From The Hypothesis of Sentient Self-Destruction by Francois Tremblay:
As human being, we are little more than forest-dwelling, pack-following monkeys that got dropped in an urban environment in a blink of evolutionary time - as I like to say, our instincts are a harp out of tune. Even the smallest adaptations take ten thousand years or more : there is simply not enough time between the advent of civilization and now for the millions of years necessary to make a new, civilized species.
There is little wonder, then, that people are usually stupid in most respects. People do pay lip service to such concepts as rationality, egoism, individualism and freedom, but the truth is that most people support all kinds of religious beliefs, get their sense of morality from authority or consensus, obey authority even in morally disadvantageous situations, and vote consistently for statism.
At long last, I am posting the first part of my fundamental moral system. The goal over the next few posts is to start from the beginning, with the most sane assumptions possible, and reason from there, seeing how much can be concluded before needing to introduce additional moral principles. The system is not even close to a complete moral code, but rather provides a starting point for anyone who accepts the tenets outlined here. It is quite long, so I have enclosed it in a cut.
The first few tenets do not deal with interaction between people, but rather form a more basic starting point. They all have the property of being unprovable, but I vindicate each one with the argument that not holding the tenet is less reasonable than holding the tenet (and more strongly, that holding the tenet is optimal). Thus, I have labeled these tenets the “Vindications.”
I. Truth Exists
The law of contradictions holds
This statement may seem utterly obvious, but it is important to recognize it as an assumption. Although logicians have constructed systems where statements such as “X & ~X” are not logically false, even these systems have layers of truth and falseness buried within. If statements have no truth values, then the concept of “reality” has no meaning. The idea that “there is no truth,” if true, is itself a truth, and self-defeating. I vindicate the existence of truth by claiming that it is required to reason at all.
However, there are several caveats to this tenet. I do not claim that truth always exists (just that it usually, or at least often, does). I do not claim that every truth can be proven, or even known (just that they sometimes can). And I do not claim that our perception of truth cannot change its nature.
II. Believe Reality
Pursuing truth is worthwhile
This tenet is named from a conversation I had with noonereally. People have a need to be right about things; knowledge helps us make decisions every moment of every day. I vindicate the mandate for us to pursue truth by pointing out that to pursue anything else is degenerate; in fact, it may not even be possible to “pursue falsehood,” because the human mind may not be capable of honestly believing something it does not accept as true (by the definition of “believe”). Humans are simply wired to pursue truth.
But moreover, honestly striving to understand the properties of the universe improves one’s chances of predicting the outcome of one’s actions, which is useful regardless of one’s goals. Work to achieve true understanding, and avoid self-delusion.
III. Be Rational
Reason is the most effective way to pursue truth
Though there are several ways to pursue truth, any way other than reason is by definition unreasonable.
IV. Strive for Self-Awareness
Sentience is a required part of rationality
Several conversations with jessierose33 on sentience and related topics have made it clear to me that self-awareness is a key feature of rationality. After all, if you are not self-aware, how can you reason about yourself? And if you cannot reason about yourself, how can you claim to be fully rational?
V. Induction Works
The future resembles the past
A serious problem exists with the scientific principle of induction, originally raised by David Hume. The basic argument is as follows.
Induction is not foolproof. Why do we assume the future will resemble the past? Because it has worked for us so far; that is, it has always worked in the past. But that logic is clearly circular! So how can we justify induction?
Maybe we can’t, but we can vindicate it, much as the above tenets do. In the case of induction, it is easy to see that to believe any other way would be useless. That is, if our assumption that the future will resemble the past is incorrect, then it becomes impossible to make predictions about the future at all, and logic will cease being of assistance. Thus, induction is the optimal strategy for predicting the future, even if it doesn’t always (or ever) work.
VI. Free Will
The choice is ours
The first few tenets above urge certain behaviors and thought patterns. But how do we know we even have a choice? The short answer is: we do not know. But just like the first five tenets, it is futile to assume anything other than true free will.
If the universe is deterministic, then we have no choice whether to subscribe to any of these tenets. We have no choice in anything at all. We cannot be held truly responsible for our actions. In essence, we cannot make mistakes. The only way we can make a mistake is if we possess free will but erroneously hold to determinism. Thus, the only reasonable belief is free will.
Because every lengthy post I make is required to contain at least one tangent, I briefly present two now. First, the compatibilism/incompatibilism debate is purely semantic with respect to the term “free,” and thus of much less import than it is traditionally regarded to be. Second, the existence of human free will does not absolve the Christian God (who is supposedly omnibenevolent) of responsibility for the existence of evil in the world.
Now that we have established how to reason, my next post will begin with some additional assumptions about humans and morality, and work from there.
“The most common of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind.”
—H. L. Mencken