a reevaluation

[Peter Kropotkin]

every so often, we need to rethink, reevaluate our thoughts,
our thinking and in this case, we need to rethink philosophy...

today, 2023, we have a set of thoughts and beliefs, that
go back thousands of years, from the days of Socrates/Plato,
and even further back in terms of religious beliefs, which in the case
of the Jewish religion, go back another thousand years or so...
but what thoughts or beliefs are relevant to us today, in the here
and now?

Is the values and beliefs of sheep herders 3000 years ago,
really the values and beliefs we should we have in our
modern, technological world?

Or is philosophy really still base on values and beliefs of the Greek
writers 2500 years ago? our world is so vastly different than the world of
the Ancient Greeks, that we may as well be different species...would the
Greeks be able to ''deal'' with our modern world, when old people like my
mom can't tell with it.. no cell, no computer, never leaves her house,
just quietly watches TV and putters around her house.. she is 89...
and millions of people, just like her, avoid the modern world and
its technology...

what philosophy or values, can connect her with us, those who
are actively engaged in the modern world of cell phones, and computers
and AI... and that connection is hard to find even in the age difference
of 25 years between my mom and myself...
and try to connect Plato and myself.. 2500 years later...

but Kropotkin, the bond between human beings is still within our needs
and our wants... Plato wanted the basic necessities of existence which is
the biological needs of food, water, shelter, health care, education....
as do I... so we have a connection there... a connection of biological needs
that we both need...and we have a connection within our psychological
needs.. the need for love and to love others, the need for safety/security,
the need for esteem, a need for belonging...
all human beings have those basic needs..
so we might not connect on a philosophical level, but we can connect
on a much more basic level...a biological and psychological level....

so when Plato writes about concepts like Justice, it is with the
understanding that our basic bodily and psychological needs are
already being met...so philosophical writing is already based on
our basic needs already being met.... it assumes that our basic
human needs are being met...so ideas like philosophy, history,
economics, politics, are really secondary requirements.. not
primary requirements... ''why are we here'' type of questions that
can only be answered, if our primary needs of food and water and love,
are already being met..
or said another way, starving people don't care about questions of existence...
or people lacking the psychological needs, of love or belonging, don't care
about the basic requirements of food or water...

So, this answers the question, in part, as to why philosophy doesn't
seem all that important today... it is rather irrelevant to people that
are in pursuit of the needs and desires of human beings...
if you are hungry, or lacking in love, who cares about the questions
about existence that Plato brings up...

the next point is that we have an set agenda that purports to answer
the question of needs... that after we have our biological and psychological
needs met, we then pursue the trinkets of existence... we are told that
the point of existence is to pursue wealth, power, material possessions,
titles, or fame... as the goals of existence.... and most American's
believe in this set agenda of pursuing those trinkets of existence...
and I have laid out post after post after post, that this isn't so...
pursuing those trinkets of existence lead us nowhere.. answering
questions like this... what is the point of existence? and the answer
in these trinkets of existence is to buy things or to become famous,
or to pursue titles... pursuit of these trinkets leads us nowhere...
for no biological or psychological need is met within the pursuit of
those trinkets... or does owning a status object really meet our
psychological need of belonging?

No, the status needs of acquiring objects is about ego, and not
about belonging.. to feed the ego, that is a far more common
need that is constantly portrayed by the media... own this truck
and you will be the envy of your friends... is a constant refrain of
modern advertising... and that owning is not a legitimate need,
either a biological need nor a psychological need, but an ego need
driven by our modern day consumerism....and modern day
consumerism, isn't about our biological or psychological needs,
but about feeding our ego as to our status with other human beings...

fueling our ego, that is the modern state of affairs.. and that fueling
of our ego is done in the media and commercials and TV and movies..
our music and in our choice of careers... vanity, that is the driver
of our modern world.. for ego is about vanity... to look cool or to
look rich or to be famous.. ego driven, vanity driving goals...
that does nothing for us on a bodily or psychological level, that
is our primary needs...

ego driven needs are really just empty calorie needs being met...
stoking the ego, nothing more...

so, if we reject our modern day world of ego stroking,
and needs driven by ego.. what is left?

Kropotkin

[Walker]

Ego is the price of progress because it's the source of ambition.

