the origin of intelligence : the role of information in individual lives

THE ORIGIN OF INTELLIGENCE: THE ROLE OF INFORMATION IN INDIVIDUAL LIVES

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THE ORIGIN OF INTELLIGENCE: THE ROLE OF INFORMATION IN INDIVIDUAL LIVES

THOMAS DEXTER KERR

Nova Science Publishers, Inc. New York

Copyright © 2009 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means: electronic, electrostatic, magnetic, tape, mechanical photocopying, recording or otherwise without the written permission of the Publisher. For permission to use material from this book please contact us: Telephone 631-231-7269; Fax 631-231-8175 Web Site: http://www.novapublishers.com

NOTICE TO THE READER The Publisher has taken reasonable care in the preparation of this book, but makes no expressed or implied warranty of any kind and assumes no responsibility for any errors or omissions. No liability is assumed for incidental or consequential damages in connection with or arising out of information contained in this book. The Publisher shall not be liable for any special, consequential, or exemplary damages resulting, in whole or in part, from the readers’ use of, or reliance upon, this material. Independent verification should be sought for any data, advice or recommendations contained in this book. In addition, no responsibility is assumed by the publisher for any injury and/or damage to persons or property arising from any methods, products, instructions, ideas or otherwise contained in this publication. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information with regard to the subject matter covered herein. It is sold with the clear understanding that the Publisher is not engaged in rendering legal or any other professional services. If legal or any other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent person should be sought. FROM A DECLARATION OF PARTICIPANTS JOINTLY ADOPTED BY A COMMITTEE OF THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION AND A COMMITTEE OF PUBLISHERS. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Kerr, Thomas D. The origin of intelligence : the role of information in individual lives / Thomas Dexter Kerr. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 978-1-61209-355-0 (eBook) 1. Intellect. I. Title. BF431.K425 2009 153--dc22 2009013584

Published by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. New York

CONTENTS

Preface vii Notes on Usage ix Chapter 1 Information is Real 1 Chapter 2 The Pattern of Intelligence 15 Chapter 3 The Evolution of Intelligence 23 Chapter 4 Religion and the Existence of Information 33 Chapter 5 Love and Hate and the Imitation of Life 39 Chapter 6 The Utility of Rationality, Art and Humor 45 Chapter 7 The Interdependence of Freedom and Equality 51 Chapter 8 Love and Freedom 59 Chapter 9 The Attraction of Virtue 65 Chapter 10 The Structure of Morality 89 Chapter 11 The Natural Basis of Human Rights 99 Chapter 12 Decentralizing Decision-Making 107 Chapter 13 The Poverty of Nationalism 121 Chapter 14 The Nature of Belief 127 Index 133

PREFACE* Many years ago I was mystified by these translated lines at the end of a

passage by Yevgeny Yevtushenko, which I can no longer find and here reproduce from memory:

and in his measuring glance and in his hesitations I could see nothing but a rage of unbelief. unbelief. believing is loving.

While I have no idea what he meant to say, to me the words both rang true

and made no sense. I felt they were right and didn't know why. Some kernel of truth was there, but what was it? There is something very familiar about a person with an emptiness inside. Everyone has recognized this in others and at times in themself. But here an inner hollowness is traced to a turning away from belief. I recognized instantly the emptiness described but what could be its opposite? What could be fullness, what could be belief in the absence of religion? Loving sounds good, but what is it, and why equate it with belief? What is believing, what is loving, why would a measuring glance be bad? What connects a measuring glance and unbelief? Why would unbelief be a rage instead of cool and rational?

* Note about Usage: English lacks a third person singular pronoun that refers to a person but is

not restricted by gender. For lack of a word with the correct meaning, people stick in 'he or she', 'his or hers', or arbitrarily 'he' or 'she'. Thus, 'A person can walk, but (he or she) cannot fly.' In this work I have adopted the third person plural forms, 'they' and 'theirs' for the indefinite third person singular pronoun, because to me this solution sounds better, closer to colloquial English

Thomas Dexter Kerr viii

These lines contradicted the framework within which I understood life, while resonating with so many of its details. And so I embarked on a long journey to find the sense of these things. This is what I found.

NOTES ON USAGE English lacks a third person singular pronoun that refers to a person but is not

restricted by gender. For lack of a word with the correct meaning, people stick in 'he or she', 'his or hers', or arbitrarily 'he' or 'she'. Thus, 'A person can walk, but (he or she) cannot fly.' In this work I have adopted the third person plural forms, 'they' and 'theirs' for the indefinite third person singular pronoun, because to me this solution sounds better, closer to colloquial English.

Chapter 1

INFORMATION IS REAL I call him Alfred Grozny. He is intelligent, cunning, playful, and he likes me.

He is as much a friend as some people, only with a smaller brain, different focus, pointy ears and lots of fur. In many ways his mind is similar to a person's. He processes information by thinking and feeling and shares lots of it with other cats and animals. We communicate well on the important things in life: food, warmth, a good hug and lick, a fast game of twitch and swat. I enjoy his company, that of an alive, thinking and friendly being who doesn't fill the room with too much idle chatter.

Although Alfred is wonderfully intelligent, there is something mysterious and a bit alien about him. I call him Grozny, a Russian word for great, terrible and awesome, only in part because of the way he must appear to a little mouse. I stand in awe of his mind because of the ways it is so different from mine: independent, contented, aloof, and self-contained. He strikes a refreshing contrast to people, who as individuals are dependent and incomplete, each in some way dysfunctional and incompetent. These things, which would be defects in a cat, are fundamental characteristics of human beings. They are essential features of an intelligence that is different in nature from that of cats.

This difference cannot be accounted for just by counting brain cells. Engineering cat minds of increasing complexity would not result in anything resembling a person, nor would it produce a comparable level of intelligence. Human beings are not merely the mammal that grew a larger thinking organ. Their intelligence is the outgrowth of a radical innovation in the way they organize their thoughts and feelings, the information which is the content of their minds. Although people share many aspects of cat anatomy, they are a different kind of thing than just smart cats. Many of the thought patterns that make a cat intelligent have exactly the opposite effect when pursued by a human being.

Thomas Dexter Kerr 2

The purpose of this book is to distinguish those thoughts and actions which are intelligent for a human to pursue from those which make Alfred so smart. To do this, it is necessary to take a journey through the information landscape. It is within the dimension of information as it appears to individual people that the paths of cats and humans have diverged, from distant evolutionary time through the present. The common quest of every individual for more effective intelligence and a better life is fruitful only as they find ways to accurately perceive and navigate the information landscape they are part of.

The nature of information is central to human existence. Information can be viewed as nothing more than an ephemeral artifact of matter, energy, space and time. Or it can be viewed as a component of the universe every bit as real and consequential as the others. This book will show not only that information is real in its own right, but that the intelligence found in humans would not have come into existence if it were not. The role of information will be found by tracing the drive towards intelligence for the human information system as a whole through the perspective of people as individuals. It is the way the world appears to individual humans that was the driving force behind the evolution of their intelligence.

Viewing intelligence as an information phenomenon makes it possible to define the evolutionary mechanism which produced in a short time such a rapid increase in intelligence. Human survival and power derives from a revolutionary and peculiar use of information. Their most powerful tool and weapon came to be the things they could figure out together. It was the intelligence of the human information system as a whole that was maximized as more able groups supplanted those that could harness fewer skills. Individuals gradually gave up the ability to do all the kinds of thinking they needed. Only by so doing could they became greater than cats. Individual minds are designed not to survive alone in a wilderness, but to complement the whole. Together they grew into a vast thinking entity that is so intelligent precisely because it utilizes the perspectives of individuals who by themselves are relatively incompetent. The kinds of thinking necessary are disbursed among individuals who are all different, instead of collected in each one. To make this system function, human intelligence and morality necessarily evolved together, neither making sense without the other. People can only think together if they can get along. The basic outlines of morality are as fixed and timeless and as rooted in human evolution as the intelligence it evolved with. Each is both cause and product of the other. The result is a kind of intelligence new in the universe, more powerful than any which could have evolved in any separate autonomous organism.

Information is Real 3

Acknowledging the reality of information reveals all the multitude of connections between individual people in their true light, as real in themselves. People are fundamentally information entities, not physical ones. Their most important aspects are linked not separate. Any vision of the world which excludes its information component shifts the paradigm of life and experience from information to objects. The result is not reality but an illusion which leads to personal despair and the destruction of intelligence. It is through acknowledging the existence of information that reasons to care about other people appear clearly as features of the way things are. It is together that humans exist to wonder and speculate, create and explore, seek truth and solve the riddles of the universe.

Viewing the world from the point of view of its informational content is not new. Religions have always envisioned the information world by maintaining belief in an invisible network of connections between individuals and the world around them. But such connections exist in hard reality because the existence of information is real and provable to the same extent as the existence of rocks. The divide between 'secular' and religious outlooks is changed forever by upgrading the definition of what is apparent and provable to include information.

For a person to fully accept and live in harmony with the reality of information they must find some way to recognize that their own thoughts and feelings, which consist of information, are just as real as any objects they may think about. This has always been the essential doorway to reality, opening to a world of enormous intelligence, love and beauty.

Alfred's brain is encased inside his fuzzy little head but his mind consists of information, which crosses physical boundaries. His thoughts are not the same as the physical impulses traveling through his nerves or along the sound and light waves he detects. His thoughts are information, which is just as real as the physical elements among which it moves. To Alfred it is reality. Although he lives in a physical world, his awareness consists of information. As he meanders through the middle of the block his mind is filled with a thousand details he picks up and the kittycat ruminations he has about them. The range of his mind includes more than the thoughts swirling around in his body. All the messages that loop back and forth connecting him with the world are parts of his information reality. His mind consists of the information puddle surrounding him as he stalks so confidently through life.

People's mental worlds are unlike Alfred's information puddle because of the way in which they are so thoroughly and intimately interconnected with each other. People are much more than entities who make decisions for themselves. While individual minds are the place where human thoughts and feelings take place, not even the most private musings can escape the reality that they exist as


part of a larger system of thoughts. The degree and complexity of interconnection goes way beyond simple operational necessities. Every thought and feeling is colored with language, music, impressions, abstract knowledge and a million tidbits of daily life, all accumulated over thousands of generations. An enormous volume of information is set in motion at every meeting. The nuances of a smile get passed along from person to person, shaping the character of the facts and gossip making the rounds. Individuals move through a gigantic invisible world consisting of the thoughts and feelings of all other people, touching, interconnected and entwined.

The primary characteristic of humans is that they join their thoughts and feelings into an information system that includes the contents of every individual mind. The system of thoughts they share together developed into an amazingly powerful tool and weapon, the essential element which enabled them to rise and prosper.

Individual people are dependent for their survival on the larger mental system they are parts of. To get the ideas they need, they reach across individual and generational boundaries to access the thoughts of others. Consisting of information, the human thinking system is made up of the thoughts and feelings of all people everywhere. It is always in motion, solving problems, increasing its own complexity and perpetuating itself through time. Every person's mind is a unique and essential part of this enormous, beautiful and alive entity.

The human information system creates a structure for the generation of intelligence that is the most radical and potent innovation of nature since the advent of life itself. This structure generates a far higher level of intelligence than would be possible for any single organism, no matter how powerful its information processor. In this new kind of thinking entity, the range and depth of thought needed is no longer located in the minds of individuals. The human gene pool is programmed with the range of perspectives which has proven most effective at producing overall intelligence. The same basic distribution of skill sets appears everywhere in a consistently repeated pattern. Each person also brings a uniqueness of thought to the information system they are part of. That individuality mixed with a stubborn independence which arises anew with each generation guarantees inherent creativity and change. The thoughts and feelings of people everywhere mingle together in ways which create an intelligence that is far greater than the sum of its parts. This has produced a qualitative leap to a new kind of intelligence, the most powerful force ever to arise in nature.

It was the functional human information system as a whole that was honed to ever higher levels of intelligence by the sharp edge of evolutionary pressure. Over the course of their evolutionary development, people as individuals progressively


gave up the wholeness of thought necessary for separate survival in a wilderness. They lack the all-round intelligence of a cat. Many would be helpless all alone. And none possess by themself an intelligence sufficient to alter the course of evolution. Instead, humans developed an extreme individuality in forms which complement each other. Wholly functional intelligence is not a characteristic of individual people. They each provide only a piece of the larger puzzle, not a comprehensive viewpoint. But it is precisely their manifestly limited nature which makes each and every individual valuable to the human information system as a whole, for that is the source of its great intelligence. Even in its most primitive stages, this new form of intelligence provided a way of getting food and shelter of unprecedented power and adaptability.

The origin of this intelligence in the evolutionary history of humans is a result of a gradual progression from earlier, simpler information systems. Like cats, people passed on packets of information that encoded successful physical systems along direct lines of inheritance. Unlike cats, humans survived as groups which came up with the best integrated system of sharing thoughts. The progression towards greater functional intelligence of these systems required more than the mechanical development of innate, wired-in propensities for general or specific talents. Their intelligence is in some measure a thing that humans have created for themselves, not something that arose purely as a result of automatic molecular twitching. It was necessary at every stage of the process for people to add certain kinds of mental content: a range of ideas and feelings which inspired diverse individuals to cooperate. That content affected the character of each round of genetic innovation in a long progression towards greater intelligence.

The mix of evolutionary pressures which produced humans can be untangled only when information is understood to be a distinct component of reality, with value and impact similar to matter, energy, space and time. The structure of human intelligence today forms some of the strongest evidence for the existence of information. It is the role of information in the life of every individual which drives the development of intelligence in the human information system as a whole. Though their decisions may appear small, all are thoroughly enmeshed in the great onrushing stream of human thought. The essential insight an individual needs to choose pathways that are intelligent is to find a way to more accurately perceive the information world. Only then can they fully realize that decisions that are intelligent for themself are the same as those which add to the vast intelligence of everyone everywhere.

What does the place of information within the cosmos have to do with the life of any one individual person or with the nature of right and wrong? It changes everything.


The ultimate nature of information is the greatest mystery of the universe. Where it comes from and why are unknown, probably unknowable in any provable sense. But its extent and characteristics can be described. Its development through time can be traced. And its relation to the rest of reality can be narrowed down to useful levels of certainty.

To determine whether information is truly one of the fundamental elements of reality, on an equal par with matter, energy, space and time, it is necessary to pursue several parallel lines of inquiry. The instrumental role of information in the development of life forms shows it actively determining the order of the other elements. The evidence of direct immediate experience by individual people cannot be ignored, for that is one of the prime ways humans reach understanding. Most important is the structural evidence of the evolution and present nature of the human form of intelligence. Added to these is the fairly simple, straight-forward logical argument for its existence. None of these is sufficient by itself to either explain or convince. Together they reinforce each other at the points critical to comprehending the world we find ourselves in today. It is from the confluence of the existence of information, its effects on the structure of life forms, and the growing awareness by individuals of its presence that the origins of intelligence are to be found.

The information that human thoughts and feelings consist of is itself a fundamental element of nature. The proveable, factual world encompasses far more than simply material things. It includes energy, space, time and information. All of these elements of reality are today routinely observed and measured in ways which can be duplicated. Information is intrinsic to reality, existing both long before humans and throughout the vast reaches of the universe beyond their view. People do not impose information on existence, inventing something alien to nature. They instead recognize it every time and every way they view the universe.

The basic logic supporting the existence of information is not complicated. It is one of the five constituent components of reality, along with matter, energy, space and time. They are all always found together, never apart. Information is a characteristic of all the other elements. They have, and always have had, form, pattern and structure, which are information. It is embedded in every aspect of reality, in wave patterns, chemical formulas and the codes of DNA, in rocks and stars as well as kittycat minds. Hydrogen atoms, electrical charges on a computer chip and frost on a windowpane all contain information in their structure. Patterns and structures characterize every corner and element of existence, from the earliest observable time to the furthest and closest reaches of space. The existence of information is as certain, observable and measurable as matter, energy, space


and time. Absence of information, complete disorder, cannot be found. The ultimate nature of the basic elements of the universe has not been determined, and perhaps cannot be. But no description of them is complete without a full recognition of the existence of information, without which none of the other elements would exist.

It is tempting for humans to stray down the path of regarding information as simply a consequence of the existence of the other elements. The structures and forms that people see everywhere are then just maps they themselves impose on their sensory input in order to navigate through the hard physical facts of life. The false ideas they get in their heads testify to the ephemeral, unreal nature of the information of which they consist. The flattering implication is that their own mind is elevated apart from the natural world because its informational character is unique.

Alfred also and very clearly gets false ideas, often making comical mistakes in judging his world. He has feelings and dreams and temper tantrums. He comes up with clever strategies when he turns his attention to hunting birds and bugs in the garden. Using information to get around is clearly neither an elevated proposition, at least above Alfred's level, nor something that separates people from their environment.

The existence of wrong or false ideas is a necessary characteristic of intelligence which says nothing at all about the general nature of information. The essential characteristic of information is that it exists. Wrong ideas, dreams and whimsy all exist. They are natural developments in the increasing complexity of information. Humans are programmed to regard false facts as illegitimate, wrong information as having no real existence, because the distinction between true and false ideas is of overriding importance in figuring out how to survive. But without wrong ideas, people and cats could never come up with new ideas, which are dependent on testing wrong ones. This is a problem that exists only inside active mental entities. It says nothing about whether information is an element of the universe that exists independently of the human and feline struggle to figure things out. Far from being somehow not real, false information is essential to the inner workings of a creative, thinking information entity. The fact that within a person's mind information can exist which describes the other elements inaccurately is testimony not to its lack of existence, but to its power and independence. This complexity inherent in human consciousness is itself substantial evidence for the existence of information.

An offshoot of the illusion that information has no concrete existence is the idea that Alfred's thoughts are a different kind of thing than the information that is


inanimate patterns. The history of the development of information shows clearly that this is not the case.

Information increases in complexity through time. This progression is evident from the beginnings of the observable universe in the development of ever larger molecules in successive generations of stars. The growth in complexity accelerates immensely as it takes the form of living things.

With the advent of life, information moves into a locally dominant, self-directing role among the basic elements of the universe. For non-living things, structure is embedded in particular pieces of matter, energy, space and time. It is from this information that life arises. Living things are active information entities, patterns which move from one set of physical structures to another. Each set of instructions organizes a particular way of life and passes on its secrets to a new set of components. The old piles of molecules, energy, areas of space and moments of time, all are left behind by a stream of information that flows and grows in complexity through time.

Information plays a more dominant role in the life of a cat than that of a plant. All living things use information for their immediate survival and transmit it in a molecular code to a next generation. This is what distinguishes them from rocks. Alfred takes the utilization of information to a higher order of complexity by adding the ability to make decisions for himself. His mind is an information entity that directs the events of the world around him. The part of him that can make decisions evolved gradually through the cascading chain of ever new and more complex bundles of information that is the process of life. Conscious life, all life, grew not from matter or energy, but from the pool of information that fills the universe. The progression towards greater complexity of information is gradual and continuous through its present culmination in conscious living beings.

To say that life forms are physical entities that use information is to get the line of causation exactly backwards. Life is the use of matter, energy, space and time by information entities. Every person and cat begins as a dense information packet that collects physical elements to do its bidding. A person is not a blob of protoplasm that thinks, but a thinking entity that uses physical elements for its various ends. Their mind is not the tool of their body, their body is the tool of their mind plus the information packet that is their genetic heritage. Living forms evolve from information entities. The development of animals that could make choices is simply an extension of the natural tendency of information to increase in complexity through time.

Thinking of information as something innate only to human consciousness places humans at the center of the information universe. This is an error similar to placing the earth at the center of all that is physical. It is demonstrably not true


that the earth is the center of the universe. The images we see of the stars and moon are much more than pretty features on a ceiling above us. As evidence of the vastness of space and our position in a far corner of it, they become far more beautiful. The patterns of matter and time do not suddenly come into existence through the agency of human observation, they are out there already. Human minds do not create the existence of information, they are an outgrowth of it. We live in a remote corner of the universe, as part of a vastness far beyond the bounds of terrestrial experience. And the contents of our minds consist of one of the primal elements of the universe, which existed before humans and will go on after us, extending beyond our planet throughout the universe. Finding a way to recognize their own mind as part of the continuum of information that exists all around them is the critical opening which enables a person to connect with the enormous beauty and love that is theirs to reach out to.

Awareness of the universal nature of information is necessary for a full awareness of the human information system. Only if information is original to existence can it be the cause of the physical bodies of humans, instead a result of them. So information systems can be truly real to an individual only if they recognize that they themself are derived from those larger systems, instead of those systems originating with the arrival of their small package of cells and fluids.

From an individual's point of view, other people are a subset of everything that is not them. Their personal life and death take place in the context of everything, not just other people. If they come to believe that the existence of information is not universal, then they will perceive their relation to the world at large as one of separation. Their physical distinctness from their surroundings will logically appear to be the overriding condition of their existence, the systems which connect people's minds being merely a consequence of the existence of their physical bodies, which are separate. And so they become ever more deeply entangled in an illusion of separateness they create for themself, the belief that their own personal life is essentially a separate thing.

When person finds a way to understand that their life is part of the information landscape, the great variety of boundaries between themself and the world appear in their true light as potential points of connection, opportunities instead of limitations. They then can allow the fine tendrils of their emotional awareness to rise up naturally to meet and embrace the unique ways in which their individuality expands into the world at large. Such experiences reveal the truth that emotionally information is warm, the opposite of cold. That warmth consists of connection, with other people as well as everything else. In the absence of a way to understand themself in a context of information, their boundaries become


points of separation, gulfs which must be leaped if warmth is to be found. Denying the existence of information establishes the dominance of coldness, the catastrophic error of believing that the absence of connection is a natural or default condition.

Dividing reality, by believing that physical things are real and information is not, trivializes the most important aspect of human existence. It leads to a hollow imitation of life, an empty and drifting existence lacking the conviction that the totality of experience and existence is real.

However a person's view of reality may come to be expanded to include information as a basic fact of existence, once they do so the world around them looks different. They look out on an information landscape woven into every nook and cranny of the physical world. They live as parts of an information continuum, for the stuff their thoughts and feelings are made of extends throughout their environment, densely filling every landscape, sound and face. Every rock contains information, as does the wind, the stars and a kitty cat's eyes. The information landscape is full of circuits, loops of information which cross physical borders. Boundaries between physical things are not barriers but openings to information. Any of the information inherent in the universe can move into the orbit of a person's mind, joining with their thoughts and feelings. In addition to the physical outlines of objects and forces, the information inherent in everything is there for them to see and find. The path to reconciling the conflicting demands of their personal life, their life with others, and their place in the universe is illuminated by the one thing all have in common. Their mind is no longer something alien to rocks, water, air and cats, all of which are imbued with the same element their thoughts and feelings are made of. The stuff of which their own thoughts and feelings consist extends as far as they can see and conceive, mixing and churning throughout the universe. The world is filled with a wonderment of already existing information.

For humans, the most important part of the information landscape is the thoughts and feelings of people. Every individual contains within them a world of memories, ideas, emotions and dreams. Despite surface similarities, each such information world is unique, for every thought is given thousands of details of shading and meaning through innate differences of character and experience. Each person lives not only with their own private thoughts but with deep and complex access to those of others. The interconnected thoughts and feelings of people function as a vast information entity. Being a part of that entity is the difference between a person and a very smart cat.

In terms of the information of which it consists, an individual person's mental identity can never be completely separated from that of everyone else. A person's


mind consists of the totality of their thoughts. In any way that those thoughts could be said to be produced by an agent, that identity must have at its innermost center an informational component, with consciousness, thoughts and feelings. Since this swirl of thoughts is information, it does not follow the rules of physical objects. The minds of individuals have the kind of boundaries that ideas have: ones that are points of connection, not separation. People have no choice in the fact that they are all connected into a giant system of information of which they are all a part. The only escape is death. Every time one person dies, all the rest lose a part of their mind.

The continuing rediscovery of the basic informational truths of human existence has always been the essential insight necessary for an individual person to live a full, engaged, and rewarding life. It shows them that their own limitations as well as those of others are a resource instead of a hindrance, that their imperfections shine with beauty as the source and essence of intelligence. It is what makes basic morality a compelling, natural and uncomplicated path to follow. And it is a necessary component of the evolutionary development of intelligence.

A fundamental simplicity in the structure of human affairs has resulted from their evolutionary history. Illusions of extreme complexity arise from unending and futile attempts to force a square peg of nonexistent separate entities into the round holes of the information systems that are the true human reality.

People are the way they are because that is the way that together they are most intelligent. The development of human intelligence has been driven by the choices made by individuals who have gained an awareness of the informational facts of life in front of them. They have been most successful when making decisions in ways which maximize intelligence for the human information system as a whole. For all parts of the human information system, the most effective, fulfilling and moral paths follow the route of greatest intelligence for the system as a whole. Increasing that systemic intelligence is the same thing as increasing the health of its parts and the quality of relations among them.

Even early in evolutionary history, the systemic intelligence of the collective human mind afforded amazing survival advantages. The selective pressures increased enormously as that intelligence developed, giving ever greater rewards to those long sequences of groups which got it right. The ongoing necessity of producing the greatest intelligence for the thinking system as a whole was by far the dominant influence on the development of individual human minds, affecting every nook and cranny of what they like and feel, what they see and think about. All the many byways of human life came to be endowed with a structure and purpose which augments the intelligence of the whole.


Choices that people make in their everyday lives have always been the most critical factor in the development of human intelligence. The functional intelligence of humans is a characteristic not of individuals alone, but of their thoughts and feelings together, as a whole. Each individual plays their part by their willingness, desire and sense of obligation to share their unique nature. This willingness is the essence of human morality. It is essential to the origin and continuation of intelligence. It stems from the pathways that are written into the hardware of almost every human brain, from the direct perception by individuals that they are parts of something larger than themselves, and from conscious understandings they develop about how to deal with their lives in the midst of others. Without that willingness, human intelligence would neither have developed through evolutionary time nor can it ever thrive.

The most basic question that haunts every individual life is why care? The answer lies in the definition of what they are. The rest of this book will trace the structural principle of greater intelligence through a wide range human affairs. From the most personal to the largest enterprise, every activity shares a common purpose and meaning.

The most important aspect of every individual human, the entirety of their thoughts and feelings, is inescapably a part of the human information system. Aligning their thoughts and actions ever more closely with the informational facts of life is what makes them intelligent. This applies to individuals both when they act alone and when they access the greater part of their own mind which resides in other people. Virtue, love, freedom and morality, all entwine their life more fully with the immense network of thoughts they are a part of. Every moral thought or action a person chooses, either consciously or automatically, expands their life into the fullness of the human information system. Its purpose is theirs, its structure lives within them.

The structural principles which lead to greater intelligence in people's personal lives will be shown to apply also to the ways they organize themselves on ever larger scales. For the human information system to function well and intelligently, it is necessary for all the many varieties of mind to add their unique perspective to the thinking going on. Allowing, enabling and motivating ever more minds to be engaged is a straight-forward condition of intelligence. In everyday life, this entails decentralizing decision-making as much as possible. Human rights are those guidelines so basic that they apply everywhere all the time, which protect and promote the ability of individuals to make decisions. Their function is to prevent people from stopping other people from thinking. Whether protecting individuals from murder or allowing them to speak and associate, rights make plain that decentralizing decision-making fosters both


greater intelligence and greater morality. For the human information system, intelligence and morality are the same thing.

The most important impact of the human informational structure lies in its effect on individual lives. Though they each are very small, it is only their insight into reality and their willingness to participate that drives the vast onrushing stream of human thought as a whole towards its destiny. Their individual happiness and fulfillment are both the highest embodiment of that immense mental unit and the source of its amazing intelligence. The personal experiences of contact with others, of ecstasy in touch with nature, of elevation from within, all provide essential evidence for the existence of information and for its critical influence on the course of the evolution of intelligence.

The present reality of information systems in an individual's experience of life lends a sense of vital immediacy that is necessary for moral thoughts and actions. The instantaneous recognition of an extension of their own mind in someone else awakens a person to the informational facts of life. They together are parts of an information system which exists in the immediate present and which is by far the most valuable part of their own personal existence.

Opening to the vast scope and intricacy of the information inherent in every detail of reality is an awesome and humbling experience. Suddenly an unfriendly world of hard objects is infused with life. Attention paid to the detail in a small flower, a bit of brown earth or a crawling bug reveals in each an overwhelmingly intricate wealth of stored and active information. Truly listening reveals a world whose every nook and cranny is filled with a complexity far beyond the ability of a human mind ever to grasp. It is a wonderful and beautiful privilege to be a conscious element of the information mosaic of the universe.

The many varieties of love and beauty are the closest possible connections between an individual and the world they live in. Love for a particular person and the perception of something as beautiful are experiences of immediate and total immersion in the reality of the wider information world, a harmony uncovered between the inner reaches of the mind and that which strikes its fancy. They totally eclipse illusions of separateness with an overwhelming knowledge of a greater reality.

Only those in love are free, who have a heart-felt sense of connection with themself and the world at large. When they are caught up in an experience of love and beauty, a person's mind becomes for a moment perfectly still. The constant repetitions generated by the past are pushed aside by the immediacy of a flower, a face, or a fresh baked pie. It is at that moment that they glimpse the true nature of themselves and their world, as the veil of illusion dissolves and reality rushes in.


Once a person finds a way of liberating themself from the mythical shroud of separateness they become able to see and participate in the love and beauty of the real world surrounding them. Every touch, smell, sound, taste and sight carries into their mind the savor of belonging to a wider world, the meaning and wonder of being an integral part of something enormous. Every nuance forms a connection with the minds of other people and with the information inherent in the universe as a whole. Every minute thought and feeling is a part of something vast and precious, dreamed up and experienced by the human information system as it lives within them. That enormous mental entity has value and meaning in the present tense, regardless of its rate of progress in any particular direction. Just by existing it is dynamic and alive, and all who have the privilege to exist as part of it are graced with its amazing beauty. So there are no wasted seconds. No life is useless. And the belief that it doesn't matter what a person does right now is simply factually wrong.

Chapter 2

THE PATTERN OF INTELLIGENCE From Alfred's point of view, humans are the dominant species on earth.

People do such large and marvelous things, building warm houses with doors and fetching tuna from the seas. Even the outside territory through which Alfred stalks has been sculpted by people. Their physical presence and effects are everywhere. But what Alfred sees is an illusion. He likes to hang out with playmates that he assumes are large, mostly hairless, two-legged cats. The real lives of people are invisible to him, an entire world that exists in a dimension beyond his imagination. For what has come to dominate the earth is not some species of naked mammal, but an entirely new classification of living thing. The functional human information system consists of the thoughts and feelings of all people together as a whole. Each and every individual human mind belongs to this entity, which has existence only in them. What has risen to dominance on earth is a dispersed form of information entity.

The human information system functions as the critical tool and weapon which enables people to survive and prosper. All their thoughts and feelings together, communicated through generations as well as among the living, form a system of incredible potency. Any one person gains power over their world only through accessing and playing an active part in that larger thinking entity. In isolation, their thinking capacity is incomplete, relatively impotent and insignificant.

The vast thinking entity that is created by people consists of all the information they generate, in a multitude of forms and guises. This entity exists continuously through time, with intermittent connection to its disparate parts. That which is stored in books and films and embedded in machines and buildings remains part of the larger system even while sitting still and unused. Even when it


is out of communication with others, every offshoot of human thought forms a constituent part of the whole, which exists as a single unified system. Its extent and diversity is diminished only when a person dies or a book is lost forever.

No matter how few interactions they may have in a day, no one can escape being part of the greater human informational milieu. Even a hermit living alone thinks in language and music and uses tools. Mental interconnection is woven into the furthest corners of their mind, influencing every impulse and feeling. Because they consist of information, those connections all exist in the present, integrated into the moment to moment reality of experience. The gigantic system which consists of all the thoughts and feelings of people everywhere is far too vast and fluid to be seen in its entirety by any one person. It becomes suddenly apparent, provable, obvious and overwhelmingly beautiful once an individual finds a way to lift their vision beyond what a cat can see.

Since human minds consist of information, their boundaries are points of connection, not separation. When one physically very distinct person meets another, the border between their minds is not distinct. Their thoughts and feelings intermingle with every glance, as each connects with that part of the larger mental field which includes the other individual. The information in their minds is not the kind of thing that can be separated into discrete packages that are sealed off from each other and regarded as isolated phenomena. The process by which two people "toss around an idea" is not at all analogous to throwing a ball back and forth. Every idea is made up of streams of information that lack definite beginnings and endings. Every thought influences every other with which it has contact. A uncountable number of fine, minute connections join parts of the system into a larger functional whole. Every idea refers to, and so becomes part of, every other, forming a tangled, intricate and vast network. Each new extension or addition to this system becomes a part of it, ending its separate existence at the moment of contact. Without becoming a part of this immense network of thoughts, an individual human would remain a useless and defenseless creature, because the most important aspect of them, their mind, would be cut off from its larger part.

Daily life seems to take place in a small circle focused on local events. In a world with billions of people widely dispersed, most of the particular concerns and events of other individuals, groups, towns, countries, and cultures remain unknown to any one person. Many people eke out lives that seem alienated and alone. But the appearance of distance is an illusion. The links which join them take place through time and continually rumble about within. Distance within an information entity is not measured in physical separation. Every honest interchange, no matter how small and tenuous, establishes a connection with the

The Pattern of Intelligence 17

human informational world at large as it lives in other people. All kinds of messages, most of them very small, move quickly and spread widely as people jostle together through their daily lives.

