Philosophy Now Forum

I like watching certain detective shows... Castle, Bones,
Elementary... but not CSI or Monk... and in reflecting upon
these detective shows, I have come to think about being
a detective and being a philosopher is the same thing...

we have a world, our world and within that world we have clues
as to the make up of that world.... and we philosophers seek out
those clues and what they mean to us in understanding the world....

and in understanding the world, we have descriptions of the world,
such as Idealism and Materialism and capitalism and religions,
Buddhism and Catholicism for example, and explanations such
as democracies and dictatorships...

in fact, we have as many explanations of the world as we have
people in the world.... from Parmenides.. who believed that all
reality is one, how change is impossible and existence is timeless
and uniform.... which is clearly one school of thought that still
exists today....to the Greek philosophers such as Thales who
believed that water was the main principle of the world, to
Anaximander who believed in the abstract belief in aperiron,
which is the basis of existence as being indefinite, boundless,
unlimited...
that all the world can be explained by one overarching principle,
was the original take of the pre-Socratic philosophers..

and that the greatness of Socrates comes from bringing philosophy
from the sky, from thinking everything has one overarching
principle, back to earth in terms of the thinking of human
concepts like justice, eros, the soul...to what it means to
be human....

we philosophers have the world as our basis for seeking out
what it means to be human....it is not a crime we seek to
solve but a question to be answered about who we
are and what does it mean to be human...

and some answers are idealism and materialism and this
question of subjective/objective... and the question brought
about by the enlightenment, which is a return to one path of
the Greek philosophers, which is this, is man a rational creature?
or is man/human beings belong to the age of Romanticism, where
we are beings of emotions and feeling and as Freud would say,
creatures of the unconscious... creatures of our psyche, not
creatures of our mind?

should we be seeking being the one, as in Spinoza or should
we be seeking the none, as in the Buddha? the none, one, many,
all.... all of these are possible answers to the questions of
being human..... it really depends on what questions we ask...
the question does determine the answer.... so as a
detective of what it means to be human,
we must begin by asking the right questions....

to say, MAN IS, isn't a question, it is a statement... and partly
where philosophers such as Kant go wrong....
for example, think about Kant's question, "how are a priori
synthetic judgments possible? His entire book of the "Critique
of Pure Reason" was based on this question of how, ''a priori,
synthetic judgments" are possible?

But I submit, Kant's problem was that he asked the wrong question..

but as a "detective", what do you think might be the right question
to ask? We need to understand our situation and what it means to
be human and so to begin, we must learn to ask the right questions...

so the path of being a philosopher begins with asking or
understanding what the right question is..... so,
my fellow detectives, what is the right question?

Kropotkin

"but as a "detective", what do you think might be the right question"

my questions would be: what's the salary, benefits and retirement plan like, how big of an office do i get becuz I don't want a fuckin desk in a cubical, what kind of gun do i get to carry, and what kind of car am i getting becuz i want one of the new dodge chargers.

let us continue out "detective" work....

without resorting to the philosophical babble that exists within
philosophy, we look at things, people, places and events.....

hand a child a stick... then hand a child a second stick..
now ask the child about the math question, one plus one equals two..
will the child be able to make the connection between one stick
one stick equals two sticks? the answer is clearly no....
I have done so with my own daughter... the idea that we have
certain "a priori" knowledge is simple not true...

"a priori" means before experience...

can we know, before experience, that one stick plus one stick
equal two sticks?

if you say yes, then please explain why we send children to schools
to be "educated?"... the idea of "a priori" knowledge suggests that
we have knowledge before evidence.. but which knowledge is the
knowledge we have before education? Now Kant believed that
our knowledge of time and space are "a priori" knowledge...
but that is an assumption.. when we are born, we have no sense
of time or space or even of bodies... a baby can't even tell
what is part of them and what is part of the environment/ or
even parents.... in other words, babies "think" that their parents
are simply part of them.... babies have no sense of being separated
from their environment....and they learn, not through any
"a priori", before experience/ education, that they are indeed, separate
bodies from their environment, they learn this by experience/education...