[Peter Kropotkin]

with the question being, do we follow Plato or
do we follow the bible? For decades the question was
phrased as such, Athens vs Jerusalem...
as defined by Lev Shestov in his book,

"Athens & Jerusalem""

but the modern day world, of transhumanism, overpopulation,
global warming... of technology like cell phones and computers,
the question is no longer which ism we follow, Plato or the bible,
for neither can adequately answer the question in our technological
world...

Nor can either Plato or the bible, answer the Kantian questions,
''What am I/we to do?" "What can I believe in?" ''What can we hope for?"
''What can I/we know?"

in our modern, technological world, the answers to these questions must
come from something other than 2500 years old books...(the bible answers
are closer to 3500 years ago) and what can the sheep herders of that time,
know what the solutions are, given the complexity of our times?

to those who believe that faith is always the answer, faith cannot answer
or solve the questions of global warming or overpopulation, to name just
a few of our modern day problems....

the ridiculousness of those answers, given our modern day problems,
would leave us laughing except for the fact that today,
with so many believers of ancient texts, that today, they
are now part of the problem.. in following religious texts, of
3000 years ago, and using them to create ''solutions'', like
banning abortion and discrimination of all kinds, they
are creating many more problems than they ''solve''

the religious ''solutions'' fail because they have no clue about our
modern technological world...any valid solution must take into account,
the environment that is happening right now... and Plato/Athens fails
on exactly the same grounds... the environment that Plato/Athens works
for, no longer exists and hasn't for centuries...

the modern conservative solution of dictatorship by the village idiot,
usually IQ45, has already been answered by the German example,
it will fail, as all dictatorships must fail... Pinchot, De Gaulle, Franco,
all dictatorships and all failures.... and for some countries, it has taken
decades to recover from those vast failures...

I would place dictatorships under the bible/Jerusalem example...
for believers, god is a benevolent dictator... and we must follow the
example of the bible, at all cost.... even to the loss of our freedoms...

I must now leave for work,

Kropotkin

[nemos]

Starting from the ego's point of view, or placing the ego at the origin of its coordinates, we can come to the realisation that there is only one subject or observer in the world and everything else is the environment and the objects of observation that make it up. In principle, this state of affairs has only one drawback: there is no one to blame.

Does modern technology make us superior to people from antiquity ?, I am not sure, because the ability to use a telephone does not burden the user with the need to know how the telephone is built and how it works. Even rats can be trained that if you press one button you get a snack, or a spanking if you press another. Observing what is going on around us, we must conclude that, as in ancient times, modern people still need bread and entertainment.

By the way, why the belief that if you read Plato's writings, or those of any other deceased thinker, you know what he was thinking ? It is true that a particular form of writing or cipher is the result of someone's thoughts, the point is that when you read the work you will decipher it according to your own understanding, because there is no way of asking the deceased author exactly what he meant by it anyway.

[Peter Kropotkin]

and to continue my reevaluation...

there are, and have been, many diverse ways to look at
existence... among the many paths are two paths that
have been around since the time of ancient Greece...
and exemplified by Plato and Aristotle... 

Plato is offered up as one example of Idealism... and
Aristotle is offered as the other example, materialism...
this conflict between idealism and materialism, has
been part of the Western intellectual narrative for over 2500 years..

to think about it this way, science is Aristotle method, of materialism...
and philosophy being the father, son and the holy spirit of science, is
also engaged in Materialism...or at least it should be.. but philosophy
has been often engaged in theories of idealism...

and religion is idealism... of the mind... or does heaven actually
exists and if so, where? and angels, and demons and god...
they are said to be of the spirit world.... not in the actual world,
flesh and blood, a physical body..... no, religion is the faith
of the mind... idealism...

this battle between materialism and idealism, is also known,
as previously mentioned, the battle between Athens and Jerusalem...

and this battle extends into politics... the GOP/MAGA party engages
in wishful thinking and that boys and girls is idealism...
the last election wasn't stolen, and there is no such thing
as the ''deep state'' and IQ45 is an idiot who is functionally illiterate...
and couldn't spell cat given the C and A...

whereas the left, engages in questions about feeding people, or
meeting the biological needs of people, food, water, shelter,
health care, education..... these materialistic questions require
answers and those answers don't come from the anti-life right wing...
depend on god, they say... for capitalism to work, it requires the invisible
hand of god... that is baked into capitalism...people engaging in their private vices
doesn't turn into a public good... unless somehow god makes it so...
and that is idealism... depending on some outside forces likes god to
make something work is idealism...

