A Princeton Professor of Philosophy writes this week about a trend toward philosophical experimentation and away from a field of pure thought. He gives an example of the kind of experiment being performed. The philosopher devises two questions and puts them to a group of people, then tallies the results:

Question #1:

A company chairman has to decide whether to adopt a new program that would increase profits and help the environment too. “I don’t care at all about helping the environment,” the chairman says. “I just want to make as much profit as I can. Let’s start the new program.” Did the chairman intend to help the environment?

Question #2:

The chairman must decide on a new program, but the program would harm the environment. The chairman, who still couldn’t care less about the environment, authorizes the program in order to get those profits. As expected, the bottom line goes up, the environment goes down. Did the chairman harm the environment intentionally?

(In one survey, 23 percent of people said that the chairman in the first situation had intentionally helped the environment, 82 percent thought that the chairman in the second situation had intentionally harmed the environment.)

Professor Kwame Anthony Appiah, the author of the piece, supports the perspective that such studies can shed light on philosophical study, but points to the complex and subjective matter of interpreting the results, and the ultimate need for traditional armchair thinking to surface any new philosophical insight.

But, to me at least, this seems to be a matter of one of those divisions in a field where philosophy should fall back to give way to a new field of scientific study. This is not experimental philosophy, it is experimental psychology mixed up with the study of language.

This kind of study doesn’t ask people to analyze the situations objectively, which would give us some meager insight into common objective analysis, it merely asks them to give a subjective response. When Socrates posed questions to his fellow Greeks, he didn’t use their answers to tally up some new philosophical insights, he used them to show how most people didn’t have a clue how to objectively interpret the world around them. Philosophy is neither a matter of statistics nor subjective perspective.

And finally a long overdue and eminently cogent report on the illusory impact of race on intelligence. Richard Nisbett in the NY Times draws together a broad and well-informed knowledge of the various studies on racial differences, both those flawed and those not flawed, to show that the likes of James Watson, and Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray (authors of The Bell Curve) are full of crap. That was the conclusion I would have drawn in the absence of such information, but it’s good to see it in print.

I’m puzzled though by why such a keen rebuttal took so long to appear. When Watson made his remarks earlier this year, the general consensus seemed to be that he was either bigoted or off his rocker or both. But people rebuked him with opinion rather than information, which seemed at the time and has seemed since almost a cover up for a concealed bigotry — as if people were thinking to themselves, it’s terrible that he said that, but what if he’s right?

Which makes me think that freedom of speech is a wonderful thing, because it allows people like Watson to say inflammatory things and for people like Richard Nisbett to set matters straight. It’s the advice we give our children in school — if you have something to say, speak up, because you can bet that there are several other kids thinking the same thing but saying nothing.

(Or Reading, Writing and Ramifications…)

“The Fall” by Albert Camus was the first book of literature I read by choice. (Before that I think I’d read mostly books from Ian Flemming’s James Bond series,
Agatha Christie’s detective series, science fiction, and the like). “The Fall” opened up for me a whole new world of reading. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it also opened up a whole new world of thinking.

A new study has shown that the flu is more common in the winter because the virus remains more stable and lives longer in cold dry weather. The debate about why the flu was more common in winter had raged for decades. The researcher’s clue to testing the flu’s communicability under controled conditions (more explicitly, what animal to test on — Guinea Pigs) came from reading a report from 1919 about a flu pandemic in New Mexico. (The author of the report noted in passing that Guinea Pigs at Camp Cody had succumbed to the flu.)

And in a New Orlean’s court case today, where the defendants may be asked to present their genitals for review in order to help prosecute a rape case, Defense attorney Robert Jenkins made the comment “I’ve never seen it before. Even in fiction, you don’t see this kind of stuff.” Which, when you think about things you do see in fictionalized court cases, is a statement as bold as the prosecutor’s request.

My wife, a lover of purchasing books if not always reading them, has set herself the challenge of reading ten books while she’s pregnant. When she asked me if I had any suggestions Camus’ “The Fall” was right up there. It’s a short book and she’s about half way through. Last night she felt so affected by what she was reading that she paused and read out loud a passage in which the narrator recalls a traffic incident in Paris. Stopped at a traffic light behind a stalled moped the narrator, who saw himself as the victim of events, ended up being seen by everyone around him as the villain. I don’t remember enough of the book to summarize its themes and aims, but my wife has been struck by the way that Camus exposes the layers of psychology that enwrap our everyday lives: Why do we try to be nice and good? Do we have an ulterior motive? Is that our only motive? How do we know? What makes up a person, his actions or his thoughts?

