Have you ever thought that people sure seem stupid these days? Much of this is about why that happened. It is probably not what you think.

This essay is part of the strategy section from a larger project that describes how humans can genetically and strategically adapt for long term survival and development in the new ecology we are creating to replace the hunter-gatherer tribal ecology we left for the farms and cities of civilization. Civilization is the new ecology that is our life support system. It is very efficient compared to any ecology for humans that exists in nature and can support far more people. It does though, have to be built and can be damaged, especially by war.
  
With that in mind, one premise that needs to be mentioned here that is in the larger book is that humans have two main instinctive strategies. The first is the blind "red of tooth and claw" competition that is most common in nature. The second is the instinct for cooperation indicated by the rapid growth in brain size shown in early fossils after we "left the trees". You can easily find both of these instincts in yourself. If we widely choose to use blind competition, it will endanger civilization and will not be able to advance past a feudalism. If we mostly use cooperation, we will be able to sustain a technological civilization where we will be able to develop into far more than we are now. 

Since this is long, I offer something of a spoiler. part of the reason for this story was to figure out how to solve the current problem of population decline in developed nations. It turned out that the study showed some other modern problems and offers many useful solutions to them, hopefully including one useful solution for population decline.

 

From a biological perspective, philosophy is essential to survival.

As a biologist, all my work has been about how humans can adapt genetically and strategically to the new world we have been creating, so that we can survive and develop long term. I finished the Genetics book and went on to look at strategy of survival. There is so much knowledge we have available to use including science, history, law, philosophy, etc. All are powerful tools. My training has always been science and was my primary tool for solving the genetics problem. During all this time, I have looked at various survival strategies and at one point I decided that I needed to explore philosophy, even though during my education I had usually been taught that philosophy was a rather obsolete subject. When I explored it, I was amazed to find a huge, useful body of knowledge and wisdom. I understood why it had been called the king of knowledge. It is obviously great knowledge, but I could not see how it could be practically applied as a survival strategy that I was looking for. Then, looking at another problem, I found a way it applied and looked at philosophy again. Philosophy interacts with our innate knowledge, that is, our instincts. Philosophy is more than reason and knowledge. Philosophy is an advanced operating system for the brain. The brain functions without it, but not nearly as well.

It seems that many people feel that science and philosophy, are incompatible and possibly mutually exclusive. Science has taught that, and also that philosophy is an obsolete study. The reason for this is explained below, but philosophy is far older than science and science relies on the critical thinking methods developed by the early philosophers. They are different bodies of knowledge and both are very valuable. Philosophy is the foundation of science and science extends philosophy.

So why write this and what is my authority when there have been so many other books about philosophy and it already saturates our culture? Because this is interpreted in terms of survival. This includes how philosophy interacts with cognition, and also on the interaction between philosophy and instinct. That is not how philosophy is normally looked at, but it is critical in terms of human survival. A human survival biased view of philosophy is a good thing because philosophy is vast and looking at it this way makes it less arbitrary, cutting down what is necessary to cover. 

Because philosophy turns out to be essential to survival, this is oriented around teaching it, including why and how. This description of philosophy divides it into four parts. (1) One might say that the simplest or most basic part of philosophy is the logic, reason and rhetoric of critical thinking. This corresponds to the logic expressed in language. (2) Beyond that are a few philosophical principles such as balance and humility. (3) After that would be the brief philosophical quotes known as maxims. These seem to be recognized as the most important teaching form since before they were carved on the walls of the Temple of Appollo at Delphi. These can teach lessons, teach a person how to think, teach how to control emotions and actually lead to development of instincts that are necessary to survival. These develop the neural net of the mind. (4) There is another class of philosophical truths that are more complicated and are commonly referred to as "Mental Models". We use those for simplifying our understandings and for problem solving. Many of them come from more modern sciences. These are mentioned further on with a basic listing of them but are mostly beyond the scope of this essay.

In terms of learning philosophy, it would seem natural to start with Critical Thinking and then Philosophical Maxims. There are surprising reasons though for the Maxims to be discussed last in this description. 

The human mind is a neural net, a pattern recognition device. It does not primarily use logic to solve problems. It recognizes patterns by their whole, not their parts. It is just as vision works. You don't think about it and certainly do not use logic to see. Your brain (visual cortex) finds enough parts to make a pattern that is recognized as what you are seeing. This is why very often the decisions people make are not based on logic or reason. For one thing, it is slow, but mostly it is because the pattern recognition method, insight, works very good. Later, logic is used to verify the accuracy of the insight. There are other ways the mind can extend insights, but that is another book. Philosophy can offer knowledge used to recognize patterns we perceive in the world, as well as teach the logic to verify them.

This is not meant to be anything near a complete description of philosophy. I am just a biologist. This is meant to be as short as possible, if you can believe that. It is about philosophy as it applies to survival. One of the basic lessons of philosophy though is to learn from others. This essay could be something of a starting point, but learning philosophy is a lifelong project. This is not meant to teach philosophy though. It is to describe philosophy as a tool and requisite of survival.

This story is about survival strategies, which in philosophy would be called moralities. A problem can be that it seems that many people are uncomfortable with the word "morality", though they do seem more comfortable with "ethics". I think this is because of the religious connotations of "morality". It could also be because the best-known book about morality in the West would be Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics". The religious connotations are because the Catholic Church wanted to claim authority over right and wrong, good and evil. Really though, moral systems and instincts existed before any book, and should be thought of in terms of biology. Ethics are not a survival strategy. Morality is. In biological terms, morality is the combination of moral instincts and a learned moral system. In that sense, right is what is good for survival and wrong is what is not. It gets very complicated in reality, but evolution has created very impressive capabilities in instincts to solve those problems. Luckily, or more accurately, by the design of evolution, between grammar school and high school, children's minds are what is called “experience-expectant”. They are ready and waiting to be taught the lessons that will take them through life. When young, we look for and just naturally learn moral systems.