so, this question of idealism vs materialism has been said to be the primary
focus of philosophy since the beginning... again, Plato vs Aristotle...
and the questions of idealism vs materialism, still drives both public policy
and questions of philosophy...

so, we have two ways of dealing with the world, idealism and materialism...
but this is a reexamination of values... is there a third path?  
do we have another path besides materialism and idealism?

many have tried to find it, but does it exist?

or perhaps a combination of the two might be the path into the future....

we use idealism to create some sort of goal or meaning and then we use
materialism to create that path into the future? is that a viable path between
the two paths... combine them?

those of the idealism path, reject, and some rather strongly object to
the materialism of the world... the Catholic Church rejects the questions
of the body, materialism, for the ''certainty'' of faith, idealism...
the human body is denied... calling sex or ART as obscene, that is
the rejection of the body... that is idealism.....
if it is declared obscene or immoral, that is idealism...
declaring the human body as obscene or immoral, or acts of the body,
as obscene or immoral, that is the path of religion....

we human beings, we are still, bodily anyway, animals...we cannot escape
our being animal in our body functions... we fuck and defecate and other
animal actions... and we cannot do anything other than our bodily actions...
we eat and sleep and dream and worry and judge others... we are animals...
biologically anyway.... and religions reject this notion of human beings
being animals... we can try to overcome our bodies by denial of food,
or water or shelter... but the end result of that is death...... which seems
to be the point... to reach god by a denial of bodily needs....
the Yoga philosophy of India is one such path.. whereby learning to
overcome the body, we can become aware of the one and true path....

the Buddha himself rejected such a path after he tried to overcome
the body by asceticism... Buddhism is referred to as the ''middle path'',
he taught the middle way which is halfway between asceticism and
''sensual indulgences''..... following his path, the middle way, is
the true path to freedom from ignorance, craving, rebirth and suffering...

which leads us back to the question of materialism vs idealism....

and which path do you lead? materialism and questions of the body
or are you idealistic, questions of the mind... personally, I stand with
materialism.... with a dash of idealism... and you?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

another aspect of a reevaluation, is this question of
''What am I/we to do?" the two sides are simple enough,
one side is the contemplation side, where one contemplates
what it means to be human? the other side is action..
doing instead of contemplation, thinking....

when the religious think about contemplation, what they are
engaged with, is the contemplation of god..... and how do I
get to heaven... where I will again, engage with the contemplation
of god.. this time forever....(this idea of contemplation as being
the meaning of existence, is actually taken from the Greeks.. their
idea of the ''good life'' is an engagement with contemplating the
meaning of existence.... another thing Christianity stole from the Greeks)

so, once again, we are faced with two choices, the choices are contemplation
and doing.... we can find meaning/purpose and salvation in the act of
contemplation or in the act of doing...

and again, I wonder, is there a third possibility.... do we have
a third choice, or do we have some combination between the
two choices, some combination of contemplation and action/doing?
what is outside of or beyond the two choices, contemplation
or action/doing?  

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

and this reevaluation continues into another aspect of ''What am I/we to do?"

should we engage in contemplation/idealism or should we work/do/materialism?

within this question, lies several assumptions... that we can only find
salvation, within work.. within doing something? Or can we only find
salvation within the bible, that scripture alone, is the only means
to find salvation.....to have faith is the path to heaven, regardless
of any work one might do to win the vote of god....

today what little faith we have in the west, is found in the pursuit of
the trinkets of existence... that we can find salvation within the pursuit
of money/fame/material possessions/ titles/ or power....
that is the modern faith... and its name is capitalism... that modern man
has clearly rejected religion as one path into salvation is quite clear...
the churches are empty every Sunday... and the number of atheists rise
every year... I see this as being good, except for the fact that
it hasn't been replaced by something worthy of replacing religion...
and capitalism isn't worth replacing anything...
which leaves us the question of what ism or ideology do we have,
right now, that can replace religion, as an ism worthy of belief?

what should we be contemplating if not what it means to be human?

the question of the future is, what beliefs/and or faiths,
become the values going into the future?

if not, god or religion or that quasi religion, capitalism,
what is next?

