I wrote this originally thinking that I'd give it to my children when they were old enough. But my first born is 10 months old, so, that's a few years away. I didn't want to share it online at first because it is precious to me, and sometimes the reception to my posts is not positive. But I figured, there's not much ill that can come from it that I can't avoid by simply not paying attention to it (like stopping to argue with haters), and maybe there is some chance that someone else might appreciate it.

Here is where it starts:

I enjoy philosophy and I find it fulfilling, but I'm aware that most people have no patience for it. This essay then, is meant to pass on that which seems most essential in the smallest possible space. What is most-essential is knowledge of how to think and feel properly. There is very much more that I'd like to teach my children, but I won't bother trying to teach it to them until they ask, because I can't know in advance what their interests and abilities will be. Although this is meant to be a short read, if you take it seriously, the contents ought to last a lifetime.

I have put a grand summary here of what I consider a good life to consist of. However, when trying to do any kind of self improvement, it is better to build one new habit at a time, so that one does not become burnt out.


The Venn Diagram

All human experience what-so-ever can be decomposed into sensory, rational, and valued parts.

It is from the sensory (sight, sound, taste, pleasure, pain, or anything else that comes from the body) that we learn facts. Or we learn facts from the testimony of other people who had the necessary sensory experience, if we trust their testimony.

Reason (aka logic) is innate in the mind, and it concerns itself with finding consistency in patterns. An unreasonable proposition is one in which an inconsistency can be found, and conversely, a reasonable proposition has no known inconsistency.

There is a difference between facts and logic. A fact is uniquely true (such as that my height is closer to 5'10" than any other integer number of inches). But reasonable propositions are not uniquely true. For instance, if I were to tell you that I was instead 5'9" or 5'11", without sensory experience of my person, you would have no way of knowing which was true. But if I were to tell you that I was 3'10", or 7'10", you would have reason to doubt my testimony, because it would not be consistent with your knowledge of human height. This is a rudimentary example, but I hope it illustrates the point. Reason can, without sensory input, exclude much that is impossible. But sensory input is required to tell you what is uniquely true.

Values are our opinions about good and bad. Values are arbitrarily asserted.

You could make a Venn diagram out of these 3. Facts/sensory experience lie in one circle, reason/logic/math lies in another, and values in the third. None of these 3 can be derived from any of the others, but they can interact in order to produce new phenomena.

Where facts and reason overlap are science, detective work, and forecasting. Science is when you take the sensory information for granted (called the observation or the experiment in science), and you try to guess at what logical rules might govern the material behavior. In detective work, you take scientific principles for granted, and try to figure out what must have happened in the past. In forecasting, you try to use scientific principles to predict future events.

Where reason and values overlap lie moral philosophy and game theory. In moral philosophy, you take moral principles for granted, and try to work out their logical consequences. In game theory, you take a logical system for granted, and try to work out what strategies (or moral preferences) are beneficial. Evolutionary psychology is a subset of game theory.

Where sensory information and values overlap lie practical decisions and what you might call social psychology. In this social psychology (I don't know if there's another word for it), you look at a person's external behavior, and try to guess their inner psychological state. Or you might try to influence their inner psychological state by your behavior. Practical decisions require knowledge of what you want, and of your material circumstances. When making a practical decision, you decide the best outcome, take stock of your material surroundings, and try to figure out what actions to take to get the future to look the way you want it to be.

Most of a person's life will consist in making practical decisions. Therefore, it is very important to keep your eyes open and to pay attention to what's going on in front of your face. Awareness of one's circumstances is as important as anything you could read in books, but I won't say more on the matter, because I'm not aware that there's anything more that could be said.

Sometimes, the 3 elements could interact in quite complicated ways. For instance, I'd consider engineering to be a practical discipline, but it requires the use of scientific knowledge. Art, contrarywise, is in essence an exercise in expressing values, but of course, it can't be expressed without a material medium.

