I believe this is the logic of humor: It is something we find both valuable and unexpected.

This explains why a new joke is funny, but its funniness rapidly diminishes with familiarity.

It also explains why jokes which some people find funny are offensive to others. For instance, I remember a joke I heard while visiting relatives out of town. A guy said he saw a chain of Obama-voters going to the voting booth with their heads stuck up each others' butts. His friends thought it was funny, but my parents voted for Obama, so they did not think it was funny. I believe this is the logic: the man believed that Obama was bad, and that the conservative tribe was good. So, his joke was in essence a way of saying, "Obama bad. I am in conservative tribe," but he said it in an unexpected and graphic way, so his friends, who shared the same values, thought it was funny. My parents, who had opposite values, thought it was offensive. My mother, however, who hates trump, used to make anti-trump jokes and comments, and to her surprise, this alienated some of her relatives. To give another example, one of my favorite jokes (which I hardly ever share), is, "My pee pee is big enough to fit inside two women at the same time." I believe this is the logic behind why I think it's funny: I have polygamist tendencies (which I've never acted on), and like most men, I like to imagine myself to have sexual prowess. So, when I make this joke, it is a way of expressing this is an impossibly extreme way. My wife, however, who is jealous of my affection, hates this joke, which is why I only ever told it to her once.

I believe humor is an evolutionary way of making us pay attention to important information. Much of humor is social or sexual in nature, because we are hardwired to care about these things.

I read through the previous posts to see if anyone else had already said something similar to what I was going to say. I think this is the closest one.

The philosophy of humour has its very own Stanford encyclopaedia entry by John Morreall. Plenty of philosophers have wondered about humour; most unexpectedly, Thomas Aquinas. Humour involves play and incongruity, the recognition and upturning of norms. It’s bound to be a worrying phenomenon for sensible philosophical types. Perhaps its time has come. If the world has become absurd enough for more people to get the joke. — mcdoodle

Welfare is Unconstitutional:

The 10th amendment says, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Nowhere in the constitution does it say that the government can take money from one person to give to another person for private use. The constitution does say, "The Congress shall have Power To ... provide for the ... general Welfare of the United States," but the meaning of the word "Welfare" here is different from the modern usage. It is one thing to take money from both person A and person B in order to provide for common defense, or to build a road that they can both use. It is entirely another matter to take money from A to give it to person B, entirely to person A's detriment and person B's benefit.


"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury." Alexander Fraser Tytler (not a founding father, but an educated person sharing an opinion from the time period)

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!” – Ben Franklin. This quote is directly applicable to the issue of modern "welfare"

Personally, I hate social security in principle. In the best-case scenario, it is a way of forcing irresponsible people to save for their retirement. As it is actually implemented, it is a pyramid scheme which transfers wealth from the younger generation to the older generation. It exists to take food out of the mouths of the children so that the grandparents can be idle. IMO, one's elders are due honor because they made sacrifices in order to give you life which are impossible to repay. If, however, your elders try to force you to pay them back the debt you owe them, then they have voided all honor due to them.

Anyway, looking up a pie chart of US government spending, it looks like roughly 50% of the federal budget is spent on welfare, which is 100% unconstitutional. Another 16% is spent on the military, which has only been used illegally since 1945. Also, as discussed in the first post, 100% of our money is illegal. So, we can see so far that 100% of our money, and roughly 70% of what the government spends money on is illegal.

Contradiction 9: 100% of our money, and +70% of what the US government spends its money on are unconstitutional.


BTW, Washington DC could disappear, and everyday life for most working people would change very little, apart from getting the equivalent of a 50% pay raise from reduced taxation. Most of the services that people use every day (like roads, police, courts, firefighters) are paid for by state and local taxes. There is very little that the federal government takes in taxes from a working person that he will ever see back again.

Slavery is legal:

The 13th Amendment says, "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

Court ordered alimony is literally involuntary servitude, and in the case of no-fault divorce, it is not a "crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted."

Contradiction 7: The constitution says that slavery is illegal, but alimony from no-fault divorce fits the literal definition of involuntary servitude.


There are no familial rights:

The 5th amendment says, "No person shall be ... deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." If you have a right to liberty and to property, then how much more should you have a right to your own children? Yet many men are divorced for literally no reason and denied custody of their children. Child protective services can also take your children from you without "due process of law". The first amendment also grants freedom of assembly, and yet many fathers in the USA who have been convicted of no crime do not even have the right to see their own children.

Contradiction 8: A person nominally has the right to assemble, to liberty, and to property, which cannot be taken away without due process of law, yet many fathers who have not even been accused of a crime are barred from seeing their own children.

All wars are illegal:

The constitution says, "The Congress shall have Power To ... To declare War ... "

The last time the US declared ware was during WW2, and yet wikipedia lists 33 separate armed conflicts that the USA has fought since WW2.

If the founding fathers intended for the president to be able to wage war without a declaration of war, then the power of congress to declare war is meaningless. If they did not intend for the president to be able to wage war without congressional approval, then all of these wars since WW2 have been illegal.

Contradiction 6: All US wars are unconstitutional.

If definitions aren't subject to truth apt, then can I say, "Let 'X' mean a married bachelor," and that this sentence is not truth apt?

You can also do a truth table of X, Y, and X -> Y and see that X <-> (X -> Y) is false. — Brendan Golledge

Is this statement false? If I've done the truth table right, then it means that the first line of the proof is wrong.

It seems to me that steps 1-4 are circular reasoning. You can't use a definition to prove part of its own definition. You can also do a truth table of X, Y, and X -> Y and see that X <-> (X -> Y) is false.

I was curious about how it is possible that we can not be understanding each other, so I went to look up Curry's paradox. I was surprised to see that it is supposed to be a legit paradox.

1. X := (X → Y)
2. X → X
3. X → (X → Y)
4. X → Y (from 3 by contraction)
5. X (substitute 4 by 1)
6. Y (from 4 and 5) — Michael

1. X means that if X is true then Y is true (definition)
2. If X is true then X is true (law of identity)
3. If X is true then if X is true then Y is true is true (switch in the definition of X given in (1))
4. If X is true then Y is true (from 3 by contraction)
5. X is true (switch out the definition of X given in (1))
6. Y (from 4 and 5) — Michael

I did not understand number 5, because it seemed obvious to me that X was false (or I was at least very skeptical), so I did not see how substituting it into itself could turn it true. The source I read explained that step 5 is modus ponens, and given the definition (1), it works. But the paper went on further to prove that if 6 is false, then 1 must also be false. So, it is a bad definition. I hadn't worked through all the logic yet to see the paradox, but I did see that it was false.

