Post number ones are never interesting...

...Until now! Oh wait, no. This one probably won't be too terribly interesting either. I'd just like to offer a bit of background before I get into all the this and that of my ideas. My name is Jason McLaughlin. I'm currently 26 years old and I live in Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA. In college, I majored in literature and philosophy. This qualifies me to write a blog on my thoughts and ideas. The diploma certifies me to do little else (like make millions of dollars), I've found. I'm not explaining my education to give you a reason to trust everything I say, but just so that you can feel a bit more comfortable lending me your brain if you haven't pursued a similar course of study. After college, my senioritis continued for a year or two. I've picked philosophy back up in the past couple of years, and found some amazing new ideas that we didn't seem to touch on in enough (or any) detail while I was in college. It turned out to be exactly the sort of stuff I was trying to study, but was discouraged from pursuing by my professors. Hm...weird! But more on that later.

I try my best to work with logic and evidence of my senses to understand the world around me. In philosophy, this is traditionally called rational empiricism. This means I use logic and the scientific method to determine what is true. This way, I can be more sure that what I say is actually objectively true, and not simply a projections of my opinions as "truth." If you ever have any disagreement with my ideas, I'm perfectly willing to correct myself as long as I'm wrong in my understanding of the empirical facts or have made a misstep in logic. Thinking like this has led me to some interesting conclusions about life. I hope you stay along for the ride.

Any discussion of my understanding of philosophy would be lacking if I didn't mention Freedomain Radio. This is a podcast/vidcast/online discussion hosted by Stefan Molyneux. It's the most exciting discussion I've ever come across, and it's not only limited to philosophy! It's about philosophy, psychology, relationships, governments, religion, literature, human interaction, family...basically everything core to life. It's a lovely community of thoughts, and just so happens to be the best use of my time I've ever come across. Wow. What a ringing endorsement.

I have an interest in movies, television, video games, technology, and music which I'll bring my philosophy to bear on. And in a way more interesting way than in this first post. Post number ones are never interesting...