exist… you have value…you have meaning… you have
your purpose… when humans die out… everything we have done, everything
we have lived for, everything we have suffered for means nothing…
we will have existed for nothing… the only way to create meaning is to
exist…the act of giving birth is a pretty good one… but only if
done with moderation and within the means of the human race…
which leads me into my next bit which is we act as if the only currency
we spend is money but in fact, we have currency far more important
that we spend and that is resources and time and space…
we think in terms of spending money but not in terms of spending
time or effort or resources… we must include those in our calculations
about spending cost… what resources do we spend and what effort do we
spend when we act must be included in any thoughts about how we
go into the future…if you act as if you have the resources of time
by littering… you are really making future generations spending their
time cleaning up after you… the time you save is spent by them…
their is no free lunch… somebody will pay for your actions
create 20 billion people and someone will have to pay for those actions
because the earth cannot support 20 billion people… the idea is that
payment will be due for actions taken today… who is paying for your actions?
those trust fund babies who live off of daddy money… they are paid for
by the past… and when we breed out of control, who is paying for that?
the future… when will we learn to pay for our actions… if
we allow 45 to steal the social security fund… that action takes
from those who have paid into the system for decades and are
expecting it for their present/future lives… it all comes down
to who is going to pay… the past, the present or the future?

if we use a pay as we go system, then we don’t burden our future, our
children with our debts… we begin to think in terms of not just money spent,
but in terms of resources and effort and time and space and who is paying
and when?

Kropotkin

I have mentioned this before… but what if we take a birds eye view of
human actions… imagine seeing human beings from a bird’s eye view…
remove yourself from the day to day grind and see yourself looking at
human beings from above…what do you see?

now take that same birds eye view and imagine yourself seeing
animals in their day to day life… imagine a bear or a raccoon or
a deer spending the day… doing bear or raccoon or deer things like
getting food and staying out of dangerous human ways or sleeping…
now… imagine the two together, imagine the human bird’s eye view
and the animal birds eye view… and the thing that
I notice is that they are the same thing… the animal struggles
to take care of its needs and so do humans… we both
need food and shelter and water and safety… animals and humans
go about it a slightly different way, but the process is the same…
how do we go about providing for our needs and our family needs…
the bear and the raccoon and the deer and humans all have those basic
needs that must be taken care of and they all do it to the best of their abilities…
I go to work and by working, I make enough money to get food, shelter, water
and safety for my family… I am providing for my family just as the bear and raccoon
and deer provide for their family… no difference, right?

but if we are the so called “superior” species, then we do we spend our lives
no differently then the animals? We spend our lives doing the exact same
thing as the animals which is spending our days trying to provide for our families?
is this the higher life form we proclaim ourselves to be?
No, if we spend our days doing no different then the animals, we are no
higher or better or superior to the animals…

so what elevates us above the animals?

it is when we step outside of our animal existence of just providing for ourselves
or our family… when we create art or science or philosophy… when conservatives
demand our lives become cost effective which means we must earn our keep so we must
work enough to earn enough to live… if we don’t earn enough to live, we die and that
is for a conservative the rules… you can survive if you earn enough to survive…
if you hunt down enough food to feed yourself and your family, you are able to survive
if you don’t hunt down enough food, you die and your family dies… this is basic animal
existence… survival of the fittest says the conservative… and once
again reducing human life to an animal existence which is nothing more then
attempting to procure the necessities of life in which to survive…the lowest common
denominator of life…the conservative view that life is nothing more then a pursuit
of the lowest common denominator of life which is the pursuit of the means to survive…
that is all… but I say, life is more then the pursuit of the lowest common denominator,
just basic survival… when we attempt to rise above the animal existence, we become
more human…when we strive to become more human, we are attempting to find
out what it means to be more human and less animal… so what do we do to
become more human? we create…we create art and philosophy and math
and science and history and in doing so, we become more human because we
are finding out what it means to become more human and we can see our
possibilities in becoming more human… so do we spend our days just being
like animals and just try to fill our basic necessities or do we become something
more? that is the quest for the future, not to just fill our necessities but to
create and attempt more then just procuring our daily necessities for life…
to become human means to rise above the lowest common denominator…

