You say you can't take philosophers seriously, yet you cite a Twentieth Century philosopher (Heinlein) in support of your point that you can't take philosophers seriously. It's true, you won't find Heinlein in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy (you won't find Ayn Rand either), yet his writings are often cited on FR (as are Rand's), and it's clear the intent of the quotes is that they are meant to direct our affections and inform our values (something this writer humbly proposes to be the task of a philosopher).
I don't know if Heinlein is on boop's short list of recommended reading, but, whether or no, he serves well as an example of what she meant when she wrote to you:
"By good order I mean the optimal state of existence for human beings -- This is the province of philosophy. If I might boil it all down to its essence, the problem that philosophy engages -- at least the non-school, non-academic brand of philosophy that flourished in classical Greece -- is essentially the fundamental problems of human existence. Plato (and Aristotle) would perhaps say that true philosophy deals with the right order, and right orientation, of the soul." And her conclusion: "But just because science cannot engage such problems given its methodology (which is perfectly well-suited to the investigation of the phenomena of the natural world), does not mean that such human problems 'go away.'" (message #1445)
Here's a fellow who is on my short list of recommended reading:
"State a moral case to a ploughman and a professor. The former will decide it as well, and often better than the latter, because he has not been led astray by artificial rules. In this branch, therefore, read good books, because they will encourage, as well as direct your feelings."
. . . . . Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787. (The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ME, Vol 5, pg 257)
No way of knowing, of course, but my inclination is that Jefferson would have found Heinlein very enjoyable.
Hello YHAOS! I’ve been thinking about this question for a week now [I’m a really slooooow thinker. :^)] Having tossed it around for a bit, I’d have to say the answer is both “yes” — and (but finally) “no.” Since this is a question that interests both of us, can we compare notes?
It looks to me like the problem boils down to asking whether man can change the universe by virtue of his “changing his mind.” [This is to perform a magician's trick. Hegel tried it, and even made it work for him.] Because he realizes he cannot change it all by himself (try as he might), he recognizes he needs help from “the masses”; e.g., public opinion, or even “world opinion” (such as what the UN is trying to cobble together these days, in a forum of corrupt tin-pot potentates, human-rights abusers, and dictators, with the full support of the ACLU, MSM, NY Slimes et al.). So he would need to articulate the experiences of this changed mind in the languages that human beings use to communicate, and try to build public support for them. Here the question becomes, can a change of publicly accepted beliefs change the universe itself?
My hunch is: No. Such a thing wouldn’t change the universe all that much, nor even mother Earth in the long-run, even if the outcome of the “changed mind” were to produce a nuclear holocaust. The Earth in all probability would heal herself and go on — though possibly without her human children.
What is changed by such a thing is human societies themselves. This occurs every time there is a mass falling away from God's Truth, from His Logos ("the language of the universe" as Francis Collins might say), as the historical record of mankind repeatedly shows. But if our societies are being changed, shouldn’t we ask why? and to what purpose?
For context, here’s a passage from Eric Voegelin that envisions such “change of mind” as a flight to an alternative, or “second” reality:
The delusions of a paranoid person ... correspond to no reality, but the delusions are real and the actions of the paranoid enter into reality.... [The constructors of Second Realities have] overlaid the reality of [human] existence with another mode [in which] the common ground of existence in reality has disappeared....One definitely gets the impression that what Voegelin is describing here boils down to the delusional person’s complete denial and refusal, not only of God's Logos but of the human condition itself. This is the source of “existentialist alienation,” nihilism, and other profound human pathologies. And it seems to arise from a profound anxiety about the terms of human existence. Among other things, by inverting the moral code the "paranoid person" (in Voegelin's sense) inverts human reality. Or at least that part of it which places its faith in life, liberty, and justice as the constituting values of what it means to be fully human.
All the spectacular failures of human societies stem from the destruction of this "common ground of existence”: Athens and Rome would be notable cases.
But after Athens fells, and Rome fell, the Earth kept right on ticking, and the universe seemingly never felt the blow.
What suffered was not the Earth, let alone the universe, but mankind himself.
Well, that would be my “thesis.” Actually, this thesis is being tested right now, on a global scale, and “in living color”: The crap ideology that Islamofascist deranged/deluded/psychotic Tehran and its zombies/puppets/minions worldwide seek to perpetrate on the rest of the human race, enforced by social regimentation and nuclear weapons for all time to come. With all the help the international Progressive Left can give them, from here in the U.S. and beyond.
In this brave new world of Sharia, the supreme values are not Love and Truth anymore; they are implacable hatred for anyone who is “not us,” and anyone who dares to imagine his private conscience cannot be "socialized" into the service of public purposes without committing the gravest injustice against God and man. Freedom dies, and institutional slavery is born.
Well, I am only an observer too. But that’s what I observe. Certainly Tehran and Hezbollah observe differently….
Still we have not fully exhausted the “observer problem,” for it has a precise technical component to it of particular interest to science. The problem at this level consists of the fact that the observer, that which he observes, and all the instruments he uses to observe it, are all parts of the same system; and all “interfere” with each other within the system, necessarily changing its state thereby.
But that must be a question for another day, dear YHAOS. Meanwhile, I’d love to hear your thoughts about these matters.
Thanks so much for writing!