Physics-based Ethics 4/26/18

            (Note: Since 2012, I have continually revised this essay, adapted from Albert Einstein two years after his letter informing President Roosevelt about Hitler's work to develop the atomic bomb. His thoughts are critical to the argument and much warmer than my writing, so please do not miss the quotation marks. Einstein does not use examples, so I have added some to attempt answers I wish he could be here to supply. This is a revision from the past title, "The Ethics of Physics," which expressed reverse order.)

          Humankind employs a process for understanding, which applies in both physics and ethics.[1] In different space-times, humankind as well as each person seeks comprehension of “relations which are thought to exist independently.”[2] For examples, extraterrestrial life either exists or not, regardless of humankind’s apprehensions. Behaving so as to attract appreciation is more productive than hate, regardless of the culture. Humankind's understanding progresses, while each newborn is ignorant. In other words, future newborns face more discovered-objective-truth. If they develop fidelity to the-objective-truth, they may live at the leading edge of both technology and civic morality.

          In physics, statements of comprehension may be cosmic discoveries, for example, that the universe is expanding. Also, there are factual equations, as in elementary mathematics:  2+2 = 4, as 2 apples plus 2 oranges equals 4 fruit. Contrary statements, like 2+2 = 5,[3] (or 2 = 3), occur in games and art, for example, to metaphorically express the illusion that team effort exceeds the sum of members’ contributions.

          Comprehension is not “supposed to” apply in the intellectual world or civic world, such as ethics.  Cultures have developed religions to attempt to appropriate the benefits of human experience as morality, but some religious morals seem dysfunctional in civic connections and transactions. Note: civic citizens are moral when in the woods, or at sea, or in space, just as certainly as when in the city. Physics-based ethics seems a better option for civic morality, because it applies to every person, without regard for personal religious hopes. For example, a typhoon knows no favorite persons. 
          Benefiting from physics seems the basis of civic morality. For example, consider the conflicting 1+1 = 1; as in my god[4] plus your god = your god or my part of the summation is zero: my 1 = our 0. Together we consider: Is your god our god? But we enjoy that we each have unique views of our differing experiences and hopes yet learned to appreciate each other as each of us is: civically collaborative. We agree that 1+1 = 2 or 1 = 1. Each of our gods differs but we don’t question each other’s pursuit of private liberty.

But there must be civic justice. The Dali Lama said, I think erroneously, “The law of action and reaction is not exclusively for physics. It is also of human relations. If I act with goodness, I will receive goodness. If I act with evil, I will get evil.”[5] In human relations, reciprocity often fails; the Dali himself is a forced exile, because a forceful people took land he occupied. I doubt the Dali perceives he has experienced civic justice. Perhaps he is appealing to people's nobler motives without appreciating human capacity to wait for the-objective-truth.

          Comprehensions have a common characteristic: each comprehension is “’true or false’ [or 'uncertain'] (adequate or inadequate or unknown) . . . reaction . . . is ‘yes’ or ‘no’ [or we don't know].” [6] I added acceptance of the unknown. Thus, each understanding may be valued: true or false or unknown. Because we appreciate each other despite our differing opinions about gods or none, we are able to strive together to understand the-objective-truth; that is, reality, or what-is. 
          Yet, even as we admit that some things neither of us knows, we each maintain personal hopes. With candid attitudes, two people may happily discuss whether supernatural “soul” is real or imaginary. I prefer to think my body and mind constitute my person, and there is no associated supernatural being. But I readily admit I don’t know: in other words, my focus on person rather than soul could be wrong. But such considerations are private and do not impact civic needs. My person (life) is more important to me than my soul (afterdeath), but I would not impose that commitment on even one other person. Individuals have the authority and power to decide for themselves.

          The process for understanding “has a further characteristic.” The noble work toward comprehension does not express emotions. “For the [searcher], there is only ‘being,’ but no wishing”; no praising; no believing[7]; no agendum; no competition; no ideology; no religion; no hoping; no pride; no contradiction; no goal beyond comprehension. Each individual who seeks understanding perseveringly rejects coercion from anyone, ancient or contemporary, yet also behaves so as to not coerce anyone or indoctrinate himself or herself. When we recognize self-persuasion, we stop; we strive to discover self-contradiction and eliminate it. I've muddied so much it is worth repeating Einstein’s simple statement, “there is only ‘being’ but no wishing.”
          Guided by understanding, we need not respond to doctrine, like, “’Thou shalt not lie.’”