Camus, Faulkner, Thomas Bernhard, Robert Graves, Gunter Grass, James Joyce, Proust and so many other great writers wrote fiction that provokes inquiry and thought about the nature of the human condition and, in many ways, the nature of existence. Reading such texts communicates this process. We don’t need to agree with the writer’s perspective, and rarely is the writer’s perspective explicitly declared or even implicitly declared, but it is difficult to read the books of such writers without pausing to reflect. And it is difficult to reflect without acquiring some new insight.

The flu researcher makes his own case for writing down points of interest that may seem incidental at the time (such as Guinea Pigs with flu), but that can open up whole new realms of insight for readers in a dim, distant and indeterminate future. “Sometimes it pays to read the old literature,” says Dr. Palese, who made the discovery.

And the Defense attorney in the New Orleans court, unwittingly I think, points to the value of fiction as a way of expanding the realm of the possible. Fiction has been instrumental in changing what’s acceptable, possible, and conceivable. That the Prosecutor in the case has outdone fiction is a credit to his imagination if not his legal prowess.

All of which makes me want to go and read.

But before I do, I must stop to consider the flip side of this literatic love-fest. Even the best of texts can be misunderstood and misused. And the worst of texts can be downright dangerous in the wrong hands. The intent of the writer and the perspective and persuasion of the reader will determine whether a particular text generates more good than ill.

And what’s considered a dangerous book by one generation may be lauded as a groundbreaking work of innovation and courage by the next. (James Joyce’s Ulysses springs to mind; although it may not be the best example unless the sample group happens to be students of modern literature.)

Can we say then whether the overall value of literature and writing is in general positive, negative or neutral?

(This reminds me of a discussion I had earlier this year with someone who questioned, since truth and scientific understanding is not absolute, whether we can say that science has made progress.)

The question, in practice, is clearly unanswerable. Even if we were to agree on definitions for positive and negative, how would we compile a quantitative inventory of all of the positive and negative influences of things written and read?

Which reminds me that things written, while they should stir and prompt our own thinking, should not replace our own thinking. Whatever dangers exist in things written don’t derive from the writing itself, however inciteful and twisted, but from our being influenced by them without sufficient reflection and questioning. Just because we read Justine doesn’t mean that we’ll become amoral. Although if we swallow de Sade’s words without reflection, we may well come away worse off than when we arrived. But surely that would be our fault, not de Sade’s?
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The unfolding hostage (just freed) and bomb threat at Hillary Clinton’s New Hampshire campaign office provides a sobering example of the difference between rhetoric and reality. As an armed man stands off with a bomb strapped to his chest the sparring between campaign candidates doesn’t seem the slightest bit important. Reality trumps rhetoric every time.

Critics of former mayor Rudy Giuliani have stepped up their attacks on his rhetorical device of bandying about mistated, inflated or exaggerated statistics to present his mayoral accomplishments in a brighter light. Here, it seems, rhetoric and reality combine to demonstrate that Giuliani, if elected, would prove to be a deceitful and egotistical leader. Something that by now we’ve surely had enough of.

Then there’s the “outcry” in the Sudan over the thankfully relatively lenient sentence (15 days in jail versus six months and 40 lashes) meted out to Gillian Gibbons for allowing the children in her elementary class to name a teddy bear Muhammad. Sudanese demonstrators have called for Gibbons to be executed. But witnesses indicate that the protesters were supplemented  (or perhaps seeded) by government workers. And the outcry seems to provide convenient rhetoric for the Sudanese government as it tries to block Scandinavian peacekeepers from being sent to Darfur — this in response to last year’s publication in Scandinavia of cartoons that depicted Muhammad and offended muslims.

And for all of the endless rhetoric about Iraq, when one reads some of the details of the violence there (as I’ve been doing in the New Yorker (Inside The Surge)) one realizes just how bloody and brutal and real the war is, and how divorced from those facts is the rhetoric.

The aim of rhetoric, when it has an aim, is to sway the listener or audience. The speaker uses rhetorical devices (such as emphasis, repetition, sarcasm, humor, logic or sophistry, the inducement of fear, omission, bullying, and charisma) to highlight his or her points, and to persuade the listener that his or her perspective has greater merit than any other. Unfortunately, the better the speaker the harder it becomes to differentiate a valid, worthy perspective from an invalid or fatuous perspective. And, given the established methods we employ to select the leaders of our regions, cities, states, and countries, rhetoric must remain for now an indispensible part of the process.