Kropotkin

I am confessing my own life struggles; my own fights; my own dark areas; how I responded to them, what I had to do and how hypocritical it looks. I’m confessing that I never needed to go through it at all to have the understanding that I have, but had to go through it because of how I got that understanding, through time and space in ways that illuminate the questions you stumble over in your own life. I’m confessing that when they said ‘there will be an answer, let it be’, that I replied and said, ‘I am that answer, let me be.’ I’m confessing that I found the answers, fuck off and fuck off and fuck you and fuck you and fuck you, fuck you and you, etc. I’m confessing that my life story trumps every single epic story, joke, tragedy, romance never spoken. I am confessing that I know truth, THE truth, in the midst of universal deceit and I’m confessing that I’m no better than anyone else in the sense that I had no choice but to be what I am, but am better because regardless of choice or lack thereof, I have been made better than all others and it was out of everythings hands because of time travel and things that by popular belief passed around outwardly in society is impossible and does not exist and like I said in response to Heideggars belief in the uberman, superman, that my very existence proves him wrong, since what I am; all of what I am; is what anybody could be with the right situations, the right elements, enough time given for them to grow and I’m confessing that my lessons in pain, abuse, rape etc. were instrumental and necessary parts of my growth for them existing in the world around me, that those who have not suffered will need to suffer; that those who have been spoiled, will have to be disciplined better and those that have felt that they’ve suffered enough already might be wrong.

I am confessing that I know more than you, as much as that strokes your ego the wrong way; I’m confessing that I have things you need to learn from and your false-face shit doesn’t fly for me. When they told me I didn’t have to lie to kick it, I listened and took it to heart no matter how many people were broken of that as time wore on; for me, part of the lack of choice belonged to that category of debauchery; that for all those that fell and didn’t get back up, that kept their heads down; for all those that bowed out of the fight, I had to go on, I had to carry it on my shoulders because there were too many relying on me and needing me for me to back down. That as it wound down to zero, I felt it and it gave me the incentive, was the pain and spurs in my side as I was the maddened horse chomping at the bit that destiny held in her icy grip, to rise up to the greatness I deserved for all the suffering that I endured. I’m confessing that the pain that I felt was the pain of more than just this world, was the pain of reality and eternity and I’m confessing that it’s a weight that I wear so well, that I know it to be deadly to so many others.

I’m confessing that I confessed on my knees every sin that I perceived myself to have, based on what we all know to be wrong and right which still stands as wrong and right even as new information comes to the plate, it doesn’t change right and wrong, only gives situational nuances and ethics that would be acceptable for a rare few and I’m confessing that while so many want it to be easier, myself included, that it won’t be easier, as much as they want it to be, ignorance is being torn to shreds and they’re having to face the facts. I’m confessing that those few exceptions are the few and I’m confessing that what I know of psychology to have broken down every barrier. I’m confessing all that I am and what I know all others to be capable of. I’m confessing that I know more about people, including you, than those people; and you; know about yourselves. And, I’m confessing that I’m proving it.

It looks like you’re confessing that you’re running away even though it’s not an actual direct confession. Your own body language, even in text, tells on you.

the proper response would have been, Kropotkin, what are you confessing?

Kropotkin

That’s nice. I didn’t know that. I don’t agree with that being the proper response, though. What arguments and reasoning do you have on hand to back up why it’s proper? What are you going to give me to convince me of it?

K: I was young, a very long time ago, and after watching my daughter, who is 32,
I see how I was at that age and I see it in you… being very, very self absorbed
into what I was thinking and doing and acting…I was sure that my thoughts and my
actions and my beliefs were the most important thoughts and beliefs in the universe…

I am no longer that vain… explore your truths but remember, you don’t exist in
a vacuum, you can still learn from old men because we have been where you are already…
the “truth” is age related… at each age, you learn “truths” that can only be found
at that age… which is why I have stated before, that had Nietzsche lived another 10
years, he would have rejected his entire philosophy… every “truth” I that I thought
was the “truth” at 25 or even 40, is wrong… and I am sure every single “truth” I have
today, I will reject at 70, which is a mere 12 years away for me…

