Motivations for crafting a philosophical framework.

This series does many strange things: define words, draw pictures, ask questions, propose answers. But before any of that, I should clarify why it exists, and why you might read it.

The purpose of this blog series is to offer a worldview: a web of fundamental concepts for thinking about everything that matters. You can think of it as mine, if you want. Worldviews come in all shapes and sizes - some are backed by traditions, while others ride recent discoveries. Many worldviews are vibes-based, while some (like this) are laboriously explicit.

Our goal is to derive spirituality from first principles. We seek a worldview that honors the instincts of both the spiritual idealist, and the reductionist skeptic:

• Spiritual Idealist: Cherishes spiritual ideals, interested in understanding their universal value and objective truth, rather than dismissing them as trivial, arbitrary, subjective, or instrumental.
• Reductionist Skeptic: Loyal to intellectual rigor, wary of vague concepts and hidden assumptions, discerning about explanations, preferring math and science.

Along the way, we leverage familiar (albeit generalized) ways of thinking such as evolution and ecology to redefine core philosophical concepts such as "consciousness", "morality", “truth”, and “identity”. These definitions are meant to preserve the colloquial essence of each concept, while gradually building up a compelling ability to make sense of previously confusing things:

• Translate intuitive wisdoms into technical statements
• Answer existential and moral questions elegantly
• Analyze (and design) spiritual values and practices from first principles

If there's one sentiment to take away at the end, it’s that reductionist thinking can help us appreciate spirituality more, not less - both its immense significance, and quirky pitfalls.

• How to read (Try expanding this by clicking the > toggle on the left)
• Assumed Background: Evolution
• Assumed Background: Ecology
• How can we redefine words? Don’t words already have meanings?

Of course, nobody should be expected to adopt a written-down worldview. Rather, we engage in the lifelong process of incorporating pieces of worldviews that we find compelling, given our unique experiences and sensibilities. This series tries to present a worldview that feels “complete” in some sense. But this aspiration for completeness is not a bid for wholesale adoption. Instead, it’s an invitation to appreciate the qualities of the worldview as fully as possible.

You can think of it as an art exhibit at the museum. Or a proof-of-concept prototype at the fair. Or an open source software project - code that’s been written and used by one person, packaged for you to try running on your own machine, but not a polished consumer product.

So, What?

Some significant human qualities are associated with or sometimes credited to “spirituality”:

Reduced suffering, increased joy

• The Buddha taught a path to the end of suffering.