I have advocated a system whereas we hold a set value, such
love or peace or charity as our value going into the future...
so, with every action or thought, we think, what does that
action or thought bring us closer or further away from my set
value, be it love or peace or honesty?

in other words, we judge the universe through our chosen value...
does this action or value bring us closer to our chosen value..
so, does violence bring us closer to our chosen value of love
or peace, or does violence takes us further away from our chosen value...

and we hold this value to be our value and not as conservatives do,
as they hold to negative values such as anger, hate, violence...
the path into the future is to hold to positive values and not negative
values...instead of a set ism or ideology, we hold to single values...
and we hold to positive values like love or hope or peace or charity..
to name a few positive values.... and that is the beauty of holding
to a single value instead of an ism or ideology...
we can see the universe as being an agent of that value or not..
in which case we can act as an agent of that value.. so, we see
violence in the universe today... but we can hold to peace as our
value and with every thought and action, we can ask, does the action
I see, hold to my value? if not, we try to change the universe to become
a place of peace or love....we become agents of our chosen value...
we promote and try to change the world into that value we have chosen...

one of the values of the universe/world is certainty... and I find that certainty
is a danger to us as human beings.... if we are certain, we can and have made
really bad choices for ourselves and the world.... the conservative holds
that everyone must be certain about their being a god and that the only
choice is to say yes or no, to heaven....

but I hold to doubt as being the path to wisdom... and in holding to doubt,
I am much closer to being in ''truth'' than I am if I am certain...
there can be no movement of belief or of values or within wisdom,
if we hold to certainty of beliefs... I am unable to adapt if I hold
to a set series of beliefs that are unchangeable...
and something we have learned from evolution,.. the creatures
that fail to adapt also die out... if we want to continue to exist,
as a species, we too must learn to adapt in body and spirit...

thus holding a set beliefs unto death has no value for us, as
human beings....the question of being human requires us to
change and adapt to the conditions on the ground...
with each new environment, we must change and adapt our values
and beliefs to flourish within that new environment...

and I believe that holding to god or to heaven or to finding salvation,
within a set of beliefs that are over 2000 years old, no longer allow us
to survive and prosper... we have to adapt and change to the ever
changing conditions on the ground... as we are now a technological
world, with conditions that the sheep herder of the bible, couldn't have
envision in their wildest dreams... does the bible have an answer to
global warming, or to overpopulation or to the coming/already here
AI revolution? I have read the bible many times, and no, the bible
has no answers outside of trusting in god.. having faith...

and much of the current world's problems lay in this trusting in god,
in having faith...both the current wars going on, the Ukraine and the
Hamas/Israeli war, are wars of competing faiths... and neither side
is willing to change, adapt or even bend...and thus thousands die,
needlessly.... these thousands die because both sides in both conflicts
believe they hold the truth.. and no other truth is able to challenge
or change their minds about their obstinate holding to ism's and ideology
that have move into the night and are no longer of value in the
modern world.... the side that can adapt, that is the side that will
win.. and prosper into tomorrow...

can you change or adapt to move into the future?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

as there is no one else in this forum, I am literally speaking to no one,
as is par for the course....

One may ask, what is Kropotkin's world view?

I hold to a different view... I hold that the human condition is
vastly different than what we think it is..... our world, is
one of randomness, of choice, of probability, of chance....
there is no set path into the future... as our world is govern
by chance, and probability/randomness....  

the question of who we are and what we can do/become is one
of choice, and choice is often governed by chance and randomness..

the world of classical physics is not our world, but our world
is really quantum mechanics... where we don't know what is possible
or impossible... we can only guess at the right possibilities or the right
choice... what choice is the right choice? we can guess but we can't know
for sure... that our lives and choices is dominated by chance,
randomness, and probability....and our philosophy, our world vision,
our thinking must include the random/chaotic nature of the universe... 

and today, few if any are engaged in that modern way of thinking in
which chance, probability and randomness is our guide, and path
into the future.... not certainty and fear.. that so dominates all
our thinking today... being afraid of the unknown... almost
every bad decision we make today comes from our being afraid...
look at the GOP/MAGA many fears and what they do about it.....

do I really need to list the many diverse things that the GOP/MAGA party
is afraid of? and their answers to those fears makes America and its citizens
far worse off.... the fear driven attempts to take away our freedom and
rights like abortion and voting and our sexual choices and being
the person who you are, not the person that society/state demands
you to be...and punishes you for not being a person of conformity/
and docile allegiance to values and beliefs that are not your own.....

the GOP/MAGA party tries to make everyone conform to values and beliefs
that create a certainty in the world.... and we don't live in that world...
our world is of chance and probability and randomness... once
we learn to accept that... life will go so much better for us,
individually and collectively...