In the middle circle, where all 3 aspects overlap, could be called "religion" or "life philosophy". It is in this space where a person develops a wholistic view of life. It is not just scientific knowledge, but also moral opinions about how to use knowledge. It is not just a moral philosophy in abstract, but one put into practice. It is making the sum of the practical decisions one makes in one's life into a coherent whole.

Past religions have somewhat of a negative reputation today, because people in the past were not perfect and got some stuff wrong. It's common, for instance, that a religion might have moral wisdom, but false scientific information. This does not mean that the whole idea of integrating moral opinions with the objective world needs to be thrown out. If you reject subjective experience as a valid area of study, then you reject yourself, because you are your subjective experience.


Rules for Life

• Think continually on what is good.
• Test your ideas. Try to prove yourself wrong.
• Do your best, and try to be content with that.

These are the most succinct rules for life that I can think of. They do not attempt to give you final answers at life, but tell you to seek for better answers.

The 3 rules correspond to the 3 parts of experience as described above. The first for values, the second for reason, and the 3rd for sensory.

The only thing we have the experience of being able to control is our choices. What we choose is a moral question. So, the only real questions in life are moral ones. That is why thinking on what is good is number 1. I mean it in the broadest sense. It could mean reading religious texts, philosophy, or autobiographies. It could also mean just taking some time to appreciate things you think are good, like a pretty flower, or your family.

The best use of reason is not to justify the beliefs you already have, but to test them. Reason is only good for spotting contradictions and tearing down nonsense. It cannot actively build anything up in the absence of something else you take for granted, like moral or sensory presuppositions. You should use reason to test yourself, so that you can throw out those beliefs which make no sense.

Finally, you have to actually act. And again, your choices are all that you can control, so you should try to aim at acting rightly rather than at achievements. You can always give yourself the gift of having done your best. If you can be content with that, then you can always be content.


Aids to Introspection

Nihilism
Nihilism is a fact in the sense that it is impossible to prove any objective moral statement with only facts and reason. David Hume is known for pointing this out with his is-ought dilemma. This may seem pessimistic, but there is a flip side. It means that you are completely free to see good as you will.

I can, for instance, assert to myself, "The sky is beautiful. Seeing it alone has made the day worth it." If I believe it, it will be true, at least to me. I could say the same about anything in front of my face. I could declare that I like vanilla ice cream the best, and it will be true, and turn around and say that I like chocolate the best, and that will then become true. There are no external limits on what kinds of values you can declare.

There are a couple caveats, however. One is that it only works if you can really believe it. Trying to make yourself believe things that your mind thinks are absurd will not work. Also, if you think you really need some things that you don't have (like maybe money, or social status, or physical comfort, etc), then it will be extremely difficult to make yourself believe that you are happy. When you want things you can't have, you either need to work to improve your material circumstances, or you need to do some introspection so that you can change your values. Or, alternatively, you could just submit to feeling bad.

Also, you cannot truthfully assert any arbitrary value if that statement has sensory or logical implications. Probably most bad logic comes from mixing up moral sentiment with facts and reason. For instance, a very common false moral sentiment today is that people are by nature equal. These people become offended if you try to tell them anything about how the world really works. Asserting values conflicting with nature will make you at war with the world itself. Asserting internally contradictory values will make you at war with yourself.


An Emotional Model

I did not make emotions a part of the Venn diagram at the beginning, because they are a derived experience. Emotions come from some value you hold and some perceived event related to that value. (Value) + (Perceived Event) -> Emotion.

Each emotion has an internal logic. Happiness is the acquisition of something good, sadness is the loss of something good, relief is the loss of something bad, anger is when you recognize that something is attacking something you care about, etc. If this is a new concept for you, you could try to make up a table of all the emotions.

As an example, if you learned that somebody stole your money, you'd probably be angry, because anger is the emotion you feel when somebody is attacking something you care about. However, if you learned instead that you had just lost the money, you'd probably be sad instead (a change of perception changes the emotion). Also, if you were able to convince yourself that you didn't care about the money (such as if you were a monk, or if you had just won the lottery), then you probably wouldn't be angry anymore.