          Yet, “we do not feel at all that it is meaningless to ask such questions as: ‘Why should we not lie?’ We feel that such questions are meaningful because in all [ethics] some . . . premises are tacitly taken for granted.  We then feel satisfied when we succeed in tracing back the ethical directive in question to these basic premises. In the case of lying this might perhaps be done like this: Lying destroys confidence in the statements of other people. Without such confidence, social cooperation is made impossible or at least difficult.” For example, after the lie, the liar may fear future dialogue with the deceived party, who, in turn, may sense the liar’s apprehension. Or, judging from his own behavior, the liar may suspect the deceived party is also a liar. “Cooperation, however, is essential to make human life possible”, even worthy of appreciation. Thus, our commitment, “‘[We shall] not lie,’ has been traced back to the demands: ‘Human life shall be preserved’ and ‘Pain and sorrow shall be lessened as much as possible.’” The just person gravitates toward collaborative autonomy which implies complete integrity; rejects fear and embraces empathy for other persons and self; has too much humility to lie; is authentic.

          Thus, it seems the process for understanding can apply to ethics. “Ethical directives can be made rational and coherent by logical thinking and empirical knowledge. If we can agree on some fundamental ethical propositions, then other propositions can be derived from them, provided that the original premises are stated with sufficient precision.” For example, persons expect behavior that warrants appreciation to overcome hatred. People are civically connected and therefore may expect each other to positively communicate. “Such ethical premises play a similar role in ethics, to that played by axioms in mathematics.”

          “But what is the origin of such ethical axioms? Are they arbitrary? Are they based on mere authority? Do they stem from [humankind’s experiences], and are they conditioned by such experiences?”

          “For pure logic all axioms seem arbitrary, including the axioms of ethics. But they are by no means arbitrary from a psychological and genetic point of view. They are derived from our inborn tendencies to avoid pain and annihilation and from the accumulated . . . reaction[s] of individuals to the behavior[s] of their neighbors.” Just as physics exists and can only be discovered, ethics exists and can only be discovered. Just as physics may be vainly denied, ethics may be unjustly and unprofitably rejected.

          “It is the privilege of [humankind’s] ethical genius . . . to advance ethical axioms which are so comprehensive and so well founded that [persons accept] them as grounded in the vast mass of their individual . . . experiences.” Humankind has accumulated experiences from more than 100 billion lives over two million years, even though our mitochondrial-DNA connectivity extends back only 0.2 million years. The leading edge of ethics marches today on the minds of seven billion people, faster than ever before in history.

          For an individual to learn ethics is a daunting quest, because humans are born totally uninformed and there is so much to learn. Nevertheless, each person, after becoming basically informed (typically in about twenty years) has the potential to enjoy some sixty years to psychologically mature and to help fulfill and expand the ethical axioms of humankind. The gift of life presents the opportunity and potentials for joy. Anyone who squanders their life for either personal appetite (perhaps dying young) or an ideology (perhaps dying immature) usually misses the chance for self-discovery. Whether missing self-discovery is good or bad I do not know but doubt it is good.

          “Ethical axioms are found and tested not very differently from” the physical axioms. [Understanding] is what stands the test of experience” and approaches the objective truth.[8]
           These principles expressed by Albert Einstein can be used by a people to establish civic morality, whereas religious morals are based on opinion and can never be resolved without physics-based ethics.

Addendum

          Einstein’s discussion, I believe, was for the cooperatively autonomous audience, for most of whom even “white lies” merely prolong the inevitable submission to the-objective-truth. Even the cancer patient’s question, “Am I going to die,” may be answerable, for example: "We’re going to do everything we can to prevent it,” or, “In time, yes, but we are going to work toward keeping you alive and comfortable.” A child’s innocence can be transitioned without mendacity.[9] For example, a child who has the personal autonomy to ask if Santa is real gains confidence to hear something like: Yes: Santa is a metaphor--an annual reminder for each person to offer authentic good will toward all civic people all the time.

          The need to deceive the enemy is obvious. However, the deceit must be carefully crafted and executed; obvious deviations from established principles will be accepted by only the most uninformed or gullible person. Usually, an enemy has ample personal authority and power to crush falsehood. Gullibility is a deadly error left out of the seven deadly sins, for self-evident reasons. It takes understanding and humility for a person to overcome personal gullibility---hubris.

