Things I suspect about existence

[JBC]

Disclaimer - I'll not likely ever meet a single one of you so don't mistake this as an attempt to impress. The following is a string of thoughts that have been had by others before. A mesh up of statements about conclusions that have probably been met by countless people over the last million or so years. So if that makes it clear I'm not blowing myself here, these are simply thoughts I find profound and like to focus on in my downtime. If anything label it an attempt to strike up interesting discussion and provide an nice late night read for the Shmups forum. So... here's some thoughts.

Justice is an idea, not a force of nature. If you want it you have to make it happen. The universe is indifferent. 'It' doesn't know you're even here. There's no one watching you, and nothing driving your story. Everything that's ever happened to you is a direct result of your action or lack thereof. Lightning doesn't strike people, it just strikes. This may seem unfair, but it's actually the most fair anything could be. It puts us on an even playing field with the world around us.

This means you no longer have to rely on the whims of an imaginary being to call the shots for you. It's empowering to know you create your own destiny. It also doesn't mean you have to give up on your religion. What it does mean is that you've started to recognize the ground rules set forth for you in the universe. If there is a god, you are using the mind he gave you for it's true purpose, as a tool to succeed in the scenario he's created for you. You were given a mind to think for yourself.

There is no bad luck. There are no evil spirits. There is no pre-determined fate for you. Studies show that even our concept of time is off because it's the way our brains formed to handle being here.

On time, once a moment has passed it is gone, its only a memory and when you die even that will be gone. All the marks man can make on the earth will erode away. Any memorials left will turn to dust. Don't worry about being forgotten, it's inevitable. Don't worry about destroying the earth, we can't. We can only make it uninhabitable for ourselves. We are nothing to mother nature.

What you don't see only happened in theory. As far as I know, I'm the only person that's real. At that, color is just light hitting the eyes so the matter is real but the way we perceive it is not. All the images you see are just an interpretation of what is really there and your memories of them are unreliable. In fact, the entire universe may as well exist within your mind and memories. Not to diminish them or their importance, for if you thought something then that thought became real and the memory it spawned is no less true despite it's intangibility.

Your universe is yours, my universe is mine. I will NEVER fully understand or know your universe. I will never know what it's like to be another person, no matter how well I can guess or pretend or empathize. As well, people are not their bodies or their faces or their voice.

You did not choose your name and you have never seen your own face. Only reflections and photographs. You didn't choose your face either. Or your voice or skin or species. In fact were just animals who build better huts. Were not better than them, we just think differently. They are probably happier for it. Also, they quite outnumber us and considering that number means overall their ignorance makes them indifferent to our presence. They don't care that we are here nearly as much as we care that they are, so any feelings of superiority over the animal kingdom are just delusions of grandeur.

On that subject, there is purity in instinct. An insect doesn't feel guilty for eating another insect, as well it shouldn't. It just did what it had to do, what it was programmed to do in order to survive. So, the difference in our thought patterns I mentioned earlier is the purpose I mentioned of our minds before that. We have the power of choice and free-will over our instincts, to an extent. The mind is both a tool and a weapon and it is your choice of when to use it as either. That's the only thing that makes us different from the animals. Not better though, not by far. Just different.

Now you may feel that alot of what I've said is wrong. You may feel that you are fated and not in control. But it's your choice to feel that way. It's also your choice to give such credence to your feelings, which are emotions, which are instinctual leftovers that have led you to make mistakes many times before. I feel that this way of thinking gives me power over myself and the power to make decisions based on logic rather than desire.

I hope you enjoyed. It's pretty long winded I know but that's some thoughts I hope some of you will find interesting. Just trying to incite some discussion, debate, or flat out arguments here So what do you think?

[Ed Oscuro]

Studies show that even our concept of time is off because it's the way our brains formed to handle being here.

You are on the verge of making a pretty common mistake here. What do you mean about our "concept of time?" In memory, we know we tend to clump things together, so we're all already aware (or should be) that our memory of events tends to dilate things (obviously; you can remember the rough outline of even your most boring time in detention in a momentary flash). In terms of how we perceive time "flowing," it doesn't disprove the general outline of time.