Most of the knowledge humans need to efficiently survive is in philosophy, because most problems and questions we have, have been faced before, often each generation. It is  called the ancient knowledge, because it has stood the test of time. While philosophy is about living a good life, it is though also critical for personal evolutionary survival, as well as the survival of the society and civilization. 

Philosophy includes the accumulated wisdom of the brightest minds, collected over thousands of years, into focused memes that are shaped for our minds to naturally use. 

This is a good overview of philosophy and needed to be written for completeness, but much of it is contained in culture so for brevity you can skip it if you like. 

Philosophy is many things. Most basically it is about how to live a good life and achieve fulfillment, gaining the satisfaction that comes from that. Often it is called a moral life, but that is more complicated. Philosophy is about how to survive and thrive, especially in the face of adversity. The world can be a tough place. We need the strategies of philosophy to survive in it. Note that philosophy is not about achieving happiness, as many people think, though it is about achieving fulfillment, one of the best ways to achieve happiness.

Yes, "philosophy" translates as "love of knowledge", but most philosophers were interested in practical knowledge about how to live. Some, Plato and Aristotle for instance, were interested in meta-physics, but that topic and some others do not seem as important to human survival and so are not explored here.

Philosophy develops our ability to think, including both analytic skills and by shaping our neurological development. Philosophy provides tools and methods that lead to and allow understanding. The critical thinking skills of philosophy provide the essential ability to discern truth from lies.

Humanity seems to like to advise future generations of the truths and insights they have learned. The value of them is obvious, even when simply reading them for the first time. Also, we do not want our children to make the same mistakes we have made.

Philosophy contains profound knowledge. A study of philosophers though is largely a study of a history.

One great value of philosophy in terms of survival, is that it is a compilation of the solutions and understandings that people have found for the problems and questions that arise each generation. Almost anything humans can experience has been experienced before, and smart people have tried to work out how to understand and deal with it. A basic philosophical premise is that it is easier to learn from others than to discover something yourself. So just using philosophy, all these old answers, is really important. A corollary to this is that for survival, philosophy needs to be taught to each generation for the benefit to aid their survival. This knowledge about how to solve problems can be extremely valuable, but there are other things it teaches that are just as valuable. A perhaps deeper value is the understandings it can offer, especially of self and others. It can teach various forms of self-control, including emotional control. Another essential element of philosophy is how it interacts with our instincts. That one is interesting and important. I realized it was the strategy of survival I was looking for and also gave a new understanding to those other lessons.

Philosophy has developed through history and much of the backdrop of history has been war and other horrors so common to the human condition. Some philosophies were developed specifically for helping mental survival against adversity and the horrors of war and life. One philosophy even told how to avoid wars. 

Philosophy is a bit like art, but is ideas. While there are well known great producers of art like Monet, Rembrandt, Van Gogh and others, there are many masterpieces made by other artists and new ones keep appearing, often produced by "one shot wonders" even. This is true for philosophy as well. Also, there are the copiers and interpreters. Often, those that copy and interpret can offer great insight to ideas that came before them. While Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Kant, Descartes, Nietzsche, and many others are famous names in philosophy, there are many others including amateurs and imitators who followed and offered good ideas. Often the greatest understanding does not come from those that discover an idea, but those that follow, explain it, and expand it. 

One form philosophy takes is a collection of ideas, often referred to as "maxims". A maxim is defined as "a general truth, fundamental principle, or rule of conduct". Ideas that can be communicated are also known as "memes", contagious ideas. Memes can be manipulative. That is why philosophers put so much value on logic and reason. It is hard to lie when the reasons and supporting arguments for an idea are available (open source). It is why science loves to rely on empirical proofs. A problem is that in philosophy, there are many truths that cannot be empirically or even logically proven, but they still must be known. Their proofs are intuition and history. Science can reject what does not fit into its requirements for proof. Philosophy cannot and that is one reason time-tested maxims are the best way to teach children and adults. In that they correspond to neural pathways of our instincts, a person with good moral training develops great skill at evaluating the truth or falseness of what they encounter at any time. Practice does matter, but that is called life. Well developed moral instincts can serve for more general problem solving than just as applied to moral issues. It can be amazing what moral instincts and training can solve.

Society has changed since much of the basics of philosophy were written down. How has philosophy changed? Much philosophy came from a much harsher time when war, disease, starvation, etc. were far more common. Looking over the history of philosophy, earlier philosophy appears to be far more centered on personal development and survival. As time went on, its focus expanded more. This is one of those things that blurs because there were complex civilizations long ago, but they had different strategies than later or future civilizations used or will use. Still, society and its knowledge has grown. With it, philosophy has grown as well. Its scope has grown to include much more than the individual.

Philosophy spans nations and cultures. Most of what can be found in the philosophy of one culture can be found in the philosophy of another culture. They are all about solving the same human problems. Normally, philosophy does not conflict with religion, though religion may conflict with philosophy since it may not be in their Holy Book. Interesting conflicts can arise when a religion absorbs a philosophy as the Catholic Church absorbed Classical Greek Philosophy. 

Because logic and reason are universally true, because of the usefulness of the knowledge of philosophy, and because of how philosophy resonates to us as truth, philosophy is preserved.

