Blurts & Spasms

In answer to Quora question "What is the relationship between a subjective sense of free will and a subjective sense of being real?"


Thanks for the A2A and clarification Jeff.

I believe they are intimately connected and have equal "illusory" potential. They both can be experienced, defined or described via four primary drives (to exist, to express, to effect and to adapt), but they are also subjected to perceptive/cognitive errors and distortions. With delusion, apophenia and hallucination at one extreme, and willful ignorance, confirmation bias and a high tolerance for cognitive dissonance at the other, the sweet spot for "accurate self-awareness" becomes just as rare as for "accurate self-contextualization." This is why I believe it is important to include multiple input streams - rational, intuitive, somatic, emotional, spiritual, social - into the experiential frame and processing matrix, because we cannot construct truly multidimensional objects (be it our autonomous agency or the "I am") without multiple dimensions; they won't feel "authentic" if they aren't completely fleshed out in both their felt sense and any proposed objective metrics. I think this is a rigorous but necessary discipline.

And of course the validations of intersubjectivity are IMO absolutely critical - and across all dimensions as well. But probably the most persisting errors here are either overemphasis of just one or two input streams, selective reinforcement by limiting who we include in our validations, or both. It's hard to remain vigilant while holding all perception-cognition lightly and welcoming all new information in a neutral way - *really hard*. But that is what we must do to get closer to both freedom and reality as flowing and persisting states, and avoid illusion as best we can. Even then we may just be enacting a variation of Zeno's dichotomy paradox - with the myth of the given, Chalmer's hard problem and Sartre's nausée all hovering in the wings, ready to ridicule our felt sense or snatch it away entirely. By maximizing the breadth and depth of ALL input streams, "all things being mediated by mind" becomes slightly less disruptive. Well...unless you're a Buddhist (just a little epistemological gallows humor).

And yet in the day-to-day all of this is automatically and reflexively constructed. We can exit that stream via meditation or peak experiences, gaining a brief foothold of consciously directed attention in the matter, but most folks will of necessity or preference quickly revert to a less awake/aware survival mode where agency is substantively less free and many aspects of "reality" are a long way from what actually is. Why is this so? Because the illusion of free will and the illusion of being real are just as viable to routine, conformist operationalization as "the real thing" - perhaps more so, as they tend to become a lot more comfortable through collective reinforcement (mass delusion though it may be) over time.

My 2 cents.

Comment from Jeff Wright: "This is a well-thought-out answer, more like 4 dollars than 2 cents.

You've referenced a variety of worthwhile perspectives. I'm more or less on-board with most of it, especially the multiple streams / dimensions principle (and Wilber's AQAL stands as an overly stylized version of this idea).
I think they all more or less revolve around the question of the concept of "real" (vs "illusion") and its various implied philosophical purposes.

It's hard to remain vigilant while holding all perception-cognition lightly and welcoming all new information in a neutral way - really hard. But that is what we must do to get closer to both freedom and reality as flowing and persisting states, and avoid illusion as best we can.

Do you have a synopsis of what you mean by "real" vs "illusion"? With a multi-dimensional, multi-perspectival framework such as the one I think you're proposing, perhaps the best we can expect is that something is "more real" to the extent that it is robustly comprehended by more dimensions. I like to think this is an escape from the oversimplifying and reducing influence of Ockhams Razor, because it's proposing an intrinsic complexity to reality. One could say this is a pragmatic and epistemic basis for defining "real". Or maybe one thinks there are only certain types of "dimensions" and they can be classified according to a fixed ontological schema. Many traditions prefer to assume a unifying foundation and say there's actually another level and it's ontologically simple and unified.

About the theme of the "vigilant self" that stands apart and neutral and wields its attention in support of moving into freedom and reality -- I suppose this is a good way to employ such a being, illusory or incomplete though it might be. At the same time I think it propagates certain Eastern and Western dualist transcendental traditions -- packages of metaphysics and moral ideas we might be better off moving away from, at least under the current historical circumstances. I see these as the basis for high modernism in various current (and fading) expressions, such as overly cognitive and overly individualistic accounts of language, meaning, and (maybe less frequently noted) ethics. Where these ideas inform ethics and virtue they create a kind of person, a self-willed and self-made moral agent whose relationships with others are mediated by rules and abstractions. It gets caricatured into extreme individualism and political philosophies such as neo-liberalism in which the cost of a nominal "freedom" is that whatever happens to a person is considered his/her own fault, and help and sangha invalidated.

There's no doubt this all looks better in more refined and mature states of "development" but I think it's worth considering the overall collective ethos that is created by its embodiment at all levels.

My 1.5 cents.

My response to Jeff: Thanks Jeff and I agree. My language is imperfect here but what I'm getting at is a "reality" that not only includes multiple dimensions, but also integrates and harmonizes them (in both its representation and its felt experience). And yes one of the more fluid expressions of this is a unitive perception-cognition; a nondual consciousness. But that is not the end of the road, and a participatory, intersubjective element would be a prominent feature of the multidimensionality in both conception and praxis. This is both calculated (intentional), inherent and emergent - which is where the differentiations of language you've touched upon come into play I think. Individualism becomes collectivism becomes the One as a matter of developmental altitude - but this, too, is part of a multidialectical arc and synthesis; complexity is revealed and integrated over-and-over until the "neutrality" becomes the only non-illusive state (albeit in a subjective sense). Thus fixations on any stage or state are the "illusion," IMO, but are nevertheless operationally pragmatic. Along these lines, I like to use the term "provisional semantic container" or "useful placeholder" in describing consensus-generated realities. In a way you could say that any simplification is, inherently, an illusion, but that's how the mind mediates complexity; that tends to be our most reliable form of self-affirming sanity. To "let go" of simplified certainty is frightening...it takes time, practice and courage. And that is where my word-fingers are trying to point - this is not the moon of course, but a process whereby I believe the moon (i.e. reality) can be intuited. And such a process certainly involves community, relationship and, perhaps most importantly, the relinquishment of ego to agape (not Wilber's definition, but the traditional one), which can, as you well know, only be authentically "practiced" in the context of non-individualistic interdependence. I hope I haven't muddied the waters...but perhaps words always muddy the ineffable, and clarity can only be achieved through stillness...?

In answer to Quora question "What are the forces that created a society with little to no trust among it's members?"

Great questions and thanks for the A2A. Off the top of my head:

Commercialistic capitalism. This system is built on deception, manipulation, exploitation and theft. It also encourages people to rely on individualistic wage slavery and consumerism to feel "financially secure" in a self-isolating and egotistical way, undermining our reliance on community (i.e. "each other"). It also encourages cut-throat, unethical competitiveness among both workers and consumers. And it replaces mutual trust with contractual and financial obligations that center around protecting private property - and so we are surrounded by boundaries to what other people own, so that all of life orbits around each person's ego-projection "I/Me/Mine."

**Representative democracy.* When you abstract governance from the people, they disengage from each other and from investment in their own political process and oversight of their community. This "delegation" of responsibility and interest in governance tends to undermine collective decision-making and communication in any polity.

Technology. Whether it is technology that allows people to communicate without face-to-fact interaction, or to isolate themselves in their homes (or rooms) to do professional work or watch entertainment, the result is a lessening of human interaction and a perception that "trust" is less necessary in day-to-day life. It insulates us from each other.

What all of these elements share is their inherent disruption of cooperation, bonding and sense of interdependent relationship. They undermine trust because they replace dynamics that require trust with legal contracts, money, convenience, comfort, static role-based relationships (instead of trust-based ones), affluence and technological power. This is why a person feels okay to scream insults from their car at a stranger, or push past someone else to get a better place in line, or self-righteously vote to reduce their tax burden, or be rude to a customer service representative over the phone - because these systems and innovations have distanced them from their fellow human beings, making them feel (falsely) that they do not need to rely upon them.

My 2 cents.

In answer to Quora question "What are the forces that created a society with little to no trust among it's members?"

Great questions and thanks for the A2A. Off the top of my head:

Commercialistic capitalism. This system is built on deception, manipulation, exploitation and theft. It also encourages people to rely on individualistic wage slavery and consumerism to feel "financially secure" in a self-isolating and egotistical way, undermining our reliance on community (i.e. "each other"). It also encourages cut-throat, unethical competitiveness among both workers and consumers. And it replaces mutual trust with contractual and financial obligations that center around protecting private property - and so we are surrounded by boundaries to what other people own, so that all of life orbits around each person's ego-projection "I/Me/Mine."

Representative democracy. When you abstract governance from the people, they disengage from each other and from investment in their own political process and oversight of their community. This "delegation" of responsibility and interest in governance tends to undermine collective decision-making and communication in any polity.

Technology. Whether it is technology that allows people to communicate without face-to-fact interaction, or to isolate themselves in their homes (or rooms) to do professional work or watch entertainment, the result is a lessening of human interaction and a perception that "trust" is less necessary in day-to-day life. It insulates us from each other.

What all of these elements share is their inherent disruption of cooperation, bonding and sense of interdependent relationship. They undermine trust because they replace dynamics that require trust with legal contracts, money, convenience, comfort, static role-based relationships (instead of trust-based ones), affluence and technological power. This is why a person feels okay to scream insults from their car at a stranger, or push past someone else to get a better place in line, or self-righteously vote to reduce their tax burden, or be rude to a customer service representative over the phone - because these systems and innovations have distanced them from their fellow human beings, making them feel (falsely) that they do not need to rely upon them.

My 2 cents.

In answer to Quora question "Is Capitalism morally justifiable?"

Capitalism is morally justifiable to someone whose altitude of moral function is (by almost any standard) immature, delusional or stunted. If someone believes that individuals operate in an antisocial vacuum and according to purely self-serving impulses, then they have invested in a 3-year-old’s rigid emphasis of I/Me/Mine egotism. And this level is where capitalism functions best.

