_ The human perspective:
The disciplines of philosophy are constantly important because they contain the frameworks of our presumed knowledge. In the purest sense, "facts" are very simple objects that reveal surprisingly little. Few assumptions are required to accept that a rock is positioned exactly where we observe it. If, however, we seek to not merely accept the brute fact of the rock, but to attempt to understand it -- that is, how it came to exist and to now exist in its present state, we then must seek to interpret the [basically inarguable] fact. And as objects to be questioned go, rocks are far less opaque than the object that asks the questions, the human mind. How then is it to be understood? In seeking to understand the world we experience empirically as a rational, and more or less coherent whole, there are several interpretational theories and strategies to which we can turn. These ideas were argued by the ancient Greek philosophers and have been developed and argued for at least 3,000 years. At stake, of course, is the way we understand the material world, the way we understand the nature of humanity, the way we understand the meaning of 'existence' and, some would say, the meaning of 'meaning' -- in other words, all of our ideas about science, personal relationships, personal responsibility, government and society, spiritual experience, justice, altruistic and charitable endeavors, intellectual endeavors such as the arts -- i.e., everything. Idealism versus materialism. Realism versus positivism. Pragmatism, transcendentalism, reductionism, existentialism, skepticism, nihilism -- to those committed to a given view, only one framework may be seen as being a reliable path to "knowledge" or "truth" ("truth" itself often being either pre-defined or denied by the framing of a given view), often to the complete rejection of other views. Here it certainly seems, from a dispassionate point of view, that the allowance for significant error is very great. The problem of human understanding centers on the limitations imposed by the state of being human.

_ Philosophical eclecticism?
So to which school of philosophy do I pledge my allegiance? Not to any one -- but I will only eliminate a few: existentialism has little value apart from its propensity for questioning and its store of generally complex and dark art; post-modernism is a flickering candle in the wind that whines at the doors of nihilism's morgue. Nihilism is brain-sanctioned brain death. Positivism ultimately denies reality and is courted by nihilism, nonetheless a few of positivism's noetic claims are valuable, if only to keep us humble by helping to define our ignorance. But positivism is caught in its own trap. Employment of a 'verification principle' -- which cannot itself pass its own test -- certainly cannot define our ignorance out of existence! The positivist's convenient judgment that certain sufficiently understood statements are "meaningless", is, by its own standard and language -- meaningless. Being much more of a realist, I adopt only what I find valuable in positivism before leaving it, with its suicidal logic, at the cold door of nihilism. Although I believe that I would be accurately described as being something of a skeptic, at least a methodological one, I observe a frequent lack of a broad skepticism among purported philosophical skeptics. Quite often a supposed 'skeptic' is too selectively skeptical. In such cases, one side of an issue may be summarily dismissed, without honestly skeptical (i.e., questioning) analysis, by conveniently defining a vulnerable 'straw man' representation of it and then triumphantly destroying this dubiously self-serving representation. On the other hand, this same 'skeptic' may make little or no effort to critically analyze another side of the issue with which he closely identifies. In fact he may have an obvious ["love is blind"] affection for a position which he readily accepts a priori, and of which he rarely, if ever, seems to sincerely ask the difficult questions. If and when he does, he may be anxious to accept logically weak answers. Such a selective skeptic may decry the "pragmatic fallacy", but of course this is one of the fallacies which he practices. He has accepted his narrow version of selectively critical thought as the approach that 'works'. This is his pseudo-pragmatic choice, and this is his error. His error might be more clearly understood in another way. Skeptics tend to see themselves as having somewhat more intellectual integrity than do (derisively) so-called "true believers," that is individuals whose beliefs are not rationally supported (or whose beliefs are not perceived as being rationally supported). Our poor "skeptic" who only superficially examines some ideas -- for the sole purpose of affirming them, while turning his attempts at genuine skepticism toward selective ideas which he is willing to superficially characterize -- seems more of a true believer than a skeptic. An existentialist observer (probably without smiling) would say that our pseudo-skeptic deceives himself, and I would agree. This is a practical difficulty of skepticism: unskeptical "skeptics".

_ Intellectual honesty:
When honestly practiced, skepticism is extremely useful. It can take us most of the way to where truth awaits. But never all of the way. This is why I find little difficulty in describing myself as a skeptic and a pragmatist and an idealist. As such, you might call me a Platonist; scientific method generally works wonderfully -- as evidenced by the computer on which I compose these words -- but purely empirical methods cannot examine the whole of truth, especially its deepest aspects. Some individuals, usually quick to call themselves skeptical 'thinkers,' seek to over simplify the nature of the quest for truth, to insist that truth must only be found within very narrow parameters. This is the view of the philosophical materialist. It confuses the obviously meritorious products of methodological reductionism with the potential horizons of the unknown and the depth of the mysteries of epistemology and ontology. The emergence of quantum theory has, in interesting ways, demonstrated the error of the materialist's presupposition. The reality of the material world is not simple, it is complex and is reduced to sophisticated packets of information. Matter is energy is information is mathematics is immaterial is an ethereal genius. This is what we find the material world reduced to. To insist that truth is pure mechanism and is neatly contained in the four dimensions we can empirically scrutinize, is not skepticism, it is true-belief. Philosophically, this remains true when we look to theories of superstrings and/or a unified field. Theories which introduce deeper levels of explanation, universally require still deeper explanations. We earnestly attempt to define our 'world' with ever greater systematic cogency, but no matter our progress in this endeavor, the deep mysteries always persist.

While the search for understanding may not be simple, the practical matter of living a life can also be more complicated than we desire it to be. I would certainly like my life to express a greater simplicity, and this will be the subject of my next brief essay...