People everywhere are linked together through a chain of acquaintances which is not long. Each person's mind is connected with those they know, who in turn know others, who know still others, the numbers multiplying quickly with each layer. Everyone in most countries is joined with every other in as few as six or ten links. If today it is through as many as a hundred that the entire planet is connected, that is not a large number and it is shrinking. Although in premodern times the chain was longer and slower, it has always been of central importance. It is much more than just a conduit for the latest discovery or news. A wide variety of information passes between individuals at every interchange, with every glance or word. As the acquaintance chain extends out and turns back on itself in endless curlicues, an enormous amount of information is always in circulation, the ruminations of a vast thinking entity.

The great ideas, inventions and discoveries that have been made through the ages seem at first glance to be far removed from the minds of ordinary people. Even the most prominent person makes a contribution that is tiny compared to the vast totality of human thought. But the smallness of individuals does not make anyone unimportant to the whole. The development and origins of any new idea can never be fully traced. The person whose name ends up attached to it is just the person who applied the finishing touches. The successes and failures of a long stream of people before them are every bit as much a part of any final triumph. The list of those who made very real contributions to an invention or theory extends beyond the great and forgotten inventors and scientists, their helpers and the good librarian's assistant. The minds of these people interact with everyone around them, people who work as gardeners, bartenders, cooks, farmers and policemen, and especially people as parents, who nurture in their children a sense of place in the world that includes an independent niche for their own mind. Every big idea is just a small eddy which could not exist without the great onrushing stream of human thought of which it is a part.

Most of the thinking going on in the world has always been and always will be about everyday experiences and encounters. People think about breakfast, a song they like, what a friend said yesterday, a broken fingernail, the smell of autumn and why their car leaks oil. These thoughts are more than just a seedbed for big ideas, important events and discoveries. Ordinary thoughts and feelings are the heartland of a system which has evolved over millennia to be intelligent as a whole. That system is intelligent not just in its measurable results but in the immediate present. The very particularity, variety, and intricacy of everyday


thoughts are the essence of the immense intelligence of the functional human mind and the source of its revolutionary creativity and energy.

The human information system gains its intelligence by relying on much more than the most logical types of reasoning. Every human thought has roots and branches spreading deep through the unchartable vastness of the mind that is beyond consciousness. In that information shadowland all thoughts and feelings influence each other. Along those subtle, quiet and fragile pathways millions of connections are made that result in the thoughts and feelings a person becomes aware of. In one of the primitive thinking machines that is a computer, it is a disaster if the action of a game invades a spreadsheet. Human minds are more sophisticated. Thinking is not divided into separate and opposing compartments of reason and unreason, logic and emotion. The intermingling of all varieties of thought is essential. Insights and nuances from music and the aroma of good food invade thoughts and feelings about politics, sports, sex and language. An emotion is just as important as the solution to a math problem, both being kinds of thinking that are essential to human intelligence, each deriving information from the other. Having multiple layers of different kinds of thinking going on at the same time provides shortcuts which speed up the process of working out a problem as well as checks on the excesses of any one mode of thought. Interconnecting every thought and feeling in a vast and unpredictable region allows a variety and creativity that is beyond conscious control to come forth.

This intermingling of an individual's thoughts within their own mind is a critical element in linking the minds of people into an intelligent whole. It makes possible the exchange of huge amounts of information. When two people meet, much more goes back and forth than would be suggested by a transcript of their words. Simultaneously and with lightning speed they exchange a wide range of messages through intonation, expression, body movements and the clothes they wear. Much of this goes directly from the unconscious mind of one to that of the other, conveying extraneous impressions and moods as well as important comments on the subject of conversation. Every encounter is a complex and intimate embrace between the minds of very different individuals. The mental system that they together comprise has all the benefits that each individual gains from thinking in a wide variety of subtly intermingled ways, multiplied by the diversity inherent in the very different byways of the other person. This constitutes a radical extension of the range of thinking possibilities. Together they form a mental system that is of a higher order of complexity and intelligence than any individual mind could ever have.

The design of humanity as a group of individuals who put together widely differing thoughts is one that produces enormous mental power and creativity. No


single organism, no matter how complex its information processor, could achieve the same range and depth of thoughts as an entity made up of diverse and independent thinking parts. Any collection of alike units working together, no matter how large, would be limited to the perspectives of that one model. Simply adding up the number of people who have existed, or some linear measure of their minds like IQ, does not begin to describe or explain the extent of the mental achievements of humankind or the vast scope of different things that are being thought about at any one time.

The great differences between individuals are what give their thoughts reach and power when they link up with each other. Each person's mind perceives different things when encountering the world and does something different to that information while mulling it over. Every thought and feeling of every person adds to the complexity and intelligence of the thoughts and feelings of everyone.

Human diversity of thought has two dimensions, individual uniqueness overlaid on specific types of talent. A certain pattern of abilities and perspectives is found repeated in every group. They all need someone who can get things done like hunt, cook, make and fix tools. They need people to bind the group together by mediating disputes, speechifying and leading. They need people to inspire by playing music, lending an element of beauty to crafted objects and inventing stories. They need people who can imagine what is not, think mathematically and remember the many details of the past. All these diverse talents and more occur innately, scattered in differing amounts throughout every population. All are needed. Together, they have proven to be that mysterious mix which produces the greatest intelligence.

Diversity of thought among individuals is characteristic of the furthest reaches of each of their minds. Each one comes with a new and different mix of the basic human talents. But diversity is a far vaster field than any list of traits, personality types or cultural groupings. The huge variety of thinking going on cannot be described by a simply listing the contributions of those who excel in music, mathematics, ice skating, poetry, carpentry, cooking or politics. All the thoughts and feelings of each individual are colored by a unique set of life experiences from the moment of conception on. They carry the imprint of the parents, peer groups, cultures and individuals they interact with. But the fact that every mind is shaped by a set of encounters different from all others only begins to describe the extent of human diversity. Experience adds layers of complexity onto something that is already inherently unique.

Every parent who's had a second child knows right from the start that their wrinkled, purplish newborn is utterly, incredibly different from the first in a million ways that could never be captured in an essay or defined by a


psychologist's questionnaire. The experience of having children is awesome and humbling in part because of what their undeniable uniqueness implies for their parents. The fact that they themself are from birth so different from every other person is something every individual must face. It is one of the most basic characteristics of their mind. Every little byway, every nook and cranny, is unique. Thinking among humans is everywhere densely diverse.

The other side of being a part of a great diversity of minds is that every person taken alone is a mental cripple, capable of only a partial vision, dependent completely on the larger collection of unlike minds for their survival. This inherently limited nature does not detract from the stature of any individual or of people as a whole. Essential to the intelligence of humanity is a lack of functional wholeness in the basic design of individual minds. It is precisely the very particular nature of every individual mind that is the greatest asset and resource of the mental system that they together comprise because it is the source of diversity of thought.

The contribution of any one person is insignificantly small and incomplete next to the achievements of mankind, the accumulated thinking of billions of people each of whom add something a little different. The human information system plays music and invents machines. It can fix watches, chase footballs, cook linguini, and plot trajectories around the moon. It can mediate disputes, make speeches, pretend to be someone else, and patiently nurture small children. Individual people are not designed to do all these things. Compared with the vast intelligence of everyone everywhere, the mind of any one individual has a focus which comprises only a very small slice of the whole. Compared with that larger wholeness of thought, every individual's view of the world is personal, idiosyncratic, and limited.

While true intelligence resides in the totality of human thought, it has no existence at all outside individual human minds. The magic of the great creativity of a large collection of people lies in that, as every idea fragment makes the rounds, each person sends it on its way with a different velocity and texture than it had before. The whole may be greater than the sum of its parts, but the driving force behind it all is the pressure of each individual who wants more, who is not satisfied to sit back and have everything given to them. When any person stops thinking and questioning, they are choosing to deprive the larger society of part of its potential mental power. When a person is forced not to participate in the decisions around them, the whole society suffers from the detachment of part of its mind. Each time an individual concentrates on the content of a problem in front of them, they open a small window into a larger mental world. They become more


alive each time they act to extend their mind into the mental sea all humans are all immersed in.

The active encouragement of diversity is important in producing new ideas because thinking is a volunteer activity. The growth of ideas thrives in a mixture that includes what is at first glance inchoate and irrelevant. Discouraging all unconventional ideas will obviously quash a lot of good ones, for many successful new concepts begin their careers looking incomplete, doubtful, and ridiculous. More importantly, it is the wider cultural climate that indicates to individuals whether actively pursuing their thoughts is the kind of activity they should engage in. Human beings will only think when they are inspired to do so, not ordered. Each one must decide for themself that their own uniqueness is of value, that they should nurture and play with the thoughts which bubble up inside. Living amongst an openly tolerated diversity of ways of thinking provides the invaluable suggestion to a wide variety of individuals that it would be worthwhile for them to think for themselves, in spite of the fact that their thoughts so often seem to be mundane and insignificant.

The perception by individuals that they are not really smart in any comprehensive sense is one of the root sources of the growth in intelligence of people as a whole. The awareness that their own mind is so small and part of something greater adds the impetus of an inescapable logic to the biological pressures that impel people together. One who sees all, who can figure everything out by themself, has no need to communicate with others. If one is complete, why join? If one has the capacity to find all the answers, listening to anyone else is boring and the effort to multiply one's capabilities by adding them to the common pool is redundant. Because they are such limited creatures, each capable of having only an incomplete and partial vision, humans need each other in order to come up with the coherent thinking that is necessary for staying alive. And when people put their thoughts together they create something that has turned out to be much greater than an incremental strategy for survival. The great beauty and intelligence of the human race lies not in that some people are all-encompassing geniuses, but that none are.

By themself, each individual is driven on by a combination of primordial, animal instincts which push for more life for its own sake, coupled with the probably insatiable lust of their incomplete mind to find and join with some thought that, unlike theirs, is universal and complete. We are all in a totally impossible situation, incapable probably ever of arriving at any really satisfying solution that will bring peace forever to the human soul. We are doomed to go on restlessly pushing, creating, communicating, as long as new babies keep opening


their eyes and adding their own new and unique spice to the mixture and carrying on the unendable quest.

All human beings are bound together in a common fate, tied to the knowledge that they can see something greater than themselves that went before them and will not die when they do, something that their own mind cannot encompass. The mind of each person is trapped without any possibility of escape within the mental world of which it is a part. There is enormous nobility of character to any person great or small who is willing to stand up, take a chance and act on their own unique impulse in the face of the obviously imperfect vision, limited reach, and imminent death that are the inescapable constraints on every person's life. But it is only by doing so that anyone can become more than separate and alone, that an individual can become part of something large which does not die.

Chapter 3

THE EVOLUTION OF INTELLIGENCE Alfred's mind is prewired with a host of kittycat behaviors like an attraction to

little things that twitch, a curious and creative mind, and a relentless propensity to lick himself. These basic mental patterns, combined with his powerful physique, have enabled him to grow into an efficient menace to the local mice, birds and insects without any nurturing guidance from his mother. People are born prewired to learn language and communicate through a wide variety of means, from smiles and whistles to music, painting and mathematics. Their main tool and weapon is not a combination of sharp teeth, lightning reflexes and individual cunning, but the enormous intelligence that is generated when they connect their mind with others.

The wide range of mental types that is characteristic of modern human intelligence cannot be explained by an evolutionary model which looks only at individual dominance. Most people do not have the combination of physical strength, strong personality and broad competence at many tasks that would be required to survive alone in a wilderness. Impractical musicians, starry-eyed priests, clumsy scientists and other wild extremes of thought would be disastrous in isolation but are essential to human success. For animals that function in the world like Alfred, such a huge and specialized range of peculiar talents and abstract kinds of imagination would be an absurd and dysfunctional waste. Cats who can't hunt all die.

Anyone who has lived with more than one cat knows how different they are from each other. Some are lazy, some fast, some are aloof and some are cuddle muffins. Having a range of both physical and personality types helps the evolutionary survival prospects of the species because when circumstances


change a suitable kind of cat is right there to take advantage of it. The rest pass into the dustbin of cat history.

Mental diversity among humans has had a different kind of impact on their evolutionary prospects. Their primary tool and weapon is not the intelligence of individuals. They have created a kind of intelligence new in the universe, the much greater intelligence of a group and of the species as a whole. Diversity widens the range of thinking that everyone taps into and shares. Over time a store of knowledge is built up as a common heritage. When circumstances change, people put their minds together and figure out what to do. Much more potent than implements for individual survival, human minds are designed to augment the collective intelligence.

The evolution of human intelligence has been driven not by the perfection of individuals, but by the results that their minds produce in the thoughts of the group as a whole. Intelligent life on earth is neither defined nor limited by the range of the greatest genius. The importance of any one individual mind, no matter how talented, pales next to the vastly more potent system of thought that is the heritage of humankind. The critical specialty of humans has been to communicate ideas among people whose minds are all different, creating a mental system whose intelligence dwarfs that of any individual. People have been such a great success on earth because by bringing together a great variety of ways of thinking they have produced a vast qualitative leap to a new kind of intelligence.

The essential first step that made possible a large and relatively rapid increase in the mental processing power of the precursors of modern humans was the achievement of a basic level of sharing thoughts. Even a very limited level of communication produced a competitive advantage. Sophisticated languages and abstract symbols were not necessary to produce a self-reinforcing system powerful enough to change the course of evolution. All the varied modes of communication used by modern peoples developed out of simpler forms that functioned together in successive whole systems of thought in the past. Even in its primitive phases, this provided a new and sharp edge in the struggle for survival.

The intelligence of humans developed through the co-evolution of individual biological changes with the information system which became the most critical factor in their survival. At every point, the combination was well-tuned for success. Progression came through the mutual reinforcement of individual genetic variations and the information system they became parts of. Both genetic changes and the development within groups of complementary patterns of doing things and relating to each other were necessary. This innovation of nature was a new and revolutionary force, a sharp break with the evolutionary patterns of the past.

The Evolution of Intelligence 25

Human minds were shaped by evolutionary forces which reinforced innovations in whole groups, not individuals. Genetic changes which affected intelligence could take hold when small populations were isolated. When it happened that such changes produced a more intelligent group, they would prosper and expand. In times of stress, survival turned on using all available mental resources to figure out what to do. Those groups which could not think up a good response to challenges would perish. Modern humans are the descendants of a long progression of groups that succeeded each other as they developed more intelligent ways of thinking together.

It is only because very small increases in individual intelligence were greatly rewarded that large increases in intelligence across populations of early humans could evolve. Most tiny increases in intelligence would not greatly enhance the survival prospects of an already efficient individual competitor. If most such changes were not superfluous, the earth would be lorded over today by very smart cats. The entity which developed high intelligence on earth was not just another mammal, but the functional information system of humans as a whole, which developed a radically new way to specifically reward incremental increases in mental processing power.

The great innovation of human beings was a revolutionary shift in the pattern of intelligence, in which the system they developed needed not just more powerful thinking, but different thinking. The elements needed for whole thinking came to be spread among differing individuals instead of within each one. Individual humans came to have a high level of individual intelligence only because they could thereby augment the larger human information system. In order to do so, they all needed to be different from each other in ways which complemented the whole. Human intelligence is inseparable from diversity in both origin and design.

It was the usefulness of mental diversity which provided an accelerating engine of magnified rewards for very small increases in individual intelligence. A tiny increase in mental processing power will most often be expressed as a slightly different way of thinking. It will function as a sideways digression, a potential addition to the natural diversity of thought already in existence. For a cat, this would be tentative and marginal at best, a useless and most likely dysfunctional peculiarity. Their mind has already been sharpened to peak efficiency. But many digressions that are useless in isolation become invaluable once a threshold level of combining thoughts is achieved. The more that thoughts are shared, the more slight innovations and fresh perspectives improve the survival prospects of a group. If appropriate, even a tiny one could have an amplified effect, sharpening the principal tool and weapon of the group, and therefore greatly increasing the survival prospects of the individual. At even a


primitive level, new and diverse ways of thinking would add depth, imagination, creativity and new perspectives to a larger pool, augmenting something already strong.

Once the process of rewarding greater mental diversity got started, it took on a life of its own as an independent evolutionary force. Many types of thinking became useful that were not directly focused on the immediate problems of individual survival. Groups of people could add together the creative insights that diverse individuals would bring to hunting, cooking, relating to animals, nurturing infants, building boats or tool making. They could make use of strange and outlandish speculations, mining them for insightful tidbits and storing them for later use. They needed all manner of painters, singers, poets, priests and politicians who would serve to bind the minds of ever more diverse individuals into a cohesive whole. Modern people are the descendants of those groups of early humans which were most successful in increasing their collective intelligence by increasing the variety of things they thought about.

Creativity was built into the structure of the human information system as a whole as it relied on an ever wider range of kinds of thinking dispersed among its members. As each new one comes along with a unique, fresh mixture of basic human mental traits, they take the collective human mind in new directions. Each one may be small, but together over time the effect is ongoing and powerful. Their diversity is the generator of the creative intelligence of the whole. No longer simply a characteristic of individual minds, the generation of new ideas became a process in which each and every person takes part.

The size of each increment of change that could be rewarded became smaller when advantage was provided not by a global increase in ability for an individual but by added variety for a much larger information system. Each improvement could by itself be less than perfect and complete. Every increment of change needed only to be different in one of a multitude of small ways that would extend the useful range of the larger thinking entity.

A gradually increasing velocity in the rate of change in intelligence was driven by the engine of diversity. As the human information system became more diverse, it rewarded a wider range of thinking in different ways and about different kinds of things. An ever higher percentage of innovations could find a place, be useful, add to intelligence, and improve survival prospects. Each small innovation was the vehicle for an addition to the total thinking power of both the individual and the network of thoughts they were part of.

Individuals could improve their survival prospects through many increases in intelligence that at the same time decreased their overall capabilities. A weak individual who could not run or hunt, but who could tie fancy knots or sing a song


increased the survival prospects of their group, and therefore themself. So could someone who was nearsighted but extended the range of being warm, friendly and nurturing. The benefits to group intelligence became enough to override the resulting imperfections in individuals.

A necessary feature of the more intelligent and powerful wholeness that groups of people were able to achieve was that individual minds became ever more incomplete. People gained mental processing power at the same time, and for the same reason, that they lost mental wholeness. The development of human intelligence was dependent on the survival of a wide range of individuals whose limitations made them weak on their own. The special bent they could add more than made up for the absence of global strength. There was a progressive divorce between the capacities of individual people and the mental power they could access. In combination with others they formed a new kind of entity whose strength lay in the continuing invention and combination of new thoughts. They gave up the contented wholeness of a cat for the vast, exhilarating intelligence of a mental system of a higher order of complexity and intelligence than would be possible for any individual mind.

Humans genuinely love, value, nurture and choose as mates a wide variety of individuals who are not all-knowing or exceptionally strong, sly, fast or pushy. This is not surprising, since they evolved under constant pressure to sharpen their collective mind, which needed diversity, not just dominance. The principal pattern of human reproduction has therefore been one in which just about everyone finds at least one mate and most have offspring. It is only a few, who for one reason or another are extremely unacceptable to the society they live in, who are prevented from passing on their genes. Their failure does not mean that the key to genetic success lies in fighting others. On the contrary, it puts a premium on meeting basic requirements for being included in a group of people. The pattern of allowing almost everyone to have children does much more than simply buy cooperation for the most powerful. It is essential to the survival of the group because it is the seedbed of diversity.

The wide range of basic personality types that are characteristic of modern people all developed together in the hard crucible of evolutionary survival to add to the intelligence of groups. Fearless and timid, quick and slow, passive and aggressive, skillful and clumsy, female and male, serious and frivolous, analytical and intuitive, speculative and methodical, mathematical and not, all are here today because together they proved to be the combination that was most intelligent. The groups which gave us their genes passed the most stringent tests possible: survival through millennia of difficult, changing conditions. Those that made it did so


because their most potent tool and weapon was honed to its most creative and productive edge.

Allowing their mind to think more clearly and individually brings a person's thoughts into closer alignment with the basic design of the human information system. If their individuality were not naturally configured to mesh with other minds, the results would be useless. An association of thinking animals with a purely random assortment of differences would produce the intelligence of a zoo. Mental individuality in humans has a purpose. Maximizing the intelligence of the tool and weapon most essential for their survival was the greatest necessity facing them over the course of their evolution. The breakthrough in intelligence they achieved was possible because individuals were able to combine their thoughts on a multitude of levels. The intricate details of human individuality are the source of the range of thought and creativity that are critical to the wider intelligence of people as a whole. Human survival and evolution was made possible because the differences which constitute individuality both complemented and connected with each other to the greatest extent possible. To achieve this result, it was necessary for the most powerful influence on human development to finely tune in minute detail the innate patterns of human thought. Modern minds are colored in their most remote recesses by ways of connecting with the thoughts produced by people at large. It is an inescapable truth of every person's life that their most intimate impulses, those feelings that are most certainly theirs and theirs alone, are shaped and channeled in millions of mysterious ways to augment the functioning of the human information system as a whole.

Each person is a vehicle through which a thinking entity of incomparably greater magnitude and complexity finds expression. The contents of their mind are a unique distillation of the accumulated thoughts and feelings of humanity. Every moment of the day they change and recreate this immense and sophisticated heritage. Whether privately contemplating the universe or selling vegetables in a public market, their thoughts are an expression of that enormously intelligent entity. They carry within them its momentum, augmented by their own contribution as part of it. A person permits its beauty and force to suffuse their life and shine from within themself when they fully engage the minute details of their own individuality. Each and every one is the embodiment and messenger, the present reality and manifestation of the larger functional whole, the light of which shines only from the eyes of one person at a time.

Morality and intelligence necessarily evolved together. The human form of intelligence can function only when individuals find ways to get along with each other. To be successful, each step in the evolution of intelligence had to be accompanied by corresponding changes in cooperation. Biological increases in


individual intelligence and diversity of thought required for their survival innovations in the content of the human information system, the ideas people held about their world. Both kinds of change provided feedback for the other. Changes in individual intelligence and in the kinds of things people thought about altered the ways they decided to cooperate. And the ways they decided to cooperate provided the environment in which new biological changes could take root or not. The process of accepting, reinforcing and using new varieties of thinking was essential to the evolutionary engine which drove the rapid increase in human intelligence. The peculiar kind of increased intelligence that humans developed was useful only in the context of the information system they shared in common. Without growth in the moral content of the human information system, incremental expansions of individual intelligence and diversity of thought would have died out. The meaning and purpose of intelligence and morality are intertwined and complementary to each other, the backbones of an intelligence revolutionary in structure, new in the universe.

Early in human development, the basic mammalian instincts of nurturing and caring for others became insufficient to maintain the cohesiveness of groups of people. Many of the most essential elements of cooperation are not written into human hardware. They were progressively left dependent on the decisions of individuals because the overriding pressure towards greater intelligence of the human information system favored ever greater creativity. The result is unstable, with lots of opportunities for mistakes and disasters, both on a personal level and in the ways large numbers of people organize themselves. This inherent instability is essential to the primary imperative which drives the human information system. The mixture of automatic and discretionary elements of morality is tilted in favor of a radical degree of innovation, for that is the balance that proved through evolutionary time to produce the greatest collective intelligence.

As innate differences among individual humans gradually increased, they faced an increasingly difficult struggle over whether to foster a diversity which was on the one hand often threatening and strange, but on the other the most vital source of their power and survival. Their collective information system was by far their most powerful tool and weapon, the basis of their survival. It would have been dysfunctional for them not to act to protect their most important asset. And they would have had to be peculiarly blind not to recognize it.

If the fundamental truth of human existence were really that of separate individuals competing against each other, then innovative types who were also weak and insecure would not have survived. Stronger individuals would end up squeezing them out one way or another. There would be no purely logical reason to be nice to them, for incremental expansions of the group's mental range would


often appear obnoxious and dysfunctional. The usefulness of the memory of old people and of a few particular talents in unrelated people would be immediately obvious. But the tolerance necessary as an engine of the evolution of intelligence had to go way beyond using others for selfish ends. It had to be subtle and comprehensive enough to include even weird deviants. It had to embrace everyone, without exception, for those individuals born with some new capacity would appear to be different, not superior. Each increment would be too small to effect a noticeable elevation of individual or group prospects. Their peers would be completely unaware that they all were part of a gradual process that would take hundreds of generations, even in periods of great change. Those who were different would have to find acceptance without evidence of their worth. Only if they were tolerated enough to find a mate would they pass on their genes.

For the evolutionary mechanism which resulted in human intelligence to function, it was necessary for individuals to recognize the informational realities of their existence both by direct perception and by finding ways to consciously understand them. Neither would have been sufficient by itself. Over time, the conscious understandings would assume greater importance, but they would not have arisen, and would not have continued to be useful and accepted, if they did not reflect realities that could be seen without explanation. In known historical times, sets of rules have been utilized by most groups to protect the weak and helpless. But such systems cannot explain a mechanism that existed in the early ranges of the evolution of intelligence. Something had to come before, something inherent to the world in which humans evolved.

The immediate ancestors of modern humans must have seen a world in which their personal survival and that of their immediate kin was not the only thing they wanted. They participated in a process in which human intelligence was gradually dispersed among progressively weaker individuals who needed to share thoughts to survive. Direct and accurate perception of the information milieu around them would have been critical to all forms of success and survival. They must have had an awareness of the information content of their environment and seen themselves as part of that context. This primal perception must have been present at the earliest stages of the dispersal of human intelligence, for that is the only perspective from which including every individual would have happened. The impulse to accept everyone had to be strong enough to override internal divisions at the level of immediate perception accessible by every individual. This was only possible because the universe of information from which their minds had evolved was there for them to recognize. Otherwise, an intelligence based on the dispersal of its range of thinking among weak and diverse individuals would not have come into being.


As the growth of intelligence proceeded, the development of concepts of morality, of ways to consciously accept and welcome diversity, became ever more essential. For intelligence to develop beyond the most primitive levels, no form of automatic awareness of the nature of their world could have been enough by itself to power the engine of the growth of intelligence. The enormous intelligence that the human information system has developed derives precisely from the ability of its members to make decisions on their own. Something strong and self-renewing had to arise to make ever higher levels of cooperation possible, something that would last through millennia filled with stress and change.

The intelligence of any group of people inevitably deteriorates without a compelling wider vision to support and inspire the difficult processes of thinking and working together. Such a vision has to include a fairly accurate picture of the informational realities of the universe at large. A focus restricted to people would not be able to overcome the divisions among them. It would not convincingly override illusions of separation and the destruction which comes in their wake. It would not override the tendency to look down on and exclude those who were obviously weaker, or the shallow presumption that the common good depends only on the promotion of the obviously strong. The way is open to either continual war between individuals and groups or a stultifying suppression of all thinking. Both paths reduce all involved to an ever increasing and constricted stupidity. Relying solely on inherited instincts would not work to avert such disaster, because individuals who can make conscious decisions will inevitably make some bad and immoral ones. Simple enforcement of a code is also insufficient. The promotion of creative and diverse thinking requires that people be not only relatively unconstrained but inspired to think. Those societies which best enlist the hearts and minds of all their members increase their intelligence relative to others.

An open awareness of the universal existence of information, and a recognition that it is everywhere the same element as the contents of their minds, is the critical factor which enabled humans to include increasing diversity in their information system. It is what made the basics of morality immediately obvious. People went beyond simply recognizing the utility of sharing thoughts and seeing the immediate presence of information in the eyes of others. By envisioning a much larger informational reality, they included all individuals within it, without exception. It does not matter that such ideas usually included a measure of pure belief unsubstantiated by modern standards of evidence. The functional importance of religious beliefs, as will be explored in the next chapter, is that they all envision a greater reality tied together by an immense informational network of overriding importance. Over and over, through generations and across cultures,


the pattern is repeated. However it was phrased, the functionally necessary aspect of what they saw and understood was that people's lives exist only as elements of information systems larger than themselves. Such ideas, by inspiring everyone to overcome differences, help each other and join their thoughts together, are essential building blocks of intelligence. Modern humans are the descendants of those who increased the intelligence of their communities, making them strong enough to survive the tests of nature.

The origin of intelligence lies today, as it always has, in decisions made in individual lives. The most important aspect of each person, their individuality, has present value and long-term importance only as part of the human information system. It is the membership in that system of each and every human, without exception, that gives meaning to morality. The purpose of morality is to increase the intelligence of the human information system.

All the great variety of people are needed to make the human system of thought comprehensive and creative as a whole. Every person relies on all the others, both for their survival and for the integrity of their own mind. With each generation, a multitude of unique individuals come forth to make this beautiful design flower anew. Together, their purpose is to wonder and speculate, create and explore, seek truth and solve the riddles of the universe.

Chapter 4

RELIGION AND THE EXISTENCE OF INFORMATION

Alfred doesn't worry about whether he will live forever or wonder whether he

is part of a larger spiritual world. He wouldn't understand why ancient Egyptians mummified his ancestors. And he doesn't need a set of rules to guide his relations with other cats. Instinct and practicality are enough.

Human beings perceive directly, without any explanation, theory or religion, that they are parts of the human informational milieu. It is obvious in millions of unexpected moments in which an individual finds themself uncontrollably and inexplicably enraptured by the expressions of another person's mind. The illusion of separateness might unconsciously dissolve when encountering a song or a wayward glance, an ingenious machine or a football pass. It is the recognition of informational connection which inspires the look in a lover's eye, the visceral reaction to a baby's cry, and the giddy feeling of a moving world when some work of art gets under the skin. Most people do not need complicated reasons to see grossly immoral acts as just plain wrong. Who has not been overwhelmed by the utter cuteness of a little child?

To make sense of their everyday lives people assume the reality of information. They regard dreams, ideas, emotions, the internet, an old story, and the sudden recognition of a friend as central and important components of their lives, not ephemeral sideshows. The pain of a finger cut is as real as the wound. In its thousands of tiny details, their daily life is focused on information. In order to function, people must behave as though it is real.

For humans as a whole, some way of consciously understanding that their minds do not stand alone is an essential element of their existence, as necessary for their survival as any set of physical body parts. It is an intelligent insight on


the part of any individual. And it is absolutely essential for the growth of the human form of intelligence.

Functionally, people are connected with each other by innumerable strands of information. Their survival and welfare depend directly on the vast intelligence of their collective mind, which exists only because the thoughts and feelings of different individuals mingle incessantly with each other. The complexities of the human information system are far beyond the grasp of any individual person. But simply describing the routes that information travels does not reveal its importance in people's lives.

The contents of human minds are an integral part of nature because the information of which they consist exists everywhere as one of the basic elements of the universe. Information exists throughout the universe in many guises, of which a thinking, self-aware intelligence is only one. The human information system is an extension of a much larger phenomenon.

At its heart, the nature of information is mysterious. There may or may not be intent or awareness behind the design of the universe or within it. If information has what may be termed intent on the largest scale it may be cold, hot, indifferent or friendly. The answers to such questions do not alter the fact that information is to be found woven into every corner of the fabric of reality. The way humans express their wonderment at the unknowable mysteriousness of the information universe they live in has been through religion. The functionally important feature of religions is that they incorporate the dimension of information in their world-view of what is real.

For millennia, religions have been essential to the success of human societies. The fundamental religious insight serves as a functional and inspirational corrective to the mistake of imagining individual people to be simply separate and alone physical entities. The many religions of the world all act through the instrument of belief to place the conscious, decision-making minds of people in the context of a larger view of reality and to broaden each individual's perception of their own identity beyond the limits of their physical existence. Truly accepting a religious belief entails a recognition that the apparent separateness and independence of individuals on earth is an illusion. Humans are understood to be something greater than separate and alone entities that make expedient compromises to survive nasty, short and brutish lives.

Religious belief defines individual people as entities which are connected both to each other and to a larger reality by the existence of a supernatural world of the spirit. The spiritual world has an informational content which runs throughout all of the apparently real world, linking people in a common fate with a common unseen life. Individual people are intimately connected to each other

Religion and the Existence of Information 35

by their existence in an overriding, non-material world which is regarded as more important than physical realities.

Each person is understood to have a soul, which is the unseen actor that does the thinking and feels the feelings of a person. But a soul isn't something that just free-floats in space, wandering forever alone and adrift. Whatever else it may be thought to consist of, at its heart the concept of a soul is a concept of an information entity. It consists of awareness, thoughts and feelings, all of which are information. And it has the same kind of boundaries: one that are points of connection instead of separation. Each unique package of thoughts and feelings is linked with other souls and mystical entities and has effects on an after or future life. Souls are not independent, they are information entities intimately connected with a greater spiritual world.

In ways that differ with each faith, religion provides a structure that makes sense out of what all too often seems to be the random senselessness of life. Through belief, people perceive that their minds are in fact linked with each other and with a larger fate, that their lives are not separate, alone, and absurd. They get positive inspiration to add their creative thoughts to the world they see with their new vision. Once the identity and purposes of that greater reality become their own, their life takes on a new kind of vitality and dignity.

By giving people a way of understanding that information exists independently of their own minds, religions adjust their image of the nature of the world in the direction of greater accuracy. Belief in a spiritual side to reality places individuals in the midst of a vast informational milieu. It is obvious then that they are not the center of the universe. Life and thought exist beyond their small orbit and after their death. They cannot delude themself with the notion that unwitnessed events don't exist, that their own consciousness provides the only stamp of truth. They cannot escape being a part of a reality that is immeasurably greater than any individual.