Applications

            I have not had the pleasure of discussing applications of Einstein’s theory beyond his example respecting lying. Most people readily agree that civic people do not lie to each other, because they cooperate for solutions to civic problems.

          We wish to establish physics-based ethics for negotiating civic morality, keeping private the opportunity for each person to pursue comfort in the face of the unknowns like the gods---whether their personal liberty is served by religion or not. Physics-based ethics is a part of a theory for justice of by and for a civic people. So, when my opinion seems to conflict with your wishes, realize 1) there has been no candid discussion toward compromise, 2) the object of negotiation is endorsement by a civic people, not necessarily restriction of individuals (people behave as they wish), and 3) I write my opinion, not knowing the-objective-truth.

            First, a process by which humans may establish physics-based ethics needs to be known and cultivated. A rudimentary process has the following five steps:

          •      Understand the physics of a civic issue

          •      Personally act according to the understanding

          •      Civically and civilly endorse the understanding (by agreement and by socialization or legislation)

          •      Remain alert for change in the understanding

          •      With new understanding amend any civic order.

For example, many children experience spitting into the wind and 1) would never try it again, 2) would not encourage another person to try it and 3) imagine that throwing sand into the wind would be worse. The physics of this ethic is so obvious no one analyses it: it is tacitly understood, and no laws are required for general adoption of the ethic: don’t spit into the wind. However, if the CDC announced a study, with evidence that some patients’ Ebola infected spit, upon exposure to outside air, may instantaneously, autogenously vaccinate the patient, Ebola patients might spit into the wind. In other words, the laws of physics control rational thought.

          This example seems far-fetched but illustrates the essential elements for beneficial living in a world in which physics is both continuously emerging, continually discovered, and used beneficially. A people must 1) candidly understand the physics of each civic issue, 2) use Einstein’s “‘being’ but no wishing”, 3) publicly share trust and commitment, and 4) be alert to new information that demands change.

Copyright:  July 12, 2012. Phillip R. Beaver, author and creator, updated April 26, 2017.  Copy only with permission. (Adapted from “The Laws of Science and The Laws of Ethics.” Einstein: Out of My Later Years. Pages 114-115)

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[1] Adapting Albert Einstein’s 1941 speech, “The Laws of Science and The Laws of Ethics.” Starting at http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/my-friend-einstein/, but corrected to the referenced book. (The online version has a couple minor errors.)

[2] In the body of the essay, quotation marks refer to Einstein’s essay. Toward the end, his passages are extensive. There are no quotations of Einstein in the addendum. I like his conversational style and mimicked it. I wish he used more examples.

[3] Online at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2_%2B_2_%3D_5 .

[4] I do not know if anything controls the origins and progress of reality and avoid pretense by using “god” instead of terms commonly taken for granted. My expression, god, may be read with an interrogatory inflection. In this way, the reader may sense the humility I intend.

[5] Online at either stateofweb.blogspot.com/ or slideshare.net/ohteikbin/the-best-religion .

[6] “I do not know,” is an assertion that requires humility, integrity, and fidelity, applying in each instance to both the-objective-truth and the self. In other words, when you do the work to reach understanding but cannot draw a conclusion, you admit to yourself, “I do not know,” thereby avoiding contradiction. Admitting to self can be difficult when the question is, “Is there a god?”

[7] Phil Beaver has a policy against believing. I prefer to wait for discovery and understanding of the-objective-truth.

[8] The-objective truth-is the reality that yields to neither faith nor hope nor reason nor force nor words. I trust in and am committed to the-objective-truth much of which is undiscovered and some of which is known.

[9] I was prompted to post this essay after reading and commenting on Shirley S. Wang's article, "Clues to Teaching Young Children to Tell the Truth," June 30, 2014, at online.wsj.com/articles/clues-to-teaching-young-children-to-tell-the-truth-1404167647?tesla=y .

[10] “Where slavery is still practiced”: online at www.religioustolerance.org/sla_world.htm .

[11] Atlantic slave trade, online at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_slave_trade#European_participation_in_the_slave_trade .

[12] Quakers: online at abolition.nypl.org/essays/abolition/2/

[13] Thomas Paine.  Online at declaringamerica.com/paine-african-slavery-in-america-1775/ .

[14] South Carolina. Online at http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp / .

[15] Lincoln. Online at www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/hodges.htm .

[16] Southern University. Online at www.subr.edu/index.cfm/newsroom/detail/739 .