Rhetoric is employed so pervasively around the world that it’s almost impossible to imagine processes of government and leadership without it. But perhaps that’s because we’re not trained to recognize and counter rhetoric. Plato’s Socratic dialogs or their teachings should be required readings in schools. If we could learn to decode rhetoric and diminish its influence the world would be a better place.

Reality on the other hand often gets too little attention. It takes a lot of reality to impinge upon our consciousness. And all too often it’s the sensational stuff that we focus on. In the past few days I’ve been struck by the number of high profile news stories that have focused on tragic disappearances and deaths for no other reason than there was something odd or grizzly or heartbreaking about them (the hoaxed teenager who killed herself, the missing teenager who’d been involved in porn, the couple who allegedly killed their two year old child, the ex-cop who may have killed his wives). I’m not saying that these tragedies aren’t worth our attention, but should they occupy, relatively speaking, so much of our news-space? News serves two purposes — it delivers information of note and it keeps society apprised of things that we should care about and perhaps act upon. Of course, news media don’t make the news, it’s the consumers (us) who dictate our appetite for sensation to the savvy editors and pundits. What would it take to bring about a more enlightened media? A more enlightened public…

One can only hope that the armed hostage taker in New Hampshire is defused. I’d rather have more rhetoric than that kind of reality.

Barrack Obama has been criticized for being too honest in talking about his past drug use. Unlike Bill Clinton and George Bush, Obama spoke openly about drinking and using drugs as a young person. His critics feel that too much information can be harmful to young people. Others feel that in speaking openly he did the right thing. But how can we know?

An Oprah.com article today discusses the benefits of developing an optimistic rather than pessimistic perspective on our lives. Good advice perhaps if for those who tend to be neurotic and hard on themselves. Not such good advice for those who blame everyone except themselves for their problems.

The formal field of psychology has exploded in the past half century, but as an informal area of investigation and observation it has been practised for thousands of years. For as long as we’ve been able to frame ideas and concepts, we’ve been able to wonder why we behave as we do. Psychology is insight into human motivation. Why do we do what we do. Why do we think what we think. Unfortunately, psychology too often puts an appealing layer of frosting on reality, gooey and sweet and distracting, but not very nutritious.

Without understanding the underlying principles that shape our motivations, we can’t hope to map out a solid and reliable foundation for our psychological insights. The psychological studies that get press and attention tend to focus on narrow and specific aspects of human behavior. But what is the big picture? If we want to understand motivation from first priciples, where do we begin?

We must begin, I believe, with the principles of existence. After all, psychology comes about from the application of abstract principles to human behavior. And human behavior comes about from the principles that shape evolution. And evolution comes about through the operation of the universal principle of persistence (see the meaning of life) in living things over time.

Once we accept that all human behavior derives in some way shape or form from the instinct or impulse to further the persistence of life, we have a skeletal framework upon which we can begin to build a self-consistent science of psychology.

For example, if we want to figure out whether Obama is right or wrong for being honest about his drug use, we need to understand the pros and cons of honesty as it relates to the strength of society, and we need to understand the pros and cons of admitted drug use. Honesty would seem integral to a strong society because it promotes trust and trust promotes collaboration and empathy. Admissions of drug use in and of themselves would seem to diminish taboos about drug use by our elders or those in authority, but this in turn would seem to remove one of the strongest impulses for the young person deciding whether to try drugs — the desire to rebel and be different from those in authority.

We could further flesh out this trivial inspection to include other perspectives and layers of insight, digging down into the subordinate impulses to relate them to the persistence of life. The deeper we go, the more nuanced will be our insight. And if we use the principle of persistence as our guide, we will run less risk of going astray.

Until we have a solid foundation for arriving at conclusions about people’s motivations, the science of psychology will remain messy and maleable, and pretty much useless as a vehicle for helping society move forward. But if we adopt a rational, reality-based foundation, guided by the principles of existence, we can take our understanding on a new, productive and fascinating path.

(If you want to read more, LIFE! Why We Exist… And What We Must Do to Survive further explains the origin, elaboration and application of the principle of persistence.)

