An affect, which is a passive state, ceases to be a passive state, as soon as we form a clear and distinct idea thereof. — Spinoza, Ethics, pars V, prop. III The ultimate principle of human life is to be present in it—to act out of awareness. What this means and what the alternative would be is pointed at by the following table: activitypassivityawake, aware, mindfulasleep, unaware, mindlessdoing what you truly wantdoing what you happen to be wantingdriven by reasondriven by … [Read more...]

Facts can be useful because the truth helps us to navigate the world better than falsehood, but: A fact used to argue does not solve a problem. A fact used to be right does not help anybody. A fact used to offend will not promote the discussion. A fact used to distract will not reach intelligent ears. A fact used to rationalize diminishes one's character. A fact used to excuse weakness kills motivation. Communicating effectively with others and oneself requires more than … [Read more...]

For a useful working concept, we can define reality as that which is qualitatively experienced by an aware mind and quantitatively modeled by science. Accordingly, we can describe reality as a spectrum that spans in two directions: one way into the more abstract, quantitative, and objective; the other way into the more concrete, qualitative, and subjective. At the one extreme, we have pure mathematics and a conceptualization of the world as a mathematical object—perhaps an intricate quantum … [Read more...]

Truth is the reliability of a map of reality, the usefulness of a model of the world. Maps which abstractly represent reality can be created in different languages (natural or technical) and at different levels of description (e.g., pedagogic, cultural, high-level scientific, or low-level scientific). Scientists are the most reliable mapmakers, and their most detailed maps are low-level and math-heavy. Spiritualists are the least reliable mapmakers, creating maps based on crude … [Read more...]

Originally, I wanted this article to be titled Answers to Stupid Questions #2: Do We Have Free Will?, but in contrast to the truly nonsensical concept called 'meaning of life' (Stupid Questions #1), the freedom of will cannot be dismissed a priori. Sure, if we understand 'free will' to mean I could have acted differently had I wanted to act differently, then we can reject it as a mere semantic confusion, because in this case the meaning of 'free will' coincides with that of 'will'. However, … [Read more...]