I remember the first time I used this model. I used to get grumpy when I was hungry. One day I realized, however, that if I was grumpy, that seemed to imply that I cared more about the feeling of discomfort in my gut than the people I was being grumpy with. This thought was humiliating to me. Every time I felt grumpy over the next couple days, this thought would return to me and humiliate me, and that killed the anger. After a few days, I quit feeling grumpy when I was hungry. Quite by accident, I found that I didn't react emotionally to any common pains anymore either (such as stubbing my toe, biting my tongue, etc). The physical pain was still there of course, but there was no emotional reaction. That was only my first use of this emotional model.

You have an immense degree of control over your emotional state. You should learn to use it. Most people never do. The way to do this is to gain awareness of one's real motivations. That was enough for me in the case of being grumpy while hungry. If it requires more effort, you can tell yourself repeatedly that you believe the value, and then act as if you do. That will tend to make yourself believe it, with practice. Some values come more easily than others, according to our circumstances and temperament.


Objective Morals

It is impossible to prove objective morals to another person. But you have to believe in them anyway. If there isn't something you value more highly than your own comfort and pleasure, then you have no reason not to make excuses to yourself to do whatever you want, or to not lie to yourself to make you believe whatever you want. If feeling good is all you care about, then you will lie, cheat, and steal, even from yourself, to give yourself even the illusion of pleasure.

I believe that love of truth is the highest value. If you do not love truth, then you will not try to find it. And if you don't know the truth, then is there anything you can do that is real?

Perhaps this is the proper understanding of faith--that you trust in something good greater than yourself, even if you can't prove that it exists.


On Prayer

Jordan Peterson gave an interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount which I think is edifying. Jesus said "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you". Jordan Peterson said that the correct interpretation of this is to ask yourself, "What can I do better that I'm not doing now?" His experience as a psychologist says that everyone will immediately find an answer if they ask that question with earnestness. This is the correct way to pray.

I believe that prayer, when properly practiced, is simply a dialogue with the self. You can ask, "What can I do better," or try to express how you feel to yourself, or simply wait and listen to whatever pops into your head when you feel troubled. Your unconscious self will teach you who you are by this practice.

Apparently, the word for "unconscious" is only a few hundred years old. It seems reasonable to guess then, that maybe the concept didn't exist either before the word. People have the experience that thoughts and feelings pop up from they know-not-where. I believe that ancient people interpreted these spontaneous thoughts as messages from the spiritual world, either from polytheistic gods (Ares = anger, Aphrodite = lust, etc), or from angels, demons, and/or God. So, prayer actually served a very useful purpose for introspection, even if people misinterpreted what they were doing.

It is actually my experience in many other passages that Jesus' teachings are more comprehensible and wiser if they are interpreted in a psychological sense rather than a supernatural one. His teachings can be immediately experienced if they are interpreted in a psychological sense.



Common Pitfalls

So far as I'm aware, the most common psychological pitfalls are pride, conformity, and love of comfort.

I define pride here to mean lies that you tell yourself in order to make yourself feel better. Everyone is tempted to pride, because we are hardwired to want to feel good, and we are clever enough to lie to ourselves. I think the best way to prevent pride is to be ready to seek and find goodness outside of ourselves. Then our emotional equilibrium will not be dependent on our self-esteem. This will tend to prevent pride from making root. Actually rooting out pride which is already present requires self-critical introspection, or humiliating life circumstances. Rooting out pride causes feelings of shame or humiliation, but the good news is that so long as the pride stays out, you can't be shamed or humiliated in the same way again. That's because a humble person is honest with himself, so that he will not be overly surprised or dismayed by anything he does, even if it's not altogether flattering.

Most people have a very strong impulse to conform which can strangle their own self-expression, even to themselves in private. You have to be willing to be alone to be able to truly know yourself.

You also cannot truly follow any spiritual discipline unless you are willing to be uncomfortable.


Three emotions which are nearly always wrong are offense, worry, and envy.