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

to continue my education/reevaluation...

we come to another question, that of naturalism....
does the universe/world operates within natural rules or
is there a supernatural aspect of the universe?

can we explain the universe/world in terms of the rules of science?
I hold to a fairly hard naturalism... in which we can discover the
all the rules of the universe in various ways... for example, we
have, as the rules of the universe, gravity, thermodynamics,
entropy, energy/mass, motion position..... are some examples
of the laws of physics which explain the nature of the universe...

Now some hold that there are some areas of existence that isn't governed
by those laws of physics... and in that small area lies the supernatural,
the mysteries of the universe...in that small area lies god.....

that no matter how hard we try, we cannot know everything...
but that doesn't leave room for god or angels or heaven...
that just means we don't know... we don't have a law for
that.... yet...

our blind spots are not points that need a god to explain them...
it is within the very nature of being human that allow us to have
blind spots where we don't have the answer to certain questions....

How was the universe first formed? How did life get it start?
How did human beings get consciousness?

we may never find the answers to these questions.... but that
doesn't mean we need god or some sort of supernatural answer....
it would be nice to know how the universe began or how life began,
but human beings not knowing, that won't effect us in any way, shape or
form.... life will go on even if we don't know how life began.....
will life end? I would venture a guess and say that, yes, at some point,
in the universe existence, life itself will end....but all I have done is guess..
nothing more... and you can venture another guess that says yes, life
will go on... and we will never know that answer... my guess however is
based on the physical law of entropy.... eventually, everything runs out
of energy... and when that happens, everything becomes inert....
life ends...but we are talking billions if not trillions of years...
we will never know.....

another mystery is the knowledge or lack thereof, knowledge of
what happens to our soul at death? and whole lot of assumptions
have said a whole lot of things.... but in thinking about the soul
in terms of naturalism... we can suggest a few things...
that there is nothing in the universe that is eternal... not
even the universe... and if that is true, then how can the soul be
eternal? is there even such a thing as the soul? can we assume
that consciousness is the soul? for myself, I can't make that assumption....
but Kropotkin, that is then a mystery... no, it is just something that
we don't know... just because we don't know something, doesn't automatically
make it a mystery, an argument for god/heaven/hell/angels.....
we just don't have a natural law for it yet, nothing more....

the universe is explainable by physical laws like gravity and electromagnetism...
even to the understanding of the existence of life.. we may not why life began,
but we can explain why life matters and what is its point/goal.....

religions are explanations of existence by supernatural rules...
anti-life religions make death the point of existence... Christianity,
for example, is anti-life, pro-death... the crux of Christianity is the
crucifixion of Jesus...and then his rebirth... the death and then the rebirth...
and the only way to be reborn, to be saved is to die first... and then
being reborn... that is anti-life, pro-death...
for we cannot be saved until we die first...

the same goes for Buddhism... in which the goal is to avoid suffering..
within that goal lies the escape from being reborn, again and again...
we must escape being reborn... or to encounter life again... that makes
life itself a negative... not a positive...to escape suffering which is
considered to be being born, aging, diseases and finally death... these
are the suffering of existence...the acts of living/existing are suffering...
I don't view life as suffering... yes, we get diseases, and we grow old
and we finally die... but that isn't suffering, that is the cost of existence...
just like getting into a movie cost us some money, existence itself
has a fee.. and that fee is the being born, of growing old, of
getting diseases and finally dying.... the so called suffering of
existence is really the price of admission into life...
if you want life, you must also pay the fee, which is growing old,
and getting diseases and finally dying....

