An old writing

Last semester, right at the beginning, Professor Ranger asked us to write a paper about what we thought about philosophy and such. There were a few things we were supposed to cover. The core of what I believe has stayed the same, but there are considerable surface differences, and things I now consider to be horribly worded. Namely, the mention of liberty and when I say "the more you're worth"- I really mean how much you think and how free of biases you are, and that I respect you more. Clearly, I just defined my origin of value, I totally contradict myself with that. There has also been an overall change I can't really explain, but I think I made reality seem too straightforward and centred only on ideas and not emotions. It actually seems a little offensive now, judgmental sounding. Actually, it doesn't make much sense to be talking about this before the essay. Whatever, if you want to, you can refer to it after.

By: Mark Simpson (1002868)

For: Jean-Philippe Ranger

Phil 1013-B

Assignment 1: On Philosophy

Submitted September 11, 2009-09-10

Title: “Philosophy, maybe.”

Philosophy to me has always meant any sort of thought which attempted to divine questions of existence with logic rather than solid evidence, although any confidence I have in that definition only comes from the time which I’ve used it. I’ve labelled all my debates over religion, the creation of the universe, the reality of the real, and even the implications of quantum physics theory as philosophical, and they are what my mind connects to philosophy when I think of it. Some common questions of philosophy I’ve heard are about the meaning of life, the nature of reality, the origin of all things, and justice. There are a lot of people who also count personal beliefs and catchphrases as being a philosophy, but I don’t believe that’s accurate. I can’t count “Don’t worry, be happy” as being philosophical; it’s just a value with no argument behind it to back it up, and the philosophy I know demands some sort of logic. Philosophy is about truth, and truth does not change. Those answers that have been discovered in philosophy shall remain to be true for ever, as long as they are true to begin with.

The most important question in philosophy for me is definitely “What gives things value?”, but I am very confident in my answer. There is one trait that I hold has unconditional value, and that is the self, or personality. The inanimate being understands nothing that happens around it, and makes no choices for itself. The digital being can understand some things that happen around it but can make no choices for itself. The animalistic being can understand some of what happens around it and can make some choices for itself. The sentient being can understand more of what happens around it, and can make more choices for itself. In of themselves and not as a tool for humans, the standard value given to each of these would be in the order of inanimate = digital < animalistic < sentient. Therefore, I tend to define potential for personality development as being intelligence multiplied by liberty (both positive and negative). Therefore, what things have worth are those which foster those things. For clarification, although all people have personality, not all is equal. To start with, we are blank slates. For survival’s sake, our initial behaviours were taken directly from those around us and our biology, but as time passes, random chance separates us in what choices we make. Given enough of those random divergences, a self that is separate entirely from everyone else’s will develop, provided there are choices and the intelligence to understand that they’re there. At that point, there is personality, but not a complete one. A complete personality is one which has completely replaced all of their original “code”, and replaced it with their own, customized to them. I don’t actually know if that is possible, but the closer you get, the more I think you’re worth.

This question, and what I understand of the answer, is important to me because it unifies many things for me. I have had the core values of freedom and intelligence for as long as I can remember, I was not able to explain why. I desired to understand myself, and I was eventually able to uncover a rather simple version of this reasoning in me. Why personality gets to be the root value is another, rather large issue, but put in simple terms it’s really just that all subjective meaning, all the values that exist because people put value into them could never exist without those who have the self to place value. Life is more than just me, and my meaning for the world. It’s everyone, with all meanings. The ability to differ, to be unique, is the ability to exist. Otherwise, you’re just a shadow.