Offense comes from hatred of the truth. It can come from hatred of ideas, or from hatred of circumstances. We are not offended by ideas which we find ridiculous. For instance, most people are not offended by flat-Earthism, because they find it ridiculous. They may be offended, however, if they were to learn that their children were being taught flat-Earthism at school. Whenever you feel offended, you should stop and take stock of yourself. There is a pretty good chance that you feel offended precisely because there is some element of truth in what is being said. It could also be simply that you are unwilling to accept your life circumstances.

Worry comes from excessive concern over things that are outside of our control. If it were in your power to change disadvantageous circumstances, you would just do it, and would not worry. So, worry is nearly always in vain.

Envy comes from hatred of that which is better than yourself. There is a logic in this, in that those who are better than you potentially pose a threat. If you don't want to be a hypocrite, however, you ought to be willing to see and appreciate goodness outside of one's self.


Social Guidelines

It is evident that all thoughts occur on an individual basis, because individual people have individual brains. So, self-development is largely an individual activity. You cannot become yourself unless you spend a lot of time with yourself, and at least somewhat disregard the desires of others.

However, we are all materially dependent on other people. If you make your social group mad enough, they may shun you, or even outright kill you. This fact could be the evolutionary reason why people feel such a strong pressure to conform. If you want to take a spiritual journey, you have to take much of it alone, but don't outwardly inconvenience your peers in order to do so.

Large human social organizations may be compared to social insects like ants and bees, in that the group is much stronger than the individual, and the individual generally has very little influence over the group as a whole. The main differences between humans and ants seem to me to be that humans are much larger, we are much smarter, and our loyalty to a group is determined much more by cognition than by blood ties or by pheromones. The problem of navigating social dynamics may be the primary reason for the evolution of our intelligence. It is not an easy problem and I do not have final answers here.

The desire to conform is so intense, that most people are afraid to even think outside the bounds of their social consensus. If you want to be your own person, you will, however, have to suffer the discomfort of thinking alone. It would be wise, however, to not always express your private thoughts if they will cause offense. If there is unanimous social consensus on a topic, it is likely that the consensus is stupid, because most people choose not to think for themselves in matters of social consensus. Being outwardly different in these areas can be bad for your social position, and thus also your health. There is also the problem, however, that if your social group is determined to walk along a stupid path, they may drag you with them into a pit. It requires discernment not only to figure out the correct path, but also to figure out how or whether to communicate it.

I like to think that morality can be split into private morality and social morality. Private morality consists in basically following virtues, which may be defined as habits that build yourself up (like healthy diet and exercise). Vices are those things which tear yourself down (like eating junk food). Social morality is complicated, but one of the most basic concepts is reciprocity. Without reciprocity, moral behavior in the social realm is not beneficial for the individual.

One may think of morality as something like a psychological or behavioral hygiene. Without virtues, individuals tend to destroy themselves. Without social mores, the social group breaks apart. Individual morality and group morality reinforce each other, because a social group is a sum of individuals, and the group cannot be healthy if its parts are sick. Likewise, humans are much stronger in groups, and therefore life is hard without social support, which would not exist without a broad social consensus on morality.


The problem of who to associate with is largely a problem of who you should give your loyalty to. I would argue that you should give your loyalty to whoever will do the best for you. The simplest proof of moral behavior in another person is how much that person is willing to sacrifice for either your benefit or for the general welfare. You owe your loyalty to whoever is willing to suffer for your sake. If a person not only cares for your welfare, but also is wise and has material power, then you should voluntarily submit to this person. Most people are not the best at anything, and nobody is the best at everything. If you love yourself, you should follow other people in those areas where they are better than you, provided that you have some faith in their benevolence. But you should trust actions more than words, because many people will try to deceive you. You should also, of course, be the best that you yourself can be.


Conclusion

It is not possible in principle to make a complete guide to every problem one might face in life. This guide ought to be a sufficient foundation, however, to build a wise life upon.

When you try to become a better person, it is advisable to try to improve in only one subject at a time until it becomes habit, or else you will likely burn yourself out. We are creatures of habit, and most of the time, we are conscious only of a small part of what we do.