On the other hand, as we mature through adolescence into increasingly prosocial expectations and relations, we tend to recognize the importance of sharing, compassion, community, compromise, and indeed altruism. Part of growing up is (usually) coming to appreciate that no one operates in isolation without complex interactions and interdependencies with others, and that the only truly satisfying moments in life are a consequence of these trust relationships and communal experiences. As a consequence, a more mature moral orientation engages the world with empathy, kindness and generosity, and relaxes the self-absorbed and protective I/Me/Mine fixation of ego. Again, this is really about growing up. And once we grow up, we realize that capitalism seems to flourish at a rather banal, childish and emotionally stunted level of moral function – according to a very narrow definition of what is beneficial (i.e. “greed is good”) that doesn’t take into account a broader wealth of human experience, relationships, courage and love.

As a consequence of the cognitive bias inherent to willfully childish morality, there is a lot of misleading information, revisionist history and ideological distortion in pro-capitalist rhetoric. I’ll try to set some of it straight.
Here are some assumptions expressed in support of capitalism that are factually incorrect:

1. Capitalism has improved the quality of life for people all over the Earth. Actually, it was widespread public education (and scientific experimentation and technological innovation driven by that education), in concert with democracy and expanding civil rights, that has improved the quality of life for people all over the Earth. It is the feedback loop of democracy, education and civil liberties supported by the rule of law that created the middle class and stabilized economic opportunity for more and more citizens. Even innovation isn’t mainly from capitalism; if you carefully analyze what has done the most good for the most people – be it a new scientific understanding, a new vaccination, a new technology, etc. – it is almost always a result of academic research at public institutions or government-funded research, not innovation that resulted from free markets. These leaps forward have indeed been made more efficiently and effectively by a single product of capitalism: mass production. But that’s it. That’s the only real contribution capitalism has made to humanity’s progress – the rest came from the Enlightenment and the evolution of democratic civil society thereafter. It can also be confidently argued that even the success of “free markets” in producing wealth was a result of the flourishing of this civil society – for “free markets” don’t exist in the wild, they are created by civic institutions and the rule of law. So again, it is the Enlightenment that really should receive primary credit for amplification of the common good…not capitalism.

2. The benefits of profit-driven productivity outweigh its negative externalities. This declaration is as ignorant as it is arrogant. It’s why the rabidly pro-capitalist peeps are still denying climate change (sigh). It’s why that farmer a few years back ate spoonfuls of pesticide every morning to prove how safe it was. It’s why Ayn Rand thought cigarettes were her “Promethean muse,” dismissing any negative health impacts (until she contracted lung cancer). In order for the prevailing strain of growth-dependent global capitalism to keep producing wealth, it requires four things: a) unlimited, easily-accessed natural resources; b) a continuous supply of cheap labor; c) a growing consumer base whose affluence is also increasing; and d) no accountability (and no cost accounting) for negative externalities – and ideally no acknowledgement of them. Unfortunately for the pro-capitalist ideologues, it is extremely likely that none of these conditions will persist for more than another fifty years or so. Why? Well for one, the negative ecological externalities (climate change, loss of biodiversity, resource depletion, disruptive pollution, species extinction, etc.) resulting from human industry are increasingly interfering with productivity – and doing so quite directly. And for another, the affluence that supports a growing consumer base is directly at odds with cheap labor in our global economy, and these two dependencies will inevitably collide. And, finally, large numbers of people are waking up to the fact that the traditional engines of commerce are destroying the planet and need to be more accountable to their impacts – which will change the available opportunities and cost accounting for capitalist enterprise.

3. The “tragedy of the commons” has been empirically validated. In reality, it has not. This is a thought experiment in the abstract, and its "inevitability" has been soundly debunked by the work of Elinor Ostrom. Check out her research on successful self-governance of the commons in the real world (common pool resource management) which relies neither on private property nor State management of land and resources, but on local, community-based solutions.

4. Private property in an exchange economy produces freedom. This is ridiculous. Private property restricts freedom – 99% of everything around us is privately owned and we can’t use it, access it - or sometimes even touch it. That’s not freedom, it’s a world of fences that corral us into the few remaining spaces that are still publically owned (or the spaces we ourselves privately own). Exchange economies likewise benefit those with the most resources and influence who can game the system for their own benefit, deceiving both consumers and workers into believing that “working and consuming” is what life is all about. But being a wage slave is not freedom. Having Type II Diabetes from eating fast food is not freedom. Becoming addicted to cigarettes is not freedom. Premature disease and death from industrial pollutants is not freedom. Having lots of cool stuff you can buy on the Internet may feel like freedom…but it’s just a poor substitute for the real thing.

5. The theory of labor appropriation as a “natural law” is sound. This is laughable. Locke based this on a naïve misconception of Native Americans and other hunter-gatherer societies. In reality – as validated by decades of careful research – hunter-gatherer societies frequently have no conception of private property or of appropriating property by adding value with labor. Locke was simply wrong.

6. Capitalism is not violent, coercive or fraudulent. This is so misinformed it’s just silly. State capitalism has either been directly responsible – or has engineered the perfect conditions – for most of the military actions around the globe since WWII. Industrial capitalism has resulted in the violent, lethal or injurious exploitation of workers since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Capitalist expansion has created endless varieties of forced appropriation of land, resources and indeed labor – from outright slavery to sweat shops. Capitalist commercialism is responsible for defrauding millions of consumers through false advertising, creating artificial demand, outright deception and fear-mongering, and deliberate theft. And to say that corporations haven’t used coercive force to intimidate workers and consumers is to ignore about half of the available history on consumer and worker rights.

7. Capitalism is morally neutral. Hogwash. Please see points 1-6.

The common thread here, you will notice, is that pro-capitalist idealists tend to avoid more complex and nuanced views of the world, holding rather blindly to a cherished individualism and economic opportunity for the privileged class, and loudly resisting when anyone questions their oversimplified definitions of negative liberty. Again, any moral justification for capitalism invokes a sort of immature blindness to the prosocial realities that likely helped human societies flourish since the dawn of our species (at least that’s what most of the research in group selection and prosocial genetic dispositions seems to indicate). But if we allow capitalism to continue destroying our society and the planet, humans will become a sad footnote in the annals of the extinct.

In closing, I recommend you read my latest essay for more clarification on many of these issues: The Goldilocks Zone of Integral Liberty: A Proposed Method of Differentiating Verifiable Free Will from Countervailing Illusions of Freedom.

My 2 cents.

In answer to Quora question "Are religious and non-religious people inherently different when it comes to morality?"

Question details: "Most of us know it's wrong to steal or kill, but if a person believes there's a supernatural entity keeping an eye on him, would he try harder to resist the urge to do either?"

Thank you for the A2A. I believe you may be asking the wrong question. Perhaps you see spirituality as "belief in a supernatural entity" that keeps an eye on people. I think there probably are "religious" people who operate this way, but personally I think that orientation is pretty immature. It's a 5-year-old's view of an authoritarian "God." I think the more interesting question is: does spirituality itself inform morality in some unique way that a person who resists their own spirituality can't access? But that is not what you asked. So I would say that prosocial impulses are, and always have been, a genetically programmed result of group selection and evolutionary fitness. Which means that human beings as a species have access to the same "conscience," regardless of spiritual insights or religious affiliation. What religion has historically provided is a formalized, institutionalized, often dogmatic form of moral education and social enforcement. And I'm sure that has benefited some people who for some reason have limited access to their own moral compass - but, in general, no more than any other social constraints would. Perhaps, for some, fear of the "Boogeyman in the closet" (i.e. a Devil or other evil force) or deferential respect for a benevolent Deity may have some impact on personal discipline, so that moral commitments and guidelines are adhered to more enthusiastically. It's also true that someone's religious devotion - their love and faith - could encourage a more conscious intentionality that aligns with moral beliefs. But this same devotion could also be arrived at by, for example, a secular humanist who feels compassion for other people, and so aspires to a higher standard of moral conduct, and actively invites others to hold them accountable to that standard. So, in this sense, a "religion" can be invented by almost anyone to systematize and reinforce their values. But I would say that profound spiritual experiences, deeply felt spiritual connections, and an intimate relationship with spiritual intelligence all contribute to a clearer and more refined values hierarchy, so that someone who relies upon these dimensions of being not only can hear their conscience more clearly, but attain insights that evolve their moral perspective beyond social expectation or religious dogma, and mature their mind and heart in the light of skillful compassion.

My 2 cents.

Answer to Quora question: "Why is my life so complicated and I never feel fulfilled?"

Question details: "I've never had close friends, social experiences, very few relationships, no job, and i haven't completed my degree. I feel that i'm unlucky in life, while other people can get away with so much and still be on top. Am i just too nice? Why do i lack direction? Why can't i feel powerful? Any advice?"

A2A. Although I don't know all the details of your situation (which is a requirement for giving any kind of useful advice!), I did read through your question and comments, and my conclusion is that you might do well to alter the way you are viewing yourself - your priorities and your values orientation. Why do luck and success matter to you? Why have you made them so important that you compare the luck and success of others to your own? Why is "feeling powerful" or being "on top" important to you? Why do you believe that "feeling fulfilled" is somehow supposed to be part of your existence? How did you arrive at these conclusions and adopt these values for yourself...?

I think that is where you need to begin: understanding where your assumptions came from, and if they are really a) correct and accurate assumptions, in some absolute sense, b) apply to you, holding to your innermost convictions, and are really what you value most, and c) if it is possible that you have been misled or misinformed. My suspicion is that you have adopted some values and methods of self-evaluation that have arisen from a superficial, commercialistic and celebrity-centric world. Perhaps you have been "sold" a value system that really only benefits very few people with certain skills and aptitudes, and leaves everyone else feeling exactly the way you are feeling. And maybe that value system is actually a lie. A lie that benefits people who would like to exploit you and keep you focused outside of yourself for answers, because that helps them remain "lucky," "on top" and "in power."

