I think my first step came from Christmas movies. I stopped believing in Santa when I realized that if he existed, all the adults in the movies would know there were presents under the tree that they hadn’t put there- belief would have nothing to do with it. I didn’t make the connect with religion until 15 years later- I was never religious, but I didn’t actually call myself an atheist until a few years ago.
I then benefitted in elementary school from having one or two not-very-smart teachers. This prompted me for the first time to start learning on my own, mostly about science.
It was fantasy (esp. introspective heroes like the ones R.A. Salvatore writes) that first got me into philosophy. I didn’t read about utlitarianism until college, and it just clicked. It was obvious to me that this made sense as a fundamental rule. Luckily I also knew enough about physics and computability etc. to realize that it is impossible to account for all future consequences of even a single action. So without an effective procedure, I decided that as long as I did all I could to do things that are right and think things that are true, I would do pretty well. And that led me here.
I think my first step came from Christmas movies. I stopped believing in Santa when I realized that if he existed, all the adults in the movies would know there were presents under the tree that they hadn’t put there- belief would have nothing to do with it. I didn’t make the connect with religion until 15 years later- I was never religious, but I didn’t actually call myself an atheist until a few years ago. I then benefitted in elementary school from having one or two not-very-smart teachers. This prompted me for the first time to start learning on my own, mostly about science. It was fantasy (esp. introspective heroes like the ones R.A. Salvatore writes) that first got me into philosophy. I didn’t read about utlitarianism until college, and it just clicked. It was obvious to me that this made sense as a fundamental rule. Luckily I also knew enough about physics and computability etc. to realize that it is impossible to account for all future consequences of even a single action. So without an effective procedure, I decided that as long as I did all I could to do things that are right and think things that are true, I would do pretty well. And that led me here.