This is an instance of a more general problem with trying to figure out things from our senses, which puts our mind at a remove from the world. Francis Bacon and Descartes both wrote on this subject, moving in different directions to deal with it - Descartes tries to find a safe starting point for reason, while Bacon reasons that being aware of the difference between reality and the ways we try to make sense of it is necessary for science (and generally), but I don't think he believes that it means that we apprehend an illusory world (some earlier medieval Christian philosophers, and I understand some Hindu thought, deal with that side of things).

In fact, to believe in a fully empirical, nihilist worldview seems to indicate that to a large degree you believe the evidence of your senses. I would be very interested to hear if this could be logically contradicted without defeating the nihilist worldview.

Anyway, about that nihilism? Simply saying "well, it looks like there's nobody in charge here" seems OK so far as it goes, but ultimately, what use is it? I think that even the hardest of the hardcore atheists would prefer to have strong foundations, and nihilism mainly aims to overturn that. Luckily, I don't think there is any contradiction in believing the evidence but also working for finding strong foundations to ethics, axiomatic systems (like math), and so on.

I think it makes more sense to leave nihilism alone, because it explicitly seeks not to provide any guidance (at least as I understand it). This is not the same as me saying "let's be credulous and believe any old damn thing now," of course.

Off topic - is there any interest in having a kind of informal meeting group on philosophy in this forum?

[shmuppyLove]

I was going through this kind of stuff on the weekend for some reason. Just about how 'artificial' and 'contrived' everything is around us, based on how we experience our reality.

And it's not much of a stretch when you think about it. Just take our senses for example. Now imagine that you can hear slightly better. Now imagine that you can hear significantly better. Now imagine that you have 3 eyes instead of 2, or only 1 eye. Your reality would be very different from the way it is now, and how would everything change around you accordingly?

[Vyxx]

We are what we experience.

To be honest the opening post sounded like it was taken straight from a book on the Tabula Rasa theory.

[Ed Oscuro]

Just take our senses for example. Now imagine that you can hear slightly better. Now imagine that you can hear significantly better. Now imagine that you have 3 eyes instead of 2, or only 1 eye. Your reality would be very different from the way it is now, and how would everything change around you accordingly?

That would be a difference in degree, but not really in terms of what is possible (in one sense). Obviously, throughout history, having much better instruments than eyes and ears, and having better telescopes and scales than before mattered. It wouldn't make the universe deeper, though, and it wouldn't affect what's out there to see / hear / taste / touch. It would affect things so far as you could react to them more precisely than before.

I am interpreting your post in one way though - when you say "better," I take it to mean that you could hear quieter sounds, not that things would sound more musical. On the taste side, I would assume you mean that the person can distinguish between more kinds of substances, but not that things would taste better to them than before. So our very concept of "better" senses has been conditioned to fit empiricism, but in previous times you have to wonder if people would have thought that way.

If I said to somebody long ago "here, this will allow you to see better," they probably would have heard of somebody who saw things very far off, or who could see very small details, or who could see better at night, so they would probably expect that it would do what we expect. I'm not so sure that would have held for taste, or touch, though.

For all practical purposes, having better senses (by the modern definition) wouldn't give us that much of an edge in understanding the universe, because our senses would still be captive to the way we perceive the information we're getting (optical illusions, or the frog that doesn't perceive slow temperature changes in the water it is sitting in, are examples).

Our senses (both the "hardware" and the interpretation, "software" component) often work to see things by degrees, so if I give you better sight, and you are in a room with a slightly bluish bulb, or a yellowish incandescent one, will you not see white things as white in either case? In practice the answer is pretty much no, we usually don't. An even more straightforward example is seeing in various levels of light. We often don't perceive ambient light levels as dark or bright if there is enough light to fit into our comfortable viewing level - we mainly see areas as dark or bright based on the light of the place we just came from. I still remember going back into a dark school after being outdoors - and I think it was an overcast day, too. It's interesting to note that, even if I had better vision, I probably still would have remembered how things seemed a bit green and generally dark when going back inside, so the experience often counts to our perception more than raw data. Compare this with an image sensor that will record light well only at a certain level - as a photographer you have to be aware that too much light will cause the whole image to be recorded as pure white, and too little light will have you trying to boost the light captured. Our eyes do this without us realizing it most of the time.

[SuperSoaker360]

We are what we experience.

Everything is just a perception of a perception.
Perhaps there lies an even greater undiscovered reality than the one we've come to know now.

[maxlords]

We are what we experience.

Everything is just a perception of a perception.
Perhaps there lies an even greater undiscovered reality than the one we've come to know now.

