Introduction When the movie Independence Day came out in 1996, I wanted to work for the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI). While I have never realized that dream, it did spark in me an extremely strong desire for knowledge and wisdom of pure science, which has evolved into an even greater desire to understand the fundamental properties of this universe. It’s ironic really, because, according to Philosophy: The Power of Ideas, Western philosophy began when Thales of Greece considered the possibility that there must be some “fundamental kind of stuff” everything in the universe is made of. (Moore 22) While Thales was on the right track, he was wrong to suggest that thing was water, but his reasoning was based on logic. Despite being incorrect, Thales assumptions led to the beginning of metaphysics, the study of a simpler underlying reality, and that is what physics is today. In fact, theoretical physicists of today do just about anything they can to make their equations simpler. For example, we believe there are four fundamental forces of the universe: gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. Each one of these forces alone is represented by ugly, chaotic equations. In an attempt to “splice” all four equations together, each equation was revised to include a component that allowed the forces to operate in 10 dimensions instead of the four we are familiar with. Low and behold, after the adjustment, the equations magically fit together like puzzle pieces in a theory called heterotic string theory, also known as M-theory. Not only does the equation appear simpler but it also predicts that there is indeed a fundamental substance at the base of all creation in the universe. While the original string theory emerged in 1943, this final current theory was perfected in 1994, approximately 2500 years after Thales. In a way, one could say Thales was the original string theorist because science has largely been an effort to finish what he started. Regardless, the human race as a whole, is not much closer to finding this fundamental kind of stuff that makes up the universe. All we can say is that we have a formula describing the fundamental nature of the universe that is largely consistent with what we can observe, however, the theory, in its current form is unprovable, because it is untestable, for now. In order to test string theory, we would need to produce controllable energy in the range of 1.22 × 1019 giga-electron volts, about a quadrillion times more energy than the Large Hadron Collider can produce! Needless to say, philosophers everywhere can rejoice as they have plenty of time to ponder the nature of the universe before string theory can confirm it. I never considered myself a philosopher before taking a philosophy class, but now I do because of my deep passion for discovering the unknown wisdom and knowledge this universe is so cleverly hiding.
Metaphysics
Without knowing, metaphysics has been something I’ve been deeply interested in all along. Metaphysics deals with two types of inquiries: What is the nature of being? And what is the ultimate nature of reality? The two questions seem similar, but the latter often provides answers with stark differences to what we observe in our everyday experiences.
The first few metaphysical philosophers, Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes only covered the first question by posing ideas like water, fire, and air as the basic fundamental materials that impose existence. The first one to get it mostly right, that is to say his theory was most similar to our current understanding of physical science, was Empedocles, who postulated the universe was comprised of basic material particles under the action of impersonal forces. (Moore 29) The Atomists, Leucippus and Democritus, expanded on this theory to say that these particles, or atoms, were infinitely numerous, eternally in motion, and combined with one another in various ways to comprise the objects we experience every day. (Moore 30)
Eventually, Plato would come along to describe existence as something more than just a physical reality with his Theory of Forms in which material objects derive their properties from a Form. In this theory, all physical objects also contain a property known as a Form, which is not in itself material or tangible, but gives us knowledge about the object (Moore 76). Aristotle greatly expanded on the works of Plato and it is from him that we get the term metaphysics (Moore 64).
Of all the metaphysical schools of thought, the one I tend to relate most closely with my view of the world is materialism, a view that only a physical world exists. Many philosophers would argue against me, stating that the mind is immaterial, but I disagree. I believe the entire universe is physical, even the parts we cannot see or detect. If it has gravity, than it must have mass, and if it has mass, than it must be physical. Idealists would greatly disagree, saying everything that appears physical is really an immaterial manifestation of the mind, but the mind itself must be physical because it is made of matter (Moore 99). Even my thoughts exist on a physical level; they are a combination of neurotransmitters and electricity. In this way, I am very inclined to believe the epistemological theories of David Hume, a modified skeptic who believed all our ideas come from experience (Moore 130).
Epistemology
Regarding the true nature of knowledge, I feel very strongly about the Hume’s belief that the only way to acquire knowledge about the external world is through the senses and that direct access to a reality not mediated by the senses is virtually impossible (Moore 131). Take, for example, the properties of light. From experimentation, we know there is a far greater range of light wave frequencies than we can detect with our eyes. But even when we use technology to detect these other frequencies outside the visual light spectrum, we display it in a picture using colors from the visual light spectrum that we can detect with our eyes. It is impossible for us to detect anything but visual light because we are physically limited by our senses. The same is true with sound waves. The same may even be true for touch sensation. When we touch objects, what we are “feeling” is the electromagnetic force between two objects. This is why, even though matter has been proven to be mostly empty space, you can’t walk through walls.