I am confessing I am no closer to finding the “truth” today, then I was 40 years ago
and with each passing day, I am in fact, further from the “truth” today, then I was
yesterday…and I am ok with that… certainty is a vastly overrated thing…
and wisdom is found in doubt… I am confessing I know nothing and that my friend,
is the start of wisdom…but Kropotkin, you didn’t answer my question or tried to
convince me of your statement? your “truths” were my “truths” so many years ago and
I have moved on because I have aged and as you age, you learn new “truths”… as you will
learn if you are open to doubt and not certainty… if you are certain you have the “truth”
already, you won’t learn a thing…I need not convince you of anything…that is not
my job…

Kropotkin

okay, I’m not that self-absorbed. A lot of things conspire to make it seem that way, but that’s not the truth of me, not what I choose to be. And, if it seems paranoid and crazy to think that things conspire against me on that level, keep in mind the heavy and deep impacts I make knowingly with each step I take, metaphorically, figuratively and literally. I know that not because I’m self-absorbed or narcissistic, but because I’m self-analytical, and when that fails, I’m aware of other things being analytical of me and I pay attention to what they say and see if it’s true about me or not. I remove the protective filter of bias and prejudice from myself to see clearly to see if what they say is true or not and if I need to work on it or fix it or correct it in myself. And, for someone who wants to do good, it is important to know the impacts I make and to know them precisely. You may remember being this young and see it in me, but I guarantee your life experiences up to the age I am were entirely different and you can not trust yourself to see clearly because of your own biases and prejudices, not just against me but against your own younger self that you were and to some extent still are.

You’re right, you’re no longer as vain as you appear, but you’ve been at it so long that the mask has become a part of every day life for you. It’s an act while you struggle to come to confidence behind the face-value of it.

You say “truth” in quotations, but you don’t say what truth you were looking for or thought you saw. I have to take on faith that the truth you sought is the same as the truths that I found. In truth, with truth, the truths you thought you saw or were in pursuit of may not have been what I or others may have pursued or perceived. And, obviously, when truths are portrayed as they’re portrayed in society, of course they’re going to be exposed as falsities with more falsities surrounding them. I can not go further in explanation of the truths of what you searched for in depth because of these things. To know where you left off, where you failed, where you stumbled; I do not have that. I don’t know. I do know, that like everybody else, you came to see what you thought was there, with perhaps the unspoken statement if not spoken, ‘I see how it is.’

What truth are you in search of that you are no closer to finding today than 40 years ago? Is your pride going to get in the way of answering that simple question or trying because this younger man than you might actually be able to help you and you can’t stand the thought of someone of a younger generation actually being better or greater than you even though you wanted such to be true of you and your generation which followed a generation of utmost tragic demise where your parents were responsible for a large portion of the messes I am now cleaning up across the societal and cultural landscape, where they knew more than we did and packaged it all away for 50+ years.

When you say that I am certain that I hold ‘the’ “truth”, I am not sure what truth you are speaking about. I have many truths that I am certain about and I have gone above and beyond to assure myself not just in vain and insecure fashions that the evidence is there in spades to back it up and support it beyond just circumstantial. If I were to ever tell you that I knew truth every second of every day in every matter, that would most surely be a lie and I’d be the first to say so in any situation. Do I sound political, like some politician just speaking things to speak them and sound good? Why do I sound that way when I back it up every second of every day and, in fact, every time you or others see me or engage in interaction with me?

I must just be doing and saying this to look good even though I have definitely crossed lines, redefined being controversial and have looked very bad in a lot of things I have done without once apologizing or backing down. I have looked very bad for the slander and libel and lies that get spread about me, the misperceptions, the skewing, etc. of mass-deception.

I will call my shots ahead of time and I will see them through to the point where they come true, though you and others will misperceive and misconstrue what is meant until it comes true and then you might even have trouble seeing it for what it is because of the fog of the mind and whatever else you may be involved in. It could be years, centuries, eons, before it sinks in properly, but here are the shots I’m calling for the future: You will break yourself against me, no matter how safely you play things, you called me to you, not me approaching you out of the blue; you have already learned from me and I have already boosted you past where you were; you are a pathological liar, like so many others and almost every word out of your mouth is a lie and a deception and your works confess it better than you ever could. You are not the 58 you claimed to be, you are younger than that by a decent margin, but you’ll play the hand you picked up and decided to play, so I responded to that hand on face-value, knowing better inherently and deep-down but going with the flow to have us arguing along certain lines for the spirits we each have channeled, you for your deceptions and me for the shredding of them.