and now comes the really important question, is life worth the
admission fee? can life itself be painful and hard to live through
and oftentimes, unbearable? Yes.. it can be quite painful and
unbearable..... but that is something that every single human being
faces... the very hard times, the unbearable times of existence...
and yet, we are comforted by the fact that those painful,
unbearable times are not lifelong.... we can in fact outlast our
painful and often unbearable existence... many years ago, I had
very painful spinal surgery... it was hell for a couple of years..
but I outlasted it... today, yes, I am always in spinal pain, but
I can live with it... it has become my cost of existence...
I must bear it and even outlast it... it has become as much
a part of my existence as having legs or eating lunch...
it's just always there... and I can leave it at that.....
and does that suffering define my existence? no, not at all...
the suffering we hold to in our existence need not define
who we are or define who we might become.....I can still
reach my own possibilities of being great at philosophy..
regardless of the pain or the suffering I go through every
single day...and today, I am legally deaf.. I can wail and cry
to the heavens how mistreated I was, but naw... I simple go on
with my existence.. knowing that I am deaf... is it a part of,
an aspect of suffering? yep, yep it is, but so what?
we all, every single one of us, suffers from some sort of pain
and anguish of existence, some sort of suffering... and so what?
it doesn't define who we are unless we allow it to define us...
I can make my hearing loss the single most important aspect of my
existence... but why bother? I can exist with or without my hearing...
and my response to my hearing loss, the choices I make in regards
to how I respond to my hearing loss, is just that, my choice....
and the question of existence becomes choices, and not
the suffering of existence that many make it to be....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

Indian philosophy/religion has but one basic viewpoint...
and it can be summarized in a couple of sentences...

"There is nothing worth knowing, there is nothing worth enjoying,
there is nothing worth knowing but Brahman alone. for he
who knows Brahman, is Brahman''

and we have this:

" In one half verse, I shall tell you what has been taught in a
thousands of volumes; Brahman is true, the world is false,
the soul is Brahman and nothing else"

or we can even shorten this to:

''Tat tvam asi''

''thou are that''

seeking the one, that is everything, be it god or Brahman, has been a game
played by human beings, since the very beginning of human existence....
and yet, this seems to me to be wishful thinking.... we have no more evidence
of the one, of either Brahman or god, within our existence....
wasting our lives seeking something that doesn't exist, that doesn't seem
to me anyway, to be a very productive life? In any sense of the word, ''productive''..

what can we know for sure? that we currently exist... that life has
a duration, that our very existence is because of random, unpredictable,
even chance events that we have no control over...

randomness is clearly an important part of existence, so, how does
one explain a random, chaotic, chance universe in light of a god/or
Brahman, the one?

one might say, that god/Brahman had already set up existence, even
to the point of setting up chance/randomness... but with that said,
that randomness quite often creates evil, death, suffering in both human beings
and within animals.... how can a random allowing god, allow evil, or
death/of suffering, to reach human beings?

if existence is random or controlled by chance, what is the point of having a
god? or having Brahman?

questions without answers, if, if one holds to the idea of god or Brahman...
if one holds to a universe that is random, full of chance and/or probability
then we have our answers... we may not like the answers, but we have
answers....

a universe dictated by god or Brahman is a universe
that allows evil and suffering for no point at all....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

now one of the key questions of philosophy lies within
the concept of meaning... what is the meaning of life,
for example....

we can have a couple of different responses...

but we can frame a response within a god vs a no-god world....

think about it... in a god world, we are not master of our own fate...
we are, on planet earth, nothing more than tenants...
if we accept the story of the bible, then we must also
understand that god, at his convenience, can simply wipe out the
human race...does the story of Noah's Ark ring a bell?

if we are in a god universe, then we are simple tenants on earth
and god is the landlord... however, if we go with a no-god world,
we are owners... ownership vs renting... is the basic question
that is framed within a god vs a no god universe...

and what of meaning, within a god universe, our meaning or
reason for existence becomes quite different in a god universe
vs our reason for existence in a no-god universe...

many people panic in thinking about a no-god universe because
that pushes the burden of existence back onto us... we are our own
creators in a meaningless, no god universe... and that frightens people...

people want, desire certainty, and life being an open and shut case...
this dogmatism, leads us to dictatorships and other formats that
helps creates certainty... and this need for certainty, stems from,
in a large part from, our need of safety and security....

and open-ended/no god universe where we create our own meaning and purpose,
can be and is for many, scary and unpredictable and creates ambiguity... which
many people hate...
we want to cling and hold onto that we makes us feel safe, secure and comfortable....
and the belief in god does just that...