The observation that the innermost identities of people are interconnected here and now with the earthly, temporal world of information need not detract from beliefs in other, unknowable or unprovable connections. A clear vision of the way in which minds work, and of the existence of information in the universe, by itself says nothing at all about whether or not there might be outside influences on humankind. Understanding each individual to be inescapably part of a mental whole might be taken by an atheist as evidence that mystical elements are superfluous to explain reality. It might just as well be taken by a theist as earthly conformance to a divine pattern.

Religions have always had the basics right. Humans do indeed live in a world in which they are enveloped by a compelling information landscape. And their


relation to the information that is not an immediate part of the human thinking system is vital to the functioning and development of that system. From an individual's point of view, their life is lived in the world at large. Other people are a subset of the reality they confront. A person can see their personal boundaries as either informational, ones of connection, or physical, ones of separation. Their ties with other people will inevitably be influenced by their feelings of connection with the world at large. If they acquire a picture of reality lacking its informational component, they embark on a road leading to a cheapened life, either through a conscious extension of logic or a gradual corruption of their feelings. They risk creating for themself an illusion of separateness, in which their own personal life appears to be essentially a separate thing. This is a disaster for the individual, who squeezes their own life into a confined and unintelligent corner. It also cheapens the lives of all around them, who are deprived of a part of their own mind. Finding some way to understand their lives in the informational context of reality is necessary for both individual happiness and collective intelligence.

When every individual is seen as being an active and indispensable part of a mind incomparably vast, when every thought and feeling a person has is understood as both a small part of and an important contribution to the immense intelligence and beauty of humanity, then each person and every thought comes to be graced with the dignity and responsibility that accrue to the human enterprise as a whole. This is true whether that larger world is understood in terms of a religious scheme populated by a host of deities, a universalistic conception of mystical unity, or an earthly recognition of the great onrushing stream of human thought, of the immense mental unit of which the mind of every person is an integral part.

Since the religious act of belief defines an individual's life as part of a larger spiritual world that includes all other people as well as the universe at large, their relations with them take on a new meaning. Moral values become grounded in spiritual, not material realities. The unseen world has as its focus the thoughts and actions of people on earth. It provides strict sanctions for those who choose to act in ways contrary to its overriding order. But more important is the inspired recognition that all individuals are linked together in a common spiritual whole. From the point of view of this insight, an individual is totally sincere in wishing others well. Harming others is as senseless as harming themself. To a believer, the spiritual side of reality is just as real as anything in the physical world. It illuminates an inescapable landscape in which the decision to treat others well appears to be just as obvious, and is made on the same uncomplicated basis, as a decision not to step off a cliff.

Religion and the Existence of Information 37

At its best, any system of belief motivates people to behave morally not because they have to or ought to, but because their vision has been cleared of illusion so they see in the eyes of other people the light of the human information system, the highest expression of intelligence of the information that permeates the universe. This ongoing experience elevates their life to a higher plane of importance and worth. Their thoughts and feelings are valuable as part of something immense and grand, beyond the grasp of any individual, yet immediately accessible in a passing smile. Having seen this, it becomes obvious that moral behavior applies to everyone equally. It is not the kind of thing that can be avoided or shirked, nor is it an order, a bargain or a compromise. It is an expression of a deep alignment of an individual with the real nature of the information landscape they live within.

Chapter 5

LOVE AND HATE AND THE IMITATION OF LIFE

Alfred is content to live in his information puddle. He doesn't stray from the

territory he has marked out for himself, touring it for live excitement and coming inside for canned delights. His affection for the people within his mental orbit is quite genuine. The warmth of feeling we share has common elements, cat and human. Just like a person, he is an individual, conscious entity. He is aware and alive, he thinks, feels, desires and eventually dies. But Alfred cannot imagine the kind of relationships people have with each other. This is not just because the sheer amount and complexity of information that passes between two people is beyond kittycat experience and abilities.

Relationships among people have different meanings than they would if they were simply independent agents like cats because they take place within the context of the human information system. Responsibility, duty, loyalty, fairness, honesty, sacrifice, family, and personal as well as universal love, describe pathways along which people's minds are most intimately linked with each other. They are not just obligations, debts to be paid, expedient ways of pacifying neighbors. They are much more than arbitrary constructions which enable separate individuals to keep their foreign relations in a functional balance. The depth and honesty of an individual's relations with other people give substance and meaning to their existence as elements of the great onrushing stream of human information. The bonds which connect people most closely with each other are formed of the substance most important in human life. They are the bedrock of human existence, the basic building blocks of the larger information system that they together comprise. By cementing people together in a passionate way, they form the indispensable foundation for the interactions which are the source of all human intelligence


The many varieties of love and beauty are the closest possible connections between an individual and the world they live in. Love for a particular person and the perception of something as beautiful are experiences of immediate and total immersion in the reality of the wider information world. They totally eclipse illusions of separateness with an overwhelming knowledge of a greater reality.

The love of one person for another is a necessary and integral component of human intelligence. Love is not an irrelevant artifact, an atavistic leftover from a more primitive tribalism, or a simple by-product of reproductive necessity. It is the full flowering of characteristics inherent in everyone's nature that are essential to the survival and intelligence of humanity. It is the starting point from which the thoughts and feelings of daily life are built into a coherent system. All other relations among people are extensions of those that are closest and firmest in nature. Any consideration of what constitutes right and wrong must first come to terms with what it means to truly love another member of the most intelligent kind of information system ever to arise.

The flood of information which is love awakens the individual to the immediate presence of the element most important to their existence. In an instant the substance of the human information system becomes undeniable. People are joined with another by bonds invisible yet strong and every bit as real as a physical heart. The intensity of those bonds between people in love is one of the most powerful forces in nature.

The mystery and magic of love and beauty are wrapped up with the mystery and magic of individuality, for each makes no sense without the other. Experiences of love and beauty are the fullest, most intimate expressions of the individuality of a person. Love is only real when the furthest corners of their mind, nuances far beyond conscious control, become linked with some particular person, idea or thing which enraptures them. Since all those tiny tendrils of thought and feeling are different for each person, every instant of love is forever unique. Only when they are in love do people realize the true meaning and potential of the individuality of their minds, for without that vital connection their idiosyncrasies are dysfunctional, unintelligent and absurd. When individual people open their heart to love, their limitations become the source of the most intricate, full and deep intelligence in the universe.

Love necessitates a leap in openness and honesty in which a person makes a heartfelt admittance of their own incompleteness. Their own limited nature lies exposed, both to themself and another. The imperfections of the one under whose spell they have fallen hold a mirror to their own. In the light of immediate connection with an element of the vast totality of human thought, its component parts shine with individuality, not wholeness.

Love and Hate and the Imitation of Life 41

Every love song for one person sings of love for everyone else as well. Those they love the most are the essential real life conduit through which a person becomes more closely linked with all other people. The individuality that makes every love special also connects them with all other people. A close association with one particular mind is not an isolated episode. It is through the individuals they know that people are connected, one at a time, into the vast sea of thoughts which surrounds them. Every relationship has at its heart a flow of information with a unique flavor and intensity. The experience of loving people in general consists of savoring the individuality of each one and thereby acknowledging the reality of being a living part of the functioning system of thoughts of people as a whole. Every such connection is a vital extension of an individual's mind, drawing it out to a dedication to a wider world and including it in a deeper kind of intelligence.

Distance between people is something that is created by them, not inherent in their nature. As mental entities, the distance between them is measurable not in miles but in acts of destroying and corrupting communication. Their larger mind is dismembered by lies.

The apparent boundaries between people are points of connection not separation, because their most essential reality consists of information, not physical objects. Every honest communication establishes a relationship of no distance. Two words and half a smile are enough to join information systems, no matter how deep their collaboration may be. Information exchanged mingles with the entire contents of both minds. They do not need to somehow merge or fully understand each other. The mind of every person is a vast field that can never be fully apprehended by any other. The limitations on the amount and kind of ideas that can be communicated are a function not of distance between people but of the enormity and majesty of the mental entity they together comprise.

Everyone has a personal stake in the quality of the pool of information of which their mental life is a part. Cutting the avenues of thought by decreasing the amount and kinds of communications between people or by poisoning ideas with falsehoods stops the process of thinking. This results in a radical decrease in the intelligence not only of people as a whole but of the individual perpetrator themself. The person who attempts to gain various advantages over others by means of deception has a measurable chance of fooling them, but suffers a huge and immeasurable decrease in their own intelligence by disconnecting their mind from the larger part of it. By establishing an identity for themself as separate from others, an individual achieves only an excommunication from their own mind, from the reality of their own larger identity.


Hatred is denial of the connections that naturally join people together. Its inner substance is always a vacuum, the absence of relation, love and beauty. Indifference is not a natural state. It can only be achieved through destruction and denial. No matter what happens in a person's life, no matter how nasty people are to each other, the fundamental facts of human existence do not change. Each individual is primarily an information entity whose existence is integrated into the most beautiful and complex life form in nature. Every thought and feeling shares content with the vast swirl of thoughts that encompasses all people everywhere. In their most important and necessary aspects, people add to each other's existence. They are by nature not opposed and separate, but complementary elements of a common identity. When this reality is denied or run away from, an emptiness grows in every corner of a person's thoughts and feelings as they exclude themself from the greatest part of the human mind. Hatred is a silent cancer, the most potent destroyer of intelligence.

The feeling of rage is just one of the surface forms of hate, which does its dirty work behind the scenes. Rage most often arises as a reaction to offenses, real or perceived. While attention turns noisily to the immediate source of injury, an insidious pattern of thought gains a chance to grow. One instance has arisen which seems to justify separation. Strife breaks the bonds of affection, honesty, responsibility, loyalty and friendship which once were accepted, openly or implicitly. If allowed to fester and spread, the sense of disconnection can infect the whole range of ways in which a person recognizes the nature of their world. A welcoming smile no longer lifts the spirits, birds no longer sing and flowers fade to gray. The person's sense of themself becomes hollowed out, connections to their emotions rendered senseless. Antipathy to someone else ends up flooding and extinguishing the most private, inner flames of love for life itself. Rage is the foam on the deep wave of hatred, which is very quiet, seductive and sneaky in nature.

An insidious form of hatred arises from a conscious assumption that people are basically separate from each other. This seemingly obvious and abstract conception of the kind of thing people are deeply affects the character and direction of an individual's personal identity. Once a person envisions themself as being in essence an isolated creature instead of being with others part of something larger, they set forth on a treacherous journey. The temptation to make comparisons between their own worth and that of others begins to look like merely a benign, logical and practical response to reality. It can seem so pleasant to float away on the islands of pride, superiority, and exclusivity. The ugliness of the falsehoods and lies which create distance between people comes to be disguised by a casual familiarity. Truth is the first casualty of hatred. But this

Love and Hate and the Imitation of Life 43

corruption most often appears to be just normal and logical, an expedient response to what is seen to be the cold, abstract underlying truth of separateness. As little chips are taken out, one by one, from the integrity of their thoughts, as the reality of connection quietly slips away, the person who has begun to hate does not realize it, because what they are doing is so ordinary and in many times and places very acceptable. It is only later that a person might recognize that they are overwhelmed by overtly negative feelings toward others. By then it is much too late.

For an individual or group of people to see themselves as an entity separate from others, their identity must be defined to some degree in negative terms of who they are not. Once the foot of negative self-identification is in the door, it begins very steadily to take over. The elements of an identity that can be derived from negative comparisons with others are usually seductively pleasing, appearing to compliment the separate and distinct image of a person or group, while avoiding the hard questions posed by a complex reality. They have a distracting tendency to gradually dominate a person's thoughts through a simple repetition that leaves no time to think anything else. Once people begin to repeat over and over the litany of those kinds of people they are not, they have started down a slippery and often popular road into a world of illusion. As they come to see themselves as not poor, not rich, not black, not white, not Jewish, not fascist, not communist, not bourgeois, not crazy, not stupid, not a nerd, not French, not Japanese, not female, not male, not a million other kinds of odious or ridiculous persons, the spotlight is turned away from all the warts and awkwardnesses that characterize their own and every other human life. The resulting picture is much prettier. They are violent, we are not them, therefore we are peaceful. They are lazy, we are not them, therefore we are hard working. All people are covered with millions of germs, but whiling away the hours pointing at those who look dirtier makes anyone feel clean. The torrent of negativism overwhelms with its repetitions and its ridicule any suggestion that all people are wrapped up in a common fate, that they are parts of each other's lives, that they are their brother's keepers.

When hatred comes to infuse a person's life, at first it makes them feel good instead of bad. It is a way of building a sense of identity which is comfortingly simplistic, clear and purposeful, distracting attention from both the personal imperfections and the imminent demise that confront every human being. Hating and despising other people gives that warm, fuzzy feeling of being unblemished by the most uncomfortable kinds of reality.

The underlying premise of hatred is a definition of love as something which does not exist. Hatred induces a peculiar blindness, the world seen backwards


through a mirror that removes all sense. The person who hates cannot see love. They become convinced that everyone else either hates as much as they do, or is simply a fool. The absence of connection, the void to which they are in thrall, becomes reality.

The greatest price to be paid for the appalling mistake that is hatred comes due to those who hate, not to the objects of their antipathy. Hatred is counter intelligent for people as a whole, but most especially for those whose minds are in thrall to its destructive malevolence. By hating others a person creates, widens and makes permanent a vast chasm that cuts their own mind into two parts. They choose to isolate their life on the side that is incomparably smaller. To the degree that their relationships with other people are characterized by the short-sightedness that is deceit, the individual is cut off from the larger part of their mind, isolated, entrapped, impotent and unintelligent. Their self-imposed mental divide reaches deep within the private thoughts of those who hate, cauterizing the multitude of fine mental tendrils which are naturally designed to seek connection with others and the world around. This results in the greatest of punishments, the solitary confinement of those who hate inside the most secure fortress of all, the one they build for themselves. There can be no inner peace for those who hate. They lead an imitation of life. The only escape is through a leap in both imagination and faith.

The exhortation that people should love their neighbors as themselves, far from being a call to self-sacrifice, is a plea to wake up to the real nature of the world. Love, both universal and particular, appears when people allow the illusion of boundaries between them to dissolve. This original perception opens up a person to seeing the differences between people not as an imposition, but as a source of delight, to viewing the utter individuality of human beings as a never-ending source of interest and adventure. It is the wonderful experience of opening up to witness the brilliance of love in the sight of every person which makes the choice to love the same as the choice to live, its existence everywhere as palpable and obvious as the ground on which we walk.

Chapter 6

THE UTILITY OF RATIONALITY, ART AND HUMOR

Alfred likes to play, chasing string or batting at my pen under a door. Every

once in a while he turns into crazycat, zooming madly up and down trees with his fur all puffed up. Such entertainment takes place in the small world immediately surrounding his fuzzy head. Alfred's play is patterned after the solitary hunting activities which are central to his survival. Some human play is similar to that of a cat. But most of it by far is focused on the inner workings of the greater information system they are part of. They find themselves drawn to activities which join their minds together, instinctively fascinated by the endless permutations of thought they are immersed in.

Rational thinking is one of the most effective tools of the collective human mind. Many problems can be solved by thinking in ways that most people consider logical. The patterns of human reason conform closely to the physical realities people confront because they have been shaped by the necessity of figuring out how to survive. The simplest application of rational thought, direct problem solving by individuals, is not the most important. The real potency of rational thinking is embedded in the pattern common to everyone's innate logical tendencies. Among humans, the power of reason used as a collective tool is far greater than the sum of their separate abilities.

Rationality is inherent to the functional evolutionary thinking unit, not its constituent parts. It is a process which derives its special potency from the fact that no individual is by themself possessed of an entirely rational vision. The essential innovation of the functional information system of people as a whole is to be composed of minds that are diverse to such a degree that each is incomplete. That diversity provides built-in structural creativity which greatly augments and


reinforces individual impulses. People can share, build and store knowledge that they come to agree is worthwhile. The gradual construction of methods and standards of collective inquiry has been extraordinarily fruitful. The results provide elegant testimony to the power of human minds adding thoughts together.

On the surface, solutions to the problems of life give the appearance of being traceable to the simple and direct application of reason. The genesis of ideas can be followed in logical progression through an individual's mind, among their acquaintances and contemporaries, and back through generations. However, logic is not the source of those achievements all by itself. Rational thought has many irrational and purely personal inputs. It relies on them, drawing from the entire pool of people's thoughts and feelings to distill useful and provable ideas. Evolutionary pressure would have produced a race of humorless, unidimensional, purely goal-oriented go-getters if such a group were really smarter.

The emotions that people feel in their relationships with others are an essential component of intelligent thinking. They are one of the many non-logical modes of thought that people are capable of, which expand the reach of their minds. For an individual, emotions can serve to spur and tie together various mental processes. But their importance as elements of thought goes far beyond individual inspiration. Emotions play a major role in binding people to each other, in inspiring them to want to mingle their thoughts together. The fact that emotions can produce great devastation when they malfunction is testament to their great power and importance in human life, not their inherently evil or counter-intelligent nature. By tying differing individuals to each other in such a strong manner, they perform a service that is indispensable to the growth of intelligence among people as a whole.

The intelligence of the human information system derives from the way it functions as a whole thinking unit. It relies on a wide range of attributes which tie people together and give them creative urgency. Art, humor and emotion infuse rational thought with new ideas. Non-rational sorts of thinking and feeling are fully integrated into the process of producing logical ideas, both within individual minds and in communication among them. They have the further necessary function of providing motivations for people to mix thoughts together and live peacefully. Intelligence on the vast scale humans have created requires much more than dry computational efficiency.

Their utility for the production of logical ideas is not the sole reason for the existence of non-rational modes of thought. The purpose of intelligence is greater than simply the production of rational output. Each person has just one chance to contribute, one life to live. The fullness of each life is at the same time the

The Utility of Rationality, Art and Humor 47

purpose of human intelligence and the source of it. The human information system has a present reality that exists for its own sake.

The impulse which propels individuals into the embrace of each other's minds is natural and inescapable, vital to intelligence, and the wellspring of morality and beauty. Whether their fancy is captured by sports, dance, movies, sex, politics, gossip, writing, fashion, music, or collecting little porcelain elephants, they accept the existence of such interests as natural. People go out of their way to engage in music, painting, sculpture and story telling. They employ a wide range of gesture, style, intonation and expression. They add an extra dimension of communication to their crafts, clothes and buildings. Such activities are not superfluous fluff. They are principal areas in which people seek both pleasure and fulfillment. They form essential components of the collective intelligence, stretching and joining people's minds together in ways far more varied and complex than simple logic and language.

A healthy information milieu filled with diverse, personalized modes of connection invigorates every person's life. Each one will find, in ways peculiar to themself, a different set of things beautiful, wonderful or excellent, for their minds are all unique. They need to be inspired to participate more fully in life by footprints left by particular other people. A million tiny tendrils of suggestion await to infuse each person in an individual way with intimations of the wonderfulness of living as part of a wider world.

Every time a person makes an effort to do something well, they impart an extra dimension of communication along with the quality they add. The concept of excellence always refers to a context wider than individual experience or expediency, whether crafting a door or a song, baking a cake or playing basketball. The entire field of past attempts informs how well it is done and whether it is something new. By their attempt at excellence, a person extends themself into that wider informational milieu and becomes more fully part of it. They give of their individuality to all who encounter what they have done. Embedded in their efforts are individualized messages of care for what they do, for life and other people. It doesn't matter if a person's motivations were confused, mixed with self-promotion, or even have a net destructive impact. Attention to the content of doing something is always an example of connection with the functioning system of thoughts of people as a whole.

A true encounter with beauty found in an automobile or garden, an ingenious formula or a heartfelt song lifts a person into true, intimate connection with the intelligence of the vast thinking entity that is the collective human mind. The illusion of separation and aloneness is forgotten in the glow of the immediate presence of the wider world. Such experiences gain a magical quality from the


thrill of being part of an information universe whose ultimate purpose and extent lies far beyond individual comprehension. They are a large part of what makes individual lives fulfilling and worthwhile. They are the true source of the desire for excellence, for the creative urgency which drives individuals towards greater intelligence.

Although the vast bulk of non-rational communications take place in the routines of daily life, the functional human information system has need of much more. Music, painting, dance, sculpture, and theater are essential elements of the thought process. A song or a story can motivate people to share their ideas and live peacefully. Impressions from a painting become woven into the thought process as a whole, influencing ruminations on a math problem or the way to build a house. The rhythm of a dance can overflow into the progress of a negotiation. Far from being trivial, entertainment is necessary for the generation of the ideas which make survival possible.

In addition to direct supports for rational thinking, artistic endeavors serve the vital function of building human thoughts into a vibrant, active whole. They motivate individuals to live fuller lives, to love and engage with others. They provide direct experiences which show that the larger information entity is real by invading the deepest crevices of a person's mind with wider connections. They make life interesting and worthwhile in the immediate present. They fill out the purpose of intelligence, which is more than just an adjunct of physical survival. The mental system that people together comprise is an entity unto itself. Value and meaning are inherent in every instant of its existence, just as they are in the life of every individual member of it.

The enormous destruction that can be wrought through non-rational modes of thought and communication is testimony to their central importance and power. The greatest source of fighting among individuals is not logical dispute but some souring of the emotional component of daily life. Artistic endeavors are repulsive and ugly when directed at the promotion of hatred, at widening the vacuum that can grow between people. The only reason such destructive potential exists is because the enormous creative power of artistic forms of thinking is a critically essential element of intelligent thinking by people as a whole. The functioning of the collective human mind relies on individual people finding ways to fill their lives and efforts with love instead of hate.

The essence of humor is an instantaneous recognition of the incongruous fate all individuals share as parts of a larger information system. Laughter is a generous impulse which joins those who laugh in sympathy with others as they encounter the many surprising trivial misfortunes that add color to everyone's life. People like things that are silly, ridiculous and simple not because individuals are

The Utility of Rationality, Art and Humor 49

stupid but because enjoying such simple pastimes provides an occasion to laugh together at the limited nature of everyone's existence.

The partial and quirky nature of every person's mind not only forms the basis of the overall intelligence of people as a whole, it also involves each one in an unending stream of awkward circumstances. By themself, no individual can have more than a tenuous control over their environment and an incomplete grasp on what is going on. The limited nature of their mind leads them inevitably into thinking and doing things that are ridiculous and incongruous. At the same time, they cannot escape an awareness of the vast, complete and comprehensive intelligence they are part of. Everyone can imagine the possibility of not making silly mistakes but is condemned to be forever unable to avoid them. It is the flash of recognition that this fate is shared by everyone which tickles the funny bone.

Humor provides a way to cut through logical impasses. The spontaneous recognition and delight in contradictions is itself an important thinking tool, a way to break free from the stranglehold of past logic. Being willing and able to laugh is an invaluable adjunct to rational thought and communication in the solution of problems.

Nasty, hateful humor is generated by a fundamental mistake in the definition of what people are. Identifying people as separate entities leads logically to belittling others for the purpose of advancing oneself. This defines and widens the mental distance between people, isolating them and decreasing the intelligence of everyone. As in every manifestation of hatred, the real losers are those who hate.

The cutting cruelty that can accompany ridicule is not testimony to the essentially destructive nature of humor but to its importance and raw power. In practice, the distinction between positive and negative humor can be subtle. The recognition of an undertone of welcome or menace in a passing joke must delve deeply into the mental orientation of the other person. They are either including the object of their jest in a fate they share, or excluding them from some imagined exclusive circle. Humor teases this distinction in all the details of daily life. It forces everyone involved into the sometimes uncomfortable position of making an instantaneous decision about the character of their immediate relationships.

Once an individual breaks free from the illusion of separateness, even for an instant, they become open to an intuitive flash of recognition that the incongruous nature of events is an essential element of togetherness. They are able to see the welcoming warmth and good feeling in another's laughing eyes. They can erupt in genuine heartfelt laughter, a powerful reaffirmation that everyone involved knows for certain that they are not at war, but together parts of something larger.

Chapter 7

THE INTERDEPENDENCE OF FREEDOM AND EQUALITY

For Alfred, freedom means being able to go out anytime, lots of new places to

take a nap and a ready supply of food. It has nothing to do with his relationships. When he interacts with other cats or people the interchange is simple, one on one. Twenty cats sunning themselves in a barnyard never become anything more than twenty information puddles. They don't need each other's minds to lead their lives. Alfred's mind is competent and complete all by itself.

Unlike Alfred, people depend on their access to the collective human mind to figure out how to survive. Their daily life is focused on their relationships with particular individuals and with the thoughts generated by the wider society they live in. They cannot escape the often difficult truth that everything that happens in their lives depends in some way on what others decide to do. For them, the concepts of freedom and equality have meaning only within the context of their relationship with the human information system as a whole. A person cannot be free all by themself.

As long as individuals are regarded as being merely separate and distinct creatures, the ideas of freedom and equality will seem to work in opposing directions. The solution to the apparently conflicting goals of these ideals can then be only an uninspiring compromise, in which a little less freedom will buy a little more equality. If people are allowed to do anything they want, they will not live equal lives or have an equal amount of things. The only way to make sure they share equally is to constrain their freedom. This makes perfect sense if people are seen to be analogous to billiard balls. Then equality consists of weighing the same, being just as smooth, and taking up the same amount of space on the table.


And eliminating the other balls on the table greatly increases the freedom to roll around.

But people are unlike billiard balls in that their principal feature is a mind whose content is inseparable from a much larger functioning mental system. Freedom and equality have totally different meanings for parts of an information system than they do for distinct physical entities. Equality among humans does not derive from comparing them with each other. Allowing people to do different things in their lives is just as much an expression of equality as it is of freedom. And throwing away the other people acts not to increase the freedom of an individual, but to radically decrease it.

Once the beings that are regarded as having freedom and equality are seen as informational instead of physical entities, it becomes apparent that these two ideals do not conflict. They gain entirely new definitions which are intimately entwined, each depending on the other for its meaning and its power. Together they describe a way for people's minds to interact with each other that ties morality and truthfulness closely to the pursuit of a greater intelligence.

Freedom for a person is living actively in their information environment. It is a journey in the pursuit of thoughts, feelings and actions which increase the intelligence of the human information system as a whole. The field in which a person's freedom exists is the information landscape around and within them. To become more free they must both expand the available area and improve their willingness and ability to participate in it. For humans, by far the largest part of their information field consists of their own and other people's thoughts and feelings, the vast panorama behind every word and smile. That field is the mental system that they together comprise, which is by design more intelligent when all its constituent elements are actively thinking, each in their own inimitable way. When people are inventing and pursuing their own goals, their individuality is most fully expressed. At every turn, those choices which truly expand an individual's life and lead to a greater personal freedom are those which increase the general intelligence they are a part of.

Freedom has physical expressions and constraints, for much of what people think about and do is in that dimension. But freedom itself takes place in the decisions which lie behind physical actions. It is a characteristic of the relationship of an individual with the functioning system of thoughts of people as a whole. People remain in chains to the degree that they are unable to move around within the mental world that connects them with everyone else, thinking and acting within a context of other people.

Far from being a destination or a simple release from constraints, freedom is a process which can never end. By the pursuit of freedom, people bring their minds

The Interdependence of Freedom and Equality 53

and lives into ever greater alignment with the fundamental design of the human information system. The functional intelligence of that entity results only from unleashing the innate individuality of its parts. The creative key to that larger intelligence is the incompleteness of vision inherent in human individuality. As people turn on their minds, they empower themselves to make mistakes. There are many missteps to be made which constrict a person's life and reduce the intelligence around them. They can make a wide variety of choices which smother their own individuality. And they can think and act in ways which restrict the range of thought and motion of other people. All they can do is try their best. The diversity of thought which is the source of intelligence carries with it the burden that perfection in their affairs is something humans are not designed to achieve. There can be no end in sight, no perfectly free individual or society. What is stopped is no longer intelligent.

Freedom has meaning only if it describes the entire context in which a person's thoughts and feelings are generated. It is a journey taken together, by both an individual and the world they live in. Its course is determined for every person by more than their willingness to dream up and pursue their own goals. Personal objectives will end up isolating and constricting a person's life unless they are designed to harmonize with and expand their context. Every journey in the direction of freedom is one of movement by the individual and their world together.

In order to make choices which free instead of constrict their individuality, each person must face the reality that they cannot choose whether they will be a member of the mental milieu in which they live, only what part they will play. The first step on a road to freedom begins within an individual's mind, with a perception of the reality that their own thoughts are produced by an entity greater than themself. Every thought and feeling is original, since they all bear the imprint of a unique and inimitable individual. Yet no thought has a content which is untouched or pristine. Even the most fleeting impression and the tiniest idea are infused with bits of information from the field of thought created by all people together. Whether living alone in a wilderness cabin or selling groceries on a city street, every action, design, wish and fancy grows out of that larger body of thoughts, not simply those encased in one head alone. The opportunity to become more free opens up with the recognition and acceptance of the presence of the collective human mind as it confronts every person in its mysterious enormity all day long, in every pair of eyes they meet, in every breath of fresh air, in every note of a song they remember, in every fleeting bit of whimsy only they could have come up with. Every thought and feeling then becomes a door to a wider world, an vehicle of expansion, growth and endless possibilities, loaded at every


turn with millions of connections out into the vastness of the human information milieu and the universe at large.

It is their relationship with the human information system as a whole which is the same for everyone, because the characteristic they all share equally is the uniqueness of their mind. People are not equal in the sense that they have an identical measure of something inside them. Human equality is based on the fact that every individual mind is different, not the same. Individuals are all, without exception, very small and limited in comparison with the vast and largely unknowable mental system that their minds are parts of. They all have an equal inherent importance to that greater intelligence. They are all equally dependent on the viability of the system as a whole for their happiness and their survival. And they all equally improve the quality of their life when they decide to be a free person and take on the heavy burden of responsibility which that entails. This fundamental equality is a far more important factor than how anyone ranks on any scale, both in creating the intelligence they all share and in enlightening the character of every individual's personal life.

The wholeness of thought and creativity of the human information system arise from an intermingling of thoughts and feelings that is fundamentally mysterious. The origins of this intelligence lie not in the quantity of any one kind of thinking, but in the diversity of them, in a multitude of different kinds of thought interconnected along millions of pathways. The amount of diversity is dependent on people who are able and willing to volunteer to use their minds in their own particular way. The uniqueness which characterizes every individual human mind is the source of the variety that can make the mental system they are all a part of so intelligent.

It is because every person is an essential part of the vast panorama of the human mind that they all have an equal responsibility to make their contribution. People create a working, thinking entity that is intelligent and free only to the extent that they all participate. To be free, an individual must not only volunteer to turn on their mind. They must also participate in the larger spheres of decision-making around them and work to ensure the continuing equality of others. Their obligation to the larger information entity is not a sacrifice. Freedom for an individual has no meaning without reference to the other people whose thoughts and actions comprise the context in which they live. It is not possible for a sharp line to exist dividing the thoughts of one person from another. To be free, they must give up the illusion of isolation for the reality of belonging to a larger informational whole.

The linchpin which holds freedom and equality together is respect for the independent validity of ideas. Equality is a necessary component of freedom


because it determines the relationship between an individual and the content of their thoughts. Only if everyone has an equal relation to them can ideas have a truth that is independent of who thought them up or supports them. Only to the degree that everyone is free to contribute does human thought access the wholeness which enables their ideas to more accurately reflect the realities of their world. It is the ongoing pursuit of the best ideas and the most genuine feelings which channels human activity into free patterns and opens individuals to their inherent equality. Attempts to find ideas that are true to fact and which enhance the integrity of larger systems of thought are what bind diverse individuals together in the expensive project that is freedom. A person is only free to move within the field of thought they are immersed in to the degree that it has integrity.

The freedom and intelligence of everyone else is lessened as soon as any person is made less than equal either by the actions of others or by their own refusal to assume responsibility for the integrity of their thoughts. The damage caused is much greater than just the loss of one particular mind. The exclusion of anyone causes a deep corruption of the information milieu everyone lives in. The quality of the thinking that does go on is cheapened by its bias away from a search for truth towards defending a transient exclusivity. The people who do the excluding suffer a steep decline in their own freedom, in the quality as well as the breadth of their own intelligence. In order for them to be free, for their thoughts to be truly free and independent, their conception of human equality must be universal.

It is the attempt to keep the truth of ideas independent which transforms the contents of human minds from being the most potent club with which people can beat each other into their most constructive attribute. As ideas come to be regarded as something that should be free to move forever in the direction of truth, they become a great common ground which people share. Developing and accepting rules about what is factual enables people to put their thoughts together, forming a more intelligent thinking entity directed at particular problems. An individual who makes a commitment to the path of freedom is engaged in a process of integrating their own thoughts and feelings into the huge body of thoughts that all humans together produce.

When the truth of an idea is determined by the identity of the person who thought it, or is reckoned not to matter, the field in which people can be free becomes constricted, both in their actions and within their minds. Violating the integrity of ideas has as its purpose destroying freedom by corrupting the connections between people and decreasing the amount and variety of thinking going on. This has the effect of putting the separate physical existence of people on a more important plane than their minds. All become entrapped in the creeping


stupidity of isolation. Their thoughts and feelings veer off onto restricted and unintelligent byways. Their freedom to think and act is systematically curtailed, as is the intelligence of the wider society in which they live. Steering free of such constraints is only possible when every individual is regarded as having an equal relationship to ideas and an equal responsibility to contribute to the thinking going on.