When this plays out, you will be stripped of everything you are, whoever you claimed to be; your hand will be laid bare when the final call comes and all betting is done; and for all the calls that all bets are off, all bets are still on save the one I won’t make again: my eternal soul and everything else. I’ll bet a lot of other things, including piecemealing out the everything else, but as a whole, that parcel is off the betting table regardless of bets you make in private or imagine to make with me, not saying that you personally have made such bets, but a betting man I bet you are and if you care to take that bet against me, I prove you to be a betting man and if you refuse, I could call you a coward, but at the very least you’d be smart not to take the bet knowing that you are a betting man. You already tossed aside your eternal soul, passed it off; made a deal with the devil as did so many others in life and still disbelieve in both God and the Devil, though you still turn to both for help.

No matter how insane you think the other person is, you have to at least believe to be true what they believe to be true to meet them where they are if you want to help them, so for all your claims of wanting to help others that you have made in your life and I believe that you have meant that at times, just the same as I believe the devil to help others far more than people realize, but for not knowing how to help them or for fear of being lost yourself, you went down paths that you would have walked differently had you known what you were doing.

If a person were to come to me and tell me that they were hounded by a spirit and I felt inclined to help, had a clean spot in my itinerary and felt up to par, I’d give it the honest go to believe in what they believe in and then see how it affects their psychology. I don’t just discount things as not existing or try to cover it up with lies nor do I prescribe medication to people as anything other than crutches that are only meant to assist until you heal again. And, I don’t find it very hard to believe what others believe because I know a lot of it is true.

And the entire problem of this is that you are no longer the person that wants to help others and who can blame you? When my own give a fuck is largely busted in various degrees here and there in different manners on different days, I find that I still care a lot about the greater good and I’m constantly doing things for it, but I don’t always feel the desire to help others. And, for people who went down other paths, I see it still in them as they try to help others the only way they know how even through their lies and deceits and believing that they just don’t care. I see you and where you are as I do with so many others and see the paths you were pushed down, that you chose to go down even when not pushed and what you’re dealing with and I’m saying the truth of it is that everybody is wrong and right in varying degrees and morality isn’t what it’s defined as, that what we know of as right and wrong is wrong and needs to be redefined but the necessity of that is going to largely get shoved into the mud puddle full of feces and piss as things reach to grasp for their power and control over others.

You are a fool and a simpleton for thinking the pursuit of power is wrong or immoral. Even the most benevolent of beings accumulate power whether they will it or not; even the most benevolent, when their give a fuck is busted, can do great ‘evil’ in lashing out when they just can’t force their own mask not to slip. I’ll be the first to admit that if you cross me on a bad day I will cut you down quicker than any other and for that, my company is eschewed for the company of those who lie and flatter even though the long-term of that is worse than the long-term of what I bring.

I just somehow don’t think that you, like so many others, can claim to know enough about me to make any assumption that isn’t just fielding for responses because you don’t know how to phrase what you really mean; you have never met or seen or heard of anyone like me. And, that isn’t ego or boasting on my part. I have not seen any like myself. I have yet to see anyone match me step for step or even go round for round toe-to-toe against me. They all fall down, all come up short and that’s just simple analysis and seeing what is.

I am exactly who I say I am… I have no
need or reason for pretense or lies…
I don’t know who you are and I DON’T CARE…
I have read enough of you to know… you have nothing to teach me…
that is not to say what you think or believe is wrong… just what you
have to say, has no interest to me… it is a phase of youth I suffered through
all those many years ago…you may have your “truths” and I say, more power to you…
I spend my days either working or I am writing, like now, or I am reading… that’s it…
I don’t do anything else… I have no interest in anything else…ok, maybe baseball
and basketball, but that is it…oh, I play my computer chess and read books about
getting better at chess, oh, and eating, I love to eat and oh…in
you little piece, you mentioned I am a “pathological liar”… you are right…
I am really a dull housewife who lives in Paramus New Jersey with 4 kids…
you found me out…or not… it doesn’t really matter…the search for the truth
is all that matters… anything else is just accidental garbage…