And if you have accepted a lie as truth, you will probably always feel the way you are feeling. Until you see through the spectacle and illusion of what a materialistic, individualistic, plutocratic system - a system that thrives on deception and misdirection - has programmed you to believe, you will keep casting about for ways to "be fulfilled" or "powerful" or "on top," and you will keep feeling like a miserable failure. Because that's the way you are supposed to feel if you aren't one of the extremely rare people - perhaps 1% of 1% - who can fulfill all the superficial, vapid, commercially viable but essentially meaningless expectations of modern culture.

So instead, I would encourage you to turn away from mass media, social media, pop culture, advertising and commercial music, TV and film, and instead turn your focus inward. Look inside yourself for what you value most. What is really important to you, deep down? What defines who you actually are, and why you are actually here? Stop paying attention to everything going on outside of you, and turn your attention to what is going on within your heart, mind and soul. Spend time alone in Nature, in meditation, in deep reflection. That is where I believe you will find purpose and fulfillment and belonging - that is where you will find values that enhance your self-concept in constructive ways. And, if you follow through on this inward sensitivity and awareness, and are disciplined about it, well...be prepared to be amazed at what you find. It will probably bring you to tears.

And you will never care about celebrity, luck, power or success in the popular or commercialized sense ever again.

My 2 cents.

Quora answer to: "What is moral degradation/breakdown of societies?"

Thank you for this A2A.

There are many ways to approach this question. Here are a few that may be fruitful for you to pursue:

1. In evolutionary terms, "moral degradation" is simply antisocial behavior that spreads to more and more people in a given circumstance or environment. This would be the opposite of "prosocial" behavior, which many researchers have proposed is an evolved trait that has helped us survive as a species since we started walking upright.

2. In broad spiritual terms shared by many esoteric traditions, "moral degradation" is either the amplification of the individual ego to the detriment of compassion and kindness, or a willful resistance to the charitable inclinations that result from relinquishing an egoic self.

3. In equally broad psychological terms, "moral degradation" is a developed or innate inability to access or experience emotions that regulate destructive behavior - emotions like empathy, guilt, trust and love - that then results in...well...destructive behaviors.

4. In an historical context, what has often been referred to as "moral degradation" is the abandonment of practical disciplines necessary for individual or collective survival, in favor of excessive hedonism, animalism, or impulsive self-indulgence.

As to the factors that have contributed most to moral degradation, I suspect the following have been the most influential:

1. The elevation of greed, acquisitiveness, selfishness, indifference and exploitation that is so feverishly celebrated in market capitalism.

2. Institutions that enforce dogmatic, tribalistic groupthink to maintain their own power.

3. Self-absorbed individualism (atomism) that does not appreciate the social context in which it exists (and without which it wouldn't exist at all).

4. The persisting confusion and ignorance about the relationship (or lack thereof) between highly destructive and disingenuous "religiosity," and highly constructive authentic spirituality.

5. Affluence that has not been earned, has no awareness of the negative externalities that have sustained it, and sidesteps moral accountability because of its position of privilege in society.

6. Resource scarcity without any hope of changing the situation.

And finally, for examples, just look to what gets the most attention in mass media, as this often illustrates a "moral breakdown" that corresponds to much of what I have defined above.

My 2 cents.

Quora answer to "Are rules just for bad behaviours or are there also rules for the good ones?"

Thanks for the A2A. I think you began to answer the question yourself. For example, here are two aspects of a given rule:

1. If you consistently drive on the wrong side of the road, you will eventually cause an accident.

2. If you consistently drive on the designated side of the road for your travel direction, you will have a higher likelihood of arriving safely at your destination - as will everyone else driving on the same road.

Notice that I did not include law enforcement in those examples; there are simply natural consequences for either following or not following collectively agreed-upon rules (despite what folks like Sharan Gala (undefined) would like to believe). This isn't 100% true 100% of the time (because someone else may be violating a rule and putting you at risk), but civil society is constructed around such rules so that the probabilities of your continued life, liberty and pursuit of happiness are increased. This is why our collective agreement exists: so that everyone will have a similarly increased probability.

Does life always work out that way? Of course not. There are arbitrary events, there are privileged classes, the are rules that benefit one group over another, etc. But that doesn't mean that "rules" are ineffective, just that certain rules may need to be improved. And that is actually a major component of the history of modern society: improving the quality of rules. But this takes time and collective engagement, and because both our culture and technology are evolving so quickly, and because so many people are disconnected from the "rule-making" process, there can be inefficiencies, perverse incentives, moral hazards and unanticipated consequences of new and old rules. Which means we need to keep working at perfecting the rules that we all agree upon, and encouraging public discourse around them.

So understanding that rules are supposed to benefit everyone is really at the root of the question. If that benefit is real, then rules help create happiness for all. If that benefit is not real, then rules may only produce selective advantages or arbitrary punishments.

My 2 cents.

From Quora answer to "Is always the rational decision the best decision?"

Thank you for the A2A.

The research of Antonio Damasio and others has shown that what we believe to be "rational" is a complex synthesis that involves many elements - including emotion. In fact, he has found that people who are emotionally impaired (the emotional centers of their brain are damaged, for example) have a much more difficult time making decisions - if they are able to make them at all. So "rational" is not quite as pure in its execution as the Western traditions of philosophy and science have proposed that it is. We also find that human beings are excellent "rationalizers," in that we tend to post-justify purely emotional, instinctive, intuitive or impulsive decisions with what we believe to be "sound reasoning." And, once we've made a decision, we will tend to defend it and incorporate it into an ongoing bias, often in fairly irrational ways. With this in mind, for many years now I have been advocating a more multidimensional approach to decision-making. Here are some highlights of that approach:

1. Developing awareness around our personal values and how to best reflect those values in our responses, choices and our governing intentions.

2. Learning how to recognize and incorporate the many different areas of intelligence and wisdom available to us in a balanced way: our rational faculties, our emotional intelligence, our intuitive capacities, our spiritual perception-cognition, our social (participatory) resources, our knowledge from experience, and so on.

3. Suspending complex ideas or decisions in a "neutral holding field" that allows us to keep gathering and integrating information about a given subject without coming to a decision.

4. Learning how to look inward for answers through introspection and meditation, rather than depending on external sources of information, insight or discernment.

These are discussed in more depth in my various writings, but with respect to your question you can see that a decision that is "rational" is only part of the mix, and certainly a decision that is only rationally based is probably not the best decision if it doesn't include these many other avenues of insight and discernment.

My 2 cents.

From Quora answer to: "Is the United States morally good?"

No, the United States government is not morally good. Though I'm sure many people working in our government aspire to do good - even some of the politicians - they are constrained by the following corruptive pressures, all of which could loosely fall under the heading "the coopting of democracy by special interests:"

1. **Distorted political campaigns** - huge (in the billions, as I'm sure you're aware) amounts of money spent by very few individuals to influence election outcomes and the political priorities of parties and candidates.

2. **Rampant clientism and cronyism** - the quid pro quo of backroom deals resulting from "access" granted the wealthiest supporters, sometimes to the point of their being appointed to influential government positions.

3. **Plutocratic legislation** - legislation at all levels of government written by corporations (rather than legislators) to protect their own interests.

4. **Weakened or corrupted regulatory and judicial power** - the ability to countervail the agendas of special interests or their influence has been diluted by the appointment of ideologically sympathetic judges, by the evisceration of existing protective laws, and by active lobbying that discourages regulatory enforcement.

Now if these special interests (in largest part plutocrats) had the promotion of our collective well-being as their core agenda, then the answer to your question might be "yes, it's good!" But they don't. In our current State capitalist system, these elites have demonstrated time and again that they are much more interested in engineering the best possible means of enriching themselves. And, as history documents, this has meant exploiting, enslaving and putting workers at risk; consuming natural resources until they are depleted; caustically polluting water, air, food and other necessities of life; and creating an ever-larger gulf between the rich and the poor. Greed is not good, it is incredibly destructive. But this is how capitalism has always worked, and despite decades of reforms driven by a few courageous leaders, grassroots activism and widespread civil unrest, the tyranny of commercialistic plutocracy keeps marching on.

So even though the U.S. Constitution is a pretty darn "morally good" Constitution, and democracy has proven itself to be a "morally good" system when it functions properly, and we have many folks in our government who aspire to be "morally good," all of this has been undermined by relatively few callous, self-serving, egotistical power-mongers who thrive unchecked within corporate capitalism. It is much easier to destroy than to create. And, as a result, in the course of amassing ludicrously huge amounts of money in unethical ways, the plutocrats have created generations of poor people, people with lung cancer, obese children with Type II Diabetes, people addicted to prescription drugs, poorly educated people, people who vote against their own best interests, a domestic populace armed with increasingly lethal weapons, astounding levels of consumer debt, sweat shops and prison factories all around the globe, a few wars to expand resource and labor availability, foreign populations increasingly radicalized by what they view as U.S. imperialism...and of course climate change. The special interests did it all, and none of it has been "morally good." Well, except for the fact that I can get almost anything I could want delivered to my home in two days using Amazon Prime; I guess that was worth sacrificing the Constitution, democracy, and the well-being of all humanity.

My 2 cents.

(P.S. If you are interested in some source material that supports what I've said, I'd be happy to provide it. Just be specific about what you would like to know.)

In answer to Quora question: "What is a question you wish everyone would ask themselves?"

Question details: What do you wish everyone to ask themselves to be much happier and more ethical? Why?

Thank you for the A2A. I would simply expand on Roberto Vilar's theme:

**"How can I develop more lovingkindness within myself, and how can I then demonstrate it toward everything and everyone - myself included - with increasing skill and insight?"**

Or, perhaps a simpler way to say the same thing:
**"How can I perfect love within my heart and mind so that I may contribute to the Good of All?"**

I believe the "why" should be self-evident.

