a new understanding of today, time and space.

[Peter Kropotkin]

the problem of existence

for human beings, one of the basic problems is this question of
experience.......how do we judge/understand experience....

for example, I see a black and white box...this box is about waist high...
it has a flat top with 4 metal round things on it......above
the 4 metal round objects in a L shape is a black surface with knobs that
turn.....this black and white box seems to get very hot if I turn one of the knobs...

so, what is this? A stove.... but how are we to experience this stove?

according to some thinkers, we have an image of the stove already.....

but the reality is, we learn what a stove is from experience....
someone, most likely our mother, has told us to stay away from the stove
because it is hot... and not being sure what hot is, we go ahead and touch it....
and we find out what hot is.....the stove is just one device and we soon learn
that by putting food into the stove, we get cooked food out of the stove..
we see this just by being in the kitchen and seeing the results and then
if lucky, eating the results....soon we hear of a word, appliance...
ummmmm, we are not really sure what an appliance is.. but our dear
mother explains that an appliance is a stove, an appliance is also a dishwasher,
a fridge, a washer and dryer..... we soon understand that there is a series of
machines called appliances.... we have a category of appliances.....

Now philosophers would have you believe that somehow we have mental
categories that allow us to place the stove into context... but context means experience....
and we don't envision the stove from categories, we learn about the stove from
experience.....

Philosophers like Kant seem to forget that we have a lifetime of experiences
that we use to understand our world...…. we know time and space, not because
of some mental categories but because we have existed within time and space
all our lives..... we have experienced time and space, every single second of our life....

how do we learn space? studies have shown that babies that miss the crawling
stage of childhood have more trouble with spatial understanding.... we learn
space by experiencing space with such events like crawling...and reaching out to
grab things.... simple trail and error leads us to our understanding of space.....
if we fall down as a child and children fall down all the time, it is because
they haven't gotten used to space yet...……

I see a book, Kant's critique of Pure reason on the table, I reach over and
grab it...because of the many years of existing within space, it is an easy
task...I am able to grab it on the very first try...my body and spatial sense
is up to the task of grabbing the book because I have done so, literally a million
times......there is no sense of a mental operation involved in the physical act
of grabbing the book... now a mental sense was involved in my thinking
about grabbing the book... but not in the actual grabbing the book

is space a mental construct? once spaced is experienced and understood
as experience, then space can be a mental construct, but before it
is a mental construct, it is first experienced....now, we can experienced
space, but it can't be explained to us.....describe space...…
you would be hard pressed to be able to describe space.....
experiences are often explained to us... as in the stove...
mom says the stove is hot, but we don't know what hot means
or what is the purpose of the stove is.. and by experience, we begin
to understand what hot is or what the stove is for.....

but you can't do that with space or time....
space/time must be experienced to be understood...
you can't explain it...you must experienced it
and we do, all of our lives....every single second of our life
is spent in space/time.....

so is space/time a mental construct? as it cannot be explained or understood
outside of experience, I would say no.....it seems to be something experienced
but not a mental construct...…...it has a reality to it that we can experienced

now is space/time one of Kant's "thing in itself"? something that is a concept
that are objects as they are independent of observation....but space/time is
is really only understood by us as experiences.. they might be independent of
observation but how would you go about showing this? you can only explain
space/time by using experiences as a means of understanding space/time....

so as an thought experiment, try to explain space/time without any reference
to experience...……… I don't think it can be done.....so is space/time independent
of observation? it doesn't look like it.....

Kropotkin

[MagsJ]

The problem of existence is that we simply exist.

[Peter Kropotkin]

according to Kant, every human being has a conscience,
every human being has a common sense grasp of morality,
and every human being "has a firm conviction that he or she,
is morally accountable".....

let us think about this...…. my experience as a human being
of 59 years tells me that this is not true..... I have seen
human being without conscience and ones without a firm grasp
of morality and no conviction of any kind that they can be held accountable..
for anything..... think of narcissistic psychopaths like IQ45...people
who don't have a conscience and don't have any kind of grasp of morality
and believes that they can shot people on 5th ave in NY and still not
be held accountable...…….

the other point Kant makes is that he believes that people are rational
creatures and once again my experience tells me otherwise.....
people will often behave and act totally irrationally to their
best interest and behave and act totally irrationally to others
best interest...…..

you see this when people vote against their best interest in the
name of some misguided principle like voting for the GOP because
of their mistaken impression that the GOP is pro-life.... it isn't....
but that is a erroneous impression given by the GOP to get people
to vote for them over people following their best interest. This false
impression by the GOP is to get people to vote for the party that
put party ahead of country and the party that commits treason, like the GOP...…..
instead of voting for one's best interest which is for the Democrat's.....

you see this misguided irrational action of people's all the time....
with actions that defy any rational thought....

people are not rational and don't act upon rational thought...
they act upon emotions and quite often act upon misguided principles
offered up by those who benefit from those misguided principles
which often stems from those myths, biases, habits, prejudices
and superstitions preached by society/the culture/the state and family....

they aren't rational, those myths, the biases, habits, prejudices, ism's,
and superstitions taught to us from the day of our birth.....
and so this is often why people don't act rational... they
are lead astray by those myths and biases.....
instead of thinking for themselves, they are lead astray by
beliefs of the past...….so Kant is wrong... because people don't
often think rationally, they think in terms of the myths and biases
and ism's...……. of their childhood.....that is why the Enlightenment was
so important....it emphasis the thinking for oneself instead of following the
authority of myths, biases, ism's, habits...…..

and following authority is not rational... is it is simply following what you are
told.....and this is true in the case of people in terms of morality...
because people accept the given morality of society, the idea of morality
is driven by people's understanding of what the society/state/church idea of
morality is...……..conscience is not independent of what the ism's and myths
and biases we are taught as children..... morality/conscience is simply what society has
deemed it to be, morality/conscience isn't independent of a society.. but an aspect of
society...

experience tells me Kant is wrong... people do act irrationally,
people quite often don't act morally, and people rarely believe
they will be held morally accountable....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

The problem of existence is that we simply exist.