Kropotkin

in my readings of history, this question of leadership often
comes to my attention…for example, Rome and the
Roman Emperors… we have plenty examples of both “good”
and “bad” emperors… now by what example did the Roman
Emperors lead… for example, an emperor like Augustus…
he would be called a “good” emperor… he ran the Roman empire for
over 20 year and was known to be a “moralist”… for example, he
spent much of his time, trying to get proper marriages and then
out of those marriages, children… he was a big fan of populating
Rome with Romans…he led by example in this… now my question is
how does this leadership by example, setting proper examples actually
“pass” down to the lower classes… or said another way… how much of
the lower classes follow the lead, behaviors of the upper class or even the
leader of the society… so how much did the lower classes follow Augustus?
said badly, but you get the point…it is my proposition that the morals
of any given leader will help… note help, in the actions of the lower classes,
middle and working poor…would the middle class follow the actions of
their leader if they could but afford it… meaning if the leader was a lying,
cheating, both in monetary and marriage, would the lower classes… the middle
class and working poor follow that leader into lying and cheating and whoring?

the thing about moralists is simple, they almost always say, do as I say, not as I do…
for moralist are quite often the ones who are the ones who lie and cheat and steal
and whore the most…you find this true in TV evangelists for example, the list
of TV evangelists who sinned is a long one… Jim Baker is just one example…
I am just too lazy to look it up the whole list… so, we have had two presidents
who have lived up to the high standards, Obama and as much as I hate, just hate,
bush Jr. he was at least a moral person… of course, outside of his homosexual trysts
in the WH, but hay, he was relatively moral person…I suspect that after the years
of dropping birth rates in teens, that the rate will go up and I suspect it will continue
to rise as long as there is a GOP member in the WH…and when the dem’s return,
it will go down again and I believe this is due to the influence of acting moral in the
WH… now we get to Clinton and he clearly wasn’t that moral, as least in regards to
his marriage… and I think that had a negative effect on how people acted…
the leader sets the pace, sets the example and if he/she sets a negative example,
this impacts the nation as a whole… however, I also foresee a very negative
economic situation about to occur and I believe this will impact “morality” greatly…
just how I am not sure… so my thesis is that because 45 is a immoral person,
this will lead to greater immorality within the population… my problem is
being able to prove this thesis, given I have no real way to prove it…

it is an interesting question…

Kropotkin

That’s fine, but this is still more of a blog than any type or brand of cohesive philosophy.

K: and that has been one of the arguments against Nietzsche… he didn’t create a “cohesive”
system and yet, in the end, who do we read more… Nietzsche or Hegel?

you have fallen into the trap into thinking that for philosophy to be “PHILOSOPHY” it must
follow a certain form or have certain idea’s or must talk about certain things…
thus to be philosophy to be philosophy, it must talk about the “how do we know what we know”
or be about metaphysics or be about a theory of beauty and yes, they are philosophy but
philosophy encompasses all that is around us…science says, that life can grow anywhere
but philosophy asks, why and what is its meaning? philosophy doesn’t even have to be
written down like we are doing today… it can be musically, it can be done in dance,
it can be done even be done in silence… because if it, whatever it is, expresses
or communicates the nature of life or human nature, it is philosophy…
life is sad and that can be communicated without language and thus it
becomes philosophy… or said a completely different way… philosophy is
what we decide it is, regardless of its nature or form…
if it says something about the human experience or the experience of life…it
is philosophy,

now I choose this format because of my work schedule which is
all over the map… I can work from any time from 6 am to midnight and any
number of hours in between… so for me… this type of philosophizing works…
because my time is quite often short… this week I am on vacation and so, I am
actually spending my time in reading in history and philosophy during the Renaissance
and shortly after… I am preparing for my start in modern history on my journey to
review philosophy to find our where philosophy went wrong and how to bring
philosophy back to the “common” man… this historical review has so far taken
me two years and I suspect will take another two years to reach now… but
I have taken great steps in my journey and expect to take many more in the
next couple of years…

Kropotkin

I read what comes out of my own mouth and through my own fingers and worry not about others. I’m concerned about myself getting it right, not others.

K: good, you are learning…

Kropotkin

Not really, it’s how I’ve always been. But, it’s cute to have you misread me.