:

A) if this sentence is true then Germany borders China
B) if (A) is true then Germany borders China — Michael

If A is false, then B is not false. Given the definition of the sentence you are using, A is false (or meaningless) and B is true.

"A" is not the same as B: "if A is true, then the statement given by A is true". B as written here is true regardless of the truth value of A. I could just as well write, A: "The sky is pink" and B: "if A is true, then the sky is pink". This A is false and this B is true. — Brendan Golledge

So, I guess I just never accepted that the sentence was true, and that's why I did not see the paradox.

"A" is not the same as B: "if A is true, then the statement given by A is true". B as written here is true regardless of the truth value of A. I could just as well write, A: "The sky is pink" and B: "if A is true, then the sky is pink". This A is false and this B is true. — Brendan Golledge

Going over this part again, I understood the whole argument to basically be:
A
B: A -> A
Therefore, A

B is true, but we don't know anything about A without more context. I guess this is not what you wrote down formally, and I just didn't get it, because I interpreted your words to mean the A & B I wrote immediately above.

If A is false, then B is not false. Given the definition of the sentence you are using, A is false (or meaningless) and B is true.

"A" is not the same as B: "if A is true, then the statement given by A is true". B as written here is true regardless of the truth value of A. I could just as well write, A: "The sky is pink" and B: "if A is true, then the sky is pink". This A is false and this B is true.

As for your formal logic, I think I am confused about whether you are asserting logic or truth. For instance, I cant tell whether you mean, "if X is true, then Y is true" (I agree with this logic) or "X IS true, and therefore Y is true" (I disagree with this because I think X is either false or meaningless).

When you used text, I disagreed that a and 2 are equivalent. Just substitute a into 2 and you'll see that it's not. It's the difference between saying "..." and '"..." is true'. When you used formal logic, you didnt prove that x is true, or that x->y is true. If you assert that X is false, then it doesn't imply Y. I don't think you could prove this unless the logic was a tautology, which it clearly isn't. At any rate, the original poster argued that an the validity of an argument cannot be an element of that argument, which would mean that your example sentence is also meaningless.

I think the OP made a good argument. I don't think I can add anything to it.

I have made very similar posts on philosophy forums before, with the same 3 choices, but I came to the conclusion that the only thing we know for sure is that something exists outside the bounds of human reason.

If you look up a definition for deductive logic, you get something like, "The rules of correct inference from assumed premises." We cannot use logic on a first premise, because by definition, it is not derived from any premises. We cannot ever get to the bottom of infinite regression, because humans cannot calculate infinite processes. And circular logic is of course, also not considered valid under normal circumstances.

Of course, Hume was the first OG (so far as I know) to propose this dilemma, but he did not think of the 3rd option.

It seems to me that you can prove that these are the only 3 options, if you assume that logic is linear. Either causality is a ray (it has a beginning), or a line (it goes to infinity in both directions). If you admit the possibility of noneuclidean geometry, then the line could loop back into itself or cross itself (time travel). Actually, I just realized that there are 2 more options: there could be something without causality (a point), or nothing at all. But these other two options are not consistent with our sensory experience.

Since I am alive, I have to try to figure out what is valuable and important in life, even though there doesn't appear to be aby verifiable way to figure this stuff out. I find it useful, therefore, to assume that there is a first cause, which would be consistent with a creator God, because then I can start to imagine what the purpose of the universe is. I don't see a way forward (with respect to having a moral foundation) if the causality of the universe is infinite. I prefer to look to nature to learn about God, than human religious tradition, although the latter may sometimes be useful to learn proper psychological orientation. I have come to the idea then that God is an infinity of abstract potential (like the totality of all math), and that the material world exists in order to tangibly instantiate this potential. Then it seems clear that God is quite happy for existence to be exactly as it is, even if this existence is not pleasing to mortals. This worldview is psychologically pleasing because it provides a foundation for looking at any arbitrary thing and seeing good/beauty in it. This is especially helpful in situations where the attainment of selfish interests is totally impossible. When I can't have what I want, at least I can try to see that at least God is having his way. When it comes to personal or group suffering, the evolutionary process is useful for seeing the beauty of existence. Apparently to God, having life spontaneously improve itself through repeatedly instantiated proof by contradiction (the dying off of unfit forms) is more beautiful than the well-being of any individual organism.

Yes, I understood that just fine before reading this post. I am at the level where I can understand much of the formal symbols I have seen in this post, but would have trouble writing them myself. The biggest problem is that since I am learning this stuff randomly rather than as a part of a formal curriculum, there are many holes on my knowledge, and I do not know where to look to fill those holes. I am reading an introductory text on formal logic now, and it is tedious not only because of the tedious nature of the subject, but also because I have to go through a lot that I already know before encountering something that I do not know yet.

I am a lay person trying to learn formal logic, so this post is probably a bit of a lower level than the rest of the posts. Studying Russel's paradox make me think I understand the difference between a subset and a member better. Take these examples:

( A is a subset of A ) = ( {1,2,3} = {1,2,3} )

(A is a member of A ) = ( {1,2, A} = {1,2, {1,2, {A} }, } = {1,2,{1,2,{1,2,{1,2{...}}}}}

From this example, you can see that defining a set as a member of itself immediately leads to infinite recursion.

You are being even lazier, because I have made an argument, and you haven't. You are just asserting that I don't know what I'm talking about without providing any explanation of how that is. I could just as well assert that you're a bot and a troll and provide no evidence.

I googled for a definition of the uebermensch so that I could use a definition which I wasn't just pulling out of my own butt. If my definition is wrong, then YOU provide the definition.

I have made explicit tangible arguments. You (and most of the other people replying) have not addressed any of my arguments, nor made any arguments of your own. You have just asserted repeatedly that I am wrong, or that Nietzsche would think X, without even trying to explain why. I could just as well flip everything that you have said about me and say it about you instead, and it would be just as valid, since you have not made a single argument to back up anything you have said.

If I'm so foolish, and if it's so obvious that's the case, why can no one show a tangible argument to refute anything I've said?

Because of this discussion, I think I have a better idea of what the ubermensch entails than before.