K: and now what? what does it mean to exist? how are we to act? what
is the point of existence? who are we and what is our possibilities
as human beings? by simple existening, we face a whole series of
questions... that demand answers.....

Kropotkin

[Meno_]

What it means to exist?

To me, it means to overcome obstacles from finding out what it means.

Once found the meaning, Your other question may reveal themselves.

If not, then slowly, will eliminate the need to find out.

[Peter Kropotkin]

What it means to exist?

To me, it means to overcome obstacles from finding out what it means.

Once found the meaning, Your other question may reveal themselves.

If not, then slowly, will eliminate the need to find out.

K: ummm, what does it mean in practical terms to overcome
obstacles? which obstacles are you overcoming?

Kropotkin

[Meno_]

In practical terms ? Too numerous to list.

But family first, to take their problems head on first and then expanding outward toward wider circles of relevancy. I could enumerate , but more than likely it would bore you, since you most probably are acquainted with them as well. Give me the heads up and we can start

[Peter Kropotkin]

In practical terms ? Too numerous to list.

But family first, to take their problems head on first and then expanding outward toward wider circles of relevancy. I could enumerate , but more than likely it would bore you, since you most probably are acquainted with them as well. Give me the heads up and we can start

K: I think you are missing my point about overcoming....
I don't care about family.... my point is about and strictly about
the overcoming we make ourselves... in other words, overcoming
is about one person and one person only... and that is you.....

my overcoming the past, in regards to my hearing loss, in regards
to the childhood myths and biases and habits and prejudices and
superstitions I was taught by family, by the culture, by the state,
by the media... overcoming is a personal act.. about one overcoming
the viewpoint of authority... it is one person involved with
himself/herself.....it has nothing to do with others....not family,
not society, not the state and not the church...... it is about
the myths and habits and biases and......of those institutions..
and their teachings that must be overcome........

when I overcome, it is about me and not about the institution......
and not about the family or anybody else....

now one may have to overcome the family in the sense of
a family may have values that must be overcome to finally become
human, fully human, but the family is a launching pad for overcoming,
not the overcoming itself......

Kropotkin

[Meno_]

But is overcoming your self really a practical thing? If it was so practical, how come Napoleon Bonaparte himself said that conquering one's self is much more difficult then conquest on the battlefield?

If Your family is all against you, does the solition to overcome Your troubles consist in overcoming their attitudes about you, or conquering yours?

What of, they may be right? And leaving them is not am option?

In not saying they may be right, or wrong for that matter, in just searching for a way out of a supposed hole, where only a practical way out is possible.

So if there is no practical way out, sartre says there is no exit, then should you give up? Or may there be a non practical way out? That's all I intended to say.

[Peter Kropotkin]

But is overcoming your self really a practical thing? If it was so practical, how come Napoleon Bonaparte himself said that conquering one's self is much more difficult then conquest on the battlefield?

If Your family is all against you, does the solition to overcome Your troubles consist in overcoming their attitudes about you, or conquering yours?

What of, they may be right? And leaving them is not am option?

In not saying they may be right, or wrong for that matter, in just searching for a way out of a supposed hole, where only a practical way out is possible.

So if there is no practical way out, sartre says there is no exit, then should you give up? Or may there be a non practical way out? That's all I intended to say.

K: yes, Napoleon was right, conquering one self is far harder then any conquest on the
battle field...and that is the point.... it is easy to fight external battles... to slay
dragons as it were....to fight the internal battles, much harder.....because you
have to be honest with oneself when fighting internal battles...the overcoming
as it were....as for family, sometimes the family is your friend, sometimes not....
everyone is different...…… a few years ago, I realized that what I wanted to do,
no, needed to do, was to study and think and write... I realized that my
friendships, people I had been friends with for decades, were holding me
back....I was engaged with them instead of doing what I needed to do which
is think and read and write...…so I stopped calling them... I simply
removed myself from my friends... it has been 3 or 4 years now..
and I don't have any friends to speak of.... no one I could call anyway....
and I am ok with it...… it gets lonely at times, but that is the price,
the sacrifice I was willing to make to find the time to do my thing.....
my wife thinks I am insane and quite often will try to get me to renew
these old friendships... but I won't...…

I need to remain focus on my thought process and having friends
distracted my from my main focus which is the thinking
and writing and reading that I am presently doing....

I would have also sacrifice my wife and daughter had I thought
I needed to, but fortunately I have found I can have them around...
it doesn't interfere with my thinking.... well it does, but not too much....

I am willing to sacrifice everything to devote my time to what I call
"my work" which is the thinking and reading and writing I do....

I will say to my wife, I got some work done today and it has nothing
to do with "work" but with engaging in what really matters to me,
which is the thinking and reading and writing...…

I have such a long line of books I want to read but because
I work 25 to 30 hours a week, I don't have much time to read....