I studied this a fair bit when I minored in philosophy. It's pretty much a given that we are COMPLETELY limited by the intake and processing of sensory input to understand and intepret the world around us. Chances are that most everyone only has a general idea of the world around us and we can only somewhat understand other people through shared experiences filtered through our own input and mental apparatus.

I recently realized how odd this is in a very small way when I found out I'm one of the very small percentage of people who don't have any major vision problems but can't see 3D movies properly. Apparently my brain doesn't interpret it very well and all I see are flat planes...almost like overlays. I had no idea that other people see 3D movies differently than I do....only the most in your face stuff is visible as 3D to me. I can't have that experience. I can't really relate to it. It will definitely affect my ability to intepret and enjoy movies in the near future. My perception drives my fundamental view of the movie and the medium in general, separating me from others who have a different experience watching the exact same thing. We ARE perception.

[Ed Oscuro]

We are what we experience.

Everything is just a perception of a perception.
Perhaps there lies an even greater undiscovered reality than the one we've come to know now.

I studied this a fair bit when I minored in philosophy. It's pretty much a given that we are COMPLETELY limited by the intake and processing of sensory input to understand and intepret the world around us. Chances are that most everyone only has a general idea of the world around us and we can only somewhat understand other people through shared experiences filtered through our own input and mental apparatus.

Understanding other people in more or less useful terms (practically) isn't usually a big problem (assuming you aren't a committed solipsist or a sociopath, which I doubt many of us are!) due to shared genes, experiences, and mental patterns. To be sure, misunderstandings and the lack of complete information pose huge problems, but it's merely a small subset of the problem of understanding the universe at large. I realized, after writing my bit about perception above, that an even better example of this is the idea of the range of feedback our senses give us: Nobody would know of infrared rays without the use of some device, even just a prism and thermometer, to detect the invisible (to us) infrared rays. They were predicted, but not found until nearly a century after by William Herschel.

I recently realized how odd this is in a very small way when I found out I'm one of the very small percentage of people who don't have any major vision problems but can't see 3D movies properly. Apparently my brain doesn't interpret it very well and all I see are flat planes...almost like overlays. I had no idea that other people see 3D movies differently than I do....only the most in your face stuff is visible as 3D to me. I can't have that experience. I can't really relate to it. It will definitely affect my ability to intepret and enjoy movies in the near future. My perception drives my fundamental view of the movie and the medium in general, separating me from others who have a different experience watching the exact same thing. We ARE perception.

Sounds like slight astigmatism, which is what I have. Driving through blizzards is great fun.

[evil_ash_xero]

"Existence, well what does it matter? I've existed for the best use I can. The past is now part of my future.
The present is well out of hand."

Good quote, huh?

[neorichieb1971]

The only thing that makes humans different from animals is our systematic approach to "comparing" with each other. Over trivial things.

I think about my existence a lot and why it seems so meaningless. Money doesn't help me change my view on it. I think only being immortal could change my view on it. My perception is "existence" is that it was not designed. It has beauty, but it has too many flaws to be designed.

So what happens when I die and I lose all my senses? Does the world vanish in its entirety?

[NTSC-J]

What is a man?

[JBC]

What is a man?

A miserable little pile of secrets!

[Aliquantic]

I think it makes more sense to leave nihilism alone, because it explicitly seeks not to provide any guidance (at least as I understand it). This is not the same as me saying "let's be credulous and believe any old damn thing now," of course.

I would disagree slightly there (like you, as I understand it), as it seems a little... loose for any nihilistic theory to just say "there's no inherent meaning" and leave it there without any sort of examination. Nihilism and related concepts do try to address what it means to live without meaning, (atheist) existentialism and absurdism come to mind. They're still concepts that are mainly defined negatively by what they're not, though, at least as far as philosophy goes... which is admittedly not very encouraging for discussion

[SuperSoaker360]

So what happens when I die and I lose all my senses? Does the world vanish in its entirety?

Well there are different views. Some people like Materialists think we'd just rot when we die since everything we are is materialistic. Others are Dualists who believe that the mind and body are separate and, thus, usually believe that there is a kind of life after death.

Materialism is somewhat depressing to contemplate given that all the feelings we have are merely reduced to chemical reactions affecting the way our brain works. Dualism provides the sort of comfort that things like love are powerful feelings and are beyond this world. I guess if I had to choose, I'd lean over as a Dualist. I don't want to live feeling that everything I experience is just the body naturally reacting to something.