Before the modern era (roughly starting in the enlightenment period), Western people took their morals uncritically from Christianity. But Nietzsche realized that during his time, people didn't really believe anymore the way that they used to, hence, "God is dead." This meant that there was no longer moral consensus within society, nor certain moral guidance for individual people.

This lead to his idea of the "Übermensch" (there, I copied and pasted an umlaut). The idea is that this man is able to come up with his own values without reference to a religious system that people no longer believed in. Here is a definition from the internet, "the ideal superior man of the future who could rise above conventional Christian morality to create and impose his own values, originally described by Nietzsche in Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883–85)"

This definition contains 4 points:
1. "the ideal superior man of the future"
2. "who could rise above conventional Christian morality" -- I take this to mean that his morality does not require the use of Christianity (or other religions) as a premise
3. "to create ... his own values"
4. "to ... impose his own values"

I have argued that values are arbitrarily asserted, because there is no way to point to anything objective to prove them (see the is-ought dilemma). Therefore, I have argued that #1 is ill-defined. There is no way to prove that anything is superior to anything else by the use of premises that other people would readily accept. So, I'm arguing that #1 should be thrown out.


Most of my replies were related to my views on God. I do not actually consider my views on God necessary to my views on value selection, although speculation on God may be useful towards this end. I did argue on a game theory/evolutionary basis that there are certain values that will tend to be more prevalent, which might therefore be called, "God's values". But it's still not possible to prove that the morals that will be are the morals that ought to be.

You might argue that because my views are broadly consistent with many of Jesus' teachings, that disqualifies me from #2. But you could also make the exact same argument about Kant, for instance, because it could be argued that "love your neighbor as yourself" could be derived from the categorical imperative.

I argue that my views on value assertion are not dependent on any religious dogma, and therefore I meet #2. You could also argue that any moral philosopher who did not use outside authority as a premise could also fit #2. Technically, I do use empirical and logical arguments as outside authorities, but I think the secular western man would not object to this.


I set forth a method of value assertion in my original post, and therefore I argue that I fit #3. I could give another example of how to use the technique. I saw this post on youtube today:

"Personally don't feel really jolly at all lately, just seem to be getting more and more grumpy cynical dispondant and fed up with my life, everybody and everything around in life and the world in general."

Presuming that this person doesn't want to feel that way anymore, then the correct thing to do is to mourn (let go of) those things that he wants but can't have. There is a quote from the Bible which is appropriate, "Those who eat the bread of sorrow, rouse yourselves after resting." The message is that resting after suffering a loss is normal, but eventually you need to get up and find something else to live for. A Buddhist would probably say that suffering comes from desire, and so he would give the same advice that he needs to kill his desire. If this person wants to be jolly, then after (or during) the mourning process, he needs to find something else he cares about. This can be done arbitrarily, although a person's temperament will make some things easier than others.

The is-ought dilemma creates something that I like to call the "fact of nihilism", that you can't prove any objective moral statement. But it also means that you can't disprove any moral statement either. So, it's entirely possible to assert that existence is positively good, and that bad is only the loss of what was good. Or you could say that God (or "life", if you're offended by "God") can't take anything from you that he didn't give you first. I don't think it's possible to argue against this. So, it is entirely possible to let go of whatever you can't have (friends, money, status, whatever), and to find something else to live for (art, philosophy, sport, etc). You can't directly change your emotions, but you can directly change your values (by repeating to yourself what you want to believe and then acting on it), and then your values change your emotions. So if you want to develop a new hobby, you can just pick up a brush or a recorder and start playing, tell yourself, "it is good that I'm trying this," and see what happens.

So, I know from experience that it is entirely possible to choose to be jolly and not to be despondent, although the process takes time, and may be easier or harder based on one's temperament. It is totally possible because emotions require cognitive processes in order to happen, and a person can consciously change his model of the world. A person's temperament, however, affects how easily he feels certain emotions, and how strongly he feels them, but you can still cut those emotions off at the root by changing one's mental model of the world. For me personally, it's easy to acquire contentedness, but hard to acquire positive emotions like happiness.

I realized today that the only religions I'm aware of that practice monasticism are Christianity and Buddhism. I believe the reason for this is that these religions are focused on inward development, and this is the job of the monk. Religions which don't value inward development for its own sake have no purpose for monasticism. So, it could be argued that every good monk (and to a lesser extent, any sincerely religious person) fits #3, because have consciously changed their inward self.


I could argue that #4 is impossible in principle, because values are arbitrarily asserted from within. The people who have come closest are dictators like Lenin and Hitler who tried to impose their values by force. They made big changes to the external world, but they still never had the power to change 1 person's heart against that person's will. There were many Christians who died in the gulags, for instance, without being convinced of the truth of communism.

So I think I can fairly say I meet requirements #2 & #3 of being an ubermensch, and that #1 and #4 are difficult or impossible in principle. I heard read many arguments against my personal religious views, but I never saw any arguments against what I have laid out either here or in my very first post.

No. Islam does this. Sikhs too. Bahai. Parsi, Jews. How many other religions do you know well? — Tom Storm

Admittedly, I don't know much of anything about Sikhs, Bahai, and Parsi. After doing a quick google search, it appears to me that Parsi are partially concerned with inward orientation, Bahai are explicitly interested in behavior, and I'm not sure on Sikhism. I showed in an earlier post that Judaism and Islam are both heavily behavior-oriented.

I am a bit familiar with Buddhism. If I understand correctly, the central idea of Buddhism is that if you don't want things, then you won't be disappointed. Stripped of all its supernatural claims, the central idea of the religion appears to me to be objectively true. So, Buddhism is another religion that is concerned with inward orientation of the heart. I've read that Sikhism is related to Buddhism, so maybe it is similar.

I suppose it would be unfair then to say that Christianity is the only religion interested in inward orientation. But I have shown through numerous examples that this is certainly not an element that is common in all religions.

The west is implicitly Christian in orientation, so, I'm not ashamed to draw upon my own cultural background to try to figure things out. I think if I had been more familiar with Buddhism, I probably could have come to similar conclusions by drawing upon that background.

So, there could be 1 million Ubermensch already, but we wouldn't know because they'd be minding their own business?

My real desire in writing this post was to share my psychological model. When I have tried to share it previously, it left no impression. I thought if I used language that other people are nominally interested in, then maybe they would pay attention. I have argued repeatedly that my method fits the criteria of being able to create one's own values, but nobody argues this point. I don't think most people actually care. They want what they want, but do not want to want differently.