Freedom, equality, and a respect for the independent integrity of ideas are dependent on each other. Each arises as a consequence of the others, and each falls apart when the others wane. Individual freedom lacks meaning and ends up being curtailed if it is not shared equally. Since equality is based on individuality, not sameness, it is meaningless without the freedom which allows differences to be expressed and have effect. Freedom and equality allow anyone and everyone to contribute, causing the truth of ideas to be elevated above dependence on the particular individuals who thought them up or support them. If ideas are regarded as independent, then the most powerful tool and weapon of humanity is no longer the private preserve of a privileged few. The health and vibrancy of the gigantic informational edifice of human thought rests ultimately on respect for the person next door.

For people to all have an equal relation to ideas they must have a fair opportunity to put them into practice. Freedom of thought cannot be separated from a freedom of physical activity because most of the ideas that people have concern the world around them. The exercise of power over their own lives to accomplish their objectives is the concrete embodiment of people living in a thinking mode. The most basic expression of an individual's freedom is the act of taking initiative to achieve a goal they have made up for themself. Private objectives are the primary source of creative acts which add to the intelligence of everyone. In a free society, each and every individual must be regarded as a generator of thoughts instead of their tool, actor instead of slave, creator instead of follower.

It is in the world of everyday life that freedom has its greatest impact. Most of the ideas that human beings have concern the particular people and things in their immediate neighborhood. These types of concerns have always formed most of the thinking going on in the world and probably always will. The immediate task of a free person is to take care of their own life and those of the people around them. Decisions such as what to have for lunch, who to marry, where to live and what job to apply for, are not less important parts of the thought process that makes humankind intelligent than the ruminations of an astrophysicist or a political councilor. Far from detracting from the intelligence of the human race, everyday thinking is its heartland, the main field of its action and source of its


potent energy, from which all the vast variety of particular thoughts are tiny offshoots. When people reorient their personal lives in the direction of freedom, towards trying to make every little idea a bit more independently accurate, they vastly increase the intelligence of the society of which they are a part.

It is because the focus of people's thoughts is mostly local and personal and because their minds are all so different from each other that living in a free manner integrates their minds more fully together. The multitude of goals that individuals make up and pursue in their lives are ideas they invent for the purpose of most appropriately fitting their particular mind to their situation in life. The thoughts and feelings which will do this well must be different for every person because they are all unique, as is their environment and the mix of other people they live with. When their thoughts and feelings are honest expressions of their individuality, they each create a bounty of ideas that are new in the world, which only they could come up with. When people whose lives interact have a respect for truth, their individual thoughts about their everyday concerns bring them ever closer together as parts of a much larger body of thoughts that they all hold in common, through which they relate to each other. As people accept the responsibility that freedom places on them to make their unique contribution, that common body of thoughts comes to be individually tailored, knitting each person more closely in with the thinking of their neighbors than could be done in any other fashion. Through the pursuit of freedom, the network of thoughts which connects people everywhere is made ever more densely intelligent by the same process that brings people more closely together.

Freedom can appear to be nonsensical, unintelligent and dysfunctional, because it usually calls for too much giving and not enough getting. Even a very normal modern life of education, family and career does not add up at every moment from a purely selfish point of view. But all that effort and expense is inseparable from involvement in a way of life that is more exciting and fulfilling than anything that could be imagined by a cat. The pursuit of freedom necessitates a shift of focus away from the exact balance of giving and receiving. These actions become redefined as parts of a continuum of behavior, in which people are linked together in a series of overlapping endeavors and shared goals. Instead of private booty, individual satisfaction and achievement come to be seen as integral elements of a wider prosperity and happiness. Freedom to participate is an intrinsic opportunity, a puzzle that is everyone's common birthright, whose solution is the expression of everyone's individuality. Finding these paths is the essential drama of a free society, the key to a full life for every individual. Such a perspective makes sense only in the context of an information system that is of a higher order of complexity and intelligence than any individual mind.


When people reorient their minds in the direction of freedom, they leave behind the idea that each individual has a self-interest that is unconnected to that of every other person. By making the decision to take on a share of responsibility for the independent integrity of all the thoughts and feelings around them as well as their own, they start building a common ground of productive thoughts which benefits everyone. The localized viewpoint of each person is no longer intrinsically antagonistic to everyone else when they all see themselves as parts of a common entity. The inevitable conflicts between them become differences of opinion rather than skirmishes in an all-out war. This is not because they decide to give up their own interests, but because they more correctly understand reality and are willing to reach out and embrace it.

Freedom is an aggressively inclusive process which must always be expanding, bringing every new person and every new idea within its scope. This is not just because the cheerful beckoning of free people to join in the fun will always be a threat to those who desire stagnation and slavery. Defending itself is not the motive force behind the growth of freedom. The essence of freedom is a never-ending journey to join with diverse individuals equally in finding and expressing ideas with an independent integrity. Expansion is its life-blood, essential to its internal dynamics. The drive to find ideas which are true leads directly to the attempt to uncover those that are false. Someone who has an open mind must always be knocking at the doors of those that are closed. Their own mind will remain open only as long as its scope is expanding. Having glimpsed the enhanced beauty and dignity unleashed by the dawning of freedom they can only wish it on others. And it is only by drawing in every individual to make their unique contribution in a free and equal manner that they can gain access to the immense potential intelligence of humanity.

Those who head in the direction of freedom gain an incomparable strength, unleashing their mind to work in harmony with the awesome intelligence of the collective human mind. By shouldering the responsibilities of freedom, each one comes to be graced with the dignity, intelligence and morality that characterize the whole. It is the complete vision of being free and equal which can motivate people to undertake the responsibility to rouse themself out of their mental torpor and raise their voice, no matter how small and insignificant they may appear to be in comparison with someone else. They are opting to have for themselves the most powerful and intelligent relationship that can be built between any individual and the larger mind of which they are a part. It is obvious in the clear light of morning that the advantage to be gotten from perpetrating lies and illusions is pale and small next to the immense power and stature that can be gained from living free and equal with everyone else.

Chapter 8

LOVE AND FREEDOM Alfred sits happily on a shelf looking out the front window at people,

squirrels and cars going by. A person can never rest quite so comfortably, never be so secure and peaceful. Only by obliterating the impulse to think with drugs or hypnotic chanting can they approach Alfred's slow blinking contentedness. But he can never feel the amazing joy a human feels when they open their mind, joining their thoughts with another person through a book or a passing glance, building a bridge where none has gone before, or hearing an old song that conjures up a thousand memories. His mind is not a part of something larger and he doesn't care. It is because his consciousness is competent and complete that concepts like love and freedom do not apply to his kind of existence.

Should a person come to view their existence as comparable to that of a cat, freedom would confront them with a maze of contradictions. The fact that they are an element of a larger mind would continually pop out from around all the loose corners of life. They would be doomed to be haunted by an endless string of questions.

Is the pursuit of a vision of freedom which includes other people really in the best interest of an individual? Isn't it better to live in a system with a place for everyone, and everyone's in their place? Why choose the harder way of life, one with more work and risk of failure? Doesn't a commitment to be only constructive and honest often lead to actions which benefit others at the expense of oneself? Isn't it foolish to expose one's limitations to ridicule and exploitation? Having been a victim of nastiness once, why ask for more? As for expressing individuality, doesn't the nail that sticks up get hammered down? Isn't it much more sensible to choose the easy way, following ideas made up by people who are smarter or finding a route that has been tested by time and tradition? Why not just


put a lie up front, grab whatever license to steal can be had and cover it up with pious phrases? If presented with the ultimate drug, why not just sit, happy, smiling and stationary, without thought, effort or pain? Why don't we just all give up and be stupid?

The starting point of freedom is the experience of love, for that is the beginning of true connection with the greater human informational milieu. Moments of inner freedom are ecstatic. The natural rhythms of the human information system well up naturally within the individual who is liberated from burdens which keep them out of tune with it. As they follow the pathways of that larger entity, their world expands with leaps and bounds, embracing new fields of understanding and a seemingly endless procession of other unique persons. The adventure of freedom brings out the inner recesses of their thoughts and feelings to flower in the full expanse of human reality, opening them to the discovery of the many varieties of love.

The most potent reasons for pursuing freedom are embedded in the context of a person's individuality and the particular people among whom they find themself living. Only together can they grow the system of thoughts they share into a better world. Pursuing freedom together produces not some dead, quiet stasis, but a tumult of activity and thought which elevates the lives of everyone involved. It is when someone finds a way of realizing that they themself are the embodiment of a the human information system, which is of a higher order of intelligence than any individual mind could ever be, that their personal identity expands to embrace the wider enterprise of freedom. Their life of individual decision-making is then the fate not of some small, tawdry, isolated beast, but of something enormous, powerful, wild and beautiful.

It is a fundamental and often tragic error to believe that the ability to act and think is by itself the same as freedom. Power itself is neutral, and can be used just as well to imprison people as to free them. Someone with a lot of control over their environment can use it to limit their own freedom by a wide variety of actions which reduce their ability to think, directed at either other people or themself. They can cut the ties which expand their mind into those of other people by fighting, deceiving, robbing, enslaving or killing them. Just as effectively, they can wall themself off from both others and large parts of their own mind by intentionally closing their thoughts to certain ideas or, more simply, by imprisoning their mind with drugs or committing suicide. Exercises of power which are directed primarily towards destruction may often seem to represent a liberation of a person's will, but they are in reality just the thrashing around of someone descending ever deeper into isolation. When someone chooses this kind of course they are really just fooling themself with an illusion of freedom, an

Love and Freedom 61

imitation of life in which they believe that the less they think the more free they are.

For human beings, solitary confinement is one of the worst of punishments. Freedom is the opposite of a state of isolation from other people, forming instead the closest possible way in which they can be connected. Every step towards greater freedom leads away from being separate and alone, heading instead towards becoming more closely integrated with the human information system. Beginning in a person's private thoughts and extending out to include their relations with other people, freedom is not being separate, it is belonging.

Love is the central ingredient of freedom. The acceptance of connection with other individuals is only genuine when it is heartfelt. A person cannot really live free with others until they experience the freedom of love in their own life. Only then is their sense of self-worth truly elevated to a universal scale instead of being measured relative to other individuals. Slipping into hatred is a tragedy which haunts more than private lives, for it negates the basis of freedom for everyone.

For any individual, the aspect of the human information system that is hardest to accept is that part of it which they comprise. If set in an incorrect perspective, individuality becomes a source of embarrassment and feelings of absurdity. A quick fix can be found to assuage such conflicts by the many ways of denying all or part of reality. A person will find their own peculiar ways of turning away from freedom and love to be overwhelmingly compelling until they find some way of including the larger system they are a part of in their definition of themself. Only then will they be able to come to terms with their own individuality in a way that frees instead of enslaves them.

Every person who is at all honest with themself knows better than anyone else how limited, imperfect, particular and peculiar their own mind really is. If they make the mistake of defining themself as a fundamentally separate entity, they enter into bondage to those personal limitations. The value of their individuality is then measured by invidious comparisons with other people. This constricts their life to a choice of two extremes: an artificial and empty inflation of their self-image, or a paralyzing perception of insignificance and powerlessness. Either one is destructive of freedom both for the individual and for others. Tying the contents of their thoughts to a fight with other people reduces the intelligence of everyone.

The pursuit of a self-image that is larger, more powerful and important than others can provide a simple confidence and motivation for accomplishing things. The flattery that a person's individual traits are superior is reinforced by success. This forms an addictive circle of logic which reduces human life to a simple game, with winning and losing the only reasons for its pursuit. It is then easy to fall prey to the false sense of self-esteem that is the hollow but superficially


satisfying reward of hatred. But though it may feel good, the special thrill that goes with superiority is a narcotic taken only at an enormous cost. That exalted image is a seductive illusion hiding the reality of a deep entrapment in a self-defeating spiral which with each victory as well as each reverse squeezes a person's mind into an ever more constricted isolation and stupidity. They are driven to belittle and exclude the thoughts of everyone who is inferior by the need to build up an imaginary icon of self. The content of their every thought is colored by considerations of who thought it, corrupting the innermost recesses of their mind with an unintelligent bias. They thus become blind to the infinite possibilities of ways of thinking, both in others and in themselves, which do not contribute to that central picture of a giant scale with them on top. Even if they do not let the poison spur them to outright killing and destruction, they will have impoverished and embittered both themself and others. In addition, they will help spread the idea of an image of self that is separate and alone, the treacherous seedbed on which the more overt manifestations of hatred flourish. For a person to unfetter themself from such a limited self-image and go in the direction of freedom, it is necessary first to give up that great reward of hatred, the alluring prospect of individual superiority. When they come to see themself as equal with all other people, they elevate themself from isolation to freedom in the vast and intelligent field of the human information system.

It is more common for people to take the facts of individuality as evidence of their inferiority. There will always be many who seem smarter, stronger or better in some way or another. The practice of measuring people is insidious, because as soon as one person is labeled inferior, that fact implies to every other individual that the inadequacies and peculiarities they see all too clearly in themself mean that they too are not worthwhile. As a person becomes lost in an illusion of their own worthlessness, they let themself be paralyzed into inaction by the apparent futility of trying. They then stop looking to create a way to fit their particular mind in with their environment, and so lose the possibility of forming a balance between what is possible and their capabilities. Hatred beckons with a yawning abyss of despair that at least provides the comfort of a stable sense of identity. It is usually quite acceptable to put the blame on someone else, since almost everyone can see some way in which they too have been victimized. But that shallow comfort is not harmless. The hatred of those who feel themselves to be inferior is just as destructive as that of the greatest snob. Hatred is the same in all its many forms, wrecking its havoc first on the person who hates, as they voluntarily isolate and restrict their life. From such a vantage point, it can be peculiarly hard to recognize that shrinking from thinking undermines the intelligence of the human

Love and Freedom 63

informational system at large, which seems by comparison so huge, incomprehensible and far away.

Once free from the illusion of separateness, the idea that the worth of each individual is to be measured by a comparison with other people looks silly. Every person is limited relative to others. From the point of view of the functioning system of thoughts of people as a whole, that is the source of its enormous strength. Overall intelligence is the product of a wide diversity of thinking, not any particular type. Since the intelligence of the human information system depends on each and every person being different, those on both ends as well as the middle of any scale are equally important. The limitations which characterize every individual are the critical differences which both empower them and make their contribution of value to the whole.

For an individual to perceive that their greatest strength is the fact that they are in many ways inadequate, it is necessary for them to find some way to set themself free from the illusion of separateness. In the perspective of the real world, the individuality of their mind is the gateway of their personal liberation and the critical element which links them to other people. Once they come to understand that they belong to something larger than themself, that their own mind is a tiny but integral part of a vast and intelligent mental system, the set of things that they cannot do shrinks to insignificance. Only then will what before seemed to be inadequacies appear in their true color, as assets instead of liabilities. Only then can an individual transform themself into a new kind of person, proud and dignified because they accept their limitations, not hiding or excusing them. They can set themselves free from the tedious tyranny of constantly and repetitively trying to decide who is better. Fully accepting their limitations can enable a person to look out on the world with a clear light in their eye, letting go of that inhibiting whisper forever questioning, 'am I OK or good enough', letting go to allow the spirit inside sing forth in an upwelling whose beauty and strength derive from its uniqueness.

The greatest rewards and benefits of freedom grow out of the most private thoughts and feelings of individuals. Inner freedom is the opening up of the deepest recesses of an individual's mind to engage actively as an element of a larger informational system. The intelligence of that larger entity derives from the degree to which the individuality of its parts comes to life. Every thought and feeling in every human being is in some aspects completely new, because it is occurring in a mind which is unique. True individuality consists of intricate, tiny details disbursed along a multitude of subtle, hidden byways that can never be enumerated or defined. Opening up and giving expression to that host of minute


and fragile connections is the heart of personal movement and freedom as well as the source of all intelligence.

To access and enliven the hidden byways of the mind requires some degree of listening, waiting for thoughts and feelings to arise undirected or inhibited by conscious concerns. New ideas have subtle beginnings and unexpected edges, unpredicted by the past. It is often tempting to push them aside, holding fast to what is old and trusted. Staying alive to the thoughts and feelings which arise unbidden requires a difficult balancing act. They must be filtered and considered in wider contexts without dampening their source. To do this, a person must surrender a bit of control over their own destiny. A true respect for their own individuality requires that they to some extent follow it.

Falling in love to any degree, being captured by a sense of beauty, are experiences of surrender which bring the furthest corners of a person's individuality into contact with the wider informational milieu they live in. Shaking free from the constraints of hatred, they gain access to the vast intelligence of everyone everywhere as well as their own inner life. They become larger, empowered to think and act more fully in a greater field. Love is the finest expression of inner freedom.

With the flowering of a greater degree of inner freedom and individuality, a person's thoughts and feelings become more clear and accessible. There is an increase in the points at which their mind can make connections to their own thoughts and to the world at large. They experience more fully the onrush of detail that forms the immediacy of reality. Every smell and touch is an opportunity to be absorbed into an unexpected sense of presence, of living fully in the moment. In their personal life, the direction they find is more closely attuned to their innate idiosyncrasies. And they have a greater possibility of making a more valuable contribution to other people's lives. Inner freedom allows a true and honest individuality to come forth, letting loose the light that arises from within.

Chapter 9

THE ATTRACTION OF VIRTUE Alfred doesn't worry about the kind of life he leads. Since he is designed to

function as an independent information entity, the concept of virtue is inappropriate. He has no need to question what balance he should strike between his own interests and those of others. The quality of his personal habits is determined by a simple application of preprogrammed traits to whatever opportunities he finds. Compulsive licking and a fascination with little twitching things are automatic. He cannot imagine alternate routes to happiness and so does not suffer from the thought that his life is less than perfect. He has a good and full life pursuing birds, string and a warm place to nap in the sun.

Virtues are thoughts and actions by an individual which increase the intelligence of the human information system. For their goals to be virtuous, they must be directed towards reality as a whole instead of an isolated and separate slice of it. It is by aligning their life more accurately with the real world that they bring their unique character to its maximum expression and thereby make their greatest contribution to the intelligence of the whole. The pursuit of virtue elevates the importance, effectiveness and sense of identity of an individual by making them an active element of the most intelligent entity ever to exist. Clearly seen, it is natural and attractive to choose life in the real world over the slow death of illusion, the degenerative isolation of hatred.

For a person who suffers from the illusion that they are a separate information entity like a cat, practices and actions that are based on the assumption of a larger context make little sense. Those virtues which involve cooperating with other people for a common benefit are weak when the only consideration is personal gain. While an individual may sometimes profit by participating in a larger enterprise, quite often they can do better by either cheating or taking an entirely


independent course. Cooperation risks losing all if others have only shallow motivations not to steal. From the perspective of purely private gain, those virtues which serve to make an individual stronger and more effective also tend to look foolish, for most of the purposes served by being effective involve other people. The seductions of being less effective can be very pleasing to a purely separate individual, who like a cat would often prefer to nap in the warm sun. Being virtuous then makes sense as long as it reaps measurable rewards, but its pursuit as a set of principles is absurd and laughable.

In the real world, virtues are inseparable from freedom. Each virtue is the application to a particular aspect of daily life of the fact that freedom for humans can exist only in the context of the informational whole they are each a part of. The details of the personal exercise of freedom consist of thoughts and actions that are virtuous. The greatest enemy of freedom is hatred, the practice of envisioning people as separate from each other. The pursuit of virtue serves the vital function of weeding hatred out of its hiding places in the corners of a person's life. Although the details of their lives are different, everyone has the same fundamental relationship to the collective human mind. Because of that relationship, an individual can be free only if they are pursuing virtue.

Virtues are the source of the immense benefits of a free society. Freedom yields enormous practical results, for it releases the initiative of individuals, which is the power behind the intelligence of the mental system they together comprise. By engaging in millions of small virtuous thoughts and actions, individuals create a more intelligent milieu for everyone to live in.

People will be allowed to make important decisions for themselves only when others believe that they will be fairly honest and responsible. That faith must be built on more than experience. The key to the decision by any one person to pursue a virtuous life is finding a way to understand that they exist as part of a larger informational entity. Because of this, it makes sense to trust people in large numbers only to the degree that they are perceived to have a similar understanding. A belief in the universal nature of virtue is necessary in order to think it is practical to turn other people loose.

Every virtue opens a series of doors to the vast intelligence of everyone everywhere. The pursuit of virtues such as honesty, respect, empathy, love, responsibility and family expand the world of the individual and increase their ability to move within it. Relationships with other people take on these characteristics naturally when they are based in some way on a perception of common membership in the human information system. This context also provides the framework necessary for a true embrace of those virtues which increase personal effectiveness. Work, education, self-discipline, clarity and

The Attraction of Virtue 67

optimism increase a person's ability to express their individuality and contribute to life as a whole. It is their common function of making firm and real the connections between an individual and the world around them that makes the pursuit of virtue overwhelmingly desirable and attractive.

The particular virtues which lead to a greater inner freedom cannot be separated from a person's relations with the people around them. The human information system lives within everyone, their own mind is of it. All that pertains to virtue and freedom without applies to virtue and freedom within. There exists no clear border between that part of the human information system inside their head and the greater part that is beyond. Interactions with others are connected to the inner workings of their mind and have profound effects on them. A corruption anywhere in the continuum of thoughts and actions that take place within individuals and among them tends to poison those elsewhere in the cycle. Inner freedom can in extreme situations be pursued cut off from others, but that fact will deeply alter and limit its degree and character. Since a true personal freedom must be pursued as a whole project, encompassing all areas of life, it must include the pursuit of freedom among others. When correctly conceived, the virtues which add to an individual's personal strength, power and intelligence also enhance those same aspects of the lives of people around them. They lead to a course of greater activity and risk, of thinking and interacting more rather than less.

Paths towards greater freedom are most effective if they are pursued with a sense of balance. Freedom and the virtues which augment it are not fixed destinations, but guides and directions. Virtues are not steady or constant in detail, for they are what make people more intelligent. An information system is intelligent only to the degree that it can change and grow with circumstances. In every real life, a host of difficult decisions are made by a very imperfect individual. It is hard for anyone to take the personal risks involved in opening up, and it is easy to honestly make decisions that are counterproductive. A free person is the opposite of perfection. They live in reality, doing the best they can. In the myriad individual ways they find to balance competing demands is to be found the meaning of the abstraction that is freedom in real lives.

* Honesty is the attempt to find and uphold truthfulness throughout a person's

informational milieu. An individual will find honesty overwhelmingly attractive if they have an accurate vision of the world they live in. Dishonesty results from an artificial division of reality into two parts, one to fool, the other to be fooled. Only then does it make sense to deceive. Whether the line is drawn between people or inside one, the effect is to stop thinking and so curtail freedom and intelligence. The reasons for dishonesty evaporate when a person realizes that a vision of


themself standing outside manipulating the world is nonsensical. Honesty is a natural characteristic of anyone who understands their informational world to be a continuum. Being honest is essential to the practice of freedom, of functioning as part of a larger entity instead of seeking isolation away from it.

Honesty is not an absolute in its own right, but a component of the larger enterprise of freedom, the purpose of which is to increase the intelligence of the collective human mind. That entity functions on a more subtle level than total transparency. Like freedom, honesty is a commitment to a process undertaken by a being of partial vision. It is not a destination and it can never be perfect or complete. There are as many ways of being honest as there are individuals, because each person invents and faces a unique field of information. Everyone has a different range of things to be honest about. And even when they try their best, it is often impossible to be certain what exactly is true or what course of action is right in the midst of the confusion and contradictions of daily life. It is not inconsistent for a basically honest person to make exceptions, either for big reasons like saving a life, or petty ones like avoiding embarrassment. They are simply trying to be faithful to the big picture, in which honesty is the servant of freedom.

A special type of honesty is required to listen to the inner murmurings of the mind, allow emotions free play, let imagination loose or fully open to experiences of love and beauty. Even in private moments, it is difficult for most people to completely accept their own individuality and give it free rein. It is not easy to be sure which thoughts and actions result from defensiveness, mistakes or confusion and which are true expressions of individuality. Finding and following them, both in the near term and over a lifetime, is an ongoing challenge.

The purpose and function of the lies people make to themself is to cut communication with some part of their mind, to dampen and repress an unwanted thought or feeling. It often takes courage to open up to inner impulses, for they are new, unknown and uncertain. The way they lead can look murky, full of mistakes and raw, jangled, exposed nerves. No one is immune to the many temptations to think less, to cover their inadequacies and mistakes with a little subterfuge here and there. But the spark and spirit of life becomes progressively dulled and inhibited as everyday evasions impose manifold layers of habit, fear and hurt. For a person's true individuality to flourish and shine, such temptations must be repeatedly set aside in a lifelong process of constant renewal.

Inner integrity is closely intertwined with honesty among individuals. Dishonesty to others always comes back to haunt the perpetrator, often in circuitous ways. Because it has such subtle depths, a person's honesty can usually be seen in their demeanor. Since people can sense the intentions of others, the


person who lies finds their insincerity reflected in the faces as well as actions of other people. The emptiness of false relations reinvades with a thousand nuances of discontinuity, progressively eroding any hope of inner freedom and honesty. Working towards greater honesty is a project that can only be pursued in all areas of life together.

Interpersonal honesty plays an essential role in the success of common endeavors. Within cooperative enterprises like businesses, sports teams and families, a higher degree of honesty makes it possible for projects to be started that are bigger, take longer, and have more risk. Individuals can contribute to the common effort without fearing that their efforts will be stolen or undercut. Members and participants are able and willing to share more information, which is their most potent tool. Everyone gets less bogged down watching and catching cheats. If people in general can be trusted, individuals can be given more space to make decisions within any particular framework, whether in a self-serve store, a public library, on the internet or within an enterprise. The gains from greater honesty in a society yields more complex and productive outcomes for all involved.

The benefits of honesty multiply rapidly only when people are trustworthy beyond what would be expected of someone who was simply avoiding being caught. The existence of greater reasons for honesty than purely separate interest allows people to have confidence that when unforeseen situations arise others will be good to their word. A simple equation of wins and losses will not be enough to persuade many people to be honest all together. As separate entities, they simply do not have enough to gain. Opportunities for cheating will always arise that seem worthwhile even when social and legal sanctions are severe. Honesty that goes beyond self-interest depends on individuals believing that they are part of something larger.

Someone who conceives of themself as totally separate will not find a very satisfying answer to the question, "What do I get out of being honest with other people." Honesty is a characteristic of an information system. In the universe of information a totally separate I does not exist. For an individual who lives as though they were totally separate, honesty is a device for manipulating others. It is a sacrifice with results limited to preconceived goals. People who instead understand honesty as the great open door to freedom enter an information world that is invisible to those who shut themselves off from it and don't believe it exists. True honesty appears foolish and absurd to those who believe themselves to be fundamentally separate beings.

The most immediate way people are motivated to be honest with others is by loyalty to particular individuals or groups. Often without explicit reasons why,


they experience patterns of honesty as they grow up and sense its logic in the occasions of daily life. When goals are truly shared, no one questions that the information needed to accomplish them should be pooled instead of destroyed. Close relationships of family, neighborhood, business or other organizations provide the time and experience people need to figure out how to talk with each other intelligently and in depth. From the perspective of the functional system of human intelligence as a whole, these relationships are a positive development, for they are the real world interface between its parts, the only possible arena in which greater trust and openness can unfold. The honesty within personal relationships will always be of a different character than that between strangers.

But those who are honest only on a basis of loyalty will end up impoverishing their lives and leading their larger society towards stagnation. Within groups, the size of endeavors they can attempt will be limited by the reach of strong local ties. Any wavering in the degree of loyalty is much more dangerous if the only alternative is total opposition. Without incentives beyond the fear of being caught, individuals will seize every chance to take from those outside the various groups and individuals they feel loyal to. Groups themselves will end up competing with each other to steal the most. The stage is set for a mess of random thievery and large-scale disruption when the interests of groups collide.

The nature of a person's honesty is fundamentally transformed when they find a way to expand the field of those to whom they are honest from particular people to all people. Honesty then becomes an instrument of freedom instead of isolation. An allegiance to universal values and ideas broadens the reasons to be honest with particular people and so deepens relations with them. Personal relationships and group loyalties become elements of a series of much larger events and movements instead of isolated incidents important only to a few.

The interplay of freedom, equality and the independent integrity of ideas provide a multitude of particular reasons for people to extend honesty beyond their local ties. They get excited about participating in science and other fields of knowledge. The basis of such bodies of information is the methodical requirement of honesty from all who contribute to and access them. Independent standards for judging the truthfulness of information open access for every individual to the thoughts of all other people, elevating everyone to the equal stature of freedom. A perception of equality with the people they meet can also inspire a will to be honest with them. Both as an abstract concept and as an immediate gut reaction, the idea that everyone else shares a similar fate obviates many of the reasons to cheat them. Broad reinforcement for honesty is provided by most religious and philosophical systems. The various threads of daily life which inspire individuals to be honest in particular ways overlap and reinforce each other. In all the ways it


is generated, a more universal honesty brings a person's life into greater accord with the structure of the informational reality they live in, and so increases freedom and intelligence in their lives.

The most important benefits of honesty to both a society and its members are far greater than those that can be found by enumerating events or scorekeeping wins and losses. A powerful subtext of every exchange is the host of subtle connections which take place along with it. Communication from the depths of one mind to another results in more than a better solution to the problem at hand. It does more than establish the trust necessary for further work. True honesty reaches from the intimate depths of one person to the other, destroying pretenses of separation. When a person speaks from the heart with sincerity, they transform themself into an entity which is no longer separate. An honest person becomes immensely larger and more alive than someone who is dishonest. This is not because they are individually any larger or richer or more powerful. By breaking down the artificial barriers between themself and others, they help bring the enormous creativity of the collective human mind into both the private lives and common destiny of everyone involved. In so doing, they transform the differences among individuals from a source of friction to one of beauty. They put in motion a high density of information which enriches their personal lives and experiences. Their attempts to live honestly are what make the human information system as a whole more intelligent than the sum of its parts.

The focus of true honesty is the content of the human network of thoughts as a whole in addition to the individual people whose minds it consists of. The object of honesty is to make the substance of all people's thoughts and feelings both more truthful to fact and more fully imbued with the complexities of individual minds. Instead of being the private preserve of a few, truthful information is a universal entity in its own right, including everyone in its scope. An individual is liberated by the attempt to be honest when they conceive it as part of a larger vision of freedom, opening doors of the most intelligent of information system ever to arise.

An individual's journey towards honesty begins with greater inner freedom and extends out to embrace other people and the world at large. It affects a spreading field of information, from a person's private thoughts to those of others around them, sending out ripples of influence into the wider world. Freedom is built piece by piece, one interchange at a time. It is a way of life which begins with every decision a person makes. Honesty and freedom are perpetually at the point of beginning.


* Having respect for other people and showing it is a necessary virtue for

anyone who wishes to be free. It is an ongoing challenge that reflects the degree to which they understand the fundamental realities of their existence. Every person without exception is due respect, for they all in fact have a part to play in the ongoing song of the great onrushing stream of human thought. Raising its chorus to a higher level is the substance and meaning of freedom.

It is hard to respect others who are different. They can be so weird, stupid, boring and irrelevant. What is a musician to respect in the tone deaf? Those of talent in others who show none? Why should an active, hardworking, over-productive rocket scientist respect someone who is chronically drunk, mentally ill, retarded, or senile? The seductive comforts of isolation beckon to everyone, for anyone can find a way to see themself as relatively important. By simply looking down on those who are not, the world can be made to appear solid and safe and secure. But disrespect for others does not enhance anyone's life. Behind the illusion of isolation is not safety but the static emptiness of creeping stupidity. Those who shut out others through disrespect make their own world lifeless, dull and uniform, a shallow reflection of their preconceptions and illusions, an imitation of life. For an individual to be free, they must elevate their life above the temptations of isolation by raising their eyes to the level of reality. The fact that every person is in various ways inferior is the source of intelligence. Where they stand on any scale is totally irrelevant to whether they are due respect. It doesn't matter who they are or what they do.

Every person faces the same set of hard facts. They must all endure disappointment, disease and death. They must all come to terms with remaining incredibly limited next to the magnificence of the information system they are all part of. They can sense its size and complexity, but never rise up to it. Most of what goes on around them they cannot change. Life goes on without them when they die. Simply for existing in this impossible situation, respect is due to every person, their every travail a valiant stand. The full variety of somewhat dysfunctional ways in which they deal with adversity is itself an important part of the ruminations of the functional human information system. There is no respect for that entity as a whole without respect for the individuals who comprise it.

Respect is an essential key for unlocking the treasure chest of individuality, releasing freedom and intelligence. Greeting every face every time with an open, genuine and courteous smile opens the gates of the vast field of thought created by all people together, the most intelligent life form in nature. The effect goes far beyond and is more complex than simply persuading others to be friendly. The deep respect generated by a thorough feeling of equality is the only way to access


the true intricacies of individuality. Unless their respect for its source is heartfelt, a person will hear nothing when another speaks and they will be deaf to the whispers of their own mind.