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The NY Times today published “Candidates in a Box,” a subjective categorical appraisal of the various presidential candidates. This marvellous mechanism for political commentary permits us to compare and contrast the distilled opinions of op ed columnists David Brooks and Ben Schott with our own. The beauty of the grid is its laser-like focus on the defining traits of Clinton, McCain, Obama, Giuliani and the rest. This focus drives us toward some categorical conlusions. When we see Giuliani’s character described as “strong but disturbing,” for instance, we may either agree (yes, that’s him) or disagree (I would have said, bullyish and disturbing), but we cannot leave the box without arriving at the conclusion that Giuliani’s character can be summed up and must affect our thinking about his viability as a leader of the nation.

As I mentioned last week, much political commentary distracts rather than focuses our attention. The categorical grid reminds us that candidates are people, not video clips, and that people tend not to change (and certainly not for the better when they get more power). What we see in the candidates now is what we will get if we elect them. Here are some of the grid entries that made me stop and think (or chuckle):

Mike Huckabee - Judgment - ‘Pre-Darwinian’
Barak Obama - Character - ‘Afraid of conflict’
Fred Thomson - Logic - ‘Unused’
Hillary Clinton - Character - ‘Hidden’

In his metaphysical deduction, Emanuel (or Immanuel) Kant aimed to show that twelve pure concepts or categories provide the framework for all possible experience. He divides these twelve, three each, between the four Aristotlian classifications of judgment - quantity, quality, relation, or modality. At once, the desire for such symmetry (why three in each bucket?) raises a red flag, something that Schopenhauer pointed out in his World As Will And Representation. The beauty of his thesis beguiled Kant, and after 11 years and 800 pages, this seduction of the categories steered him wrong. Categories become dangerous when we invest them with too much meaning. Rest a whole foundation of knowledge on neatly symmetric categories and you’ll almost certainly come unstuck.

Likewise, we should avoid relying solely on categories for something as important as decisions about who to elect as president.

We like categories because they can help us understand and remember things more clearly. I would go further and say that categorization is a function of consciousness. The conscious mind must distinguish between objects, actions, and impressions, in order to arrive at analyses and decisions. Consciousness permits us the ability to assess a situation and to choose to act in a particular way. If we’re not able to categorize the circumstances of the situation we’re not able to choose how to act.

This brings us back to voting.

Let’s imagine two voters. The first watches the debates, reads about the candidates, listens to the commentators, but does so without drawing distinctions, without reaching conscious conclusions. When he goes to vote, he votes from his ‘gut.’ This impulse from the gut is guided by subconscious impressions, but the voter hasn’t used his consciousness to influence his choice. A second concerned citizen watches the debates, reads about the candidates, listens to the commentators, and forms a reasoned analysis about the candidates, she consciously draws distinctions and when she goes to vote she uses these distinctions to try to elect the most eligible candidate.

If we think about the candidates themselves, the importance of a predisposition toward reasoned analysis becomes even more important. Should we elect (again) a president who ‘knows’ what is right and chooses based on his unconscious convictions? Or should we look to elect a national leader who reasons and reflects, using balanced judgment to further his or her thinking on a matter.

Disturbingly, in the analysis presented by the NY Times, of the sixteen candidates only Joe Biden and Chris Dodd receive good reviews for their judgment and logic. A sobering thought.

Some days I sit down to write and have no idea what I might write about. Today I sat down with a couple of ideas (to work on the moral problems posed by the plotline of the movie Gone, Baby Gone, and another good idea that now escapes me), but found myself instead reading an opinion piece by Stanley Fish - Suffering, Evil and The Existence of God.

Fish’s piece is inspired by a look at two new books, only one of which addresses Suffering and Evil as they pertain to the Existence of God — Bart D. Ehrman’s “God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question – Why We Suffer.” The other Antony Flew’s “There Is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind,” instead forwards the theory that “the only satisfactory explanation for the origin of such ‘end-directed, self-replicating’ life as we see on earth is an infinitely intelligent Mind.”

Let’s tackle these two challenges in reverse order:

Flew makes the point that since science deals with chemicals and material stuff any answer it gives about meaning and purpose is insufficient. Or, as he would have put it when still an atheist the answer that “the laws of physics are ‘lawless laws’ that arise from the void – end of discussion” simply leaves open the question of from whence those laws arose. But here Flew has erred on two critical points.

1. The laws of physics are both self-consistent and consistent with logic and reason. The laws of physics arise out of the nature of this existence, not out of a void. (And therefore the concepts of our existence preceded and reveal themselves through the specific appearance of this space and this time.)

2. The principles of existence can and do provide a fully rational explanation for “the origin of such ‘end-directed, self-replicating’ life as we see on earth.”