and the same is true for all types of "knowledge".. we don't learn
from "a priori", before experience/education, we learn by
experience/education.... everything....

now Kant talks about "categories", that we are inborn,
have "a priori" knowledge of things, people, places, events...
but look at how children actually learn, and we see that is not
true....and the "categories" Kant talks about are really
"categories" that we have been educated/experienced to...
take the idea/concept of heat.. the stove is hot... we don't know
that knowledge by any sort of "a priori", before the experience.....
knowledge... the knowledge of heat, the category of heat is a concept
that is learned by experience/education....

and all of the above is a long way to say, that there is no
such thing as "universal knowledge"... because for knowledge
to be universal, it must be, in some fashion, "a priori"....

children will ask, as children will ask, why is the sky blue?
we have scientific knowledge of why the sky is blue....
but think about it, even knowing what the sky is, is still
learned from experience/education...

so, what knowledge do you have that is "a priori".. before
experience/education?

one might say, god... ok, if that were true, why do we send children
to religious schools to learn what god is? The fact is that we teach
children, from birth, to "know", understand the idea of god...
and religious schools are there to continue that education....

if we don't teach children about god, then that "idea"
will disappear... now one might say, but Kropotkin, I
experience god every day..... do you? or do you
simply experience a learned response to god?
Once again, see what children actually believe in
and you can safely lose the idea of god being
learned "a priori"...

so, what knowledge do we have, that we can
say, without any fear of being wrong, is learned
"a priori?"

now this is actually an epistemological question,
what knowledge do we have, how do we know it, what
are the limits to that knowledge and what is the scope
of that knowledge?

the answer is that all the knowledge we have, we have
from an experience/education standpoint...
we are taught it, we experience it, we are educated to it...
but we cannot have any knowledge that lays outside of
experience/education... In other words, there is no
such thing as "a priori" knowledge...

now you might say, but Kropotkin, we have such a thing as
"a priori" knowledge... ok, of what exactly?

Kropotkin

promethean75 wrote: ↑Wed Jan 25, 2023 7:54 pm "but as a "detective", what do you think might be the right question"

my questions would be: what's the salary, benefits and retirement plan like, how big of an office do i get becuz I don't want a fuckin desk in a cubical, what kind of gun do i get to carry, and what kind of car am i getting becuz i want one of the new dodge chargers.

K: ok, if we realized that we have no information that is "a priori" before
experience, then we realize that our drive for money, fame, titles,
material possessions.. are learned, we are "educated" into believing
that a big desk or lots of money, is what we need out of life....

we can just as easily train/educate children into believing something
other than the drive for wealth, possessions, titles, fame, power, is
the goal/goals of existence....

the drive for wealth, fame, power, material possessions is not
universal... we see people seek other drives, knowledge,
love, esteem, safety/security... for example....before they
seek the baubles of existence....

now one might ask, why the relative uniformity
in our values and pursuits?

because of the uniformity of our bodies and environment....
we, all life on earth, lives under roughly the same conditions,
we have sunlight, gravity, oxygen.. and roughly the same
senses... we see, hear, taste, smell and touch... and all
life has these same senses.. now different forms of life,
might have a different mixture of sight, smell, touch,
hearing or taste....dogs can hear sounds that human beings
cannot.. and both dogs and cats can smell things that humans
cannot... our senses however well developed, are still roughly
the same...and we have roughly the same environment..
all of us on earth have the same gravity and the same sky
and land and sea.. our planet is roughly the same all over it...
there is no drastic difference between different parts of the
planet earth.. and because there is no dramatic difference
between parts of the earth, we have a similarity in
our bodies, our senses, our needs and wants... between
all forms of life...plants, trees, animals and humans all
depend on sunlight to survive.. we have, in various
ways, the same needs to survive... food, water, shelter,
education.. are essential to a creatures on earth...
and why? because, we are all living within the same conditions,
with the same environment, with the same senses....
this similarity in conditions and environment creates the
similarity in beings that live on planet earth...