My 2 cents.

In answer to Quora question: "Can one conduct series of moral acts (each one 100% moral) to arrive at cumulative result that somehow is not moral?"

Thanks for the A2A. I think there are several approaches to answering this question, which can be separated into two broad categories:

A) Weighing your actions and their results according to your own values.

1. Assessing them based on your intentions for each act having integrity with your values.

2. Assessing them based on measurable outcomes of each act having integrity with your values.

3. Assessing them based on your awareness of a cumulative outcome as it is being shaped over time, and your adjustments in response to that awareness, in accordance with your values.

B) Weighing your actions and their results according to widely held moral framework (conventional social mores, the rule of law, religious dogma, traditional values, etc.).

1. Assessing them based on the consistency of your intentions aligning with that moral framework.

2. Assessing them based on the quality of outcomes resulting from your actions over time as viewed within that framework.

3. Assessing them based on your awareness of a cumulative outcome and demonstrated effort to align that outcome with what is "moral" in that framework.

In reality, we all involve a little of everything listed here in our moral judgements. So the real question, in my view, is which approaches you are choosing to emphasize, and whether you are really doing so consciously and persistently. Depending on which approaches you choose, the answer to your question could be a confident "yes," or "no," or a more tentative "possibly yes and possibly no."

This is how we might navigate our conclusions about a parent who has allowed a close relative to abuse their child. Let's say that, from all accounts (including their own), that parent appeared to be loving, kind, and moral in their parenting...but they were not able to react to the signs that their child was at risk and remedy the situation accordingly. Did they ignore the signs out of fear? Did they not recognize the signs? Did they recognize the signs, but not believe what they were seeing out of a blind affection for the abusive relative? Did they not have sufficient power in the situation to protect their child? How did they weigh what they perceived against the well-being of the child? And what impact did the abuse actually have on the child? What were the intentions and awareness of the abusive relative? And so on. Depending on which combination of approaches are used to evaluate the parent's actions, they might be exonerated as being moral, or accused of being immoral, or be viewed as having done their best at being moral...but failing.

My 2 cents.

In answer to Quora question: "What are the psychological/historical/sociological reasons for why most people value others who have expensive material assets over their soul and character?"

Interesting question and thanks for the A2A.

Here are some reasons that come to mind:

1. Have you ever seen a dog drop his bone or toy to try to get the bone or toy another dog has? I think this instinct is hard-wired into our reptilian hindbrains, and the more we indulge that impulse to acquire (and envy others who do so), the more those neural pathways are strengthened. Take a gander at this: Cherokee Legend - Two Wolves. (http://www.firstpeople.us/FP-Html-Legends/TwoWolves-Cherokee.html)

2. Social status and capital have been extraordinarily important throughout human history in just about every culture - reflecting a desire for secure social position, existential stability and a sense of agency (freedom). At different times and in different cultures around the world such status and capital have been established in different ways - family lineage, physical prowess, personal charisma, tribal alliances, number of wives or husbands, number of offspring, special abilities (battle strategy, hunting skill, etc.), physical beauty, ability to persuade or influence, and indeed personal character. Material wealth has not always been part of the mix, but it has sometimes been a byproduct - or evidence - of these other traits. With the advent of trade, money and widespread affluence, the quickest shorthand for "I have social status and capital" rapidly became material possessions; such assets seemed to indicate these other traits, even if they were not present, so acquisitiveness became a convenient shortcut.

3. Along the lines of the Cherokee story, commercialistic capitalism feeds the egoic, greedy wolf within, reinforcing the linkages between individualistic materialism, immediate gratification, social status and superficial happiness.

4. I think moral development also plays an important role. If I am stuck at a toddler level of moral valuations, I will place a lot of importance on I/Me/Mine assertions. If I am more mature, I will tend to relax such egocentrism in favor of prosocial traits like generosity and kindness that empathize with the needs of others.

5. The more material wealth we have, the more confused we become about what is truly valuable - and what we should value in ourselves and other people. When we have lots of stuff, our view of the world becomes distorted, and our connection to both other people and our innermost Self is weakened. See Paul Piff's research around this topic.

Those are some ideas. Let me know what you think.

In answer to Quora question: "What makes Hegel such a hard philosopher to read?"

Thanks for the A2A. Okay so first off the original German isn't easy to understand, which makes the translation difficult, so there's that. I think the number of people who speak fluent German AND fluent English AND have a deep understanding of Hegel's work (not only his subtleties but also the evolution of his thinking over time) has always been pretty sparse. Add to this that Hegel's ideas are complex, and that he was often coming up with his own language to describe a new concept he was thinking through, and you just end up with some mightily inaccessible philosophical musings. For example:

"Natural consciousness will prove itself to be only knowledge in principle or not real knowledge. Since, however, it immediately takes itself to be the real and genuine knowledge, this pathway has a negative significance for it; what is a realization of the notion of knowledge means for it rather the ruin and overthrow of itself; for on this road it loses its own truth. Because of that, the road can be looked on as the path of doubt, or more properly a highway of despair. For what happens there is not what is usually understood by doubting, a jostling against this or that supposed truth, the outcome of which is again a disappearance in due course of the doubt and a return to the former truth, so that at the end the matter is taken as it was before."

I mean...many people would have to read this several times even to comprehend what Hegel was getting at. Add to this that he was often writing in the specific context of ideas framed by other philosophers (Kant, Fichte, Schelling, etc.) - and often with the assumption of the reader's familiarity with those philosophers - and the already difficult material becomes further abstracted.

My 2 cents.

Answer to Quora question: "How do I stop feeling guilty about the conflicting urges in my human nature?"

Thank you for the A2A Ning Ng.

My answer is offered in deliberate contrast to what some others have stated here who seem to subscribe to moral relativism.

If you're actions are guided by a hierarchical values system where one or two values reign supreme over all others, then all you will need to do is discern how best to fulfill those primary values with all other values, thoughts, actions and intentions. The only conflict you will experience would be a lack of clarity about this hierarchy - once you are clear, there will no longer be tension.

For example, if your primary guiding intention in all things is to enrich yourself, and to do so from an egoic/solipsistic perspective where only your own welfare and satisfaction matter, then you need not be altruistic and can abandon those feelings as subordinate to your primary objective in life. Generous or altruistic feelings may still occur, but it will be easier to dismiss them as unimportant to your dominant self-serving values, and easier to feel less guilt about them.

However, if your primary guiding intention in all things is to be kind, loving, compassionate and affectionate to all conscious beings, hoping that everything you do for yourself will actually benefit others because you care about them (as, for example, a mother avoids alcohol when she is breast feeding, or a brother strengthens his body because he wants to be able to help his physically disabled sister, etc.), then any impulses toward greed and manipulating others will naturally attenuate in subordination to your primary values. Again, you may still experience selfish, egoic urgers, but it will be much easier to laugh at them or otherwise shrug them away.

Of course, good intentions do not guarantee we will not make mistakes, or will not lack skillfulness or discernment in some new, unexpected situation. Therefore, first and foremost, mistakes and miscalculations are much more common when we are tired, depleted, stressed, depressed, confused and so on...so, again, taking care of oneself to avoid these conditions is quite important, and is part of acting toward yourself in ways that ultimately benefits others. And, if we are truly invested in being compassionate, we must also practice the same patience, acceptance, forgiveness and understanding towards ourselves that we believe embodies loving kindness towards others - especially when we make mistakes!

So as you can see it is simple to resolve conflicting urges if we prioritize our values and aim to live our lives according to those values. This perspective and practice is an aspect of what I call "Functional Intelligence," and you might enjoy reading this linked essay on the topic.

I hope this was helpful.

In answer to Quora question: "Philosophy of Everyday Life: How can I change the world with my actions?"

First of all thank you Aditya for the A2A, and for your willingness and openness to engage this question; I believe that is the first step in creating effective agency in the world, and you've already taken it. Other thoughts that flow out from this one are:

1) Have clarity. About your beliefs, values and intentions.

2) Have integrity. Aim to have as many of your thoughts, words and actions align with your values and beliefs as possible.

3) Cultivate patience and endurance. Becoming an agent for change is a long, difficult road that requires as much compassion and caring for yourself as it does discipline and generosity towards others.

4) Decide on a central, guiding intentionality for all of your efforts. What will govern your actions? Have a specific goal in mind. For example, demonstrating charitable lovingkindness in every interaction, or generating the greatest good for the greatest number for the greatest duration, or becoming an example of how to live in harmony with others and the Earth so that others may observe and benefit, and so on.

5) Know that how you relate to your own mind, body, heart, spirit and soul is the central building block for all that follows. Cultivating a constructive relationship with every aspect of yourself is a lifelong practice, and it will both help contextualize and energize everything else that you do.

6) Have a spiritual practice. This is so important. Even if you consider yourself an agnostic or secular humanist, it is essential to appreciate, cultivate and nurture your spiritual dimension in some way. It is also a very useful avenue to facilitate #7....

7) Fall in love with everyone and everything. And by "love" I mean agape, as an unconditional compassionate affection that drives and informs all skillful action.

Enlarge your supportive community. Find people who share and celebrate your values, with whom you can open your heart and mind, and with whom you can share your journey. And of course this is as much about finding ways to support others in their efforts as it is about finding resources to support your own.

9) Be ready to change course. Allow new information, experiences and ideas to reshape your thinking and efforts in fluid ways. Along these lines, make sure you have honest, fiercely loving people in your life who can remind you of your mission...and of when you may be drifting off-course...even when you aren't receptive!

10) Let go. Appreciate that the ultimate outcomes of your efforts may not be known for a very long time - perhaps not even in your lifetime - and detach yourself from fixed expectations. This is a tough one, but it is necessary because our ego can become too wrapped up in what we're doing, how important we are, etc. And that will just impede our flexibility and skillfulness. So....just let go.