I am aware that evolution works by killing off the majority of life that is not most highly adapted.
— Brendan Golledge

No, that's not my argument. I said nothing about evolution. I said that god/s built a creation largely dependent upon cruelty and predation. — Tom Storm

I don't see the difference. Where is cruelty and predation outside of death?

That your definition of the Ubermensch doesn't even match Nietzsche's. — Vaskane

If you look up "what is the ubermensch" the first hit is, "the ideal superior man of the future who could rise above conventional Christian morality to create and impose his own values, originally described by Nietzsche in Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883–85)."

I have argued:
1. I have a method for consciously changing my values and emotions, which I briefly described. This seems to fit with "create ... his own values".
2. I have argued that imposing one's values is impossible in principle, because values are arbitrarily asserted from within one's self.
3. I left alone the issue of being "the ideal superior man". Apart from being quite arrogant to argue, there'd be no objective basis to argue it, since values are arbitrarily asserted from within one's self.

From this definition, I have claimed to have met the only objective and possible part of the definition, and argued that the other parts are impossible or not well-defined.

No. Islam does this. Sikhs too. Bahai. Parsi, Jews. How many other religions do you know well? — Tom Storm

You are just wrong. I've seen interviews from multiple Jews who say that it is not a sin to desire something which is wrong, so long as you don't actually do it. For instance, they said that they don't care if someone is antisemetic, so long as they don't actually do bad things to Jews. They also said that pedophilia is not wrong, so long as it's not acted upon. I think you are projecting your own background onto other people.

I also referred to the actual tenants of other religions which mention explicit actions rather than inward orientation. To say that other religions are concerned with inward orientation of the heart is to argue contrary to those religions' explicit teachings.

Everyone from the West grew up on an implicitly Christian background. I have lived overseas in Russia and China and read ancient books, so I think I have a better idea of my own cultural background than most do, since I have something to compare it to.

While I was teaching English in China, I had an extra lesson where I discussed different moral systems around the world. I taught the students that Jesus taught that If you do a good thing for bad reasons, Jesus would still say that was bad. The students were astonished, because they have never heard such a thing before, and they said that's not fair. So, it's absolutely not true that the Chinese have this concept. It is utterly foreign to them.

It seems worth questioning that last sentence. Why might it very well be God? — wonderer1

"We don't know X. It might be Y." I don't think this sentence requires much proof. It would require a lot of proof if I claimed that X was certainly Y, but saying that Y is a possibility when we don't know what X is, does not seem all that controversial. I mean God here as the omnipotent omniscient bodiless timeless creator God imagined by the monotheistic religions. Although I'm not all that concerned with exact definitions, because we after all, don't know exactly what it is.

My language is loose. But I know I have heard people say that grumpiness due to hunger is a part of their personality, and other such things, when I know that I am able to consciously change these aspects of myself. So, I think I can fairly say that I have a better working model for myself (what I imagine consciousness to be) than most other people.

I know for sure that when I discuss my psychological model with other people, it's like I'm speaking a foreign language. That was the main point of this post, but people are arguing with me about God.

You express statements which are just claims - to be an ubermensch I think you may need to do some purging of such romantic claims as:

Christianity is the religion most concerned with the heart.
— Brendan Golledge — Tom Storm

I don't see how this is a romantic claim. It is factual. Jesus' top two commandments are how to love. In other teachings, he addresses issues of judgment, offense, hypocrisy, worry, honoring one's parents, etc. The 7 deadly sins (which I know were later made up by Catholics) address feelings rather than actions: "wrath", "sloth", "envy", etc. It is an objective statement that most of the teachings in Christianity concern the inward orientation of the heart. This is in contrast to Islam, where the 5 pillars are external tangible things, such as fasting, giving to the poor, pilgrimage, ritualized prayer, and the declaration of faith (this last one here is shared by Christianity). It is also in contrast even to the ten commandments in the Old Testament, which are concerned with outward actions such as not stealing and not murdering.

There are many insincere Christians. But most of the people who appreciate the kind of inner work I've done are Christian. It is mostly Christians who are concerned with "Do I envy?" "Am I lusting after my neighbor's wife?" for their own sake, rather than as a part of an external moral system.

So, I stand by my statement that when it comes to asserting values on one's own, Christianity is the religion that seems closest to this.


I actually agree that different Christian denominations have inconsistent views. This is part of the reason I'm not a Christian. I think a large part of the problem is that most of them are claiming to have infallible knowledge which they don't really have. The Orthodox have their church councils, the Catholics have the Pope, and many protestants claim inspiration from the Holy Spirit. I think what is likely happening is that protestants listen to their own conscience and believe that is the voice of the Holy Spirit. I think the conscience is a good voice, but that it is a private subjective voice. This is how it's possible that they can all be convinced that their right, while saying different things.

So, looking at nature ought to be a good way of inferring the nature of God.
— Brendan Golledge

That's just a claim. But if I did this I would infer from nature that the god who made it is an evil and cruel monster. Imagine creating an entire ecosystem where the suffering and death of most animals and insects is built into the model. — Tom Storm

I am aware that evolution works by killing off the majority of life that is not most highly adapted. It makes sense that the organisms in this process do not like dying, or else they would probably not live very long. But I don't see a necessity that God has to care about this. Based on how the world works, I would conclude that God finds the evolutionary process to be more beautiful than any individual organism. There is a quote from the Bible which I think is appropriate here, "Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?" We are the clay in this passage. We might not like it, but we have no power to argue with God about it.

It doesn't even really matter to me very much if you agree on my views on God. They are speculation that I find interesting and meaningful, but they are in the end, speculation.

I would argue though, that my speculation is not as arbitrary as you think. I think you have to choose one of these 3 options:
1. There is an ultimate beginning
2. Existence is infinitely old with no beginning
3. The causality of existence is circular (like maybe somebody will go back in a time machine to create the big bang)

None of these options are compatible with deductive logic. This is because standard logic involves the use of unproved premises. If you try to prove the premise with logic, then you have to posit another unproved premise. So, ultimate beginnings are outside the scope of human reason. The fact that anything exists at all is proof that something exists which we can't understand. It might very well be God.

