The first philosopher of the west was not Thales the Phoenician of Miletus in ancient Greece, but the even more ancient philosopher king of Egypt, known in modern English as Osiris.  In the ancient Egyptian language, his hieroglyphic name was  As-Ari.  As means “king” or “ruler” and Ari means “seer”, hence his name is not a name, but an honorific: “King-seer”.

          In ancient Gaelic, Ri means “king”, and in ancient Sanskrit, “seer” is rishi.  Also, the common Egyptian later contracted As-ari into As-ri.  When As-ri / Osiris travelled the world to bring both practical knowledge and metaphysics to ancient Bharata, now India, his name became written pronounced in ancient Brahmi or proto-Sanskrit as Atri, and his son Tat in Egypt became known as Datta in India.  Thus the King-seer, As-ri/Atri, became enshrined as one of the original seven rishis of ancient Indian mythology.

          Now, according to the ancient Indian philosophy of Samkhya, the founder of this philosophy was Kapila, who appeared in the world of pure intellect to teach his disciple, Asuri (!).  According to the ancient Egyptian hermetic tradition, it was Poimanders (ancient Greek for “shepherd” or “guide”, poim of “men“ andres) who taught As-ari when As-ari or Thrice-Great Hermes was in a profound philosophical trance.

          Now, in the ancient semitic languages, King-seer was translated into Melchi-zedek.  Melchi meant “king” and zedek meant “seer”.  In Hebrew, the terms are very close, this honorific name being Malki-zaddik, “King-seer”.

          There is more.  According to ancient Egyptian lore, As-ari was a humanoid man-fish from Sirius “B”.  He was always depicted as having greenish hue of skin, as well as scales.  Apparently, he would meditate underwater for long periods of time.  Furthermore, according to the Hindu lore, the rishi Atri was said to be a “leper” or man of diseased face and skin!  This was obviously his “cover story” so that the peoples he encountered on his travels would not be upset by his unusual countenance.

          It is also said that when he went to Mount Kailas to listen to the teachings of Adam, the first Aryan, also known as lord Shiva, he swam up under Adam-Shiva’s boat on lake Manasarovar in the form of a man-fish and listened to Adam-Shiva’s metaphysical explanations (agama’s) to his wife, Parvati.  He was thus also known in ancient India not just as Asuri, disciple of Kapila, or as the rishi Atri, but also as Matsyendra, which means the ruling-deity, indra, of fish, matsya.  This term later became combined with the honorific name Melchizedek as Matsyendra Melchizedek or Macchendra Melchizedek.

          Interestingly, this mythological Egyptian lordly king-seer man-fish’s individuality was said to reincarnate in medieval Bengal or Assam, where he became Matsyendranath, master lord of fish, or simply Minanath, fish-master, and founder of the nath sect of yoga in medieval India along with his disciple, Gorakhnath.

          Now, to return to the ancient heavenly meeting of Osiris/Hermes Trismegeustus with Kapila/Poimandres, this is the origin of both Western philosophy and non-Aryan Hindu philosophy of the East.  This does not imply that significant thinking never took place on this planet before this spiritual event, but it definitely focuses primordial thinking or protophilosophy as a timeless meaning springing across millennia as most profound philosophy.

          Let us examine carefully the ancient Greek hermetic translation of the even more extremely ancient Egyptian writing of Osiris Hermes himself, the lord of fish-men.

The first phrase goes:

“At the time when I first remained concerned about the existent beings”,

Asari Hermes is saying that he reached a point in his life when he found himself in a state of continuous ontological inquiry.  Who or what is God?  What is the universe?  The cosmos?  Was it created by God or emerged of itself?  What is a human being, a self?  What kind of beings are there and how do they come to exist in the same totality of all existence?  What is being itself?  Why are there  existent beings rather than nothing?

          Continuous ontological inquiry without accepting platitudes or dogmas that would end all inquiry is both the origins and consummation of philosophy.

          Any thinking being on any planet in any galaxy in the universe must make this true beginning and consummation of philosophy personally and originally.  It is not enough to just accept a traditional set of ontogonic answers, nor is it enough to merely read the various metaphysical inquiries, speculations and arguments of past or modern philosophers relative to the present time in a humanoid world somewhere in time and space.  Husserl pointed this out in essence in his Cartesian Meditations for those of us who aspire to enter into genuine ontological inquiry on this, our planet Earth, at this particular time.

          If the totality of existence includes all universes that ever were or will be, and if philosophy has been happening everywhere forever already, the idea of a “beginning of philosophy” is historically nonsensical, but utterly real and urgent for any individual anywhere who aspires to be fully intelligent and conscious as a being.  Each of us must begin thinking originally and completely to the point of genuine cosmic consciousness.  Short of this, our earthbound modern so-called “thinkers” are equivalent to proud and clever savages on an island who have never heard of places like India, Greece or Western Europe.  Local cultural logic or deconstruction games, all kept within English for the most part, as in America and Western Europe, betray hidden prejudices and actual intellectual failure in terms of real consciousness.  This of course would explain why some of them have decided that they and all of us cannot be anything but soulless and mindless neurocognitive biological robots extinguished completely at death with the conclusion that there is no such thing as mind or consciousness other than as an epiphenomenon or side-effect of biological electronics in human material brains.  They do not have to become more conscious because they have decided they do not have the little pompous semblance of consciousness they are using to remain certain of themselves as fleeting bodies in a lifeless universe.  For them, even the Presocratic Greek philosophers are silly and laughable, yet a real case can be made, as did Heidegger, that the Presocratics were more intelligent than modern European and scientific so-called “thinkers”.

          On Mount Pelion in Greece, some graffiti was scribbled on an historical site as follows:

“God is dead”, says Nietzsche.

“Nietzsche is dead”, say the Gods!

          If there is no such thing as God, Free Will or Consciousness, then modern scientific so-called philosophers who deny these things have to admit that they have not chosen such denial of their own free will after studying the problem, and they would also have to claim that all their thinking is unconscious.  These biological robots are thus claiming that they are simply forced by nature to take wordy, but unconscious philosophical positions.  They also claim there is no real self as such, so they are claiming they are not they, even when contradicting this by using the first personal pronoun, “I”.  Since I am a real self, I shall not refer to those people/robots as “they” anymore than I can help it.  “Those biorobotic idiots” might be more appropriate!

          Now, let us search anew for the beginning of philosophy so that we may begin to begin again.  Beyond scientific atheism and religious dogma, beyond eliminative materialism and folk psychology, is genuine and original ontological inquiry, which requires a passionate personal initiative to really think and think again.