My 2 cents. I'm happy to follow up if you have questions about any of these points.

In answer to Quora question: "Why, very often, do bad things happen to good and generous people?"

Thank you for the A2A. There are many pat answers to this question along the lines of "the rain falls on the good and bad alike," in other words that many life events are not causally linked to a person's character, but are simply arbitrary. I don't disagree with this statement, but I will try to dig a little deeper for you. Here are some thoughts:

1) There wouldn't be anything bad in the world if bad things didn't happen to good people. The very definition of "bad" or "evil" stems from something that is considered unjust, unfair, unjustifiable...and if unfortunate things only happened to people who were somehow deserving of them, then we probably wouldn't even have a concept of "bad" at all. Therefore, it makes perfect sense that the frequency of "bad things happening to good people" would be perceived as high, because that perception allows us to define and communicate what "bad" looks like. In a way, this may be an imperative of societal fitness.

2) A lot of things that some people perceive as "bad" or "evil" in the short run actually become "good" in the long run. When we step back from immediate events, and look at a much longer chain of causality, then we can begin to realize that such shifts in perspective change the meaning or value of events. Many "good and generous" people can cite examples in their lives where something that initially seemed very bad (an accident, a loss, a betrayal, a failure, etc.) later became the source of much good their lives.

3) I personally would say that it is impossible to mature emotionally, spiritual or socially without adverse events. The oft-quoted phrase from the New Testament is "we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope..." I can't disagree with that, and would add that to become a "good and generous" person requires many struggles and trials. Is this just how we are wired to learn? Perhaps so, for without adversity we humans tend to "take things for granted" that we really shouldn't. In other words, in order for any aspect of our being to grow and become strong, we require a certain level of existential resistance.

4) This last point is a tough one to accept, but I have observed it many times. We sometimes invite calamity into our lives, and this can happen in many ways, some of which are more foreseeable than others. I may be a good and generous person towards others, but not towards myself, and so I unconsciously create situations where I fail, or suffer, or am crushed by circumstances. I may be a good and generous person who takes a little too much pride in my goodness and generosity, and, knowing this on some level, I unconsciously create adverse situations where I can learn humility. My goodness and generosity may be motivated by a desire for self-sacrifice, to the point where I drive myself to martyrdom. And so on. In such cases, being "good and generous" does not insulate me from harm, but instead may increase its likelihood.

These are just a few superficial thoughts. I would encourage you to meditate on your question, looking inward into stillness, to wait and see what percolates up from your heart regarding this question. Not only do I suspect you will find better answers there, but that you will also be more accepting of them.

My 2 cents.

In answer to Quora question: "What did Hegel mean by "Rational"?"

IMO to understand what Hegel included in "rationality," you would have to decide a few things about how to interpret Hegel. For example:

1) Is Hegel's understanding of God or Spirit rational (in his own view, or as we would define "rational" today) as it pertains to his own metaphysics? Does it reflect non-rational presuppositions?

2) What does Hegel mean by "intellectual intuition" and what are his views regarding it (in contrast to or harmony with Kant and Fichte)? Similarly, what are Hegel's views about Kant's "intuitive intellect?"

3) Is Hegel's dialectic supersession analytical or immanent? Does it exist in itself, of itself, or as a projection of subjective thought?

4) How does Hegel relate individual, subjective consciousness to a) universal, pure consciousness, and b) ultimate spiritual reality (absolute knowledge)?

5) What does Hegel mean by "essence" or "real substance" or "ground" (and how does he routinely arrive here or contextualize these things), and what does he mean by "Wesen?"

Now there is certainly an easier way to answer to your question, and that would be to quote a passage where Hegel discusses the "rational," but by doing so we truncate a fuller appreciation:

"The development of the Idea is the proper activity of its rationality, and thinking, as something subjective, merely looks on at it without for its part adding to it any ingredient of its own. To consider a thing rationally means not to bring reason to bear on the object from the outside and so to tamper with it, but to find that the object is rational on its own account; here it is mind it its freedom, the culmination of self-conscious reason, which gives itself actuality and engenders itself as an existing world." (from the introduction to The Philosophy of Right.)

Since there is still debate about many of these issues - including the terms Hegel uses in the quote above - it is really for you to decide.

My 2 cents.

In answer to the Quora question: "Immanuel Kant argues that it is always immoral to lie what is a situation where it would be immoral to tell the truth?"

Thanks for the A2A.

I believe Kant would say that this perceived dilemma is grounded in conflating "the good" with "the right," that is, sidestepping categorical imperatives that have universal moral objectivity (i.e. "the right," or something which is intrinsically good without qualification) with hypothetical imperatives that are intrinsically subjective (i.e. "the good," or something which is situationally advantageous). Thus what one person perceives as good for themselves isn't necessarily the morally right thing to do, and the morally right thing to do does not always result in what is good for the person doing it; in this respect moral duty supersedes self-interest. As a result Kant felt a normative, rules-based system of ethics was achievable (in contrast to moral relativism, pragmatism, or consequentialism).

Initially, this kinds of makes sense, especially since the primary absolute in Kant's moral system was good will towards all of humanity, which could therefore be the basis of all law, and a reason for conformance to that law. Human beings are not just a means, he argued, they are an end in and of themselves. This principle is, in fact, reflected in much of the modern formation of law (consider that any conception of basic human rights or civil liberties captures this moral universality). So far so good.

Where his reasoning begins to break down, however, is in how Kant believed categorical imperatives should be derived. His persisting error was that "pure practical reason" was the only reliable method. And, as you have pointed out in your question, Kant's reliance on his own "pure practical reason" regarding lying led him to an untenable conclusion: that all lying was immoral. For him, there was no conceivable qualification, exception or variation to this conclusion. And that is clearly a problem, in that he did not consider values hierarchies in his calculations (as others who have posted answers in this thread - about hiding Jews from Nazis, for example - have demonstrated). This does not necessarily mean that pragmatism or relativism are correct, but that Kant had invested in a faulty method of discerning absolutes.

So while many people (including philosophers throughout history) would agree that there are moral absolutes, they might disagree about how to arrive at them - and with Kant's hyperrational and somewhat egotistical method of derivation. I myself am a fan of virtue ethics, but also agree that certain virtues are both universal and absolute, and that our values hierarchies must cascade down from those. In other words, that ethics cannot be inverted or situationalized for the convenience of self-interest or expediency, and that Kant's differentiation of "the right" and "the good" can and should still be supported. With some degree of irony it can be noted that Kant himself believed cultivating virtues that supported moral imperatives was extremely important - but he did not recognize that his own moral reasoning may have issued from precisely this same process. In any case, I hope I have adequately described how Kant could both be correct in some of his primary postulations, and mistaken in his secondary assumptions and applications.

My 2 cents.

In answer to Quora question: "Why does life involve solving so many problems? Why did the universe develop in such a way that we constantly have to be solving problems?"

Thanks for the A2A.

Would you like a simple answer, or a complicated one?

One really simple answer: Life on Earth - and within human societies and relationships - has always been this complex. We're just becoming more aware of it both individually and collectively.

One still relatively simple answer: No other species currently offers us competition for the same resources, nor do any of the environments on Earth currently present much difficulty for our survival. And yet we are biologically designed, in terms of evolutionary fitness, to compete with other species and survive in challenging environments. So what do we humans do? We create situations where we end up competing with ourselves and the complexity of our inventions to generate the same "environmental tensions" and inter-species competition that the natural world used to provide us. Without those tensions, after all, we would become bored, depressed, obsessive and compulsively self-destructive both as individuals and as a species.

One slightly more complex answer: Our consciousness is an awe-inspiring gift that we have yet to learn how to fully utilize or appreciate. In the meantime, we're doing some really cool stuff with that consciousness (the arts, philosophy, mathematics, deepening compassion, subtler and more nuanced insights, unconditional affection, big science, big questions, etc.) and some really nasty and unfortunate stuff with that consciousness (nuclear bombs, environmental destruction, hatred and conflict, black-and-white reasoning, control behaviors, over-stressed urban lifestyles, etc.). Over time, we will either learn how to de-energize the destructive uses of consciousness and expand its constructive uses, or we will irrevocably ruin our own planet and civilization. If we can achieve the former, perhaps this will mean that our gift of consciousness will contribute to the evolution of something much greater than ourselves.

I suspect that the most complete answer involves a portion of all of these ideas...combined with many more perspectives. In the meantime, we can at least acknowledge that how we use our consciousness has far-reaching impacts, and train ourselves toward the greatest good for the greatest majority for the greatest duration. Or not. We could also just hitch a ride on someone else's thought stream, or immerse our consciousness in the commercialistic spectacle that numbs us to our better selves.

My 2 cents.

In answer to Quora question: "Moral Development: What influences and drives moral development?"

Thanks for the A2A Jeff. Great question as always.

This is a complex question in my view, but here are some top-level "influences and drives" as I see them:

1) Societal expectations are a strong influence, and for someone wired to please others or who is driven to conform socially (as many of us are), this can become an internalized motivating force as well - for good or ill, depending on the culture in which we are immersed.

2) Family, peer and mentor modeling and programming are also a strong influence, and can likewise be internalized as a motivating force.

3) Prosocial tendencies, which according to a growing body of research appear to be evolutionary and genetically predisposed, will also drive and influence moral development.

4) Spiritual practices can both expose us to new strata of moral development, and experientially validate those strata. For example, practicing gratitude and generosity, or encountering peak experiences in meditation, or aiming to relinquish egoic selfhood in favor of more inclusive and compassionate being.

5) Multidimensional nourishment (that is, nurturing every aspect of our being in a balanced, harmonious way) has a profound influence on moral development because it creates a stable, safe foundation for each transition into a new, more sophisticated and unitive moral orientation.

6) Our closest relationships (with partners, family, children, etc.) tend to challenge us to advance morally - if they are healthy and constructive relationships! They can likewise impede our moral development if they aren't.