[17] DNA. Online at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve .

[18] Skin color. Online at evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/news/140305_skincolor .

[19] I am reminded of Abraham Lincoln’s statement that a house divided must fall.

[20] Michael Polanyi in Personal Knowledge, 1958, seems to assert that worshipping his god liberates him from his perceptions. Responsible, personal, private liberation seems to be a good for anyone.

[21] Physics & Ethics. Online at www.peep.ac.uk/content/618.0.html .

For the individual

Here are ideas from my lifetime quest to discover my person. If you are a child, I hope your immediate family will correct the bad and support the good ideas in this essay as you advance from childhood, then eventually turn it over to you to read and advise me. I know I am not writing in your words, but I can express myself only in my words and phrases. Children and adults, please consider my message, then rebuke me bluntly. I want to have a better message---one that reflects collaboration with fellow human beings. I think we may each strive for individual happiness with civic integrity.

             When each of us—you or I--was conceived, we were, like all placental mammals, a single cell with forty-six [i] uniquely paired chromosomes, twenty-three coming from each our mother and our father. There never was nor ever will be another such person: you or Phil Beaver.

Our fertilized cell or conception each came from a woman’s ovum and a man’s spermatozoon. Those two gametes came from and represented two hierarchies of conceptions each representing multi-family evolutions---both biological (genes) and psychological (memes). If generations begin every twenty years, then perhaps ten-thousand generations take us back to the first animal couple with high brain-power and other characteristics of human beings. In other words, all human beings are kin, even though biological evolution has produced physical differences such as blue-eyed, red-haired Irish people compared to slant-eyed, dark-haired Asian people. And memes seem to produce psychological traits such as Scotch-Irish stubbornness and African rhythm. Demographics projections for the United States in the year 2060 are 2% aboriginal Americans, 6% multiracial like me, 8% Asian, 14% black, 29% Hispanic, and 41% white[ii]. I have always looked Caucasian but felt like a person, despite all the influences for discrimination.

While I was reared by my mother and my father, I never really knew them, because I was not curious enough to ask the questions needed to understand Mom and Dad. Typically, a child through adolescence is too focused on living and contending with a confusing world to want to know the parents as persons—most persons just take loving parents for granted. It seems both brother and sister was more curious than me because I learned a lot from them. Another factor is that at age twenty-two, I changed my hometown from Knoxville to Baton Rouge and have been in Baton Rouge ever since---five decades here after two there. Baton Rouge is my hometown.
Since leaving my birth town, I emerged a person among the personhood of humankind more than an East Tennessean with strong home ties. In some respects, I feel that development helped me, during five decades to begin to discover myself. In other words, from my perspective, independence is an asset. Yet, I am grateful for my heritage, and the benefits they gave me as my journey began. If I could talk to Mom or Dad today, I would ask every question that would come to my mind, because I think presenting the question would help me understand myself, regardless of how they might answer---candidly or not. I would know that they are human and not really capable of accuracy or precision in the answers. I know that from personal experience: I do not know the-objective-truth.

          The human being is psychologically superior to other animal species because, in addition to awareness, humans have and refine abilities to communicate with each other using language and grammar. Because of that power, researchers are demonstrating human communications with machinery, allowing paraplegics to motivate without human assistance[iii].
          Cultures evolved. Peoples differ both physically and psychologically, primarily due to different geographic locations, but more importantly, empowered by each people’s quest to make the most of life, regardless of local challenges. Influences of environments and climates have caused the mutations that distinguish people such as the Irish and Asian and African differences mentioned above. The consequential diversity is a boon to humankind because diversity enhances the path to understanding the-objective-truth.

If everyone was both candid and possessed understanding, there would be no confusion and thus no incentive to fear other people. Someone who suspects that the other party intends harm often tries to be persuasive against the harm but finally, erroneously lies to prevent the harm. However, there is always present a continuum of both chronological age and progress toward understanding, which tacitly urges two parties to communicate. If they would collaborate, they must not lie to each other. Two people who have decided not to lie to each other can trust each other to reach an understanding of reality, such that individual conflict with the-objective-truth[iv] is deemed a correctable error. Thus, difficult information needed for understanding does not need to produce psychological damage.
Drawing from Antonin Scalia's advice, the collaborating fellow citizens try to get in each other's shoes. That is, know the other's assumptions, expectations, doubts, thoughts, and feelings. Thereby, two parties can discover the-objective-truth and use the discovery to responsibly either resume or reform each party's path to individual happiness with integrity according to the-objective-truth. When the-objective-truth is undiscovered, integrity is guided by the interconnected discoveries rather than conflicting opinion. In other words, when the collaboration leads to the consensus "We don't know," the parties accept that discovery may come in the future.

