How To Think For Yourself

​How you’re manipulated. Strengthening the fence of The Garden of Reason. Thinking independently. And the laws governing independent rational thoughts. This is The Rational Ape.

This is the notes for this episode of The Rational Ape, hosted by Pong Lizardo. These notes are posted here so you could follow along the podcast. It’s strongly recommended that you subscribe to The Rational Ape on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts.

EPISODE INTRODUCTION

• The garden of reason is our metaphor for our philosophical system. The fence is the way you think it’s what protects you.
• Strengthening the fence of your Garden of Reason. Understanding laws of thought.

THE RATIONAL APE SHOW NOTES: How To Think For Yourself

AXIOM NO.1 REVIEW

• Existence exists produces 2 axioms:
  • Something exists and 
  • You have a faculty by which to perceive that existence called consciousness.
• A consciousness w/o anything to be conscious of but itself is contradiction. Before it could identify itself as conscious it has to be conscious of something.
  • Before it can say it’s a conscious being it has to be first conscious. Therefore consciousness.
  • And it is there, then something is or something exists. Therefore existence.
  • It cannot identify itself if it has nothing to differentiate itself from.
  • To have identity means to be distinct from another thing [that has it’s own identity].

LAW OF THOUGHTS
Law of Identity (A is A):

• Everything that is, exists. Everything has a set of characteristics that is unique to itself.
• Identity is being unique unto itself (having a set of unique characteristics).
• Existence is identity and consciousness identification (of what is).
  • This is why words have meaning and specific definitions/denotations.
  • Words refer to actual things in the universe.

Law of Excluded Middle:

• Something either exist or does not exist.
• Statements are either true or false.

Law of Non-Contradiction: 

• Nothing can both exist and not exist at the same time.
• No statements can be both true and false at the same time.
• Contradictory statements:
  
  • ​There’s no such thing as existence! - Don’t you exist?
    
  • Everything is relative! - Isn’t that an absolute statement?
    
  • There’s no such thing as truth! - do you assume that that statement is true? If so, then it’s a contradiction. If not, then it’s a lie.
    

• Logic follows the pattern of existence (what is).
• Of everything that is, it can be found why it is through reasoning.
• Reason is the bridge between cause and effect.

How your mind (the fence of the garden) is weakened is by breaking these laws.

• People mangle language to distort the law of identity. Once A is A is broken the rest follows.
• Breaking The Laws of Thought
  • Breaking Law of Identity: Bill Clinton lied to congress about Monica Lewinski, "It all depends on what is is."
    
• Breaking Law of Excluded Middle: Recent migrant caravan. Which was widely denied in the media. Either it exists or doesn’t exist.
  
  • There’s no 2 different worlds (left or right). One is wrong (false) and the other is right (true).
    
• Breaking Law of Non-Contradiction: CNN, Antifa peace through violence:

CNN literally scrubbed a headline which called Antifa violent because Antifa did not like it.

This is modern journalism. pic.twitter.com/pQ2oHRwkIw

— Benny (@bennyjohnson) August 20, 2017