Lightbringers: A Philosophy Journal

Dostoevsky wrote some very fine stories, exploring life in the tumultuous religious and political world of 19th-century Russia. "Crime and Punishment" takes a sympathetic view of a murderer who carried out the dead with a sense of ethical justification, only to suffer an overwhelming sense of guilt. "The Brothers Karamazov" is a theological and political drama spurred by patricide and hedonistic characters. "Notes from Underground" inspires many with the notion that there is an underground, a world inhabited by isolated free-thinking existentialists. But my favourite is the polyphonic novel, "The Idiot"; not on account that the protagonist and I share the same first name, but more that we share a similar ethos.

Thematically, the story involves the challenge of a character who strives toward being an ethical person, in the Christian model, whilst encountering those who are far more interested in material gain, domination in their relationships, and hedonism in their lifestyle. Whilst Lev is open about his own life and ethical motivations, those that he encounters connive to take advantage of him, and they do so with apparent ease. Nearly every character in the novel, including the women who claim to love him, refer to him as "the idiot" for his seemingly naive innocence in a cut-throat social world.

In reality, Lev is not naive or innocent. He has quite a deep insight into the motives and behaviours of those around him but chooses not to engage on their level, but rather continues to promote his ethical position without judgment, but with radiant friendliness, honesty, and a far greater depth of character to those who he is surrounded by. Such leadership is influential; even as others treat him with disdain, his voice becomes increasingly present in the internal dialogue of the other characters. In an environment where others pay lip service to their supposed faith and morality, he practices it with humility and consistency and thus becomes a shared conscience among other characters. Despite this, the novel accelerates to a clash of perspectives between the guileless and the manipulative, including betrayal and murder (this seems to be so common with Dostoevsky) with a stunning conclusion.

This article has been languishing on my "to do" list for almost eighteen months, following my completion of an applied psychology degree with my final (and best) subject on relationship dynamics. It also follows from witnessing many conversations on various social media forums illustrating a great deal of confusion across many vectors around the subject of personal boundaries. It may even include a bit of knowledge gleaned from my own experiences. In any case, it basically consists of five major propositions.

1) Personal boundaries are your responses; they are not demands imposed on other people.
2) Be consistent with your personal boundaries. Empathy without boundaries is self-harm.
3) Your personal boundaries give respect and autonomy to others and provide early warnings of potential incompatibilities.
4) Your boundaries should be open to reconsideration and revision.
5) Your boundaries are compatible with unconditional love.

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an off-hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine, staying home to watch the rain
And you are young and life is long, and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
Sun is the same, in a relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught, or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say"

These 1973 lyrics of "Time" by Roger Waters of Pink Floyd deal with the author's realization that life was not about preparing yourself for what happens next, but about taking control of your own destiny. It provides a very insightful, if popular, introduction to today's presentation, "Do We Have Enough Time? A Eudaimonic Answer" to the Sea of Faith in Australia (SoFiA). I will thank David Miller for his introduction, and give credit to a person who has been organising these "street philosophy" forums in Melbourne for several decades now, adding enormously to the intellectual culture of this city. To mention the International Society of Philosophers is somewhat challeging. That society was formed in 2002 with the journal "Pathways to Philosophy", and included amateur and professional philosophers around the world. The main driver was Dr. Geoffrey Klempner of the University of Sheffield, who passed away in 2022. It is fair to say that without Dr. Klempner at the helm, the organisation has been somewhat moribund; a warning for any unincorporated and loose association that heavily depends on the activities of one person.

This presentation is part of a wider series on the quest for eudaimonia, roughly translated from the Ancient Greek as "happiness", more literally translated as "a good demon", which in that context refers to having a good spirit - the word "demon" having received a bit of a negative reputation through European Christianity. Previous related presentations include "The Continuum of Needs and Wants", to the Melbourne Agnostics, on November 14, 2020, From Stoicism and Naturalistic Pantheism to Effective Altruism" to The Sea of Faith in Australia, on April 21st 2022, and "We Are We Do: Emotions, Trauma, and Happiness", a presentation to this group, the Melbourne Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship, on May 15, 2022.

It worth introducing this presentation by making reference to the International Society for Philosophers, of whom I am credited as a group identifier for this presentation. The Society was formed in 2002 in association with Pathways to Philosophy program, and the society has some 2000 lay and professional philosophers from ninety-three countries. Whilst supported by a board and officers, the driving force of the Society was Dr Geoffrey Klempner, who unfortunately passed away in November last year. I confess that I am not entirely sure of the status of the Society in Dr Klempner's absence, and can only hope that the board is able to take up and continue his project. For my own part, this presentation will have to do as an activity in his memory, following the spirit of philosophical investigation.