Another analogy I find greatly helps convey this idea is the mathematical concept world of Flatland. Imagine if you were a two dimensional being that lived on a flat plane. Now imagine you were lifted off that plane into the three-dimensional space we live in. What would you see? You would still see in two dimensions because that’s how your senses have evolved to perceive stimuli from the environment. The same may be true for us, given that string theory is correct, and also consider that when scientists try to account for everything in the known universe, they can only detect about 10% of it; the rest is made of dark matter and dark energy, things we know nothing about other than that dark matter has mass and gravity, and dark energy appears to have some type of impersonal force that acts on all physical matter.
What does this mean about knowledge? It means knowledge about the universe is limited. Even saying that we “know” dark matter has mass and gravity is a stretch because these are concepts humans created using a language that we also created with brains and sensory features that can only detect a limited amount of data. Unfortunately, this means there are things about the universe that we simply cannot know.
Another idea of Hume’s I relate to is his theory on causation called constant conjunction. This theory states that when we seem to experience one event causing another, instead of experiencing X causing Y, we actually experience X and Y (Moore 134). This idea is very similar to the way test theories. If event Y always follows event X, then we can say we know events X and Y happen together. If we retest a theory repeatedly and get the same result repeatedly, then we can say we know the theory works. But here’s where it gets interesting: being able to predict two future events occurring together is an assumption that the future will resemble the past, based on past experience. This is circular reasoning, and cannot be proven concretely. But this is the way we test and confirm ALL of our theories, and brings me to a startling conclusion: that much of what we know, we may not really know. The knowledge we believe we have may really be some alternative, less exact, but close enough to be considered analogous, reality.
Ethics (Moral) Philosophy
It took me some time to determine which moral theory most closely resembled my personal beliefs about the matter. Ultimately I felt it came down to this: I strongly believe in evolution, its mechanism has been witnessed on a molecular level. Contemporary biologist Richard Dawkins claims that “Selfishness is rooted in our DNA. Gene’s use us—their survival machines¬¬—to live and reproduce” (Bowen 248). This indicated I’m an ethical objectivist and a descriptive egoist. At first, I was not sure if I believed in universal morals, but the more and more I thought about it, the more I felt these two theories go hand in hand. It occurred to me that “morals” could be biological in nature, because of evolution. Besides our intelligence, morals are what separate us from the animals, if only a little bit. Like Dawkins claimed, mutations in the human genome could have occurred long ago that created natural moral instincts in us. Over a long period of time, these genes could have further changed in different ways based on culture in each geographic region, the same way facial and other physical features have changed. This viewpoint is a slight twist on the ethical objectivist viewpoint; it’s more like conventional ethical objective egoism, where morals are determined by what a society believes, but those beliefs are driven by genetics that drive self-interests which could vary from culture to culture (Moore 256).
Politics
Plato once said that democracy was a degenerative form of plutocracy, and that a society who holds wealth in the highest honor would eventually lose self-control of its citizens (Moore 311). The political atmosphere of the United States resembles both of these political theories. In a plutocracy, society becomes divided into rich and poor classes, and this is happening at an increasing rate in the U.S. The evidence for Plato’s hypothesis of losing self-control of democratic citizens in the pursuit of wealth is all around us. Some of the biggest financial crimes in history have taken place in my life time. Karl Marx, though not considered a true philosopher, said this type of society was destined to fail because it necessarily exploits the working class, and this type of state cannot be reformed because reform is not in the interest of the ruling class (Moore 337). He went even further to claim that any redistribution of goods in the form of welfare, taxation, or any other similar means serves only to pacify the exploited class (Moore 337). Though cynical, I have to agree with Marx’s viewpoint, but I do not feel revolution of the proletariat is coming sooner than later. This stems from my conventional objectivist views, where morals are determined by what a society believes. But I also believe people are naturally selfish, a mechanism designed to ensure the survival of the fittest. Although many may be unhappy with the current state of United States Society, the majority, including myself, recognize the natural rights guaranteed to us in the Constitution are mostly being upheld by our capitalistic democracy. As John Locke would say, there is a tacit consent among our society (Moore 321). Adam Smith reiterates this notion with his “Invisible Hand” concept, that when society is free to pursue self-interest, common good becomes a byproduct of the interest of individuals (Bowen 294).
Religious Philosophy
In the beginning of this class, when we took the “What is Real?” survey, I rated God a 3. When I was younger, I claimed to believe in God, but for the wrong reasons. It wasn’t because I truly felt there was a God, it was more because there were several people in my life that I knew wanted me to believe. Before that, I claimed Atheism, but in my adult life, after falling in love with physics and cosmology, I realized I was being ignorant and that the possibility of a grand designer of the universe was not totally unlikely as I had previously thought, just unverifiable, which led me to Agnosticism. Sadly, Philosophy: The power of ideas makes no mention of Agnosticism, so I will define it here: the view that the truth of certain claims—especially claims about the existence or non-existence of God, as well as other religious and metaphysical claims—are unknown or unknowable.