* Empathy is a spontaneous emotional recognition by an individual of

interconnection between the thoughts and feelings of another person and their own. At the instant of recognition, the joy and pain, happiness and sorrow, hopes and fears of one person become very real elements in the life of the other. Their immediate mental space expands to include a distinctly different point of view and way of feeling in the world. A large part of the content that human minds share is the great range of honest feelings that people have for others. They are joined in a single information system, in which complex strands of thoughts and feelings mingle and overlap. Individual humans are designed to find some of the most potent joys of freedom through immersion in the minds of other people. When they experience empathy, their thoughts and feelings are released from the shackles of the illusion of separation, freed to move openly through the realm of the system of thoughts they all share.

It is openness, not imagination, which allows empathy to arise. A fake empathy, an imaginative projection, is hollow at its core, for it does not stem from true connection and lacks the fine detail of real relationship. Empathy is experienced as an automatic, immediate and undeniable emotion, a thousand details processed in a flash, a myriad strands of information. They cannot be willed into existence, being far too complex and subtle to be accounted for by conscious design. The ability to think this way is an essential element in the design of the collective human mind as a thinking entity that is intelligent and quick. By allowing themself be more open to feeling for others, every individual has the opportunity to make themself and the world around them more intelligent.

It is easy to lose feelings of empathy by embracing some of the many forms of hatred. The nefarious doings of others can provide ample excuses which make it seem logical and even well-meaning to regard them as separate and opposing entities. As the focus shifts to antipathy, envy and hurt, the feel of the other person disappears into silence. Empathy arises only unbidden, out of the uncharted reaches of the mind. In similar uncontrolled fashion it can fade away, often leaving no trace of its presence. It will always appear to be ephemeral to those in the grips of hatred.

Feeling true empathy for strangers is an essential element of freedom. Everyone's involvement with the world begins with the necessarily few people they know personally. Feelings about another's fate arise naturally out of the ways in which minds interact among people who are close to each other. The quality of


those relationships is the main determinant of the kind of life a person leads as well as the contribution they are able to make to their society at large. But the interaction of thoughts among humans takes place on a much wider scale than close friends, family and neighbors. It is just as natural to feel empathy for all people, for the field of thoughts shared at greater distances is just as real and just as much a part of everyone's personal life. Imagining an artificial separation between large groups of people corrupts the heart of inner and local freedom just as much as cutting off the person next door. For those who find a way to see themself as a part of the greater information system they are all part of, empathy arises as hard evidence of their commitment to reality. It is the accompaniment in depth which follows the conscious decisions and principles they live by.

To be free within the human information system is to open the depths of personal thoughts and feelings to its magnificently enormous expanse, seeing it in the eyes of every other person, without exception. It consists of living people, the travails they personally experience and their individual points of view. Once a person finds a way to both understand and feel that inclusive continuum of thoughts and feelings, they join their heart with the fate of others. Doing so is necessary if a person is to truly be at home with the mystery of their own character, the depths of which are absurd and useless if the worth of individuality is not universal. As they include the great parade in their personal drama by finding ways to feel true empathy for strangers, their inner feelings are reoriented, enriching their life with fuller depth and texture in every sphere.

* Remaining true to love, preserving and enhancing it, is one of the highest

virtues of a free life. The fundamental fit between any two individual minds, the basis of love, does not change. Accepting that fact through the changing circumstances of life is a virtue which brings each one in ever-closer touch with the reality of themself and the world.

Love for someone else can be the greatest liberating experience of a person's life. Their thoughts and feelings are joined with the immense territory of another's, creating a vast field in which to think and feel. The new entity they build together is more intelligent than the sum of its parts. Their joint thinking has an immediate presence which influences all the information streams flowing around them. That mysterious and uncontrolled feeling of closeness is the natural opening of one mind to another. Two very different individuals discover a host of nuances in their unique characters which link up in a complementary fashion. Minute and hidden details of each person's mind are engaged. By reaching so deeply into a person's character, the experience of love brings their most important gift, their unique individuality, most fully into contact with the minds of


others. The individual someone falls in love with is the closest embodiment in their life of the most intelligent information system ever to arise. Through one very special person they touch the whole world.

Maintaining a loving relationship depends on the acceptance by both people of their own limitations. A person in love is presented every day with their own deficiencies. The most subtle peculiarities of two people are the basis of their emotional bond. Each holds a mirror to the other, a constant reminder of all the many frustrating nuances of their own individuality. And beyond particularities, the simple fact that a person is living their life intimately entwined and dependent on someone who is imperfect implies that they are not either. Only by learning to live with themself can they keep loving another.

The emotions and practices of loving relationships can be very fragile. Most of the points of contact on which they are based are subtle and small. A certain smile, a smell, a turn of mind, the rhythm of a walk, and the thousand components which determine those things, each by itself has little substance. Although together they may make hair rise up on the back of the neck, they are vulnerable to being chipped away one at a time. Small annoyances, each insignificant, can be allowed to progressively erode a relationship until its sense of presence has faded beyond recovery. Keeping that from happening requires a dedication to the overriding principle that love itself is worth perseverance and work.

Every loving relationship forms a bulwark against the constant temptations to retreat into illusion. The isolation implicit in both self-inflation and victimhood offers relief from the messiness of immediate reality and the rough and tumble of daily life. The creeping virus of hatred awaits at every turn with pleasant lies to engulf whole lives with emptiness. That dark void can spread only when a person closes off and denies their feelings of love. The strongest links anyone can have to reality are genuine feelings for a particular person.

Far from being a trivial or local phenomenon, love for another person is an essential step for developing both inner freedom and freedom in the world at large. A true union is a meshing of forces far wider than two lives. Their coming together is the closest and fullest contact each can have with the larger intelligence they are part of. Because involvement through love reaches into the deepest corners of a person's mind, it expands the range, depth and freedom of their most private thoughts and feelings. Those who are attached are more free.

* Building a family is for most people one of the greatest opportunities for

growing freedom. By making the long term commitment to love another person and with them have children, they create an expanded and deepened informational milieu for their lives. As a family grows and matures, it progressively enriches


itself and the world. Their family is the closest interface at which an individual meets the vastness and particularity of the human information system as a whole. The most immediate opportunities for freedom lie in the home.

A loving relationship freely chosen and maintained forms the most nurturing crucible in which the next generation can learn to love and be free. Kids learn best by example that love is real. Their brains come into the world prewired to engage with it in a multitude of ways. Loving relationships are those in which the greatest number of elements of a person's mind are open and connecting instead of closed and cut off. There is an immense number and variety of such elements, many of which are quiet, subtle, hidden, and not controlled by a person's conscious mind. The nuances of touch, smiles, laughter, criticism and sorrow can all be developed with love or without it. The best opportunity for each child to cast their mind in an open and loving pattern is created by a loving environment. The more they discover how to love, the wider and more free their world can become. Loving each other is the greatest gift parents can bestow on their children.

Coming to terms with individuality by nurturing a family is a transforming experience which opens doors to greater freedom. Parents don't get to choose the fundamental character of their children, who often seem to be plucked at random from central casting. While certain traits can be traced to a family likeness, each package is unique, a new chapter in human history. The depth and enormity of individuality becomes inescapably obvious with the birth of a second child. Tiny, purple and unviable, they are already fundamentally different than the first, a wholly new presence in their parents' arms. This is a humbling experience, giving each parent a powerful demonstration that by far the greater part of their own talents and preferences are beyond anyone's control.

As children grow older, their character is expressed in adult ways. Each one must be helped to invent a way of living in the world that is new and their own. But that little one who was so easy to love as a little kid is harder to accept when making missteps and choosing activities that are alien to their parent. There are often stark and difficult choices to make. Parents must figure out how to love and accept wildly different individuals, often of a sort they would not otherwise associate with. The breadth of human individuality has invaded their homes and personal lives. Simply loving their own children, working with their problems and issues, brings parents into confrontation with the world at large.

The critical challenge of freedom is to encounter the enormity of individuality with love. One of the most intense and personal opportunities a person has to find real freedom is by rising to the ongoing challenge of opening their heart to love their children. The essence of any greater freedom is the coupling of love with a true acceptance of individuality.


* Accepting responsibility becomes natural and overwhelmingly attractive

when a person realizes that it is the same as conceiving goals in the full context of the real world. Every decision, large and small, has effects which ripple out through the field of thoughts, feelings and actions in which it takes place. Individual people exist as part of that information field, from which their fates are not separate. For a goal to be realistic, the full range of its means and effects must be incorporated into it. The individual who dreams up and pursues it must also be themself part of the picture. The more accurate alignment of goals with reality is a challenge which confronts every individual every day. It is the practical key to personal empowerment and a fuller life. Accepting responsibility is the action by which a person commits themself to living in a world of reality instead of illusion.

Informational content is the most important element of every goal, linking it forever with all its effects. Even a mundane physical action like hitting a nail with a hammer is suffused with and governed by information. The molecules of which wood and metal consist have structure and pattern. The designs of hammer and nail descend from millennia of human input. The person wielding the hammer surrounds it with the pulsing life of their hand and brings their experience to the plot of its trajectory. Building a cat door has an immediate purpose, relieving people of the chore of letting him out. Repercussions spread out through the network of relationships among people, who are happy the door is built and perhaps have their esteem for the builder reinforced. The cat is happy, and the door will be there for the next cat and the next owner of the house. The informational content of each hammer blow is connected with all these things through space and time. In the world of information, it is nonsensical to wish the disappearance of real events. The hammering will always have happened and it will always have been intended to produce the cat door with its many blessings. The means to building the cat door are also ends, to the extent that the builder likes doing the job, the feel of tools, helping other people and cats, and making lots of noise. A goal realistically conceived encompasses as wide a range of effects as possible. The entire network is moved by each hammer blow, which in turn is graced with the character of all the ends it is associated with.

The most important decision a person makes about themself and their life recurs with every goal they dream up and pursue. By including in each one, minuscule and large, responsibility for all that happens in the course of attaining it, they include themself in the whole network of information in which their objectives exist. They locate the center of their identity in reality. Even the most impoverished and narrow definition of self-interest is itself an information field. It encompasses a person's thoughts and feelings, their friends, family and


acquaintances, and a million footprints on every corner of their mind. By imagining an artificial cut across any of those lines of communication, a person constricts their own life into a self-imposed and unreal corner. When a person decides not to care about the consequences of their actions, they define their inner self as living in a universe separate from them. Avoiding illusions of isolation is the key to freedom.

Responsibility, freedom and living in reality do not exist without each other. Freedom is created by acts of taking responsibility. Every time a person chooses reality by accepting responsibility, they carve out another area of freedom in life. When a person lets someone else make the important decisions around them, they are excluding themself and their individuality from the reality in which they live. When they make decisions responsibly they exercise their individuality as part of reality, increasing the intelligence around them. If they do not accept responsibility for the consequences of their actions, they make their life less free and real by isolating themself. Together, responsibility and freedom locate the individual in the live motion of the real world.

A person truly casts their lot with both reality and freedom only when they assume responsibility for the full range of effects of their actions. Engagement with the world increases the individual's freedom only if it involves increasing the amount and variety of thinking going on. A person is free to the extent that they orient their thoughts and actions in this direction. Every time they make such a choice, they are affirming their commitment to freedom and to life in general. By agreeing to accept the consequences of what happens, they make their commitment real.

Perceiving goals as divorced from the means by which they are achieved is a progressive disaster. A sterile boundary between means and ends can only be imagined if the information stream which connects them is thought to be an insubstantial phantom. A person's view of their responsibilities will then be very narrow, ultimately restricted to the preservation of their physical body. Once they define themself as isolated, an unfree life and mind is the inevitable result. As they move away from reality, they set themself up for a series of mistakes which degrade life for themself and others. The worthiness of goals is wrongly estimated if the expenses are regarded as simply artifacts to be left behind. The amount of effort necessary to do anything is misweighed if the pay-off is conceived as simply a payback, without context. If they are not understood to be ends in themself, the quality of most of life's activities is demeaned, reduced to a necessary drudgery.

Goals conceived in wider context will lead to acts which would be called sacrifices if people were regarded as merely separate, independent agents. People


will raise families, work hard to provide a good life for others, even in extreme circumstances give up their life for them. These are not illogical things to do. The larger purpose is the same as the individual's, for they are an inseparable part of the larger whole. A person who trades a life of loose associations for the commitment of a family is not reducing their freedom. They are gaining the greater freedom of closer involvement with the minds and lives of particular parts of the human information system. Someone who spends a lot of effort healing sick people or teaching young ones does not have less freedom than a careless playboy tanning in the sun. They have more, for their lives and minds are moving more freely in the realm of information in which humans live their lives.

Accepting responsibility is not a sacrifice of individuality but the fulfillment of it. When they take responsibility for their kids, a business, or some part of public affairs, an individual puts their particular imprint on the way those things are done. The limited and imperfect character of every person makes it inevitable that there is much they cannot change. They can only be effective within the range of their talents and the opportunities of their time and place. They are doomed by their nature to make many errors, large and small. Their actions cannot lead to perfection in the affairs around them, because individuals are all imperfect. But it is exactly their limited nature which makes their lives and the world around them more intelligent when they try. Each individual will find different ways of doing this, for it will be particular people, projects, causes and ideas that capture their heart. By making real choices about what they will be responsible for, their individuality is expressed and lived to the fullest. Taking responsibility is an act of freedom, the purpose of which is not perfection but intelligence.

The necessity of accepting responsibility in order to experience the joys of freedom is made clear by the heavy burdens of raising a family. It can seem to be a foolish enterprise, for it always entails spawning imperfection and losing control. For a family to be happy and successful, it must function well as a whole system of complex interactions. But its members bring to it innate extremes of temperament. Their relationships are subjected to the vicissitudes of love, sex, growing up and growing older. There is always someone who reacts by shutting themself off or conniving to promote themself at the expense of others, with the result that everyone loses. Even if the kids don't go completely crazy or the parents divorce, lost opportunities are inevitable. The meaning of starting a family lies in bearing the consequences of other people's actions. When parents shoulder the responsibility to make things work as well as possible, they are committing their life and mind to the closest and most complete form of engagement with the human form of intelligence. Through building it, they live most fully in it.


* A series of virtues which involve a focusing of effort are naturally desirable

when a person orients their goals towards gaining greater freedom. Work, self-discipline, education, clarity and optimism are among the virtues necessary to accomplish any task well. When used for increasing isolation, such practices seem alternately burdensome or ridiculous. They are tiresome instruments, to be discarded once their user gets what they want. In the service of freedom, increasing personal effectiveness is a virtue which elevates a person's life to become part of something larger than themself. By designing their goals to advance ever wider fields of information, they bring themself as an actor into harmony with reality. The virtues which enable them to do more are woven into the fabric of their world, existing as a present manifestation of the goal of freedom. For a free person, all of life is a volunteer effort to increase the intelligence of the functioning system of thoughts of people as a whole.

Work becomes an attractive virtue when it serves to integrate people's lives with those of others for mutual benefit. Far more than an empty exchange of necessities, work has an informational content which is one of the principal determinants of the character of freedom. The essential action of a free person is to decide whether and how to influence the important activities around them, both those among different people and within their own mind. No matter how small their job or enterprise, they can pursue it in ways that weed hatred and separation out of the corners of life, build the faith of others in freedom, and accelerate the circulation of information. The meaning and attraction of work lies in its association with the virtues of freedom.

Work in a modern society has two sides. It has content, which consists of doing things for other people. And work is exchanged, for money and other forms of recognition. Systems of money are simply the use of mathematics for figuring out what and how much people will do for each other. Such systems, with their inevitable quirks, mistakes and inequities, do not alone determine the value of the content of a person's work. Making refrigerators, teaching children, singing songs and cleaning floors are all worthwhile even if they are not paid or paid too little. There is always some part of a job for which money is irrelevant, for which measurement by math is inappropriate. Sometimes it makes sense to work for nothing. It is never easy to find a balance between the different elements of work, especially since so much of it can be difficult, dirty, boring or dangerous. Each individual must weigh their desire to contribute the content of a job as well as the expected remuneration. Balancing measurable output with returns places a real value both on their contribution to others and on the maintenance of their


existence as an individual. Getting paid the right amount is a recognition that their own needs, desires and aspirations have a place among those of others.

The false and hollow promises of thievery will often seem persuasive to those who lack a positive concept of the content of work. To someone who views people as separate from each other, the fact that individuals usually produce more than they get in return is illogical and stupid. It makes no difference that the extra they give is the reason others employ them or patronize their enterprise. They have no interest either in the many people who can't work and must be supported. The purely personal returns are simply not enough to recompense the drudgery of a despised occupation. With such a perspective, a person may drag themself grudgingly to work, trying always to give less and receive more. Or they may decide to get what they want by stealing directly.

The paths of theft, idleness or resentful toil usually do not get a person very far. The flawed vision of separation leads directly to many mistakes in the task of getting. But even if they beat long odds and come out ahead with the desired goodies, they lose when they corrupt the virtue of work. The quality and worth of life is debased when daily activities are turned into reinforcements of isolation. The world closes in around the person caught in this insidious trap. Their imaginative space is progressively limited, thoughts and feelings cut off from the far greater field to which they could and should belong.

A genuine desire to do things for other people is an essential part of an individual's decision to work. By applying their innate interests to their perception of what needs doing among the opportunities available, their thoughts and feelings take a real part in the larger swirl of events around them. They act to integrate themself into the larger society by achieving a good balance between personal and public needs. They provide food, clothing and shelter for themself and their family by reaching out into the activity around them, becoming an actor in the daily events of other people's lives. They make themself progressively greater rather than separate and alone.

The volunteer aspect of work is one of the central elements of freedom for both individuals and societies, because only desire and inspiration can foster thinking. Only the great promise that freedom carries into individual lives can inspire large numbers of people give of their minds peacefully over long periods of time. Money and coercion are puny forces in comparison. The essential action that makes a person free at any one instant as well as in the long term is to volunteer, to take initiative in a wider information context. Having the intent to do a job well and be open to new ideas transforms the nature of work. The individual makes it part of their life, a vital extension of their mind into the world around them. It becomes a principal avenue for the expression and fulfillment of their


individuality. The accretion of a multitude of tiny suggestions given voluntarily is the generator of the great productivity of a free society.

A good balance between the different aspects of a person's work is the key to making their contribution valuable to both themself and others. They maximize their involvement with life and the world when they find a good fit between their individual character and their activities. In the content of work, they can make their contribution greater and more individual by choosing what they do and finding their own ways to do it well. By receiving appropriate returns in goods and recognition they can build a better life outside of work. As they become free to make more choices unfettered by outside demands, their individuality can bloom in new directions and grow stronger. It is the healthy growth of individuality which is at the heart of the intelligence of the human information system.

* Self-discipline is natural and attractive to the degree that the goal to which it

is directed is freely chosen and desired. A decision to do anything always includes giving up something else. An exercise goal may involve giving up alcohol and ignoring pain. A vow to relax may require disconnecting the phone. Work on any project, from building a wall to writing a poem, requires both focusing effort and pursuing one activity to the exclusion of others. The ease with which a person accepts whatever self-discipline is necessary depends on the clarity with which they conceive their goal and the extent to which they really desire it.

Self-discipline becomes a virtue when it serves the goal of freedom. Living a free, open and active life is usually harder than sitting back and letting others pick up the slack. Bringing an inherently active entity into harmony with the informational realities of human life requires effort. Self-expression often entails building something, requiring perseverance. Breaking down barriers between people or within a mind usually meets resistance, which must be overcome with determination. Strenuous, serious effort applied to something which increases the intelligence in which a person lives is a refreshing experience. It is the practice of freedom in the immediate present.

Finding ways to make self-discipline a virtue is necessary for any increase of inner freedom. Any self-discipline can be self-torture when it serves to divide a person against themself, when it becomes something one part of a person imposes on the rest. Someone who gets up early to exercise might do it to punish themself, with the effect of dividing one part of their mind from the other. Or they might find within the same set of actions a way to further integrate their thoughts and feelings with each other. When that happens, self-discipline becomes a concentration of activities and thoughts which enhances each moment of life.


Every individual must decide for themself the ways and degrees to which they will impose discipline upon themself. There is no one way to make the elements of a person's life enhance their connectedness. Most lives fall between the extremes of the total lack of self-discipline of a life dissolved in drugs and the all-round perfection required of an Olympic athlete. Everyone has a different optimum to find, a set of things to do and ways of being in the world which is the best expression of their unique innate character. Finding the right balance between the many and conflicting demands of their life is a lifelong process. Respecting the balance that others find is an ongoing exercise in empathy, a lifelong challenge to the imagination.

Once a person finds a way of envisioning their life that is in accord with the structural realities of the human information system, the right measure of self-discipline develops naturally. Accepting the self-discipline that is part of any complete commitment to do something places the individual firmly in reality, allowing them to live life fully. That commitment changes the character of the nasty things that are encountered. The hardships woven into doing anything become inextricable parts of desired and chosen goals. Everyday life is fully embraced only when a person steps up to face and savor its texture as a whole.

* Getting an education is a virtue to the degree that a person finds a way to use

knowledge of the thoughts of others to amplify their own individuality. Despite its grammatical expression, being educated is not a passive process of simply ingesting and spitting back data. For anything to be learned, it must be incorporated into the unique set of thoughts and feelings of a particular person. It is only by giving of their individuality, actively remaking information in their own image, that any mind can be truly informed by the thoughts of others. By mingling their thoughts with the great onrushing tide of human endeavor, they increase both their own intelligence, by being able to think more, and that of the collective human mind, by adding their unique perspective to it.

The arduous process of education becomes attractive when a person finds a way to envision themself as an active element of the functioning system of thoughts of people as a whole. Should they conceive of themself as fundamentally separate, education would appear to be oppressive, the imposition of other people's ideas, holding only the shallow promise of a bag of tools. In order to rise above self-imposed isolation, a person must come to understand that the private contents of their minds are elements of reality, not just artifacts of physical things. Their innermost thoughts and feelings are active components of the immense system of human information. Their mind is changed and expanded every time they uncover another fact or exchange smiles with someone new. Their innate


individuality is added to the world every time they wink or lift a finger. Someone quietly listening is adding their unique flavor to the mix of everyone's thoughts, simply because they are incorporating the speaker's thoughts into their own. The identity of the most inconsequential person expands to embrace the field of all human thoughts and feelings through the simple, elemental inspiration of opening their mind to it.

It is through particular interests, activities and relationships that people's lives become drawn into the swirl of thoughts that is around them. As they explore the world, discovering and creating their own unique blend of things to think, feel and do, their individuality finds ever better expression. Creating a closer fit between their innate proclivities and the details of daily life is the way a person contributes the uniqueness of their mind to the vast onrushing stream of human thought. Human individuality has evolved as a functioning element of that larger entity. Embracing it in the present is a lifelong adventure. Because of the vastness of the collective human mind and their own limitations, any one person can take part in only a small, particular sample of the whole. This fact neither makes the effort useless nor renders those who do less inferior. All have the same relationship with the human information system, of being extremely small next to its vastness, particular beside its wholeness, and finite in time within an entity which courses through millennia.

Young people must take on faith the value of education. It seems obvious to older people that education increases rather than reduces individuality. But it often does not appear that way to a teenager who is focusing so much on the difficult task of discovering and establishing their own identity. Knowing little, they cannot see the vastness and wealth of the information world. Uncertain of their identity, they have a hard time envisioning it being reinforced and fulfilled. They are asked to work hard for uncertain benefits in the distant future. Studying what others have thought, doing what others say and obeying institutional strictures, all can be seen as infringements on individuality, instead of opportunities for its expansion. Especially if they are surrounded by seductive voices snickering at education, it is easy to fall prey to the illusion that learning is in contradiction with individuality, and then make the false choice of one over the other. Young people often lack the perspective to see that the temptation to slide onto the easy road is a trap which leads directly to their imprisonment in ignorance and a radical reduction in opportunities to expand their individuality. The particular value of education for any one person is revealed only gradually, through the accretion of knowledge and through getting to know themself with experience. This process will be accelerated and education ardently desired if they find a way to equate individualism with thinking and knowledge.


When education is pursued as a virtue, its purpose is to increase freedom. The mainstays of both projects are independence for individual people and for the truth of the information they share. To be educated is to discover ideas that are true no matter who thinks them. To be free, a person's thoughts must not be coerced by others. Through knowing more they have the opportunity to help create a common ground of accepted knowledge, of understanding other points of view and the facts behind them. Knowledge can only be a common ground when individual people consider themself free and equal before it. No matter who they are, using education to augment their individuality is a virtue because by adding their uniqueness to the pool of thoughts around them, they are activating the source of intelligence.

Belief in the value of education as a virtue is necessary for the expansion of freedom. Education is one of the primary and most functional ways in which a person extends their mind into the realm of other's thoughts. If people are to take on the hard work of volunteering their minds, they have to think it is a productive proposition. A general belief that education pays off must spread into all the many corners of life, to be picked up everywhere by young people as they investigate their diverse temperaments and interests. It is in the details of life that freedom finds expression and that education holds out opportunities. The wellspring of freedom, and the source of its enormous benefits, is the diversity of willing participants, each educating themself in their own inimitable way.

The answer to the young student's conundrum, the false choice between study and individuality, is to choose freedom. Once they conceive education as a central part of their personal project of freedom, they have a way of finding their own balance between gaining knowledge and acting on it. It is a fundamental error to think that fitting in with an educational scheme includes squelching their personality. They have to understand that they are participating in the content of what they are learning simply by thinking about it. And by choosing a mix of things to learn that is in accord with their innate predilections they further expand their personal thought arena. The ideas of others are a rich source of assets they can mine to enhance their inner freedom and individuality. Growing their own character is the only way they can fulfill the larger usefulness of getting an education. They increase the intelligence of life around them when they invent a way to give of their unique mind. To do so each person must themself conceive their own desire for education, for only they can open the doors of the greater information system they are part of. The pursuit of freedom provides the ongoing balance necessary to assert individuality by gaining knowledge. The real choice is between education and the absence of freedom.


* A clear mind is an essential component of freedom. The attraction of clarity

increases rapidly as a person becomes more free, active and involved in life. Their mind is their instrument of freedom. Enabling it to think more rather than less allows a greater individuality to arise and be expressed. Suppression of what is new by repetition of the old is the surest way to cut off the instantaneous integration of thinking modes that is clarity. The essential action of a clear mind is listening, opening up the vast areas of thought and feeling that are below consciousness. The subliminal connections with the world and the traces of new ideas and feelings that arise unbidden carry the gift of individual character which enriches a person's private life and the lives of everyone else. Any vision which leads towards freedom drives a person to want more thinking and feeling, more life rather than less.

One of the greatest and oldest illusions is the belief that choosing to think less is an expression of freedom. It can seem to make sense because the attractions of drugs are purely personal and the choice to use them is uncoerced. They chip away at an individual's freedom in a hidden and insidious manner. Conscious thinking appears to continue, so the person thinks they are still exercising free choice. They experience an illusion of connectedness while the intricate byways and subtle places of their mind, which are the source of any real touching of the world, are actually being switched off. Those fine details of feeling and thought are the substance of individuality. Drugs are a degenerative disease, progressively hollowing out the mind, reducing freedom to a shallow parody, for there is less and less left to be free.

Clarity is not an absolute or an end that can be finally achieved. It is a characteristic of a journey full of idiosyncrasies and shifting goals. The general purpose of having a clear mind is the same as that of freedom, to increase the intelligence of the information system that every person is part of. That entity thrives on a successful maximization of complexity and individuality. In the pursuit of freedom, each person must choose independently the kinds of things they will focus on and the way they will do it. For different individuals, times and places, clarity may mean focusing on a job, an abstraction, a relationship, a flower, their own private serenity, or an assortment of all these things. People will inevitably make mistakes, retreat from abuse, succumb to laziness and habit, and dull their mind through disuse. Such pitfalls and conflicting priorities never really disappear from anyone's life. Coping with them in a way that moves towards greater clarity requires a balance among competing urges and demands. No one can do everything or be everything to everyone. The virtue of clarity lies not in perfection, but in a full and intelligent expression of individuality.


* Optimism becomes a virtue when it serves to locate a person more firmly in

reality. The substance of optimism is willingness to envision viable alternatives and try them. Dreaming up ways of making things better is the way individuals give of their mind to life. It is their choice whether or not to engage their thoughts with the large and small issues which rise up to confront them every day. By choosing to be an active agent instead of a passive victim, a person brings their life into greater alignment with the fundamental realities of their existence. On their seemingly incompetent shoulders rests the present and future of the most intelligent entity ever to arise. They are each the source of its movement, and each one wields its enormous force. Shrinking from thinking is not virtuous.

Optimism plays a central role in any individual's project of freedom. The act which makes a person free is deciding what things are most important in life and then finding ways of accomplishing them. Only by thinking that their projects might succeed will they ever embark upon them. To live life that way, it is necessary to have a belief that it is both good and possible to overcome obstacles. This faith must rest to some degree on general principles because proof of possibility is available only after the fact.

All freedom begins inside, when a thousand small thoughts and acts are allowed to rise unbidden in the course of the day. An optimistic orientation of a person's private thoughts and feelings facilitates opening their mind to experiences intruding from outside and ruminations percolating from within. At any one moment of the day, they must decide whether to drop the repetition of the old and embrace what is new. Everyone is tempted to retreat into their own private, well-worn mix of old feelings proven to provide comfort and shelter. Yet the small, seemingly inconsequential moments when the unexpected happens are the experience and expression of their own private inner freedom. Being open to thoughts and feelings that are new is the individual's door to the larger intelligence they are part of, both within them and in the world at large. Their willingness to maintain an open mind keeps fertile the seedbed of the intelligence everyone shares. Freedom originates from an optimistic approach to every second of the day and night.

The opposite of optimism is being a victim, an attitude of helplessness which preempts openness. Minor forms, such as being a weather victim, can grow into pernicious habits. Every weather condition has both inconveniences and points of beauty and wonder. When and how inconvenience comes to overshadow beauty is up to each person. They choose what to spend the limited time they have in life focusing on. They can repeat over and over the litany of minor stresses that can't be changed. Or they can look to find ways of reducing inconvenience and keeping


it in perspective. Those precious minutes spent crying could have been filled with happiness and joy. But experiencing beauty requires being open to things that are new and unexpected instead of seeking insulation from them. Having an open mind is an active way of life requiring ongoing creativity. A sunrise or a shower can be perceived as beautiful only by a mind that reaches out to it. New thoughts and feelings of all sorts can arise only when not crowded out by old ones. Wallowing in victimhood is a habit of repeatedly closing the mind by reciting the many ways in which it is useless to think.

It is a sense of balance which elevates optimism from an unthinking attitude to a virtue, the purpose and result of which is greater intelligence. That end is approached through a complex mix of thoughts old and new, copied and original. The most intelligent balance can only be crafted by each person themself, to reflect their unique character and circumstances. Nowhere else will the thoughts and feelings which occur to them ever exist. It is up to them alone to make choices which creatively engage with life. Optimism is the willingness to do so.

A pessimist would say of all virtues, "What's in it for me?" The answer depends on the definition of what me is. If me is separate, autonomous and alone, very little. Everyone is going to die, bad things keep happening, people are nasty to each other and there will never be enough goodies to go around. Anything other than a retreat into purely personal pleasures is to be snickered at.

In reality, me does not exist in isolation. All humans are information entities inescapably linked together. The limitations of each one in time, space and ability, the same factors which lead to so much individual misery, are the differences which are essential to the intelligence of the human information system as a whole. Adversity is part of the natural texture of reality. The appropriate response is to rise to meet it with more life and greater intelligence. The recognition that they are at the same time limited and part of a larger entity frees a person to open the pores of their mind, to think and feel with the fullness of life.

Optimism lies at the root of the pursuit of all virtues. It is the belief that engagement with the grand, moving drama of the collective human mind is wonderful, fulfilling, and transparently desirable. Upon recognizing their identity as an essential part of an enormous information entity, its larger purposes and movements become their own. Their thoughts and feelings do not occur alone or in a vacuum, but are inherently connected and consequential. The smallness and limitations of every individual, far from dooming all their endeavors and aspirations, raise them to elements of magnificence.

Chapter 10

THE STRUCTURE OF MORALITY Alfred doesn't worry about whether his thoughts and actions are right or

wrong. Figuring out how to get along is simple. He knows that scratching furniture is something people don't like. His relations with other cats are guided by built-in instincts. There are no large or complex issues to disturb his sleep. The various competing impulses in his informational world can be balanced out within his own furry little head. There is no sense in which he owes something to other cats or his human helpers. Alfred lives free of obligation.

The immediate needs people have for each other seem obvious. Their family, friends and neighbors depend on their contribution. Just like a cat with a litter of kittens, if no one does anything nothing happens and all wither and die. But the simple trading of favors between individuals does not begin to describe what goes on in the lives of human beings, for they are something different in kind than kittycats. Their needs for each other are far more consequential than just feeding babies and sharing snacks.

The central design function of the human information system, shaped by eons of evolution, is to maximize its intelligence. Having structural guarantees which promote active thinking necessarily involves a degree of built-in instability. Change is ensured by the universal nature of individuality and the wide ability of people to choose what they think and do. This flexibility and creativity has been able to arise and prosper only because of the development along with it of concepts of right and wrong, of how to live a good life and get along with others. These ideas are transmitted and refined within the information system itself, reinforced by the innate ability of all humans to recognize them. Individuality and morality evolved together and exist in the present to work together for the same purpose: increasing the intelligence of the collective human mind. The functional


integrity of the system is undermined when part of it is lost or impaired, or when it is divided against itself. Without the stabilizing force of moral concepts, the system as a whole, or any part of it, would be unviable and self-destruct.

