The Basis for Action

1. Most of our actions are automatic - we do them without conscious decision.
2. When making conscious decisions, we ordinarily assume:
   • Background data (unconscious memory)
   • Unconscious knowledge that we can do certain things.
   • Unconscious knowledge that others can do certain things.
   • Unconscious knowledge of our environment.
   • Consciousness
   • Awareness of senses.
   • Awareness of memory.
   • Awareness of choices.
   • Reasoning.
   • Reasoning is a way to see what the consequences of a choice may be - beyond the usual unconscious choice.
   • Reasoning may also be just to see what may happen.
   • Most reasoning has very local scope - only very limited data is considered.
   • We memorize (although often only subconsciously) many results of our past reasoning (often gained through education).
   • We learn some techniques of reasoning and know how to apply them in special cases.
   • We remember many results of reason that we have not personally reasoned out - on the authority of others.
   • Often we know enough that we are sure we could reason out the cases we accept on authority ourselves if we needed to.
   • Often we also realize we couldn't do this - e.g. the reasoning is too complex of additional resources are needed.
     or we do not have the proper environment for observations required for the reasoning.
   • Very importantly, but seldom, we create new lines of reasoning to gain new abilities in choosing (others may have preceded us).
   • We rarely do such advanced reasoning, and ordinarily store it into our memory and go back to autopilot.
3. Science
As a social community we construct science - the product of many ages of individuals.

• Science systematizes knowledge in various departments of human knowledge.
• At this point science is incomplete.
• Science mostly is looking for laws or regularities in nature.
• I think initial conditions, e.g. history lie mostly outside science.
• Cosmology seems to be an exception to this.
• Also the study of life on earth as opposed to any possible form of life, seems to be another exception.
4. Speculative Metaphysics
We naturally want to understand our world - project our understanding from science - and our other experience - onto a model of the world.
• Metaphysics projects beyond science, but in a way compatible with science, to a model of the world we can use to make judgments which cannot be answered by science.
• I prefer the metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead.
• Within Whitehead's metaphysics, I would have a philosophy of language similar to Wittgenstein's.
• The actual entities of Whitehead's metaphysics cannot be named.
• How we apply names and other words can be understood in a Whiteheadean metaphysic, in a Wittgenteinian way.
• The verbal processes have applications in the lives of some biological processes as Wittgenstein describes.
• However, I think sense can be made of a lot of what Wittgenstein considered nonsense.
• Most of Wittgenstein's descriptions seem to have been behaviouristic - taking physical objects, in a way, as more fundamental.
• My descriptions of linguistic use would be in terms of events, sort of space-time regions perhaps, and properties and relations of these events.
5. Ethics
• Ethics is to psychology as health is to biology.
• I prefer the theory of psychology of Erich Fromm (but there have, no doubt, been advances since him).
• Understanding ethics will not necessarily make you a good person - or not understanding make you bad.