7) Personal experiences of both moral success and failure will, over time, help us understand where we operate in the moral spectrum, and where we might desire to operate, introducing new perspectives and goals.

New memes that shift our moral sense up a notch can have a surprisingly robust influence. For example, the golden rule meme, the "pay it forward" meme, the mindfulness meme, the "judge not lest ye be judged" meme, the "an it harm none, do what thou wilt" meme and so on.

Ultimately, it seems to be the maturation of our own being across multiple dimensions - along with the expanding appreciation of our interconnectedness with all things and the felt sense of affectionate compassion accompanying that appreciation - which ultimately propels us toward higher, more inclusive and constructive moral imperatives. All of the "influences and drives" that I listed are merely doors into that process, or stepping stones within it.

My 2 cents.

In answer to Quora question: "Why do we care so much about people being real or authentic?"

Thanks for the A2A.

In my view authenticity (or genuineness) is a moral as well as aesthetic characteristic, and is akin to integrity and transparency in contrast to attitudes and behaviors which deceive, or are synthetic and shallow, or are simply dishonest in emotional as well as intellectual and factual ways. Consider that there is emotional honesty, intellectual honesty, artistic honesty, factual honesty and even spiritual honesty, and all of these are valued both culturally and have proven to be prosocial traits that enable improved evolutionary fitness for us highly social and interdependent humans. Thus many spiritual traditions encourage us to find our True Self, just as our fellow artists will encourage us to find our authentic creative voice, and our closest friends and family (and any competent psychotherapist) will encourage us to be emotionally honest with ourselves and with them, and a well-educated person will expect us to be intellectually honest - adhering to certain guidelines of critical thought or scientific reasoning - when discussing complex topics. Thus if we avoid such authenticity we will be perceived as either superficial or a fraud - someone who does not really know what we are talking about, or who isn't in touch with our underlying emotions and motivations, or whose identity and persona are constructed from expedient social conventions rather than actual experience or a depth of self-awareness.

However, although authenticity is an almost universal spiritual, artistic, philosophical, therapeutic and scientific standard, it is certainly not a culturally universal standard. In some cultures, the ability to deceive other people is considered clever and valuable; just examine some of the folklore from around the globe, or the practices of advertising and marketing in Western capitalism, or the writings and practices of Gurdjieff and his followers, or the deceptions and dishonesty of everyone from politicians and televangelists to used car salesmen and people in bars who want to get laid. I would say that culture often persuades people to abandon authenticity and integrity so that they can achieve short-term "successes." In the long term, however, authenticity and integrity lead to a much deeper, more enduring and more profound relationships, and a much deeper, more enduring and more profound fullness of being.

From Psalm 7:
"Behold, the wicked man conceives evil
and is pregnant with mischief
and gives birth to lies.
He makes a pit, digging it out,
and falls into the hole that he has made.
His mischief returns upon his own head,
and on his own skull his violence descends."

My 2 cents.

In answer to Quora question: "Can generosity be destructive?"

Absolutely. If generosity is enabling or codependent in nature, or is compulsive, or instigated by guilt or fear, or does not skillfully calculate outcomes...really if it is not carefully, wisely and compassionately considered...then generosity can be extremely destructive. Some examples:

1) If I have given money to a homeless man out of reflexive guilt or sympathy, and he uses it to purchase recreational drugs or alcohol to satisfy a harmful and debilitating addiction, then my generosity was destructive. If, instead, I had given him some food, or perhaps an article of clothing if he was cold, or a hat to protect him from the sun, etc. then my giving might have been more skillful.

2) If I give money to a missing children's agency that is actually a scam (and not a legitimate charity) because I am too busy or don't care enough to investigate them, then I am being destructive by not making that money available to legitimate charities.

3) If I give money to a friend who has a compulsive gambling habit, I am enabling their self-destructive habit. If instead, I offered to pay the same amount for them to see a gambling addiction counselor, then my generosity would likely be far less destructive.

Essentially, when we are "generous" without fully appreciating the ramifications of our giving, then we can be destructive without even knowing it. This is why having ongoing relationships with those in need ends up being much more effective than giving blindly to anyone who asks.

Along these lines, I recommend reading this essay: Compassion and Codependence

My 2 cents.

In answer to Quora question: https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-cope-with-the-darkness-of-the-world/answer/T-Collins-Logan

Assuming that by "darkness" you mean all that is negative, destructive, antagonistic or "evil" in the world, it seems as though we have a limited number of options...

1) Avoid differentiating between darkness and light, constructive and destructive, good and bad from a place of naive ignorance...so that we can envelop ourselves in denial and self-imposed moral paralyzation, otherwise remaining as passive as possible.

2) Rail against darkness, attempting to exorcise it from our lives and from the world, and aim to amplify the light in all of our thoughts and actions.

3) Honor and amplify the darkness itself, striving to exclude the light altogether, so that we become the devoted servant of the dark, acknowledging and embracing its important purpose in the great journey of being.

4) Accept the darkness as part of ourselves, without judgement, and begin to heal the impulses and patterns within that contribute to destructive, harmful and antagonistic outcomes, hoping to continually transform darkness into light.

5) Gain insight that perceives all darkness as containing light, and all light as containing darkness, so that the co-infusion and harmonization of both - and maintaining that balance over time - is the most constructive response.

6) Gain insight that darkness is just love trying unskillfully to be, and that the more we engage darkness with love, the more it can help it mature into the first glimmerings of light.

7) Abandon ourselves to the light stream of affectionate compassion, so that darkness becomes a mere shadow, a projection of things we do not understand as we pass by them, but which do not affect our course or the radiance of our liberated consciousness.

These were hurriedly composed and are likely incomplete, but I'm sure you get the idea. I believe your question invites a choice - one that we all must engage as we pass from childhood to adulthood, and one that keeps presenting itself in new ways as we continue to mature.

My 2 cents.

In answer to Quora question: "Why death? What's the point of it? How did it evolve?"

Thanks for the A2A. The conventional evolutionary answer to this has been that, without older organisms dying off to make room for new organisms with improved fitness as a result of natural selection, and the amplification of this process over generations, a species would not be able to effectively adapt to changing environments or expand its avenues of survival. This answer seems to be further supported by our more recent understanding of epigenetics and how genes are expressed in a given organism (see Epigenetic Modifications Regulate Gene Expression), and how that genetic regulation gets passed on. Death is actually a very elegant stimulus, especially when coupled with consciousness, which can pass on non-genetic, fitness-improving information to the next generation as well. Hey...maybe that's why consciousness, tools and language evolved! Without death defining fitness (i.e. survival of the fittest), would there be a need for adaptive intelligence? "Death implored the evolution of consciousness, tools and language, so that adaptive behaviors could be conceived, remembered and communicated across generations of the species to enhance fitness. Instead, without the certain end to an organism, epigenetic mechanisms might have become so robust that consciousness, tools and language provided no distinct advantage." How about that for a quotable?

My 2 cents.

In answer to the Quora question: "Why do people keep getting more and more destructive and evil?"

Thanks for the A2A.

I'm not sure I entirely agree with how you stated your question - I think we humans are, as individuals, probably as "destructive and evil" in part, and as "compassionate and creative" in part, as we ever were. As an increasingly homogenized global culture and species, however, I could easily agree that we are collectively becoming more "destructive and evil," in terms of the scope of our impact en masse, and callousness and lack of compassion you describe at a societal level. I find this condition easily attributable to five central factors:

Exploitative, growth-dependent, highly commercialized corporate capitalism and its attendant consumerism. In service of this brand of capitalism, we have become conditioned to over-consume to the point of harming ourselves, each other and our environment. We have also become conditioned to care more about our own immediate gratification, and this arrests our development in an I/Me/Mine egocentric immaturity which, in turn, disconnects and isolates us from each other. This flavor of capitalism also rewards us for inverting our prosocial values and priorities, allowing material things, competitiveness and urgent acquisitiveness to have primacy over everything else (i.e. our other natural impulses like kindness, generosity, collaboration, compassion, self-sacrifice, etc. are suppressed or ignored).

Industry and technology. Our destructive capacity as a species - either intentionally or incidentally - has ballooned over the course of the industrial and technological revolutions. We simply have a lot more destructive power because of our new toys. These revolutions have also inherently separated us from any relationship with the natural world, so that many people have no concept at all of where their food, clothing or any other goods come from. So, in combination with factor #1, our actual destructive impact has accelerated, while at the same time we tend to care a lot less about that impact.

Increased urbanization. As people live in increasingly concentrated urban populations, the perceived and actual competition for the same limited resources becomes amplified, and, in combination with factors #1 and #2, this exacerbates both isolation from our fellow humans and separation from nature, and consequently reinforces our indifference to both our own destructiveness and the suffering it causes.

Information overload and accelerated change. The information revolution has produced far more information than human beings can parse in an orderly way, and the industrial and technological revolutions have exponentially expanded that deluge of information by accelerating the process whereby much information becomes less valuable or out-of-date, and ever more new information becomes the most important. Without a comprehensive, values-based filtering mechanism to help us evaluate new information, we simply can't cope with all of this. So many people will tend to revert to simplistic, black-and-white, tribalistic groupthink as a protective response; they will blindly follow the herd rather than thinking independently or critically. This, in turn, amplifies the I/Me/Mine impulses that undermine a broader social cohesion and the collective will to do the greatest good for everyone in a thoughtful, conscious and wisely compassionate way.

Increasing population. The more people their are, the more the first four factors are amplified, to the point where we have crossed a "tipping point" with respect to recovering harmony with the natural world and each other. I suspect we have a very rough patch ahead of us as a species.

