Philosophy Now Forum

two things, first I am violating my own rule not to post
on days I work, today, I am going out of my comfort
zone...

let us think about what hardware is...

Hardware: tools, machinery, and other durable equipment...
The machines, wiring, and other physical components or
other electronic systems...

so, hardware would be cars, tools, smart phones, computers...
and so, what is software?

Software: the programs and other operating information used
by a computer...

all hardware has to have some sort of software to make it work..
operating instructions of some sort...
all computers have some sort of software to make it work...
programming instructions.... much of our modern industries
revolve around the creation of software for the various
hardware that exists today....

and so, we ask ourselves, who creates the software for us human beings?
our operating instructions is created by whom?
I have stated, over and over again, that our childhood indoctrinations
that we have been forced with, is something to overcome....
but why Kropotkin?

think of childhood indoctrinations as software... we are indoctrinated
with software that guides and forms us...part of that childhood
indoctrinations is the belief in god, or the greatness of the American
nation or the inferiority of blacks or Jews...think of our indoctrinations
as software... we are indoctrinated with prejudices, habits, superstitions,
as operating instructions... we are programmed to hold certain beliefs..

now the question becomes, if we follow our childhood indoctrinations,
our programming to the letter, then how are we much different
than a robot? If we escape our childhood indoctrinations/operating
instructions.. that means we are not following our childhood indoctrinations,
we are no longer robots... if we follow our own self created beliefs
and values.. the path of overcoming is the path to self-determination,
this self-determination is a path from/away from following
our childhood indoctrinations..

If we engage in following our own self-created beliefs/values,
we are no longer robots, we are actual human beings....
we are freely choosing our operating instructions, our beliefs/values,
then we are on the path to becoming human, fully human...

as I have stated before, we are on a journey from being animal to
animal/human to becoming fully human... that journey is a journey
of how we follow or don't follow our operating instructions...
if we follow our childhood indoctrinations, then we are robots,
or said another way, we are animal.... for animals follow their
operating instructions, which is called instincts.. we human
beings do have instincts, the drive to procreate, the drive
to obtain our basic necessities like food, water, shelter,
education.... these drives are really just instincts, or
operating instructions... and we have psychological instincts,
drives.. such as the drive for love, to have esteem, for safety/security...

all human being have these drives.. the only difference is the
different ratio's of the drives... some may want lots of love,
some only need a little love and some want/demand safety/security
before love....the drives/operating instructions are there, for all
of us... in this regard, we are nothing more than robots...
seeking that which is programmed into us...we human beings
are social creatures... we must have contact with other human beings
in order to survive.... babies deprived of the touch/love of human beings,
die... seeking love is as essential as seeking food or water or education....
that is an operating drive.. an program within all of us...

and no matter how are we try, we cannot, cannot overcome
our set programming which was created by nature... by
evolution... we cannot overcome that drive/programming,
no matter how hard we try...

but we can lean into it.... we can make love our primary focus,
our primary goal in life... we can make love, the basis of
our programming... the basic goal of our operating systems...
and that is good.... but we have other programming within us..
the drive to hate, the drive to lust, the drive to greed....
again, the ratio's for each of these instincts are different
in everyone... some desire and demand to hate, that
is there programming... and some don't hate as much
as they lust or as much as they hold to greed as their
primary operating program....

to overcome these instincts/operating programs.... is to
become more human.... to become human requires us to
overcome our instincts/operating programs of childhood...
our childhood indoctrinations... and we replace those
instincts/childhood operating programs with our own
operating programs, we are becoming more human....

the goal of becoming human is to reduce and eliminate
our childhood indoctrinations/programming/instincts....
to go from being a robot to becoming human...by
having our operating systems/programs to be
programs decided upon by ourselves.... I am more
human when I choose the beliefs and values that I want,
not that were programmed into me...

self-determination is the path to becoming human...

and this is why we must overcome our childhood indoctrinations..
for that instructions are not our own programming, but the programming
of the state/society..

do you follow your childhood indoctrinations? then you are not
yet fully human.... you are a robot... nothing more, nothing less...

this is why we must examine our beliefs and values to see if they
are actually our values and beliefs or are they the societies/the state
beliefs and values...given to us within our childhood indoctrinations....

do you believe in god? is this belief driven by your own self-determination
or is it driven by your childhood indoctrinations? I suggest that
for most people, they believe in god because they never escaped
their childhood indoctrinations...they never overcame their
original programming, their childhood indoctrinations....

what beliefs/values of yours are actually just childhood indoctrinations
or what values/beliefs of yours are actually values and beliefs
that you have self-programmed? you have gained within
a reevaluation of values/beliefs?

are you a robot or are you human?

that is the question...