Philosophical principles here are not described in terms of philosophers or schools of philosophy, (though many good truths come from traditions like Buddhism, the Dao, Stoicism, etc). These lessons are oriented around quotes or maxims that come to us from history. That we still know them is why it is called Ancient Wisdom, and is why philosophy was called the King of Knowledge. Not surprisingly, because of the value of them, the same quotes pop up over and over in history. Many are older than the people they are ascribed to. Again, philosophers and schools of philosophy are a completely different subject.

Biologists have an old argument about altruism; evolution says that it should not occur. A lot of caveats have been added to this over time, such as about altruism between family members who are genetically related. It is more complicated than that though because cooperation and even altruism are fairly common in humans, probably just because we make conscious decisions rather than just doing what our genes tell us. Since this story is biased to be about survival, it is going to be more about cooperation since that became as our primary strategy 3 million years ago and seems so essential to civilization. 70,000 years ago though, we made a shift from cooperation back to more competition as our primary strategy. That change peaked with Rome. Since then, we seem to be in another shift between primary strategies from that blind competition back to more cooperation. If you look carefully at older philosophies, it seems to reflect that. It was rather self centered. That is to be expected for a few reasons. One is that it was a harsh world back then and you really had to look out for yourself more. Simple logic leads to the win-lose interactions rather than more complicated win-win cases that cooperation can provide. A lot of it is about conscious decisions. Through history, people have hated war and chaos, and have consciously worked to avoid it. Also, older systems of society, civilization, and nations were simpler, and needed less complicated cooperation between people than is needed now.  

The teaching of philosophy has been crowded out by science. While science can provide great power and wealth, there is much it does not and can not teach. Philosophy is essential to science. Philosophy is also a foundation of our society and civilization, and it is unlikely either will survive without it.

There are many problems with the teaching of philosophy. It is commonly considered an archaic subject. It is considered esoteric and irrelevant. It loses in the battle of the memes that compete for our attention. At the same time, our nations and civilizations were built upon philosophical foundations and will not persist without philosophical premises. That is true of science as well. It relies on philosophy too. There are other reasons humanity will not survive without philosophy. There are good reasons why philosophy was called the king of knowledge as well as good reasons it is no longer as respected as it was.

Another reason education in philosophy gets neglected is because it is so important and basic that it has been absorbed into culture. The trouble is that there is a big difference between that and an education.  

World War One demonstrated the power and wealth that science could provide. The 1925 Scopes trial about evolution pretty much ended the ancient war between science and religion, with a decisive win for science. Philosophy was a casualty as well. Science is a jealous mistress that claims all authority of knowledge. In terms of meme competition, much like evolutionary competition but of ideas rather than genes, science was the survivor. It has crowded out almost every other subject, including civics, home economics, manual arts, physical education, and many other critically important lessons. Science has intentionally discredited philosophy, but in reality, relies on it.

At the same time, philosophy has not necessarily fought the battle for relevance so well either. Philosophy can be a bit like physics. Both contain valuable knowledge, but what the practitioners of each pay attention to may not matter to most people. From physicists you hear about string theory, gravity waves and other topics that have absolutely no impact on your life. At the same time, physics dictates how cooking works and how not to get burned doing it. Driving any vehicle is dictated by physics as are so many other vital everyday functions. Philosophers seem focused on solving the problems offered by existentialism and it is hard to take post modernism at all seriously, but the basics of philosophy are just as important and useful as the basics of physics.

Science has ascended and philosophy has declined, but if there is no philosophy, there will be no science.

The most basic thing philosophy provides is how to think. The most basic method it teaches is the logic, reason, and rhetoric of critical thinking. Much of this is what the early Greek philosophers focused on, the basics. It is a very effective way to think, that everyone should be skilled at. It is a great tool for solving problems, but even more it is the best tool for telling truth from falsehood. Critical thinking skills are essential for discerning the truth or falseness of what you are told or read or see. These are quite important skills in today's world of media, with all its manipulation and misinformation. Critical thinking skills also let you evaluate the truth or falseness of your own ideas. A good knowledge of rhetoric is important, because it is the application of logic and reason in verbal arguments. Language is a very powerful tool of logic and reason. Words have logical relationships.  In many cases, a falsehood is revealed just by the failure of language to logically describe it. We take it for granted, but languages are highly developed tools with surprising ability to both describe and analyze objective and subjective reality. It is widely acknowledged that our society needs better critical thinking skills, but no one seems to say that those skills are taught as part of philosophy. One should especially learn about the basic logical fallacies that can be used by others or even yourself to fool you. Often, they may be used intentionally to manipulate truth. Many of these logical fallacies are well known and have been given names like Ad hominem, Conflation, Ad Populum and others. There are many lists and examples of them available and some time should be spent on learning them. That is partly because some are common in communication, but also when a person has learned about them, even unfamiliar fallacies stick out because they present logical conflicts.

In terms of education, logical fallacies should be mentioned to young students but should be taught more at a level appropriate to the students. It may be more appropriate to middle school and beyond when rhetoric can be better understood. At the same time, learning reading just teaches logic and reason.

Keep in mind that the greatest function of logic and reason are for verification of truth. Deductive reasoning can produce some new ideas but is extremely limited compared to insight. Humans must be trained to use logic, but the mental processes of insight automatically trigger logical processes that evaluate insights. Also, insight is expressed in children before logic and reason.

The first topic in philosophy, critical thinking, has been mentioned. The second topic would be Philosophical Principles. These seem to be the playing field. These are lessons a person has to know, rather than figure out. Some could be taught in grammar school, but all should be familiar issues to a middle school student, like home economics or civics.