Regarding diversity, multiracial people seem advantaged. Lines of ancestry represent what has become a major social divide, based on skin color: white versus shades[v] toward black, in a hierarchy. It is said that my ancestry, four generations back, involved an Amerindian (on my mom’s side), which would make me one-sixteenth red-skinned or 12% as diverse as some white skins. Perhaps the closeness of my diversity, just four generations back, is why I never felt prejudice against anything but bad character. In other words, memes of appreciation and acceptance passed down the generations to my benefit: I have always been influenced to avoid bad behavior and the people who perpetrate wrong, but skin color never dominated my evaluations of persons. Each person I meet is a joy to me unless they give me some sign that I cannot rely on them to do good. I trust my own judgment of that initial/tentative impression, yet sometimes recognize an error.

            Understanding is essential for human progress. Humankind has accumulated progress from more than seven trillion man-years of individual experiences. Understanding those experiences together with the leading edge of discovery empowers the wonderful progress we see in the world. Unfortunately, technological progress has outpaced psychological progress, and consequently, the world is not at peace and is contradictory even where there is relative civil order, perhaps in the United States and in European countries. Conditions in other parts of the world, such as the Middle East and Northern Africa, have regressed perhaps to the Middle Ages: Ethnic groups within some countries happily kill each other. India also seems dangerous; I know nothing about China, but read of political cruelty. The summation of humankind’s understanding is at the leading edge of 200,000 years of history, now in the minds of seven billion living people.  It is up to each individual, wherever she/he is in the world, to live at the leading edge of humankind’s understanding, no matter how much chaos is occurring around her/him. What each person needs is autonomous understanding---independent moral goodness.

Most of what is understood has been discovered in the last seven thousand years, particularly in the last twenty-five hundred years, especially in the last two hundred years, more vitally in the last decade, and more urgently in the last year. Understanding now increases at an exponential pace, yet much of it is obscured by linguistic traditions based on the misunderstanding. For example, “the sun will come up tomorrow,” comes from typical local views of the hiding of the sun evening and the un-hiding each morning as the earth rotates on its axis toward the East. (Views from the North or South pole of the Earth are not typical.) A much more pervasive yet subtitle offense against personal liberty comes with the common practice of expressing heartfelt personal thoughts as divine, often by writing about a personal god using the capital “g,” as though a person’s thoughts represent whatever, if anything, controls actual reality or the-objective-truth.  
The leading edge of what humankind understands is out of reach for a newborn, because the newborn is totally uninformed, egocentric, and inarticulate. While humankind progresses at an exponential pace, the newborn must, in the span of about eighty years establish personal autonomy, perceive the benefits of cooperative autonomy, through service to mankind establish personal liberty, and perhaps grow psychological maturity. Psychological maturity may begin at age sixty-five or beyond, if at all. Psychological maturity is freedom both from external constraints and from personal contradictions. With a world so much in conflict with itself, the first concern is to survive: To remain alive long enough to experience personal autonomy, collaborative autonomy, service to humankind, and perhaps approach self-discovery. The latter is the most important thought I have expressed so far, and I think the meaning of life is to become faithful to that idea with its five parts: survive, experience, collaborate, serve, and discover.
In this journey, each person may develop integrity by accepting the human condition. Each human being has the individual power, the individual energy, and the individual authority (IPEA) to either develop integrity or permit infidelity. IPEA cannot be consigned to another person or institution such as government or religion. Physics, the object of discovery, or whatever controls actual reality does not respond to a person's thoughts. However, thoughts that do not conform to actual reality seem to unleash woe according to the laws of physics.

I would like this message to serve, until it is no longer useful, as encouragement on a journey to psychological maturity. I say this, not because I doubt my intentions or my understanding of what I have experienced or learned, but because of a key understanding I shared with my family—wife and three adolescent children--viewed from my early fatherhood:

Your children are with you yet belong not to you.

You give them your appreciation but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.[vi]

The thought from the first sentence in this paragraph, “no longer useful,” reflects a lecture I once heard about Buddhism. The lecturer spoke of “killing the Buddha,” which implies either establishing enough self-confidence to proceed without advice or disregarding influence your personal understanding rejects. Thus, anything that I write assuming that my thoughts apply to you, which in your judgment is false, should be discarded, because your judgment is superior. Trust your goodness and apply IPEA.

