Introduction to Understanding

            Hopefully, newborns undergo transformation from feral being to civilized human person, but not all newborns survive long enough to achieve adulthood. Chronology progresses, and in every decade, the person may grow psychological maturity. Some persons who progress in psychological maturity eventually realize that their life is a gift, to them, of perhaps some 80 years, and what they do with that gift is their responsibility. The sooner a person takes charge of comprehending knowledge so as to reach personal understanding, the better.

            Youth is the time to learn about the assimilated accomplishments of over perhaps 110 billion people who lived before. There exists experience from perhaps 7 trillion man-years of living. Knowledge may be classed on benefits or how the person may flourish: what to do, what to reject, and what is unknown. Humankind’s knowledge is both enhanced and burdened with subjectivity, which implies opinion or imagination. As time passes, what humankind knows may slowly approach the objective truth. Adolescence is the time to begin to apprehend the contradictory opinions in the world and understand the objective truth of which much is undiscovered but some  is understood. The adolescent should begin a path toward exploring self-reliance for cooperative autonomy. Cooperative autonomy is essential, because most humans enjoy interdependency yet psychological maturity requires liberty from all internal and external constraints.

            After the body has completed formation of the brain, at about 23-25 years of age[1], it is time to start building wisdom—seriously controlling risk and assuring personal safety. This does not mean that exploring personal opportunity should be curtailed, but that new frontiers must be explored with sufficient understanding, provisions, and preparation--prudence. Adulthood, the next 55 years is the time to mature, in integrity--eliminate self contradiction. Adults, recognizing that “the more you know the more you need to know,” or the objective truth is only infinitely approachable, adopt the noble work of understanding as opposed to “knowing.” Yet, adults observe John Adams’s octogenarian thought, “Never assume to comprehend.” Desiring connectivity, the typical mature refrain regarding what is not known is, “I do not know: however, this is what I think.” Adults seek to learn from other persons, knowing others can help them avoid egocentricity. It is no surprise that adults are drawn to the open curiosity and pure goodness of the young. Mature adults are willing to share their thoughts with young people, but would never force those thoughts on persons who must face a world the adult cannot even imagine. Furthermore, having succeeded the process of maturation, the adult trusts the young person will survive it as well or better.[2]

            Humankind’s knowledge can be divided into three parts:  physics/nature, ethics, and art or imagination. Physics and ethics come from the same source:  the objective truth or what-is. That is, neither ethics nor physics can be discovered or determined by opinion.[3] There must be physical or psychological evidence. Imagination comes from persons’ intellectual constructs, is subject to error, and therefore may be regarded as subjectivity or opinion.[4]
 

            Often, opinion is necessary, like when the enemy may attack you or when you are offered three kinds of chocolate, but opinion can be a hindrance or liability when the objective truth is unknown, for example, when a suspected attacker has no weapons: in other words, holding the opinion that you should attack someone who has no weapons is a mistake. The ethical action is to not attack if the enemy has not displayed weapons and attacked you. In other words, the ethical war is self-defense. War is justifiable on physical evidence, not intellectual construct. This is an illustration of the concept that physical truth and ethical truths come from the same source, the subject of another essay.[5]

            Both physics and ethics immutably exist; anyone who opposes them risks loss. Persons can only discover and utilize them: they can be rebuked or altered by neither reason nor faith nor words. Technology or innovation is a consequence of discovery and is strongly dependent upon imagination. Without curiosity, a person does not seek. Persons discover the objective truth, and with imaginative thought and work, create inventions. Persons who assume what they imagine is the objective truth when the evidence denies the assumption have placed their endeavor and all it depends on at risk. Albert Einstein assumed the universe is static and labeled "religious" contemporary researchers whose mathematics indicated this universe is dynamic.

            Often, what is imagined inspires persons to do the work necessary to turn their imagination into reality. However, persons cannot create something real from nothing. Their building blocks are the objective truth plus prior technologies and practices and accomplishments and discoveries. A person can build an intellectual construct and describe the phantasm in a book; the book is real and it defines a phantasm, but the content of the book does not represent reality.

            It has been imagined that persons have a natural tendency to do bad things, and therefore, much of society has evolved toward control by force. Most US citizens suffer domestic force, both in cycles as they are in the majority or not, and in transcendent ways, such as the imposition of racism and theism. I do not doubt that there will always be some need for force. However, taking force for granted may be the reason utilization of physics seems to have progressed faster than application of ethics. There is much evidence that persons have a natural tendency toward moral excellence. I promote the thought, “We just want to be free to live in peace,” or “We want cooperative autonomy.” Also, I think the preamble to the Constitution for the USA offers just civic governance by justly governed citizens. A civic people collaborate for the possible combination personal liberty and domestic goodwill. The preamble fortuitously defines a people who would collaborate for civic morality respecting nine goals that are common to the citizens so defined.[6]

            Much of the harm in this world comes from persons not keeping the relationships between physics, ethics, and imagination in perspective. The amount of knowledge humankind has accumulated is staggering, and it would seem one 80 year life is futile with respect to understanding. However, perhaps the meaning of life is discovering you are a person of good conduct. By nourishing two thoughts, 1) “I do not know,” when you do not know, and 2) "I am born for good conduct and will not accept negative influence," each person might achieve psychological maturity—liberty in justice--within normal lifetime. More importantly, by focusing on understanding at an early age, the person stands a better chance of reaching adulthood.

            Readers, please make no mistake: I write only my opinion, because I do not know the objective truth about understanding or much else.[7] I embark on this work not to instruct, but to learn from you. Therefore, please comment at the end of each essay I write. Your opinion is precious to me and might be instructive to me and other persons on each path toward psychological maturity.

Copyright©2014 by Phillip R. Beaver. All rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted for the publication of all or portions of this paper as long as this complete copyright notice is included. Revised July 24, 2014

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[1] The typical human body does not complete physical parts of the brain needed for wisdom until age 25 for males and 23 for females. See David Dobbs, “Beautiful Brains,” National Geographic Magazine, October 2011, online at ngm.nationalgeographic.com/print/2011/10/teenage-brains/dobbs-text .

[2] Kahlil Gibran, “On Children,” The Prophet. 1923. Online at www.katsandogz.com/onchildren.html . Merritt E. McDonald in April, 2015, helped me realize that children, if educated in the basics, will be able to handle their adulthood.

[3] Response to comment by Mona Sevilla, February 26, 2014.

[4] A couple of examples of how unreal a person’s life can become when they are totally egocentric come to mind. First, Tennessee Williams’ play, The Glass Menagerie, 1945. Second, Gustave Flaubert’s short story, “A Simple Heart” one of Three Tales, 1877.

[5] Phillip R. Beaver. “One Process for Understanding Both Physical Laws and Ethical Laws,” February 20, 2014, online at undertandtheknowledge.blogspot.com.

[6] This sentence, the preamble, is the object of my passion for the past decade and is the subject of my other blog, promotethepreamble.blogspot.com. I assert that a civic people of 2015 should update the preamble to the times. For example, "form a more perfect Union," has been addressed.

[7] I do understand that the idea “the Sun’ll come up tomorrow,” means the eastward rotation of the earth on its axis will unhide the Sun again tomorrow morning (and re-hide it in the evening) and other facts of physics. For example, vehicular traffic laws are needed because two vehicles cannot occupy the same space simultaneously.