   Physical Fitness

A basic lesson of Western philosophy is that exercise and maintaining one's health is a key to living well. Your body is all you really own and if you do not exercise and develop yourself, you don't even really own that. Most things require health and strength to accomplish, and they can also open doors for you. Mental acuity requires physical health.

Physical Fitness and Training is a very basic lesson in classical philosophy. Often, as a lesson it is almost taken for granted. That is because it was so much more obvious in the past, especially in a past where there was quite a bit of violence ranging from muggings to warfare. Medicine was very limited. Behind all labor was muscle. Even in a modern era with medicine and less danger, your body is often your most important tool. There are so many reasons to develop and protect your body and health.

   Balance

The next lesson must be about balance. It is how to think, to understand, and how to avoid making mistakes. The concept of it is often best known by the terms Ying and Yang, and is the basis of Daoism, a fundamental Eastern philosophy. Note that Aristotle referred to it as achieving the mean, but the concept is older than that, certainly being part of the meaning of Delphi. Using Ying and Yang for an introduction to the importance of balance is simpler and culturally common, even in the West.

Benefits of teaching one to consider balance include teaching one to consider more than a single point of view at the same time. That ability is pretty basic and useful. Also, if a person develops an understanding of something, they can extend that understanding by looking for what balances it. In reality, something might not have an opposite or it might have more than two aspects, but it is about teaching one to think and how to think. It is important for understanding beliefs different than your own. That way of thinking also promotes avoiding extremes, almost always a hazardous place to be. Avoiding extremes will also be necessary for using genetic technology safely.

In the West, an example of balance was Aristotle's "golden mean", which he said was the key to good living. It refers to the idea that virtues are found in a middle ground between two extremes or vices. "The mean is a state midway between two vices, the one of excess and the other of deficiency…it is by avoiding both of these that we get to the mean.” Courage is the mean between cowardice (excess of deficiency) and recklessness (excess of excess). It seems that there are more sophisticated views of it that followed.

A good place to illustrate balance would be between spending too much time-consuming internet media and being uninformed. There are many other examples to use, especially from Aristotle who said that finding the middle ground, such as between pride and humility, was the key to living properly. Advanced lessons of that would be especially appropriate for the more mature. The names of philosophers, such as "Aristotle", should be mentioned sparingly and more as a name of a "famous ancient" that wrote about the idea. The idea they taught is what matters rather than who talked about it or when or what their school of thought was. They will though remember the name if you mention it while they are thinking about it. Anyway, ancient names tend to sound exotic and so they will remember it later.

   Humility

The next lesson is one of the most mentioned lessons in philosophy and that is humility. In practical terms, it is the avoidance of arrogance and excessive pride, things that can blind and destroy a person. This lesson would be extremely important in the human future if we develop the genetic potentials for the strength, beauty, intelligence, and knowledge that humans should be certainly capable of. This might not be so much a lesson for grammar school students, but it will be appropriate for some. Point out that not only does too much arrogance cause you to make mistakes, but it angers people. It can weaken you because you do not believe you need to develop yourself and do not work with others well. At the same time, as in so many things, there is a balance. You need pride as well. Without that, you can find yourself defenseless. You are a special person with amazing skills and potentials and you are stronger than you know. Without pride, you will not believe in what your potentials are. Arrogance will prevent you from developing into what you can be.

There is an interesting a lesson of balance. Pride, that is arrogance, is considered one of the Seven Deadly Sins. It is also listed in the 40 Virtues. Balance is needed in all things.

   Empathy

One should always work to understand the position of others. Whether you agree with them or not, you want to understand their point of view and the reasons for it. This helps one grow. It also helps avoid conflict in a number of ways. It allows for greater cooperation and coordination. You may also learn something from it.

   Friendship

Over and over, friendship is mentioned as perhaps the most valuable thing a person can have and that it must be maintained by conscious effort and action. The heart of our existence is to be found in our relationship with others and friendship may be the best part of that. We need friends. A gift to a friend is a message of love.

   Personal Investment

One thing that was not mentioned as much in ancient times was personal investment. A basic principle from Stoicism and elsewhere is that wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants. Education is always an investment in yourself. Later, as money became more common, there was far more discussion of the importance of husbanding it wisely. Benjamin Franklin in particular provided a number of maxims about money such as "beware of little expenses: A small leak will sink a great ship".

   Courage

The next lesson is about courage because all the other virtues, including the pursuit of truth require courage. Without courage, you are defenseless. Relevant maxims about courage might be: "the world expands in proportion to your courage". There are many more maxims about the need and value of courage. Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.

   You are part of a Society.

In biological terms, survival is not just about survival of self. In philosophical terms it must be recognized that you are part of a mutually interdependent society. You need to protect that, because it is your life support system.

   Law and Truth.

Respect the law. Nations that have good laws, that are enforced, thrive. Nations where the law is not applied evenly or where the law can be bought, fail. Without law, the economy fails because it produces uncertainty and contracts cannot be enforced.  contracts cannot be made and economics cannot develop.

Truth matters. Without it, you cannot build trust or relationships, both of which are important to happiness and success. Without respecting truth, you cannot put your life in order. You need the logical and reasoning skills of critical thinking to judge the truth of what you hear and what you think.

   Creativity.

For many people, creativity is what is most important and sometimes all that is important. Everything is born from someone's mind. They had a thought and they made it real. Everything you see around you - the computer or phone you are looking at, the building you are in, the road system outside, the cars on it and the planes in the sky,  were created by someone's thought.

   About Gods.

One thing I noticed about the Maxims of Delphi is that many of them are about dealing with the Gods, especially respecting them. This is true of many philosophical writings. Currently, the existence of Gods is not widely accepted. Do not let that trip you up any. Ignore and read past them if you must, but do not bother with having any emotional response or you may miss the rest of the wisdom. At the same time, if you have the curiosity of a philosopher, you must ask yourself, what did Gods mean to those people that considered them so important. I have not quite figured that out to my satisfaction.