The newborn is focused on appetites for food, hygiene, discovery, and connectedness. As she or he progresses, a competition emerges between satisfaction of appetites and fidelity to an integral life. By integral I mean both whole and authentic. Honesty is insufficient: there must be integrity. Satisfying appetites is easy. Fidelity is complicated by the mystery of what a person wants in life while he or she is traversing the journey. That is, the child knows she or he ought to march toward her or his person's preferences, but does not know what they are. In yet other words, a person does not know in any younger age what she or he would like to be in the distant future--after living as holistically as circumstances allow, some say fate allows. In other words, living a life is like starting on a journey knowing neither the obstacles to come nor where the journey's ends. The encouragement and coaching I hope I am sharing might help an infant's end be self-discovery in psychological maturity. The key is exercising personal autonomy with understanding, which requires knowledge, enhanced by imagining the ultimate individual one wants to discover and constantly, conscientiously probing experiences. It is a duty solely for the individual.

During any year of life, one accumulates knowledge and experience from many sources: parent, family, schools, church, the community, literature, lectures, personal conversation, but most of all from the debate occurring in the personal brain. The person is born with several tendencies to acquire values. A sense of fairness comes in observing someone being mistreated, aversion to being treated that way, and perhaps commitment not to treat others that way. Further, there's alertness to other persons sharing their concerns, understanding their circumstances, and expressing what you might do for relief. Beyond, there's the interest in how the person wants to be treated, either by direct inquiry or by referencing pertinent literature.
For progressive examples, a selfishly screaming child prevents teachers from leading, and thus takes away from everyone’s time; therefore, you decide not to ever scream in public. You observe someone who does not take care of their body--unable to perform ordinary tasks, like rapid walking--so you take care of your health and hygiene. You observe a beautiful person trying to maintain privacy and therefore offer neither conversation nor eye contact so as to appreciate their privacy. You sit with a cancer patient who is wealthy but slumped over in a terrible chair and suggest a lounger or hospital bed. These experiences become more mature with chronological age. For example, you see friendships formed and broken and feelings hurt, so you become aware of the importance of caution in both advancing acquaintance to friendship and in being faithful to friends. As time passes, your values begin to form, and you recognize that many potential influences coming to you are not to your liking, right or wrong as your opinion may be. Your values may or may not be better than the values being represented to you, but you begin to choose your values instead of the influence. You are establishing personal autonomy, which is the first critical accomplishment toward self-discovery.

When I was adolescent, maybe ten to twelve years old, I discovered a series of biographies in Knoxville’s Staub School library and started reading them: Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Benjamin Franklin, Myles Standish, Louisa May Alcott, and Raphael Simms come to mind. Some biographies were not enjoyable, and there were many books. I adopted the practice of reading the first page and last page as I stood at the biography shelf, and if neither page appealed to me, I shelved the book and considered the next one. I tried my test with the Bible. The first page was too complicated for me then, but the last page contained threats.[vii] I thought threats could not possibly represent a god I would revere. I did not know it at the time, but I was establishing personal autonomy, based on authenticity. I was evaluating indoctrination coming from Mother, Dad, and their community by direct examination of the evidence[viii]. This does not say my mom and my dad were wrong or bad, but that I had a different opinion. However, Mom and Dad’s influence was so strong that I stayed on the path of indoctrination into Bible interpretation for four more decades. Ending self-indoctrination, empowered by that precious doubt established during my adolescence, became critical to what I am today. I am a person---one who considers himself a member of the personhood of humankind yet a person who would not lessen another person's civic integrity. For all I know, each person's god is God. In other words, there is no way I would propose to limit God, whatever that may be. On the other hand, I would not saddle God with the civic evil I observe in so many actions.

