Philosophy.
10 random takeaways.
1.
Column summary:
Truth is not preference or consensus. A claim is true only if it corresponds to reality. Yet finite minds cannot possess certainty absolutely. We aim at truth through alignment, knowing our understanding may improve over time.
2.
Quote:
- Friedrich Nietzsche.
- 1882.
From History:
Nietzsche’s idea of Eternal Recurrence asks us to treat life as if it might repeat endlessly. Not as fate or punishment, but as a measure of affirmation. Would you embrace your choices, struggles, and values again? If not, the task is clear: live more deliberately, honestly, and fully.
3.
From History: 2200: 175 Years From Now (+/- 50 years)
~7 Generations From Now (from 2020 CE)
Futurism is disciplined imagination using history, today’s tools, and tracing their direction. Biological immortality is less about escaping death and more about changing our relationship with aging. Future medicine will repair cells, renew organs, prevent disease, and keep the body stable. Aging will become a managed condition.
4.
Long before philosophy was written down, Gargi Vachaknavi stood among India’s greatest thinkers, publicly challenging ideas about self, reality, and consciousness. Her story reminds us that philosophy didn’t begin in lecture halls or books—it began in spoken debate, courage, and the willingness to ask dangerous questions, even when society discouraged it.
5.
Quote:
- Max Weber.
- 1922, posthumously, edited by Marianne Weber.
From History:
By distinguishing power from authority, Weber showed that modern systems govern through legitimacy rather than force. When legitimacy is no longer anchored to truth and accountability, authority does not disappear: it hardens into authoritarianism.
6.
From History: We can only describe nature.
The Unknowable Dao teaches humility. Language helps us point, compare, and share, but it does not trap reality in a neat box. Some truths can be approached, lived, and sensed without ever being fully pinned down. Wisdom begins when we stop confusing our map with the whole landscape.
7.
Non-Self is the idea that the self is not a fixed thing inside you, but a temporary pattern within the ongoing flow of reality. Non-Self says the self is not a hidden object inside the body. It is a living pattern: body, memory, sensation, thought, identity, and experience moving through time. In TST, this does not prove no soul exists, but the self we can examine is a changing process, not a separate substance.
8.
Quote:
- Hannah Arendt.
- 1963.
From History:
Arendt warned that history’s worst outcomes are rarely driven by monsters. They are driven by ordinary people who surrender judgment. When obedience replaces moral thinking, cruelty no longer feels like a choice—it feels like routine.
9.
From History: ~3.72 Billion Years Ago (after prokaryotes)
Mechanical sensitivity to pressure and membrane stretch
By 3.72 billion years ago, before vision, before smell, before hearing — life learned to feel force. Plants, fungi, and animals all inherited this ancient cellular technology. In animals it became advanced and neural, but its roots lie in the physics of membranes and pressure itself.
10.
In common use, pragmatism tends to be used to make specific decisions based on the value of the results. At times it can even support relativism. The idea that truth is personal. In TST, pragmatism is not about specific decisions. Pragmatism is your worldview’s calibration system: how you evaluate claims. We are all pragmatic in our own way, and TST identifies three broad types: Empirical, Rational, and Irrational.
The End. Refresh for another set.
TST Trainer
(c) 2025-2026 TouchstoneTruth.
Writing and coding by Michael Alan Prestwood.
(c) 2025-2026 TouchstoneTruth.
Writing and coding by Michael Alan Prestwood.