   Christianity.

Biology shows that humans have two main strategies: "the red of tooth and claw" blind competition that is commonest to nature, and the cooperation shown by the rapid brain size increase when we "left the trees".

We have seen the cost of conflict and war, over and over. We have seen the benefits of peace whenever it has existed. It is basically the same reason we have law. It works and lack of it is a disaster over and over. In logical terms, cooperation is not obvious. In history, it has worked. Now, and in the future, war has the potential to destroy us.

If you look at early human history, you see the overwhelming competitive nature of humans expressed in warfare. There was though a little-known religion called Zoroastrianism with a philosophy that was rather peaceful and cooperative. It still exists today but is not a large or well-known religion.  

A thousand or so years of warfare after Zoroastrianism developed, Stoicism and Buddhism were both strategies developed for dealing with the horrors of constant warfare. (It wass wll expressed as "observe, don't absorb"). During the time of Rome though a philosopher who may have been inspired by Zoroaster, taught a philosophy that could even avoid or end wars. This time was the start of a re-alignment from the win-lose of blind competition back to the win-win of cooperation. 

When the names of the great Gods Amun-Ra, Athena, Odin and Jupiter are forgotten, humanity will remember the name of this philosopher that taught how to achieve peace. Unfortunately, that strategy he taught is more often buried under the religious connotations of his name. Still, it will be the very pragmatic, not at all mystic or magical, messages of forgiveness and to love one another that makes Jesus one of the greatest philosophers of humanity. Yes, there has been plenty of warfare since Jesus and a lot of it was in his name, but he offered a way to start a change that so many people wanted. He taught how to make peace.

As a biologist looking at human survival, I get frustrated by people that look at religion and obsess with Gods, magic, immortality and ceremony, when the survival strategies of the religions seem often to be ignored. Practical people do know about them, but that is not what we hear about. If the survival strategies taught by the religion were not good, the religion did not survive.

It is great that Christian philosophy can avoid wars, but there is more to it. The most basic of Jesus' messages was "love one another" and "forgiveness", which sounds like great software to go with our hardwired instinct for cooperation. That cooperation, by the way, is the "West’s intrinsic value". Most people do not know it because it is so taken for granted, but Jesus' message of peace and community are the foundations that all modern Western civilizations are based on. It is about cooperation. Civilization requires cooperation, but so much of history has been based on war and empire. Most existing cultures in the world are still largely based on competition, and they do not work as well as more cooperative ones. Those moral messages, perhaps descended from Zoroaster, were the first belief system to inhibit war... and we know the Roman world needed that. Buddhism and Stoicism taught how to cope with war, but not how to prevent or end it.

The lessons of Christianity are an essential part of the human operating system, that matches our instincts. Most of the rest of it can be found in basic philosophy... which we no longer teach, to our detriment.

As for liberalism being non-Christian attitudes, no, they are just values not found much in the Old Testament. Civil Rights of the are descended from Jesus's lessons, as is ocial justice. When the idea of gods is thought a curiosity, when the names of them are forgotten, we will still be following the lessons of the philosopher, Jesus, that taught us how to achieve the peace and community essential to the maintenance of civilization.

   Philosophy After Rome.

The Romans and Christian Church that followed did not generate much philosophy, though the teachings of Thomas Aquinas and Baltasar Gracián are quite interesting, even if some of it was already discussed. With the start of the Reformation and Enlightenment, among the many other revolutions, was a rebirth of classical philosophy and the exploration of new philosophical ideas by Baruch Spinoza, Rene Descartes, Immanuel Kant, John Loche, Friedrich Nietzsche and many more.  Myself, I particularly like what Michael Polanyi taught. Luckily, for all the wisdom we have been given from this time, most of it does not need to be examined for this story of survival. It is very important, including to human survival, but it is not as important to the release of instincts, so not much of it is discussed here. Its importance will become much greater as human intelligence increases due to genetic husbandry.

The ideas of existentialism, famously articulated by Friedrich Nietzsche, offers many great ideas, but among the many things it questions is the value of survival. Luckily for most devotes of existentialism, when they asked why they should continue to live, they found reasons they should. This story tells an alternative answer. We survive because that is our nature.

   Summary

This is certainly not meant to be complete list of philosophical principles, but it does cover the most common basic ones. It is a basic lesson of philosophy to learn from others. This is a starting point, and learning is a lifelong project. 

Mental Models is the name given to what would be the most advanced or complicated elements that could be called philosophy. Many of them are actually sciences or parts of sciences. A mental model is an internal construct that the mind uses to create “small-scale models” of reality for understanding and poblem solving. There are many types of mental models for almost every subject and problem.

Mental models guide our perception and behavior. They are the thinking tools that we use to understand life, make decisions, and solve problems. Learning a new mental model gives you a new way to see the world. Mental models play a significant role in our cognition, reasoning, and decision-making. These internal representations of external reality help us anticipate events and shape our behavior. Their purpose is to reduce the complexity of a problem. A mental model is a compression of how something works. It is the best way to examine a problem or make sense of something. Mental Models help us predict the future and better understand how the world works, without too many details. When faced with intricate situations, mental models help us focus on relevant aspects and filter out noise.

Mental models help you understand life. For example, supply and demand is a mental model that helps you understand how the economy works. Game theory is a mental model that helps you understand how relationships and trust work. Entropy is a mental model that helps you understand how disorder and decay work.