I cut my work hours to the bare minimum which is killing us
financially, but, I am willing to make the sacrifice, money wise
to do what I need to do......my wife, um, not so much... but
she knows the deal...…..I consider "my work" to be a priority
and I try not to let anything else get in the way......

the moral or point of this story is simple, family is only a burden,
a problem if we let it become a problem.....don't be afraid to cut
ties to anyone who stands between what you need and what they need...…

there is always a way out... you just have to have the courage to do it.....
it depends on much of a personal hit you are willing to take...…..I was
willing to walk away from everyone to do my thing... selfish, greedy,
perhaps, and I will pay the price later in life when I have absolutely no
friends to rely on in my old age, but hay, you gotta do what you gotta do....
no matter what the price you pay...….and sometimes the price one pays
is heavy, a very, very heavy price for doing what we must do.....it is the cost
of business...…..

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

how do we understand experience.....
this has been one of the key questions of the last
400 years, since Descartes...….

is there something "beyond" experience?
in other words, is the metaphysics possible?

is there experiences beyond what we see, hear, taste, touch, smell?

we have love.... that is something beyond something we see, hear, taste,
touch or smell....and love is one of the strongest emotions we have....
it drives much of the human experience.... either searching for love or
rediscovering love or keeping love...…

we are not the only species that loves... we see animals that love......
dogs are unconditional love, cats, uh, not so much.....
but we see animals loving their friends, their offspring, humans....
so we know love is a trait born in the past, born in evolution.....
because so many animals show love...........

we know that love is a value... a value that gives meaning to our lives.....
without love, for many, there is no point to life.....
newborns who don't experience love in their first year,
quite often die..........love is just as neccessary as food, water, air,
shelter to human beings.....

but our sense cannot detect love...... it doens't have a physical presence,
but it does clearly exists.......so does that follow because we cannot detect
love with our physical senses, things exists like god and heaven and angels
and hell.... the metaphysical, the after physical.... things that
exists but cannot be detected by the senses.........

the existence of one, love, doesn't mean the other, god, heaven, hell,
angels, exists...……

I know love exists because I have felt it, still feel it, and hopefully will
continue to feel it with my wife and daughter...……

from an evolutionary standpoint, love makes perfect sense....
it helps maintains the species, it helps keeping the family and society
stable....love is a benefit to society and the species..... it helps society
and the species grow and adapt and change.... it is a stable factor
in the many systems we belong to...…. love will not create profit
and it will not increase the GDP, but it will give us the stability
to keep society functional......and thus love has a value beyond
just being in love..... it creates stability in society, in the system.....

just as hate destabilizes society and systems.....

but we still haven't answered our question, because love
exists, something we cannot see or hear or taste or touch or smell,
doesn't mean love doesn't exists....so does it mean our metaphysical
concepts like god, heaven, angels, satan, hell exists?

I would say no.... simply because our society/our culture can exists
without the concept of god, heaven, hell, satan…… we need love to exist
but we don't need god or any other such concept to maintain order in society,
to grow our society, to preserve our society...… in fact, I would suggest given
history, to hold such thoughts as god, heaven, hell, satan is to destabilize
society... it creates an us vs them mentality..... that we believers
must rid society of those who don't hold the same belief as we do....
we must eliminate those who don't believe as we do....that mentality
is a danger to society as has been shown by history, time and time and time
again...….love benefits a society, this is fact... the believe in god damages
a society, this is seen every single day.... since the beginning of time...….
we can survive without belief in god and angels and hell, but
we cannot survive without love...….. these practical matters show us
what is important...….. and love is important and belief in god is not.....

but why is the belief in god so strong in so many?

I would suggest it is part of the myths, biases, habits, superstitions
and prejudices we are taught as children.... it seems real because
we have lived with them our whole life... retrain children to
not having god and within a few generations, the belief in god
and angels and hell and satan, will no longer exists...…

now recall part of the myths we were taught as children is
the myth of Santa Claus... and children believe, truly believe
that such a person really exists.... but then we discover the truth
and it hurts at first, but soon, it no longer a thing knowing that
Santa Claus is no longer true or is not real...……. we live.. and grow
and prosper even though we don't have a myth, a habit like
Santa Claus to hold us...…..and we can see this myth, this superstition
every Christmas... we can see movies and tv shows and commercials
with Santa Claus... just because we can imagine it, doesn't mean it
exists...……

and this figure of Santa Claus is far more real then the concept of god or
angels or hell or Satan......

so why do we hold in god and hell and angels?
I have suggested it is because of our hope in
the Deus Ex Machina.... we hope for justice/ equality for all....
and having god/hell/angels/satan is one way to hold on to
our Deus ex Machina... which give us hope for the future.....
that justice will be done....during our lifetime.....

in the end, one can say that we cannot disprove god or angels or hell
because one cannot disprove a negative.... we cannot show that
unicorns did or didn't exist because we don't have any unicorns evidence...
we can show dinosaurs existed because we have dinosaurs fossils...
but we cannot disprove something that didn't exist in the first place.....
how would you go about proving unicorns existed? you can't......

