A list of Core Assumptions and Principles

Every person carries with them a set of core assumptions and principles through which they filter all of their thoughts and experiences. It is important to become conscious of these such that you can check them and determine their effect on your experiences and whether perhaps you need to make a conscious effort to counteract and change them. I am sure this list I am about to provide is far from complete and it is my intention to add to and edit these as time passes. I will not remove any from this list but should any of these change I will note that they have either been amended or abandoned and attempt to explain how and why. I will also attempt to take each one in turn and make it the subject of its own post or series of posts exploring their source and implications. This post will be simply a list in order to keep it focused but please if you wish to question any of these let me know that is the point of making them public.

1. There is No God.

2. The basic nature of the Universe is one of random chance and consequences dictated by the principle of cause and effect.

3. The Principle of Cause and Effect is itself a coincidental result of the random and chance physical make up of the Universe as determined in the immediate aftermath of the Big Bang or Great Expansion or whatever name we give to the beginning point of the Universe (as we know it.)

4. The only road to truth or knowledge is empirical experience.

5. Truth is the accurate representation of observable empirical fact.

6. Knowledge is merely a level of certainty about the truth of a statement.

7. Absolute certainty is impossible. It is entirely a question of relative certainty as it approaches but never reaches 100%

8. Human beings do not occupy any special position either in the Universe, or on Earth.

9. Humans are merely one species of primate which has superiority in some aspects and inferiority in others and it is only through the over emphasis of our strengths and underemphasis of our weaknesses that we have deluded ourselves into believing we are special.

10. There are no fundamental morals.

11. "Moral" behavior is culturally determined and is based on the needs and best functioning of a given society.

12. Differing moral stances can be assessed on how they affect the lives of those people subject to them on an empirical level.

13. Our "laws" of logic and rationality are not fundamental to the universe a priori

14. "Laws" of logic are derived from experience and as such are subject to change consequent to new experience.

15. Logic is predictive not proscriptive.

16. Logic is merely useful for understanding the most likely outcome and for identifying likely instances of mistakes in perception

17. Should outcomes differ from predictions consistently and after the elimination of likely error the prediction and the "laws" from which it was derived must be changed.

18. There is no a priori truth, everything we know we know a posteriori.

19. Existence precedes essence.

20. All men (and women) are not created equal.

21. No individual or group of individuals is in any position to determine what inequalities are of any real consequence so society and particularly Government must treat all people as equals.

22. The world as we perceive it is for all intents and purposes accurate enough to be considered real.

23. There is no essential truth hidden behind the illusion of reality.

24. All of our perceptions and experiences are filtered through our conceptualizations about the world.

25. Our conceptualizations are the result of our past experiences and the structures of our brains and organs of sense perception which have been determined by the process of evolution.

It was in no way intentional for this to be 25. It was 14 in almost these same words but then I split some of them up to get to the fundamental statement of what I meant and to not allow 2 assumptions to support each other as one point such that they contained their own internal support... I suppose however actively trying not to have a multiple of 5 would be as artificial as actively trying to achieve such a number so I won't just come up with another right now but seeing as I do not consider this a final and complete list it really doesn't matter.

26. The future is determined and cannot be known. (I am just going to put this not here to remind myself what I mean by this so I can remember and try to expand it later: The future is determined by the laws of physics which on the quantum level contain a level of uncertainty and chance... Human future is determined by our reactions and interactions with the world around us, the nature of which is determined by our past experiences and make up, this is not a denial of free will because it is exactly these past expereinces and internal make up which is what we refer to as the I making the decisions we perceive as free will we cannot choose differently than we do because to do so with necessitate that we be a different person, we are free to choose as we wish and the way we wish is determined by who we are such that the I chooses freely... or some bullshit like that)