To quote Charlie Munger, “80 or 90 important models will carry about 90% of the freight in making you a worldly-wise person. And, of those, only a mere handful really carry very heavy freight.”

Really, Mental Models encompass much of human knowledge, so luckily they are largely beyond the scope of this study in terms of philosophy. They are better considered an education. Like philosophy though, you will want to learn some of the basic ones and they should be studied enough to know your way around them. You should know to look for ones that offer existing paths or models that will help with a particular problem you encounter.

Because mental models are the most sophisticated parts of philosophy, it would be natural for them to be the last topic covered, but there are important reasons to consider Philosophical Maxims last.

While large books have been written about philosophy, what is most common is short, rich in content, statements called "Maxims". History and other things show that these are the best way to teach philosophy. It is why there were 147 Maxims carved on the walls of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. These days they seem to be called quotes, but the ancients knew they were more than that. Why is that form so important? Because they are memes, contagious ideas that encompass an idea or element of culture. They are the natural bite sized ideas that the human brain can naturally understand and work with. Keep in mind that the human mind is a neural net, a pattern recognition device. The mind does not work primarily by logic or reason. It is a neural net that works by pattern recognition creating understanding and insight. You can explain why a maxim like "whatever you are, be a good one" is critically important, but you still cannot logically prove it. At the same time, anyone can intuit an understanding of it and the nature of its truth. That is how a neural net works. The neural net may use logic to evaluate the truth of a maxim, but logic will not prove many of them. They come from experience. You can teach logic and reason, and it will spill over to training the neural net, but to train a person to think, to use their neural net most effectively, you must teach them using maxims. Teaching that way, the ideas will feel natural to the student. Maxims provide the raw materials of thought.

Humans love developing insights and understandings. We are problem solvers and we need a model of the world we live in that we can understand. We naturally want to pass our insights on. We want our children to have our insights and do not want them making the same mistakes we did. Words have great power. Without the right words, insights cannot be communicated or even remembered. Maxims can give words to insights and form them for  others in the order needed by the mind for thinking.  

A lot of quotes get repeated through history because they are so true. Over 2000 years ago, Seneca said something like "measure yourself against the absolute best you’re capable of". Winning is not enough. People can get lucky and win. People can be jerks and win. Anyone can win. But not everyone is the best possible version of themselves." More recently the same thing has been more briefly said in different words: “whatever you are, be a good one.” 

"Know Thyself" is perhaps the best known philosophical maxim. Its phraseology is simply wrong. That old word usage of "thyself" places it in a past and removes it from its very current importance. This is common. Philosophy is relevant today. It is critically important today, for that matter. We do get some of it from culture, but it gets blurred. It needs to be known as philosophy, not just something encountered in culture. Nothing is more important than to know yourself. To know your strengths, weaknesses, likes, dislikes, desires, skills, occupation, hobbies, and so much more. The statement, "know yourself" is a command to think, not a quote from history.

There needs to be a bit of a change in direction here. Philosophy teaches one how to think using the neural net of the brain. It teaches the logic, reason, and rhetorical potentials of language that make up critical thinking, our best tool for discerning truth. Philosophy teaches useful knowledge that has been called the ancient wisdom and has been verified by time. For all that, I did not see how philosophy supported survival, especially in the future, as more than a problem-solving tool, a bit like a digging stick. In hindsight, what seems to have been missing was an understanding of the key requirements for human survival. Looking at another problem though, I could see something else philosophy could supply, that is of such importance that it may be called an existential need for humans. Philosophy can release our reproductive and moral instincts. Unfortunately, humans just do not think about instincts. So, I will describe how I got to that conclusion and hope it would help others see the problem and solution.

Philosophy interacts with and releases our survival instincts. Without those instincts being developed, we can simply lose behaviors necessary to survival. This is a major reason for population decline in developed nations. Because philosophy shapes neurological development and releases instincts, it must be taught at a young age. 

After my initial examination of philosophy in a traditional way of looking at philosophers and schools of thought, I put it aside. A few years later I ran into the current topic of concern about population decline in developed nations. Since I study human survival, that seemed a perfect topic to examine. In general, we certainly need a lower population on Earth, but this drop off has concerning features. Others have looked at this and the first common answers for why it is happening are child raising costs and uncertainty about the future. That makes sense, but it has been that way all through history. I did some analysis about it and listed 35 possible reasons for why people might want to have children. They were interesting but not critical. Then there is a third reason for population decline that is rarely mentioned, but that seems important. That is the availability of birth control. It is true, humans do not have a lot of instinct to have families and just may not have them. Humans do have tremendous instincts to have sex though and that has always taken care of it. With the progression of pregnancy, nurturing and family behaviors just naturally develop based on hormones, instincts and environmental releases. Birth control breaks that chain. So, would removing birth control solve the problem of people not having families? Yes, but not satisfactorily because that is not the root of the problem, nor is it what the new ecology we are adapting to is about. Survival in the new ecology is about choice, and about consciously guiding our genetic and strategic destiny. Birth control is pretty basic to controlling genetic destiny. Without that we are stuck in a tribal or feudal ecology, subject to the harsh controls of nature. So the question becomes about why people would choose or choose not to have families. It is not an easy thing. Humans make choices like that based far more on feelings than reason. What are feelings about families? Where are the instincts to have families? Why are they not developing? Is there an environmental release for those reproductive instincts besides pregnancy? Yes, there is. Reproductive and family instincts are bundled into what would mostly be called moral instincts, possibly survival instincts as well. My first thought was exposure to babies and other young children might be a behavioral release. They are becoming less common. Exposure to dolls should work on some girls and some boys. Yes, you can read that sentence over again if you like. Family instincts are not unique to either sex. Luckily there should be a better and more reliable way to release the moral instincts that would lead to a family. Teach morality. Morality is the combination of moral instinct and moral teaching. Teaching morality will release moral instincts. Much of teaching philosophy, like religion, is teaching moral lessons. The teachings of philosophy are often called ethics, but that is basically just another word for morality. Teaching it, would release moral instincts that would lead to families. Then the question becomes how to teach it to get the desired results, survival. In a sense, there are many ways, but the way that has been used in the past was to teach by philosophical maxims.