and the same for god/angels/hell/heaven/satan......you can't disprove
they exist or don't exist because you can't disprove a negative.....
but you can prove that love exists... because we can feel
the effects of love in our very actions... we desire and search
for and live for, love.....this very drive shows us that love, even
though we cannot see it or hear it or taste it or touch it or smell it,
we can feel its effect on us, every single day.....the need for god is
the result of our childhood baises and myths we were taught....
not because of something we can feel inside of us....

need more evidence, think about how in cultures believe in different
religions, different gods.....and some don't believe in god at all....the
belief in god is the result of education/training/indoctrination......
but love, it doesn't matter what society you live in or what
is your situation in life, you still need love....and love exists
regardless of one's education and one's training and one's culture....
but the concept of god changes depending on the society....that
is the result of our childhood indoctrination....love is evolutionary...
it is the result of millions, indeed, billions of years of evolution...…

the belief in god does not stand upon evolution.... it is taught by
society in response to society needs... not because it truly exists....

it is not just the direct evidence that leads us to the conclusion
that god/heaven/hell/angels/satan doesn't exist's, but the indirect
evidence that tells us the story of why and how we believe in god.....

we have evidence for the existence of love, but not for god..
we have experiences that tell us that love exists, but not god/heaven/hell.....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

we have a contradiction today....

we start from the first premise which is the idea that
the "principles" we have, are really nothing more then a
listing of our biases, myths, habits, ism's, prejudices and
superstitions of ours.....

so a man who proclaims he is a "man of principle"
is really a man who proclaims his biases and prejudices to the world....

why is this so? because the biases and prejudices and myths the man
proclaims has not been challenged or in my words, overcome....
to put this into practical terms, a man who proclaims the bias
that "America is the greatest country on earth" hasn't really thought it out,
or said another way, "it is not enough to have the courage of our beliefs,
we must have the courage for an attack upon our beliefs"

and the contradiction comes from the fact, that based on actions, not
words, but actions, what is the bottom line of conservatives?
what principles do they put into effect? well, look at their actions...
they separate immigrant children from their parents and then lose track of
over 1500 children in their custody... what principle can you follow that
advocates the separation of children from their parents?

they claim to be pro-family but what actions do they do to support that
claim? at every step, the GOP practices anti-family practices...
do they put families first? no, the GOP puts money first....
there is no principle that can't be bought....

the GOP practices hate, bigotry, violence by defending intolerance,
attacking people on the basis of race, creed, color and ethnicity and
sexual orientation.... what principles do these attacks promote?

the promotion of "white values" over other values.. (without defining these values)
leads us to the GOP principles that "whites" are somehow superior to other races and
that Christians are somehow superior to other religions and that inequality is superior
to equality which is another way of saying, justice must not be blind, justice must
account for race, color, creed, sexual orientation... and yet, justice must be blind...
for justice to be truly given.....if being white gives someone a lesser sentence in a case
over being black in the same instance, then we are promoting intolerance and injustice
and inequality...…. what are the principles given here?

in other words, the GOP has no values, no principle to follow other then
"we are white and thus better then you" without actually showing us this is true....
in other words, the GOP values are emotional, feeling driven values....
based on faith and not on reason.... another example of the GOP
pushing faith over reason and belief over rational thought....
the feelings are more important then any principles one might have....
the emotions of superiority, regardless if it is true or not, drives
the "white agenda"..... emotions and faith and feelings are the basis
of the "white agenda"... because they cannot justify their "principles'
on logical, rational grounds.. only on emotional grounds... it feels right,
rather then "I can reason it out" for reason, rational, logical thought
denies the "white agenda" real principles are based on logic, rational thought,
not on emotional feelings for emotions, because feelings/emotions are very, very subjective..
meaning they are subject to the whims of desire and the winds of change....

principles based on logic, rational thought are not subject to such winds of change
and whims of desire..... they exist because they are based on reason, logic...…

so to follow that through.... the emotions/feelings of people to discriminate,
to have intolerance for others, to violate civil rights in the name of some vague
and dubious feelings...……. whereas to benefit society, liberals see the inclusion
of people, the tolerance of people, not allowing discrimination of people as being
better for society...….as being better for society.... it is rational, logical that
to improve society, we must improve ALL aspects of society, and we must include
all members of society, not just the white ones.....

so the conservative contradiction is between their belief in the greatness
of America and the violation of the reason that America is great..
which is the tolerance and inclusion of everyone in society... not just
certain ones that we feel is better then others...….if you believe in the
greatness of America then you must acknowledge the reason for that greatness
which is we are for the improvement of ALL Americans, not just the certain
groups that we belong to... either being white or being male or being Christian.....

one reason we must advocate for one America is the basic fact that anytime
a society is split into two groups, an overclass and an underclass, that society
is heading for trouble.....we saw this in the French revolution and the Russian
revolution.... whereas the division within society between the haves and the have's not,
and the division of the "superior" against the "inferior" leads to class warfare
and other equally divisive actions within the society...….

the only way to maintain a safe and secure society is to have an equal
and tolerant society.... the rational, logical principle of creating an
safe and secure society is by the equal administration of equality and
justice and tolerance... to do anything else, to follow emotions and feelings
is to threaten the safety and security of society because following
emotions and feelings leads one to such dangerous propositions that
only certain people, white or male or Christian people are created
equal, everyone else is not created equal and inferior to the white,
male or Christian people.....

thus conservatives are advocating a danger to society by
threating to lead America into intolerance and bigotry
and hate which means people are not treated with justice and equality
and the only way a society can succeed is with justice and equality and tolerance....
that is the only way a society can successfully exist and continue to exists.....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

problems of existence:

there are many problem in the world and in philosophy
in particular, we have the cause and effect problem which Hume
was so interested in... we have the Kantian problem which is
"how are synthetic a prior judgments possible?

the problem of knowledge that so plagued everyone from Descartes to Kant,
is not the problem.……...

so if a problem which bother philosophy for almost 200 years is no longer
a problem, what is philosophy problem?

