Monday, March 6, 2023

The Trivialities Of Formal Education

From primary to postsecondary school, formal education is usually based around subjects or at least aspects of those subjects that are far from the very foundation of reality (core metaphysics and epistemology).  Things like the color wheel, the hydrologic cycle, the distance formula, or the anatomy of frogs are utterly trivial by comparison to the logical necessities that dictate all things, but it is the latter that most people are too irrational to ever recognize without a great deal of prompting from rationalists despite them already relying on these things on a constant basis.  What of how only the truth of logical axioms and the existence of one's consciousness are self-evident, with everything else being knowable only in light of these things or altogether unknowable for humans?  What of how mathematics is a numerical subcategory or logical truths, whereas the words and symbols assigned to numbers and their relationships are contrived?  What of how there is an impassable veil between having a sensory experience like observing a forest and even knowing if the trees and wildlife are really there outside of one's mind at all?  What of how there is no logical necessity in scientific laws remaining the same in the future just because they always behaved the same in the past?  What of how things like practicality and career preparation are meaningless unless humans have some sort of objective moral value?  What of how there is no such thing as morality or meaning without a deity to ground them, even though the existence of a deity does not mean objective values exist?

These are foundational, vital, and deep aspects of reality.  It is also precisely such things that are rarely, if ever, the focus of educational courses, though education is not required to think of and reason out truths about them.  Revering classic literature, memorizing terms for chemistry, and having a subjective interest in random historical events will not illuminate anything about these substantial philosophical issues.  Whether there even was a person named Marco Polo or where a specific organ is located in a frog does not change the nature of logical axioms, which are the only truths that could not have been any other way and do not reduce down to something else.  A subjective passion for science or history does not change the fact that the philosophical ramifications of these subjects are minor at best compared to the abstract metaphysical and epistemological truths that almost everyone--adults and children, the formally educated and uneducated, and Christians and non-Christians alike--ignore or are legitimately too stupid to understand.  Not only is all of this the case, but it is also true that if people as a whole were rationalistic, they would not even look up to education as anything more than one of two things: 1) a way to be exposed to unprovable, philosophically secondary issues of little to no inherent significance except when it comes to mere practicality or personal interest, or 2) a way to hear about logical truths that they could always know, love, and dwell on without any sort of social prompting whatsoever.

Now, the things commonly taught in schools are not all equally useless, metaphysically insignificant, philosophically secondary, or epistemologically inacessible.  At least something like the hydrologic cycle would be more relevant to practical life than the color wheel, but the hydrologic cycle, though evaporation and condensation and precipitation are in one sense vital to practical life, is a mere scientific phenomena, not the very core of all things, not a self-evident truth, and not something which can even be proven with absolute certainty.  Epistemology and metaphysics are often brushed up against by educators who almost never bring themselves to understand that the nature of reality is not known from history books full of unverifiable accounts of a past that might never have happened or known from scientific experiences that might be illusions of perception.  It is the necessary truths of logic and what follows from them--what cannot and could not have been any other way--that makes anything true at all, renders some things inherently false, and allows absolute certainty where it can be found.  On logic, which can be immediately grasped by all willing people without any sort of educational prompting, all truths and knowledge hinge.  It is ultimately these abstract, all-encompassing necessary truths that would deserve to be emphasized first and foremost in education, yet they are the things focused on the absolute least.

Someone who can memorize all the eras of the historical record or who is fascinated by the behavior of subatomic particles, which they cannot even observe with their own senses and must accept on faith from sheer hearsay if they wish to believe in them, is an insect of a person, an intellectual failure, if they do not understand the logical axioms at the core of all things with or without anyone else ever bringing them up in a classroom context.  Formal education is not an irrational pursuit in itself, since it can be sought with full awareness of its true epistemological nature as a stepping stone to professional development or out of personal interest.  It is just that almost no one understands any of this.  If someone makes or clings to assumptions, which they would have to do to believe many things taught in educational systems anyway due to epistemological limitations, they are a fool.  If someone thinks that anything other than logical axioms establishes absolute certainty or comprises the utter core of reality, they are a fool.  Likewise, if anyone thinks a person is rational because they listened to or read educational material, they are a fool.  True rationality and the depth and certainty inseparably tied to it cannot possibly be obtained through education.  Rationality is only obtained by voluntarily, holistically avoiding assumptions in favor of embracing the necessary truths of logical axioms and what follows from them.

Logic, people.  It is very fucking helpful.

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