Moral thoughts and actions are those which increase the intelligence of the human information system as a whole. Increasing that intelligence is the same thing as increasing the health of its parts and the quality of relations among them. Every thought, feeling and action has a moral dimension, for each one has effects on the general intelligence. Every choice individual people make affects the amount and quality of thinking going on, in their own mind and in the world at large. By making moral choices, people open the door to the intelligence and creativity which make human life possible and worthwhile.

Decisions which value individual lives increase the intelligence of the human information system. That intelligence exists in the present, in the thoughts and feelings of living individual humans. Each one creates a unique universe of thoughts and dreams which occur only once and then disappear forever. These vast, majestic reservoirs of surplus variety provide the enormous range and depth in real time which make the human information system as a whole so intelligent. The general intelligence is maximized by increasing the quality, density and velocity of connections among the most diverse set of people. Each one is needed because each one is different.

Every human has a moral obligation to serve the larger purpose of increasing the general intelligence by the course they pursue in their immediate life. Their attempts to align their thoughts, feelings and actions with a concept of morality are a structural element of the human information world just as much as their ability to calculate, imagine and speak. The intelligence to which an individual contributes by following a moral course in life is their own, for they are the collective mind. They, their family and neighbors, as well as people at large, all are in need of their contribution, for the quality and prosperity of everyone's life depends on the health of the larger entity. Humans do not have a choice whether to be part of it, only in what manner. The acceptance of moral obligation is identical to the choice of life, connection, thought and feeling.

The appearance of obligation as a simple trade is an illusion. It is different in kind than a debt that can be repaid, for people are not in fact separate. The only alternative to fulfilling their obligation to the larger informational whole is self-destruction: the reduction of connection, thought, feeling and life.

To accept an obligation of moral behavior towards others is simply to wake up to the nature of reality. The true recognition of the existence of the human information system occurs only with the acknowledgment of personal responsibility for it. As a person accepts their obligation, they expand their life

The Structure of Morality 91

into the fullness of the collective human mind. Its purpose is theirs, its structure lives within them.

Individuality and morality support each other, sharing a common origin and purpose, flourishing only in tandem. Attempts to think and act in a moral fashion do not increase intelligence if they do not promote the contributions of individuals. And a person's individuality remains isolated, unintelligent and shallow without the connections to wider circles of information made possible by moral interaction. Each person owes the existence of their individual character to its promotion by themself and others. Moral obligation and individuality are the twin pillars on which rest the success of the human enterprise as a whole, as well as the prosperity of any part of it.

People feel spontaneously that the basis of right and wrong is the compelling value of each individual presence and life. Humans are born with multiple built-in modes of connection with each other. Bonding with babies, sexual attraction and the impulse to save a stranger in distress are demonstrative examples of a wide range of feelings which arise naturally and lead people to help others, often at personal expense. Witnessing the enormity of the vast human thinking entity in another's eyes is a compelling experience which leads directly to thoughts and actions which are moral and increase the general intelligence.

Moral decisions value each person for the fact of their individuality instead of its particular manifestations. This increases intelligence by raising every life to an importance equal with any other. Placing more value on any one kind of person would necessarily demote and suppress other varieties. The importance of each one is far greater than the simple addition of that particular perspective. The intelligence of the whole has evolved to be dependent not on any one flavor of thoughts and feelings, but on a mixture of the complete spectrum of human differences. When individuality itself is valued everyone becomes equal, thus including their unique voice in the conversation of the whole. The fact of individuality is shared equally, for all are unique.

The general obligation to take a moral direction in their thoughts and actions applies equally to everyone. People have that obligation because of the existence of their individuality, not its particular characteristics. Every human has the same relationship with the human information system, as a unique part of the whole. That relationship does not vary with differences in talents and circumstances. Uniqueness is the essence of the universal moral obligation, which consists of applying the common relationship to the vagaries of everyday life. The fact that every application will be different from every other is the reason individual people have an obligation to do it in a moral manner. No one else can make that particular contribution to the general intelligence. Differences among people are


complementary to their moral obligation, each one depending on the existence and promotion of the other, both serving the same larger purpose. It is up to every individual to make their unique contribution and to facilitate the unique contributions of others in situations which never recur. Every moment presents just one opportunity to participate in the beauty and intelligence of life.

Obligation must be directed towards the promotion of individuality if it is to result in a greater intelligence. Morality is more complex than a few simple prohibitions which enable people to get along with each other. Intelligence relies on inspiration just as much as cooperation. Most human thought is generated in the course of people's daily lives, in small moments when their minds are relatively free. A sense of obligation does not become truly moral until it is married to happiness.

Alfred's life is suffused with happiness. He does have moments of stress, from the tension of the chase and the frustration of a closed door to the unceremonious way he is sometimes dumped from a chair. But he almost always recovers instantly and walks away with an air of total indifference and self-satisfaction to nap in the sun or roll in the dirt. He needs nothing more than a full belly and a spot in the shade to stretch into complete, purring contentment. He is a comfort to the people he lives with, who enjoy the simplicity with which he finds true happiness.

Human happiness is the fullest and most harmonious expression of a person's individuality, a state of heightened connection and complexity within the informational milieu of which they are part. It is the most productive level of individual human function. Their conscious thoughts, feelings and actions are being most fully reinforced by minute, hidden and uncontrolled aspects of their mind, all of which is mingling with the thoughts of others in a fashion that is relatively complex and harmonious. Happiness must be created for each person by their own pursuit of it. Only they can understand and work with the subtleties of their own nature. They must find elements in their character and circumstances which pique their interest and involvement. They must maneuver the different elements of their life to be sufficiently in sync that their emotions genuinely agree with their decisions. Human happiness is more powerful and exquisite than anything Alfred can experience, for it is an alignment of an imperfect part with the human information system as a whole, from which a person gains a power and mystery not accessible to a separate being.

Happiness comes in a myriad grades and colors, is different for each person and changes throughout their life. It can be large or small, fleeting or continual, shallow or deep rooted, trivial or profound. It can be accompanied by overt feelings of satisfaction and contentment or recognized only in hindsight. People


seek it in everything imaginable, from jobs and accomplishments to music, children, travel, love, football and puppies. When individuals have a greater ability to imagine and seek what they like, their paths naturally diverge, for every person's journey towards happiness is the deepest, most heartfelt flowering of their innate individuality. In all its incarnations, the endeavor is their best conception of life at its zenith, of their thoughts and feelings at their fullest, of the greatest harmony they can create with their world.

Hatred and degeneration are the great enemies of happiness, which consists of greater informational activity not less, more connection not isolation. Every individual faces the same choice, whether to engage or disengage with their unique situation in the world. This choice is hard, for engagement necessitates an acceptance of the limitations of individuality and life. Hatred tempts everyone with the illusion of release from those limitations by measuring life's worth on a scale relative to others. Denigrating those lesser and cutting off their thoughts can afford anyone the cheap thrill of personal elevation. The cost is giving up true happiness by artificially shrinking the field of life and corrupting inner thoughts and feelings. Degeneration tempts everyone with very personal ways to have more fun by thinking less. But obliterating the fine tendrils of their mind serves to eliminate the possibility of real happiness by eroding its source. Any person's own individuality is radically reduced when they choose to obscure their thoughts and feelings through drugs, hatred or suicide. Only through turning away from hatred and degeneration does the way open to devise from their unique mind and circumstances the fullest and happiest life they can.

Everyone has a stake in the happiness of others, for the mind of the whole is their own. The variety inherent in every individual is what refreshes the collective human mind as an alive, kicking, changing and intelligent thinking entity. Private and personal minds form an immense resonant chamber in which thoughts and feelings circulate, producing the intelligence on which everyone relies. But thoughts and feelings do not resonate in a chamber that is dead, dulled, turned off or disconnected from the larger information system. The more fully the minds of individual people are active, the greater the intelligence of the entity on which everyone's life depends. The state in which their minds are most active and connected is happiness.

Individual happiness cannot become full and deep without the true commitment of moral obligation to the human information system. The thoughts and feelings of other people are densely woven into the contents of each person's mind. The finest strands of private thoughts and feelings are intricate blends of material garnered from the human informational milieu as a whole. Artificially cutting connections with the wider world wrecks unseen havoc by ruining the


integrity of those tiny strands of thought. Fragile layers of complexity atrophy and the wellspring of emotions and creativity runs dry. But the many threads of connection with the human information system at large do not truly open without accepting a degree of obligation to contribute to its intelligence. The details of the mind become naturally oriented towards greater harmony and complexity only when they add to the general intelligence. Information swept in over a lifetime then comes to be seen as food for fulfilling that obligation, rather than poison sent to hurt and sterilize. Each new encounter becomes an opportunity to refresh private thoughts and feelings. Some level of connection with the larger informational world is necessary for even severely restricted forms of happiness. Without the depth of connection that is a heartfelt obligation, happiness must remain shallow. Accepting their moral obligation to the larger functional system of human thoughts is a precondition for the kind of personal happiness that is boundless.

Making happiness into an end all by itself can achieve only its shadow. The obligation of individuals is greater than simply promoting the happiness of one person or group. Turning happiness into a goal necessarily defines it in terms of the past. This transforms it into a static state, a set of physical conditions or preconceived relationships. True happiness is a limitless journey, indefinable because it occurs in the unfolding of what is new. Happiness is what happens when intelligence is being created.

Morality is a marriage of obligation and happiness for the common purpose of increasing the intelligence of the human information system. In all the various areas of life, personal happiness is a much a moral obligation as any perceived debts or endeavors for the benefit of others, because each person's own existence is an essential present tense expression of the general intelligence. To effect a complete marriage of obligation and happiness, people as individuals need to seek some measure of inner peace, of purely personal happiness. An understanding of the role of happiness is essential to orient a sense of obligation in an intelligent direction by keeping the focus of obligation on individuality. When thoughts and actions are confined to dourness through a misconceived concept of morality that neglects individual happiness, intelligence is stifled along with the expression of individuality. Morality is a release from constriction, a happy state that is natural to humans. Together, obligation and happiness reinforce each other, producing a morality with a strong and steady sense of purpose.

The goal of intelligence requires that each person seek a balance among the competing demands and opportunities they encounter. They must choose what particular obligations to other people they will take on, as well as what thoughts and actions give them personal kinds of satisfaction. Each individual faces a


unique situation in life, which must be assessed as a whole to find the most fruitful combination of activities. They are the only one who can do this, for they are the only one who has access to the facts of their own life. No one can ever know the most moral path for someone else to take. Each one must arrange their own marriage of obligation and happiness.

The pursuit of virtue by individuals is the only route to a thorough and deep morality. Virtue is the orientation by a person of their own life towards increasing the general intelligence. Large and obvious questions of right and wrong are important, setting the stage for daily interaction, but they consume very little of the human informational space. Most human thought always goes on quietly, in the course of private lives. Intelligence is generated moment by moment. It is in the course of millions of daily decisions that obligation is truly fulfilled and happiness realized. The initiative of individuals to make their large and small decisions virtuously is the only way to produce the density of thought necessary for true intelligence.

It would not be an ideal world in which people were left alone to make all their own decisions. The most moral and intelligent society cannot be generated solely on individual initiative, even though that would seem to mean that everyone was thinking at maximum. For at the heart of intelligence and morality are human limitations, partiality and weakness. People will always depend on interactions with each other to find the right path. They will forever be making mistakes which must be helped along or corrected by others. The intelligence of a collection of totally independent entities is shallow and slim next to that of the integrated and dependent elements of the most intelligent kind of information system ever to arise.

The moral character of every thought and action is ultimately absolute, because each one either increases the general intelligence or does not. But although the line between right and wrong is intrinsically bright and shiny, it is not something that can be determined with certainty. The only perspective from which morality can finally be judged is that of the intelligence of the human information system as a whole, a vantage point to which individual people do not have access.

Everything people think and do is surrounded by an impenetrable fog of uncertainty. The motives behind any one action cannot be fully assessed, even by the actor, for their thought processes include corners hidden even from them. The complete circumstances in which something is done are always complex, traces of their origins receding into physical, temporal and informational distances. The consequences wind away along similar paths, spreading out through vast stretches of space, time and people's minds. Things which may at first seem to be perverse


can have unintended consequences that are beneficial, and vice-versa. The moral map of human life must remain colored forever grey.

The exact line between right and wrong is not only obscure but forever moving. People will keep thinking and doing different things in changing circumstances, especially if they are leading moral and well intentioned lives. By their new and unique character, each individual lends new twists to old rights and wrongs. They are constantly altering the contents of the collective human mind, which then itself becomes a new field in which people think and act. Differences large and small can be seen in prevailing standards of behavior that change over long periods of time and between cultures. They can be witnessed every day, in every life, as the freshness of each individual's thoughts and feelings meet anew the age-old problems of living. Although shifting standards often make it more difficult to know what direction to go in, the fact of change is itself a necessary component of morality. The purpose of morality is intelligence, which exists only in a state of motion.

Over-categorizing thoughts and actions as right or wrong is itself immoral. Such designations change what people will do in their private lives and in their interactions with others. Either following a wrong course or restricting one that is promising can end up reducing intelligence, thus setting a course that is immoral. Good intentions can produce the greatest evils. Roads not taken might have lead to shining opportunities. Calling a thought or action right or wrong is necessarily an imposition of the concepts of the past on what is happening in the present. Without care this can squelch the unfolding of what is new. Intelligence is something that must be searched for, not found. People need free space to grow and change, an area in which they can agree to disagree, in which matters are left with no final resolution. Finding ways to make this space as large as possible increases the potential for more variants of individuality and happiness to arise and flourish.

The reductions in intelligence produced by over-categorizing thoughts and actions can rapidly become nasty and virulent because they have the appearance of supporting morality. Chasing after false evils creates a snowball effect. As the imagination is fueled by success over phantoms of its creation, it naturally conjures up new ones to vanquish. A little uncertainty and fear added in give unstoppable momentum to a downward spiral in intelligence.

All people end up doing wrong things, usually finding some twisted way to think they are justified. Errors large and small, of both intent and calculation, are inevitable parts of every life. Choices about what kind of life to lead and how to treat others are often difficult. Such decisions by individuals have a major impact on the effectiveness of the human information system. Navigating the labyrinths


of the human information milieu has led many, even with the best of intentions, to treacherous and disastrous ends. But the inevitability of errors does not make individuals inherently bad, nor is it what creates the obligations they bear towards life. Only an entity with a completely whole mind would be able to always behave in a moral and intelligent fashion.

Moral obligation is fulfilled not by perfection but by effort and intent. The best and most moral course for any particular individual to take in life is unknowable, to them or anyone else. Both their individuality and their circumstances are far too complex and hidden to ever be fully plumbed and untangled. Understanding their impact on the intelligence around them is even more imponderable. Thoughts and actions that are right and moral can only be sought after, never finally found. Their own personal willingness to try is the only way to make an individuality that is imperfect flower and open to others. Individual people are designed expressly to be unwhole for that is the source of their intelligence. Imperfect entities in motion, searching in the dark, are the true generators of intelligence.

Someone who is not hungry yet steals, who kills or lies for personal gain, is acting on a presumption of hatred. Lurking behind overt attacks on others is some form of the idea that people are fundamentally separate entities. Hatred is an all-encompassing world view in which opposing others is natural and triumphing over them the only object.

The illusion of separateness is the greatest source of reductions in the intelligence of the human information system. No one is immune to this contagion, for it is a mistake that is always directly in their path. The immediacy of their physical presence and the practical necessities of preserving it lie in waiting to crowd out the more subtle reality of the greater life form all are part of. The integrity of the functional human mind is always undermined when the illusion of separateness corrupts people's choices. It degrades their private lives, cornering their thoughts and feelings into isolation and misery. It corrupts relations among individuals and groups, setting them on paths of mutual destruction. The never-ending task of morality is to overcome this illusion.

Intervening to stop the immoral acts of others risks catching from them the virus of hatred. Dealing with its manifestations necessarily involves resisting the individuals who perpetrate them. Being in the position of opposing a wrongdoer can make it seem natural and right to hate them in return. But the person who makes this mistake has underestimated their opponent. Those who hate play a deep game. Spreading hatred is what makes possible and desirable their accumulation of spoils. They win when others come to share the world view of hatred.


Revenge is never moral, for it is based on an assumption of hatred. If people are seen as separate beings, revenge is cloaked with a dangerous illusion of moral action in which creating a balance of injuries and insults seems fair. In reality this just perpetuates hatred, which is the opposite of morality. Adding injury to injury and insult to insult compounds rather than rights wrongs, spreading destruction rather than healing it or building from its ruins.

Forgiveness is the appropriate response to a recognition of genuine contrition. A sincere apology is an acknowledgement of the error which led to an offense, coupled with a pledge to correct that pattern of thought and action. The degree to which this change is thorough and real must be the main determinant of the response, the purpose of which is to set a course for the future. What is past cannot be changed. The purpose of morality is not getting even but intelligence.

Forceful intervention to stop or punish harmful actions is moral if it serves to promote general harmony and intelligence. An attack on one person harms everyone, for it undermines the information entity they together form. Changing the behavior of those who hurt others requires the use of a wide array of punishments, persuasion, education and new experiences. Limitations on others can move their thoughts and actions in a moral direction if they are carefully balanced and restrained. Every person needs to have some sense of obligation if they are to be allowed by others to mingle with them. Individuals must be allowed and encouraged to give up hatred and build happiness in their lives at the same time as they are constrained and guided away from destructive behavior. Although the optimum balance cannot be known, it can be approximated.

The marriage of happiness to obligation points the way to keeping intervention limited and focused on the goal of intelligence. The promotion of happiness places the balance in difficult situations on allowing individuals greater freedom. No matter who they are, they remain part of the entity which gives everyone else's life scale and meaning. No matter what they have done, their errors are but extensions of the predisposition to make mistakes that is essential to the design of human intelligence. Giving their choices the benefit of the doubt tilts the scales towards having more thinking going on. It is the recognition in everyday life that living, breathing individuals are the heart and soul of the human information system.

Chapter 11

THE NATURAL BASIS OF HUMAN RIGHTS Picture Alfred hanging out in a barnyard with twenty other cats. It can be a

good life, with plenty of mice and birds to supplement the farmer's scraps. Since the essential patterns of kittycat lives are set up for them, their decisions have purely local effects. Their connections with past and future are encoded in their genes, not in the content of their minds. Nothing they think or do alters what happens beyond the area they mark out with their scent. This basic simplicity of interactions does not make life less enjoyable. The occasional scuffles over food, territory and mates lend excitement, and it is warm to snuggle up and purr together.

The survival and happiness of individual humans always involves integrating their mind with others on a large and intricate scale. People cannot escape from the fact that their thoughts and feelings are parts of a living entity which extends across both time and space. This fundamental dimension of their identity intrudes into every corner of their existence. The human information system is their mind, their tool and weapon, their life. Their personal relationship with the larger entity encompasses far more than the individuals they have already met.

It is the recognition of the human information system behind the look in the eyes of a stranger which most fully opens a person to the real nature of their own existence. Every perception of depth in another provides an intimate experience of connection with the larger intelligence which makes the importance of life personal and immediate. That sense of the value of every individual life is the essence of human rights. Each instance of such communication presents an opportunity to extend the realm of sincerely felt connection to all people everywhere. The knowledge that persons unknown are both important in themselves and essential for the intelligence of everyone is then heartfelt. It is


when they are possessed with a sincere and ardent desire to do what they can to promote active thinking in themself and their fellows that a person truly awakens to the fullness of life.

Human rights are guidelines so basic that they apply everywhere all the time, which protect the ability of individuals to make decisions for the purpose of promoting greater morality and intelligence. Their primary function is to prevent people from stopping other people from thinking. They are natural outgrowths of the fundamental structure of human intelligence, which grows from the contributions of all people together instead of a restricted selection of them. Whether protecting individuals from murder or allowing them to speak and associate, rights make possible the decentralization of decision-making necessary for both greater intelligence and greater morality. The moral dimension of rights is the same as the functional one, because for the human information system intelligence and morality are the same thing.

The implementation of rights brings people into closer association. A right is not a line drawn in the sand in order to separate an individual from everyone else. The focus of rights is human decision-making, which is informational in nature and does not exist in isolation.

Particular rights may range from protections for speech, thought, movement and association, to standards of criminal procedure and participation in governments, to guarantees of food, clothing, shelter, education and health care. By publicly empowering individuals to make decisions, rights proclaim decision-making to be good. They carry an inspirational message that individual lives are valuable in themselves and that it is both good and important for their minds to be active.

Rights are a functional necessity for an intelligent society. Basing laws and rules of organizations on a series of rights makes it possible to decentralize decision-making and so engage more minds. The principle that certain activities can be pursued without interference can be applied to any level of organization. At the personal level, individuals may be able to choose for themself where to live, whom to marry, what occupation to pursue and what to say and think. Ever larger enterprises, from clubs and businesses to churches and governments, can be provided with protections from interference in their activities. The independence of such organizations allows them to be creative. Intelligence on a large scale is the same thing as an ever greater complexity of thinking entities. Successful decentralization is a condition in which people are joined into ever closer association, forming a mental whole that is changing, intelligent, moral, and beautiful.

The Natural Basis of Human Rights 101

Although the expression of rights in daily life is in the rules of organizations, their importance is far greater than their utility on an organization chart and their origin lies not in simple expediency. The rules of all organizations are designed to improve decisions by dividing the power to make them. But rules are different when they are understood to be derived from rights which apply to everyone everywhere all the time. That wider framework elevates the place of each person’s mind, changing the way they approach the activity of thinking. Rights begin to have true impact when a large enough number of individuals share a belief that thinking is a moral and worthwhile activity to engage in. Decentralizing decision-making requires both that people be permitted to think and act and that they be inspired to do so actively, virtuously and morally. The inspirational nature of rights is essential for the creation of a more intelligent society.

All ideas of rights have certain essential elements in common. Each right promotes equal opportunities for people as individuals to build happiness in their lives, reflecting a conviction that each one is important, both to everyone else and as an end in themself. As parts of a larger entity, they are connected together in ways that are inherently active, creative, and universal. Behind expressions of rights there is always a perception that as people become more informed, virtuous and moral, the things they want to think and do will not fundamentally conflict. Instead, their thoughts together will be greater than their separate sum, each one providing depth and diversity to the information entity they are ever more closely entwined with. Each right requires its recipients to carry often heavy obligations. It is the purpose of promoting independent decision-making that makes a right more than a privilege. All rights place a degree of responsibility for the health, viability and intelligence of the greater entity on the virtue and morality of the individuals who are parts of it. A right does not separate an area of decisions out of society. It rather assigns that area to individual people, enfolding them more closely within it.

When the provision of material or organizational supports for life are made rights, the thing that they are supporting is the decision-making powers of the individual. If they are to be active decision-makers, people need food, shelter, health care and education just as much as noninterference in their thoughts, associations, speech and private actions.

Rights create opportunities for individuals to find ever more fulfilling paths to happiness by protecting specific areas of thought and action from interference by others. To the degree that a person’s thoughts and actions are controlled by someone else, they are necessarily less individual. Rights give the formal blessing of everyone at large to greater individuality, to the intrinsic value of lives that are all different. The pursuit of happiness consists of unique individuals finding ever


more complex and harmonious ways to mingle their minds with the world. Rights extend the areas in which people have freedom to make choices, from their most private lives into ever larger spheres of activity. They have wider opportunities to create a happier life for themself and to include other people in enterprises they initiate.

The greatest impact of a belief in rights is in people's daily lives. Formal rules set the stage, but cannot by themself determine the ways people will live. They can grant freedoms, but not make individuals act responsibly. They can provide opportunities, but not necessarily inspire people to seize them. It is those close to them who really allow a person to choose where to live, whom to marry, what job to do, and what to say and think. And it is those same immediate neighbors who must show how making such decisions responsibly elevates an individual to a better and fuller life.

Particular freedoms made possible by rights are always conditional on the acceptance of responsibilities and on membership in the group granting the rights. Rights are enforced by specific organizations and reserved for those within the granting entity, not those on the outside. Specific obligations are imposed by rules and laws which attach responsibilities to rights and provide sanctions for abuse. A right to vote can be accompanied by a requirement to do so. The right to choose whom to marry carries obligations to be especially good to another person and provide for the resulting family. Rights to own property come with long lists of explicit and implicit responsibilities, to obey laws and not hurt other people. People are usually deprived of their rights if they use them to harm others or the general welfare. They can be penalized for yelling fire in a crowded building. For criminal behavior their family or business may be taken away, they may be confined, or they may be expelled from the group that grants the rights, thereby losing them altogether.

Universal rights that people accord each other beyond the specific dictates of rules and laws are also conditional. They are granted by other people who will take them away if abused. Freedoms can be very effectively whittled away in the course of the many small interactions of daily life, as well as abruptly terminated for some gross violation. Someone who lies will not be trusted, a known thief will be followed and suspected. A murderer is regarded as having forfeited the right not to be killed by the person they are attacking.

An individual makes an explicit statement of their membership in a group by agreeing to the rights it affords. They are enfolded more closely within it by being an active decision-maker of it and by keeping their decisions within the bounds regarded as constructive for the group as a whole. Each person then sees their collection of private projects as serving to integrate them more thoroughly with


the thoughts, feelings and activities swirling around them. Their happiness helps provide the diversity of thought which is the source of intelligence for all they are involved with. By acknowledging that the various avenues for realizing happiness are rights, an individual accepts that they have obligations to their family, business, country, and people everywhere as part of their freedom to pursue their private happiness.

Rights form a key part of a person's identity because they include individual lives in a vision of an intelligent society. Having rights says to each individual that their life and their everyday decisions are needed. Even that ignominious person next door is an important addition to the range of talents which make up the common intelligence. The equal nature of rights makes each person an active part, regardless of how limited they may be, by according them power to make certain decisions for the whole. Whether they see that entity as a village, company, country, religion, nationality or all people everywhere, its purposes and fate are theirs. That entity is invested with a nature that is inherently active and creative to the degree that rights place decision-making powers in the minds of its diverse members. Their freedom and power to speak, think and act occurs within the context of a living society. A society proclaims them to be active members by basing itself on rights.

The facts of daily life are moved in the direction of universal rights by laws and rules which place decision-making powers in the hands of all individuals equally. Coming to see all others as viable decision-makers is not a destination but a journey of experience as well as principle, an exploration of the depth and diversity of the human information system. As a person gains a fuller appreciation of the wide range of diversity which makes their own individuality worthwhile and important, it becomes part of their life to expand the horizons to which rights apply. The idea of rights reaches beyond those close and known to embrace strangers far and wide.

As more people exercise and understand rights, they expand the circle of those to whom respect and trust are due. Since rights always link freedoms with responsibilities, it is reasonable to think that others who share a belief in rights will be generally honest and responsible. People are enabled to do things together on a larger scale to the extent that trust is released from the confines of personal connections.

The rights of others provide a context which if clearly seen guides the ways individuals conceive their goals towards greater harmony. Each person is supposed to pursue their happiness in ways which respect the rights of others to live and to make their own choices. Working to resolve the conflicts which inevitably arise is a process of bringing people closer to the underlying truths


about their lives. Finding and maintaining a clear vision amid the passions and confusions of daily life is difficult. Everyone's goals are dreamed up differently and to some degree in ignorance of the consequences. No one has any possibility of knowing the full range of human thoughts and activity. To believe that others have rights is to understand that conflicts of interest arise from the natural differences and limitations of individuals, which are essentially good, not bad, evidence of intelligence, not of evil. No one would really be better off if the others were all dead or comatose. A common overriding purpose to human life is the context in which all conflicts take place. Personal freedom is a common endeavor which unleashes everyone's natural individuality, resulting in a greater overall intelligence.

The range of thoughts and actions that are made voluntarily is encouraged to grow as a result of basing rules and laws on rights instead of coercion. In the areas of life that are protected from the control of others, a person is as free as they let themself be. As rights expand, they apply to wider spheres of activity their central message that it is good and important to contribute, making plain that the thoughts and actions on which everyone depend originate from choices freely made by individuals. Most of that initiative takes place in the pursuit of purely private goals. Every gesture beyond their personal life is an extension of the pattern of initiative which individuals pursue in the areas of their life protected by rights. They lose nothing and have everything to gain by making a little extra effort to do a job well, bring up their kids right, and treat others with respect. As a person grows to see rights as universal, they include their own mind in the project of the intelligence of humanity as a whole.

The equation of freedom with rights elevates freedom from an empty permissiveness into the prime instrument and expression of morality. When freedoms are explicitly made possible by specific rights, freedom no longer means simply an ability to do anything. By performing a marriage of obligation and happiness, rights implement morality on a large and public scale. Rights apply even to strangers the moral necessity of limiting interventions in the lives of others. The responsibilities imposed by each right make the ability to pursue private projects conditional on the way they effect the happiness of everyone else and the general intelligence. These obligations are willingly accepted as integral parts of their own happiness as people grow to understand the meaning of their rights. The best balance between private desires and public responsibilities is to be found by them. Overall intelligence is maximized by the combination of individuals seeking greater virtue and strict limitations on interference in their pursuit of happiness. Acceptance of the obligations that accompany the most basic rights to happiness and life enfold an individual within the vast panorama of the


functional human thought process. A person is not truly free until they grow to understand and respect the rights of others.

The human information system is the product of a long evolution of people in small groups. In primitive settings, everyone's voice was both obviously needed and able to be heard, for all knew each other. Intelligence was maximized as a result of mingling all voices, the greatest variety available. This is replicated on a large scale only by the implementation in daily life of universal rights, giving recognition that every voice is needed and ensuring that it is heard, and so rejuvenating the primal structure of intelligence indigenous to the human information system.

The right to live and the right to think are the basis for all rights. People accord rights to others both because they sense immediate connections with them and because they realize the enormous presence and potential of the thinking entity they together comprise. The life and thoughts of each and every one form the present reality of the vast totality of human thought, of their own mind. All are needed to add to the intelligence everyone shares. Each person must come to realize that the individuality of other people is the prime fuel for the tool all rely on. And each must awaken in their own way to a personal recognition that the light which animates every eye is intimately intertwined with the larger information system of which they themself are an expression.

The range and implementation of the basic rights to live and think will vary over time as needs change and people find new things to do. Finding the most practical and moral ways to extend rights is a challenge facing every generation. The primary task of meeting that challenge is to spread the idea of rights. Rights are something that must be believed in, for they are an abstract idea about people who are not present.

Whether rooted in a religious or secular understanding of the world, a belief in rights is in effect a belief in the existence and purpose of the human information system as a whole. Far more than simply permitting certain freedoms, rights proclaim them to be good, always and everywhere. Rights have an absolute and universal nature because the intelligence of the collective human mind is always increased when the individuals who comprise it are alive and thinking. A belief in rights is a belief in the moral and functional goodness of intelligence.

Chapter 12

DECENTRALIZING DECISION-MAKING Alfred's way of dealing with the practical problems of everyday life is very

effective. With his native instincts and intelligent, inquiring mind he copes well with the challenges of hunting, licking and finding a cozy new nest for a nap. The ideas of other cats are not necessary for him to successfully hunt, scavenge, and hustle humans for canned tuna. He is very concerned with the way other cats wander through his territory, but their individual fates trouble him not at all. His mind is actively and happily engaged with his world without needing any input from them. It would not make any difference to his personal ability to survive if most of them disappeared. And he would not experience the enormous loss of love and freedom that such isolation would imply for a human. Love and freedom exist only for parts of the information system that is the collective human mind.

Unlike cats, humans depend on finding ways to organize themselves which will yield the most potent set of ideas. Success in this endeavor is the main factor determining how well they will cope with the practical problems of daily life. It makes possible something cats cannot imagine: continual improvements in the way things are done and a gradual increase in the intelligence of the functional information systems they all are parts of. The source of their greater systemic intelligence is the love and freedom that individuals create in their lives. No one can escape the fact of their participation in the larger sweep of human affairs, for it is the same thing as the drama of their own life. Everyone plays some part in the way those around them are organized. From the liveliness of their private musings to their vote in the public square, the whole of their life is a creative element of the information continuum they live in. At every moment large and small, each


person chooses the degree to which they direct their life towards freedom, love and intelligence.

The most important question at every turn of daily life is who decides what happens. Decentralizing decision-making as much as possible is the organizational structure which generates the greatest intelligence. It is the way the most fundamental principles of the human information system, freedom, equality, human rights, and the spirit of love necessary to animate them, find expression in the practical world of daily affairs. There is no one way of decentralizing which is best for every situation. The greatest diversity and range of participation is fostered by the gradual development of a complex mix of structures and inspiration, the particulars of which change over time and place. Everyone must do their part, especially by developing a firm belief in the central principle of a free life, that thinking is a moral and worthwhile activity to engage in. It is they who reap the potential and meaning of freedom. Building ever more ways to allow and encourage more individuals to make more of the decisions in their world is a difficult, never-ending task, an obligation which every person and generation bears as members of the most intelligent entity ever to arise.