if one part of the earth was for example, silicon based,
then that part would have different beings, different needs,
different senses.. because of the different conditions/environment...
but we on earth, we are carbon based... and thus there is a similarity
in life and conditions on earth...

now one might ask, what about our understanding of the universe,
we can spot that the universe is, or seems to be mathematically..
but in fact, that is because the universe has roughly the same
elements, physics, gravity as we do, and as the earth does,
there is a similarity between our knowledge of earth and our
knowledge of the universe.... as gravity seems to be the same
throughout the universe, our knowledge/understanding of the
universe is the same...as we have similar conditions and
environment through the universe...

in other words, because we also have the same elements of the universe
hydrogen, helium, carbon, oxygen, silicon, Iron, on planet earth,
there is a similarity between the earth and the universe...
roughly the same environment, the same elements, the
same conditions, will create roughly the same situation for
all concerned...and because all of life on earth, has roughly the
same conditions and elements, life on earth is roughly the same
and given the conditions of any planet outside of earth, we might
see life on other planets take a vastly different path.. given it
may have different conditions and environments.... given that
life can be different within different conditions/environment,
we can think that alien life may not have any believe in
god or heaven or hell or spirits... in other words,
different conditions/environments can create different
belief systems.. other life forms may not even be able to
understand the concept of god given the fact that they
existed under different situations/conditions...
the belief in god may be just restricted to people on planet
earth due to our conditions/environment...
to say that we hold beliefs in god and metaphysical beliefs may be
due to our similar earthbound conditions and environment....

if the earth had a different gravity or a different atmosphere,
we might hold to, or believe in a different set of god or we might
not even believe in god at all.... different conditions/environment
will create a different set of beliefs and values... or no beliefs
and values at all....

now our understanding of ''a priori" before experience,
would suggest that we hold to this idea of the "a priori"
before experience, because of our environment, our conditions...
in which different conditions/different conditions would create
a different set of "a priori" understandings.... or no belief in
any type of "a priori" beliefs at all...

our epistemological beliefs are actually formed because of
our understanding of our environment/our conditions...
a different set of environment/conditions, would create
a different set of epistemological beliefs....

what I know to be true is simply my understanding of my
environment/my own conditions... and your understanding of
what is true is based on your own understanding of
the environment/conditions... that there is no universal
set of beliefs that work for all of us is because all though,
we are roughly the same, we aren't entirely based on the
exact same conditions/environment....

and as noted in the past, that Greek gods tend to resemble the
Greeks and Ethiopian gods tend to resemble the Ethiopians,
and the Egyptians gods tend to resemble the Egyptians.....
this suggests to us that belief in god is culturally based
and dependent on the culture for the appearance and abilities
of the god in question.... not on some eternal or universal
understanding of god...

Kropotkin

as a ''philosophical detective" one has to wonder about
human beings...what is the nature of being human?

once again, we are guided by what we see in children...
as they haven't been "educated" yet... and we see that
children are driven by emotions/feelings... that we have
to teach/train children to be rational/logical... but we
don't have to teach them to be emotional, to engage
in their feelings... in fact, we spend years teaching children
how to repress and deny their emotions/feelings....''you just can't hit
people'' is one such act of denying children's emotions...
as a worker in the retail industry, the urge to hit people is
an ongoing one... people are stupid and that is no more true
than in a grocery store.. but I have learned not to respond
emotionally to people.. thus I don't smack down idiots who truly
deserve it.. which is something I might have done as a child...

we are "educated", taught how to we live with one another..
in fact, one might say that the bulk of our education is
our interactions with others... how we react and interact
with others is one of the primary activities of our education...

so are people primarily logical/rational or are people
primarily emotional/given to feelings?