[TodayIsForgotten]

So what happens when I die and I lose all my senses? Does the world vanish in its entirety?

This was probably one of the most interesting topics for me as a kid. Existence and the such. I always tell people we practice dying when we sleep. I hardly remember any dreams (apparently we dream every night). But i always find it amazing how the time between sleep and wake is so long but so short and so empty (only when reflected upon) and suddenly i'm awake. As if i'm "reborn" again, only to have to go through it again the next night.

I have this odd issue where a few times a year i'll wake up in a panic and immediately, without thought I know what I'm panicking over. Yet, my body just goes on autopilot. I'll get out of bed, lean on the bed and deep breathe as i watch events in my life flash before me. Almost sucking the life out of me. Parents. Dead. Passions. Gone. Interests. No longer. It almost feels surreal but it clearly is not. It gets very hard to describe and/or put into words but it's the thought of dying and since everything in my life has some sort of meaning. Whether meaningless or meaningful...really upsets me. The irony is, dead has no emotion, thoughts or memories.

[louisg]

I suspect it was the point that Cronenberg realized he couldn't just tread water doing biological horror films forever. It's probably a good choice, too, considering how rehashy and rambling it was. The only real bright point is when that guy from Scanners shows up.

[professor ganson]

As a professor of philosophy, I'm always glad to see people curious about such things. The thing to keep in mind is that there are incredibly smart people who spend all of their working hours and then some attempting to be very precise about these problems, philosophers who know their logic and are deeply immersed in the sciences. You can benefit from READING such philosophers or taking their classes. References to the literature on any topic you like can be found here:
http://plato.stanford.edu/
The search function is your friend.

[Ed Oscuro]

Parents. Dead. Passions. Gone. Interests. No longer.

"Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. Your philosophy killed my father. Prepare to die."

You can benefit from READING such philosophers or taking their classes. References to the literature on any topic you like can be found here:
http://plato.stanford.edu/
The search function is your friend.

Uh oh, you gave away the seeecrets! (The SEP, and also reading as a useful tool for philosophers.)

[JBC]

As a professor of philosophy

Constructive commenting. I'm sure a professor wouldn't step in just to waggle his dick at everybody so would you care to contribute instead of just stating the obvious?

Someone remind me to post my thoughts on the reliability of documents and prideful prefixes later.

[professor ganson]

Calm down-- I enjoyed your post enough to respond. And I really think you would get a ton out of a well taught philosophy class. You have the creativity and interest.

I doubt that the existence of the SEP is obvious to the general public, and it's really nice that it is available to everyone. Most advances in philosophy get published in journals and you need access to a research library to read them. I remember when I was 16 years old and decided I wanted to think about philosophy, all I had access to was a public library which had exactly one philosophy book: Plato's Republic. I stole it from the library (because I was an idiot), read through it and absolutely hated it. Now I think it's a truly amazing work: I teach the Republic every year and have published a few things on it (though my main area is actually philosophy of mind). But as good as the Republic is, I can't believe how paltry my access to philosophy was compared to kids now. So much good stuff to read, and you don't even have to leave your house!

Fair point about the prefix. When I came up with my name for this site, I had no intention of actually using it. I didn't even know what a forum was, exactly! My students just call me "Todd".

[antron]

we're in a matrix dude! it's controlled by some computers that don't understand the law of conservation of energy. they think they need to keep us alive, but all they really need to do is burn the food they give us, like a calorimeter does. i made this all up. i am an idiot.

[JBC]

Sorry, was a bit of a grump this morning. Your OP does come off kinda snooty. Don't underestimate people just because they don't have a degree or aren't a paid professional. No one corners the market on deeper thought. That attitude will prevent others from trying and hold us back as a species. I've taken Philosophy but didn't learn nearly as much from my classes as I did staring at the sky when I was a kid.

[professor ganson]

I think my op came off the wrong way, and I'm sorry about that. Many philosophical questions are so hard that there is no agreed upon way to address them. Philosophers tend to prefer careful reasoning and want to stick to the sort of rigor that is typical in the sciences. My op was expressing that bias, but I didn't mean anything personal or insulting about it-- just expressing my opinion. I realize that there may be other productive ways to engage with these things; I just wanted to point out one common way of getting into the issues a bit deeper.