but if we live in a no-god universe, we don't have this certainty or security,
we might otherwise have... in our universe where there is chance, randomness,
probability as a factor in our existence, that is uncertainty and scary...
the possibility for chance and randomness takes away our ability of
security and certainty...in a random, unpredictable, universe driven
by chance, we cannot be certain about anything.. and thus many people
are fearful in their lives...

but what I am going to say is this... we must learn to embrace
and even desire this randomness and uncertainty... to love and
embrace the nature of the universe which is random, chaotic,
unpredictable and driven more by probability, then by design...

think about it this way.. as children, we desire and demand
predictability, certainty, stability..... but the fact is as adults,
we cannot predict or be certain about anything.. uncertainty
drives much of what we do and believe in as adults...
learn to embrace that uncertainty, that unpredictability,
that chaos and chance that comes in a no-god universe...

human beings in a very real way, fear an unpredictable,
and random universe... we hide behind religions and god
and dictatorships to escape this random, chaotic universe
that exists within a no-god universe... we fear the unknown
and that fear drives us into supporting village idiots like
IQ45 and Putin...if we cannot find certainty within the
universe, let us embrace that... if we cannot find meaning
and purpose within the universe, then let us embrace that....

does that make for one very scary life, yep.... but that very fact
that we exist within a random and chance universe, does give
us a chance to create our own meaning and purpose...
and that is worth the fear and uncertainty that we have....

do you embrace randomness and chaos or do you seek out certainty
and the definiteness of god and religion?

make that choice.. and what opens up to you is your meaning and
purpose or not....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

one possible way to think about a god world vs a no-god world,
is within the word authority...

one whose authority do we act in a god universe as oppose to
a no-god universe? the authority that counts in a god universe
is of course, god... and within a no-god universe, on whose
authority do we act? therein lies the question... on whose authority
do we act if we are in a no-god universe?

and if we seek authority within our political or social or economic
systems, we are lead to different authorities... in some cases,
the authority we ''obey'' lies within the economic system,
we are to obey our economic overlords, and the answer is
different if we are referring to the political authorities...
and the answer is once again different if we are referring to
our ''social'' authorities.... on whose authority should we be
acting on? the political, the social, the economic, and we
can extend this out to the scientific or philosophical authority....
do we obey scientist or do we obey the politicians?
one example of this is the ongoing debate in allowing
abortions... if we listen to the doctors, there are several
legitimate reasons to medically allow abortions... if we
listen to the politicians, there are no legitimate medical
reasons for abortion.... so, on whose authority should we
listen to?

therein lies the question of authority...
who should we listen to and why we should listen to
that authority? for medical issues, we should listen to
doctors and for political issues, we should listen to
politicians.... but Kropotkin, everyone has an agenda...
yes, yes they do...... and you yourself has an agenda..
does that cloud your judgement?

so, on whose authority should we listen to and why that authority
as opposed to other authority?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

we have established that what drives most human beings is the
needs... the biological needs and the psychological needs of food,
water, love, safety/security, shelter esteem... these needs and
more drive human beings to act...the basic necessity of humanity is
to fulfil our needs...

another need is nowhere talked about and that is the need for
knowledge.. to know....we can even see this need in animals...
both dogs and cats spend a great deal of time within their existence,
trying to explore their world... what is ''that''? the dog or cat asks,
and they attempt to understand ''that'' by smell or touch or sound...

for most animals, they are mature within a year or two... but not
the human animal... we take over a decade to mature... and why is that?

I would venture a guess that we human beings have so much knowledge that
we must learn, that it takes that long to learn it....think about how much
we need to know, to successfully be human....
and not just in facts and knowledge but in being able to ''read''
other human beings... much of childhood is just learning how to
be part of a society/state....learning to be human is learning how to
act and interact with other human beings... learning to be part of
a group or a society... and the fact is that part of being human is
hard enough so that many people even after decades of learning,
still can't interact with other human beings....we even have a word
for our inability to interact with others.. "faux pas" a social blunder....
a blunder made from our lack of knowledge in dealing with people....
me personally, I make social blunders all the time...
and I know of others who do the same and yet, some people, for
whatever reason, handle their social interactions differently
and with the proper knowledge what to do/say in any social situation....