well given how much time we spend educating children not
to hit others, I must say that we are primarily emotional beings...
and we spend our time training/educating children into being
rational/logical beings... we respond with emotions, feelings
to events, people, idea's, things.. and we have to be trained into
responding to these things, events, idea's and people rationally/logically...

so given this base to work with, how do we know see such historical events
as the "Enlightenment?" .... we see the period of the "Enlightenment" as
a response to the prior time period which is an emotional period...
the church response to life, events, people, and things are emotional
responses... religion is an emotional response to life and its conditions...
religion is clearly not a rational/logical response to life...

thus, we have the period known as the "Enlightenment" in which
it is suggested to think about events, people, idea's and things
within a rational/logical context...

and what time period followed the ''Enlightenment?"
Why "Romanticism''.. in which the emotions, feelings are given
precedent... and let us further see how certain ism's and ideologies
found their calling in the ''Romantic" period....

for example, the ism known as "Nationalism" came into being
within the "Romantic" period... and why? because "Nationalism"
is an emotional response to events, people, ideas and things...

the idea of "Nationalism'' is not logical or rational.. country above
all else? there is no logical or rational way, one can put one country
above all other countries... how can we make that claim? on what
grounds can we make that claim? How can we also make any such claim
as to white pride or gay pride or "Aryan" pride above any other such
claim? we can be proud to be white, but we cannot put that "Pride"
above any other such claim... in other words, there is no justification
of being proud of being white above pride in being black or in pride
of being Asian...there is no logical, rational reason to put being
white above being black or in being Asian... they are equal beliefs
and thus get equal billing...

to say this another way, many of our current beliefs, that the USA is
the greatest country on earth, for example is not logical or rational..
it is an emotional belief and should be treated as such...
the belief that "white makes right" is an emotional/illogical belief,
not supported by facts or evidence... so illogical beliefs, like
that the Jews "own" the country has no logical/rational basis....
it is simply an emotional response to people, places, events and things....

I would suggest that because being emotional/ irrational is
the basis of human behavior, and actions, that to be logical/
or rational is more likely to be the desired goal of being human....
anyone can and is emotional/irrational/illogical.... but who can
be logical, rational? as that is the rarer possibility,
that is the goal that we should be pursuing.....

and if we are on a path going from animal to animal/human to finally
becoming fully human, then that path is the path of going from
emotional/illogical to becoming logical/rational....
the path to becoming human, fully human is a path that embraces
our emotions/feelings and also embraces our drive toward logic
and being rational... to become human, fully human is embracing
both emotions/feelings and embracing the logic/rational side of
being human....it is not one or the other, but combing the two into
into one.....where depending on the conditions or the situation,
we might act logically or we might act emotionally...

finding love is not a logical, rational act, but seeking love is
a emotional response and we not only want love, but we must
have love to be human.. love is a vital emotion response to
being human, it is not a vital logical or rational response..
we must have both, the emotional and the rational to
become fully human....

to be human is to be both logical/rational and to be emotional/feelings...

that is the human condition....to engage with both sides..
the rational and the emotional....

Kropotkin

Ok, as a "philosophical detective" we must engage in
understanding what it means to be human....

If our understanding is limited to experience, as it is, than
we cannot go outside of, or beyond experience... if knowledge is
limited to experience, then I am unable to know something I cannot
experience... for example, I am unable to, at this moment anyway,
experience going into outer space...I cannot imagine it because
I haven't experience it... we cannot hope to understand something
if we haven't experience it... can I experience giving birth? no,
I am not a woman... thus my knowledge is limited as my experience
is limited....

we as human beings are limited because our experience is limited..
we cannot go beyond experience...
I cannot understand or know what an alien being might think or feel or
hold to be true... my knowledge is limited.. So, I can speak about
things I have experienced, love, management, being married for 26 years,
being male, reading a lot of books, running a marathon, rock climbing,
pole vaulting, being lost in a national park..... I have experienced these things
and much more.... I can speak with knowledge about such things...