In response to your last point, "why can we not do the same," we can. We can make a choice to escape the irrational thrall of consumption, to live simply, to actively care about the natural world and our fellow human beings, to not have children (or to raise them in a developing country where they will not contribute to the consumption and destruction cycles of developed economies), to advocate positive changes in political economy, technology and urban development, to evolve our moral consciousness beyond the I/Me/Mine reflexes of a toddler, to limit the quality and quantity of information we expose ourselves to, and to practice the prosocial traits that have created communally supportive human culture for millennia. We can exercise compassion, and we can influence positive change, and we can grow in wisdom - but of course it all begins with our own personal choices and the values and relationships we encourage in ourselves.

I hope this was helpful.

Answer to Quora question: What Are Your Favorite Original Thought Experiments?

I like Schrödinger's Cat and Einstein's "Chasing a Beam of Light," but I also have a few of my own creation. Here's one from my book The Vital Mystic:

"FRED AND THE BUBBLE OF NOTHINGNESS

Imagine a bubble of nothingness. Absolute nothingness. Not even a thought can penetrate this bubble. Not even an all-powerful Deity, for the non-space and non-time inside this bubble don’t even exist, and have never existed. It is, in fact, a nonexistence that preceded even our conception of it, in the moment before these sentences were written or read. Inside this bubble of nothingness lives a fellow named Fred. For my own entertainment, I like to imagine him wearing a burgundy sweater and gold wire glasses, sitting at an immense roll-top desk of some richly grained hardwood. Fred is humming to himself and thinking about the essence of his reality, as it flows in all directions around him; he does not perceive himself to be in a finite bubble at all. What to us is a non-concept of nonexistence is, in fact, Fred’s ever-expanding universe – albeit of “nothingness.” Taking a sip of hot chocolate, Fred imagines a realm that utterly contradicts his own: a realm of existence, complete with galaxies, spiritual forces, and and sapient beings. He even imagines you reading about him right now. But from Fred’s perspective, his own universe occupies everything that has meaning and reality for him, and all that exists for you and me is trapped within Fred’s bubble of rich – but objectively finite – imagination. Just as we view Fred as a negation of all that is for us, Fred views us as a negation of all that is not for him.

Then Fred moves on to other thoughts, and you yourself finish reading this description of Fred. Soon, both of you have pretty much forgotten about each other, but a question remains: what is the meaning of Fred to you? And what is the nature of everything in our Universe – everything that we can ever imagine or experience, even an all-encompassing, all-powerful Deity – to Fred? Clearly, with a shrug and another sip of hot chocolate, Fred can dismiss everything that we are, and all that we dream we are, as completely insignificant, just as we can easily dispense with everything that Fred imagines he is – Fred doesn’t exist, after all! This shows us how the contrast between our conception of reality and our direct experience of reality necessitates meaning, and how all meaning is therefore interdependent – that is, created by the context of one thing relating to another. This is not only true for the extreme dichotomy of existence and non-existence, but also for every subtle gradient of differentiation we perceive both in the external Universe, and in ourselves. Externally we differentiate a beautiful flower from a bothersome weed, a refreshing rain from an overwhelming deluge, a pleasant fragrance from a cloying stench, or an exciting adventure from a terrifying crisis. Internally we compare and contrast the inspiring flame of passion and the destructive heat of anger, overconfident knowledge and humble wisdom, a humorous observation and a demeaning jibe, a brilliant insight and deluded insanity. And with each choice to separate and evaluate what we encounter, we perpetually construct and support all of our most fundamental beliefs."

Thanks for the A2A.

From Quora discussion: "Why is there so much violence in the world? What can be done to eliminate it?"

There is a growing body of research that suggests that, historically, societies that developed in environments with consistently abundant resources, low human populations and little competition (i.e. few predators or other humans who invaded the area), tended to be less war-like or aggressive, with less evidence of violent tendencies and an equal valuation of the contributions of men, women and the elderly. Many of those cultures, however, did not remain peaceful when more aggressive populations migrated into their region, or when changes to their environment or their population density made resources less plentiful. So there seem to be gross correlations between population, resource availability and cultural valuations of physical strength and the skills of violence. These are broad generalizations, mind you, and there are plenty of exceptions and ways to interpret these correlations differently, but there is sufficient evidence over the course of human civilization to invite closer scrutiny and a few interesting hypotheses. Personally, I believe that we can - and in fact must - morally mature as individuals and as a global society, so that how we view property, wealth, status, work and so on becomes more cooperative and communally-oriented, and less competitive and individualistic. Capitalism will need to be replaced with more advanced political economies, human population will need to be stabilized or decreased, inequalities of influence, privilege and wealth will need to be diluted, and "us verses them" tribalistic groupthink will need to attenuate. I also think that, when the population on planet Earth has interbred enough that distinct racial traits are more universally distributed, the artificial boundaries of nation states and their accompanying nationalism will naturally begin to dissolve. It's a ways off, to be sure, but I can see how humans will learn to live peacefully with each other. Well, at least until the violent, predatory aliens arrive from outer space....

From Quora discussion "What is the real connotation of Habermas's distinction between ethics and morality?"

Hopefully someone with greater expertise can refine an answer, but my understanding of Habermas's differentiation goes something like this:

1) "Morals" are fundamental conceptions of what is universally good or right for all people; they are both intuitively understood and can be arrived at through rational discourse between any and all parties.

2) "Ethics" are pragmatic, facilitative rules that define efficacious choices within limited spheres of interaction (an institution with its own unique charter, a group with a shared ideology, a cooperative process that aims for specific outcomes, etc.). So such "ethics" will be framed by the cultural milieu of a given sphere.

For Habermas "morals" are universal, but "ethics" are situational - and in fact may contradict the ethics operating in another sphere.

I hope this was helpful.

From the Quora discussion "Was Ayn Rand's application of her ethical principles a reflection of their validity?"

Was L.Ron Hubbard's application of his ethical principles a reflection of their validity?

Scientific consensus at this point in time is that we humans develop our ethical compass through observation and imitation of the social behaviors of our family and social groups. Speculation over extant principles of moral behavior throughout much of human history has also been derived from observation and experience, and eventually the testing of those hypotheses using reason (in the case of Philosophy), controlled behavioral experiments (in the case of Psychology/Sociology), brain function in response to stimuli (such as fMRI in Neurology), and parallel correlations across different species (as in Evolutionary Biology). All of these approaches add to the cumulative, constantly revising soup that validates or invalidates a given perspective.

If we treat Ayn Rand's ethical speculations as entertainment - akin to say, reading an Ursula K. Le Guinn science fiction novel - then I would agree that there is no need to evaluate her embodiment of her proposed principles. In the same vein, if Ayn Rand had expressed her views with the same humility and intellectual openness as, say, Aristotle or Spinoza, then we might also be willing to cut her some slack regarding their implementation; although Aristotle and Spinoza seem honest and earnest about their views, a reader gets the impression that they are often just "thinking aloud," discussing an array of tentative conclusions from observations they have made, rather than employing the emphatic forcefulness of, say, a prophet or a politician.

But Ayn Rand was not humble - she instead tended toward the pedantic, self-aggrandizing and arrogant, and to a degree that she emulated the initiation of intellectual force of many prophets and politicians throughout history. And, similar to the way in which L.Ron Hubbard created a religion from his fantastical imaginings, Ayn Rand nurtured a devoted following of her speculations, which ultimately resulted in a cultish ideology mired in irrational groupthink - a cult of personality that relied more on charismatic authority than intellectual honesty if you will. In other words, a following that was not rational in its self-interest. So in Rand's case, unless we view her beliefs and works entirely as entertainment, then our natural tendency as human beings will be to contrast and compare the way she lived with the ideals she promoted, and from all accounts her life embodied incongruence and hypocrisy in this regard. And so, because this is how humans have "validated" professed beliefs over millennia, and how we continue to do this in the scientific age, in Rand's case we can't help but conclude that her application of professed principles clearly falls short of her ideals.

At the end of his life, Jean-Paul Sartre abandoned his writing and speculation, and committed himself to social action instead. He felt that his previous intellectualizations were a bourgeois preoccupation, a poor substitute for making a real difference in society. He even went so far as to decline a Nobel Prize for his writing, and instead lived simply and with a passionate commitment to humanitarian principles and activism. Why did he do this? I think because he intuitively recognized the point I have been arguing here: that to profess the validity of certain ideals, but not live them, is the surest way to damage the credibility (and viability) of those ideals. In this way integrity, credibility and viability are intimately connected.

My 2 cents.

Comment from Godfrey Silas (Sept 24, 2022): "“…in Rand's case we can't help but conclude that her application of professed principles clearly falls short of her ideals.”

This is a beautifully written, logically compelling argumentation. I have offered an upvote in keeping with my intellectual response.

But here is my departure:

Rand could have fallen short of her ideals; yet, is it possible that it does not vitiate the exemplary and indubitable force of those ideals?

Plato could not prove the absolute falsifiability of Platonic Forms. Still, those forms remain powerful in speculative thought. Much as the field of psychology has disavowed Freud’s UNCONSCIOUS while hanging on to psychiatry.

Mark you, this does not compare her to Plato. Just an example."

You are of course correct that a lack of embodiment does not, in and of itself, constitute the irrefutable inadequacy of a given body of concepts. Unfortunately, in Rand’s case, the “absolute falsifiability” of objectivist ideals has indeed been proven (to my mind at least) many times over by both real-world evidence and simple common sense; her further failure to embody these ideals is just icing on this non-reifiable cake in that regard.

Take for example the extensive evidence from behavioral economics, or the research of neurologist Antonio Damasio, both of which soundly refute a framing of human behavior, ethics, and choices as “rational” or even capable of being grounded in reason alone. We are primarily emotional creatures who then post-rationalize our decisions and actions…a reality that soundly contradicts Rand’s objectivist assertions (but nonetheless does adequately explain many of Rand’s own self-contradictory attitudes, choices, and behaviors).

