Development of my World View

Having been born into a highly secular society and raised in an irreligious and agnostic family background, I have been an atheistic materialist and naturalist for most of my life until my late thirties, and was only interested in nature and natural sciences. Due to my popular science interest in modern physics (cosmology, relativity theory, and quantum mechanics) I came to realize fundamental philosophical problems concerning time, causality, laws of nature, and the effectiveness of mathematics. I also realized the hard problem of consciousness, the problem of reason (incl. intentionality / aboutness), the problem of universals, the standard problem of free will, and the problem of objective morality, as well as the ultimate question "why is there anything rather than nothing". This led to a spiritual journey spanning about 15 years in search for a coherent world view, which implied the exploration of very different approaches like ontic structural realism and mathematical monism (Max Tegmark, Gary Drescher), pantheistic neopaganism (panpsychism, hylozooism, animism), Eastern philosophies like Daoism and Shintoism, non-dualism (Advaita Vedanta) and neoperennial integral thought (Ken Wilber), Whiteheadian panentheistic process thought, Bergsonian and Nietzschean flux, quantum idealism (Amit Goswami, Johanan Raatz and Michael Jones from Inspiring Philosophy), Neoplatonism with objective idealism (Timothy Sprigge, John Leslie), and classical theism. I also thoroughly evaluated the pro and con arguments for Christianity, esp. Roman Catholic (esp. Thomism) and Reformed theology, as well as Biblical exegesis and history (just for the record: no, I was not converted by my wife, who was a Cafeteria Catholic and "Chreaster").

My current beliefs can best be classified as axiarchic Neoplatonism: the spatiotemporal realm and mental realm (incl. universal mind) co-emerge in a strange loop with and from a platonic realm of entangled quantum information. The platonic Form of the Good (= the One) is equivalent with the God of classical theism, and is an axiarchic creative power that instantiates all possible worlds that are better to exist than not. We and the world are a kind of "simulation" in the mind of God. This view is arguably compatible with a sophisticated Christianity (e.g., sensu Teilhard de Chardin and Frank Tipler), as well as the more esoteric traditions of many other religions (in the spirit of perennialism and hermeticism). However, I reject all kinds of fundamentalist religion as simplistic and naive cargo cults. (You can find a German language article about my views in this article about Quantum-Idealism that I co-authored with Johanan Raatz).

My "conversion" from atheistic naturalism and materialism to such a Neoplatonist world view did not involve any faith in holy scriptures, but was exclusively based on reason and a careful critical evaluation of empirical evidence and philosophical arguments. However, I am meanwhile convinced that even without sophisticated arguments we can simply know as a properly basic belief that materialism is wrong and that a universal mind (aka God) is the ground of all being.

I strongly reject the modern surrogate religion of atheistic naturalism (esp. "New Atheism"), secular humanism (incl. the myth of progress), eliminative materialism, functionalist physicalism, mechanistic determinism, and reductionistic scientism as incoherent, irrational, empirically refuted, and thus absurd faith, which is mostly based on sloppy argumentation and shallow philosophy (esp. among internet infidels), and ultimately implies detrimental nihilism.

Political position:

I am a right-accelerationist (techno-utopian) and geolibertarian minarchist. I endorse Georgism / Geoism (land value tax) and Pigovian taxes on pollutants and unsustainable use of natural resources, combined with a citizen's dividend (universal/unconditional basic income UBI), as replacement for all other taxes and all other public welfare (with exception of universal health care in case of emergency). I also advocate a complete deregulation and privatization of education. Concerning environmental issues I endorse a positive anthropocene and promethean environmentalism (ecomodernism, cornucopian techno-optimism), including the use of modern nuclear energy and massive geoengineering to fight climate change, as well as embracing GMOs and industrial vertical farming as solution to feeding 11 billion people in 2100. Environmentalists have to abandon the delusional notion of preserving pristine wilderness and all of biodiversity, and instead embrace the pragmatic future of nature as a well-tended "garden" for human enjoyment and recreation.

I love modern Western civilization and hate leftism, political correctness, cancel culture, and SJWs. I especially hate ecosocialist luddite hippies, who dream of returning to the caves to save "mother Earth" from evil humanity. Gaia theory is romantic nonsense and the harsh truth is rather Peter Ward's Medea hypothesis: nature wants 5 of 7 children dead before the age of 5, it wants you to be dead by the age of 50, and in the meantime it wants you to be mostly hungry, frightened, sick, and full of parasites. Anything better than that is thanks to science and technology. The only hope for life and cognition to endure in a hostile universe is human ingenuity (Gaia 2.0). I also concur with late Hans Rosling's brilliant statement that "humans never lived in harmony with nature, but died in harmony with nature". Radical environmentalists with their anti-human and anti-civilizational attitudes are as dangerous for the future of humanity as climate change deniers and stupid anti-vaxxers.