I believe that existentialism reached closer to the "problem of existence",
far closer then Descartes or Kant's trying to work out the problem
of knowledge...…...

we don't need to understand this question of knowledge, but we need something
more basic, something basic to everyone....

how are we to live? what are the rules of human existence?

science cannot answer these questions and religions answer
becomes false because of it where it starts and where it ends....
with the original sin and ending in heaven or hell.....

existence in all its forms must begin and end with existence
and experience...…….

there is no other path..... we exist and by existing, we experience...
and we understand our existence through experience....
we can exist without experience.... (people in a coma, type of thing)
but we don't have any understanding without experience...

we cannot reason our way into understanding, not without experience.....
so called "pure reason" cannot lead us to any understanding unless "pure reason" itself
is educated by experience...…..it is reason that teaches us, shows us
categories that we then can place life and its experiences into.....

we don't begin with categories, we begin with experience and by
experience we build our categories...…. we learn, which is experience,
how to create our categories...…..

the mind is very active, which is how it builds its categories...…..

the body and mind together, for mind need body and the body needs mind, in
order to understand it place in the universe and who we are to be...….

the mind does the understanding and the body does the experiences...…

and we build our categories up, day by day, experience by experience...….

but how are we to live? that understanding comes from experience....
we see from our experience, how we are to live... and what is our place in
the universe...….

the problem of existence.

is answered by our understanding of experiences...…

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

we know our lives, our society, our world is getting more complicated.....
for at each stage of our lives, our relationships get more complicated....

in grade school, life was pretty simple.... I went to school,
I played baseball and I watched TV...……life really wasn't more
complicated then that.....

in high school, life became more complicated....I went to school,
I ran cross-country and track, family relationships became
more complicated, friendships became more complicated....
in other words, life became more complicated for me....

in my twenties, life once again increased in complexity...
dating, work, family issues, becoming engaged with
social issues and political events..... for example,
the election of Raygun, when I was 20 or 21, radicalized me
and I became an anarchist....

and at every step of my life, has become more and more complicated...
getting married and family and work and engaging in social issues...
and now I am 59.... and my life has for the first time, become less
complicated and that is because I have made a conscience decision
to remove complications...….

but what is true of the individual, is true of society,
as society has progressed, it too has become more and more
complicated.... with the every single birth, society becomes
more and more complicated...…. each human birth complicates
society...just the numbers alone, makes life more complicated....
and just the numbers of human alone, increases pollution,
increases global warming, the decline of resources from feeding
and clothing and housing all those human beings.....the sheer weight
of all those human beings will some day, bring about the collapse of
human society..... life will have become to complicated for us to
continue society...……

that is why we cannot follow the conservative mantra of less government
and less government regulations and less anything... simply because
we need more government and more government because our rising
population demands we do so..... for any system to succeed, the system
must have the resources needed to maintain that system...……
and the only way to get those resources is by government intervention....
for capitalism is only concern with profits and not the viability of the
system......as long as profits are made, there is no concern as to
the system as a whole...…. and that is why we need government....
to be concerned with the whole system, not just about the profit margins....

an ever increasingly complicated system must have oversight
and an awareness of the overall system...….

and only government can do so...….

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

one of the constant in life is the laws/rules of life.....

we have rules/laws for just about everything...….

E=MC2 is just another rule/law.....as is the law against
jaywalking as is the rules of basketball and rules
of chess.....

Kant believed in rules/laws....

"Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing
admiration and are oftener and more steadily we reflect on them,
the starry heavens above me and the moral law withing me"

we have personal rules/laws.... I don't pursue women....
but I have been married for almost 22 years, so I don't engage with that...

and we have other personal rules like we might have like, to never
wear white after labor day....or other rules like this.....

we have personal rules, society rules and rules like
the rules/laws of how planets revolved around the sun....
scientific rules/laws......

now the question becomes, given our current situation,
what rules must we follow and what rules can we
break at our leisure....
for example, the rules/laws of gravity.... we have no choice
but to subject to the rules of gravity.... we have no choice....
and we must adjust our actions, our behavior to the rules/laws
of gravity......

and other rules/laws we can follow or ignore at our leisure....
for example, my own personal rule of not attempting to
lure women into bed....I can, if I were so bold, try to
seduce women.... but I would pay the consequences for such
a rule breaking with possible divorce and losing my family.....

so where does this leave us?

we exists in a universe/reality where we have rules/laws
and we spend a great deal of time, trouble, money and effort
trying to understand the rules/laws of the universe...……

and this might be what life really is.... life is simply an attempt
to understand and adapt to the rules/laws we are subjected to....

laws/rules which can be personal, legal or natural.....

and at each stage of our existence, the rules/laws can and might
change for us...…. rules/laws change with our growth as human beings....
personal laws anyway, legal laws like the law against jaywalking might
or might not change as time passes, but natural laws like E=MC2
might not change in our lifetimes or might never change...…..

so the problem of existence might simply be a question of
learning and understanding the rules......the rules/ laws of a personal
nature, or the rules/laws of a legal nature or the rules/laws of a scientific nature....

what are the rules?

that might be the question of our existence...….