Option 1 seems to necessarily imply something like God. Everything we have experience with is caused by something else. If there were something to get it all started, that thing would be very special. I won't lay out all the arguments here, but if you guess that maybe option 1 is true, then everything else I have said concerning God is very reasonable.


I think Nietzsche's child (from the parable of the camel, lion, and child) might not be very different than Jesus' idea of how a person has to be a child to enter the kingdom of heaven. The lion attacks what is old (like Christianity), but the child does whatever he feels like (which may sometimes involve Christian teachings).

I have personal experience of using many of the psychological elements of Jesus' teachings. So far as these teachings go, it makes no difference to me whether Jesus really was the son of God, because I can independently verify what he said.

Many of the moral teachings of Christians are logical necessities if you believe in moral consistency. If you believe in moral consistency, then how can it make sense to judge your own value differently than the value of other things that are similar to you (like other people?) For instance, if you'd judge someone for stealing, but you yourself steal, isn't that an inherent contradiction in your moral philosophy? Therefore, it makes sense that a person must love other people the same way that he loves himself, or else his moral philosophy is inherently self-contradictory.

One of the psychological roles of God is to serve as a personification and projection of one's highest values. So when Jesus says to love God with all your heart, he may very well have meant something similar to, "Love that which you are able to understand is highest with all your heart." This seems to be a moral necessity if you want to be the most moral person that you can be. I think modern people get confused by this though, since we conceptually separate virtues and vices from personhood in a way that ancient people apparently did not.

I could make a similar argument about envy. Envy by its nature seems to be dislike for what is better than one's self. But if you decide that you love good for its own sake, how can you be envious? I think envy can only exist when a person wants to feel himself to be the best, and hates all goodness which is outside of himself.

From arguments such as these (many of which I worked out as an atheist), I realized that Christianity already said many of the things that I came up with by myself. So, as I said before, it doesn't really matter to me who wrote these things. I am able to verify the psychological aspect of these teachings without reference to outside authority.

I read Nietzsche when I was a teenager, which was admittedly over 10 years ago. It's not clear to me what you're trying to say in the rest of your post.

I did leave many things unexplained in this post about God. I wrote another post about it, which is rather long, and which was poorly understood, called, "God, as Experienced, and as Metaphysical Speculation"

It is true that much of what I think about God is speculative. I think this is unavoidable. So far as I'm aware, there's no way to receive direct revelation from God, but we still have to think about ultimate purpose and meaning in order to make sense of life. The "metaphysical speculation" aspect of the essay is basically founded on the observation that it appears that nature follows abstract mathematical rules. This fits nicely with the claim in Genesis that God created the world through words (math is itself a language). It also intuitively gives the idea that somehow math & logic are closer to God than mere matter, since matter depends on logic, but logic can exist in the abstract without matter.

About the first-mover argument: it seems necessarily true that there exists something which has no cause (which we may as well call God) which got it all started, or that there is an infinite regression of causes with no beginning, or that causality is circular. Only the first option seems to involve an ultimate beginning, and that necessitates the existence of something very special (in that it is the only thing that acts without first being acted upon). So, I don't see how there can be such a thing as an ultimate beginning without a concept like God.

A creator God, as-such, seems to innately require omnipotence (there are also other arguments for this too), so I don't how claiming that God is omnipotent is an arbitrary claim. Assuming that he is omnipotent, then it naturally follows that he can do whatever he likes, and if he can do whatever he likes, then the material world must be a reflection of his will. So, looking at nature ought to be a good way of inferring the nature of God.

As for why I reference Christian elements: Christianity is the religion most concerned with the heart. Jesus' commandments are to love God and love one's neighbor. So, it is not surprising to me that their teachings can be instructive to people seeking to understand their own heart better, even if those people do not explicitly believe in Christian supernatural claims. One of my ways of thinking which seems most difficult for other people is that I see religious teachings as a kind of psychology, mixed in with bad science and history. I see great wisdom in many of the teachings, although I doubt that these teachings were inspired by God. I think they were created by people who had the same minds and hearts that we do, who were very concerned with righteous living, but whose thoughts were confused by their scientific ignorance. So, I share with the Christians their concern for proper orientation of the heart, and share with secular people a great respect for science. I do not share with Christians faith that any particular text or teaching was directly inspired by God. But it is frustrating to me that most secular people do not take morals as seriously as Christians do.

I think the main point of the Ubermensch is to be able to generate one's own values. I have shared a technique for consciously modifying one's own values/emotions, and given examples of how I applied it to myself. I was thinking replies would be something like, "I don't think you have fully demonstrated that you can generate your own values", or "That's cool. I'm going to try it on myself."

I was actually inspired to make this post because I saw another post where someone said that Nietzsche is the only important western philosopher, because he addresses the question of how to generate values when we don't have faith in our old religious traditions. It seemed like a reasonable argument to me. I wrote this post because I believe I have solved the problem. I was hoping that because philosophers are nominally interested in value-generation (since Nietzsche is famous for addressing this issue), if I claimed to solve it, it would garner attention. But most of the replies don't seem to deal directly with this point. I didn't see anyone argue yet that my technique was flawed or insufficient. Nor do I see people talking about how they are going to try it (I suppose they may be doing it quietly).

These techniques are actually inspired by ancient Christian monks. I just made them more explicit and stripped them of their religious nature.

You seem to know an awful lot about an anonymous deistic god who fucked off and has no contact with people. Where does this come from? How did you rule out that this creator isn't evil (in human terms) a monstrous being who made a world that seems to produce suffering and hatred? — Tom Storm

I answered this in my original post:

Right now I think that if God were truly omnipotent and omniscient, then he made the universe exactly how he likes it, and that the universe does not need further tinkering. — Brendan Golledge

--> My views on God come from looking at nature first, and inferring God from that. It seems reasonable that if there were a being who was perfectly knowledgeable and powerful, he would get it right the first time.

And as living beings who care about our own survival, our immediate sense of good and bad is necessarily different than God's. — Brendan Golledge

--> yes, it's possible that things that seem good to God do not seem good to us.

I see God as a placeholder for "nature", or whatever else you want to call it. Given that nature seems to follow mathematical laws, there really is no difference between a creator God in this sense and the laws of nature. I wrote a whole other post on this.

Even if there were a creator being, you also have no way of knowing what this being's relationship to morality is. Is this being the foundation of morality, or does this being reside separately to morality? We simply can't say. — Tom Storm

I mentioned repeatedly in the above post that values can be asserted arbitrarily, but that nature seems to be set up in a certain way to make certain values more prevalent than others. This is what I mean by "God's Morality."

