Some Useful Notions

Neal's first quick compendium inspired by Rev Jackie Ziegler's class on Process Philosophy and Theology, and an assignment to write down "25 Truths"

1. Focus not on finding "Truth", but on the search for useful ideas, meaningful relationships and moral guidelines.
2. Useful and novel ideas are discovered by considering existing beliefs to be open to revision, and valuing evidence based on experience and careful reasoning.
3. We have much evidence that critically interacting components of a sufficiently complex system self-organize to form potentially evolving structures exhibiting a hierarchy of emergent system properties.
4. Life is an emergent property of a sufficiently complex self-organizing adaptive system.
5. The universe is enormous and complex and very old. Basic forms of life quickly emerge given the right conditions.
6. Systems that are over-connected are fragile and chaotic.
7. Self interest motivates.
8. Power derives from the consent of those affected.
9. If you push, people will push back.
10. There is no need for or room for the "supernatural" in religion
11. There is no convincing evidence that supports a notion of a singular or universal "god" and much evidence to the contrary.
12. My body will cease to live as an individual organism, but my thoughts and spirit will live on in others.
13. The placebo effect is very powerful.
14. Love, community, tradition, ritual, joy, belief, faith, etc are very important and useful to many people.
15. Followers often believe in a prophet's word more than the prophet does.
16. The increasingly short-term perspective of society is one of the chief dangers for our future.
17. We need to change the bottom line in American society so that productivity or efficiency of corporations, legislation, or social practices is no longer measured solely by the degree to which they maximize wealth and power - but rather also by the degree to which they tend to maximize our capacity to sustain loving and caring relationships and to be ethically, spiritually, and ecologically sensitive. [Michael Lerner, the goal of a "Politics of Meaning".]
18. There is no reason why computers may not someday be alive in the same sense humans are, and may find no need for us, to use Bill Joy's notion. That may happen in the next few decades, and cause a fundamental "singularity" in human history beyond which predictions are useless.
19. Humanism is a rational philosophy informed by science, inspired by art, and motivated by compassion. Affirming the dignity of each human being, it supports the maximization of individual liberty and opportunity consonant with social and planetary responsibility. It advocates the extension of participatory democracy and the expansion of the open society, standing for human rights and social justice. Free of supernaturalism, it recognizes human beings as a part of nature and holds that values--be they religious, ethical, social, or political--have their source in human experience and culture. Humanism thus derives the goals of life from human need and interest rather than from theological or ideological abstractions, and asserts that humanity must take responsibility for its own destiny. [AHA]