 Now the basic concepts that we deal with when setting up this philosophical framework are the axiomatic concepts of existence, identity and consciousness. Now our perception of reality as it exists is fundamentally dictated by these concepts. That existence exists and it has an identity and that you are conscious of its existence. The combination of the concepts leads to the following statement. Something exists of which I am conscious and I must discover its identity. Now some other philosophers, I don't know if any of you are aware of René Descartes. I'm sure you've probably all heard the phrase I think therefore I am. Bullshit, fundamentally wrong. The problem with it is that statement suggests that our act of being conscious of perceiving reality is what creates reality. That's fundamentally wrong. Consciousness is an attribute, it's an identity. We are an existent, we're man and we have consciousness as a characteristic. We exist independent of consciousness. Some people aren't conscious yet they still exist. We don't create consciousness through our perception of reality. And so these axioms are explicit in any state of awareness. The statement I am therefore I think is probably more appropriate. Now some people would argue that these concepts are arbitrary in themselves much like Descartes' statement that reality is created by our consciousness. But the problem here is anyone who tries to disprove these concepts has to by necessity invoke them to disprove them. You can't disprove existence from non-existence. You can't disprove consciousness from unconsciousness. It's a logical contradiction. So you can't logically argue against these axioms. They're self-evident in the respect that existence exists and we're conscious of it. So what is logic? Logic is non-contradictory identification. If you try and argue that consciousness doesn't exist you have to argue it from state of consciousness. You can't and that's a contradiction because you're invoking that you yourself don't exist or your consciousness doesn't exist. It just doesn't make sense anyway. Now I and Rand kind of use this statement or Aristotle originally used this statement that A is A or existence exists. Something is what it is and it can't be nothing else. It may have a specific identity and that you may be able to find out by that is its characteristics. We are man, we exist, we have consciousness as an identity. So the primary conflict in any philosophical framework metaphysically is always whether we accept the original axiom that existence exists or whether we accept non-existence. It's existence versus non-existence and really there's only one choice that we can make. So fundamentally all philosophical frameworks have to be dictated by the fact that existence exists and we're conscious of it. So I and Rand summed it up in layman's terms. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed. Nice and simple. It doesn't matter what your wishes, whims, feelings are existence exists independent of those. You can't wish that something is going to fall from the sky or wish that you're going to be successful. You have to adhere to the principles of reality. You have to do things that you know and you can learn are going to make a difference and you know that are going to exert an effect based upon the fundamental nature of reality and your relationship to it. Just a quote from Atlas Shrugden, my favourite book. Existence exists and the act of grasping that statement implies two corollary axioms. That something exists which one perceives and that one exists possessing consciousness. Consciousness being the faculty of perceiving that which exists. And I think that sums it up very well. Well, hopefully summed up quite well anyway. We'll see. Right, moving on from metaphysics then and that fundamental conflict of existence versus non-existence we can move on to epistemology. First of all what is epistemology? Epistemology is quite literally the study of knowledge and it asks various questions such as what is knowledge? What you know, not what you believe or what you wish but what you actually know, what you know is true and prominent.