I notice that you didn't mention anything in my post at all until I got to God. I wonder if you are just caught up on the word "God" instead of the actual content of what I'm saying.

I will describe in brief my moral system.

I believe in principle that all values are asserted arbitrarily. I could assert that it is good to wear pink tutus while eating breakfast cereals, and nobody could prove that I was wrong. You could say, "but wearing pink tutus doesn't accomplish anything," and I would answer, "it doesn't need to accomplish anything; it is intrinsically good," and then what would you say?

It is only in so far as our values affect the material world that we are able to make objective claims about them.

I did notice one observation that seems to be a partial exception to the is-ought fallacy. It is this: that only living creatures appear to experience "good" and "bad". So, if we want our values to have an effect upon the material world, we must constrain our values to the behavior of living creatures. This, I think does not technically violate the is-ought dichotomy, because we haven't proven that we want our values to have an effect on the material world. But if you do want your values to have an effect, then it seems to immediately follow that they can only apply to living beings.

The second relevant observation is a game theory/evolutionary observation. It is that those values which are good at reproducing themselves will tend to become more prevalent, and those that are not, will become less common. So, we can fairly say that values such as self-preservation, self-honesty, interest in having children, ect, will have a longer duration than the contrary values. But again, this doesn't prove that we care about our values being propagated into the future, only that if you do care about that, then you need to choose values according to that preference.

So, I could argue that a good morality would be enlightened self-interest:
I am a body -- so I take care of my health
I am a mind -- so I try to honestly understand how things work
I have a "heart" -- so I try to see (or assert) the good
I am a member of a social body -- so I try to do good to my social unit
I am a product of evolution -- so I try to participate in the evolutionary process

So, I could say that I believe that something like the above are God's morals, because they are the morals that WILL be propagated. But it's impossible to prove to anyone who doesn't care about this kind of thing that these morals are good.


I think deism is likely true, due to first-mover arguments. But unlike Christians, I am not convinced that God has ever made a covenant with us. Right now I think that if God were truly omnipotent and omniscient, then he made the universe exactly how he likes it, and that the universe does not need further tinkering. And since God made the universe exactly how he likes it, he probably thinks that it is very good. So, I believe that existence is good for its own sake, and that whatever we think of as "bad" is just the loss of whatever we previously had thought of as "good" (such as how murder is bad because it takes away the life of a man). And as living beings who care about our own survival, our immediate sense of good and bad is necessarily different than God's. It is pleasing to God for me to live, but some day it will be equally pleasing to him for me to die. I would prefer to go on living, but this is necessary so that I can participate in the evolutionary process. But apparently to God (unless there is an afterlife), my usefulness to him is fully contained within my natural life.

I believe that God is an infinity of abstract potential, and that he created the material world in order to tangibly instantiate himself. From this idea, you might predict a big and old universe, or possibly multiverses, because God is infinite. You might also predict that the universe spontaneously produces an astonishing variety of forms (such as via evolution), since God is self-contained and does not depend on anything else. So, I believe that everything that positively exists is pleasing to God, and I try to see it. In being alive, I am a fairly unique part of existence, in that I participate in my own continued existence.

If many people could be convinced of these moral frameworks, then they could build a community around that. But if it's just me, then it's just words on the internet. But whether or not I succeed in convincing anyone of anything, I believe that those values which are good at further propagating life will tend to become more numerous, and that those with contrary values will tend to die out.

I realized after I posted this that I felt uneasy. I thought a bit and decided that it was probably because I positively asserted that I was the Ubermensch, so if somebody wanted to argue with me, that would be a threat to my asserted identity. I think it is psychologically healthier for me to tell myself, "I will do my best, and I don't care if that involves being the ubermensch or not." I did originally mean the title to be a marketing ploy. I don't think it's being dishonest, really, it's just not usually psychologically healthy to boast like this.

Anyway, I'll reply to the comments now.

I googled for "What is the ubermensch?" and got the first hit as, "the ideal superior man of the future who could rise above conventional Christian morality to create and impose his own values, originally described by Nietzsche in Thus Spake Zarathustra"

I seem perfectly able to create my own values in a way that I don't see other people do, so that part fits. "Ideal superior man" would be subjective, so I don't know how to argue that. I still have faults, so, I think I ought not to try to argue it. It also says to "impose" one's own values, which I think in principle is impossible, because each individual person selects his own values (although often unconsciously). All the armies in the world cannot change the opinion of a stubborn man if he doesn't want to change his mind.

Does it? How do you prove that the lack of nutrients is not something that involuntarily changes your mood by affecting your brain chemistry? — Lionino

The feeling of hunger is a bodily sensation. You can't stop it consciously. Emotions, however, require thought, and you have some control over your thoughts. You can see this by considering feelings such as "anger" or "betrayal". To be angry, you have to recognize that somebody is attacking something you care about. To feel betrayed, you have to realize that someone you trusted is trying to hurt you. These are abstract concepts and therefore cannot be understood through only sensory experience. You have to have a mental model of the world in order to be able to feel these emotions. If you change your mental model, your emotions will change too.

You might have demonstrated how you have a higher level of consciousness than others, but what about generating your values in an objective way? You talk about changing values, but for what goal are you changing values? — Lionino

I described here my system for changing my values, but did not describe a complete moral system. I can do that, but it would require a second post. I might do it a little bit later.

BTW, I never had the goal in my life of being able to freeze my hand for a long time. I just felt humiliated about being grumpy with people, and realized quite by accident later that I was then able to endure all manner of common physical pains. I kept my hand for a long time in the ice bath just to see if I could. It is brought up here just as an example of how it is possible to have a great deal of control over one's self.

↪Brendan Golledge Congratulations on getting there. But I have to say that there doesn't seem to be much benefit in being an Ubermensch if your account is definitive. Can you explain what the benefits might be? — Tom Storm

I don't actually know that my account is definitive. I just believe it's a lot more than what most people have done, and I am lonely and disappointed that I have no one to share it with. You are right that there are no immediate material benefits from this. Humans are social creatures and do all of their great accomplishments in groups. If I can't convince other people of what I'm interested in, then I still have only my own 2 hands to work with, no matter what vision I have in my head. If you were intrinsically motivated by trying to be honest or have a peaceful heart, then inner work like this would be its own reward. I suppose the primary material benefit I receive is that I don't participate in popular stuff which is stupid. I don't need to convince anyone else to disengage myself from bad things, even if those bad things are very popular.