Some political leadership wants ignorant public. The problem is that people that are not emotionally and intellectually developed will not reproduce if given a choice.

The following is a practical discussion of how to teach philosophy at a young age to develop thinking skills, teach the ancient wisdom and release moral instincts. It starts with some discussion of basic moral principles that an instructor would need to know and should teach. It then offers a list of philosophical maxims (memes) that could be used for teaching. 

Philosophy is what philosophers and schools of philosophy teach. The two are very different. The subject of philosophers and schools of philosophy is a part of history and can be as boring as some parts of history are.

As genetic husbandry increases average intelligence, philosophy will become more and more important. Philosophical thinking is a feature of the larger neural net of the brain. It provides both understanding and insight. It can use logic to verify truth of external or internal ideas. Philosophy must be initially taught by maxims, bite sized memes that the brain can naturally absorb, and then discussion.

This focuses on early education because for all the value of the knowledge and skills of philosophy, in terms of survival, this is about teaching it to release and develop instincts. A philosophical education is a lifelong process, but must be started when children are young, in grammar school, as it used to be. The purpose of teaching philosophy to children is to train them to use the logic and reason of critical thinking and the ancient wisdom, but even more to develop thinking processes of the neural net. Exposure to maxims should come at the same time as critical thinking or even before. The neural net is used for thinking before logic. Because development of the neural net is an automatic process of response to stimulus, no particular action should be required beyond teaching the basics of philosophy and practice. It is just how humans are designed. It just does not work without some teaching. It is why we respect the philosophers of history. It is not even going to work all the time or always the same way, but that is how life is. 

Melanie Klein, who wrote extensively about very early psychological development said: "one of the many interesting and surprising experiences of the beginner in child analysis is to find in even very young children a capacity for insight which is often far greater than that of adults". That is not unexpected. We have a lot of natural ability to think and it is why teaching by maxims works.

"Too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve". Roger Lewin, anthropologist and science writer.

In early education, it would be practical to start a school day with just 5 minutes considering some quote selected by the instructor from a limited list curated for the purpose. Later, the school day could be started by asking a student to present a "show and tell" about a philosophical quote or their own thoughts for consideration. In history, philosophers have emphasized how important discussion is to the learning of philosophy. The student teaches themself that way. The instructor should also offer explanations when necessary to move the discussion forward, but the discussion by the students is what is important for developing the neural net.

This is not like most educational topics. Philosophical memes are meant to be processed more by the unconscious mind than the conscious, and by the older neural pathways evolved for moral instinct. Most subjects, including STEM subjects do not work that way.

Emphasize that much of the authority of this knowledge is that it has stood the test of time. Sometimes, it is just what people have seen over and over, and so they write it down. Sometimes it can be logically proven. Often, it just seems true to intuition.  

Some philosophical maxims may be discovered to not be completely true, but then we do learn more from our mistakes than from our successes. It is about what can be learned. Some truths even change over time, sometimes as society develops or because other truths are discovered, often by science.

One maxim of philosophy is that things change. New things can become true and other old things can lose their truth. Life is about adapting to change, just as this story is.

The instructor should be looking for opportunities to show where maxims relate to the topic or events going on at the time. 

Again, what is needed is teaching philosophy, not philosophers or philosophical schools. Those are basically history that will bore a young person and many older ones. Meta data about philosophy is different than philosophy. Unfortunately, if you ask a person educated in philosophy how to teach it, they will usually say to go to the source material or the secondary material that interprets the source material. That is not the way. With a bit of help, a person teaches it to themselves, because philosophical maxims describe common experience, and naturally fit together with neural development and moral instincts. 

Morality is the combination of moral instincts and moral training. Memes have been called contagious ideas. Philosophical Maxims, as they have traditionally been called, are memes. Exposing a person to philosophical memes infects the person with the idea in the meme. It is similar in ways to disease receptors. If you expose the person to a philosophical meme, their mind has natural receptor sites to bind to it. It may take repeated exposure, and the receptor is not always there or may not be developed yet. Some receptors, such as those for thoughts of sexual attraction, develop during the teens, but the majority of receptors can develop much earlier. If you are trying to release moral instincts, then you need to start early. Some of the very basics of philosophy, intuitive parts, should be learned along with reading and writing. All that is required is language skills.

Teaching philosophy at an early age is not so novel. It used to be taught in grammar school. Most grammar school classrooms have memes on posters on the walls. Currently, most of them relate to moral lessons related to socialization, cooperation, and avoidance of conflict. Those are extremely important, but to develop thinking skills and the moral instincts, more basic philosophical memes are needed.  The socialization memes are still needed, but the more philosophical memes will help support those, especially through moral instincts. 

Nicely, some of the best known philosophies such as Classical Greek, Buddhism, Stoicism and Christianity include many basic lessons about how to interact with others and avoid social conflict, as well as broader philosophy that needs to be taught. These would be accessible to children. At the same time, Stoicism and Buddhism were largely developed to cope with war and the mental challenges to survival. Those lessons would be more suitable for older students, though they do offer ways to mentally cope with the challenges people face just in their daily young adult life.