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

we are born and then we are indoctrinated with
ism's, myths, habits, prejudices, superstitions, biases...
now these myths, ism's, habits,prejudices......
are simply society attempt to instruct us with the rules/laws
of society and the universe.......

to quote Kant once again....

"all perceptions is colored by emotions"

we perceive the universe through the lense of our emotions....
these emotions are the myths, habits, ism's, prejudices....
we are indoctrinated with from our birth.....

in other words, our perceptions are distorted by the myths and
habits... of our childhood.......

an example is, the prejudice that black people are inferior to white people...
this myth, prejudice, habit is the lens in which people make an understanding
of the universe/reality.....they see reality through the emotion of
their childhood indoctrination....the prejudice they were taught.....
so, in seeing reality, they can only see black people as being inferior,
and so that is what they see... regardless of the truth....

"all perceptions are colored by emotions"

so if people are indoctrinated with the understanding of the universe
in terms of the emotion of hate or anger or greed, that is how they
see the universe... in terms of those emotions... hate, anger, greed, lust....

so if we indoctrinate children with hate, that is how they see the
universe...... if we indoctrinate children with love, that is how they
will see the universe.....

the very rules/laws we indoctrinate children with, will in large
part, determine how children will see or perceive the universe/reality....

"all perceptions are colored by emotions"

so, now we can connect the first part about laws/rules with this second
part, which is perceptions are colored by emotions.....

so if we teach the rules/laws of life to be about the higher
level of being a human being, that love and hope and charity
are the rules/laws of the universe, then the myths, habits,
prejudices we teach our children are about the higher aspects
of being human...…… we color our children emotions with
love and hope and charity.... and through those emotions,
they perceive the universe/reality...…… instead of hate or greed
or lust or anger...……..

by what we indoctrinate, we teach the children how they perceive
the universe...……..

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

so the problem of existence...
what rules/laws are we going to indoctrinate our children with?

"all perceptions are colored by emotions"

conservatives believe in a set of rules/laws that colors their
perception of the universe/reality....

their "emotions" are colored by their indoctrination of the rules/laws
of society/universe/reality...…

so, what rules/laws are conservatives indoctrinated with?

the idea of a fixed/set universe......of their being a god,
of the notion that human beings have a set and fixed
nature..... once a person is born, they are fixed in either
being "good" or "evil"...……...human beings cannot change their
nature is a perception of conservatives...…..

our understanding of reality/universe determines in large
part what the universe is....

and we indoctrinated children with our understanding of reality/universe....

we color their perceptions with emotions/myths/prejudices, that we teach them,
that we indoctrinate them with...….

so we indoctrinate children with the capitalistic idea that all human beings
are selfish, greedy, lusting after..... the rules/laws we teach/indoctrinate children
with are colored by our emotions which we were indoctrinate with as children....

so how to break this cycle?

the enlightenment answer was to think for oneself, not to bow down
to authority, to question everything, to become aware of the myths,
and ism's and prejudices and superstitions we were taught as children.....

and this is solid advice... become aware of and understand your
biases and ism's and myths, you hold and act upon...…..

as your perceptions are colored by emotions...…

so to escape being held hostage by emotions and biases
and myths and prejudices you were indoctrinated with....
you must first become aware of them...….

now, we know, yes, know that as we grow, we change
all the time... the myths and biases we were taught as children
change, for example, we are taught that Santa Claus exists
and that the Easter Bunny exists and that there is a tooth
fairy that bring us money for each tooth we lose....
but we learn, become aware of, this indoctrination that
there is no such thing as the Easter bunny or the tooth fairy
or Santa Claus..... we outgrow these myths...….and we are
none the worse for wear for outgrowing these myths...…

and this is where conservatives fail... they fail to understand
that we do grow and learn and change every single day in
our understanding of who we are and what is possible....
we are not fixed and determined in our relationship with
the rules/laws or in terms of our relationship with the
universe/reality...……….we can change and become something
new and it is all right.....

"all perceptions are colored emotions"

we just have new emotions which change our perceptions
of the universe/reality...……..

the human being is not fixed and determined as perceived
by the conservative.....

we change all the time as we grow... our very aging process
brings about change... I am different today, at age 59,
then I was at age 29 and just because I am 59 and not 29...
the very fact I am 59 changes my or colors my perceptions
of the universe/reality...…..it requires nothing else to happen
but for me to grow old and that changeds my emotions.....which
colors my perceptions...……

so the very laws/rules of our life changes as we grow because
our situation changes, we grow old...… we cannot hold
our youthful perceptions because we are no longer young...…

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

now how do we tie this all together?

we have laws/rules.... we have perceptions that are colored
by our emotions..... we have our childhood indoctrinations
that create our perceptions of the universe/reality.....

now each aspect, laws/rules... or our perceptions that are colored
by emotions, our childhood indoctrinations.... they cannot be
explained by any aspect of the three... we must find an answer
by looking to some overall, overarching answer.......

we are being that exist in time and space......
and we need to have some goals or a destination to
reach for..... now why that is important is really the point
of this particular post.....

as human beings, we do better when we have a goal or destination
to strive for..... it gives us some meaning or purpose to our life.....

