Seppala On Life

Hello, and welcome!

This is my personal website and here you can find my essays that I have written either personally or with the help of AI tools. Currently I have five essays that I wrote myself, and one ebook and a memorandum that I produced with Google Gemini AI tool that you can download and read.

The common denominator in many of these available files is Predominant Hedonism. They approach this concept from a different angle. Predominant Hedonism is a term I coined myself.

The MEMO, titled “MEMO: On Chinese and Western Thinking”, is about Chinese and Western moral philosophy and social thought. I asked Google Gemini (AI) some questions regarding Western sociology, Chinese Confucianism, and my own views. And Gemini provided the answers. I think that there is room for both the China and the West to learn something from each other, and have a dialogue. They have more in common than many of us would think. But there are also obvious cultural differences.

The first essay is titled “LIFE: The Art of the Way”. This essay outlines the main ideas of a new life philosophy in its earliest stages. The essay does not tell exactly how to live your life but how to think about living a good life. Topics discussed include the nature of reality, mind, motivation and human nature, predominant hedonism, the social world, and ethics and morality.

The second essay is titled “INTERACTORS: States as Interacting Units”. It discusses international interaction by state actors. The central focus is on the motives and external influences that affect the decision-making units of states and thus the interaction between state actors. Topics discussed include the nature of reality, determinants of state behavior, predominant hedonism, state motives, human nature, and the possibilities of hybrid theory.

The third essay is titled “THE TRAFFIC LIGHT HYPOTHESIS: A Model of Human Decision Making”. This essay is basically an update and extension of my previous views. This short essay includes discussions of the Traffic Light Hypothesis, the CAM decision making model incorporating cognitive, hedonic and motivational factors relevant to the decision making process, and a clarification of the concept of Predominant Hedonism itself.

The fourth essay, titled “THE HUMAN WORLD”, is about a metatheory of the social world. It discusses the ontological issues related to social science and International Relations with the help of a table. The dimensions of the table are Internal vs External, and Observable vs Unobservable. As a tool for analysis, this table provides some interesting results.

The fifth essay, titled “COSMOS: Two Evolutionary Models”, is about the evolutionary dynamics of the expanding Universe. The essay introduces two evolutionary models of the Universe. TEM model models the temporal expansion of the Universe, while GEM is a general model for analyzing the radial expansion of the Universe. The essay also takes a look into the concept of time. What time is and why it is important to include time in our cosmological models. The mathematics is simple so that the models are accessible to the general public. Standard cosmology is sometimes hard to understand, but the essay uses just meters, seconds and kilograms to explain the evolutionary dynamics of the Universe.

The last file is an ebook titled “PREDOMINANT HEDONISM”. I produced the essays in the ebook with the help of Google Gemini AI tool. The ebook is a pdf file with 247 pages and five essays that cover the basics of the subject from different points of view. Issues considered include the concept itself, Game Theory, social interaction, ethics and morality, Human Rights, and Intercultural and Interreligious Dialogue, plus International Relations theory and the interaction between state actors. The fifth essay covers decision-making and is based on the following concepts: a) Predominant Hedonism, b) The Five Modes of Cognition, c) Material Existence and Mental Experience, d) Internal and External Balance, and e) The Traffic Light Hypothesis (TLH). The essays in the ebook are not meant to be academic research papers. The purpose of the essays is to explore the concepts and issues related to Predominant Hedonism. I supplied Gemini with all the major concepts and ideas regarding Predominant Hedonism and its applications, and Gemini produced the essays based on my instructions and input.