Philosophy must be initially taught by maxims, bite sized memes that the brain can naturally absorb, and then by discussion.

In researching this, I collected thousands of Philosophical Maxims. Some were duplicates, and for various reasons, many of them were not included in my survey. The first reason is that no matter how long I take developing this, I keep encountering new maxims, some of which are very profound in very basic ways. Another reason my survey is incomplete is because of the large collections of maxims that are mostly left out, such as The Dao, The Maxims of Delphi, Stoicism, Gracian's Manual, Buddhism, and so many more. The ancient wisdom is vast. Luckily, one does not need to have a broad knowledge of philosophy to gain the most important benefits of it. Learning critical thinking, gaining the basics of the ancient wisdom, developing the neural net, and releasing moral instincts can all be promoted by teaching fairly basic philosophy. Also, a student must know to look for answers there. My summary showed approximately 150 maxims of interest. 
--For this essay, I will limit the list to a handful considered appropriate for grammar school children and a handful will be selected as appropriate for middle school children. This is not written to teach philosophy, that is available elsewhere. This is to describe it as a tool and how it interracts with the developing mind.

Mental models are like large maxims. They are simplifications of more complex concepts, often scientific principles.

These maxims have no context such as money or relationships that a child would be unfamiliar with. They fit with how the mind naturally thinks and exercise the neural net like lifting a weight exercises a muscle. Notice that one is even a bit nonsensical, but it will use the same thought process. Children's stories often have phrases like that.

Doing nothing is very hard to do, you never know when you’re finished.

Just because it hasn't been done, doesn't mean it can't be done.

You Are Stronger Than You Think

Be kind. Be gentle. 

Do not judge a person by a weakness they have without judging them by their strength as well.

You can't always do it alone. Together you can do more.

We need much less than we think we need. 

A child who asks questions does not become a fool. 

Sometimes you have to take the good with the bad. You have to have rain to have rainbows.

The word “happy” would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by some sadness.

Know what is important and what is not important. Do what is important.
 
Smile. Life is to be enjoyed.

Is you aim for nothing, you will achieve nothing.

Sometimes things work better the second time around. We learn more from mistakes than from success. Very often it is failure that leads to a success that follows.

Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.

Don't be in a hurry to swallow when what you are chewing tastes good.

All beginnings are difficult. The scariest moment is always just before you start. After that, things can only get better.

Usually, the journey is more interesting than the destination.

What is done cannot be undone, but you can prevent it from happening again.

Every gift from a friend is a wish for happiness.  

No one really knows about other human beings. The best they can do is to suppose that they are like themself.

Do what you have to do — you won’t often get into any trouble that way.
Hal Edison

Always try to figure out what the other person's point of view is and why.

Joy is what happens when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things are.

Opportunities are missed by most people because they look like work. 

Be so good they can't ignore you.

The fastest way to unhappiness is comparing yourself to others. Only compare yourself to how you were before.

Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer.

The greatest leaning comes from failure, not success. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you learn. 

What have you failed at? What did you learn from it?

Do what needs to be done without having to be told to.

Failure is temporary. Giving up is permanent.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

If happiness is unshared it can hardly be called happiness, it has no taste.

Discard your false desires.

It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up.

Life is a daring adventure or nothing.

There are two types of people in this world. Those who live. And those who wait to die.”

Leadership is solving problems.

*Life is like a helicopter... I don't know how to operate a helicopter either.

Before Plato, Socrates or Aristotle, carved on the walls of the temple of Appollo at Delphi were 147 Maxims. These are the foundation of the ancient wisdom and while a few are obsolete now, almost all are still true today. These are not lessons that science can teach. Many are appropriate for grammar school and almost all would be very accessible to middle schoolers. Everyone should know of these and anyone teaching children should know them well. I wanted to list 10 of them, but 25 will do. These are profound lessons, ancient wisdom, and you know the truth of them without being taught. 

Notice how brief they all are. They work because this is how we think. 

Obey the law. 
Respect your parents.
Control yourself.
Help your friends
Control anger.
Cling to discipline 
Praise the good.
Pursue honor.
Be a seeker of wisdom.
Nothing to excess.
Shun what belongs to others.
Shun evil.
Fear deceit (lies).
Speak well of everyone.  
Gain possessions justly.
Use your skill.
Associate with your peers.
Govern your expenses.
Be happy with what you have.
Restrain the tongue.
Be courteous.
Be grateful.
Despise evil. 
Teach a youngster.
Respect the elder.
Respect yourself.

"The meaning of life is just to be alive". Alan Watts

Mālama ʻāina means to take care of the land and is more than just a phrase to Native Hawaiians. It is a representation of the deep connection to their land, and in return the land's connection to them. The islands provide food, nourishment, and beauty, so it is their privilege to take care of the land so that these blessings can be available and enjoyed by everyone, including future generations. It is an ethos that many Indigenous communities hold as a fundamental value, and one everyone can do a better job of incorporating into our daily lives. As we develop technological civilization, we need to keep this principle in mind. Our world and its environment is our life support system. It is not only for us, but also for future generations.

The original question was "if you ever thought that people sure seem stupid"? Without training in basic philosophy, it is unavoidable. Culture does teach philosophy some, but far from well enough. With work, an intelligent person can develop their thinking and a acquire a good deal of knowledge and truth, but it will be limited like all abilities are without proper training, and learning must start at a formative age. A less intelligent person, is crippled without some knowledge of philosophy. If our society started teaching basic philosophy, it would effectively raise the average IQ by at least 10 points. It would not just provide an incredible economic wealth, it would also greatly increase personal development and fulfillment. Without it, humanity will not be able to develop beyond a feudalism.