[kid aphex]

My extraordinarily simplified 2 cents:

Reality is consciousness forming and developing new, more complex outlets (biology, technology, et al) for itself to emerge through and experience itself, moving towards what seems to be the end state of Universal (capital U) oneness

[Ed Oscuro]

Don't underestimate people just because they don't have a degree or aren't a paid professional.

Well, since ganson was so kind, I'll lay it out: Your postings on these subjects reveal your knowledge of the subject is not especially wide-ranging. This is not a critical flaw, most philosophers have decided that they should know the criticisms of their own positions, at least. (i.e., your descriptive defense of animal abuse here, which I hope was parody and not serious, because it would take about two seconds to tear apart from any critical perspective).

@ Ganson:

What do you teach?

Reality is consciousness forming and developing new, more complex outlets (biology, technology, et al) for itself to emerge through and experience itself, moving towards what seems to be the end state of Universal (capital U) oneness

I touched on this earlier; it's not a new idea. However, it seems to have a couple of critical failings - you might want to look at these two listed on Wikipedia. From my own perspective, I also have to ask the question - how would you test the idea that reality is only consciousness? In that, this is not a scientific hypothesis - not that this need bother you; so far no hypothesis has proven rigorous enough in this regard. But it seems weaker than others even in this regard. Additionally, how is it useful to think of reality as merely consciousness?

There is very little evidence for it, and the evidence that does exist (i.e. Heisenberg uncertainty, entanglement) seems to apply regardless of the "conscious" aspect or not. At the time of the famous Schrodinger's Cat thought experiment, it wasn't known that any detector would work, and that consciousness was not a required property to provoke an outcome. At the end of the famous popular science volume "Coming of Age in the Milky Way," author Timothy Ferris holds out the idea that reality works something like the ancient idea held by some Greeks that we see because our eyes emit something that reaches out to things, and then returns (a bit like the WWII German "Vampir" infrared scope technology), but this is pretty problematic for a number of reasons. There is just too much evidence that things are there whether there is something perceiving them or not.

More basically, there is a common argument that ex nihilo, nihil fit - from nothing, nothing comes. The idea that reality is consciousness seems to pose an intractable chicken-and-egg problem.

Just to keep things moving, I would also note that there is one great benefit to your theory over what I called a "descriptive" account earlier, which is basically saying "here is how things work, don't ask why." Even if we don't believe it, seeking to explain the world in terms of a cause before the causes has the benefit of not allowing us to rest with a merely descriptive account. This has been controversial in theoretical science before, but from what I understand it is coming back into fashion to say that it is reasonable to look for understanding, not merely predictive accuracy.

[kid aphex]

Reality is consciousness forming and developing new, more complex outlets (biology, technology, et al) for itself to emerge through and experience itself, moving towards what seems to be the end state of Universal (capital U) oneness
I touched on this earlier; it's not a new idea. However, it seems to have a couple of critical failings - you might want to look at these two listed on Wikipedia. From my own perspective, I also have to ask the question - how would you test the idea that reality is only consciousness? In that, this is not a scientific hypothesis - not that this need bother you; so far no hypothesis has proven rigorous enough in this regard. But it seems weaker than others even in this regard. Additionally, how is it useful to think of reality as merely consciousness?

There is very little evidence for it, and the evidence that does exist (i.e. Heisenberg uncertainty, entanglement) seems to apply regardless of the "conscious" aspect or not. At the time of the famous Schrodinger's Cat thought experiment, it wasn't known that any detector would work, and that consciousness was not a required property to provoke an outcome. At the end of the famous popular science volume "Coming of Age in the Milky Way," author Timothy Ferris holds out the idea that reality works something like the ancient idea held by some Greeks that we see because our eyes emit something that reaches out to things, and then returns (a bit like the WWII German "Vampir" infrared scope technology), but this is pretty problematic for a number of reasons. There is just too much evidence that things are there whether there is something perceiving them or not.

More basically, there is a common argument that ex nihilo, nihil fit - from nothing, nothing comes. The idea that reality is consciousness seems to pose an intractable chicken-and-egg problem.