But there is another important factor in my self-discovery: collaborative association. Collaborative association is recognition that other people also should and do live with personal autonomy and therefore a person should not presume to influence others’ opinions. This does not imply that sharing a personal opinion is forbidden. Sharing personal opinion is perhaps the most rewarding psychological experience, as long as the practice is mutual and not obtrusive, much less proselytizing. Moreover, in a collaborative association, a person does not attempt to impose his or her will on another person. Collaboration occurs because two people act for the same results, such as mutual, comprehensive safety and security with each still possessing personal autonomy.
I am reminded of Agathon’s characterization of appreciation[ix] (my paraphrase): an appreciative person neither initiates nor tolerates force or coercion to or from any entity. So, in personal autonomy a person does not respond to another person’s coercion and likewise does not try to convince someone else to change their opinion: Person’s with personal autonomy freely, candidly communicate with hard-earned self-confidence yet humility respecting the civil opinions of the other party for their life. I use the modifier “civil” to distinguish against opinions that could motivate harm that invites enforcement of statutory law. Persons who earn humility are in a position to develop psychological maturity, which takes decades of fidelity to the-objective-truth.

With five concepts in mind--humility, fidelity, personal autonomy, collaborative association, and psychological maturity—the perseverant individual takes charge of acquiring the knowledge necessary to comprehend in order to acquire understanding. Acquisition of the information and comprehension of knowledge is understanding, an act, and the product of the work is understanding[x]. What is important is understanding reality, whether it is physics and its progeny such as biology, artistic impressions, what is imagined, the supernatural, or simply an opinion. Therefore, the individual focuses not on the source of the information, but on the information itself. The individual thereby develops the ability to discern the quality of information, whether actual reality or fiction; integrity or convention; true or false; personal preference or not. Often, the product of the process of understanding is admitting to self: I do not know. “I do not know,” is my mantra. Yet I do not compromise what I know. For example, the earth is like a globe rather than flat.

Taking responsibility for personal education starts with knowing the fields of knowledge and keeping track of personal understanding so that any gaps created by the educational system you cover by free online studies, use of the public library, and discussing with other persons. A continually updated review online at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_academic_disciplines offers a resource for monitoring education into understanding from now until young adulthood say age 18 to 22. With such help, a person may eventually have a preference for Item 5 in the Contents, “Professions.” The starting profession need not to be a professional preference; it should be regarded as a starting point for self-reliance sufficient to empower a path toward self-discovery. In other words, a profession is not a purpose for living but is the means by which a person may live to explore and discover self. Perhaps, I perceive, fidelity to accomplishment for humankind during the unique, personal path to self-discovery as the meaning of life.

Referring to the outline resource, click on any of the five category’s subtopics to see an extensive subdivision of information. Learning the meaning of each of the topics alone is a significant task which should be guided by preferential interests yet considered systematically. A person cannot understand personal preferences without considering the options. As a person progresses through society’s inadequate preparation for beginning the personal journey through life, this resource can help the person fill in the gaps and have a good start toward self-discovery. However, anything omitted can be picked up later in life, with a few exceptions. There are a few essential realizations that will preserve the very opportunity to acquire personal autonomy.

Foremost is the struggle every human suffers because of the psychological competition between gullibility and humility. Gullibility plays to all that is ignoble while humility leads to personal autonomy. Gullibility invites a person to take risks with the various human appetites: eating, drinking, intimacy, power, money, salvation, and so on. Gullibility to your own wisdom is called "hubris."
Practicing humility empowers choices and preferences based on what can be observed about bad choices from other people's misery and loss---without ever personally experiencing the harms of bad choices. The humble person calmly says “No,” when either tempted by personal imagination or invited by other people to take risks that could terminate the opportunity for personal autonomy. (Risk death, for example.) There is no offense to the other party when a person exercises personal autonomy, but if the other takes offense, it is their offense. Especially important for early understanding is the difference between forming human relationships with the potential for psychological bonding and the opportunity for human reproduction. Modern education systems are notoriously neglectful about these two issues, and consequently, many human lives remain in adolescent psychology for decades. The awesomeness of these two issues can make or break a life, and calm self-confidence can be established with understanding, as always.

