Philosophy at its best is critical, heretical, novel, and utterly rational. It aims to create new and better understandings, and ofttimes that means sweeping away established dogmas. It is the arch-enemy and antithesis of arbitrary authority – instead of “believe this or do that because I say so”, philosophy creates rational explanations for why a belief is true or an action is right – and by “rational” we mean that anyone can…

Everything in human culture originates in and flows from the human mind, whether it be good things (like music, agriculture, and computers) or evil things (like patents[1], dictatorships, and war). But the mind isn’t an unanalyzable, primitive and fixed element of the universe, it is an evolving set of processes, including modifiable thought processes – you can change what and how you think. Philosophy is about cultivating thought processes that lead to good…