Josh Plovanic's Writings and Thoughts

Philosophy is not just a field of study. It is a psychological/spiritual tool. An instrument of mental liberation, spiritual development, and a sharpener of one's language skills, awareness, understanding, and thinking. It can even be a weapon. A weapon that can cut into and shape the hearts and minds of an audience, driving their thoughts, speech, and actions. "The Word of God is a sharp sword" as they say. All governments have roots in the ideas of philosophers. All religions have, at their core, philosophical systems of thought that form the essentials of their foundations and methods of operating in humanity. Without ideas, philosophy, and the systems of behavior and thinking these create in humanity human civilization and innovative capacity wouldn't exist. You can't have civilization without ideas. You can't have innovation without ideas. Ideas are the blood of philosophy, mathematics, and most of academia. I have covered a significant amount of philosop

   "The first step in treating people as things is saying they are things."  Words are powerful things. They are how we describe reality and its contents, and how we identify things and their parts and relationships. In order to be able to manipulate, influence, or control an object or system, we must be able to label it and its parts as well as define properties and purposes. A name or label can do many things to an object. First and foremost, it enables our minds to be able to interact with that object, which then gives rise to influence and possible control. Labels are essentially word "tools." Sometimes word weapons. They can psychologically equip a person to influence, manipulate, or control an object, but that same process can be weaponized to do harm to a person. As tools, they inherit various degrees of value or power. Some labels, just like some objects in general, are held in higher value or esteem than others. The value of the label, and the value of obje

        No choice is made without an incentive. A reason for it being made, no matter how senseless or illogical the choice may seem to outside observors, and whatever controls the incentives to your choices controls you to some extent.  Imagine informing people of the full depth and scope of the consequences of their choices as well as the nature of the choices they made. If we were given such an awareness and understanding, where we knew the nature and impact of what our choices were and the full long term effects of the consequences of our choices, I'm sure we would never make extremely poor decisions.         No one willingly chooses Hell if they truly know what it is. What leads to these decisions, what truly leads a person down the path of destruction, is a blindness. A corruption of our incentives and our ability to discern and choose between good incentives and incentives that cause us to do destructive or wicked things.  It's like a "sickness of the will." Ou

  Throughout the whole of the Infinite and Eternal Creation that God engineered and that we all exist within, the only thing that is absolutely unredeemable and truly expelled from God's mercy, is chaos. Disorder, discord, void, nothingness, whatever name it goes by, chaos runs completely antithetical to God's purposes, plans, and love for His creation.  Chaos is the great destroyer and ruiner. It is the ruin of reality and the breakdown of the wholeness and goodness in Infinity. It is the greatest of all abominations, a cause of disgust to whatever and whoever is holy and good in existence. Order is essential for systems in Creation to work effectively and harmoniously.  Luckily, orders and harmonies can get really complex and dynamic, allowing for immense freedom and "wiggle room." You can have immensely complex systems, games, and behavior that appears to be chaotic but still have harmony and order. The harmony and order is just extremely complex and dynamic. That

  The Logos is the underlying principle of reality, and as a result it is the underlying principle of Infinity. It is the force or principle that orders all things, gives meaning and purpose to all things, gives a label, identifier, and description to the parts, functions, and wholenesses and completenesses of all things as well as providing the words to do so.  In fact, the word "Logos" was originally the Greek word for "word" and it carries the connotation of reason, rationality, mental soundness, clarity, and the description of all elements and aspects of reality.  The Logos serves as essentially a real world "Matrix code" that encodes all of existence into existence in the same way the movie "The Matrix" depicted a computer code doing the same thing to an artificial reality. Both abstract and physical, both divine and worldly, both wholesome and unwholesome, both good and evil, all of everything is encoded into existence by the Logos. This &q

The Highest Good is an important and essential concept for someone who pursues an enlightened, liberated, and purposeful life. It is defined in many ways by many thinkers throughout history.  Aristotle defined the Highest Good as "eudaimonia" or flourishing/happiness.  The Stoics believed it was "living in accordance with the laws and rules of nature." Plato described it as the pinnacle of his theory of forms called "the Form of the Good" which was the perfect mental conceptualization of goodness in its ideal perfect sense. Something he believed all Kings and leaders should be able to understand and have an idea of in order to be effective and legitimate rulers. The Buddhists believe Nirvana, the extinguishment of suffering, is the highest good, which should be the goal of all sentient beings.  For me, personally, my "Highest Good," the pinnacle of goodness, rightness, and wholesomeness that I set above all others comes down to 3 primary paradigm

  He created a True Infinity, an Infinity of Infinities, an existence infinite and limitless in every respect of the terms, as the largest possible platform and collection of platforms, domains, fields, and worlds for the partaking in and contending in all of His countless games, competitions, and contests.  At least this is a relatively reasonable and plausible hypothetical. I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if existence was created, at least in part, as a platform for games and contests. Conflict is a massive catalyst for progress and advancement in our world. This is probably true for other worlds as well.  Worlds themselves serve as places of contest, containing countless fields, battlespaces, domains, and platforms to play games and have contests in. For me, games are an essential and indispensable aspect of reality. They are excellent teaching tools and problem-solving utilities, and can make life more meaningful and purposeful. Games can be enjoyable in and of themsel