Being able to type an Ü is, of course, an uberpower. — baker

Ich spreche eigentlich ein bisschen auf deutsch. Es war mir einfach nicht wichtig, die umlaud zu schreiben, wenn ich wusste, dass jeder mir verstanden wuerde.

I really like this post. I hadn't thought about how Nietzsche was that important before, but I think you make a good argument. I also like Hume though, because of his thoughts on metaphysics and phenomenology (such as the is-ought dilemma).

I am inspired by this post to write a post of my own about the ubermensch.

If somebody wants to call the psychological aspect of their religious experience "Tao" or "The Way" or "Conscience" or some other such thing, where a Christian would call the same or a similar experience "The Holy Spirit", then I do not have a problem with that. If we are using descriptive words, then we can understand what we are talking about, even if we use different names. God as creator of the universe, however, is not obviously interchangeable with "The Way", so, I guess someone from a Buddhist background would not have attempted to write an essay as I did which lumped these 2 things together.

I saw that video shortly after it came out. It is probably one of the reasons why I came to view God this way.

I do think that Dark Matter often responds to a cartoonish representation of Christianity, which unfortunately, actually seems to accurately reflect a lot of Protestants. I have experience with more serious Christians, who are not so bothered by existence of atheists. I was actually astonished when I read the comments from those Christians who say that they should just shoot atheists. It had been a long time since I'd seen that video, and I had forgotten about that part. It does not fit with my experience of Christians.

I think to some extent, whether God exists or not, God is a figment of our imagination, because it is impossible to fully know the infinite. God inside our heads is always whatever we think of him. I do know, however, that some Christians genuinely do take, "thy will be done" seriously, because they inconvenience themselves to do what they think God wants. But there is indeed a kind of Christian who does not change their behavior to fit the Bible, or their own conscience, but imagine that God fits whatever they were going to do anyway. We must judge everything through ourselves, but I suppose the difference between these 2 groups is that one of them believes that there is an objective truth outside of their own wants, and they look for it, whereas the other group does not take anything outside their own wants seriously.

Edit: I suppose I do believe that there is a "God" outside our heads. I made a proof in my original essay (which I think is a legit proof) that SOMETHING exists outside of the realm of human reason. Also, science provides very good evidence that there is an ordering principle to existence. It seems reasonable to call this God. Now, it's a far ways from proving that this God is the God of the Bible, but it does not seem reasonable to say that God doesn't exist at all. From the psychological basis, we seem to associate God with our conscience. I cannot prove that there is a link between the 2 (the origin of existence and our conscience). But it does seem reasonable and good to me to do what seems morally most righteous to me, and to be interested in the ultimate origin and ordering principle to existence, and this leads inevitably to thoughts about God. As for the Bible, I think at worst, it was written by fallible humans who were extremely interested in moral righteousness, and that it therefore does contain a lot of wisdom about proper living. Jesus has not come down to clarify these things for me. But I think I do understand a lot of the wisdom described in the Bible, and it is worth it to me to take it seriously and to reference it as a guide when I'm in doubt.

It seems like you're not familiar with the idea that there are multiple personalities within the unconscious. This was the point I was trying to make. I was thinking that monotheism pointed at the Jungian idea of integration, whereas polytheists did not even see personal integration as a goal. This means essentially, ironing out all the inconsistencies within one's self. For instance, I want to love my wife and be loyal to her, but I also sometimes have sexual impulses which are not loyal. The monotheist idea that there is only one God, if we think that we experience God through our unconscious (although I don't think ancient people even had the psychological interpretation of the unconscious), means that we are not inwardly in the image of the one God when we are in inner conflict like this. The polytheists would have often not even considered it to be a problem, because their explanation of the world included many different conflicting forces in the world. Although in this particular case, cheating on one's wife might have violated an oath made to Zeus or something, so they would have had a reason not to do that. But it seems likely that they would not have seen a problem with the conflicting voices themselves. A polytheist tempted to adultery might think to himself, "Aphrodite is tempting me, but I made an oath to Zeus to maintain my marriage." A Christian would think, "A demon is tempting me with lust. I must reject this thought." In this case there is an obvious outward act that would be wrong, if it were acted upon. I guess the difference is that for the polytheist, the thought itself is not necessarily bad, whereas for the monotheist (if interpreted like Christians have interpreted it), it is. That's because if we have sinful (inconsistent) inclinations, in means we are not inwardly reflecting the image of the ONE God.

I don't feel like your response to the geographic correlation of human beliefs doesn't seem to really address the point to me. The fact that different religions have some overlap doesn't explain why people emphatically categorize themselves as belonging to different religious groups, and why these groups are geographically isolated.

I don't see how the "unconscious" is a tautology. I don't know how it comes about, but it's something we obviously have and experience. I was just asserting that this thing we experience was interpreted in a religious context in the past, whereas it is interpreted in a psychological context today.

My talk of infinity in that paragraph, I admit, was not precise. I had the idea that infinity + 1 = infinity. In that sense, God cannot meaningfully add to himself. But this is the speculative part of the essay, so I don't mind being proven wrong (or not very rigorous) in that respect.

To someone, personal experience of highest value could be money, to others, it could be bodily pleasure, fame, power and authority, friendship, health ... etc etc. Your God as your personal experience of highest value sounds uniquely and excessively subjective to the extent to convince me that it couldn't possibly be a philosophical definition of God.

YES! YES! THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I MEANT! SOMEONE READ THE FIRST SENTENCE OF MY POST, THOUGHT ABOUT IT, AND UNDERSTOOD WHAT I SAID!!! YES!

I suppose I could have elucidated upon this more, since I guess it's a new topic to most people. To religious people, it seems to me that when they talk about God, they are SOMETIMES really projecting their own values onto God, and then they claim that they are speaking with God's authority, when they are really just giving their own opinion. But I think I did elucidate in the 2nd paragraph, that when secular people are talking about ethics, they are also, in an abstract sense, talking about God. That's because to ancient people and modern religious people, God is like a personification of their ethics and morals. So, secular people are functionally talking about God when they talk about ethics, even if they do not recognize him as a person. A Christian would say that putting money, bodily pleasure, fame, power, etc in place of God is idolatry.