The principles of existence in space and time give us the principle of persistence — something that tends to continue to exist will tend to persist. (This is not a tautology, but a very simple reflection of a universal logical principle.) An example: Although there are many kinds of fundamental particles, only protons and electrons exist freely in any abundance. This is because protons and electrons, unlike their heavier sibling particles, have effectively infinite lifespans. This is why the material of the universe consists of atoms (electrons, protons, and neutrons — which are stable in bound form).

Living creatures embody an end-directed form because this is the form that survives. Any number of chemical reactions and interreactions can and do take place in a primordal soup, but the ones that aren’t persistent go nowhere.

Life seems so mysteriously purpose-driven because we’re looking at it backwards. What we don’t immediately perceive are all of the unproductive nubs and dead-ends (think dinosaurs). When we look for meaning, it helps to reflect that the meaning of life derives from process of its unfolding.

(All of this is explained much more fully in my book - “LIFE! Why We Exist… And What We Must Do to Survive.”)

But what then is the purpose of suffering and evil?

It’s easier to dispense with evil. The concept of evil reflects a perception that someone or something wishes to hurt, harm or destroy for the simple purpose of hurting, harming or destroying. This practical definition of evil proves quite useful. Evil stands in opposition to a natural goal of life (that it should persist). Evil then arises from an unproductive genetic branch or from circumstances that warp a person’s psychological makeup. It serves no ultimate positive purpose, but provides great fodder for psychological dramas and political speeches.

Oddly, suffering does serve a purpose and seems to be an inevitable part of life. At the most immediate level, our bodies use suffering as an effective means of prompting us to act. Hunger pangs cause us to want to eat and thereby sustain our body with food. Pain from our nerve endings causes us to avoid doing things or continuing to do things that will harm us (and ultimately perhaps cause us not to survive). Even emotional anguish serves to provide us with a context for acting in ways that will help us survive or help our social group survive.

I saw a news clip today about a New York City stockbroker assaulting a fellow spinner in a spin class (he pushed him and his bike against the wall). The reason: he was enraged by the man’s grunting.

And yesterday I was introduced to the term “Dumbfounding.” As reported in the science section of the New York Times, Jonathan Haidt, a moral psychologist, has proposed that human beings have an innate and pre-rational sense of judgment about right and wrong that evolved as useful to our survival, but leaves us “dumbfounded” when our rational mind can’t explain why we feel that something is abhorrent or wrong.

I would guess that the NYC stockbroker’s ire derived from a pre-rational response; when he wakes up tomorrow he’ll wonder how he could have been so enraged as to assault another person for grunting, and get himself into so much hot water in the process.

Haidt’s hypothesis concurs with my own thinking on the origin and evolution of our moral sense. In LIFE! Why We Exist… And What We Must Do to Survive I propose that our sense of morality has been baked into our genes through evolution, and came about for the very simple reason that if we are to persist as an organsim we need to react in certain ways that will help us survive (all of which I tie to the very concrete principles that shape the universe). This also gives us a very concrete basis by which to understand and discuss our sense of morality.

But upon reading about the poor stockbroker and his unfortunate victim I was struck again by something that occurs to me regularly. We live in a world, in a society, that has evolved very rapidly, and evolves ever more rapidly. We are evolved but we’re less evolved than sometimes we’d like to think. We step out into the world feeling that we are equal to its challenges, but it’s like stepping out onto a moving sidewalk. Whether it’s the grunting of a fellow spin class member, or a jittery stockmarket, or a pair of dirty socks left lying on the bedroom floor, we’re not always as psychologically well-equipped as the world demands. Our rational minds have created a mental world that has a dizzying range of customs, procedures, laws, etiquette, social and workplace demands, and underneath the surface our innate urges and responses sometimes can’t keep up.

Does art (any kind of art — painting, sculpture, literature, music…) serve a purpose? And if so, what is that purpose? Why do we create art? And must the judgment of art be entirely subjective?

On Sunday, I visited the Brooklyn Book Festival. One of the booths housed The Aesthetic Realism Foundation. (I misread the sign at first and thought it said Atheistic Realism — this brought me up short. But even after I’d read it correctly I stayed to ask what Aesthetic Realism is.) Aesthetic Realism proposes that we can better understand our lives through the application of aesthetic principles. The booth staffer gave the example of the aesthetic practice of balancing heavy and light — being aware of the need for this balance in life can come through an understanding of its balance in art.

To me, this approach seems fascinating and insightful (and very worthy of the foundation’s efforts — for instance, they are hosting a forum on the social and personal value of Rock ‘n Roll, how cool is that?), but completely backwards philosophically; wherefrom do aesthetic principles derive if not from life?

