In order to give some nominal structure to our discussions, I will group the ideas to be presented into four basic categories: The World of Mind, The World of Nature, The World of Humanity, and The World of Spirit. While somewhat arbitrary, this epistemological organization does allow for themes and discussions to develop organically around different topics and ideas.
By the World of Mind I mean those topics, questions and ideas that relate to how the human mind forms a conception of how things are in the world, of what is true and what is false, what is to be believed and what is to be discarded. What I would like to suggest here is that if you do not at some point early on in your life step back from any particular belief you may have and take an objective look at how you think people should acquire their beliefs, what constitutes a good belief, what a coherent belief system would look like (develop a solid “meta-belief system” in other words), then you cannot realistically hope to work towards a useful set of beliefs that will be born out in reality and serve you, and others, well. While it is possible to successfully change your entire conceptual framework later in life, the earlier that you think about these issues, the easier it will be to change course, if that is what is indicated for you. The longer you operate with a particular belief system, the more entrenched it becomes and the harder it is to widen or change that system or to see the truth that may lie outside it. A belief is like a bone—it ossifies with time and becomes hard and unyielding like stone.
So that’s the general plan. In my next blog, we will begin our philosophical journey into the transcendental dimensions of the Universe by considering what is perhaps the Big Epistemological Question, whether or not Absolute Truth exists. If you saw it, would you know what it would look like? If Truth came calling, would you know to open the door?
Yes, it is hard to eyeball the socio-cultural house we grew up in (i.e. Peter Berger's plausability structure)and then try to re-build it from the ground up. Truths that seem absolute but are only accepted, belief systems that seem to ring with the certainty of unbendable universal principles but are actually products of our society's great thinkers or believers, and constructions of reality that collapse upon deeper examination...those are not the kind of intellectual and emotional foundations that most people are willing to tinker with.
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