This is not the first public presentation that I have given on this subject although it is the first in several years. In October, 2006 I addressed a service of the Melbourne Unitarian Church on the topic "The Age of Spiritual Machines: The Artificial Intelligence Predictions of Ray Kurzweil". Almost five years later in July 2011 I was granted the opportunity to present at the Humanity+ conference at the University of Melbourne under the topic "More Human Than Human", where I explored the necessary logical pragmatics from intelligence to a moral consciousness. Two months later, in September 2011, at The Philosophy Forum, this subject received further elaboration with a presentation entitled "Machines That Think: From Artificial Intelligence to Artificial Consciousness?", and four years after that, in August 2015, another presentation to the same group, "The Philosophy of Computation and Computers".

The Silent Treatment is perhaps the worst sort of emotional abuse that can be inflicted on a person and also one of the most widespread. There is an excellent short article on the subject available on The Atlantic, including a great deal from Purdue psychology professor Kipling Williams, who has studied the behaviour for more than thirty-five years. He notes: "People use the silent treatment because they can get away with it without looking abusive to others and because it's highly effective in making the targeted individual feel bad." There is an enormous problem here because the victim literally feels the same pain as physical pain but because it has not been expressed, they do not exactly know why they're being punished. It can be so devastating that many victims, especially those in co-dependent situations, have expressed that they would prefer directed rage or even physical violence in preference to The Silent Treatment. Tragically, if there is a genuine grievance, The Silent Treatment is profoundly ineffective for the perpetrator as well, as they cannot achieve a resolution because it is never stated with clarity. It is, in a nutshell, a hurtful and abusive act of self-sabotage on their part.

Dear Mr. Curtis,
I am a free-lance geo-political theorist and philosopher from Melbourne, Australia, currently doing research into the psycho-social implications of the major ideologico-political crises of the modern era.

Like many debates concerning the relationship between "nature" and "nurture," there is a tendency for people to either adopt a partisan position on extremes or a muddled and vague position somewhere in the middle. This presentation will begin with an overview of the modern development of nature versus nurture debate, before moving on to the evidence of moral innateness and the comparison with the morality as a learned skill, before coming to hopefully useful conclusions on the matter.

The initial problem often comes from philosophers, because of course philosophers do tend to develop hypotheses first before they're actually tested, and people are attracted to the logical coherence and brilliantly pithy statements, rather than the subsequent evidence that is slowly developed over many years of stuffy journal articles that are boring but important. John Locke, for example, could exclaim in "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding" in 1689:

"Let us suppose the mind to be, as we say, a tabula rasa, void of all characters, without any ideas. How comes it to be furnished? Whence comes it by that vast store, which the busy and boundless fancy of man has painted on it, with an almost endless variety? When has it all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, from experience."

Our story begins with two elderly gentlemen sitting on a hillside overlooking their village by the seaside. We'll call them Peter and Simon, (good Biblical names, with a little pun included), but any names will do. They've had long and successful lives and they're enjoying their retirement and they're reminiscing. It's a beautiful day, the sounds of seagulls is in the air, the sky is blue with just the hint of white clouds, the sun shines and bounces off the calm sea, and a gentle breeze cools our friends.

But Simon is particularly rueful. He shakes his head and frowns. "Looks at those beautiful fishing boats going out to sea, Peter," he says, giving a disdainful wave. For decades I was the best builder of boats in the village. But do they call me Simon the Boat Builder in the village? No!" Peter nods slowly and silence passes.

Simon is not to be stopped. "After being a boat builder, I became a house painter. Looks at those beautiful houses, with their fresh whiteness, unsullied by the elements. But do they call me Simon The Painter in the village? No! And then, for my third career, I became the town planner. See those new streets and buildings, which I designed to fit the geography. I even went to university to learn this! But do they call me Simon the Town Planner in the village? No!"

"But just one goat!"

In some regards, this presentation will be operating on a high introductory level to some concepts that I have already discussed in the past at the variety of philosophically-minded public groups that can be found in Melbourne. For example, once can found related previous presentations with titles like presented to SoFiA, Melbourne, in July 2021, "The Continuum of 'Needs' and 'Wants'" to the Melbourne Agnostics in November 2020, and "Is Pantheism an Atheism?", to the Melbourne Atheist Society in August 2016. I will begin with a discussion of the philosophical tradition of Stoicism and its relevance to contemporary times, and especially its important role in both positive and clinical psychology. From this, the presentation can move to an elaboration of the Stoic views of physics, and in particular their contribution to pantheism in general and natural pantheism in particular. This is also an opportunity to dig into that much-vexed question of free will versus determinism. Finally, and as a way of conclusion an application of Stoicism and natural pantheism to effective altruism.