In The Meaning of Life, there are two points where we run into the issue of values: growth and ethics. In the Growth chapter, we talk about identifying growth areas that matter to you. Obviously, you can do 100 finger curls today and 101 finger curls tomorrow and you’ll have “grown” in your ability to do that, but not many people would say that t...
Read More“Thus it is that the Tâo [The Way] produces (all things), nourishes them, brings them to their full growth, nurses them, completes them, matures them, maintains them, and overspreads them.” “He who knows (the Tâo [The Way]) does not (care to) speak (about it); he who is (ever ready to) speak about it does not know it.”
Read MoreDisagreements can be tough. On one hand, you believe that you are right about your conclusions based on the information you have and the reasoning and ethics you are using to draw those conclusions. On the other hand, the other person believes the exact same thing. The reality is that you have different perspectives, information, and ethics, so...
Read MoreWould you rather be safe or free? Obviously, people want to say both, as many people use “free” and “safe” interchangeably when, for example, they claim that they want to be “free to go outside” during a pandemic or when a criminal is on the loose when they really want to be safe when they go outside. But freedom and safety are opposing goals mos...
Read MoreTo live your life in the most meaningful, flourishing way possible, you have to have freedom. In a modern, organized society, there is always an authority of some sort, almost always the government, that is meant to balance the freedoms and liberties of the individual with the safety and well-being of the group. The main means through which socie...
Read MoreHave your ever argued with someone whether it’s okay to walk up to someone at random and kill them? Probably not. It’s pretty clear that killing someone for no reason is morally wrong. But what if someone was killing you, raping you, or stealing from you? The answer is that the act becomes clearly moral when that person threatens your life, but...
Read MoreScience is an amazing field that allows us to test the nature of our reality and determine how the world works and what is true about the physical universe. Ethics are a wonderful concept that allows humans to live together in peace and cooperate with one another for greater growth. However, there seems to be a dreadful trend of conflating scienc...
Read MoreSelfishness is bad; altruism is good. That's probably what you've heard your whole life. Do kind things for others, and you are a good person; if you focus on yourself, you are a bad person who will live a lonely life. While there is nothing wrong with helping others, it is strange how warped people's view of these concepts have become. Let's b...
Read MoreIn The Meaning of Life, I explain how ethics are complex, situational, and subject to evolution over time. A good example of an evolving ethic is if children were ethically obligated to go into the business of their parents hundreds of years ago due to the difficulty of earning a living for a large family back then, while in more recent times it h...
Read MoreA Unified Theory of Meaning can't truly be unified if it isn't aligned or compatible with most philosophies. In this blog post, I thought I'd start to show how all philosophies have the eight core concepts of meaning embedded into their ideologies. Let's begin with Christianity, which has a lot of relevant concepts. Here are five ideas from the...
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