but I cannot speak about such things as death.... I will never be able to
speak about or have knowledge about death... it isn't a limiting factor
or something that I fear or is a limited factor in my life... one day I am alive
and the next day, I am dead....

but truth be told, how many of us actually spend time thinking about
our finitude? our end? Very few in fact.... I am about to turn 64 and
death is just an intellectual contraption to me... it has no validity for me,
because I haven' experienced it and I can never experience it and be
aware of it... just as I can't explain sleep while I am asleep... or explain being
unconscious while being unconscious....

it is thought that death is some scary proposition that people think
about and toss and turnabout at night, but in fact, how many
people actually spend more than a minute actually thinking about
death? I don't have a will because I assume my wife will outlive me,
and that is as far as thinking about my death as I have come....

so as far as human knowledge, epistemology goes, what is the
extent of knowledge, is that it goes as far as we can experience it...
our knowledge can only go as far as we can experience it... it
can go no further.... which means I can ever really know what it
meant to be a Greek citizen from Athens because I can never
actually experience that... and I can't experience what it means
to be a person from the distant future, so I can't know it..
I have no knowledge about other times or places, events or people...

My knowledge is limited to me and what I have experienced..... it can go
no further than that....so epistemology is really limited to what
I can know about the universe and that knowledge is very limited....
the extent of my knowledge is limited, to what I have seen, touch,
tasted, heard and smelled....

Now is there such a thing as collective knowledge?
A great deal of human knowledge is such a thing as
collective knowledge.. that is basically what science
and history and economics and biology and chemistry
are.. they are simply collective knowledge...
a scientist says, I have seen this and another says I have seen
it also and another says I have seen it and it becomes part of
our collective knowledge...for science to become part of
our collective knowledge means, we must able to weigh, measure, time
people, events, places, things.. we must have a collective knowledge of
such things... and to do that requires us to understand the universal
aspect of people, events, places, and things...

a planet is a planet because... and we hold that a planet has
certain things in common to each other...

but one of the things that leads us to failure is out inability to
define something... to say, "human beings are rational beings"
is to be flatly wrong about human beings.. but to say human beings
are two legged creature is also wrong because not all human beings
have two legs.. or to say, "human beings have 5 senses" because
that too is wrong... or one might be able to say, Kropotkin,
you are not a human being because you have no hearing and thus
lack a bodily sense that makes you human...
in other words, every single explanation of being human has an
exception.... as does every single explanation of what a dog is,
also has exceptions as does every single explanation of something, has
an exception.....

it is the exceptions that make science and philosophy and
history so difficult to understand.... we cannot pin down what
it means to be human because of these exceptions...

Kropotkin

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Wed Jan 25, 2023 7:03 pmso,
my fellow detectives, what is the right question?

Kropotkin

What specific service do you proport to provide?

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Wed Jan 25, 2023 7:03 pm... so,
my fellow detectives, what is the right question?

Kropotkin

Neti neti.

The right question is not, "Huh?"

You may ask, why is that not the right question? So, I'll take the liberty to ask for you.

Why is that not the right question?

Because that word may take your last exhalation, and your last exhalation is what your whole life has led up to. Gandhi's last exhalation was to say "Ram," so they say.

*

The breath is the king of the mind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcPjvp4La8A

there is a very interesting article about Gandhi's last words
called:

"The politics of Gandhi's last words"

from the UCLA social sciences MANAS... by Vinay Lai...
it talks about the point of Gandhi's last words and what it means....

Kropotkin

Ah, you are a referral service. Like the Yellow Pages.

Walker wrote: ↑Mon Jan 30, 2023 5:08 pm Ah, you are a referral service. Like the Yellow Pages.

