Philosophy

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Machine Gods

Firstly, apologies for the extended absence – most of my writing time has been directed into finishing my 2nd book Machine Gods – Prelude to the Wodanian Ethics. Given that it sets the stall for what I am attempting to develop on this blog I felt it pertinent to complete and thus set a framework that I intend to follow.

Machine-Gods-2

The novel itself is a part fiction, part philosophy crossover – others can judge how successful my attempt was. The plot follows the protagonist through two worlds; one called the ‘Pleasure World’ and the other taken to be the ‘Outside World’ on account that it contains more of Humanity’s failings than the former. In the Pleasure World is where the character develops insights into the nature of perception, liberty and legitimacy. Whereas in the ‘Outside World’ such concepts are put to the test as various challenges arise such as conflicts with other ideas and the isolation of progression.

The book is set during the decline of Humanity’s civilisation as a more powerful and coherent model arises – that of the Machine’s. The book does not follow the established practice of Humans battling Machines for survival – in most part because the story starts later than said event and Humanity lost. Nor does it attempt to describe how a hero arises against all odds to fell the dominant, evil Machine empire – that one has already been told as well. Rather it explores the concept of developing legitimacy and purpose in the shadow of overbearing authority.

The book begins with the redundancy of Humanity in our Age of Excess; that is – we become evaluating agents rather than a participating entities. In effect, passive rather than active. And when faced with the collapse of Human civilisation a madman steps forth and constructs a world of pleasures for the majority of people to play out their final days. Except not all find joy in this zoo of indulgence. And that is the quest of the book, as surmised in the second chapter;

“Mankind has always progressed through a series of inequalities – a higher quality of necessity. My declaration, indeed my sum total of being, is to state that the Pleasure World is not the highest type of quality. And so I wander in search of this higher type of quality.”

Should your curiosity make its way to the book please let me know what you think.

All the best,

Luke

 

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Why do I study philosophy?

First let us ask ourselves what is philosophy? Philosophy is the critical categorisation of all appearance in relation to perception. What do we mean by appearance? It is the representation of the external world relayed through our sense organs. Through the study and categorisation of these phenomena as they appear to our senses we seek to explain the behaviour of objects with immutable laws. These immutable laws are deemed science – the practice of verifying theories through observable and repeatable experimentation. Philosophy is the mechanism through which science expresses itself – what do I mean by that? It is the law to which science itself must conform if it wishes to maintain its validity. Yet, surely if science itself is concerned solely with the proof of theories through observable and repeatable experimentation what else must it answer to?

Theories are proffered by people, people are agents of will and imbue theories with emotions. To quote the German scientist Max Planck, “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” Yes, science contains bias. But then so does philosophy, one may compare the difference between Plato’s Theory of Forms with Aristotle’s Empiricist Natural Sciences. So what purpose does philosophy serve? Science is critical of phenomena – philosophy is critical of science. Without this criticality it is possible, as history proves, for people to accept incorrect theories as science and, by extension, truth. E.g. the plum-pudding model of the atom or, perhaps more profoundly, the Ptolemaic System. More dangerously, a sect may be led astray by the ‘irrefutability of science’ into committing acts they would not normally commit. We would say at this point that science itself aims to disprove what is false rather than to prove what is true. Further to this, it is philosophy itself which places these theories into a coherent narrative as they relate to the perceiver. If the perceiver does not contain this criticality they too may enter into ridicule and madness. It is this danger which philosophy seeks to guard against for it must even doubt that science itself can explain everything; or whether science is limited by the sensory organs available to the perceiver and the experiences of his interaction with the external world.

So why do I study philosophy? To remain critical. What is the purpose of remaining critical? To live life by the will and not submit to an external authority which seeks to justify itself through mistaken categorisations of external appearance. For liberty’s sake, we must dissent!

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Introduction to Our Review of Ethics

Has Man lived in error to his reason? Has he been fooled into submission and righteousness? When the torch of liberty is lit how many will turn to see what they should have already been facing? Let us begin at our roots; let us claw, scratch and dig. Let us see how true our foundations stand in light of this new mutiny. Let us re-examine what the will has dared to question. Then let us begin with that exhaustive account of Greek ethics, both the Eudemian Ethics and the Nicomachean Ethics, and their author – the great Aristotle. Let us see what ground our virtue has been built upon.

What follows is a review and critique of the various works of the great ethical philosophers, namely Aristotle, Kant, Bentham, Mill and Rawls. We shall also consult the scriptures on matters of equality. The first piece of work to be reviewed is the eight Books of the Eudemian Ethics attributed to Aristotle. All text enclosed in “” and highlighted in italics is taken directly from the works in question.