Kropotkin

so given the above, what values/beliefs should we be
seeking? what values/beliefs that we seek, will
help us toward our goal of becoming human,
or not staying as animal or animal/human?

as noted before, in becoming human, we try to escape
our childhood indoctrinations.. that black are inferior to whites
that America is the greatest country on earth... that there is
a god.... these childhood indoctrinations are nothing more
than programming designed to be operating instructions upon
which we act upon... the childhood indoctrination of there is
a god.. is designed to have us believe in and act upon
as a fact... it provides us with the basis for our actions in
the world... we strive to achieve/reach heaven within a set,
proscribed understanding of the world through which we
act on... by believing in god/jesus, we can reach heaven...
by following gods' laws, thou shall not.....
we can reach heaven.... this programming or operating
instructions is programmed into us.. hence the value of
Sunday school.... however, we are not free to act differently
than the set/proscribed way of acting.... we must act in
a certain way if we are to reach heaven... that is nothing
less than programming... indoctrinations as it were....

we are not self-determined to act differently or freely...
we cannot choose another path because by doing so,
we violate our programming/our childhood indoctrinations
which are, as all programming is, very hard to break...

if I were to become self-determined, which is to say, I make
my own rules, I am freed of my programming/my childhood
indoctrinations... but that has consequences.. we are
quite often shunned, forcibly quieted.. told we are
nothing, told we have no value of any kind,
if, if we fail to practice our programming/operating instructions
as required by the state/society/the civilization....

to go out on one's own is both in theory and practice,
difficult....

but that leaves us with many difficulties...for example,
what does it mean for such theories as morality/ethics,
if we are engaged in our own self-determination?
What moral/ethical rules are we to follow if, if we
are the creators of our own morals/ethics?
and what kind of chaos/anarchy are we inviting
by this self-determination of what is ethics/morals?

as I have stated before, I hold that the current state/society
has no idea what is moral or ethical..... we have lost that
since the loss of religion in the modern world...
what is ethical/moral in a no-god world?
and upon what do we base our actions/behavior on
if we have a no-god world?

that is the question that has faced human beings since
the 1850's.. we can say that the modern world was created
by Darwin.. with the publication of his book in 1859,
the "Origins of Species"... one hundred years before
my own birth... how do we know what is true/right if
we don't have a "god" to guarantee it?

every single philosopher since Nietzsche has tried to
work out a theory of ethics/morality within our no-god world....
Wittgenstein called himself an "ethical philosopher" ..
his works were an attempt to reach a new understanding
of ethics/morality.... (see Monk's biography)

and at this point in time, no one has succeeded in the creation
of an ethics/morals that works in this no-god world....
and if they had, would there have been a holocaust,
an atomic bomb, Vietnam/My Lai massacre, mass
murders every single day in America? the problem of
our time is this lack of a moral/ethical theory that
allows us to have some meaning of what it means to
be human....

the real problem seems to be that there is, at this point in time,
no metaphysical theory that seems to cover all human behavior...
in other words, there is no "first, prime, universal principle"
ethics/morality that covers all of us... there is no metaphysical
theory that covers us universally...

if there is a need, a dire need in this world, I would say that
the primary goal of philosophers is to create this, if possible,
universal, primary, first principle of ethics/morals....

and failing this, as I suspect we will fail, is to the creation
of ethics/morals that covers most of us... and that in itself
is quite a challenge... for within everyone lies an ego
that says, the rules don't apply to me because I am special...
within that principle, lies the reason for our chaotic, random
world....besides the fact that our world, just by the way
it is, is random, chaotic... and that is our second problem
built into our universe is randomness and chaos....
there is no avoiding this...as there is nothing in the universe
that is certain because of this randomness, chaos, we are
faced with being unable to create a first/universal principle
that covers everyone/everything...

what is an possible answer? by our ability to hold to self-determination..
if we can remove, eliminate our childhood indoctrinations,
we can, by choice, hold to having values/beliefs that
are held by other human beings... we can agree to certain
principles because we have self-determination...

we can collectively that murder is wrong....
we can collectively agree that using a nuclear weapon
is wrong... we can agree that torturing people is wrong...
now we may not have a basis for our agreements..
why is torture wrong? we may not know that answer,
but we can agree to it anyway... (one possible answer
might be, I myself wouldn't want to be tortured, so
why would I agree to the torture of others)

we can agree to a set of principles, even if we cannot
agree on what basis we should accept those principles...
through the use of self-determination....

but through the use of our childhood indoctrinations,
this prevents us from some sort of agreement that
can cover all people.. because everyone has
a different childhood indoctrination...
it is different given our time of birth, our place of birth,
our parents or our society/state....if you are born Christian,
you have a different set of childhood indoctrinations than if you
were born Muslim... and this fact alone, prevent us from some
sort of agreement as to what values we might share or comprise
to... the path of self-determination may, or may not, allow
us to reach some sort of agreement to values and beliefs
we can hold together or share.... a better chance than if
we just practice our indoctrinated values/beliefs as given
by the state/society/civilization......as indoctrinated values/beliefs....

Kropotkin

This is old news but it's not lost its luster. The computational analogy for the mind (software)-brain (hardware) complex has merit and I endorse it although with some reservation.

I'm knitting a sweater for my brother.

Nice color! Does he like maroon?

Red, his favorite color!

I see.