Just to keep things moving, I would also note that there is one great benefit to your theory over what I called a "descriptive" account earlier, which is basically saying "here is how things work, don't ask why." Even if we don't believe it, seeking to explain the world in terms of a cause before the causes has the benefit of not allowing us to rest with a merely descriptive account. This has been controversial in theoretical science before, but from what I understand it is coming back into fashion to say that it is reasonable to look for understanding, not merely predictive accuracy.

Having spent years of my Life seeking to understand it through philosophy, I ended up incredibly frustrated. Increasingly, the abstract meaninglessness of philosophy (indeed, of all language) and it's inadequate attempts at creating sufficiently accurate mental maps with which to navigate and understand reality, started to weigh on me. I started to recognize that seeking an understanding of the true nature of reality through language actually facilitated 'movement' further and further away from the truth; that the only way to understand reality was experientially.

I began to pursue meditation, and an exploration of consciousness itself. Once I began down that path (a journey of remembering more than learning), reality just slowly began to present itself to me. It still does, everyday.

That's my perspective on the matter; if anything I said resonates with anyone reading this, I suggest reading some Ken Wilber. If you found yourself rolling your eyes, I suggest not reading any Ken Wilber,

For the sake of levity, Zen master Chang-ching rephrases my post:

"How mistaken was I! How mistaken!
Raise the screen and see the world!
If anybody asks me what philosophy I have,
I'll straightway hit him across the mouth
with my staff."

[kid aphex]

Additionally, how is it useful to think of reality as merely consciousness?

I don't mean to pick-and-choose quote you, but this was the only thing that really stood out to me, because
If it's usefulness you demand, you're looking in what's traditionally the worst place (philosophy) lol

[JBC]

@Ed That descriptive 'defense' is indeed heavy sarcasm, but you knew that without me having to confirm it for you.

[professor ganson]

Hey Ed, my favorite topic is philosophy of perception (or the senses) understood as a branch of philosophy of mind. I tend to prefer questions that connect up in some way with empirical psychology. In addition to philosophy of mind, I also teach history of philosophy, both ancient greek and early modern (Descartes to Kant) periods.

[Ed Oscuro]

Edit: Just wanted to note that I am happy with the discussion and don't mean to come off dismissive - I thought it wouldn't be helpful or a good use of time to try to respond to comments that people are making which stand on their own, or otherwise clutter things up.

I am in the middle of preparing some graduate course lectures (up to 2 and 3/4 hours long, currently 150MB with a few half that length) of philosophy from my college, mainly a series of awesome lectures on religion and cosmology by Quentin Smith, but also a couple others on interesting stuff. Unfortunately I'm not sure how useful or audible they will turn out - I was already seriously considering getting a Sony PCM-M10 and this is only making that decision more urgent, maybe. There is also a fair amount of visual information that isn't visible and would have to be reconstructed (probably badly) from my notes. I'm hoping they will be useful to somebody without my having to spend six hours per lecture (or whatever it could be) transcribing them (or paying to have them transcribed).

Last Thursday I watched these (first part discussions about Aristotle, as explained by Martha Nussbaum. Just more evidence of Aristotle's awesomeness that he preempted other fields of philosophy (which turned out to be dead ends).

Additionally, how is it useful to think of reality as merely consciousness?

I don't mean to pick-and-choose quote you, but this was the only thing that really stood out to me, because
If it's usefulness you demand, you're looking in what's traditionally the worst place (philosophy) lol

Not at all. Philosophy of science is pretty heavy on this, especially since the death of the Copenhagen consensus.

Hey Ed, my favorite topic is philosophy of perception (or the senses) understood as a branch of philosophy of mind. I tend to prefer questions that connect up in some way with empirical psychology. In addition to philosophy of mind, I also teach history of philosophy, both ancient greek and early modern (Descartes to Kant) periods.

Do you pick up the history of the philosophy of science? It's the works on science that fascinate me. The rest is interesting, but the rationalists tend to get carried away too easily. It's amazing, for example, that Descartes got anything at all correct in his scientific work, but he did - he came up with the momentary impulse theory and inertia that Newton adapted for his physics, almost in spite of being a classical no-vacuums-allowed atomist. I like the religious (especially Catholic) philosophers as well, because (even if it is a false hope) they do hold out the promise of solid foundations for deontological ethics. I don't believe it, but it's worth pursuing IMO. I am hoping to become more knowledgeable about ancient Chinese (Kongzi, aka Confucius; Mozi, etc.) and Native American philosophy as well.

So yeah, I'm totally dissing your chosen fields