much of human knowledge revolves around this idea of being able to
act and interact with other human beings... if, I were to guess, I
would say that this aspect of human existence maybe the most important
knowledge that we learn as human beings....for we are social creatures..
we can only exist within a state/society.. within our contact with other human
beings... and a vast number of our biological and psychological needs
center around this social interaction we have with others... to find love,
a primary need, can only happen with others, and procuring our biological
needs can only happen with the help/aid of other human beings....
we cannot feed ourselves nor educate ourselves nor can we find
health care by ourselves....

our basic biological needs can only be met in our social interactions
with others...if so much of being human lies in our actions and interactions
with others, then this might suggest a meaning or purpose in our existence...
to fully be able to act and interact with others may just be our meaning
and purpose in existence....and within those interactions with others
that is so vital to our human existence, we also have our own
individual possibilities.... to seek meaning and purpose within our
own possibilities... which can only be fulfilled by our interactions with others..

as I have explained before, every single one of us, has the possibility to become
something within the possibilities that lie within us... so that means is
that it is possible for me to become something due to the inherent
talents and abilities within me...when I was young, back in the stone age,
I ran track and cross-country... but my talents were limited, I wasn't that
good... and because my talents were limited, I didn't achieve the goal
of being a very good runner... I was ok, at best... but within my own
possibilities today, is the possibility of becoming a great philosopher...
and so, I make my own goal, my own possibility as to being a great philosopher...
am I there yet? maybe, maybe not.... but every single day, every day, I strive
to be the greatest philosopher in history... and within every single person,
lays some possibility for them to achieve, to become.... I cannot say what
is your possibility, that is for you to decide....but to achieve that possibility
means that we must, must be able to be part of and interact with
other human beings.....our own greatness requires us to be able
to interact with others.... that is the cornerstone of all greatness...
for we cannot be/become without others... we cannot met our own needs,
either bodily or psychologically without others....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

one of the key points of being human, is our actions and interactions with
others... to back that point up, we notice that one of the most
successful books of all time, with over 30 millions copies sold, is
the book:

"How to win friends and influence people"

and the basic premise that we can, all of us, learn to act and
interact with others with some success if, if we follow some
basic rules...and it doesn't matter if the rules are pretty simple,
they are, but the fact is that in order to be successful, we
must have the knowledge to act and interact with others...

my own personal success depends on my ability to act and interact with others....

if I were to pinpoint the reason that most successful people succeed, is
that they know the rules to act and interact with others...
so in my view, the knowledge worth knowing first, is this ability
to act and interact with others... before any other knowledge,
this is the basic, primary knowledge that we human beings must know...

and what is the second thing that we human beings must know?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

so if knowing how to act and interact with others is the
primary goal of, point of existence, then what is the next point?

that it is knowledge itself that is most important for us human beings....

we are born a blank slate, Tabula rasa, as they say,
and we must gain knowledge to fill in that blank slate....
learning how to act and interact with other human beings is
the gaining of knowledge... filling in part of the blank space...
and this pursuit of knowledge drives much of what it means
to be human...to learn what it means to be human means to
gain the knowledge of what it means to be human....
to get our daily bread requires us to have knowledge
and to read god requires us to have knowledge
and to become a great philosopher requires,
yes, you guessed it, knowledge....indeed, for us to become,
well anything, requires us to also gain knowledge... so, one
of the primary goals of existence is to gain enough knowledge to
become who we are... I cannot be a great athlete, or a great
mathematician.... but I can become a great philosopher... that is
possible...but I must know information before I can become...
what has other philosophers written... I have spent years seeking out
that knowledge...

so, in the end, it is the pursuit of knowledge that makes us human...
and within that knowledge is the information that allows us to
become what we can possibly be...

so, one: how to act and interact with others...
two: that knowledge is the primary way we become human...
and to achieve anything in life.... so, what knowledge is the most 
important knowledge to know? the religious say, religion's knowledge
is the most important thing to know and the mathematician says
it math that is the most important thing to know and the philosopher
says its philosophy and the historian says its history....
so, who is right? they are all right... if becoming a historian is
important to you, then historical knowledge is them most important thing,
if becoming a mathematician is the most important thing, then learning
math is the most important knowledge one must know...
the path we take dictates the knowledge we must learn and know....

human beings want to know.. the question is what is the most important
thing to know? and that is the question isn't it?
Aristotle once opened a book with this sentence:

''Man wants to know''

so, what do you want to know?

Kropotkin