I was having a good talk with one of the boys yesterday, discussing education, and life, and things one can spend one’s time doing. Philosophy as a study came up. I am thinking about what I told him I thought of the subject, and came to the conclusion that I have a real animosity for the subject. There is a lot of room for clarification here, philosophically speaking.
First off, why do I have animosity for the subject. Well, when folks go down long paths trying to come up with the possibilities for what could be, there is a total waste of time and time is what life is made of. I think I also link it to a couple of other things in my mind, such as a circle of friends passing a joint around, or that other all time high, religion, which is just a bunch of human made answers for what people do not understand, or at least did not before science began covering the gaps God got stuffed into by humans. As I got older, I have found that such circles are not the right place for me to be in.
Philosophy is okay in the training of the mind to determine what is real from what is not, but it is not okay to pave the path to the rabbit warren. My concern is, we are where we are, and we are what we are, and we are doing what we are doing. Making up ideas out of thin air is great for understanding possibilities, but to start believing in them with no scientific evidence is absurd. For example, and I get there are folks that entertain this possibility, the multi-verse model where every decision we make spawns both a universe where we chose A, and one where we chose B, is completely absurd to me. Like I am that important. Does a bird in flight that moves a little to the left, rather than a little to the right spawn a new universe, too? All of the animals and humans since the beginning of time would thus seem to account for trillions upon trillions of new universes, possibly every year. And that is just on this planet alone. With such a broad universe where consciousness mostly does not exist, why would conscious beings have this effect on the universe, to cause it to be replicated so many times? Absurd.
So, my exercise in philosophy is useful as far as a bullshit detector goes, but as far as a labyrinth of expanding possibilities of my own creation… I would rather spend my time with my children, raising decent people, and helping them prioritize the things that matter most in life so they can get the most out of it before they die, and leave the world in a better state than it could have been otherwise.
This simple explanation is brought to you by a one sided discussion. It is not intended as an answer to all things. It is the skeletal beginnings of my own philosophical treatise on philosophy. Live on, move forward, and do it with determination, and a good dose of humor.