I have reached the part of my research where I must
begin my scientific aspect of my research into philosophy
because from the Renaissance to now, science drives
philosophy… scientific knowledge drives the philosophical
search… what is the meaning of reality in philosophy is driven
by what science tells us is reality…

let us look at science… I pick up a rock and wonder, what kind of rock
is this? I can examine the rock, weigh the rock, measure the rock in all kinds
of different ways… by research, I might even be able to find out where the rock came
from and what type of rock it is… but by myself without any resources, how do I
discover the “'facts” about this rock, how do I discover the “truth” about this rock…
as I said, I have done all the measuring I can with this rock… but unless I get some
outside information, I cannot discover the “facts” about this rock…
now let us say, I go to place that has rocks and in looking at the rock in this,
call it a rock show for identification purposes… I go to this show and find another
rock similar to my rock… I then find out the rock in question is a certain type of
rock from Italy… I can now compare my rock with the rock from Italy and see
what I can learn from it…I can compare and contrast my rock with the rock from
Italy and see what is the same and what is different…it is this comparing and
contrasting that allows me to better understand this rock and know the difference
between this rock and other rocks…as I couldn’t compare the rock to anything the
first time, because I had nothing to compare it to, I can now begin to compare my rock
with all kinds of rocks…especially with rocks from Italy…I find a different
rock from Italy and compare it to my rock and I discover that this second rock is
a different type of rock from my first Italian rock…and I can measure this rock in
all the possible ways and because I have knowledge gained from my first rock,
I can make some guesses about the second rock…the more rocks I can compare
and contrast, the more understanding about rocks I gain…the knowledge
I gain from these rocks come from comparing and contrasting them…after a while,
I can see a rock on the ground and know how that it is the same or different from the rocks
from Italy and how it is different…science to a great extent, is simply
comparing and contrasting things… you don’t know what an item is
in science until you can compare or contrast it to something, something similar
or something different…can you do a similar thing with philosophy?
I don’t know, let us compare and contrast and find out…

I declare that the purpose of human existence is happiness…

this is just like my first rock… I don’t have anything to compare or contrast with
it… I am not even sure I can measure it… how does one measure happiness?
so I find a second rock, a second idea… the declaration of independence in
which it is declared that the point is “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”…
well that second opinion is certainly certain… but as I compare and contrast,
I discover that some disagree with the notion that the “purpose of human existence
is happiness”… religious types for example, believe that the purpose of life is
finding salvation and redemption and then going to heaven…ummmmmmmmm…
I am now lead into another path as to the “purpose of human existence” so I
compare and contrast the two opposing opinions, is life about happiness or is
life about finding salvation…the religious types might argue that the two idea’s,
happiness and finding salvation are the exact same thing… another brick in the wall…
I compare and contrast the many different ways people find happiness and I compare
and contrast the many different ways people find salvation and redemption…
after much research and thinking, I reject both arguments… but I must now
present my alternative theory which means I must compare and contrast
other theories about the “purpose of human existence”… perhaps the purpose
of human existence is to eat cake and watch TV all day… after researching
that possibility, I see the flaws in just eating cake and watching TV all day…
I see I will grow obese and become sick, so I cannot honestly make that choice.
but it is only in comparing and contrasting these idea’s that I can make a
honest appraisal of my choices… so for philosophy to work, it must on
some level, engage in comparison and contrasting… you have the
prior work of philosophers and current works of philosophy and so you begin
to compare what philosophy you have with what has already been written
and by comparing and contrasting the two, you can better understand
philosophy and as with science, the more comparison and the more contrasting
with more philosophies and philosophers you have, the better understanding
you have of philosophy…so we have step one and what is step two?

