Embedding Attacks in the Philosophy War: An Insidious War of Ideas

Chapter 1: The War Going On Outside!

There is a war going on outside, one that you ain't safe from. - Ye

Man is a rational being. In order to use our reasoning ability, we conceptualize. Concepts are important because they allow humans high level self-regulation of behavior. So, what happens when one is using concepts that they don't know? It may cause their behavior to be regulated in ways that are contradictory to other expressed goals. Without a concept of something it becomes impossible to explicitly reason about that something. While sensations, and the structure of the human mind automatically forms percepts, it doesn't automatically form concepts. This truth is the difference between actively knowing the implications of one's ideas, and the malaise of inattentively approaching causality. Bad ideas lead to bad consequences.

In order to understand this war one other thing must be explicitly understood. The way a war is won is by getting the enemy to have such a mismatch in what they understand about their environment that they're unable to causally achieve goals. Concepts are the things that allow humans to understand their environment, and so if one's concept of concepts is flawed, their ability to deal with their environment is causally devastated.

Most concepts are not originated as new in the person using them. They are transmitted from person to person changing behaviors. So, what happens when you have bad ideas in you developed by philosophers over thousands of years that you lack the tools to evaluate? Not only do you lack the tools to evaluate, but implicitly and/or explicitly are made to believe that the endeavor to discover would be against your better judgment.

The war didn't just start, but it is going on currently. Will you be the next victim?