People love agendas. Climbing 'the ladder of success', making more money, doing something really impressive (perhaps even something important), getting the newest techno-toy, getting ... whatever, getting drunk. Moreover, people love to talk about their agendas and to construct programs in their homage. It seems ever to me that what people hate is peace. This "lifestyle" -- agenda now; peace, well... maybe later -- is the world view of a hungry rattlesnake. You can't blame the rattler, but human beings are capable of a richer existence. Often, while being hammered with people's agendas, I am aware that I would prefer the company of rattlesnakes. The ideology of modernity (we might say 'post-modernity') is this: there will be time for peace when we die, while we live and breath we must do, we must acquire and consume, we must buy and sell the agenda, although it must ultimately be admitted that this is absurd. The post-modern agenda is generally hostile to much of the inner life, it marginalizes practices such as meditation and simple concentration, it is hostile to intellectual and spiritual growth (unless, perhaps, such "growth" is directed by a program of the agenda toward its own ends). It seeks only to entertain itself with absurdities. It is disdainful of quietness, humbleness, openness, restfulness, respectfulness, wildness, otherness. At odds with principles and realities greater than the winds and currents of human agendas and entertainments. At war with wonder itself ...

True success is to live richly outside of the agendas of modern cultural myopia, to "stop and smell the roses." There are both things to be learned and defeating difficulties to be rejected, in 'smelling roses'. Many people (perhaps most young people) may not know what we're talking about. I'll attempt an explanation: While you've perhaps had a peripheral understanding of relativity in physics, you would enjoy understanding it as Albert Einstein might explain it. One day you come upon the small book which he authored to explain the special and general theories to the lay person. The book is not thick, but if you don't take your time reading it, you may think that your head is. Nothing in the aggressive agendas of post-modern society can give you the insight you seek from these pages, not an inflated paycheck, not possession of a new machine or toy or gadget, not fame or celebrity status, not a cyber-journey into 'virtual reality'. Here is something that you can only receive during quite time alone. From Einstein we learn that 'time' is a physical attribute, a dimension of the physical world. Only to points within a four-dimensional coordinate system does it have the meaning we associate with it. Yet we Earthlings are such points and time provides a 'field' within which we briefly exist. None of the popular precepts of the modern world can exempt us from this reality. The intellectual and spiritual self ask that time be considered wisely (this is a sermon to myself), our possession of it is tenuous. When we allow time to feed the mind (intellect, if you prefer), we find that we also feed the spiritual component of our being, and vice versa. We find that they are synergetic. Consider now spiritual growth -- recognizing that it is a concept almost completely foreign to popular Western culture. Many people might [negatively] associate the word "spiritual" with those entities which sadly misrepresent the truly spiritual while claiming to be its champions. Examples of this are inevitably found on television -- the silly tele-psychic 'info-mercials' and the oddly emotional tele-evangelist pleading for money while dressed in diamonds and expensive clothes. But the truly spiritual has first something of unusual value to give, not to take or to sell. This spirituality is evidenced in people who seek to surrender self-focus, to avail themselves to something greater than self, to grow away from self, to sacrifice where necessary, to submit, to live their beliefs and values, not to sell them. The truly spiritual realm must be first a private and personal place. In the words of John of the Cross, "true spirituality consists in perseverance, patience, and humility." It is an honest seeking of a Greater other. It is not found in coercion or commerce, neither can it be found in the popular dogmas of self obsession. It may be that I have spoken about matters of mind and 'spirit' as if they were somehow separate but equal -- they are not. Knowledge and discernment (qualities of 'intellect') will die in a spiritual vacuum as they are driven by fascination that transcends rudimentary interests [eating, mating, surviving], and by devotion, joy, and wonder (qualities of 'spirit'). As Einstein said, the stranger to wonder "is as good as dead." Plato, long before him the patriarchs of monotheism, and today in our so-called 'enlightened' age, many others have made the same observation; we find that the realm which we must define as spiritual is fundamentally deeper -- more important to cognition -- than is the realm of the 'intellect', and that in fact, the 'intellect' is but a manifestation of something more necessary and more mysterious. This is the nature of cognitive intelligence, of what we human beings know as "consciousness". It is also a truth that is generally ignored by the paradigms of materialistic and cynical post-modern society.

And what of wealth? What is true wealth? What is the true cost of the material gadgetry we pursue? Thoreau rightly said that a things cost is "the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it." The average modern human may not ruminate on the words of Thoreau, but he knows well the credo of material hunger: "He who dies with the most toys, wins." It is the marching music of post-modern consumerism. For most of us there are but two roads to greater wealth: the first is to struggle harder to possess more, the second is to desire to possess less -- to happily de-accumulate, and in so doing gain greater access to life.
He who dies with the most toys - is the dead guy who has left the most rotting and rusting stuff behind for the world to have to dispose of. The purveyors of things tell us that he has "won", but they are wrong. He has, in a real sense, trivialized life.
He who dies with the least need of toys - has lived as a man of indestructible wealth. He has known peace, and in doing this has demonstrated how to 'win'.

"If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy... that is your success. All nature is your congratulation... The greatest gains and values are farthest from being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist. We soon forget them. They are the highest reality. Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man." -- Thoreau

The process of becoming more intelligent is the process of becoming familiar with one's ignorance, "but it is a wise ignorance which knows itself." Consider the writings of history's greatest thinkers and discover that "there is nothing new under the sun." Descartes critically analyzed 'artificial intelligence' more than three centuries before science fiction writers 'invented' it! Augustine examined time as a physical dimension 1500 years before Einstein.