Well, I finally completed a fairly comprehensive overview of what my effort has been, as follows:
At one time we lived more or less like chimpanzees. However, our species has undergone two exponential changes, making us drastically different from all other species, and also drastically different from the way we were before the changes took place. (By exponential I mean beginning imperceptibly, but gaining momentum and eventually accelerating markedly.)
The first exponential change was the development of the ability to use, essentially now to an infinite extent, symbols and the rules of syntax, giving us language and related phenomena. Consequently, we now have the capacity for highly intensive empathy (we can share with others our present and past experiences, feelings, wishes, fantasies, and plans in great detail) and highly effective cooperation (we can give highly detailed instructions, directions, and feedback). This new capability has been a tool in the service of our basic animal nature (everything we share with other species), so with it we do wonderful things, terrible things, and all in between.
The second exponential change was the development of the ability to use the rules of logic and the rules of evidence, giving us ultimately science and technology. Consequently, we now have the capability of developing extremely accurate models of the way the world really is (enabling us to do things that 200 years ago would have been considered magic). Again, this new tool has been in the service of our basic animal nature, so with it we are now able to protect and enhance our lives in amazing ways, but also able to distress, harm, and kill ourselves and each other, from one at a time to millions at a time.
Our basic animal nature is a product of natural selection, which has nothing to do with the quality of life. (Pain and suffering promote survival of the species the same as pleasure.) But because of the above two exponential changes, we are now able to study and understand ourselves and the world around us, and thereby able to change our behavior from that which comes naturally to that which works better, that is, promotes "the good life," by which I mean only a maximum of joy, contentment, and appreciation, and a minimum of pain, suffering, disability, and early death (PSDED).
But we have not yet, in any global way, begun to do this except to an almost imperceptible degree. So we are talking, hi tech (and extremely angry) "chimpanzees," frequently doing what comes naturally no matter how awful the consequences. And unless we bring about this third exponential change in ourselves, such that we stop doing these awful things, we are in danger of producing a globally catastrophic amount of PSDED, with perhaps even the demise of our species, at least as we know it. The situation is increasingly urgent.
Because we have never seen what it would be like to bring about this change in ourselves to the extent to which we are now increasingly capable, we regard as silly the idea of doing so. We believe that the PSDED we cause ourselves is almost inevitable, and therefore we do not look with seriousness upon what all of us could be doing, given adequate studying, understanding, agreement, cooperation, and motivation. And to some extent, some of us believe that the best we can do is just to inflict more PSDED on others than they do on ourselves. For example, punishment and revenge are a part of our basic animal nature, and we believe in and live by them, individually, culturally, and internationally, regarding them as essential even though they often, if not always, create even more PSDED.
So what will this predicted third exponential change be like, and what can we do to promote it? Because we have never seen such a way of life, it will be hard for us to take such a prediction seriously. Yet, we must do so if we are ever to achieve such a change, because it will only happen if we understand what is necessary to bring it about and act cooperatively to do so. And it is indeed possible to get some idea of what would be involved, as follows.
First, we will have to shift (much, much more) from our naturally occurring "authoritarian ethics" to our newly emerging "rational ethics." By "ethics" I mean only that set of beliefs that can be modeled with statements containing "should" ("I, you, we should do such-and-such"). The ethics that comes to us naturally, as a group animal, is based ultimately upon the "authoritarian-ethical ultimate ethical principle" that "we should do whatever X wants, X being whoever or whatever is most powerful (parent, leader, group, deity)." This ethics, though having contributed to the survival of our species, often also promotes incredible amounts of PSDED. We are, however, very early in an accelerating shift to what ultimately will be a commitment to an ethics based upon the "rational-ethical ultimate ethical principle" that "we should do that which will promote not only the survival of our species but also the good life (defined above) for everyone, now and in the future."
And we will also need to promote the development in ourselves and our children of a much stronger, more effective "ethical sense," the motivational state produced by an ethical belief ("I want to do it because I believe I should"), such development to be discussed further below.
To the extent that we achieve this shift in our ethics, there will be enormous, initially hard to imagine, changes in how we live our daily lives, globally. If and when this change occurs, the members of our species will look back upon us (the current state of Homo sapiens) like we regard Neanderthals or even chimpanzees. So we can metaphorically give our species of the future the name, "Homo rationalis."
Second, we never accomplish anything without some degree of agreement, about how the world is and about what we should and will do. There is not a single thing (other than exceedingly trivial) that we can have or do that does not require others having done their part. So we will need to achieve agreement, globally, on certain basic ideas that will allow for successful, important decision-making. Currently, the idea of there being such consensus is considered ridiculous, as endless debating without agreement is now a universal, and even valued, phenomenon. There of course will always be a certain amount of disagreement, but much disagreement is an illusion created by imprecise, metaphorical, ambiguous use of words. And such debates are characterized frequently by hostility, distorted logic, and disorganized changing of topic, in the service of winning rather than of building consensus. So we will need to develop, for the purpose of such discussions, more rigorous use of definitions and rules of logic, and we will need to agree on the optimal ways to respond to inability to agree, including especially the avoidance of hostility.
Third, however, in order to know what we should do, we will need to have beliefs about how the world works that are as accurate as possible, so that we will make as few mistakes as possible. Currently, having long ago given up on attaining Absolute Truth, we are engaging in our postmodern devaluation of agreement ("What's true for me may not be true for you, so let's just talk about something else"). Instead, we will need to value highly the achievement of ever-increasing accuracy of our beliefs, and therefore to value highly all those methods that foster that achievement. The rules of logic and the rules of evidence will therefore be much more highly valued, as will science and education, and friendly debate as the optimal response to any perceived difference of opinion. And we will also need to develop better access to relevant, accurate data, that can be distinguished from pseudoscience.
(Continued in next post)