The goals people make up for themselves are the most potent decisions to be unleashed in the generation of intelligence. The practical reasons to open up opportunities for people to do so are inseparable from the moral ones. Morality on a large scale is built by empowering different kinds of people equally, thereby enhancing the common intelligence. The dreams of individuals all have an equal value not in comparison with each other, but as parts of the human information system. People are equal precisely because they are all different. In daily life, individuals will flower only in the context of a society that allows, encourages, and benefits from their private pursuits. It is only as a part of a society that needs their minds that their individuality has any use.

All alone in a wilderness, a person's individuality would be an impediment instead of an asset, their limitations exposed to the unforgiving elements. In a society which did not rely on their thoughts and instead repressed their ability to think and act, the unique slant of their particular mind would go unused, and their peculiarities would expose them to punishment. It is only as part of a free society that individuals can become equal because they think.

In modern circumstances, the combination of a free market economy, rule of law and democratic political systems, directed together towards promoting human rights, has come to be widely accepted as the most effective way to expand the opportunities for individuals to pursue goals they make up for themselves. By applying the same set of principles to everyone, these social structures attempt to give them all an equal opportunity to contribute. The law guarantees the same

Decentralizing Decision-Making 109

rights to all individuals, giving each of them some power to keep both government and other people out of their private lives. The democratic political system gives each person the same vote. And free market economic systems measure the efforts of everyone by the impartial mathematics of money instead of personal or political favoritism. These systems are tools, whose combined purpose is that of human rights, to allow and inspire people to contribute their ideas, large and small. As the operations of institutions are made increasingly transparent and impartial they enable more people to participate and expose events to wider scrutiny. By decentralizing the power to make decisions, they open the door ever wider for every individual to lend a mind. The result of building these systems has been the growth of societies that are progressively more moral and intelligent.

When the thoughts of individuals are no longer viewed as intrinsically evil or necessarily antagonistic, the moral challenge of a society is turned upside down. It changes from trying to stop most people from thinking to trying to get everyone to think. The main purpose of government is then not to counteract and cure the underlying separateness and antagonism of individuals, but to facilitate attempts to make use of their underlying connections. Democratic forms of government place strict limits on their own power to control people's lives. This becomes possible only when the ideas that individuals come up with are regarded as valuable. In a society in which thinking is decentralized, the purpose of its institutions is to promote, instead of reign in, the creativity of private individuals.

It is in the broader sense of fostering an increase in the intelligence of the society as a whole that the political systems of democracy have their greatest impact. The thoughts and actions of people outside the sphere of government are the true engine of the society in all its varied undertakings, the source of its vigor and creativity. Excessive control of important decisions by a small elite or super-fast computers disconnects the source of success and progress: the creative ferment of diverse minds applying themselves to every level of activity. An indispensable component of an intelligent society is a government that not only allows but actively encourages private initiative.

The purpose of rules is to help people get along, not the other way around. Competitive systems are one of the main ways to decentralize decision making. Competition exists whenever more than one decision making entity is trying to do something. Peaceful competition does not divide people, it brings them together. Competitive systems give participants the right to make their own decisions as long as they stay within certain laws and rules. A right to do something is a positive concept, establishing a freedom from interference in order to generate activity, not to wall people off from each other. In the hot pursuit of winning rules may be bent, but that is not the same as wholesale murder. By accepting a


framework of rules, every participant acknowledges that the things they are accomplishing in common are more important than winning any particular part of the game. Real accomplishment is always difficult, requiring that thoughts and energies be focused on a narrow slice of life. That concentration of effort is done not to the exclusion of wider concerns, but in addition to them. It is by trying hard that people produce from their innate diversity a flowering of ideas, objects and experiences that enriches the lives of all. Competitive systems open the door to the pursuit of excellence.

In the worlds of sports and business, competitive systems depend on all participants sharing a fairly clear set of common goals. This is easy to see in sports, where the immediate concentration on winning a game or race is firmly tied to the larger goal of excellence in athletics. The achievement of athletic excellence is something that everyone, winners, losers and spectators, can be proud of, because without all of them that summit would not have been achieved.

In business, people are driven by competition to concentrate their minds on the best way to serve other people by delivering a particular good or service. Work is doing things for other people. Competing with others becomes a triumph of common over separate interests as long as everyone accepts rules in the form of laws about contracts and money. A free market is not at all a situation in which everyone is simply out to take whatever they can for themself, a free-for-all among isolated, disconnected units. Honest profit is unrelated to stealing from others. On the contrary, it is a mathematical measure of how much someone who has cooperated with others has contributed to the welfare of other people. People engaged in business would not accept a framework of rules if they did not have a larger agenda than simply taking as much as possible.

A free market economy would stagnate and drift towards self-destruction in the absence of a compelling moral system in which most people truly value others. If individuals were really oriented towards benefiting at the expense of others, they would steal whenever possible. A simple calculation of expanded self-interest would not be enough to avoid an escalation of cheating and violence which would lead to the impoverishment of everyone by undermining the entire system. Essential to a successfully functioning free market is a full embrace of the voluntary cooperation, compromise and trust that keeps its diverse jostling members from blows. As people do so, they open the door to a richer world in which maintaining the larger system and not cheating others are not limitations but opportunities, essential for both business success and a fuller life. The relatively smooth and productive functioning of a free market is evidence of widespread morality within it.


Being a tough-minded competitor requires having a clear-eyed view of a world in which connections between people are very real and important. A thorough understanding and honest belief in moral values provides a multitude of insights into reality which are invaluable in the creation of successful business strategies. Figuring out what to make or do is difficult, requiring insight into other people's wants and needs. Cooperation of partners, coworkers, suppliers and neighbors is better enlisted through more inspiration and desire and less coercion. And customers prefer dealing with those they think have their interests at heart. Being strong and successful is the opposite of being hateful and small.

The primary tool for every business is mental. Real success consists of expanding the market by figuring out how to provide more and better goods and services. Millions of mostly small, incremental ideas joined together are the most necessary element in building a general prosperity. Excellence at doing their part in building that prosperity for everyone is a common goal shared by every business, its customers and the general public. The results of enlisting the competition of free markets for the promotion of economic prosperity have in modern times proven to be immense. The thing which is set free by a free market is people's minds.

A fairly designed and maintained system of laws upholding the contracts people make with one another protecting their private property is necessary for any real implementation of basic human rights for individuals. Protections for private projects allow the natural individuality of people's minds to bear fruit, facilitating a diversity of undertaking. When a person conceives and pursues a dream that involves building or creating something, they are not engaged in taking away more than their share of a fixed pie, they are enlarging it. It is thinking that makes the pie bigger. Especially if a person's ideas are new, they need to be free from the prying, controlling, and meddling of others who do not share their perspective. From the point of view of information, private property allows them to look at the content of a problem in a whole manner. The reason to make or do anything is because of the anticipated results. By being able to control both the beginning and the end of something, the person who initiates the activity can think about it more intelligently. Promoting initiative and risk-taking throughout the population is what makes a society more productive, because when more people are thinking the society as a whole is more intelligent. Getting people to volunteer to start things is the essence of any flowering of the human mental system.

A free market economy opens opportunities for the active participation of an ever greater variety of people. The rationalizing force which transcends corruption and treats people equally is the use of mathematics. The unit for counting in


everyday life is called money. The power to decide who does what is decentralized into the hands of the people who use what is produced. As they choose the best product or service for the least cost, opportunities are opened up to diverse people regardless of their connections. The alternative currencies of dress, manners, who you know and whose child you are, suffer great depreciation though they will never entirely disappear. As they gradually wane in favor of the currency of money, the thing that counts tends to be simply the value of the project at hand to the people who will use it. Anyone who can do something better, more efficiently, can offer to do a job or sell something for less money. This is a dynamic process that requires constant work, because the temptations of corruption and cronyism will forever rear their heads in new forms and combinations. One of the most seductive and corrupting tendencies in any large society is to organize everything on the basis of personal relationships, on a political basis, which will always exclude those not already in the loop. Maintaining progress towards more inclusive free markets is essential to increasing the overall intelligence of a society and thus its material prosperity.

Opening up opportunities throughout a society encourages the greatest number of people to turn on their minds. This benefits everyone, because the engine of the society as a whole is the initiative of all its members, not just that of those on top. Equal opportunity is an entirely different concept from an equality of outcomes. It elevates every individual above a stagnant, passive, assigned place in the old order of things. They become free to take an active role in both their own lives and those of others. The goals they invent for themselves become the set of things that should be done, and they each shoulder a share of responsibility for their accomplishments. This sense of ownership of the work they do places a new and invigorated emphasis on efficiency and effectiveness as values that apply to all projects in the society. When each and every person thinks of themself as an agent who gets things done, then getting things done becomes in turn an invaluable and unassailable support for the value of equal opportunity.

A shared emphasis on getting things done has wide implications for equality and freedom because it undermines both divisions between people and the tendency to stop thinking. An imperative towards efficiency makes nonsense of class and racial boundaries because it judges ideas independently of them. It tends to weed out those organizations that don't allow people to use their minds on the job. Before an independent measure of efficiency like money all people are equal, which is why it so often seems obscene to the promoters of superiority and exclusion. When a privileged few are no longer regarded as the sole generators of ideas about how to do things, those ideas form a great common ground that everyone both contributes to and benefits from. The task of building a general


material prosperity brings people together in a common enterprise, inspired by a concept of freedom that relies on participation by everyone.

Participating in economic activity has a central place in most people's mental life. It is the main avenue through which they pursue the ideas that are most important to them, from providing support to their family to helping others through the products of their work. Although all individuals think different thoughts, and therefore have wildly different contributions to make, they face a similar set of personal questions about whether they will do so. Everyone must find an opportunity to pursue their particular bent, as well as some way of coming to terms with the smallness of their role as part of a larger context. Actively resolving these questions engages a person's individuality with the world at large, bringing a fullness and dignity to a person's working life instead of reluctant drudgery.

The place that work occupies in life is illuminated by the project of mainstreaming mentally retarded people. The sight of these people working in a fast food restaurant has not provoked cries of outrage at their exploitation. Instead, most people understand it as one of the most heart-warming stories of our time. The practice of shunting people away in the enforced isolation and sterility of an institution, where someone else does the thinking for them, is now seen as limiting their lives. Mentally retarded people are understood to be able to gain a greater happiness by becoming a part of the everyday world of work. Just like anybody else, when they find a job they can do and make an effort to do it well, they become a part of something larger than themselves. They too become a more fully integrated part of the mental systems around them through the process of applying their mind.

The essential action that makes an individual free is to volunteer, to take initiative in a wider information context. Only actions rooted in the illusion of separation have no volunteer component. The ordinary events and transactions of daily life are filled with opportunities to make things better or worse. Everyone is a volunteer who tries to do a job well, brings up their kids with care, or deals honestly when they could cheat. The willingness of individuals to lend a mind to the people and events around them is the source of whatever intelligence prevails.

The volunteer aspect of work is the source of both productivity and satisfaction. Having the intent to do a job well and be open to new ideas transforms the nature of work. The individual makes it part of their life, a vital extension of their mind into the world around them. It becomes a principal avenue for the expression and fulfillment of their individuality. The success of every organization is directly tied to the degree to which its participants volunteer. No one can make another think up new and better ways to do things. Money and


coercion are puny forces next to inspiration. The accretion of a multitude of tiny suggestions is the generator of the great productivity of a free society.

Voluntary action directed towards the common good by both individuals and organizations is necessary to make a free society work. The needs of system-wide prosperity are complex, requiring a wide range of cooperative functions that are best done on a decentralized basis. Competitors must agree on common standards within which to operate, in many ways voluntarily limiting themselves. Many essential functions have little or no competitive component, from families, education and health care to shared roads, museums, and parks. All benefit from the increased flexibility, diversity and care that comes with people volunteering to contribute all or part of their needs. Critical to the happiness and success of every individual and organization is to find a good working balance between their most immediate problems and those of their environment as a whole.

Open competition is only one of many methods that can be utilized to motivate people to keep looking for new ideas and better ways to do things. There are forms of thinking for which competing with others is dysfunctional or simply inappropriate. There are as many ways of focusing people's minds on the content of a problem as there are diverse individuals in the world. People are capable of having a powerful respect for the independent integrity of their thoughts and feelings without the simple guidelines provided by competitive regulations. It is the free and equal nature of the relationship between individuals and the human information system they are parts of that produces a more moral and intelligent society, not any one form of organization.

The most important measure of freedom in a society is not the degree to which people are self-sufficient, but the degree to which they are actively thinking. Building a society in which more people are actively thinking requires more engagement with them, not less. There is no contradiction between encouraging the mental freedom of an individualistic society and making sure everyone has access to the basic necessities of life. These goals are not opposing, they are complementary. It is by promoting active thinking by the establishment of human rights as the basis of all social structures that the most intelligent forms of association are to be found.

There will always be some who cannot get food, shelter, education and health care by themselves, from children and old people to many of the sick, disabled, dysfunctional, illiterate and handicapped. As much as possible should be done by those who know them and by private charities. But truly comprehensive solutions to many problems can only be provided by the one organization to which everyone belongs. The principal function of the government of a free society is to facilitate the pursuit of private goals by as many individuals as possible. A


commitment to do so can maximize the opportunities for ever wider varieties of people to be engaged in productive thinking, thus making the society as a whole at the same time more intelligent and more moral.

It is possible to help people in ways that encourage them to turn on their minds by taking an ever more responsible role in the details of their lives. Unfortunately, no amount of fairness in the world will make someone free who doesn't understand what it means, who is unwilling to take on the responsibilities it entails. Aid on any scale treats recipients with respect only when they are held responsible for their actions. Those in need have the same obligations as anyone else to take care of themself and not to take away freedom from others. There is no reason not to provide sanctions against those who commit crimes, destroy their housing, make no effort to get an education, or refuse to take a job and become self-supporting. People are best moved towards an understanding and belief in freedom when its opportunities and responsibilities are present in all areas of their lives.

The way aid is rendered in a free society is of critical importance to the lives of people who don't need help. The main source of any society's strength is its overall intelligence, which stems from the degree to which the minds of all its people are engaged. The thoughts and actions of every individual are needed by everyone else. The only way to build a truly intelligent society is to open opportunities and inspire the minds of all the unimportant people. Strength is dependent on the weak.

The drive to help other people does not stem simply from a desire to make the society at large work better. For those who truly understand the values of freedom and equality, the fates of other people hold a place in their own personal life. The reason that someone envisions themself as being the equal of others is because they have found a way of seeing that they and everyone else are not separate entities but parts of the human information system. A person is not really free until they open themself up to the wider world all around them and so come to care about what happens to others. That sense of connection arises as a person sheds the vestiges of hatred, of finding a self-definition in the negative of someone else's image, in an identity that is separate and opposed to other people. As the fog of hatred dissipates, it becomes clear that freedom and love are inseparable.

A free society relies on a set of moral values that are seen as applying to everyone in every circumstance. The acceptance of an equal responsibility for living up to those values raises all those who participate to a new level of dignity. Everyone must agree not to destroy the freedom of others and be held accountable when they do so. Assigning to individuals anything less than full responsibility for


upholding a set of interpersonal values reduces them to a status less than equal. Requiring them, by force if necessary, to be responsible for their actions is the opposite of an act of disrespect. Those who believe in the ideal of freedom must have the courage of their convictions. There must be no shrinking from the requirement that everyone respect the freedom of others. To tolerate crime is to acquiesce in the destruction of freedom.

Dispersing decision-making will often appear to result in more corruption than can be seen in more centralized societies because transgressions are paraded in public and worried over instead of being hidden. But when power is centralized, corruption and sloth also become centralized and thus immune from change, whether within a government bureaucracy or a private business. Getting people to speak up is the only way of catching those who are crooks. Encouraging all people to contribute their thoughts is the best check on the growth of those that are destructive.

Systems that enable decision-making to be decentralized would amount to little more than a protection racket for thieves if the thoughts of most people were unimportant. Then running things by a system of laws would be just a tool for the clever and privileged to fool everyone else. But once the thoughts of all people are recognized as valuable, it becomes morally imperative to continually seek to expand freedom rather than freeze it. The only way to encourage a large number of diverse individuals to participate actively in life is to have a system of rules to try to keep their affairs honest and reasonably orderly. Such systems can never be perfect, but over time they can be made more impartial and effective.

The common characteristic of people who pursue criminal behavior is a lack of moral clarity. People who are not starving but yet steal do so because they think they are right. Not right in terms of an abstract conception of right and wrong, but in terms of believing their actions to be an appropriate response to reality. The arguments for stealing are simple and very old. They are based on the perception that everyone else is doing it. People must steal to make up for the fact that they are being stolen from. Honest people are suckers and victims, spineless fools who are used by those who have cheated their way into positions of power. The perception that in the real world everyone is just out for themself becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Once caught in this trap of hatred it is very difficult to escape, either for those who would steal or for those who would stop them.

The choice which confronts every individual who would be free is not fuzzy but clear: either the option of honest, peaceful effort, or that of dishonest warfare. Behind every effort that takes away freedom from others lurks the false myth that individual people have no real interests here on earth other than amassing an ever greater pile of objects and self-esteem. The siren's song of the easy way fools


people with the illusion that they will gain by cheating others, that they are in reality separate entities and so freedom means cutting all ties. Such a view of the world puts a person in a prison stronger than any made of stone walls, as a perpetual victim whose only hope derives from the mirage of hatred which counts victimizing someone else as a benefit. This mental cage blinds its captive to the vast, rich world that opens up to any person in any time and place who sets themself free into the world of information all around them. An individual achieves the ultimate in separateness when they cheat other people, whether with a fist or a pen. The first victims of crime are the criminals, because even before the transgressing act they have become alone and absurd and they know it. In a society which depends on the private motivations of people it is essential to convince everyone that crime is a stupid response to reality. It destroys their freedom even before they are caught.

It can be very difficult to come to understand and accept the personal values needed to live in a way that is free and equal, especially for someone who has not grown up with them. The full acceptance of these ideals requires more than simple agreement with principles, because they have ramifications that reach into the deepest corners of an individual's identity. They confront a person with the task of changing a thousand nuances to their way of thinking, requiring a general reorientation towards relationships between themselves and everyone else.

Many people in the world come from cultural situations in which active thinking by individuals has been assiduously suppressed. Whether the suppression is part of a wide social pattern or a dysfunctional immediate family, its agents are always particular people. So when an individual has learned that their efforts and idiosyncrasies are worthless, these convictions always have personal overtones. The result can be a cultural maze which suggests at every turn that taking any initiative is futile. In some individuals this creates an impenetrable mess of inhibitions and self-destructive tendencies, internalized feelings of personal worthlessness that inhabit the innermost recesses of their mind.

Productive and responsible behavior does not automatically result from removing external constraints which have prevented it. Human minds are too complex to have their entire outlook determined solely by a set of rules. They are something more intelligent and dangerous than a wind-up toy that will start running as soon as the foot blocking it is removed. A whole range of values that make perfect sense when an individual is prevented or discouraged from pursuing their private dreams become senseless and self-destructive when they are set free. Things like hard work, saving for the future and education have no utility if the fruits of such efforts are always appropriated by someone else. It is then often wiser to hide personal aims, pilfer in the dark, and find satisfaction in immediate


pleasures rather than long term accomplishments. From the perspective of someone coming out of an unfree cultural environment, freedom too often means simply getting for themself the things that were before prohibited. It is only when they have gained a new sense of personal identity that they can see the integral part that assuming responsibility plays in the idea of freedom.

The most difficult step in the transition of any individual to a belief in the ideas of freedom and equality is to transcend the hatred that is based on viewing themself as opposed to other people. This entails more than simply thinking less negatively about them. Hating a little bit less is fine, but it is not at all the same as loving others. Hatred destroys the lives of those who hate. Since they cannot perceive through its dense haze the possibilities of freedom, their minds must remain in chains. It is the experience of love that makes the full meaning of freedom real and understandable to an individual. Once they have learned to hate, once it is under their skin corrupting their heart, it can be unbearably uncomfortable to face the truth that to love they must first stop hating. Giving up hatred altogether, obliterating it, requires gaining a new vision of belonging with other people to something larger.

A framework of institutions based on a concept of rights provides practical ways of steering individual lives in the direction of freedom. Gaining rights means according them to others. Every act of respect for the mind of someone else undermines the logic of hate. The diverse opportunities open to those with rights utilize their individuality to bring people constructively together. The fact that they are different presents a set of connections instead of walls. The inevitable imperfections of life will ensure that some go wrong, so the work of spreading the reality of rights to more lives will never end. Every individual who is brought into a better understanding of their own freedom is valuable in themself as well as an addition to the intelligence of everyone.

The behavior of politicians is of critical importance to promoting greater freedom because they wield the ultimate powers of guns, coercion and control. Like everyone else, they have tendencies towards self-importance, corruption and a lack of proportion. As fallible people exercise the reins of power they continually face the temptation of decreasing the intelligence of their society by centralizing and hiding decision-making and by simply ordering people not to think. This would be excusable if the origin of intelligent decisions was seen to be in the minds of the smartest people. The urge to direct the thoughts and actions of others cannot be constrained for long without a widespread belief in the countervailing idea that the minds of everyone have an equal importance.

A political democracy that can vote them out is the only peaceful way to periodically decrease the tendency of people to dictate what others would say and


do. But the drama of winning and losing is not the real core of what makes a democracy work in practice. Periodic elections repeatedly haul everyone involved back to a focus on the heart of democratic life, which is building consensus on a large scale. Constantly working towards large scale agreement, often finding a middle way between extremes, is the most intelligent way for a society to make decisions. It brings into the decision-making process the greatest variety of minds, and then enlists the largest number of people to actively work for the success of the business at hand.

Including so many people in making decisions will inevitably be untidy because they will disagree with each other. It can be hard to reach the first step in building a consensus, which is to agree that there should be one. Those involved must believe enough in democratic processes that the losers won't feel that the world as they know it is about to end. Even in a mature democracy the results can be dismaying. When a wide variety of people raise their voices, a lot of stupid things end up being said. And the actual achievement of large scale consensus can result in elections that degenerate into contests of triviality and mud for lack of anything better to fight over. But it is the superficially smooth humming of government by the few that is unintelligent, not the noisy tussles of government by the many.

The central insight which makes democracy function intelligently is that philosopher kings do not exist. Humans are designed in a way that is more intelligent than that. To criticize well-meaning people because they are in fact imperfect is dysfunctional and unintelligent, for it undermines their ability to leave their particular imprint. To forever seek out perfect leaders as the main way of solving problems is to yearn for unintelligence.

It is always particular individuals who do anything, and they lend their idiosyncrasies to the course of events. Individual minds are all different from each other and limited in their perspective relative to the whole. None of them has the final answers and they will often disagree. Progress toward better ideas can only be maintained by having peaceful ways of removing from power the individuals who have promoted old and tired ones, whether it is in a government, business or institution.

The framework of a free and democratic society is explicitly designed to promote an increasingly complex web of initiatives dreamed up and actively pursued by a wide variety of people. Such openness can produce rapid and disorderly change, confusion of purpose and leaders that are disobeyed. To survive and prosper such a system needs to be continually fed and refreshed by the beliefs and creativity of its constituent parts. It is up to them to be strong enough to withstand the ongoing assaults of the uncomprehending.


Rights based systems of law, free markets and democracy are often characterized in negative terms, as flawed and uncomfortable necessities that are the only known ways of avoiding the stagnation and nasty excesses of dictatorship. But those who dislike the messiness of free societies are missing the most basic organizational principle of the human information system, which is that intelligence derives only from an unleashing of imperfection. Vigorous and creative thinking is usually disorderly and often uncomfortable. Freedom is guaranteed to produce results that are infuriatingly stupid because of the limited nature of individual humans. It appears tawdry and dysfunctional to those who think raising people to a higher standard is more important than turning them loose. Those who protest the messiness of free societies are professing their dismay at the sight of intelligence.

A free and democratic society is fundamentally moral and beautiful. It is a course of continual change, engaged in the project of bringing the patterns of daily life ever to closer to the design of the human information system, maximizing its inherent intelligence and morality. The process of new individuals and fresh thinking continually coming to life and jostling to be included is a beautiful flowering of morality and intelligence.

The promotion of love is the greatest strength and attribute of the project that is a free democracy. The ideas and dreams individuals make up for themselves become not only possible to accomplish, but more importantly, encouraged as being good. The larger meaning of this process in personal lives is that no matter how small they may be, all the various forms of love they feel are good and right and beautiful. Love is the most important and personal idea a person has. Whether for another person, a song, a football or a flower, love is the most individual expression of their mind, and so the most potent form of thinking which they can contribute to the intelligence around them. Ratifying the goodness of every individual's love provides the motivation to do the right thing and cements their allegiance to the world around them. It makes the pursuit of freedom and democracy seem obviously right and intelligent for everyone everywhere.

Chapter 13

THE POVERTY OF NATIONALISM Imagine Alfred marching on Philadelphia at the head of a hundred thousand

tabby cats. They would be a fearsome sight, armed with sharp claws and teeth. They could infiltrate the city and surround people one at a time or coordinate a huge furry onslaught. They might even mass together and harmonize their purr, setting up sympathetic vibrations that cause bridges and tall buildings to sway and collapse.

Kittycats don't form armies because their minds remain restricted to their own little information puddle no matter how big a crowd they are in. People are capable of marching together because their minds are parts of the human information system, the most potent force ever to appear on earth. The prospect that something so powerful might get out of control can be extremely frightening. Large groups of people who set off on a common goal often appear to be irrational and destructive.

The driving force behind both nationalism and the spread of the idea of freedom is an enhanced image in the minds of relatively unimportant people of their own worth. By envisioning themselves as part of a larger group identity, they gain a new self-image that puts in a wider perspective the small place they have within their society. They become greater and more dignified because they are all part of something larger, sharing equally in the glory they impute to their group.

Relief from a world forever torn by competing national ideas is not to be found by going backwards and undoing them. Nationalism will not be forgotten or given up, but built upon, superseded by the idea of freedom, which expands and transcends instead of negating, the enhanced sense of importance that nationalism gives to every individual. As free societies develop, they share many of the characteristics of societies under the sway of a national idea. Looking at the


impact nationalism has had in the world can illuminate the enormous power driving the rising tide of freedom.

The thing which distinguishes a national group, whether it is German, Japanese, Arab, Mexican, Hutu, Vietnamese, Tamil or Irish, is an abstract idea its people have about themselves. National identities are a result of large numbers of people waking up to an awareness that their minds are integral parts of an overriding mental entity that shapes their daily life. Such a sense of identity can adhere to almost any distinct cultural unit into which people have divided themselves. It could be on the basis of location, race, language, sex, religion or even a special interest like baseball.

As parts of this larger culture, ordinary people can believe that, in this way at least, their minds are equal to those who have traditionally controlled their daily lives. As their allegiance expands to a national arena, it leapfrogs local potentates who have all the obvious trappings of enforceable superiority. Otherwise powerless and isolated individuals experience an exhilarating expansion of their own identity. As parts of something so grand, they gain a greater sense of personal dignity than they may have had as someone who is small, alone, and inevitably beneath someone else. Within a national group, everyone rises to a new kind of equality.

The enormous difference in scale between the needs of a national, religious or racial group and any individual's life provides a perspective which gives meaning to each one's limited nature. To the degree that they gain rights as members of the group, they become additions to the increased level of activity which the group makes possible. Relatively powerless and isolated individuals experience an exhilarating expansion of their identity, which inspires them to contribute more. They can see their idiosyncrasies not in the baleful light of isolation or comparison to stronger and smarter neighbors, but as useful components of a larger entity next to which everyone is small. People share equally in the glory they impute to the larger entity to which they belong. Its dignity, scale and purpose are theirs.

The emergence of a national group can have a very positive influence by releasing latent energies. The cohesive sense of identity produced by a national awakening can enable people to lay aside local antagonisms and work together on ever bigger projects. It can result in creative efforts in many fields in which the distinctive traits of the group add greatly to the diversity that enriches the world. And it can awaken in the minds of the majority of people the idea that their thoughts and aspirations are of value, inspiring them to be more active in all areas of their lives. To the extent that the focus of a national sense of identity is directed

The Poverty of Nationalism 123

inward, it elevates the position of ordinary people in the process of focusing their energies on largely constructive activities.

Nationalism can be the despair of both older elites and educated people because it usurps their hegemony of leadership. To them it represents the degrading of ideals, the pursuit of ends dreamed up by shallow chauvinists that satisfy the desires of the ignorant masses of people. It appears unsophisticated, tawdry and corrupt, and its leaders tend to be the most unsavory kinds of people. It can appear to be a relentless, even mystical force, swaying large numbers of people all together in great swirls of activity. The idea of the nation is one that every person can participate in regardless of what any authority says is right. It gets a lot of its unstoppable quality by being an idea that millions of people hold in a way that is seemingly impervious to reason. It remains stubbornly independent of contrary leadership because at its heart it is an idea which belongs to all the nonleaders, which they refuse to be lead away from. People at all levels of a society enthusiastically embrace their new sense of belonging, in a wave of unanimity on which politicians ride at their peril.

In the process of bringing people together, many kinds of association cut others off, harnessing the powerful logic of the human information system to its own destruction. The innate tendencies of people to seek group membership and acceptance are essential to building intelligence. To the extent that they tap into the energies and abilities of the individuals who comprise them, very large entities can unleash enormous power. But groups often drift towards defining themselves excessively in negative terms, by who they are not. This can be easier than trying to sort out the difficult contradictions that inevitably stand in the way of a unified positive image. Negative self-identification can paper over internal divisions and intractable problems. This appears to make the group more cohesive, but at enormous cost. Far greater than the losses of open warfare are the insidious costs of being lured into the vast swamp of hatred.

Negative self-identification for a group is intensely self-destructive, an insidious rot that destroys from within. As the content of people's minds becomes secondary to who they are, to the identity of the group they belong to, the increased motivation to think that can be stimulated by being a part of a larger entity is undermined. The difficult problems of building a better life take second place to the maintenance of an inflated self-image by asserting that some other people are inferior or odious. Every step towards thinking that some people are worth more than others devalues the importance of the world of ideas that all share in common. This infects all activities with an unintelligent bias towards who thought something up rather than the independent worth of ideas. Not only are ideas devalued, but the source of them is made to wither. Claims of group


superiority tend to imply that those members of the favored group who do not conform to its advertised norms are not worthwhile. People who think a little differently are made to feel inhibited from speaking up or acting on their ideas, for fear that by exposing too much of their individuality they will be excluded. More subtly, the naturally diverse character of their minds is moved into an ever more narrow channel by their own attraction to group models, which makes them desire to think only in the prescribed ways. These constraints on thinking have ramifications throughout a society, not just among the major players but in all the little decisions that are taken in everyday life. People turn from looking for what is new towards preserving what is old. The diversity of thought within the group that is promoting itself as distinct is reduced, making it progressively less intelligent. Stagnation awaits those obsessed with their identity.

Large national and religious group concepts are innovations that won't go away, for they change deeply the way people think about themselves personally. Through them, individuals get a glimpse of what it might mean to be truly equal. They can share in the real world something which is so large and important that every person appears equally small standing next to it and equally elevated by the fact of belonging. The equality that so many feel in the shade of their nation or religion is not complete but exclusive and it often is not associated with the idea of freedom. But once awakened to the level of consciousness that is nationalism, people will stubbornly persist either until their group is destroyed or they find a greater vision.

The forces that make nationalism so potent find an outlet that increases their intensity and power when they are the result of a universal instead of restricted conception of rights. Once it takes hold, the idea of equal freedom for all can be as unpredictable, uncontrollable and uncomfortable to elites as nationalism, for many of the same reasons. The enhanced sense of personal worth that is experienced by members of a group is multiplied when the entity to which individuals belong includes everyone. The perspective in which individuals can see themselves raised up to an equality with the highest and mightiest is broadened. Pride in their way of life becomes stronger and deeper when the attributes of their group are envisioned as positive elements of a larger whole instead of a means to exclude others. The destructive logic of hatred is short-circuited as ever wider categories of human beings are admitted to be equal. In the light of a universal conception of rights, the constricting grasp of insular and exclusive forms of nationalism appears in its true colors: pale, sad and unintelligent.

People are raised above parochial claims of hatred when they conceive of their rights as universal instead of group-based. Individuality is the common element shared by all humans, the universal link with the human information

The Poverty of Nationalism 125

system. That entity as a whole is the functional unit in which people participate, from which they derive the benefits of intelligence. The differences that people have due to their various group identities are additions to their individuality. Subgroups are but eddies and currents within the larger pool, for information flows across all boundaries that are not shut down by the artifice of hatred. By identifying the entity they belong to as the human information system as a whole, universal rights put group loyalties in a perspective which more accurately reflects reality. The perennial challenge presented by universal rights to every individual is to be involved with their particular series of groups without hating others.

Whether based on religion, race or language, nationalism remains one of the biggest impediments to the development of intelligence in the world today. The biggest differences between people remain the hardest to overcome. But embracing those who are different is the basic act which leads to intelligence. For those who lead countries as well as the neighbor next door, a willingness to brave this is more acceptable today than ever before. This reaches into the lives of every individual. It enhances the quality of their life materially and draws them toward an ever more fulfilling prospect of engagement with those around them.