The first point to understand is that the human body does not complete those parts of the brain needed for wisdom until age 25 for men or 23 for women[xi]. This brain-research report is only a couple decades old, but actuarial tables and common sense have made it obvious that personally governed behavior is not merely a chronological progression. For examples, driver-liability insurance has long been cheaper after men’s age 25; a person may serve as US representative at age 25, or Senator at age 30; the President must be at least 35. Since it takes time with a completed brain for wisdom to accumulate, it would seem parenthood should not begin before mature adulthood, say age 30 or more. However, the body completes the organs needed for procreation at puberty, typically age 13 for boys, 12 for girls. Thus, each person is physically capable of parenthood during some 15 to 25 years before they are psychologically prepared. Early procreation is unfortunate for the babies especially when children beget babies. Today’s world is so out of control that many grandparents are under thirty years old. The person should not become a parent before establishing personal autonomy, and no child would want parents who have not established a collaborative association.
The collaboratively autonomous male recognizes the rights of women to personal autonomy and couples recognize that conception of a child should anticipate the child’s personal autonomy. A couple’s obligations to the child they conceive are for life and extend to grandchildren and beyond. For fidelity to all these interrelated obligations, a procreating couple is monogamous. Yet only 13% of marriages are monogamous! Again, society has failed to teach these concepts; society is unfaithful to human physics and to human persons (human reproduction and human relations). Finding a person with whom to be monogamous may seem daunting, but actually, all it takes is the succession of mutual interest, mutual attraction, mutual commitment, mutual bonding, and mutual fidelity for life.

A third major concern is the individual and his or her preferences. Many people speak of the soul, which is an imagined entity representing a person’s mysterious essence or a supernatural part of their being. No one can say anything about the soul beyond its idea. The soul is alright for some, but  I prefer to think not of the soul but to think of the body and mind as comprising a person. Most molecules of the body are replenished about every six months and the mind constantly expands to accommodate ideas and experiences: The body and mind are never the same as before, even though they may seem the same except for aging. Likewise, the person is constantly changing, affected by the combination of origins, personal capabilities, community or environmental influences, and the choices the person makes. At any point on the journey in life, the person may be described by her or his accumulated preferences. The person possesses psychological maturity when her or his preferences are free from both external constraints (through acceptance and collaboration) and internal contradiction (through fidelity to both physics-based ethics and personal relationships).
I feel I am developing integrity because I never feared my origins and therefore do not fear my destiny. In other words, I feel too humble to acquire metaphysical doubt and unimpressed by mysterious fear yet do not object to other people's doubts, fears, comforts, and responsible hopes.
Returning to this essay, I am impressed more than before with the 2017 thoughts of FF (comment below), especially, "I believe . . . the-objectively-true secret to happiness [is] to make as many ORIGINAL contributions as one can to a subject in which one takes a keen personal interest." I agree with FF. Each human can discover a unique contribution and humankind will be grateful for its delivery by that person.

That’s about it for now. But I am learning, so from time to time I will review this essay and revise it. In the meantime, if you have questions or comments, I want to know them, because I expect to learn from you. So please use the comment box below this essay.

Copyright©2015 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. Last revised on 12/11/18; also revised the title from "For the student."

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[i] See online at http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/handbook/basics/howmanychromosomes .

[ii] See the projected demographics within a dated essay at http://tomufert.com/wp/ferguson-race-relations-and-the-repercussions-of-hate-in-america/ . The essay is also interesting, and I am empathetic yet not supportive of some the views expressed by Tom Ufert. For example, I am intolerant of tolerance toward another person; see online www.ted.com/conversations/5444/for_the_ted_community_tolera.html .

[iii] See  brain-controlled ambulation online at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain%E2%80%93computer_interface#Prosthesis_control .

[iv] The-objective-truth: the reality that yields to neither faith nor hope nor reason nor force nor words nor human evaluation. It is, and humankind works to discover it and benefit.

[v] Ernest J. Gaines. A Lesson Before Dying. 1993. Pages 64-65 explain a historical prejudice for skin color from light to dark. However, this is a false idea passed from generation to generation and people like me oppose such prejudice.

[vi] Paraphrase from Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet. 1923. “On Children.”

[vii] Revelations 22:18-19.

[viii] A similar but much harsher experience is reported by William Faulkner in “Barn Burning,” online at http://www.williamfaulknerbooks.com/barn_burning_text.html . Experience with justice convinces a ten-year-old boy that his harmful family should be left behind.

[ix] Plato. Symposium. Agathon’s Speech. 360 BCE. Incidentally, this is a good time to make a point that could have been in the text. Each time you encounter a classic thinker, such a Plato, make your experience your chance to understand that piece of literature because the world of literature is too rich for the return to your past. In other words, try to get the message you need on that one experience with that literature. Yet, I have read Symposium no less than ten times and continually paraphrase much of Agathon’ s speech.

[x] This sequential “understanding” in one sentence is used as the verb followed by usage as the noun, first pointed out to me by my friend Hugh Finklea.

[xi] David Dobbs. “Teenage Brains.” National Geographic. October 2011. Online at http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/10/teenage-brains/dobbs-text .