K: not at all... what does a detective do?
they solve something... or find something or
they recognize something/ become aware of something...

to understand what it means "to be human" is a job for a detective...
or in another word, a philosopher... a philosopher and a detective
have the same job... to make sense of something... to put
something into context... think about your average detective show..
you have a crime... and there are a series of clues... but what
clues are the important clues and what clues are the "red herring"
clues? and how does one put those clues into context or how
does one interpret those clues? and therein lies the real skill of
a detective or a philosopher... the interpretation of clues...
one might see a man with a bashed in skull and a hammer nearby..
now may draw the conclusion that the hammer is the killing
weapon, but that may not be true.. the hammer might just
be a "red herring" designed to fool the police and the real weapon
may be hanging on the wall...

the point of being a detective/philosopher is to understand
what really happened and why.. not to be fooled by
false evidence or ''red herrings" we see false evidence all the time...
we are fooled by various ism's and ideologies into thinking life is
a search for the baubles of existence.. wealth, fame, titles,
power and material possessions..,

or to say it another way, life is a series of interpretations....
and I hope to make this clear in my next post...

Kropotkin

look outside and look at a tree... I have a tree in the
courtyard of my condo building... according to Kant,
my identifying that tree comes from categories..
and those categories are inbuilt, "a priori" before experience..
and yet this ignores the facts as we know them...
the question before us is, how do we know a tree is a "tree?"
how do we know this Information/or this knowledge?
what is the epistemological basis for our knowledge of the
tree?

I hold that we know what a tree is by experience, by
experienced explained.. which is education....
one of my parents, probably my mother, educated me,
explained to me what a tree is....the category by which I
understand a tree is created by experience/education...
not "a priori", before experience or education...

and how can we make a mistake so basic as to be
unable to tell how we actually get/form categories?
the simple answer is we forget... we forget our education of
childhood... we forget how we actually learn and understand things,
like math, trees, people, concepts, categories...

time is a concept that is explained to us, as is space
as is tree's, as is math and history.... theories are
actually, experiences explained...as is concepts, all
concepts and beliefs and "understandings"...

education is really nothing more than organized indoctrination of
children to the values and understanding of a society/state/ civilization....
and within that "indoctrinations", comes our understanding of tree's,
people, concepts... let us take a look at the simple hammer...

hand you a hammer and you instantly know what a hammer is,
you have been educated/indoctrinated into what a hammer is..
but think about a child.. hand a child with no experience, no
education with a hammer and what will a child think about that
hammer? you might think it is obvious that a hammer is to
pound nails into a wall.. but is it that obvious to a child?
No, no it isn't.... a hammer may be to a child, a paperweight or
a toy or a heavy piece of wood...the idea of a hammer has to
be taught, educated to a child... we might say, a hammer is a tool..
and thus a child learns the concept of a tool.. that idea of a tool
is a category... we learn what a tool is, with the experience we
have with tools.. not "a priori" before experience....

the categories of Aristotle and of Kant are simple the forgotten
ideas that we were taught as children... the very notion of a
category is a learned one, one we discover from experience/
education....

or so say it another way, everything is a question of interpretation...
and how we interpret it lays in our education/our indoctrinations/
our experience.... I interpret a tree based upon my education
about what tree's are... if I am badly educated/badly indoctrinated,
I might be very wrong about what a tree is... but we cannot just look
at a tree and know, "a priori" what a tree is..... we must be educated
first...

so what does this mean? it means that people who have been
indoctrinated badly, will have a wrong idea about reality..
and this is found to be true with the GOP/MAGA crowd....
they have no sense of reality/the truth because they
have been indoctrinated with the wrong ideas about
reality... the idea of a "deep state" is a wrong indoctrination
of reality...and if you start from a wrong place, you cannot end
up in the right place... thus if you start from untruth/unreality, you cannot
end up with the truth/reality...the radical right wing think it is clear cut,
obvious/ common sense about this notion of the "deep state" but even
common sense, obvious, clear cut is nothing more than being
indoctrinated, educated into those beliefs...there is in fact, no
such thing as common sense because the very idea of having
common sense is educated/ indoctrinated into you....
as is what is "common sense"... what is obvious/common sense
is that the sun revolves around the earth... that is quite clear from
the evidence of our senses.. we don't move anywhere, the stars,
planets and the sun move around us, not us around them....
that is common sense.... but the sun doesn't move around the
earth....the earth moves, and the sun moves and the planets move
and the solar system moves and our very galaxy moves and
all the objects within the universe move... can we know this,
have information/knowledge about this "a priori", before
evidence/education? I don't see how....