but we have our indoctrinations from childhood that also exists
within us...so we tend to pick goals/destinations that work
with the indoctrinations of our childhood...…. the conservative
goal of anger/greed/ hate is an indoctrination and so conservatives
tend to pick goals/destinations that incorporate these preconceived
emotions...……. but in realty, what goal is really understood by
conservatives? they fight for such things, as greed and anger and hate.....
so the goals/destination is about greed, anger and hate.....
but greed and anger and hate, can only bring about greed
anger and hate...… it doesn't have any goal behind
the anger or hate or greed..... to be greedy is the goal,
to have hate is the goal, to be angry is the goal...….
the conservative has I have pointed out, is about
security..... but the goal of being secure is as far as that
goal goes... in other words, being secure is the goal in itself.....
but it doesn't lead to any other goal past being secure.....

but love and charity and hope lead us to goals past these
emotions.... to love is to have something to love and
to strive to keep that love... Kant once wrote....

"the rules of happiness..... something to do, someone to love
and something to hope for"

each of these goals reach beyond themselves....they are not self contained
goals/destinations like anger and greed and lust...….

and that is the difference between liberals and conservatives....
values for the liberals are different then the values for conservatives.....

liberals values reach beyond themselves.... a value of love
doesn't just end with itself, it must have something to love...
and something to do, reaches beyond itself.... and something to
hope for, reaches beyond itself.... you need an object to
love and an object to hope for and an object for something to do.....

to hate, to have anger, to have greed is enough for itself...
it is enough to hate and it is enough for greed and it is enough
to hold anger... for they exists for themselves...the objects of
the hate and anger and greed is irrelevant.... it doesn't matter
what you hate or have anger about or being greedy about....

when conservatives hate... they claim to hate because liberal hate
or because of liberals actions or thoughts..... conservatives blame
others...…. but that is to escape responsibility for their hate or their
anger or their greed...…. .. they don't take responsibility for their
anger or hate or greed...…..and that is the point of existentialism.....

to understand that we are responsible for our perceptions and we
are responsible for our emotions and we are responsible for our
actions and we are responsible for who we are..... and if we unable
to adapt to ever changing conditions, that too is our responsibility.....

we are responsible...…. and we are responsible for our emotions
and we are responsible for our hate or anger or lust or greed
and we are responsible for our love and our hope and our
charity...….regardless of the indoctrinations we are given as
children because as we grow and age and become adults,
we need to change and adapt and become who we are....
if I am 59, I must change and adapt and become who I am
at 59... I cannot become my understanding of the universe
that I had at 29...…..I am older and I must become who I am
at 59...….and I am responsible for that...…

we must overcome and overcoming means overcoming
our childhood indoctrinations.... which means overcoming
our childhood perceptions and our childhood emotions.....

we must adapt our understanding of the laws and rules
we live by because we are now older....our understanding
of the laws/rules is different because we are older....
our very aging process changes how we perceive the
universe/reality... and our understanding of the law/rules
changes too...…..

it is all connected...… you just have to follow the connections...

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

we have philosophy which is far more complicated
then in the time of Plato or Descartes or even Kant...
and why? because we live in far more complicated times..
with a different set of questions, a different set of needs and a different
set of indoctrinations that we grew up with...….

we are children of the industrial revolution and the children
of Auschwitz and the children of Hiroshima.....and we
have our indoctrinations learned from these events...…
regardless if we remember these events or if they impact
our daily lives...……. every single event in your life is still
there regardless if you remember it or not.... it still impacts
your life...….as does the impact of events like Auschwitz or
Hiroshima still impacts our culture or our society or our
personal self even if we didn't feel its impact directly....
we are connected.. and events from very far away can still
impact our lives even if we don't see it or hear it or feel it....
it is still there......for we exist in the world, of the world,
for the world and anything that happens in the world impacts us...…
you don't live in isolation of events, in isolation of the world....
we exists in the world and that means we are of the world.....

if it change the world, it exists within you.... and everything changes
the world...….even the smallest of actions...…

thus the reason for the complication of philosophy....
it must reflect the world and the world changes,
repeatedly and often quickly...….

with those oft changes and the speed of changes, how
can we create a philosophy of history, a philosophy of
political science, a philosophy of education, when the world
we live in changes so rapidly?

philosophy to become successful, must reflect the
world at large...…. we must reflect the rapidly changing
world with philosophy that is written in ever changing formats
and ever changing idea's.. to keep up with the ever changing
world..... in other words... philosophy isn't about the
the permanent or the unchanging aspects of the universe/reality...
because the universe/reality is always changing.....

philosophy must no longer say, thou must live like this.....
no, philosophy says, today we live like this and tomorrow,
maybe, no, tomorrow will be different....

philosophy must be written in the air and no longer
in stone...…….

a new philosophy is needed... as Nietzsche says,
philosophy must be able to dance...…….
and you cannot dance if written in stone.....

this is why philosophy has been deemed to be a "failure".....
it hasn't kept us with the everchanging reality of the universe.....
and why religion is deemed to be a "failure"
whereas science has kept up and is far more respected
and understood....it has kept paced with the ever changing
universe and reality....

so what is philosophy? it is a method to discover
what are the rules/laws of the universe...

a method, not a absolute point of view, but a method like
logic and science and math... used to discover our current reality.....

and once it is understood that philosophy is a method, not a goal or
a destination, then philosophy will take its place once more as
the queen of the sciences... because philosophy is to better understand
the values we live by and values as such, change sometimes quite
quickly...… so philosophy is a method of understanding values
and the values we either have or we need to have..... philosophy
can be used to understand the values of yesterday or today or tomorrow....

what value is more important, love or hate?

and philosophy can help us to understand that the values we
have today which is the values of capitalism, of greed and envy
and lust... and we must move on from these current values of today
and move to the values of tomorrow which is the values of love
and hope and charity..... we use philosophy as a measure of values
and what values we should hold and why...….