This definition is incredibly similar to my alignment with David Hume’s views on epistemology, that true knowledge in this universe is extremely limited, and even more limited to physical reality that can be observed with the senses (Moore 134). I do not believe that God is a physical being whom resides within the boundaries of this universe and I do not believe in a personal God, but I simply cannot deny that a grand designer exists.
That being said, I’m upgrading my rating of the realness of God to a 5. An article entitled “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins really reflected some qualms I have with the idea that God simply cannot exist. Physicists have repeatedly calculated that if many of the laws of physics and the cosmological constants that govern the strength and properties of specific forces within our universe were even the slightest bit different, then the universe would not be able to support life as we know it (Moore 439). For example, if the rate of cosmological expansion known as Hubble’s constant, the one accidently and unknowingly discovered by Albert Einstein, were even the slightest bit higher, than the universe would’ve expanded faster than gravity would’ve been able to attract enough hydrogen to form stars. On the other hand, if the constant for gravity were any weaker (and it’s already pretty weak), then the same outcome would occur. Basically, the fact that we exist at all to sit here and discuss the reasons why we exist is unfathomably beyond coincidental.
At first, this thought led me to two conclusions: It appears our universe is so finely tuned to specifically support organic life as we know it, that it had to have been the work of a grand designer, an idea also mentioned in “The God Delusion” (Moore 439). The only other possibility, in my opinion, is that string theory is correct and there are an infinite number of universes, all with different values for the cosmological constants we have identified. This notion guarantees, at least with statistical probability, that a universe like ours would be created. Some universes would be devoid of all light because no stars would ever form and some universes would be utterly beyond comprehension. Now I had to ask myself, “What is the purpose of creating a universe?” I feel this is a very important question regarding the existence of God, and even though it can only be answered with speculation and assumptions, it does warrant some thought.
Thinking in terms of a scientist, the purpose of creating a universe would be to see what would happen, kind of like a computer simulation. I’ve had this conversation with many friends, asking them that same question, and that is the answer I’ve received most often. If that is truly the case, then it would make more sense for there to be an infinite number of universes, because of the incredible amount of time required to complete a simulation. Unless of course, you prescribe to the idea that God exists outside of human time (Bowen 138). I cannot argue with this statement, however, it is most definitely true that if God exists, and it exists outside the parameters of this universe, time would not be the same. But who can say if that time would run faster or slower?
In a nutshell, I find that religious beliefs are based almost entirely on assumptions and many attempts to prove the existence of God have been nothing more than a clever play on words like Anselm’s Proof: If you can conceive of a perfect being, then it must exist; therefore, God, the perfect being, exists (Bowen 143). But on the other hand, I also doubt claims that evolution is a purely natural phenomenon that can’t allow the possibility of a spark of supernatural design (Moore 428). I can neither doubt nor confirm my belief in the existence of God, a grand designer, or a cosmic intelligence and I sincerely believe there is nothing in this universe that will confirm that either way, because knowledge is limited to the physical reality within this universe, and how could one ever have knowledge to something exterior to this universe, because there are simply no means to obtain that knowledge.
Conclusion
As it turns out, I am a true philosopher. My desire for knowledge and wisdom is extreme, especially in the pursuit for true, universal knowledge, even if it is unobtainable. I firmly believe in a physical (material) world that can only be learned through the senses. Whether or not the physical world we envision in our brains is the true nature of things is probably unknowable, as are most things in the universe. The problem here is that we simply do not know the mechanism for which light waves are converted into electrical impulses and then displayed in the brain. Is this conversion an exact replication, or is it slightly different? In my heart, I feel we can never know the truth of this matter, because we have no basis for comparison. The same can be said about the nature of God. The popular belief is that God made man in his image, but as the only form of intelligent life as we know it, we cannot even fathom a concept of God that might be different because what other concept is there to base it on? Who can even say that God intended to make us? Which brings me to the question I asked earlier about what the purpose of creating a universe would be. I don’t believe we can ever truly know why we exist, but we can take comfort in knowing that our individual, philosophical beliefs about this matter will more than likely never be disproven.

Works Cited
Bowen, Jack. The Dream Weaver: One Boy's Journey through the Landscape of Reality. Anniversary ed. New York: Pearson/Longman, 2008. Print.
Moore, Brooke Noel., and Kenneth Bruder. Philosophy: The Power of Ideas. 8th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010. Print.