so the question becomes, we learn about the universe and everything
within the universe by education/evidence... and if our knowledge
of the universe is wrong, if our indoctrinations/education is wrong,
than we cannot know the truth/the reality of the universe...
or as I was taught once, bad information going into us, means
bad information coming from us... we are only as knowledgeable
as our information...bad information means bad information/knowledge
about our existence...

and this is why we must have schools that provide us with
good information... so we have the right information to
make our decisions from... good information/knowledge in, good decisions
out....

Kropotkin

Let us think about knowledge and how we apply
knowledge to our understanding of the world....

if I have been educated, indoctrinated with religious symbols,
than I may view the world within this idea of religious symbols,
if I have been educated, indoctrinated with scientific ideas,
then I might view the world by scientific ideas, if I have
been educated/indoctrinated with political ideas, then
I might view the world politically, and If I have been educated,
indoctrinated with philosophical ideas, then I will see the world
philosophically... our indoctrinations, our education informs us
as to how we see the world...which is why people like
Nietzsche tries to get us to overcome our indoctrinations/our
education....''have you overcome'' is about overcoming one's indoctrinations
and education... to see the world as it is, not as you have been indoctrinated/
educated into seeing the world..... that was the entire point of Nietzsche's
work... to overcome our childhood indoctrinations and education...

and so we return the primary question of the last century and half...
what is morality and ethics? that has been the basic question of
philosophy since Nietzsche...what does it mean to be an ethical person?
we have our indoctrinations and education, but have we "overcome"
our indoctrinations/education, to form an idea about what it means
to be moral/ethical?

This question of indoctrinations and education has infiltrated
every thought we have about what it means to be human,
and a major part of what it means to be human lies in this
question of morals/ethics.. how do we escape our indoctrinations
and education to become who we are and how do we finally become
truly moral, ethical people? Free of our indoctrinations and
education... this is the question facing us as philosophers/detectives...
what does it mean to be human and what does that mean to us in
terms of morality and ethics?

Kropotkin

everything we know, believe, hope for and understand is
a question of how we interpret something...
reality, the truth is simple only a matter of how we have
interpreted it...the only question of existence the question
of how do we interpret it? That is really the only question
of existence...how do we interpret something...

Kropotkin

let us put some "meat" on this question....

depending on what is one's religious background, education,
indoctrinations, we can hold to their being a god and a equal
god named Jesus and all the trappings of the Catholic position
regarding theology... one's education, indoctrinations can
easily lead one to hold to such beliefs... and another
background, education, indoctrinations can lead another
to hold to their being no god, no such person as Jesus,
my own personal understanding of the world... and how
do we judge which understanding/ which reality is true?
On which values or standards do we make a judgement that
there is either a god or not a god? Is there some objective
means to be able to make the determination that there is or
is not a god? I don't see how....one could just as easily say, both
are wrong and just as easily say, both are right.... but Kropotkin,
that is a contradiction, both can't be right or both can't be wrong?
I ask, why not? Because it depends on which interpretation we use
to decide this matter, the religious or the atheistic interpretation?

to base a question on the idea of what our starting point is, then
that starting point determines the answer... if you start with god is,
any interpretation ends with god is...and if you begin with god is not,
than any interpretation ends, with god is not..
we interpret based upon our indoctrinations, our education...
not on any sort of objective reality or truth... because reality/truth
depends on our interpretation of said reality/truth...

the truth/objectivity of anything depends on our interpretation of
said truth/reality....

Kropotkin