Kropotkin

we have in science, a thought that the pathway to knowledge in the universe
is by mathematics… science operates via math…now we know that math is
is the tool we mentioned earlier which by measuring something we
can learn things… this measuring is done by math…
and by comparing and contrasting the various things we have measured, we can
get some idea about the thing we are curious about…
we have measured dogs and by our various math skills have concluded
that certain dogs only grow to a certain height and other dogs can grow
another height, but we know that there are of course, exceptions to every rule
we create… we say, that the German Shepard can grow up to 4 feet tall but
we know of German Shepard’s that are taller because out of all our rules,
there are always exceptions… we say the average man is 5 foot 7 inches tall…
BTW, I am 5’7 tall… but that is the average height… I am much taller then
my brother and my stepfather was much taller then me… a good deal of
science is really just saying things are roughly this dimension and this dimension,
in some form of measurement…Stars are this big and the average star in the
universe seems to be a brown dwarf, so we have a range of dimensions in everything
from galaxies to ants… everything has not a set in stone size, but a rough average size…

now can we take any of this and apply it to philosophy?
we can say, the average philosopher seems to have written
about knowledge and we can measure the amount of words a
philosopher has written about knowledge and compare and contrast
it to other philosophers… clearly some philosophers are much more concerned
about knowledge then other philosophers…and by measured the amount
of times they write about knowledge, we can get a sense of how concerned or
not concerned about knowledge they were…we know for example, Descartes
was very concerned about knowledge and wrote a great deal about knowledge
and someone like Camus was not that concerned about knowledge and we can
measured the differences between the two by how much they wrote about
knowledge… but can we discover a means to discern not how much about
knowledge they wrote but about their understanding about knowledge?
how do we judge Descartes understanding about knowledge?
how do we measure Descartes understanding about knowledge?
Does his understanding of knowledge have any value? is it worth reading
and how would you judge or know that? you would have to take the word
of someone else… for example, your philosophy professor says that, Descartes
is the greatest philosopher of all time… and you must read him to understand
philosophy…and I will quiz you on your understanding of Descartes understanding
of knowledge…so, to get a good grade, you “study” Descartes… but
would you use the scientific method of measuring him or would you use
the philosophical method? Wait a minute, there is a philosophical method?
you didn’t say that… so what is the philosophical method? and what is the
scientific method?

Kropotkin

I have a thought… human beings purpose is happiness…
is that a philosophy? No, it is an opinion, but certainly not
a philosophy… what does it need to become a philosophy?
just as I had my lone, single rock, I have this lone, single thought…
To make sense of it, I must compare and contrast it to similar thoughts.

So I spend my days, looking through dense pages of other philosophy and
other writings to compare and contrast my thought…I spend my days
seeing what other writers thought about the purpose of humans is
in being happy… as I read, I see it depends on whether the writer
in question is religious or not… the religious ones tend to disagree with
the basic premise that human existence is about happiness…ummmmm,
premise… isn’t that kinda like a hypotheses… a scientific hypotheses…
so, when I offer up a philosophical premise, it is kinda like a scientific hypotheses…
now, a scientific person would then try to test this theory…
how would you test this theory that the purpose of human existence is happiness?
and therein lies the philosophical problem… a philosophical person wouldn’t
try to test this theory that the purpose of human existence is happiness…
a philosophical person would try to reason it out… create arguments and counter
arguments (the philosophical method) to attempt to solve this issue of whether
the purpose of human existence is happiness…the idea is the philosophical method
is about rational arguments for or against a particular position… the scientific method
would go about and create an experiment to prove or disprove the theory/theses/premise…
so let us take out our scientific hat and think about a way to create a experiment to
prove or disprove our theses that the purpose of human beings is happiness…
now we reach Nietzsche… Nietzsche, you say… Nietzsche wasn’t a scientist…
nope, he wasn’t… what the hell does Nietzsche have to do with this? if you read
Nietzsche and I have… he often points out that life is an experiment…
What if, what if we conduct our experiment, our scientific experiment
on the question if the human being purpose is happiness, on ourselves…
this is what Nietzsche did in fact… he conducted his life as an experiment…
so instead of logical reasoning attempting to discover if the purpose of human beings
is happiness, we engage in that experiment ourselves… in your personal experience,
is the purpose of human beings to find happiness?

we engage in our lives to discover philosophical truths… we use our lives
as experiments in understanding what is the fundamental “truths” of our human
existence…the experiment we conduct is upon ourselves and the answers we
find we report to the world… this however means no more sleepwalking
through our lives as we have been… we are scientists engage in a experiment
and we must devote our time and energy trying to understand how our experiment
is going… that is how we convert a philosophical method into a scientific method…
we use our lives as the experiment…instead of just reasoning our way into a truth,
we live our way into the truth…a radical difference…

Kropotkin