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

philosophy must change or adapt to the conditions and environment it finds itself
in and today conditions and environment is a rapidly changing one....

whereas during the middle ages, the conditions and environment
didn't change that fast.....so philosophy was able to
remain the same as a method for centuries....

but the new reality is that the conditions and environment of
today is ever changing and philosophy must change to reflect
these ever changing conditions and environment...….

philosophy cannot be tied down to any permanent and fixed
position because then philosophy cannot change to met the
changing environment and conditions...…..

and philosophy is just a method to discover what values are needed
in any given environment...…or not needed as the case maybe....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

I have often thought about the Buddha and his thought
that the point of existence is about suffering and how to
escape suffering...…

and my first thought is that by making suffering the key value,
you deny other possibilities like searching for the truth or
seeking god or finding happiness or seeking the values worth
living for...….

in denying other values like seeking happiness or searching for
the truth, that single minded value is a negation of other values......
you negate other values when you put only one as being the "only" value
worth understanding..... or seeking........

it is like capitalism and its focus on profits/money before all
other values... this focus on profits negates all other values like love
or happiness or hope or justice..

suffering is a part but only a part of life....
and it is no different then a focus on other values
claimed to have value such as pity and compassion.....
which some philosophers have claimed to be primary or
the most valuable value to have.......

while I agree that pity and compassion are valuable
values to have, they are not the only values we must have....
we can put guilt into this mix......and then after some thought,
I see that religions emphise certain values like guilt or pity or
compassion or even hate......

and make that value the primary value of that religion...so
catholics can suggest that the primary value of religion is guilt...
we are all guilty via the original sin..... and to absolve ourselves
of this guilt is the drive to be saved...…… which is no different
then the Buddhist drive to claim suffering the value we must
must drive for...…

the Jews speak of the "law"... and even Jesus, who was Jewish,
said,

"do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets,
I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them"

this focus on the law and obeying God's law is fundamental to
Jewish faith..... another aspect that is one single view turned into
an entire faith, religion...……..just like the Buddha and his focus on suffering.....

what is needed is a religion that answers all the questions of existence,
not just the single focus of suffering or of being saved or of obeying the law
or to find an answer to the guilt "all" humans feel....

we don't yet have an religion that truly answer the call of what makes
a human being, a human being...…

religions are just one side of the human experience...and they ignore the other
side of what makes us human... be it suffering or guilt or obedience to the law
or pity or compassion.... and we need an religion that answers all those questions
of guilt and sin and obedience and pity and compassion and suffering.....
equally...……

Kropotkin

[Dan~]

The problem of existence is that we simply exist.

Existence is like a dandelion.
We start as a seed carried by the wind.
Then we find earth and water.
We take root, but eventually we die.

[Dan~]

what is needed is a religion that answers all the questions of existence,

My answer to this problem is that although all knowledge is good,
some types of knowledge are far more useful than others.
This giant chain-reaction is life.
We have limited time so we can't piss away our mind on things like movies and politics.
Happiness comes from within,
but truth comes from the outside world.

Wisdom however comes from within and the outside both, when they are combined.

[Peter Kropotkin]

what is needed is a religion that answers all the questions of existence,

My answer to this problem is that although all knowledge is good,
some types of knowledge are far more useful than others.
This giant chain-reaction is life.
We have limited time so we can't piss away our mind on things like movies and politics.
Happiness comes from within,
but truth comes from the outside world.

Wisdom however comes from within and the outside both, when they are combined.

K: ummmmm, if happiness comes from within, then why do people spend so much
time trying to find happiness in outside stuff like material goods, in a new job or
a job title, in seeking out wealth, or in trying to earn fame or glory or happiness in
having a TV show? why do we try to seek happiness outside of us, instead of inside of
us......

and why do we try to seek happiness instead of something else? is happiness
really the goal we should be trying for?

Kropotkin

[Dan~]

what is needed is a religion that answers all the questions of existence,

My answer to this problem is that although all knowledge is good,
some types of knowledge are far more useful than others.
This giant chain-reaction is life.
We have limited time so we can't piss away our mind on things like movies and politics.
Happiness comes from within,
but truth comes from the outside world.

Wisdom however comes from within and the outside both, when they are combined.

K: ummmmm, if happiness comes from within, then why do people spend so much
time trying to find happiness in outside stuff like material goods, in a new job or
a job title, in seeking out wealth, or in trying to earn fame or glory or happiness in
having a TV show? why do we try to seek happiness outside of us, instead of inside of
us......

and why do we try to seek happiness instead of something else? is happiness
really the goal we should be trying for?

Kropotkin

Externalizing is a form of gradual suicide.
The bitter-medicine analogy applies to all things in our life.
We prefer flavorful things, not tasteless or bitter things.
The result is that people chase after the most appealing things,
of which in capitalism become expensive, and therefor a person's
suicide empowers a capital service or commodity.

I fight with myself to focus on important things instead of doing crap.
I still do crap, but a lot less than a regular person.