For those who make the choice to live in a free manner, the modern world holds great promise. The intelligence of the human information system is evolving at an exciting pace. The fear of freedom which for so long stifled humanity is rapidly lifting. The extraordinary increase in the number of people alive in the world, coupled with an explosion of communication links among individuals and cultures, is opening a new world era in which a lot more thinking is going on. It is increasingly obvious today that fabulous opportunities await those societies which find peaceful ways of getting people to think more. Essential to turning loose their diverse mental energies is the freedom of all people, as individuals, to think independently and pursue the divergent goals that arise from that thinking, based on an inspired belief that intelligence is good, not bad.

Chapter 14

THE NATURE OF BELIEF Alfred doesn't trouble himself about the future. The endless days of chasing,

eating, napping and licking seem to go on forever and that's just fine. His acute senses of sight, smell and hearing open a world rich with exciting possibilities, providing a range and density of information about the world he stalks through that is far beyond anything humans experience. His informational milieu is operationally self-contained. Alfred carries inside all the thoughts he needs to get by, and sees nothing beyond the reach of his senses. His contentment is easy to envy on those harried days when a frazzled human contemplates a range of dubious prospects, wondering all the while whether they matter. Maybe it would be nice to be a cat.

To be human is to be faced with a series of choices between slipping into cozy isolation and venturing out to engage the world. It can be difficult to forsake the shallow struggle to dominate others, the private comforts of a defensive cocoon, or the warm isolation of a drug induced stupor. Temptations beckon at every turn toward a quiet embrace of the sterile wastelands of hatred. The decision to wake up from illusions of separateness is never final. It must be constantly remade, an ongoing rededication to life.

Humans are uniquely the creature that believes. For them there is no such thing as a lack of belief, only different ones. Simply to navigate a stroll down the street, a person must accept as true a long string of beliefs. The concepts necessary for them to function are based on more than direct experience, drawn in large part from the human information system. They need ways to trust the body of knowledge others have built up, in order to use and contribute to it honestly. People would not need to worry about believing in anything if they were not conscious beings who make decisions. For them this is the central fact of life,


directly involving them in the growth of the most intelligent entity ever to arise. It is only through belief that humans can comprehend and manage the enormous intelligence they are parts of. The quality and success of each human life grows directly from the accuracy of their conceptions of the world and the firmness with which they are held.

Finding some way to believe in the reality of information is the only escape from illusions of separateness. People are left unconnected as long as they believe that reality consists only of matter, energy, space and time, for in terms of those elements alone individuals are indeed quite separate. This is itself a set of beliefs, for every conception of the world that is thought to be true is a belief. If a person is to believe anything is real, they must first believe information is real, for information is what their consciousness consists of. Every act, every instant of awareness is information.

Dividing reality, by believing that physical things are real and information is not, trivializes the most important aspect of human existence. It leads to a hollow imitation of life, an empty and drifting existence lacking the conviction that the totality of experience and existence is real.

Awakening to the reality of information requires a leap of understanding similar to a leap of religious faith. Since it is an idea, it requires belief to accept it. Traditional religious beliefs are not precluded by the reality of a universe that includes information, for that does not concern any dimension beyond the provable natural world.

Once information is understood to be an integral element of the universe, the thoughts and feelings of every individual come alive in their place on the information continuum. Information is a hard, cold fact, its existence as certain as a hand, a tree, or the earth itself. It is a fundamental element of the fabric of reality, not something artificial that humans impose upon the world. Life and the human information system are the products of the natural phenomenon in which information increases in complexity through time. The thoughts and feelings of every person are an outgrowth of the information which permeates every corner of the universe. People are firmly connected in the most intimate way possible with each other and with the world in which they live.

A certainty that the world is full of information everywhere changes the moment by moment experience of being in the world, making it possible to reach out and touch, at any second, around any corner, no longer holding back behind an artificial divide between self and other, living completely in the information continuum. In order to witness the present immensity of the information dimension, a person must fully recognize that their own individual nature is of it,

The Nature of Belief 129

allowing the intricate pores of their mind to open, mingle and act. A belief that the part they play in the world is real animates every level of interaction with life.

A decision to acknowledge or deny the inherent informational connections among people and with their universe cannot be made just once. Life presents opportunities every second for opening to the world. Closing off from it requires repeated efforts to keep reality from rushing in. The acceptance or rejection of connection colors the fullness of experiences of beauty and alters the quality of moral choices. The most important decision in a person's life must be made throughout it.

Believing in the reality of information entails accepting a large degree of vulnerability, a sense of smallness. Opening to the reality of information in general necessarily means opening to the reality of the human information system. To every individual this means that they themself are a functioning element of the greatest information field confronting them, with implications reaching into every corner of life. Unbelief offers illusions of separateness in which it makes sense to measure people next to each other, providing various islands of superiority from which the informational truths of existence can be ignored. Forsaking such false comforts opens a person inside and out, allowing them to feel directly the natural ways in which the most subtle corners of their mind reach out and touch the world. They gain access to the largest part of their mind, the human information system as a whole. Access to that entity provides every individual with vistas of information beyond anything they could ever hope to know all by themself. They are forever reminded that they are but a tiny corner of an intelligence that is a higher order of magnitude than their own, with infinite depths in each individual and diverse branches spreading in every direction. Accepting that reality sets them free to become immensely larger, integrated into the human information system.

The true opening of any human mind is dependent on finding ways to incorporate their membership in the human information system into the personal definition they have of themself. Even their tiniest, most private thoughts and feelings are parts of a vast and mysterious network. The boundaries between their mind and the rest of the human information system are crossing places for information, points of connection, not separation. Every corner of their mind has links with the entire system of human thoughts, the sheer breadth and depth of which is far beyond the vision and comprehension of any individual. It seems to go on forever, from vast libraries with millions of volumes to the infinitely convoluted depths within any person's eyes. But although its full extent can never be traced, the actuality of the human network of thoughts can be grasped by anyone. It is not incomprehensible, far away or out of reach. Listening to another person reveals its infinite echoes. Within every smile and nod can be heard the


intricacies of millions. Every meeting with another person is an opening to the whole information onslaught, as each allows their own hidden depths to mingle with the unique details of another perspective. The human information system consists of each person's mind, and so is extremely ordinary, familiar and close. Its existence is as certain as the reality of information.

The quality of each moment of each person's life is the real time embodiment of the intelligence of the human information system. Seeing that reality in both other people and in themself is the principle challenge facing every individual. It is the great constant of human existence, the basis of every form of endeavor.

When people are perceived as consisting of their thoughts and feelings, human individuality shines forth not as confirmation of their separateness but as the genius of their existence as an integrated mental whole. A critical step in the opening of any one person's life to reality is their own recognition that the quirky partialness which characterizes their mind is not just OK but a blessing. Their individuality is not a choice or a fault but a fact of life that everyone has in common. Their basic nature has the same inherent value as that of everyone else, independent of the day-to-day opinions of family, friends or acquaintances. It is the vital source of the intelligence of the human information system. The knowledge of universal acceptance imparted by this insight empowers a person to embark on their own journey of freedom. And it places squarely on their shoulders the responsibility to live in a moral fashion, in harmony with the information structure that sets them free.

The obligation to choose a moral path in their relations with others is an unchanging reality of human existence that everyone must face. From the point of view of each individual, to neglect this obligation is to turn away from the reality that they are part of the human information system. Their own individuality is only good and valuable because that of everyone else is also, in exactly the same measure. The information system that embraces everyone thereby places them all on an equal footing. Opening to that vast intelligence is the same thing as opening to each and every individual who comprises it. Accepting responsibility for the integrity of their thoughts and their relationships with others sets a person free by making their mind whole. The importance and meaning of making that decision does not change when the going gets rough, when other people are nasty. A sense of responsibility flows directly from a perception of the reality of information in themself and in other people. For every part of the human information system, it is woven into the definition of self. It illuminates an inescapable landscape in which the decision to treat others well appears to be just as obvious, and is made on the same uncomplicated basis, as a decision not to step off a cliff.

The Nature of Belief 131

Orienting their decisions towards increasing the intelligence of the human information system as a whole is the way a person makes the choices in their own life intelligent. It is from the pursuit of intelligence that all other goods flow. Although the perspective of individuals is by design too limited to really know the best path, acts of trying to do the right thing by imperfect individuals is what makes the design work. Actions, thoughts and feelings which are destructive of intelligence grow out of illusions of separateness rooted in unbelief, in misunderstandings of the nature of information in reality. Belief in the reality of information is a door which opens directly into the human information system. A person becomes whole in themself by orienting every corner of their life towards increasing the intelligence of the entity they exist as part of, the most sophisticated form of intelligence in the universe.

The final responsibility for the trueness of their heart rests with each individual. Only they can ever know for sure if they are open or hiding, honest or false. It is the character of the innermost reaches of their mind which makes them of value to others and makes their own life worth living. That character changes forever once they find a way of perceiving that their thoughts and feelings do not exist in irrelevant isolation, but exist as outgrowths of the information dimension of reality. Connection and beauty are inherent in the reality of existence. Every time a person opens their mind, every time they feel love, they embrace and enhance the intelligence of the human information system.

INDEX

A

accuracy, 35, 128 achievement, 24, 57, 110, 119 acute, 127 adaptability, 5 adult, 76 age, 96 agent, 11, 87, 112 agents, 39, 78, 117 aid, 115 air, 10, 53, 92 alcohol, 82 alternative, 70, 87, 90, 112 alters, 99, 129 anatomy, 1 animals, 1, 8, 23, 26, 28 antagonism, 109 antagonistic, 58, 109 application, 45, 46, 65, 66, 91 argument, 6 artistic, 48 assaults, 119 assets, 63, 85 atoms, 6 atrophy, 94 attacks, 97 authority, 123 awareness, 3, 6, 9, 11, 21, 30, 31, 34, 35, 49,

122, 128

B

babies, 21, 89, 91 back, 3, 16, 17, 18, 20, 46, 68, 75, 82, 83,

119, 128 baking, 47 barriers, 10, 71, 82 basic rights, 104, 105 basketball, 47 behavior, 37, 57, 90, 96, 98, 102, 116, 117,

118 beliefs, 31, 35, 119, 127, 128 benefits, 18, 27, 58, 63, 66, 69, 71, 84, 85,

108, 112, 125 benign, 42 bias, 55, 62, 123 binding, 46 birds, 7, 23, 42, 65, 99 birth, 20, 76 blame, 62 blends, 93 blindness, 43 blocks, 32, 39 blood, 58 boats, 26 bonds, 39, 40, 42 bounds, 9, 60, 102 brain, 1, 3, 12 breakfast, 17 breathing, 98

Index 134

bubble, 21 building blocks, 32, 39 buildings, 15, 47, 121 bureaucracy, 116

C

cancer, 42 cast, 76 casting, 76 cats, 1, 2, 5, 7, 10, 15, 25, 33, 39, 51, 77, 89,

99, 107, 121 causation, 8 channels, 55 charities, 114 cheating, 65, 69, 110, 117 chest, 72 children, 17, 20, 27, 75, 76, 80, 93, 114 circulation, 17, 80 classification, 15 cleaning, 80 cocoon, 127 codes, 6 coercion, 81, 104, 111, 114, 118 cohesiveness, 29 collaboration, 41 colors, 92, 124, 129 communication, 16, 24, 41, 46, 47, 48, 49, 68,

78, 99, 125 communities, 32 competence, 23 competition, 109, 110, 111, 114 competitive advantage, 24 competitor, 25, 111 complement, 2, 5 complex interactions, 79 complexity, 1, 4, 7, 8, 11, 13, 18, 19, 27, 28,

39, 57, 72, 86, 92, 94, 100, 128 components, 6, 8, 33, 47, 75, 83, 122 compounds, 98 comprehension, 48, 129 concentrates, 20 concentration, 82, 110 conception, 19, 36, 42, 55, 93, 116, 124, 128 concrete, 7, 56

confidence, 61, 69 confinement, 44, 61 conflict, 52, 101 confrontation, 76 confusion, 68, 119 consciousness, 7, 8, 11, 18, 35, 59, 86, 124,

128 consensus, 119 constraints, 22, 52, 56, 64, 117, 124 construction, 46 contracts, 110, 111 control, 18, 40, 49, 60, 64, 76, 79, 104, 109,

111, 118, 121 conviction, 10, 101, 128 cooking, 19, 26 coping, 86 corruption, 36, 43, 55, 67, 111, 116, 118 costs, 123 coupling, 76 creative thinking, 120 creativity, 4, 18, 20, 26, 28, 29, 45, 54, 71, 88,

89, 90, 94, 109, 119 creep, 55, 72, 75 crime, 116, 117 crimes, 115 criminal behavior, 102, 116 criminals, 117 criticism, 76 cronyism, 112 crying, 88 culture, 122 currency, 112 customers, 111

D

death, 9, 11, 22, 35, 65, 72 debt, 90 debts, 39, 94 decentralization, 100 decision making, 109 decision-making process, 119 decisions, 3, 5, 8, 11, 12, 20, 29, 31, 32, 52,

66, 67, 69, 74, 78, 91, 92, 95, 96, 99, 100,

Index 135

101, 102, 103, 108, 109, 118, 119, 124, 127, 131

defects, 1 defensiveness, 68 definition, 3, 12, 43, 49, 61, 77, 88, 115, 129,

130 degenerate, 119 degenerative disease, 86 degrading, 123 democracy, 109, 119, 120 denial, 42 density, 71, 90, 95, 127 depreciation, 112 destruction, 3, 31, 42, 48, 60, 62, 90, 97, 98,

110, 116, 123 detachment, 20 dictatorship, 120 dignity, 35, 36, 58, 113, 115, 122 disabled, 114 disappointment, 72 disaster, 18, 31, 36, 78 discipline, 66, 80, 82, 83 discontinuity, 69 discretionary, 29 dishonesty, 67 disorder, 7 disputes, 19, 20 distillation, 28 distress, 91 distribution, 4 diversity, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 24, 25, 26, 27,

29, 31, 45, 53, 54, 63, 85, 101, 103, 108, 110, 111, 114, 122, 124

division, 67 divorce, 27, 79 DNA, 6 dominance, 10, 15, 23, 27 doors, 15, 58, 66, 71, 76, 85 dream, 53, 77, 111 drugs, 59, 60, 83, 86, 93

E

ears, 1, 108 earth, 8, 13, 15, 24, 25, 34, 36, 116, 121, 128

eating, 127 economic activity, 113 economic systems, 109 ecstasy, 13 eddies, 125 education, 85 elephants, 47 emotion, 18, 46, 73 emotional, 9, 48, 73, 75 emotions, 10, 33, 42, 46, 68, 75, 92, 94 empathy, 66, 73, 74, 83 empowered, 64 empowerment, 77 encouragement, 21 energy, 2, 5, 6, 8, 18, 57, 128 engagement, 79, 88, 93, 114, 125 enterprise, 12, 36, 60, 65, 68, 69, 79, 80, 81,

91, 113 entertainment, 45, 48 entrapment, 62 environment, 7, 10, 29, 30, 49, 52, 57, 60, 62,

76, 114, 118 equality, 51, 52, 54, 55, 56, 70, 72, 108, 112,

115, 118, 122, 124 evil, 46, 104, 109 evolution, 2, 5, 6, 13, 24, 28, 30, 89, 105 exclusion, 55, 82, 110, 112 excuse, 73 exercise, 56, 66, 78, 82, 83, 103, 118 expansions, 29 exploitation, 59, 113 external constraints, 117 eye, 33, 63, 105 eyes, 10, 22, 28, 31, 37, 49, 53, 72, 74, 91, 99,

129

F

fabric, 34, 80, 128 failure, 27, 59 fairness, 39, 115 faith, 35, 44, 66, 80, 84, 87, 128 family, 39, 57, 66, 70, 74, 75, 76, 77, 79, 81,

89, 90, 102, 103, 113, 117, 130 farmers, 17

Index 136

fast food, 113 fear, 68, 70, 96, 124, 125 fears, 73 feedback, 29 feeding, 89 feelings, 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 17,

18, 19, 28, 34, 35, 36, 37, 40, 42, 43, 46, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 60, 61, 63, 64, 71, 73, 74, 75, 77, 81, 82, 83, 86, 87, 88, 90, 91, 92, 93, 96, 97, 99, 103, 114, 117, 128, 129, 130, 131

films, 15 fire, 102 flavor, 41, 84, 91 flexibility, 89, 114 float, 42 flood, 40 flooding, 42 flow, 41, 131 fluid, 16 focusing, 80, 82, 84, 86, 87, 114, 123 food, 1, 5, 18, 51, 81, 94, 99, 100, 101, 113,

114 football, 33, 93, 120 free choice, 86 free market economy, 108, 110, 111 freedom, 12, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59,

60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 75, 76, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 85, 86, 87, 98, 102, 103, 104, 107, 108, 109, 112, 114, 115, 116, 118, 120, 121, 124, 125, 130

freedoms, 102, 103, 104, 105 friction, 71 friendship, 42 frost, 6 fruits, 117 frustration, 92 fuel, 105 fulfillment, 13, 47, 79, 81, 113 furniture, 89

G

gender, vii, ix gene, 4

gene pool, 4 general intelligence, 52, 90, 91, 94, 95, 104 generation, 4, 8, 26, 32, 48, 76, 105, 108 generators, 97, 112 genes, 27, 30, 99 gift, 74, 76, 86 goals, 51, 52, 53, 57, 65, 69, 70, 77, 78, 80,

83, 86, 103, 104, 108, 110, 112, 114, 125 goods and services, 111 gossip, 4, 47 government, 100, 109, 114, 116, 119 grades, 92 grants, 102 group identity, 121 group membership, 123 groups, 2, 5, 11, 16, 19, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30,

31, 69, 70, 74, 97, 105, 121, 123, 125 growth, 8, 21, 29, 31, 34, 46, 53, 58, 82, 109,

116, 128 guidance, 23 guidelines, 12, 100, 114 guns, 118 gut, 70

H

handicapped, 114 hands, 103, 112 hanging, 99 happiness, 13, 36, 54, 57, 65, 73, 88, 92, 93,

94, 95, 96, 98, 99, 101, 103, 104, 113, 114 hardships, 83 harm, 3, 13, 58, 80, 82, 93, 94, 98, 102, 103,

130 harmony, 3, 13, 58, 80, 82, 93, 94, 98, 103,

130 hate, 42, 43, 44, 48, 49, 97, 118 haze, 118 healing, 79, 98 health, 11, 56, 90, 100, 101, 114 health care, 100, 101, 114 hearing, 59, 127 heart, 13, 34, 35, 40, 41, 64, 71, 74, 76, 79,

82, 95, 98, 111, 113, 118, 119, 123, 131 hegemony, 123

Index 137

helplessness, 87 honesty, 39, 40, 42, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71 host, 23, 36, 63, 67, 71, 74 housing, 115 human, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13,

14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37, 39, 40, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 65, 66, 67, 68, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 76, 77, 79, 82, 83, 84, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 103, 104, 105, 107, 108, 111, 114, 115, 120, 121, 123, 124, 125, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131

human activity, 55 human brain, 12 human development, 28, 29 human input, 77 human rights, 12, 99, 100, 108, 111, 114 humanity, 18, 20, 28, 36, 40, 56, 58, 104, 125 humans, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, 20,

21, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 45, 46, 52, 53, 55, 66, 73, 74, 79, 88, 89, 90, 94, 99, 107, 120, 124, 127, 128

hunting, 7, 26, 45, 107 hypnotic, 59

I

ice, 19 identification, 43, 123 identity, 10, 34, 35, 41, 42, 43, 55, 60, 62, 65,

77, 84, 88, 99, 103, 115, 117, 118, 121, 122, 123

idiosyncratic, 20 illusion, 3, 7, 9, 13, 15, 16, 33, 34, 36, 37, 43,

44, 47, 49, 54, 60, 62, 63, 65, 72, 73, 75, 77, 84, 86, 90, 93, 97, 98, 113, 117

illusions, 13, 31, 40, 58, 72, 78, 86, 127, 128, 129, 131

images, 9 imagination, 15, 23, 26, 44, 68, 73, 83, 96 imitation, 10, 44, 61, 72, 128 immersion, 13, 40, 73 implementation, 100, 105, 111

imprisonment, 84 in situ, 92 incentives, 70 independence, 4, 7, 34, 85, 100 indigenous, 105 individual character, 82, 86, 91 individualism, 84 individuality, 4, 5, 9, 28, 32, 40, 41, 44, 47,

52, 53, 56, 57, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 67, 68, 72, 74, 75, 76, 78, 79, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 89, 91, 92, 93, 94, 96, 97, 101, 103, 104, 105, 108, 111, 113, 118, 124, 125, 130

infants, 26 inferiority, 62 infinite, 62, 129 inflation, 61, 75 information systems, 5, 9, 11, 13, 32, 41, 107 inheritance, 5 inherited, 31 injuries, 98 injury, 42, 98 innovation, 1, 4, 5, 24, 25, 26, 29, 45 insects, 23 insight, 5, 11, 13, 33, 34, 36, 111, 119, 130 inspiration, 35, 46, 81, 84, 92, 108, 111, 114 instability, 29, 89 institutions, 109, 118 instruments, 80 insulation, 88 insults, 98 integration, 86 integrity, 32, 43, 55, 56, 58, 68, 70, 90, 94, 97,

114, 130 intelligence, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 11, 12, 13, 18,

19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 34, 36, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 46, 47, 48, 49, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 70, 71, 72, 75, 78, 79, 80, 82, 83, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 103, 104, 105, 107, 108, 109, 112, 113, 115, 118, 120, 123, 125, 128, 129, 130, 131

intentions, 68, 96, 97 interaction, 74, 91, 95, 129 interactions, 16, 39, 79, 95, 96, 99, 102

Index 138

interface, 70, 76 interference, 100, 101, 104, 109 internet, 33, 69 intervention, 98 intonation, 18, 47 intrinsic, 6, 57, 101 intrinsic value, 101 inventions, 17 inventors, 17 isolation, 15, 23, 25, 54, 56, 60, 61, 62, 65,

68, 70, 72, 75, 78, 80, 81, 83, 88, 93, 97, 100, 107, 113, 122, 127, 131

J

Japanese, 43, 122 jobs, 93 joining, 10, 47, 59 judges, 112

K

kernel, vii killing, 60, 62 knots, 26

L

language, 4, 16, 18, 23, 47, 122, 125 large-scale, 70 laughing, 49 laughter, 49, 76 law, 108, 120 laws, 100, 102, 103, 104, 109, 110, 111, 116 leadership, 123 leaks, 17 learning, 75, 84, 85 lending, 19 liberation, 60, 63 life experiences, 19 life forms, 6, 8 lifetime, 68, 94 lift, 16, 84

limitations, 9, 11, 27, 40, 41, 59, 61, 63, 75, 84, 88, 93, 95, 104, 108, 110

linear, 19 links, 16, 17, 63, 75, 125, 129 listening, 13, 21, 64, 84, 86 location, 122 long period, 81, 96 losses, 69, 71, 123 love, 3, 9, 12, 13, 14, 27, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43,

44, 48, 59, 60, 61, 64, 66, 68, 74, 75, 76, 79, 93, 107, 108, 115, 118, 120, 131

loyalty, 39, 42, 69, 70

M

machines, 15, 18, 20 maintenance, 80, 123 mammal, 1, 15, 25 manifold, 68 manners, 112 market, 28, 109, 110, 111 market economy, 108, 110, 111 markets, 111, 112, 120 marriage, 94, 95, 98, 104 mathematics, 19, 23, 80, 109, 111 meanings, 39, 52 measurement, 80 membership, 32, 66, 102, 123, 129 memory, vii, 30 mental life, 41, 113 mental power, 18, 20, 27 mental processes, 46 messages, 3, 17, 18, 47 Mexican, 122 mice, 23, 99 mining, 26 mirror, 40, 44, 75 mixing, 10 models, 124 modern society, 80 molecules, 8, 77 momentum, 28, 96 money, 80, 109, 110, 112 moral behavior, 37, 90

Index 139

morality, 2, 11, 12, 13, 29, 31, 32, 47, 52, 58, 89, 90, 91, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 100, 101, 104, 110, 120

morning, 58 mosaic, 13 motion, 4, 53, 71, 78, 96, 97 motivation, 61, 120, 123 motives, 95 mouse, 1 movement, 53, 64, 87, 100 murder, 12, 100, 109 music, 4, 16, 18, 19, 20, 23, 47, 93 musicians, 23

N

narcotic, 62 nation, 123, 124 nationalism, 121, 124, 125 nationality, 103 natural, 7, 8, 10, 11, 25, 42, 47, 60, 65, 68, 74,

77, 82, 88, 94, 97, 100, 104, 111, 128, 129 neck, 75 nefarious, 73 neglect, 130 negotiation, 48 nerves, 3, 68 network, 3, 12, 16, 26, 31, 57, 71, 77, 129 next generation, 8, 76 noise, 77 normal, 43, 57 norms, 124

O

obligation, 12, 54, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 97, 98, 104, 108, 130

obligations, 39, 94, 97, 101, 102, 103, 104, 115

oil, 17 older people, 84 openness, 40, 70, 73, 87, 119 opposition, 70 optimism, 67, 80, 87, 88

orbit, 10, 35, 39 organ, 1, 8 organism, 2, 4, 19 orientation, 49, 87, 95 outrage, 113 ownership, 112

P

packets, 5 pain, 33, 60, 73, 82 parents, 17, 19, 20, 76, 79 passive, 27, 83, 87, 112 pathways, 5, 12, 18, 39, 54, 60 peer group, 19 peers, 30 perception, 12, 13, 21, 30, 34, 40, 44, 53, 61,

66, 70, 81, 99, 101, 116, 130 perseverance, 75, 82 personal identity, 42, 60, 118 personal life, 9, 10, 36, 54, 64, 74, 104, 115 personal relationship, 70, 99, 112 personal responsibility, 90 personal values, 117 personality, 19, 23, 27, 85 personality type, 19, 23, 27 persuasion, 98 Philadelphia, 121 philosophical, 70 phone, 82 physical activity, 56 physical world, 3, 10, 36 play, 21, 45, 46, 53, 68, 72, 97, 129 pleasure, 47 poison, 62, 67, 94 poisoning, 41 political democracy, 118 politicians, 26, 118, 123 politics, 18, 19, 47 poor, 43 population, 19, 111 pores, 88, 129 power, 2, 5, 7, 15, 18, 19, 20, 24, 25, 26, 27,

29, 31, 45, 46, 48, 49, 52, 56, 58, 60, 66,

Index 140

67, 92, 101, 103, 109, 112, 116, 118, 119, 122, 123, 124

premium, 27 present value, 32 pressure, 4, 20, 27, 29, 46 pristine, 53 private, 3, 10, 42, 44, 56, 57, 61, 63, 66, 68,

71, 75, 83, 86, 87, 93, 95, 96, 97, 101, 102, 104, 107, 108, 109, 111, 114, 116, 117, 127, 129

private property, 111 problem solving, 45 production, 46 productivity, 82, 113 profit, 65, 110 property, 102, 111 proposition, 7, 85 prosperity, 57, 90, 91, 111, 112, 113, 114 protection, 116 protoplasm, 8 public, 28, 69, 79, 81, 104, 107, 111, 116 public affairs, 79 punishment, 108

Q

questioning, 20, 63 questionnaire, 20

R

race, 21, 46, 56, 110, 122, 125 random, 28, 35, 70, 76 range, 3, 4, 5, 12, 18, 19, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28,

29, 30, 42, 46, 47, 53, 68, 73, 75, 77, 78, 79, 90, 91, 100, 103, 104, 105, 108, 114, 117, 127

rat, 111 reaffirmation, 49 real time, 90, 130 reality, 3, 5, 6, 10, 11, 13, 16, 28, 31, 33, 34,

35, 36, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 47, 53, 54, 58, 60, 61, 62, 64, 65, 67, 71, 72, 74, 75, 77,

78, 80, 83, 87, 88, 90, 97, 98, 105, 111, 116, 117, 118, 125, 128, 129, 130, 131

reasoning, 18 recognition, 7, 13, 31, 33, 34, 36, 48, 49, 53,

73, 80, 82, 88, 90, 98, 99, 105, 130 recovery, 75 reflection, 72 reflexes, 23 regulations, 114 reinforcement, 24, 70 rejection, 129 relationship, 41, 51, 52, 54, 55, 56, 58, 66, 73,

75, 76, 84, 86, 91, 99, 114 relationships, 39, 44, 46, 49, 51, 70, 74, 75,

76, 77, 79, 84, 94, 112, 117, 130 religion, vii, 33, 34, 35, 103, 122, 124, 125 religions, 34, 35 religious belief, 31, 34, 128 repetitions, 13, 43 reproduction, 27 reservoirs, 90 resistance, 82 resolution, 96 resources, 25 responsibilities, 58, 78, 102, 103, 104, 115 restaurant, 113 returns, 80, 81, 82 rewards, 11, 25, 63, 66 rhythm, 48, 75 rhythms, 60 rings, 74 risk, 36, 59, 67, 69, 111 risks, 66, 67, 97 risk-taking, 111 roads, 96 routines, 48 rule of law, 108 Russian, 1

S

safety, 72 sample, 84 sanctions, 36, 69, 102, 115 sand, 100

Index 141

satisfaction, 57, 92, 94, 113, 117 search, 55 searching, 97 secrets, 8 secular, 105 self, 82 self-definition, 115 self-destruction, 90, 110 self-discipline, 66, 80, 82, 83 self-esteem, 61, 116 self-image, 61, 121, 123 self-interest, 58, 69, 77, 110 self-promotion, 47 self-renewing, 31 self-worth, 61 senile, 72 separateness, 9, 13, 14, 33, 34, 36, 40, 43, 49,

63, 97, 109, 117, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131 separation, 9, 10, 11, 16, 31, 35, 36, 41, 42,

47, 71, 73, 74, 80, 81, 113, 129 series, 57, 66, 70, 78, 80, 100, 125, 127 services, 111 sex, 18, 47, 79, 122 shade, 92, 124 shaping, 4 shares, 1, 12, 24, 42, 70, 87, 105 sharing, 5, 24, 31, 89, 91, 110, 121 shelter, 5, 81, 87, 100, 101, 114 shoulder, 79, 112 shoulders, 87, 130 singular, vii skating, 19 skills, 2 skin, 33, 118 slavery, 58 sleep, 89 smiles, 23, 76, 83 social structure, 108, 114 sounds, vii spawning, 79 species, 15, 23, 24 spectrum, 91 speech, 100, 101 speed, 18 spheres, 54, 102, 104

spiritual, 33, 34, 35, 36 sports, 18, 47, 69, 110 stages, 5, 30 standards, 31, 46, 70, 96, 100, 114 stars, 6, 8, 9, 10 stasis, 60 sterile, 78, 127 strategies, 7, 111 streams, 16, 74 strength, 23, 27, 58, 63, 67, 115, 120 stress, 25, 31, 92 stretching, 47 strictures, 84 strikes, 1, 13 stupor, 127 suicide, 60, 93 superiority, 42, 62, 112, 122, 124, 129 supernatural, 34 suppliers, 111 supply, 51 suppression, 31, 117 surplus, 90 survival, 2, 4, 5, 8, 11, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26,

27, 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 40, 45, 48, 54, 99 symbols, 24 sympathetic, 121 sympathy, 48

T

talent, 19, 72 taste, 14 teaching, 79, 80 teeth, 23, 121 temperament, 79 temporal, 35, 95 tension, 92 territory, 15, 39, 74, 99, 107 testimony, 7, 46, 48, 49 theft, 81 thinking, 1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 11, 12, 15, 17, 18, 19,

20, 21, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 34, 35, 36, 41, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 52, 54, 55, 56, 57, 62, 63, 67, 73, 74, 78, 81, 84, 85, 86, 87, 89, 90, 91, 93, 95, 96, 98, 100, 101,

Index 142

105, 108, 109, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 117, 118, 120, 123, 125

threat, 58 threatening, 29 threshold level, 25 tolerance, 30 torture, 82 trade, 90 trading, 89 tradition, 59 traits, 19, 26, 61, 65, 76, 122 trajectory, 77 transactions, 113 transcript, 18 transition, 118 transparency, 68 transparent, 109 travel, 93 trees, 45 trust, 66, 70, 71, 103, 110, 127

U

uncertainty, 95, 96 uniform, 72 universe, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 10, 13, 14, 24, 28, 29,

30, 31, 32, 34, 35, 36, 37, 40, 48, 54, 69, 78, 90, 128, 129, 131

V

vacuum, 42, 48, 88 validity, 54 values, 36, 70, 111, 112, 115, 117 vegetables, 28 velocity, 20, 26, 90 victims, 116, 117

Vietnamese, 122 village, 103 violence, 110 violent, 43 virus, 75, 97 vision, 3, 16, 20, 21, 22, 31, 35, 37, 45, 53,

58, 59, 67, 68, 71, 81, 86, 103, 104, 118, 124, 129

voice, 58, 91, 105 vulnerability, 129

W

waking, 122 wants and needs, 111 war, 31, 49, 58 warfare, 116, 123 warts, 43 watches, 20 water, 10 weakness, 95 wealth, 13, 84 wear, 18 web, 119 welfare, 34, 102, 110 wholesale, 109 wilderness, 2, 5, 23, 53, 108 wind, 10, 95, 117 winning, 61, 109, 110, 119 wood, 77 worry, 33, 65, 89, 127 writing, 47, 82

Y

yawning, 62 yield, 107

the origin of intelligence : the role of information in individual lives

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