We also know that laissez-faire is not a sustainable long-term trajectory. In every historical case where laissez-faire conditions generated wealth, that wealth was always concentrated in a tiny minority and simply did not benefit society as a whole unless and until civic institutions intervened to “redistribute” the wealth that was being generated, and then — in most cases — changed how that productivity was either “owned” and managed into a more collective arrangement. Sweden is perhaps the best historical example of this — see the link below:

T. Collins Logan's answer to Is Laissez-faire capitalism possible in the current world, and if it was possible would the world be a better place if everyone followed the economical principals of this idea?

However, the main thrust of my answer here was focused around how human beings tend to assess credibility of a given meme and then transmit it via mimesis. We are hardwired imitators — albeit imitators who can tolerate a high degree of cognitive dissonance. Once invested, we then tend to counter and suppress that cognitive dissonance with highly irrational emotional convictions. Currently, our planet is reeling from various strains of toxic groupthink that are, seemingly, mired in such evidence-defeating ideology. The real problem with Randian objectivism is that, in its intoxicating misunderstanding of causal relationships, it is seductively easy for adherents to embrace her abstract principles and begin filtering their own observations through heady but incorrect distortions. The inevitable consequence is then an ongoing confirmation bias that closes itself off to any contradictory evidence.

My 2 cents.

From the Quora question "Do human accomplishments have long-term meaning?"

Thanks for the A2A.

To answer your question I would separate “meaning” into three categories: 1) cascading consequences, 2) inherent cultural value, and 3) evolutionary significance.

In all of these categories, my suspicion is that we can’t ever really know for certain if human accomplishments will have enduring meaning. Our personal beliefs may inform some guesses on the matter, but we lack the perspective to have certainty. For example, as a species we are pretty inept at anticipating both intended and unintended consequences of human activities. Likewise, even the accomplishments that have enduring cultural value now may not have much value to humans in 10,000 years. And how can we know for certain which of our accomplishments will influence the evolution of our species or consciousness itself over the next millennia?

But this uncertainty does not negate the possibility of meaning propagating on its own, beyond the contexts we impose. For what if some TV broadcast from the 1950s has a profound impact on an alien culture millions of light years away (and therefore millions of years from now)? Or what if learning how to discipline our consciousness in certain ways will allow us to evolve into advanced beings, beings that can shape reality in ways that are beneficial to all life? What if what begins as human-engineered “artificial intelligence” becomes the dominant form of consciousness in our galaxy, for good or ill? Just because we can’t grasp the importance of our individual or collective choices in this moment does not mean they aren’t meaningful – again, we just may not know what that meaning is.

This is also relevant to “spiritual” or metaphysical matters. Although it seems many people would more readily accept personal belief as the basis for long-term spiritual consequences, as I see it the same would apply to all human accomplishments. Our experiences and the meaning we generate around those experiences are all cut from the same cloth – the pattern of our consciousness. Is that meaning “real?” If it becomes the context for our reality, how could it not be (at least for us)? So this is how many metaphysical perspectives would frame the answer to accomplishment and meaning, implying a more intimate relationship between mind and matter than mainstream scientism currently embraces.

For me all of this converges on a central theme: the importance of our intentionality. If we decide our accomplishments should have meaning, if we want our choices to have positive consequences, if we believe contributing something that has cultural value is important, and if we aim to impact the evolution of our consciousness and our species in positive ways, then cultivating a guiding intentionality seems crucial. In my own praxis, that intentionality is defined by the greatest good for the greatest number for the greatest duration - "the good of All" if you will. And of course what that looks like is constantly evolving as I continue to learn, grow and (hopefully) incrementally increase in wisdom, but it is grounded in a felt experience of compassionate affection for both the mystery and mundanity of existence. For me, the basis for all meaningful action is love - and more specifically agape (benevolence, kindness, charity, love-in-action) as driven by that felt experience of compassionate affection. Is this just one more self-justifying belief? One more avenue to meaning-making? Of course it is, but acknowledging that does not dilute its effectiveness as a guiding intentionality. In this way courage and doubt, humility and confidence, creativity and existential angst - all of these can all peacefully coexist in subordination to love.

A couple of final thoughts…You may be interested in the approaches to this question offered by Viktor Frankl (Man’s Search for Meaning) and Joseph Campbell (Transformation of Myth Through Time). Both of their works touch on the pragmatic significance of human meaning-making.

I hope this was helpful.

In Response to Quora Question: "Can anybody provide a non-recursive definition of "truth?" If not, does that mean truth is nonsensical?"

Many humble, thoughtful and insightful folks have taken a crack at this question over the centuries and come up empty-handed, so you may be in good company there.

My take is that you can approach truth from any one of the positions below, and, given the context and desired outcome, one or more may have utility for you. Will they provide some escape from a recursive or self-referential trap? Perhaps. Or perhaps not. I suppose you'll just have to try them out and see for yourself.

1) Functional, pragmatic, empirical "truths" can be operationalized so that no matter how often those operations are repeated, and (almost) no matter what perspective an observer of those operations maintains, the outcomes remain consistent. In other words, they can be tested and verified by (almost) anyone.

2) Intersubjective "truths" are those that are actively or tacitly emerge within a collective as the shared thought field of that collective - its operational beliefs - and thus the quality and veracity of those truths will depend on the quality of evaluative discernment and breadth of shared experience the members of that collective possess. This can be an extremely useful concept in plotting an evolving course for "truth."

3) Integral "truths" are observations, conditions, projections, propositions and so forth that agree with a constantly expanding noosphere of all-inclusive, multidimensional information. And when I say "agree" what I really mean is that they resolve the multidialectical tensions of all perspectives into a virtual trajectory where the greatest agreement among the greatest number has the greatest probability.

4) Intuitive "truths" include a felt sense of knowing, without understanding how we know. It is sad that these are so often excluded from our map to "truth," since they offer great utility, especially in combination with the other approaches here.

5) Mystical truths, which a number of the other comments have touched upon, are the result of disciplined practices that allow us to encounter highly abstracted principles that - although they may be ineffable - override and transcend all other experiences of "truth." They simply are, and their "rightness," no matter how difficult or contradictory to the truths encountered in our other modes of consciousness, is inescapable.

Now...with all this said, there remains the inherent fallibility of the human mind and its functions - our perceptive and reasoning capacities are rather flawed in this regard. Which means, I think, that we should approach questions like "what is truth?" with both great courage and persisting doubt.

I hope this was helpful.

In Response to Quora Question: "Is faith, as a methodology, good, bad, or indifferent? Please include how you define faith."

Thanks for the A2A. Faith, as the primary component of predictive confidence, is central to all human behavior. None of us can operate effectively without faith, because (if we are being intellectually honest) we know that humans are fallible critters with perceptions, understandings and abilities that are malformed or incomplete - regardless of our methodological rigor. The question is simply where our locus of faith resides and how it is synthesized and maintained over time. Along these lines there appears to be a spectrum of faith, where at one end we have rigid, reactive, exclusive, dogmatic, tribalistic and self-protective faith, and at the other we have more nuanced, self-critical, intuitive, openly inclusive and perpetually evolving and adaptive faith. So as a component of any methodology, faith that tends toward what we might call the critical-intuitive-inclusive end of the spectrum would seem productive and beneficial, but faith that tends toward the dogmatic-protective-exclusive end of the spectrum would seem to cripple methodological efficacy. But faith, as predictive confidence, is going to be inherent to almost any methodology...even when someone claims that it isn't. So, to my mind, it would seem wisest to consciously refine where in the spectrum of faith we would like to operate. My 2 cents.

In Response to the Quora Question: "Any idea on how to reinvent human society?"

Thanks for the A2A. This has been a central topic of my writing and thinking for almost as long as I have been writing and thinking. I will try to summarize my take on your question, but will probably need to point you in the direction of some in-depth explorations for a more complete answer. So here goes...

1) I believe the first stage of reinvention requires individual and collective moral maturity (i.e. what is most prosocially beneficial for the greatest number). Without becoming more sophisticated, inclusive and compassionate in our moral valuations of self, human interactions, natural systems, etc. we will tend to return to previous modes like the ones our society operates in now, many of which are grounded in moral immaturity.

2) As a second stage we would need to propose a cohesive and detailed vision of new cultural institutions, processes and structures that echo this morally advanced values hierarchy. This includes new forms of government, economy, education and so on.

3) In the third stage of reinvention, we would need to de-energize existing cultural institutions, processes and structures so that they can be transitioned or abandoned. This will likely entail a certain level of disruption and destabilization, but using methods that likewise reflect our new moral orientations, avoiding regressive methods upon which past "revolutionaries" have frequently relied.

4) The fourth stage involves establishing and energizing the new, more advanced cultural institutions, processes and structures. This will demand a lot of experimentation, regional variation, continuous adjustment, and careful metrics and self-awareness to assess success.

5) The fifth stage is stabilization of reinvented society as it takes a more formal shape, while still allowing for variations and ongoing adjustment and evolution.

6) Concurrent with all of these stages - and with the aim of ongoing stabilization into the future - we must develop effective methods of neutralizing morally regressive memes; methods that, once again, align with advanced moral valuations. Primarily this will mean constantly returning to stage one in a disciplined and conscious way, so that not only does devolution into antisocial traits and structures have clearly and widely understood collective consequences, but the benefits of choosing ongoing personal and collective moral evolution are equally clearly and widely understood to be more attractive and persuasive.

As for developing these ideas, many others have written about aspects of each stage (though perhaps not referring to them the way I have here), and I reference many of those thinkers in my own work. Here is some of my writing intended to address some of these stages:

Stage One: True Love: Integral Lifework Theory & Practice, "Managing Complexity with Constructive Integralism" (essay), "Functional Intelligence" (essay)

Stage Two: True Love, and Political Economy and the Unitive Principle

Stage Three: "Escaping the Failures of Capitalism" (essay)

Stages Four, Five & Six have not been fully developed in any of my writing...but I hope to address these in future work.

I hope this was helpful.