When we ask whether art serves a purpose we ask a conceptual question. Can we relate art to a concept or set of concepts, and do these concepts give us insight into art’s possible purpose?

The answer to the first part of this question seems obvious if we think about who creates art — primarily people (and some particularly intelligent animals — larger primates and elephants). Since art requires the abstraction of ideas or impulses, it requires a conceptual process (whether subconscious or conscious). Without the product of the artistic process, which is not itself but what it represents, we have no art, therefore art relates to a set of concepts.

And herein, I believe, we have the answer to the second part of our question: The concept to which art consistently relates is abstraction! (This would still apply to representational art, in which the artist abstracts the idea or impulse of what he or she observes and transfers it to the medium of their choosing in a representational manner.)

And we also now have a clue as to a possible purpose of art. If art rests on the concept of abstraction of an idea or impulse. The artistic urge is the urge to abstract an idea or impulse. What is to be gained by acting on this urge?

Does the artist gain anything from acting on the urge? Do others gain anything from the result of the abstraction?

If we again go back to the concepts we can delve further into the concept of abstraction. Abstraction is the recreation of certain elements in another form. Abstraction is a form of reduction or refocusing. It draws out and emphasizes some aspects of the original idea or impulse.

We can say that the product of the artistic process aims to communicate this refocusing. It communicates the artist’s particular point of view on the idea or impulse. And these ideas or impulses similarly become concepts or representations themselves as they are abstracted.

If it is successful, art helps us better understand the world around us and ourselves. The more successful it is at aiding this understanding, the more valuable it is.

Hence, we have a dilemma. Art that is derivative and of little deep value in helping us better understand life’s complexities may still have mass appeal (most pop music). Whereas art that delves deeply and profoundly into complex matters may have very limited appeal.

Does the value multiply out over the number of people affected? Can an equation be drawn this simply?

More for later!

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”

(Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism, 563-483 B.C.)

If we reject received ideas and observe and analyze the world around us we gain insight that reflects the only truth we have — our own impressions. This doesn’t mean we should ignore everyone else, our mental and emotional reactions can provide valuable impressions, too. But we should not simply accept without first deciding whether we can reasonably agree.

We can be skeptical about our impressions, too. We can logically conclude that none of our impressions are reliable, that we can’t be sure that the world exists. But, as Schopenhauer concluded (in The World as Will and Representation), what do we gain by such a conclusion? What do we have to gain from saying that we can’t believe in anything? This conclusion leads us to a dead end.

If we accept that our impressions are indeed impressions, that they are, for the most part, not fictions, then we have a place to work from. We can begin to analyze which of our impressions seem more reliable, more complete, more reasonable. We can discuss our impressions with others and find out whether they share the same impressions. We can form hypotheses based on our impressions and see whether we can validate these hypotheses. When we accept an impression as an impression, a whole world of potential understanding opens up.

With his theory of forms or Ideas Plato recognized that in order to hypothesize and analyze we use abstract concepts. Whenever we think about something in general terms (chairs as opposed to “this chair I’m sitting on”) we use abstract concepts. (As I think about this, as I have before, I conclude that consciousness is the ability to manipulate abstract concepts.) So what are the forms or concepts that shape our existence?

This question has nagged at people for thousands of years. But given what we know about the world (through observation and analysis) we can now set out the answer!

It’s important to go back to Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer’s philosophy made great strides in identifying the principles or abstract concepts through which we can understand our existence. He recognized that our impressions of existence come to us through what he called a “fourfold root.” The fourfold root was the three dimensions of space and time (or causality).

All of our impressions concur with the idea that space has three dimensions and that things exist through time governed by the principle of cause and effect.

What Schopenhauer didn’t understand (because not enough was known at the time of the way that the universe evolves over time) was that the earth and heaves weren’t a fixed and static thing, that our existence follows after a whole long stream of prior events. We now know a great deal about that string of events. We can see back in time by looking out into space, and by digging through the layers of earth beneath our feet. We have a great deal of insight into the evolution of the universe.

This insight into the evolution of the universe adds to Schopenhauer’s principles. It tells us that existence isn’t static. That the matter in the universe consists of energy. And that energy changes from one form to another.

So what is the principle by which the evolution of existence has lead to our existence? As I describe in my book, the principle is one of persistence: The more likely a form is to persist, the more likely it is to remain in existence.

This applies to the persistence of fundamental particles, cosmological systems, molecules, and life.