I'm just so happy that at least one person read the first sentence of my essay, and showed by his reply that he understood what I meant.

I suppose maybe this is more of a psychological than a philosophical approach, and I posted on a philosophy forum. I suppose that is a legit critique.

I've been thinking a lot recently about how it seems that most people are incapable of thinking outside of their social context. Reading these replies has reinforced that idea.

I got one answer which quoted the first two sentences in the essay and claimed that I made an unverifiable ontological claim about God, when the first sentence of my essay started with "God, as experienced..." which clearly indicates that I'm making a phenomenological claim and not an ontological one. Another reply said that I ought to have defined God before talking about him, when again, that was covered in the first sentence of my post.

Now Ciceronian's' recent reply quoted me talking about monotheism and psychological unity as if I were talking about social unity among all mankind, and stoning or burning outcasts. I wrote right in the first sentence he quoted, "...from a psychological perspective...", later in the quote I talked about one's conscience, and much of the original post and nearly the entirety of the later discussions were focused on psychology and phenomenology (how things seem to be from a personal perspective). So, I see no reason why he would have had the idea that I was talking about social unity when all these other things would point to me talking about psychological unity within one's self.

You all came into this with preconceptions about what I was going to talk about, and didn't understand a thing I said which was outside of those preconceptions, which includes most of what I said.

The "one" I was referring to was purely psychological in nature. It means that there is only one "I", rather than a cacophony of different Is (hungry I, jealous I, generous I, etc). So, the human race being "one", burning, stoning, and hanging people are totally irrelevant to the point that was being made.

I'll repeat again, for a large part of the essay, I'm not concerned with God-as-such, but with God-as-experienced, which in one aspect means dealing with one's conscience. People have experience of this, and I believe this experience is often what people attribute to God (I actually read several books and essays on prayer, and always came to the conclusion that I can't tell the difference between their testimony of God and of one's conscience). Since dealing with one's conscience is an experience almost as common and fundamental as hunger or sadness, it is entirely reasonable to talk about it from experience.

I've heard several people say that they can't understand anything Jordan Peterson says. I and many other people do think they understand what he is saying. I don't know how to argue about that without trying to put everything Jordan Peterson has said into my own words, and I'm not going to do that.

I thought of another thing I could have put in the essay. I have heard that from the psychological perspective, the conversion from polytheism to monotheism meant that people imagined themselves to be one (at least in ideal) whereas they had not thought like that before. For instance, it has been argued that the ancient Greeks believed in a virtue ethic, where the virtues exist for their own sake. There could be an instance where the virtues are not in perfect agreement, such as in the case of justice and of mercy. One could choose one or the other and be just fine. Since the gods are personifications of our own internal experiences (like I mentioned in the essay, Ares = anger, Aphrodite = lust, etc), if they are many, then we conceive of ourselves as also being many. But If we believe in just one God that is to be properly worshipped, then our best and highest selves (what a Christian probably identifies as his conscience) is just one, and everything not in alignment with that needs to be reformed or cut off.

Francis Ray wrote something earlier which I hadn't noticed, which I like and I think there might be truth in it:
"One of the reported components of such experiences is usually a sense of immediate contact with a deeper and more real level of reality than the one we call 'me' and 'my world', When this intuition is externalized it becomes an objectified God; an individual other than ourselves. Regardless of the exact nature of the experience it seems to be this process of conceptualization and externalization that gives rise to the idea of a God from whom we are apart. The Old Testament story of the Golden Calf may be a warning against making this mistake."
I didn't talk about experiences of sensing a more real level of reality, because I don't have much of that experience, but I believe other people's experience of it has affected religious development.

Thank you for your reply and positive review.


You ask, "...would it not have been better, if it started with the definition of God..."

The very first sentence of my essay is: "God, as experienced, seems to have something to do with a projection of a person’s highest values."

So I did provide a definition of God, at least from the phenomenological perspective, in the very first sentence.


As it says in the title, I address God as experienced, and as metaphysical speculation. The "experience" (or phenomenology) of God is self-evident. You can experience it yourself. As I described in the first section, I believe that ancient people attributed their experiences (thoughts & feelings) which arose from the unconscious to gods, angels, and demons. I believe that when Christians believe they are experiencing God, they are probably in-large-part actually experiencing their own conscience. I call this the "Holy Spirit" (since I think that's how most people experience what they call the "Holy Spirit"), and it is the voice inside one's self which aims for what is highest. The whole last section is devoted to techniques for listening to and developing this voice. It's not something you have to take on faith without evidence. You can try it.

The parts on metaphysical speculation are what you would probably think of when looking for something ontological. I believe I make rational arguments, but I do not believe that I have 100% proof. I think I hint at that already in the title with the word "speculation".


I did not like the quote from Wittgenstein because it was another comment that made me think that the poster had not read anything in my essay. The attitude I had when I wrote the essay is, "I want to show you something. Come check it out." When I read that quote, I imagine it is probably in response to religious people who are nosy into other people's business and push ideas on them which no one can verify. But I am constantly concerned with verification throughout the essay. You can try the "as experienced" parts yourself and make a decision for yourself. It's not some made-up dogma that you have to accept on faith. It is in a metaphorical sense, something like a song or a dance which you can try out for yourself. I think I feel similar to how I would if I sung a song and posted it on youtube, and somebody commented, "keep your singing to yourself." Why did you even click on the video if you weren't interested in hearing music? Or is my song really so bad that it should be so summarily dismissed?

The "speculation" section has no final proof in it, but I let you follow along with my logic. So, I think there is really nothing in the whole essay that can't be followed along with. So the answer, "keep it to yourself," very much makes me think that he didn't try it, and probably didn't even read it.



I do not think this document is good for skimming. I wrote VERY compactly. As T Clark wrote, there is enough for 10 discussions. This is basically the culmination of several years of thought (including living at a monastery and reading a dozen books on the topic). It is not something that is meant to be skimmed.

It really is something of a manifesto. I am willing to have a discussion if somebody has questions about it, but I am not in the process of forming my opinion. My opinion is formed, and I am sharing it.

I remember now why it has been several years since I have posted anything to an online forum. Most of the replies to the content show that they did not read the post (or else they would not have written their reply like that), and/or I get some strange comment denying something fundamental like causality. The only reply I actually appreciate was T Clark's, since he said forthrightly that the post was just too long and he can't address all of it.